How do I survive the first night outside?

Question

I started playing Minecraft some days ago, and understood what to do the first week or 2 (in Minecraft time). Until now I strictly followed the day/night cycle. I went outside to get woods, porks and other things during the days and mined/crafted hard during the nights.

But I am now attracted and scared at the same time by the strange noises that I hear during the night and I would like to try going out, and possibly survive.

So, what should I expect to find outside in the night? What I have to know and more what I need to craft to be able to survive till morning?

Answer 1

At a basic level, nighttime is just a darker version of the day, but your passive NPCs (pigs, sheep, etc) stop spawning in most areas (since they only spawn where there is light) and aggressive ones (zombies, skeletons, spiders, etc) begin to spawn.

Dealing with each type of aggressive mob will take different strategies. You should read up on each type of mob at the Minecraft Wiki.

Generally-speaking, I'd suggest having a stone or iron sword (the 3rd and 2nd best weapons in the game according to damage they deal). A bow and arrows are also great since they allow you to fight at range, but arrows aren't as easy to make. If you go this route, remember that you can retrieve arrows after you fire them. This will cut down on how often you have to replenish your supply with new ones.

Armor will help, especially when you begin dealing with the more difficult mobs such as Creepers, which start hissing and explode when they get close. Taking some food for emergency healing is also a wise idea.

EDIT- In the current version of the game, food does not instantly heal you. Please keep this in mind while trying to survive.

Answer 2

You will be a-fightin' and a-runnin', so you should pack accordingly.

• Armor - You'll want a full set, and the stronger, the better. It's tough to get a full SE of diamond, but iron armor should serve you well.
• Weapons - A diamond sword or a couple iron ones. A bow and a couple stacks of arrows.
• Tools - A couple stacks of torches will be useful. You want enough so that you can plop them down all willy-nilly and not run out. You may also want a boat or two for aquatic getaways.
• Navigation equipment - It's easy to get turned around when fighting and running in the dark. A compass will help you find your way home (assuming you know where your spawn point is in relation to your home. A light-emitting tower might also be helpful.
• Food - Even with armor, you're going to take some damage. Take some pork chops. Have one or two in your action bar.

Survival strategy mostly consists of continuous running and always looking around you. Monsters will not spawn within a short distance around you, but if you stand still, they will continue to spawn outside that radius and it can get crowded.

Backing away while shooting or stabbing works well on most critters, and circle-strafing makes killing skeletons easy. Don't get backed into a corner, and don't run into a crowd of monsters. Throw down torches liberally so you can see. And if there are just too many of them, don't be afraid to run.

Answer 3

If you start to run out of life, you can always dig a "coffin" for yourself to wait the night out. The simple way is to dig down three blocks, then put a lid on your coffin. Wait in your dirt until you think it might be light out, then dig up your lid.

If you have some glass, you can have a transparent coffin lid so it's easy to figure out when it's day time.

Answer 4

On your first night, you are at your weakest. In the best-case scenario, you have already collected a decent amount of wood and stone, some type of food source, and you have killed several sheep for a few wool.

Plan 1:

Build yourself a home. Typically, a first home is build out of a combination of wood and stone, depending on how you spent your first day. The easiest way to create a safe home is to mine into a mountain and create a door to the home. (On hard mode, just place a block down instead of a door to avoid zombies destroying the door)

In the end: Use a bed. If you have the 3 wool to spare, a bed can save you a great deal of time by allowing you to bypass the night (Requires a small lit space, however).

Plan 2:

Stay on the move. The spawning algorithm of minecraft typically leaves monsters a fair distance away from you, at least at the beginning of night. As a result, you can typically avoid monsters in forests while cutting down trees. Note: Keep an eye out for any potential enemies. Creepers can sneak up behind and you will deal a large portion of your health. You can also play aggressive and kill monsters in the vicinity before you work on a tree. I typically look for a suitable biome to build a base in at night, using sprint to avoid monsters (Double-tap W)

Plan 3:

Rather than attempting to cut down trees outside, begin work on a mine that descends to an elevation of around 12 (One of the most productive diamond levels). Wood, while useful, is typically only used for chests/sticks in terms of mining, and sees very little use. This will allow you to work on Iron Armor/Iron Swords while waiting for day time.

Answer 5

If you're only intent on surviving, swim into the ocean or a big lake, staying away from land and squids until the sun rises. Standing on a sandbar will allow you not to have to constantly swim.

Answer 6

First you should make some armour and the strongest sword you can make. You will also want to take some cooked food so you can recharge your health. It would be wise to take some torches so you dont get lost.

Answer 7

Step 1. Break enough tree blocks using your hands to create a crafting table. Break around six trees. Craft sticks and wooden blocks (depending on the type of tree).

Step 2. Create swords by mining ingots, creating sticks and combining them together in your crafting table. Build a small treehouse, hut or house to stay safe from monsters and have somewhere to rest. Kill sheep to get three wool blocks and combine that with three wooden blocks to build a bed. Place the bed in the middle or in the corner of your house. Look online on how to make bunk beds and bed frames.

Step 3: Kill pigs, cows, sheep and rabbits to get meat. After collecting the meat, build an oven using cobblestone to cook meat to refill your hunger and health bar. Another option is growing and harvesting your own crops: Carrot, wheat and potatoes. You can then bake bread, which can be given to villagers. Another option is to visit a nearby village on your map and collect and regrow the crops there.

Those are just some basic tips to help get you started, have fun and good luck! :)

Answer 8

You're going to want to be careful at night; spiders can climb over fences, zombies can break down wood doors (on hard), if you're in a village a zombie seige may occur (a whole group of zombies spawn regardless of the light level and attack; during a seige they can break down wood door on normal mode and can infect villagers, turnig them into zombie villagers), skeletons can shoot at you with bows, and creepers can sneak up on you and blow up. And beware of Endermen! They spawn commonly in the End, but also spawn in the overworld, and they can remove blocks (meaning that even though your house may not have a door so zombies can't break in and is built out of a material creepers can't destroy, mobs can still enter). If lightning strikes a pig, it will become a zombie pigman. They are harmless unless you attack them, and even then if they're alone they aren't that bad. But if you have a pig farm and lightning strikes it, you're in deep trouble! There are more mobs, but they don't spawn outside at night. So, to sum it up, BRING WEAPONS AND ARMOR if you're going to fight monsters. And watch out for spiders; they're creepy...

EDIT: Sorry for making it so long, but I wanted to give as much information as possible (and I play on Peaceful, so it's impressive I know this much).

EDIT: There's even more info! What you want to do is build a pillar of non-gravity affected blocks, with overhangs so spiders can't climb up. Then place 1 block up on each overhang so skeletons can't shoot you. The reason the blocks shouldn't be gravity affected is creepers could blow it up and make you fall. Later in the game you can use a bow and arrow to pick enemies off and collect their drops in the morning. Just be careful! If you accidentally hit a spider at day, they will become hostile (at day they don't attack you) and creepers stay hostile. Skeletons and zombies burn and die at day but they could hide under trees or in water, so skeletons could still shoot you, although zombies couldn't attack unless you went to them. There, I gave as much information that I know.