BLOCK OF THE WEEK: LODESTONE - By Felicia
Get a lode of this!
One of the most useful items in Minecraft is the compass. They serve a single purpose – pointing to the world spawn point. If you’re planning on wandering off into the wilderness, then I highly recommend taking one with you so you can actually find your way back home again.
But compasses have a downside – they only work in the Overworld. The same mysteries of Minecraft physics that cause blocks to stay suspended in the air when you mine out the block below them also cause compasses to go haywire in the Nether and the End.
So in the Nether Update, the Minecraft team added something new - lodestone. Lodestone is a block that lets you alter the place compasses point to, and it can be used in all three dimensions, making it suddenly worth taking a compass with you again.
You’ll often find lodestone in chests in bastion remnants, but you can also make it yourself with a netherite ingot surrounded by chiseled stone bricks in a crafting grid. To make netherite, you’ll need gold and netherite scraps, which in turn are smelted from ancient debris. You’ll need a diamond pickaxe to collect ancient debris.
Once you’ve got a lodestone block, plop it down on the ground, whip out your compass, and slap the “use” button. You’ll know it worked if the compass gets an “enchantmenty” sheen to it. If the lodestone gets broken, or is in another dimension, the compass won’t work at all.
So next time you set off on a journey through the Nether, do yourself a favour and set a compass on a lodestone next to your portal so you can find your way home again. You’ll be glad you did.