Light Rod Launcher

Light Rod Launcher (Overworld Edition)

Adds a recipe for crafting a Light Rod Launcher, which is a specialized end rod loaded with up to 64 lethal 'Light Rod' projectiles. Light Rod Launchers are removed from inventory when their last Light Rod is fired.

Here's the recipe. Only the layout and orientation shown below will work.

Not feeling crafty? Here's the chat bar command to give yourself a fully loaded Light Rod Launcher.

/give @s end_rod[custom_name={"color":"light_purple","italic":false,"text":"Light Rod Launcher"},enchantment_glint_override=true] 64

More about Light Rods

Light Rods are horizontal projectiles launched by sneaking while holding a Light Rod Launcher in the main hand. The sneak trigger timing is designed to feel responsive while also giving the player a small window in which to untrigger a shot.

Untriggering is useful because only one Light Rod projectile can be airborne at any one time. If there's a Light Rod already in the air, the launcher will refuse to fire, so it's good to have a way to back off from taking a shot if it looks like it could go wrong, particularly in close combat.

Light Rods can be destroyed in three ways:

• When they reach the end of their range (30 blocks), and run out of energy
• When they hit a solid block, and are destroyed in a contained explosion along with the block
• When they hit a mob, and are destroyed in a burst of energy along with the mob

Crouching Player, Hidden Creeper

Hits are minimally environmentally destructive, limited to either a single block or usually one entity, although it's possible to hit multiple entities at once if they're very close together. Players can't take direct damage from a Light Rod's effects, or from proximity to them. Even if a mob is hit right next to a player, the resulting blast won't cause the player any damage.

More about this datapack

This is the Overworld Edition, developed and intended for use in the Overworld only. It doesn't work well in the other dimensions, although it won't actually cause any harm. It was developed for single player only and has been tested solely in single player worlds.

This is one of a bunch of custom weapons developed for personal use. Most of them are comically useless in actual gameplay (lots of time spent dying and laughing) but this one turned out to be unexpectedly effective, especially with practice, and in fact it's possible to get very handy with it. It's great for Survival, but it's also worth checking out with Creative - it can be very satisfying just flying around at night blasting anything that moves into particles.

Gameplay

Notes and tips

As soon as testing began it became clear that mobs sometimes calmly leap over approaching Light Rods and then continue on as if nothing has happened, especially in Survival mode while attacking.

How could they possibly know to avoid something that has never existed in the game before, and that is technically not even a projectile? How could they possibly know how to avoid it? And of course there is no way they could know. Except lots of them do, so be warned.

Tip #1: Standing one block higher than a mob when launching a Light Rod prevents them from being able to jump over it.

Tip #2: Due to their jump attack and overall speed, this weapon's nemesis is the spider, particularly at very close range, where they're often too quick for Tip #1.

Tip #3: This datapack really benefits from dynamic lighting. It's been extensively tested using LambDynamicLights with Fabric, but it should work well with whatever setup you prefer.

Have fun!!

Videos

Full HD versions are available on YouTube.

Recipe and short demo: timeout, block hit, mob hit.

Gameplay montage. Starts slowly....

Potential issues

Light Rods kill creakings.
This is by design, it would just be too weird if they didn't. Therefore, if you depend on creakings for something in-game, please don't hit them with a Light Rod! However tempting it may be ;)

Some blocks may be missing from the 'passthrough' list.
Light Rods pass right through some blocks like grasses, flowers, and leaves, destroying the blocks without causing a hit. The datapack has a list of (hopefully) all of those 'passthrough' blocks, but it's just possible that a few are still missing. If you do find a block that unexpectedly causes a hit, please feel free to leave a comment here identifying it so that it can be considered for inclusion in the list.

Thanks!