Minecart

Minecarts are rideable objects placed on rails which can be used to carry items, mobs, and the player. They are used to cover long distances, as they are much faster than walking. Additionally, they are used for recreation - intricate roller coasters have been created through clever track placement and design.

Minecarts are placed in the same manner as other blocks; however, they can only be created on top of minecart tracks. Once placed, they may be derailed by pushing them off of the end of the track. Unlike boats, minecarts are not buoyant, and thus cannot be used for water elevators.

Crafting
Minecarts are non-stackable.

Once placed, minecarts can be hit, which reverts them back to an item. This can be done even while they are being ridden. Swords can do this in one hit with no decrease in durablity, where as two arrows will do the same, although losing the arrows.

Basic Minecart Usage


Minecarts can be ridden by right-clicking them. Once inside, the player cannot move, so an external impulse (a powered minecart, Powered Rail, or other player) is required to set the cart in motion. It is possible to push the minecart yourself and then jump in.

Players can exit the minecart by right clicking it, however if there is only one block of headroom above the cart the player will take half a heart of suffocation damage as his head will be temporarily through the ceiling. It is possible to interact with the environment while riding a cart, such as shooting a bow at enemies or laying down track in front of the minecart while it is moving.

After rolling off of the end of a track, a minecart can be pushed around on open blocks. If a minecart is pushed onto or falls onto tracks, it will "snap" to those tracks. As of Beta 1.6, if a minecart falls a long distance (with you in it), you take falling damage. The cart will not be destroyed.

A minecart will stop when it encounters a dropped item, and will not travel past it. If either passive or aggressive mob is hit or pushed into a rideable minecart, the minecart will stop and the mob will ride it. They will escape if the player right clicks to ride it themselves (pushing out the animal or mob) or if the cart is destroyed. They may also exit after a while.

Speed
The physics of minecarts have been noted to be very unrealistic.

Minecarts have a predefined speed limit of 8 m/s per axis of travel. undefined This means that a minecart traveling on two axes will travel faster; for example, a sufficiently boosted minecart traveling diagonally will move at 8 m/s on the x axis and 8 m/s on the z axis, resulting in an actual speed of 11.314 m/s. In this sense, diagonal cart physics violate taxicab geometry and instead simulate Euclidean geometry. This also applies to carts moving downhill (and uphill, if they have been properly boosted)

Boosting
Beta 1.5 introduced Powered Rails, which can boost or stop the player.

Loss of speed
One unit of kinetic energy could be defined as the energy gained by a cart going down a one block slope, and lost by a cart when it goes up a one block slope. If a 45 degree downward slope is connected directly into an upward slope, an initial height of 60 blocks will result in a final height of 40 blocks, a loss of 20 units of potential energy. But if 20 sections of flat track are inserted between the slopes, the final height will be 35. This implies that one unit of energy is lost for every 4 sections of horizontal track traveled with an initial stored energy of between 60 and 40. At much lower speeds, much less energy is lost, implying that the energy lost is a percentage of the cart's current energy. The above gives about 0.5% energy loss per section of track. One implication of this is that more energy lost when the cart has more energy, so a gradual slope should allow you to travel much farther distances than a steep slope followed by a long flat section.

Anything in the way of the minecart will take it to a dead stop, including: blocks, items, and mobs. Once a minecart has left the track, it will rapidly decelerate within one or two squares. It is possible to have a sufficiently boosted minecart "skip" over one square without a track, then rejoin the track at reduced energy later. When a mob touches a minecart they affect it in the same way a player would, i.e. mobs that move up against a still cart will set it in motion. When a minecart hits a mob, the mob will ride it.

If a minecart leaves your rendering distance it'll lose all energy until it re-enters the rendering distance. Also, all minecarts will lose all energy when you leave the game and will render at the same point when you left. This could lead to stalling minecart loop boosters.

Unoccupied Carts, an Incline and a boost
This table shows the distance traveled by an unoccupied minecart on an incline, with a boost (or no boost). The most efficient way is to use only 1 boost at the bottom of the incline on the flat surface. Using 2 will increase by about 20% or 1.5m. All distance trends based on the height seem to be logarithmic. The carts started from rest, on an incline (at Height).

Detecting Minecarts
The Detector Rail is a switch activated by minecarts. It generates a Redstone charge when a minecart is on the rail. It was introduced in Beta 1.5.

Prior to Beta 1.5, carts were detected by using Pressure Plates in line with cart tracks. This had the often undesirable effect of dramatically slowing or even stopping the minecart, which limited the use of this design mostly to boosters.

Minecarts can also be detected when their corners run over pressure plates as they go around a curved track. The effect is similar to the detector rail, but can only occur at curves.

Collision
Minecarts seems to have about the same size as a block; 1x1. Because of this, a ladder or door will prevent it from falling down a 1x1 hole. This can be utilized to make minecart dispensers, by stacking carts on top of each other and dispensing them with the help of a booster. A single cart dispenser using a door can also be made by using a ladder to block the cart from falling off the door.

Additionally, you can transport carts along 1 block wide water streams without the minecarts falling by placing ladders underneath. By alternating the ladders, items can still fall through. Because streams carry minecarts at a very slow rate, a trap can be made where anyone sitting in a cart will be suffocated in a block directly above the stream, and their items can be collected below.

