Excavators

This is the result of another case of “couldn’t find it elsewhere, so I made it”

Speaking of making stuff, here’s how you can make the excavator

So, what does it do?

Have you ever needed to clear out large portions of land to fit in a building? Excavators will ‘excavate’ a specific area of your choice. And for me, the last straw was when I found an underground schematic that had me mine out a whole chunk. I said nope, and thus Excavators was born.

But it’s not only useful for clearing terrain. It can also clear lava and water and other fluids.

How are drops handled?

They drop in-world items of whatever they would normally if mined by a player. I imagine it wouldn’t be easy to fit an entire mountain in a single machine.

What are its Limitations?

For starters, it requires a pickaxe to mine stuff with. The pickaxe tier you give it will determine the rate of excavation. Be mindful though, if your pickaxe can’t mine a block in the path of the excavator, then the excavator will pause when it reaches it until the block is broken, moved, whatever it takes.

Lastly, one more limitation is its capacity for range. It may only mine (at a time) a 64x64x64 cube. This is a fixed cap.

How do I control it?

The control panel is its own inventory system. It doesn’t matter what item you use for area selection; all it looks at is the stack count. So, if you want a 1x2x3 area mined out, grab any items and stack them up as 1, 2, and 3.

On the first row, the first slot is area length, second slot is area height, and third slot is area width. It will always mine forward (that’s length, slot 1) and work its way to the left (that’s width, slot 3) and then move down a layer (that’s height, slot 2). It stops automatically when the pickaxe needs repairing or can’t mine something such as bedrock or something the pickaxe can’t handle. It will resume when repaired/unblocked.

Here’s what a 6x3x10 area selection looks like inside the excavator
In this example, I used sticks, but you can use any item you wish. Even unstackables. They don’t get destroyed either.

Clearing any of the first 3 slots will reset its progress. You can make area adjustments while its moving, if you’re quick enough. The pickaxe always goes in the smack center of the panel. Second row, second slot. Your pickaxe will never be destroyed, only brought down to 1 use left.

But if you just want it to pause, take the pickaxe out. It will keep progress until a pickaxe is returned.

Pickaxe enchantments support

Partialy, yes. Unbreaking, up to 10 levels, and mending. Mending pickaxes will never lose durability. And unbreaking works as intended in vanilla.

Demonstration

See my other mods