Technical blocks



Technical blocks are blocks that cannot be acquired without commands or mods, but have independent block IDs, and serve various purposes during events within the game. Farmland, monster spawners, and burning furnaces remain available.

All technical blocks that appear in the Pocket Edition remain available too. (e.g. glowing redstone ore, melon stem, crops, etc.)

Piston related
These blocks serve a purpose when a piston is used.

Piston Head
Piston Head is a block used as the piston's extension. One of the data bits of this block defines if it is a normal piston or a sticky piston extension. Many players use this block as a table instead of the standard pressure plate on fence, and it can be obtained by using the pick block key on it in creative in 1.2, but not later. It cannot be placed even if the player has it. It can, however, be placed with some third-party programs.

Trivia

 * Mobs can spawn inside the block.

Piston Extension
The Piston Extension (aka "Block Being Moved By Piston" or simply "block 36") is a block that contains part of a piston head, and/or part of one or two blocks that the piston is carrying into or out of the grid cell (including blocks carried indirectly via slime blocks). Since moving blocks vary in how much of each grid cell they occupy, they can't be stored as normal blocks and are instead stored as block entities.

It is invisible, non-solid, and cannot be broken without the use of commands. It decreases the light level of light passing through by 1. Although it is non-solid, fluids cannot pass through it. It also prevents from building at its location. The game treats the block as a stone block when it comes to their breaking animation and the player's footstep sounds.

Trivia

 * Carpet can be placed on this block, and will remain if the block 36 is replaced with a solid block using.

Decoration related
These blocks are technical and can be found as items in the decoration section of the creative inventory.

Flower Pot
The flower pot is a technical block that is placed using the flower pot item. It uses damage values and a block entity to determine the plant it contains.

Bed
The bed block can be placed using the bed item, but this block is still considered a technical block because it has separate block and item forms. When placed using the command, you will see only the half of the bed block.

Mob head
Even though there is a mob head item, this is still a technical block because it has separate block and item forms. The mob head items use damage values when placed to determine whether this block is on the wall or ground. Its rotational data is stored in its connected block entity. Data values for the item form determine which of the 5 default mob heads it is, even if the head is customized.

Sign
This block has two forms: Wall (block 68) and standing sign (block 63). It has an item form that allows the block to have a custom message before you place it.

Brewing related
These are technical blocks related to brewing.

Brewing Stand
The brewing stand block is a technical block version of the brewing stand item.

Cauldron
The cauldron block is a technical block that can be placed using its item form. The cauldron has a damage value which determines the water level.

Door related
These blocks are parts of the door. Since the door is two blocks linked together, using gives you only half a door.

Wooden Door
When placed using the command you will only see a half wooden door, unlike its item form which  makes both top and bottom during placement. A single half behaves like a wooden door, it can be opened and closed by hand or with redstone.

Iron Door
When placed using the command you will only see a half iron door, unlike its item form which  makes both top and bottom during placement. This is because the iron door is two blocks total.

Iron door blocks can be placed using the iron door item. Iron door blocks are also opened when they receive a redstone signal, even if it is only half of the door.

Lit Furnace
This is a block used to make furnaces shed light when smelting. It has a different texture than the normal furnace and emits particles. It will replace the normal furnace block while the furnace is burning fuel, but once the fuel runs out it will revert. Through or other means you can place this block and it will "burn" for as long as you don't use it.

Redstone Wire
When placed using, it becomes a block of "Redstone Dust", acting the same as if you placed it by hand. Redstone dust can only be placed on opaque blocks (dirt, stone, grass blocks, etc.), as well as glowstone, upside-down slabs and upside-down stairs, and hoppers.

Lit Redstone Ore
This is a block used to make redstone ore glow when stepped on, when, or left-clicked. Glowing redstone maintains its glow if pushed or pulled by a piston, but eventually stops glowing as if it had been touched by the player when placed.

Unlit Redstone Torch
Block 75 is a block representing an off-state redstone torch. This block used to be available in the new creative inventory (12w21b) under the Redstone section, and the normal Redstone Torch was under Decoration.

Powered Redstone Repeater
Block 94 is the "on" state of the redstone repeater.

