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Snowman's In-depth guide for cannoning in 1.12.2

StopTakingUsernames

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After seeing numerous (And I mean heaps) of people attempting to use TNT cannons designed for 1.8.8 in 1.12.2, I have decided to put together an in-depth guide so there will be more active raiding for next map. A factions server with little to no raiding is not as fun as a raiding-focused one in my opinion. Most of cannoning is built off trial and error, so here's a guide to help out a bit.

- Some basic concepts

--Ticks
Ticks will refer to the amount of time in 0.1 seconds. (4 ticks. = 0.4 seconds, therefore a full repeater would be 0.4 seconds in length.) A block of tnt takes 40 ticks to explode.

--Alignment
Alignment is a common issue with most cannons, try to keep all the components to a single side to have less issues. TNT. is 0.98 blocks high, wide and lengthways when ignited, so if you have a piece on one side and a piece on the other, and they explode at different times, one will get shot to the side.

- Parts of a basic TNT cannon

--Boosters

Boosters mainly come in 3 variants - 1 stage, 2 stage and 3 stage boosters. Boosters are utilised for pushing a large amount of TNT or sand into one block, to maximise its effectiveness. 1 stage boosters are used for a small gap in the power or hammer (See later), 2 stage boosters are used for a medium sized distance, with 3 stage boosters being the most powerful style of booster working currently. Always use with boosters, mainly the bottom block of where the tnt dispenses.

All 3 boosters are lined up side to side, 1 block air left between them. Each group of dispensers on the same timings are all counted as a single stage.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/563641175173496832/574516357811666982/unknown.png

--Main Power
The main power is the engine of the cannon, without it, nothing will hit the wall. It fires the hybrid, and everything else you want to hit the wall. A booster can be added to the back of the main power to compact all the tnt into the single block, making the main power even more powerful.

This picture will only show a single side of the main power, Swap the same design to the other side and it will all correctly function. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/563641175173496832/574517282353709087/unknown.png

--Hybrid
The goal of the hybrid is to make the tnt fired from the cannon blow up a watered/or lava'ed wall. You can do this by firing TNT at the wall with sand, so the sand will end up in the exact same block as the tnt. More tnt in the hybrid shot will do more damage to the wall, as long as it stays within the sand.

Although not completely wired, this is what I often use for my hybrid system in large cannons.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/563641175173496832/574520378249183247/unknown.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/563641175173496832/574520611473326135/unknown.png

-More advanced concepts

--Tick oddities - A repeater on 4 ticks WILL trigger faster than 4 repeaters on one tick. This means you should not have the main hammer of a cannon on ticks like this: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/563641175173496832/574528180333838336/unknown.png

That being said, there are uses for this. Specifically in the slab bust, (Explained soon) And the tunnel effect (Explained later)

--Y Before X/Z - When entities are propelled by a force, they will determine their Y value before their X/Z value.

Advanced parts of the cannon
-With all the basic components out of the way, its time to get into the more advanced pieces of the cannon. these pieces will help contribute to having a cannon stack 20+ sand in a single shot (Up to 255 sand in a single shot)

--Sand compressor, or simply just compressor
Compressors are used to fire a large amount of sand into a single block. It is designed to be shot down the wall at breakneck speed, so that it can stack on the wall instantaneously. A hammer fires the sand down into the wall.

I will not show the main compressor that I am using, just so nobody can steal the design from the forums. A compressor basically lets a large amount of sand enter a single cobweb, and pistons then push the cobweb into the line of fire of your main power, or into a booster system connected to the main power. The first image shows the raw compressor, while the second image shows all the sand compressed after a second booster compacts it further. Both of these images contain 240 blocks of sand in the space of several blocks.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519563795786498078/574344799596052500/unknown.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/519563795786498078/574347089471864832/unknown.png

--Hammer
The hammer is the second part to the sand compressor. The hammer is fired at the wall above the sand, in order to push the sand down instantly. The average ratio of hammer to sand is roughly 1:1.11 (every block of tnt in theory pushes 1.11 blocks of sand down. Any less and it will work incorrectly.) In this case it is better safe than sorry, so in my opinion it would be better to have an oversized hammer than one just right. (Just in case)

The hammer is basically a duplicate of the main power, but there is usually a full repeaters difference (4-6 ticks).

