A contraption is a multi-block structure that Create treats as a single moving entity. When a mover block — a piston, bearing, pulley, or gantry carriage — receives rotation, it assembles all physically connected blocks into a contraption, lifts them out of the world, and carries them as one rigid body. The blocks retain their block states, tile entity data, and inventories throughout the journey and are placed back into the world when the contraption disassembles. Understanding how contraptions are assembled, what rules govern which blocks can be collected, and how movement speed is controlled will save you from common pitfalls and let you build everything from simple sliding doors to fully automated mining rigs.Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/Creators-of-Create/Create/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
Choosing a Mover
Different mover types suit different motion patterns. Each has distinct placement requirements and a configurable maximum range.Mechanical Piston
Produces linear motion along one axis. Extension Poles placed behind the piston head extend its maximum reach up to
maxPistonPoles = 64 poles. The piston head pushes the payload structure on its front face; the payload must touch the head directly or through poles.Mechanical Bearing
Produces rotational motion around the shaft axis. Ideal for windmills, spinning displays, rotating doors, and clock hands. The bearing assembles all blocks touching its front face into a spinning contraption.
Rope Pulley
Lifts and lowers a structure vertically by extending a rope of up to
maxRopeLength = 384 blocks. Useful for elevators and descending mining platforms.Gantry Carriage
Slides a contraption along a Gantry Shaft track, enabling precise linear travel over long distances. Multiple carriages can be stacked on perpendicular axes for two-axis or three-axis movement.
Elevator
A dedicated vertical transport system for players and items. Place Elevator Pulley blocks at the top and bottom of the shaft and right-click to assemble. The elevator car rises and descends when rotation is applied.
Building Rules
Physical connectivity
Every block you want a contraption to carry must be physically connected (touching face-to-face) to the mover’s collection point — the piston head, the bearing’s front face, the pulley’s bottom, or the carriage’s attachment face. A block that is only diagonally adjacent or separated by a gap will not be collected.Chassis Blocks
A Chassis Block expands the collection area around itself by harvesting all blocks within a configurable range on its flat faces. The maximum range per chassis ismaxChassisRange = 16 blocks. Chassis blocks are essential for wide, flat structures like mining platforms or large doors where you need to collect blocks across a broad surface without individually connecting each one to the mover.
Super Glue
Super Glue bonds two adjacent blocks together so they move as one unit regardless of whether they are directly connected to the mover. Apply it by right-clicking the shared face between two blocks. Useful for attaching decorative elements, storage blocks, or actors that would otherwise not be part of the connected graph.Maximum block count
A single contraption can contain at most 2 048 blocks (maxBlocksMoved config, default 2048). Attempting to assemble a larger structure will show an assembly error. Split large builds into multiple smaller contraptions, or raise the config limit if your server hardware allows it.
Blocks with open inventories — Chests, Barrels, Vaults — carry their entire contents when assembled into a contraption. Their items travel with the structure and are restored to the block when it disassembles. Plan your storage placement so items end up accessible after disassembly.
Starting and Stopping Movement
A mover only assembles and moves when it receives rotational input from the kinetic network. The speed of movement maps directly to RPM:- Mechanical Piston — higher RPM extends and retracts faster.
- Rope Pulley — higher RPM raises or lowers faster.
- Gantry Carriage — higher RPM travels along the shaft faster.
- Mechanical Bearing — higher RPM increases angular velocity (degrees per second).
Blocks That Cannot Move
Some blocks are flagged as unmovable by default and will cause assembly to fail if included in a structure:| Block | Default setting |
|---|---|
| Obsidian | UNMOVABLE |
| Reinforced Deepslate | UNMOVABLE |
| Mob Spawners | NO_PICKUP (can be moved by a contraption, but if on a minecart contraption the cart cannot be picked up) |
| Budding Amethyst | NO_PICKUP |
contraptions.movableObsidian, contraptions.movableReinforcedDeepslate, etc. using the ContraptionMovementSetting enum values (UNMOVABLE, NO_PICKUP, or MOVABLE).
Assembling a Simple Piston Contraption
Place the Mechanical Piston
Place the Mechanical Piston with its head facing the direction you want the payload to travel. The head is the piston tip; the back is where Extension Poles and the shaft connect.
Add Extension Poles (optional)
Stack Piston Extension Pole blocks behind the piston (on the shaft side) to increase how far it can extend. Each pole adds one block of travel range, up to the
maxPistonPoles = 64 limit.Build the payload structure
Construct the blocks you want to move directly against the piston head. Every block must be physically connected in a chain back to the head. Use Chassis Blocks to collect wide flat structures or Super Glue to attach disconnected pieces.
Connect rotation
Run a shaft or belt from your kinetic network to the back of the piston. The piston will extend while rotation is applied in one direction and retract when it reverses. Use a Gearbox or reversed motor to control direction.
Configuration Reference
| Config key | Default | Description |
|---|---|---|
maxBlocksMoved | 2048 | Maximum blocks in a single contraption |
maxPistonPoles | 64 | Maximum Extension Poles behind a Mechanical Piston |
maxRopeLength | 384 | Maximum rope length for a Rope Pulley |
maxChassisRange | 16 | Maximum collection radius per Chassis Block |