I see YouTubers amongst other people talking about lava farms every time they see dripstone. They seem very excited when they see
✨The Dripstone Cave✨
-and immediately mention lava farm.
Why? Doesn’t it take literal hours irl to get a few buckets? Isn’t it quicker to fill 10 buckets from a lava lake in the nether than to make 10 buckets from a lava farm?
What makes a lava farm so appealing? Why wouldn’t you take the opportunity to drain an entire nether lava lake?
Can you explain to me what makes this efficient? Do you have to wait until you have 100 items to start smelting? I don’t use lava for smelting but I’m under the impression it’s a 1 time thing meaning it’s impractical to use a bucket of lava to smelt 10 items.
What if you need to smelt, idk like a stack of sand. Do you just take the other 40 blocks worth as a loss and refill? Or is it more for XP purposes that you’d use lava in an auto smelter?