Blocks

Types of Blocks

Minecraft is composed of and built entirely out of blocks. You dig through blocks, you build with blocks, your character is made of blocks; they are everywhere. It is possible to change how the blocks appear by applying new Texture Packs.

The face of a block is 16x16 pixels, and each block is one cubic meter. Water, Lava andPortal blocks have a shifting pattern for each face.

Contents  [hide] 1 Types of Blocks 2 Opacity 2.1 Translucent Blocks 2.2 Behaviors

Types of Blocks

There are currently 91 different types of blocks (including Air, still Water, still Lava, blocks which cannot be built at the moment, (see data values for the full list) and assuming each Clothcolor as an unique block.)

In a standard randomly generated infdev Map you can find the blocks Stone, Grass (or Snow),Dirt, Water, Lava, Sand, Gravel, Gold ore, Iron ore, Diamond, Redstone, Clay, Coal, Tree,Leaves, Cactus, yellow and red Flowers and brown and red Mushrooms.

In the initial free version of Survival the player began with 10 TNT blocks and could obtain Dirt,Cobblestone from Stone, Wood from Trees, Gold from Gold ore, Iron from Iron ore, Step from Coal, and white Cloth from Sheep.

In Classic mode the player can build with naturally occurring blocks, save Redstone andDiamond, and can use Bookcase, Sponge, Coloured Cloth, Brick, Obsidian and Moss Stone.Operators of servers can also build Bedrock. Some custom servers give the ability to place Grassand (still) Fluids, too.

When playing the current Beta, the player can craft a variety of blocks not naturally found in maps, including Stairs, Workbenches, Paintings, Bookshelves, Furnaces and more. Redstoneand Diamond can be found in the lower areas of maps, and Obsidian forms when water touches a spring lava block. The Mob Spawner block may naturally occur in a Dungeon.

The Halloween update added six new block types to the game. Netherrack, Glowstone, and Soul Sand can be found in The Nether, which the player can only enter by creating Portal blocks.Pumpkins grow on the surface and can be crafted into Jack-O-Lanterns.

Opacity

Opacity is a property of blocks. It determines ray tracing and collision result and controls several interaction behaviors.

Translucent Blocks

• Plants: sapling, yellow flower, red rose, brown mushroom, red mushroom, crops, reed.
• Liquid: water, stationary water, lava, stationary lava.
• Blocks: leaves (opaque when graphics are on fast), glass, step, mob spawner, wooden and cobblestone stairs, soil, snow, ice, cactus, fence.
• Non-blocks: torch, fire, redstone wire, sign post, wooden and iron door, ladder, rails, wall sign,lever, wooden and stone pressure plate, redstone torch off/on, button, portal.

Behaviors

• Snow, doors, buttons, ladders, levers, minecart tracks, pumpkins can only be placed on opaque blocks. Torches can now be placed on transparent blocks. (beta 1.2)
• Mobs only spawn on opaque blocks and in transparent/open space.
• Fireballs only start fire on opaque blocks.
• Mushrooms only grow on opaque blocks.
• Growing leaves will destroy any translucent blocks.
• Opacity of adjacent blocks determines the direction of furnaces and chests.
• Chests can't be opened if there are opaque blocks above.
• Translucent blocks are not ignitable.
• Translucent blocks change water behavior.
• Block opacity affects the behavior of redstone electrics.
• Suffocation only happens in opaque blocks.

Ghast

Ghast
Health Points	Alpha:  Beta:
Attack Strength	Varies
Spawn	The Nether, any light level.

The Ghast is a floating jellyfish-esque mob that shoots fireballs from its mouth. Its body is a 4 by 4 by 4 block cube with 9 tentacle-like body parts emerging from the bottom. They first appeared in theHalloween Update. Ghasts are able to spawn anywhere in the Nether, as long as there is sufficient space. While an extremely rare occurrence, ghasts may spawn near portals in the regular world if given enough space to do so.

A Ghast released into the real world.

Ghasts normally float around with their eyes and mouth closed, making a sound like a purring cat. They open their eyes and mouth when attacking. They make a chirp-like noise when shooting and scream loudly when taking damage. The sounds that ghasts make are currently not affected by distance, so they always sound very close, regardless of their actual position.

If a Ghast's fireball hits a portal (or close to it) the portal will be closed, requiring re-ignition. If the player manages to get a Ghast to fire at the portal while it is closed, it can be reignited using the fireball. Blocks originally ignited once struck, adding an extra hazard to fighting Ghasts. But currently the fire is extinguished immediately afterwards because of a bug.

