Torch Launcher

Torch Launcher

A launcher that fires lit torches. A torch that hits a block places itself there, standing or on the wall. A torch that hits a mob sets it on fire. Light a cave, a ravine or a dark forest without walking there.

The idea comes from iChun’s Torched for Minecraft 1.6 and 1.7, which was never ported. This is a fresh rebuild for current Minecraft and shares no code with the original.

Features

Fires torches from your inventory: the off-hand first, then the hotbar, then the rest of the inventory. Hold a kind of torch in your off-hand to pick it.

Torches stay where they land.

Hits on mobs: 1 damage, and the mob burns for 4 seconds. The torch drops.

Four kinds of ammo:

While you hold a launcher, each torch’s tooltip says what it does when fired.

Enchantments: Multishot fires 3 torches at once, Quick Charge shortens the cooldown, Piercing lets a torch pass through mobs.

A 3D model that shows the next torch it will fire, lying in its barrel. It recoils when it fires, and with a shader pack, a loaded launcher lights up its surroundings like the torch in it.

Crafting

The launcher has 250 durability and fires every half second.

Dependencies

Required:

• YetAnotherConfigLib (YACL), on every loader: 3.8.2 or later for 1.21.1, 3.9.7 or later for 26.1 and 26.3.
• Fabric API on Fabric and Quilt.

Optional: Mod Menu on Fabric and Quilt, to open the config screen from the mod list.

Quilt on 26.1 and 26.3: for now, clients need Quilt Loader 0.31.0 (a beta). YACL crashes the current stable release, 0.30.1, at startup. 1.21.1 runs on the stable release.

Config

Open the settings with /torch_launcher config, from Mod Menu on Fabric and Quilt, or from the Config button in NeoForge’s mod list.

Torches from other mods

Datapacks and modpacks can add any torch item as ammo. Add the item to the tag #torch_launcher:launcher_ammo, and describe it in a file in data/<namespace>/torch_launcher/ammo/:

// data/<namespace>/torch_launcher/ammo/soul_torch.json
{
  "item": "minecraft:soul_torch",
  "on_hit": {                       // optional
    "fire_ticks": 80,               // default 80
    "fire_type": "soul"             // "normal" (default), "soul" or "none"
  },
  "trail_particle": "minecraft:soul_fire_flame"   // optional
}

The torch places whatever block its item places, just as when a player uses it. Files for items that don’t exist are skipped.