Lit Redstone Lamp
Block 124 is the "on" state of the redstone lamp. When hacked in to the inventory, placing it will immediately turn it off unless it's receiving a redstone signal.

Powered Redstone Comparator
Block 150 is the "on" state of the redstone comparator. It will provide a one tick pulse and then will turn off, similar to block 94 (active repeater). Note: Block 149 (originally "off state Comparator") has been changed to include the off and on states in the same block, making this an unused technical block not just one with a missing item form.

Inverted Daylight Sensor
Block 178 is the inverted state of the daylight sensor.

Flowing Water
The flowing water block tells the game to check for any air blocks around it and put some water into them if applicable. This is distinct from whether or not the fluid appears to be moving, and whether or not it is a source block. When placed using a water bucket it will flow 8 blocks.

Stationary Water
Stationary water is just like flowing water, except it doesn't flow and doesn't move you. It generates in lakes, oceans, village wells and desert wells.

Flowing Lava
The flowing lava block tells the game to check for any air blocks around it and put some lava into them if applicable. This is distinct from whether or not the fluid appears to be moving, and whether or not it is a source block. Lava flows for 4 blocks in overworld and 8 in the Nether.

Stationary Lava
Stationary lava is just like flowing lava, except it doesn't flow. It generates in lava lakes, nether fortresses, in the nether and in customized worlds with lava oceans set to yes.

Farmland
Farmland is a block on which seeds (melon, pumpkin, wheat, carrot, potato, and the Pocket Edition exclusive item beetroot) can be planted and grown, and it is made by using a hoe on dirt or grass blocks.

Wheat Crops
This block appears when wheat seeds are planted on farmland.

Potato Crops
This block behaves the same way as any other crops would, but they are the result of placing a potato on farmland.

Carrot Crops
This block behaves the same way as any other crop would, but they are the result of placing a carrot on farmland.

Pumpkin Stem
The block that is planted on farmland when pumpkin seeds are used on it. It starts off-set under-ground, and rises up as the plant grows, as opposed to the method wheat seeds uses, where each growth stage is an individual texture. The stem is colored green by the game, and then brown once fully grown.

The stem will change to the second image once a pumpkin has grown off the stem. A single stem will connect to any pumpkin in an adjacent square, thus there are 5 possible appearances to a stem. When the pumpkin is removed, the stem will return to its original image.



The stem is a red-orange color with a texture of the top of the pumpkin at the bottom part. This cannot be seen legitimately, as breaking the farmland will take out the stem.

Using the command to get illegitimate stem textures will backfire as of 1.8. Data values 8 through 11 will be stems attached to a pumpkin, and data values 12 through 15 will crash Minecraft.

Melon Stem
The block that is planted on farmland when melon seeds are used on it. The coloring and growth method is the same as the Pumpkin Stem's.

The stem will change to the second image once a melon has grown off the stem. A single stem will connect to any melon in an adjacent square, thus there are 4 possible appearances to a stem with a melon on it and 1 without. If there are multiple melons it can connect to, it will favor the east, then west, north, and south. When the melon is removed, the stem will return to its original image.



The stem is an orange-yellow color with a texture of Netherrack at the bottom part. Again, this cannot be seen in the vanilla game, as breaking the farmland will delete the plant.

Using the command to get illegitimate stem textures will backfire as of 1.8. Data values 8 through 11 will be stems attached to a melon, and data values 12 through 15 will crash Minecraft.

Sugar Canes
When placed using, it acts the same, except you can use damage values to make it grow another piece faster. When broken with any tool, it drops sugar canes (the item).

Nether Wart
Nether wart block is the block version of the nether wart, it has 4 grow cycles. The nether wart can be found naturally in nether fortresses. It can be placed using using custom damage values it can start at any growth stage.

Food related
These are technical blocks related to food.

Cake
When you place a cake using, it will appear as a cake block or Block 92 unless placed using damage values. Block 92 has 7 data values to determine how much was eaten.

Monster spawners
A monster spawner can be obtained with, but will always spawn pigs when placed. Spawners that create other entities can be obtained using commands. The spawned mob can be changed by using a spawn egg on a spawner.

