I think armor does some damage reduction, but I'm not sure. Some sources say it prevents all damage, but I know that to be untrue (at least with fall damage).

say what?

I am just starting out and I'm always disorganized when I do that. I don't even have a mine. Just a "camp" whose surface is littered with torches. I've been just finding surface-showing ores to mine for now and barely venturing underground. It's working out so far, but again it's very disorganized. I'll probably want to venture away from this camp and forget all about it eventually.

I was thinking the same thing was happening to me. I'd find a couple of blocks of iron, for example, but there'd nothing else around it. I'm not saying that's unrealistic or that every deposit should be huge, but it gave me the impression that the caves were carved out after the ore was mapped, and it just so happened to take most of the ore with it... Of course, I haven't gone deep yet (I've basically only been digging into "moutains") so there's always a chance that I'll find more later on. I've actually had no trouble finding lots of coal, but that's not very rare, I don't think. I did end up finding a decent stash of iron, but that's all so far. I used it to build armor.

That would be super useful, though I think it would also ruin the game somewhat... It would make it a lot easier to mess around with tracks and minecarts though. Perhaps Notch should introduce some way to detect certain ores. Maybe with sticks or something.

Thank you! That made me smile

That's a shame Luckily new areas are generated on the fly so I guess if I wander off, like I did on my adventure, I'll find the normal amount of iron.

The cartography program was useful for finding a dungeon, but since it's top down the ore map was fairly useless. It needs a density mode of some kind, so I know what areas have the most iron.

Billybob: Damn it, now I want to buy this game.

Cartographer is open source, to the best of my knowledge, so you could take part of its code to rip the coords directly, instead of parsing generated images.

I'd enjoy some kind of hack/app that would give a "hot/cold" kind of indication when moving around Minecraft looking for ore. A map or compass seems too much like cheating, but having a detector would allow me to still adventure and explore with less of the mindless digging.

I wonder if you can hot-load code into a Java program ...

Haha, I love those. I get stacks of ores. Iron, gold, Redstone, and even some diamond.

Just dig up. Or die and respawn outside, but that would cost you everything you're carrying.

Using signs for that would be a good idea, but usually what catches me is that it's dark deeper into the cave so I'm afraid of getting ambushed so instead I rush in and pepper the walls with torches... Then I find more dark ahead and just keep going... Before I know it, I've gone in tons of circles, deeper and deeper, in all directions, and I have no idea how to get out... Following the torches only kind of helps because there are some big rooms and paths that circle back on themselves. Tunnelling up is a possibility, but there's always the possibility too that I dig up into water and drown (not to mention, flood my very ore rich cave).

With the infinite levels, does that count for up and down as well (into the sky and into the ground?

Infinite does not count up and down, though, Notch may expand the depths at a later date.

Build a natural air lock. Dig up, and every so often while still digging forward, dig down and then sharply back up. If water breaks in, it will stop at the dam.

Given Clonk Planet as an example, and the green being acid, note the left red circle on this picture.

Dig up, down for a moment, then continue up. In Minecraft, you'd only have to dig down two steps or so, go forward a few then up again.

Correct. Water won't flow upward. There are no pressure physics. Personally, though, I just risk it and dig straight up

I've actually found some dry caves under water. On the map I'm currently playing, I saw something dark under water. Investigation revealed a cave. I was curious if I'd have time to see if there were any precious metals inside before my oxygen supply was expended. Instead, I discovered that the water didn't flow into it at all. I fell into the cave and could see the water flowing at the entrance, but never coming inside. It was actually kind of cool. It would be a cool place to make a "base", actually, albeit unstable and you'd have to be careful not to touch the outer wall.