Gathering Resources - The Ultimate Player's Guide to Minecraft - page 65

jumping up and down blocks on well-travelled routes. Building blocks are, without
being too punny, the building blocks of creativity.
Decoration Blocks —Decoration blocks are something of a catchall category. Gen-
erally, they are things you can use to make your constructions more interesting.
Some of those 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 a huge amount 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 transporta-
tion 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, populating a farm and more.
Foodstuffs —Foodstuffs 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 at digging, chopping, hoeing, and setting Nether Portals on fire
with the flint and steel. You'll also find shears for stripping the wool from sheep, a
fishing rod, and a few enchanted topics that can add special powers to your tools.
Combat —Combat provides your weapons and armor, as well as the remaining en-
chanted topics that relate to combat items.
Brewing —The Brewing tab contains all possible potions and a number of the rarer
ingredients required 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. It differs because it is composed of secondary items that are