--Slab bust
This effect will allow a cannon to remove slabs from any height they wish, using a concept with repeaters (Explained in the tick oddities section in advanced concepts). Slabbust is simply several dispensers placed in the same path as the sand compressor or where the sand enters in the barrel. The slab bust should technically explode at the same time as the hammer, but using the tick oddities concept, it will explode slightly later, removing the slab and stacking x amount of sand in a single shot. The more dispensers in the slab bust, the more slabs it can destroy in a single shot. (7 tnt would bust 7 slabs)

Tick oddities again, Imagine the hammer will tick off on the single repeater, while the slab bust ticks off on the 4 repeaters.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/563641175173496832/574528180333838336/unknown.png

--Guider

This is the final element in the advanced parts section, and arguably the most important. The guider basically determines where tnt/sand or whatever will hit the wall. Because TNT determines the Y value before the X value (Same with all entities) You can use a guider to accurately fire the tnt/sand into the perfect spot for whatever you intend to do with it next. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/563641175173496832/574535792853254154/unknown.png

This image shows basically what would happen instantly after the main power ignites. Everything flies upwards into the barrel, then shot into the wall. (Imagine all the blocks in the diagram are entities)

-Even more advanced concepts

--Order of entities
Order of entities basically shows that whatever is shot first ignites first. This concept is particularly relevant to pseudo nuking, where you can put 8 seperate, evenly spaced holes in a wall. With order of entities, you can get sand to stack in a particular order. For example, if you have 2 sand onto of each other, the top one being red sand, and the bottom one being normal sand, the normal sand will stack first because it fell first, the same applies for TNT cannons.

--Tunnel Effect
The tunnel effect occurs when repeaters are technically on the same timings, but different amounts of repeaters are used. This is similar to tick oddities, but the repeaters can be exploited to fire the cannon like a laser beam, cutting through thousands of blocks at a time if used correctly. For example, if you have the main power of the cannon, on 1 full repeater, and have a hammer on 4 full repeaters, the hammer SHOULD fire at the same time as the main power, but because of how fucked up Minecraft can be sometimes, it will instead fire the hammer forwards, acting as a self boosting payload until all the tnt is gone. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/563641175173496832/580670515195281419/unknown.png


-Naming your tnt cannon

Start by writing the amount it stacks by, eg "20 stacker"

If applicable, write its full automatic firing time. If the cannon can fire in 1.8 seconds each shot, it is a 1.8 second auto. Therefore, the cannon name should look something like "255 stacker 1 second auto"

Next, write in its special features. Eg "Antipatch (AP), Reverse nuke, Efficient nuke, Pseudo Nuke, Fusion, Leinadarcher, wall remover ". Cannon name should look something like "255 stacker 1 second auto fusion efficient nuke.

Finally, add one shot to the end. (Just means it one shots a wall each shot.)
Final cannon name should come out something like "255 stacker 1 second auto fusion efficient nuke one shot. (Bit of a mouthful)

Yay
I guess ill list more examples of cannons that I've made for MCD
240 stacker 6 second auto fusion pseudo nuke one shot
240 stacker pseudo nuke one shot
120 pseudo nuke one shot
1 stacker reverse nuke
255 stacker fusion antipatch efficient nuke one shot
60 stacker leindarcher oneshot
40 stacker leindarcher oneshot
20 stacker leindarcher oneshot
20 stacker 0.3 second auto reverse nuke one shot
aaaaand
2 stacker wall remover

Edits may still be made, if you would like to see some edits made, please don't hesitate to contact me

If you want any element explained more thoroughly, just let me know in the replies!
 
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