Nether Portal
Nether Portal blocks are generated when a portal is formed, standing in them will teleport the player from the Overworld to the Nether and vice versa.

Trivia

 * The inside of the Nether Portal block is hollow.
 * Despite popular belief, you only need one portal block, without a frame, to warp to the Nether. This applies to both Nether and The End portals.
 * While in your inventory, it appears as a full block unless it is rendered in the world. (That is, it looks like a normal full block, but when you place the hacked portal into the world it places as a normal (flat) portal and the version in your inventory will then render as a normal flat portal)
 * Nether Portal blocks will function properly in the End and will take you to a place in the Nether that corresponds to the location in the Overworld from where you first entered The End.
 * A piston cannot push a block into a nether portal. The piston will not activate.
 * A water or lava source block placed directly into a portal block will break the portal block with a glass-shattering sound. Using dispensers, This can be used to automate the disabling of portals.

End Portal
The End Portal is a block that will teleport the player into or out of the End dimension.

Trivia

 * The End Portal is technically the only block without a conventional texture, or entity texture; it uses the same image as the background of The End, with an additional effect added on top.
 * Despite popular belief, if a player manages to obtain a Portal block, they only need one, without a frame, to be transported to the End.
 * End Portal blocks can be destroyed in Creative Mode. This does not affect the effects of adjacent End Portal blocks.
 * If the Portal is viewed from underneath, it will be invisible, allowing you to see through the portal.
 * If TNT is detonated on an end portal, no blocks in its blast radius will be destroyed.
 * Passing the end portal while riding a minecart will not teleport you to the end, instead you will simply pass through the portal, because the portal does not check for riding entities, but only the hitting entity itself.
 * End portals don't reduce fall damage.
 * Interestingly, the selection box for an end portal block appears on the bottom of the block, even though the actual location of the texture is at the top of the block.
 * End portal blocks give off light.
 * If a player throws an entity (including items) into an end portal, the entity will be sent to the End. This does not seem to work the other way around in singleplayer, but in multiplayer entities are teleported to the default spawn.

Beetroot Crops
When you plant beetroot seeds on Farmland, you will see beetroot crops in a "seedlings" state. Beetroot crops are very similar to the carrot and potato crops, but ripen pink.

Glowing Obsidian
Glowing obsidian is a block which only generates when the Nether reactor is activated. Upon activation, the blocks that make up the reactor turn into glowing obsidian.

Properties
As the name suggests, glowing obsidian is a solid block that gives off light similar to glowstone, but slightly dimmer. It does indeed glow, but its physical properties are closer to obsidian. It takes the same amount of time to mine as obsidian. Instead of dropping itself, it drops a normal obsidian block. The block will emit red smoke particles within close proximity to it so long as it exists, similar to the particles redstone creates when activated. Although in the Nether reactor the block seems to spawn items around it, it is not the block itself that acts like this, nor will it spawn items if placed normally. The block turns into obsidian after a short amount of time. Otherwise it is simply an aesthetic block, as it has the same blast resistance as normal obsidian.

Trivia

 * If the nether reactor core is mined out while the nether reactor is active, the glowing obsidian will not turn into obsidian after the reactor deactivates. This also causes the reactor to stop spawning items and zombie pigmen.

Update Game
The Update Game block is a placeholder for nonexistent data values. It is a block with a dirt texture with "update!" written on it in green.

.name
.name is a solid-gray looking block. According to the code, the block's name is "Fire", but in-game, the block is marked as ".name". The block was a placeholder for fire, due to a problem with the fire-spreading mechanics. .name could only be obtained between and. In, fire was returned with fixed spreading mechanics, replacing .name. Its data value, however, changed to ID 255. Currently, it can only be obtained through hex editing.

Removed
These technical blocks are removed or have been replaced with another block.

Infinite Water Source
The Infinite Water Source was a block that would create infinite water, which would replicate infinitely to fill up volumes. They were added originally to allow for infinite lakes on floating maps.

Infinite Lava Source
Similar to the Infinite Water Source, the Infinite Lava Source was a block that created infinite lava which would replicate infinitely to fill up volumes.