This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Using the Creative Mode Inventory
Minecraft’s resources fall into several primary categories. Some of them are a natural early focus as you improve your position from first-night survival. Others come into more focus as you get further through the game, gear up for your exploration of The Nether and The End dimensions, and become more creative with all that Minecraft has to offer. You can view all the possible tools and resources by opening your inventory in Creative mode, as shown in Figure 3.11. The categories that follow correspond to the tabs running across the upper and lower sections of the Creative mode inventory.
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FIGURE 3.11 Creative mode inventory provides access to the full set of resources and tools.
Here’s a quick summary of the different resource categories:
- Building Blocks—Building blocks are used, as you might expect, for construction, including housing and almost anything else. Build a bridge for your redstone rail. Construct a dam. Elevate a farm above a level that won’t get trampled by mobs or put up a fence. Build a skyscraper or reconstruct a monument. Minecraft provides a large number of primary blocks—such as cobblestone, gravel, wood, and dirt—that can be harvested directly, but things definitely become more interesting once you start creating secondary types of blocks from primary materials. You can store many items more efficiently (for example, by converting nine gold ingots into a single gold block) and climb more efficiently by crafting stairs instead of jumping up and down blocks on well-traveled routes. Building blocks are punny enough—the building blocks of creativity.
- Decoration Blocks—Decoration blocks are something of a catchall category. Generally, they are things you can use to make your constructions more interesting. Some of them are just visual, such as carpet, whereas others—such as crafting tables, chests, and the bed that keeps you safe at night—provide vital functions.
- Redstone—Redstone is an almost magical resource. You can use it to build powered circuits—quite complex ones—and then activate pistons to automatically harvest a farm plot, set up traps, open and close doors, and much much more. The limits are set only by your imagination. Redstone is also used to craft powered rail tracks and a range of other useful items, such as a compass and clock. See Chapter 9, “Redstone, Rails, and More,” for more information.
- Transportation—Transportation is a small category but one that’s a lot of fun and very useful. It includes powered and unpowered rails, minecarts, a saddle, a boat, and anything else related to moving yourself and other items around. There are enough options there to enable you to build everything from massive transportation systems to incredible roller coasters.
- Miscellaneous—Miscellaneous contains a range of useful and obscure items. You’ll find the buckets quite handy for setting up new water and lava sources, and you can use the eggs to spawn most of the mobs, populate a farm, and more.
- Search Items—This category isn’t for items, per se, but instead allows you to quickly locate particular items by using free-text search.
- Foodstuffs—This category contains the full range of edibles, including the enchanted form of the golden apple, the rarest edible in the game. Take a few of these with you the next time you think you’ll be in a tight spot, and you may just be able to make it through that moaning zombie horde.
- Tools—Tools can be wielded as weapons, but not very effectively. They are, however, great for digging, chopping, and hoeing. You can use flint and steel to set Nether Gates on fire. You’ll also find shears for stripping the wool from sheep, a fishing rod, and a few enchanted books that can add special powers to your tools.
- Combat—Combat provides your weapons and armor, as well as the remaining enchanted books that relate to combat items.
- Brewing—The Brewing tab contains all possible potions and a number of rare ingredients that don’t fit into other categories. Potions are incredibly handy. Caught outside at night? The Potion of Night Vision triples the brightness to almost daylight conditions. You can learn more about brewing in Chapter 10.
- Materials—Materials is the final catchall category, along with the miscellaneous and decoration blocks. However, it differs because it is composed of secondary items that are derived from other actions. For example, killing a chicken can drop feathers, and you’ll need those for the fletching on arrows unless you gather them from skeletons. Grow wheat to get bushels that can be used to tame horses, donkeys, and mules.
- Survival Inventory—Here is where you can equip your avatar with clothing and other items to take into Survival mode if you so choose. (Remember that you can do this from a Creative session by simply typing /gamemode survival.) Survival mode inventory also contains any items you were carrying when you switched to Creative mode. (It is empty if you started your world in Creative mode.) You can shift items between the Creative mode inventory and your Survival mode inventory. Any items you drag down to the hotbar are common across both inventories. Remove items from your Survival mode inventory by dragging them down to the square on the lower right that shows an X.