Beacon

The Beacon is a block used to provide both a unique landmark, and selected buffs to all players in the vicinity. It is activated by placing it as the final block on top of a pyramid formation made up of one to four levels of mineral blocks: diamond, emerald, gold or iron, in any combination. The smallest pyramid that can be made to work with the beacon block has 1 level and consists of 9 mineral blocks.

The beacon will then emit a beam of light into the sky, and its GUI will be available for choosing and activating the desired enhancement or protection. The range of these effects varies with the pyramid size. All players within range will have the chosen effect applied every few seconds, but when players move out of range, the effect will expire within 4-8 seconds.

Usage


When the player crafts blocks of diamond, emerald, gold or iron and places them in a solid pyramid shape beneath the beacon block, it will emit a beam of light into the sky and can apply temporary buffs to the player once activated which refresh every few seconds. The more levels a pyramid has, the more effects are available to choose from.. There are currently 4 levels of pyramids. Not counting the Beacon Block, the first pyramid requires 9 blocks, the second, 34 blocks, the third, 83 blocks, and the final arrangement, 164 blocks. A Secondary Power is a power that can be added onto a primary power. The "Regeneration" power is always visible. It is possible to mix and match the blocks used in the pyramid. (Both emerald and diamond blocks may be used together, for example.)

The beam of light is visible from up to 256 blocks away, and is even visible in unloaded chunks. This provides a useful marker for short to mid-range gameplay.

The Beacon beam ends at roughly y:260.354 (260 blocks up) as of 1.4.2. However, going up to 261 causes the beam to disappear, when going back down will make it appear again.

Requirements/effects
The beacon requires a sky light level of 15 to function (though it does not have to be daytime); that is, there must be no light-blocking blocks directly above it. This does not apply to the pyramid around the beacon.

Effects will be applied to the player while within the area-of-effect of the beacon, with larger pyramids giving larger areas-of-effect. The area (As of 12w36a) is a cube with sides of length 37 blocks, 51 blocks, 67 blocks, and 81 blocks from the smallest pyramid to the largest. The area-of-effect takes the player's y-coordinate into account. The type of block used does not affect the power, radius or abilities of the Beacon block, as long as they are iron, gold, emerald or diamond blocks.

Activation
The beacon provides no powers by default. To activate it, place an iron ingot, a gold ingot, an emerald or a diamond into the GUI slot. The player can set the power by clicking on the top window: clicking on an effect will activate it. The item will be consumed and the beacon begin providing the power to nearby players when "Done" is clicked. To set a beacon to a different power, another item must be consumed.

Powers
If the pyramid is damaged so that the beacon loses power, the beacon will still remember what powers it was set for and, once the pyramid is repaired, will resume its previous function at no additional resource cost. This applies to pistons as well, making it possible for players to build beacons that can be turned on and off with a sticky piston removing or replacing a block on the pyramid. The powers will always be activated within the area-of-effect of the pyramid which grows with each level. Outside the area-of-effect, the powers will last 4-8 seconds.

Primary powers
The five primary powers are Speed, Haste, Resistance, Jump Boost, and Strength. One primary power must be selected to activate the beacon.

Secondary powers
The only purely secondary power is Regeneration. Secondary powers also provide level II variations of primary powers when selecting that primary power. When selecting the level II variant, regeneration is no longer provided by the beacon.

Other dimensions
The beacon will function partially (no light beam but it will provide powers) within the Nether as long as there are at least fourteen empty blocks above it. Pyramid size has no effect on this distance. This is possibly a glitch as breaking through the bedrock ceiling (causing the light beam to appear) and subsequently filling the hole will prevent this from working.

Okay, just a speculation, and someone please check me on this. But I think that it may just be a different kind of bedrock. Or maybe there is some sort of difference between bedrock and Nether bedrock. Another possibility is that the bedrock is updated to "allow beacon" when you load the Nether (or some other thing such as placing the beacon), but if the bedrock is broken and replaced, it does not receive the update. That was all a long way of saying that I don't think it's a glitch. (Then again, you did say possibly.)

The beacon functions normally in The End.

Range of power
The beacon forms a cube around itself, the size of which depends on the pyramid type.

Since these cubes are centered around the beacon, the radius indicates the distance from the beacon to each side.

Bugs

 * Destroying a beacon block containing resource(s) destroys the resource. (The beacon block still drops, just not its contents.)
 * Clicking on the beacon block within 4 seconds of placing it sometimes results in an empty beacon GUI.
 * In 12w40a, only the first beacon placed will have proper beam effect. Any beacons activated later will have a barely noticeable beam. This is true within a dimension of a world save (may be intentional). This is not true in 1.4.2.
 * Resource blocks placed at y=0 do not contribute to a beacon's power. Consequently, a 9-block pyramid at the lowest layer of the world will not activate a beacon.
 * When in the beacon block's GUI, selecting a block will dramatically brighten it until it is unselected.
 * Sometimes when you destroy the Beacon block it can leave its effect on the Void. This may be used to reduce Void fog in many places, as you only need 9 blocks of iron, gold,   emerald or  diamond and a Beacon block to remove it.
 * In multiplayer, a beacon's beam does not rotate.

Trivia

 * Placing a beacon in a pyramid shaped of blocks can make a resemblance to the Luxor Las Vegas hotel and casino which has the world's strongest beam and can be seen from 275 miles away.
 * The beacon light generated from the beacon block is 255 blocks tall. It is relative to the beacon block height, so several beacon block beams can stop at different heights.
 * Some blocks like signs are very visible even when seen through several beams, becoming a lot more distinguishable from the rest of the landscape.
 * The beacon light does not disappear until the chunk is unloaded, providing a great means to judge where places are.
 * Adjacent beacons may share blocks in their pyramids, allowing for fairly efficient designs that provide multiple powers.
 * The most efficient design allowing for all powers to be activated at the highest level, is a rectangular pyramid which is 4&times;5 at the top, and 10&times;11 at the bottom. This requires 244 blocks.  Since 6 separate pyramids would require 984 blocks, this is more than a 75% reduction in materials, and only half again what a single pyramid would cost.
 * A single Full-Powered Beacon requires 164 Blocks, this means it requires 1476 precious items (Diamond, Gold, Iron or Emerald) that are equivalent to 23.06 Stacks of Ores (Smelting extra cost for iron and gold).
 * The player can leave a resource in the beacon block without clicking "Done.".
 * The only blocks that can be placed in the beacon's light without deactivating the beacon are glass, glass panes, enchanting tables, cauldrons, ender portal frames, ender chests, piston, piston arms, dragon eggs, heads, cobblestone walls and other beacons. (non-opaque blocks)
 * Like other light sources with a luminosity over 12 the Beacon Block's light is powerful enough to melt ice.
 * Despite it being a resource block, Lapis Lazuli blocks will not work as part of the pyramid.
 * Despite the new texture edge as of 12w38a resembling Diamond, the block still only needs Glass, Obsidian, and of course the Nether Star.