Minecraft Forums

Air travel has always been the second most contentious issue in Minecraft modding and suggestions, some perceiving it as a fine thing to add, and others considering it to be overpowered. Even now, Elytra are also notable for this, some considering it a fine addition, and others considering it to trivialize all other means of travel. Typically, poorly-made mods and suggestions essentially involved adding some way to fly like in creative, while more serious attempts typically involved mounts or vehicles.

This suggestion in particular starts with the following premise: Elytra are found very late and as such it's very likely to not see much in the way of exploration uses, so a second way to fly available earlier on can be reasonably made. This execution considers the following: Most transport methods in-game are reliable and fully controllable, so the way earlier flight is balanced is via making it less so. For this, the most intuitive way to justify this was through a hot air balloon, which trades reliability for reasonable speeds as well as bypassing terrain.

Wind mechanics changes:

Since wind currently only blows westward, this would effectively make ballooning an undesirable means of transport, as it would be a purely one-way transport. As such, a change in how wind works is needed:
Rather than wind being constant, it can blow in every cardinal direction, changing direction at dawn and dusk. The current direction of wind is reflected by the movement of clouds, which always move in the direction of the wind. Another way to tell the direction of wind is that it moves particles, including campfire smoke.

In the Nether, there's no wind, and in the End, there's a constant wind moving towards (0, 0), making balloons incapable of reaching the Outer End, but making them useful at returning to the central island if you're lost. The Wind in the End is twice as strong as normal.

Hot Air Balloon:

It's crafted in the following way, taking the following grid as reference for the crafting table:

123

456

789

Slots 2, 4 and 6 are filled with Wool, 1, and 3 have Leather.

5 has Netherrack, which is used as a "burner". 8 has a Boat. Finally, 7 and 9 have Iron Bars, intended to be used as suspension.

The Hot Air Balloon works as follows:

• Upon placing the balloon and right-clicking to get in, the Netherrack block over the player must be set alight with either Flint and Steel, or a Fire Charge. This makes the balloon climb to a maximum altitude of 140 blocks. Punching the Netherrack extinguishes the fire, causing the balloon to slowly fall.
• The balloon can be tethered by right-clicking it with a Lead, as if it were a passive mob, keeping it in place.
• Right-clicking it with a Cobblestone adds it to the gondole, lowering it's maximum altitude by 10 blocks each, up to a maximum of 6 blocks. In flight, they can be punched to drop them. This hurts entities it happens to hit, and places a cobblestone block.
• The balloon cannot fly in the Nether, as the difference in temperature between the environment and the envelope isn't enough to overcome it's own weight.
• Wind pushes the Balloon at higher speeds, with Y=140 equaling 5 m/s, and every 10 blocks lower it flies slows it down by 0.35 m/s. In the End, altitude doesn't affect wind.

It has a self-propelled variant, which repurposes technology previously used in minecarts with furnaces: The dirigible.

The dirigible is crafted in the following way:

Slot 6 has the Hot Air Balloon.

Slots 2, 3, 5 are filled with Wool, and 4 uses Leather, all reflecting the expansion of the balloon envelope into one more typical of a blimp.

Slot 8 has a Block of Iron, intended to strengthen the gondole and allowing it to accomodate for a furnace.

Slot 7 contains a furnace, which acts as the "engine". Slot 6 has a Copper Ingot, intended to serve as a propeller.

Slots 1 and 4 have, respectively, a Stick and Paper, representing fins.

The Dirigible's main change is that it uses a furnace to propel itself, at slightly more than the speed a Balloon has when carried, as well as fins to steer itself:

• A and D are used to steer left and right, respectively. The Player's camera has no influence in the Dirigible's bearing, so you can look to the sides and even behind yourself.
• The engine, which is located behind the Player, must be fed with fuel to work. It can only use Coal or Charcoal as fuel, which lasts for the same amount of time as in a Minecart with Furnace, and it's possible to add more pieces while it's already working.
• As long as it's turned on, the engine provides an extra 4 m/s of speed in the direction the Dirigible is facing, allowing it to fly with the wind at up to 9 m/s (Faster than skeleton horse, but the fastest possible horse is still faster) at it's highest altitude, or fly against the wind with a maximum speed of 1.1 m/s (Note that it's slower than sneaking) at the lowest altitude, as well as allowing it to move perpendicularly to the wind, and as such giving it more freedom of movement than the balloon while still being influenced by the wind.

Dirigibles can be tethered, mostly useful at limiting their movement (Say, to use them in lieu of scaffolding for building purposes)

Instead of using cobblestone ballast, it uses water, which is applied by right-clicking it with Water Buckets, emptying it and weighting the Dirigible down enough to descend 10 blocks, up to a maximum of 6 buckets (It's minimum flight altitude is still 80). The amount of water in the Dirigible is seen in a bar not unlike a Horse's Stamina Bar. Pressing SPACE slowly releases the water ballast, at a rate of 10 mB (1,000 mB= 1 Bucket, as commonly defined in mods) per tick, and as such releasing 0.2 buckets' worth of water per second. While the altitude envelope in the water ballast and cobble ballast methods is the same, the usage of water does allow for much more precise altitude changes.

Miscellaneous Balloon features:

1: Envelope color depends on the color of the wool used to craft the balloon.

2: Banners can be applied to balloons to sahow the banner's pattern on the envelope.

this sounds fun! i would be intrigued to try the hot air balloons for a flight between bases.

Wonderful suggestion! I really love the idea of early/mid game air travel, and how much fun it could be. If I had to suggest anything, it'd be to detail how multiple players could ride in the same balloon, and possibly making custom balloon designs like on banners.

It was initially envisioned as a single-player vehicle, but then again, the original boat used as gondole had two seats. Plus, I can see airships inheriting it and it being fun for players (For starters, I could see a minigame in which two-player airships must fight each other).

As for balloon designs, that's a good idea. I've made banners be able to be applied to them.

Quote from AMPPL50»

Wind mechanics changes:

Since wind currently only blows westward, this would effectively make ballooning an undesirable means of transport, as it would be a purely one-way transport. As such, a change in how wind works is needed:
Rather than wind being constant, it can blow in every cardinal direction, changing direction at dawn and dusk. The current direction of wind is reflected by the movement of clouds, which always move in the direction of the wind. Another way to tell the direction of wind is that it moves particles, including campfire smoke.

In the Nether, there's no wind, and in the End, there's a constant wind moving towards (0, 0), making balloons incapable of reaching the Outer End, but making them useful at returning to the central island if you're lost. The Wind in the End is twice as strong as normal.

I would also change the winds direction as soon as the weather changes. With the chance of lightning striking the balloon.

There could also be an achievement for that:

For the end dimension, i don't think there should be wind. You are so close to the Elytra at that point,

you probably wouldn't travel back from an end city with the balloon.

Quote from eiche_brutal»

I would also change the winds direction as soon as the weather changes. With the chance of lightning striking the balloon.

There could also be an achievement for that:

"Mayday, MAYDAY!!"

For the end dimension, i don't think there should be wind. You are so close to the Elytra at that point,

you probably wouldn't travel back from an end city with the balloon.

Changing wind according to weather might make the balloons too unreliable, as at least by changing wind at dusk and dawn, you can predict how long you'll travel in your desired direction.

As for End Wind, it's purpose is twofold:

1: It prevents Dirigibles from simply bypassing the Ender Dragon fight and generally trivializing Outer End navigation.

2: Providing Balloons an use in the End while taking 1 into account by making them useful if you're lost and want to return home, as the End is much more open, barren and featureless (And as such easier to get lost in) than the Nether, on top of being even less hospitable.