Carts on minecart tracks will also ignore collision in certain situations. A cart traveling downhill or on a curve with a block placed in front of it will go through the block. If it is going fast enough, it can skip through one block and reattach to track on the other side, at significantly reduced speed.

A player riding in a minecart will not collide with or suffocate in any transparent blocks, including glass, half steps, and leaves.

Special Minecarts
There are currently two types of special minecarts:
 * Powered Minecart - A self-propelled minecart that is powered by fuel.
 * Storage Minecart - A minecart that can store items like a standard chest.

Minecart Trains


After Friday July 30's Minecart update, creating Minecart trains became a much simpler solution to transporting goods. To create a train, start with a fairly short length of straight track with an open ending on one side. Put a Powered Minecart on the side nearest the open end, and then add Storage Minecarts or ridable Minecarts along the rest of the track. Then, turn on your Powered Minecart. It will push the other Minecarts as if it were a Minecart Train. Placing an additional Powered Minecart on the other end will allow you to make a two-way train, as minecarts currently only push other carts, not pull. As of 1.6, in single player mode, Powered Minecarts will not push carts on East/West facing tracks. In SMP, the powered cart will not push other carts at all, and will simply overlap the other cart and stop (the behavior seen in single player mode when trying to push a cart on an east/west facing track).

Glitches

 * Prior to Beta 1.6, destroying a minecart while riding in said minecart would cause the player to fall through the block below the minecart. This could be used to make secret entrances into bases, though entry in this way caused the loss of half a heart due to a short moment of suffocation.
 * As of Beta_1.3_01, Saving and reloading while riding a minecart will leave you stuck in the ground, lowered by one unit. If you are on a level section of track, jumping will get you out of it; if you are on a slope when this happens, you may be stuck in the ground, suffocating to death.
 * Detonating TNT in close proximity to a minecart, even when doing so with the TNT submerged in water (such as a cannon), will often cause the minecart to disintegrate into numerous dropped minecarts.
 * Minecarts can be set on fire, but the mob or player inside the minecart will not catch fire from a minecart. (Pictured)
 * If there is a saddled pig in a minecart in a two block high space and you get on it you will slowly suffocate to death and be able to see under the ground
 * Riding a saddled pig in a minecart creates a self propelling booster.
 * If you are riding a minecart through any opening only wide enough for the minecart to pass through, (1x1,) you will pass through as well, but take suffocation damage.
 * When placing a minecart on a track in SMP, touching the minecart at all will cause it to glitch, creating a solid, unmovable minecart, and a ghostly cart that seems to move freely. After a short while, the game will crash. (This issue has been fixed as of Nov 10, 2010 in Minecraft Alpha v1.2.2 and partially fixed in Minecraft Server 0.2.4. The Minecraft Server Update 0.2.5 seemed to give the ability to now destroy minecarts with any tool, although the minecart is not animated when being hit.)
 * As of Beta 1.5 water will not put out flaming minecarts.
 * As of Beta 1.7.3, going around a corner turning left in a 1-block-wide tunnel will cause suffocation damage. This can occur multiple times if going at a slow speed.
 * In Beta 1.7.3 entering a minecart while holding any type of food will consume the food before entering the minecart.
 * If a minecart is pushed onto a trapdoor with a track directly beneath it, the cart will glitch trough the trapdoor and onto the rail.
 * When you click on a bed in a minecart you go to sleep and then wake up in your minecart.
 * It is possible to ride in Minecart through wall. (Confirmed in 1.8 Creative mode.)
 * In 1.8 destroying a Minecart youre driving in, will create a second Minecart.

Future
C418 posted this sound showing what minecarts will sound like in the 1.9 update.

Trivia

 * As of the Beta 1.5 update, minecarts break faster with fists.
 * Minecarts appear to float above the track, as their model has no wheels.
 * Pigs can be ridden while in Minecarts, although a saddle is needed. This gives you a self-propelling minecart (see Glitches, above).
 * Small slimes may be used to power a minecart by hitting it from behind. This strategy works fairly well, and can be used to power long minecart trains.
 * You can bump a medium slime in a minecart, and it can't attack you. However, a large slime can.
 * The large slime will completely cover a minecart.
 * A medium slime in a minecart has a small but powerful "Force Field" around it where you get pushed away, but not hurt.
 * Slimes in minecarts will divide if punched to death. This makes dividing slimes easy, as they can't move.
 * Minecarts automatically stored items until the storage minecart was put into the game.
 * Dropped items, if left on a track, will stop a minecart as if they were walls
 * Tamed wolves will follow you when you are in a Minecart
 * If you view your inventory while riding in a Minecart you will appear sitting down in mid-air.
 * The texture file, cart.png, features a large 'leather like' panel that used to be used as the bottom of the minecart when it contained items, back when minecarts were used to store items. It is now unused, however.
 * The upper has not yet been implemented as Minecarts can only be placed on rails and falling in lava while in a Minecart will destroy it and the player will fall in the lava.
 * As of Beta 1.8 if you punch a minecart when descending from a jump, it will show the critical hits animation. This also happens if you punch the cart while still in it.