One trick I taught myself in #Minecraft is the directional placement of torches. Sometimes I'm doing my fern-mining technique and it suddenly opens into a network of caverns, and I have to go exploring.
If I turn to the right, all the torches go on the right wall. If possible, I'll place torches on rocky structures to point back to the exit as well. And I place one last torch on the floor at the end of a corridor so I know I don't need to run back and clear it out.
@cwwilkie Our "Gold Standard" for strip mining: Torch on the right = away from home. Torch on left = heading back home.
I do a "bore hole" 3x3 wide, stops at every break of 16 (64, 48, 32, 16, 0, -16, -32, -48, -59). Off the borehole is a landing at the stops, 2 high 1 wide, 3 blocks apart, next level up offset by 2. Vines all the way down. The start of the mine is only 1 deep with 2 torches. Once you start a shaft, the torch goes on the right wall. With those hella long tunnels, keep torches on the left to "go home."
The Boreholes are legendary on our server. A water drop all the way to the bottom, vines to cling to inside it, water elevator for speedy ways going up.
@cwwilkie I need to get you a screen shot. 5 x 5 walls solid, the focus is on the 3 x 3 inside.
VLV
VBV
BWB
The Ladder is the failsafe and way to get up and down until finished. Vines growing down while I dig, but "stuff happens so the ladder is solid all the way down. When I can get enough iron, the Bar in the center and two corners hold the water column in while leaving me free to move within to drop & stop easily. If I hug the center pole, I'm in free fall but it prevents me from from being too far from Vines or the Ladder to quickly break. With the Water elevator, I can hang barely in it while still rocketing up.
@cwwilkie There is more detail, the "stops" are intended to have a double chest, smoker, stone cutter, anvil, furnace, blast furnace, and work bench as I have material to make them. But hit a platform, it's all the same and has what you need on the spot. Nether gate in six steps away. Mining tunnels for strip mining evenly spaced so you have the best odds of hitting a vein of any width of more than one block. Vines (separate from the borehole) cover the strips so you can climb up, down, sideways to get to any strip.
And there is more detail, but I've nattered on enough. You may want screen shots, and that helps.
@Romaq That's very clever. I've used water to access a 64x64x64 cube home in the sky, but I never thought about bringing vines inside when it's impractical and time-consuming to construct a ladder all the way down to bedrock.