The Minecraft Compass is the most reliable way to find your way back to your base (well, to spawn). There are several other ways not to get lost, but not all are effective all the time.
You can make a tower, but that doesn’t help if you’re too far away to see it or are underground. You can leave torches behind, but eventually, if you explore enough, the path will disappear into a sea of torches. You can remember how you went, but that’s not always easy.
Minecraft Compass Mechanics
In its basic form, the compass points to the spawn point. If you try using it in the Nether or End dimensions, it will rotate endlessly, signaling that it doesn’t work. You can use your compass with a Lodestone, making it a Lodestone Compass, which will point to the position of the Lodestone, no matter in which dimension.
How to Use a Compass in Minecraft
To use a compass, place it in the off hand or the hotbar. It doesn’t really matter because you don’t need to actively do anything to use a compass. You just need to look at it.
The needle of the compass will point to its target (whether to spawn or toward a Lodestone) in the inventory, hot bar, or off hand.
How to Make a Compass in Minecraft
To craft a compass, you need these ingredients:
- 4 Iron Ingots
- 1 Redstone Dust
Place the Redstone in the middle of the crafting grid, and put 1 Iron Ingot in each of its sides: up, down, left, and right.
The recipe of the Minecraft Compass require a 3X3 crafting grid, so you can only craft one on a Crafting Table.
Enchanting a Minecraft Compass
The compass can be enchanted only with Curse of Vanishing on an Anvil.
Mincraft Compass as a Crafting Ingredient
The Compass in an ingredient in two items in Java Edition, and an additional item in Bedrock.
Empty Map (or Empty Locator Map in Bedrock)
To craft an Empty Map, put a compass in the middle of the crafting grid of a Crafting Table and surround it with 8 Papers.
Recovery Compass
To craft a Recovery Compass, put a compass in the middle of the crafting grid of a Crafting Table and surround it with 8 Echo Shards.
Map With a Marker (Bedrock Only)
To craft a Map With a Marker, put a Compass and a Locator Map (or Empty Locator Map for the appropriate aviation) in any assortment in a Crafting Table or the crafting grid in the inventory.
Minecraft Compass Variations
The Lodestone Compass
The Lodestone Compass is a variation of the regular compass. To turn a regular compass o Lodestode compass, you need to use a compass on a Lodestone. From the moment you did it, the compass will stop pointing to spawn and start pointing to the Lodestone.
Lodestone Compass vs Regular Minecraft Compass
The main difference between the Lodestone Compass and the regular Compass is that the regular Compass point to spawn, and the Lodestone Compass point towards the Lodestone the Compass was assigned to.
The Recovery Compass
The Recovery Compass is pointing in the direction of the player’s last point of death as long as you’re in the same dimension.
Finishing Thoughts
The Minecraft Compass is a useful item both on its own and as a crafting ingredient.
I hope you enjoyed this post, see you next time!