Gathering Resources - The Ultimate Player's Guide to Minecraft - page 45

air once more. Diving isn't that big of a deal in Minecraft, at least not for complet-
ing the core game, but you can use the ability to do interesting things like building
an underwater base. An example is shown in Figure 3.2 , and I'll show you how to
build your own in Chapter 8 , “ Creative Construction , ” as well as sharing with you
some other underwater breathing techniques.
FIGURE 3.2 Underwater bases are impervious to mob attacks, even when built from
glass, but you'll need to watch your oxygen bar carefully to ensure you don't run out of
air while building this type of structure. By the way, the only mob that spawns underwater
is the friendly, curious squid. Can you make out the one shown here? He's now part of
Elysia's first private aquarium. Say hello to “Ceph.”
Hunger bar —You also have 20 points of hunger available, as well as a hidden
value called Saturation. Like health, each hunger bar icon holds two points and can
reduce by half an icon (that icon is, incidentally, a “shank,” or the lower part of a
leg of meat) at a time.
Inventory quick access —These nine slots, also known as the Hotbar, represent
items you can select with the mouse scroll wheel or by pressing the 1-9 keys.
Press E to access your full inventory and to change the items in these slots. The
white number next to some shows that slot's count of stacked identical items. A
durability bar also appears under each tool's icon in green, gradually reducing as
you use them until the tool actually breaks and disappears from your inventory.
You'll have some warning of this because the bar turns red when it's close to zero.