The minimum block resistance required to absorb all blast force of the Ghast's fireballs is 20.17. So fences and less resistant blocks can be destroyed, and iron doors and more resistant blocks are indestructible by fireball explosions.

Ghasts will not fire at the player without line-of-sight, and this is blocked by glass, leaves orportals making safe scenic paths through the Nether a viable possibility. When not moving, Ghasts within firing range will face the player, giving the impression that they can see through transparent materials. Ghasts can draw line-of-sight through curtains of lava, and their fireballs can pass through it meaning players near a pillar of lava can be struck without seeing the source.

Ghasts drop Sulphur when killed, but this can be hard to collect - as it is the only mob that floats, the sulphur may fall into lava or an inaccessible area.

Contents  [hide] 1 Fighting Ghasts 2 Drowning 3 Drops 4 Trivia

Fighting Ghasts

Ghasts attack with projectile fireballs. The player can reflect these fireballs by hitting them with anything before they impact, even bare hands, arrows or fishing rods. It is possible to kill Ghasts by reflecting their attacks back at them. Although rather tricky to pull off, you can make this easier by shooting an arrow, fishing rod, or snowball at the fireball, then looking directly at the Ghast, or where it will be in the next second or two, and it will send the fireball in that direction once hit. This way, if a Ghast is out of reach from your projectiles, you can "aim" its own fireballs back at it, instead of having to run directly at the ball to fire it in the right direction. The Ghast hitbox includes the tentacles, so aiming for the area where the tentacles meet the body increases the chance of a hit.

Ghasts may be hurt with normal weapons if the player can get close enough or has a bow. It is possible to use a fishing rod to draw Ghasts in near enough to hit with a sword. A close ghast is also easier to hit with a bow, though the drawback of this method is less time to dodge fireballs. When aiming your bow be sure to lead your shots as Ghasts can quickly change trajectory and move quite fast. Depending on how far away the Ghast is it may be necessary to aim above the Ghast as well to gain extra range.

Ghasts may also be set on fire, but fire and lava don't actually damage them. A similar effect is seen with zombie pigmen.

Much like using neutral or enemy mobs as shields against arrows fired by skeletons in the regular world, it is feasible to use zombie pigmen as shields against Ghasts in the Nether. It is possible to injure or kill zombie pigmen in this fashion without ever making them hostile to the player.

It is disputed that Ghasts can be killed by lava or fire if continually re-exposed. This is achieved by a ghast floating in and out of lava. There have been reports of zombie pigmen dying while in lava, due to the fact they "bob" in and out of lava, which raises doubt that ghasts and zombie pigmen are completely lava/fireproof.

Drowning

Despite being fireproof, Ghasts and Zombiemen are capable of drowning if under water or lava for too long. This means they, like the player and other mobs, require air to live.

Drops

Beta:

• 0-2 units of Sulphur

Trivia

• Ghasts can be seen on the map when using certain map editors^{[citation needed]}.
• Ghasts can "cancel" their fireballs if the targeted player has an obstruction between the Ghast and himself.
• Ghasts aim at the camera, not the player. Going into 3rd person mode and having a ghast fire a fireball at you will go over the player, given the right camera angle.

Spider Jockey

Spider Jockey
Health Points	Skeleton: Spider:
Attack Strength	Direct contact:
Spawn	Light level of 7 or less on Earth. Anywhere but half blocks or glass.

Spider Jockeys are a combination of two different mobs: Spiders and Skeletons which were introduced in the Seecret Friday Update 8. When a spider is spawned it has a 1% chance of having a skeleton spawn with it, riding on its back. They are considered separate enemies and have separate health bars. This "Spider jockey" has both the ranged arrow attack of a skeleton and the mobility of a spider as well as a somewhat larger combined health. This makes a deadly combination. The spider's pounce will be substantially less powerful when mounted, however. When the sun comes up the skeleton bursts into flames while the spider survives.

It was thought previously that when fighting this mob it is advisable to kill the spider first because once dismounted, the skeleton will get stuck in the riding animation, and will be unable to move. This has been found to be untrue since the Beta update. Once the spider is killed, the Skeleton will continue to attack and move around, as shown here.This mob is easier to kill with a bow, as then it is easier to dodge the arrows and not get pounced.

It is possible for this mob to actually kill itself. Sometimes, the arrows might land on the spider, and other times, the spider might pounce and run the skeleton into his own arrow, making this quite a glitchy mob.

In the future, Notch may add controllable mounts for players, probably using the saddle. These controllable mounts may be new creatures not yet in the game, such as horses.