Redstone Automation Blocks and New Modules — Quark

Documentation Index

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Quark’s Automation category enhances Minecraft’s redstone and item-transport systems with a focused set of blocks and mechanics. Whether you’re building sorting systems, animal farms, tricky piston contraptions, or elaborate redstone logic, these modules give you precise new tools while staying true to vanilla design. Every module is independently toggleable via the Q menu.

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Item Transport

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Chute

The Chute is a wooden block that acts as a one-slot pass-through container. It accepts items inserted from any side and ejects them as item entities downward into the space below. It can be disabled by an adjacent redstone signal, and it integrates natively with the Grate block and Quark’s Pipes addon. Key behaviours:

• Items are ejected as a stationary entity (deltaMovement = 0,0,0) at the lower half of the Chute block.
• The Chute will not drop items if the space below is occupied by a solid collision shape.
• It passes items directly into a Pipe block below (if Quark’s Oddities addon is active).
• Items pass freely through a Grate placed beneath a Chute.

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Mob Farming & Breeding

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Feeding Trough

The Feeding Trough is a wooden block that automatically breeds nearby animals without requiring a player to hold food. It stores up to a dispenser’s worth of items, and animals within range will pathfind to it, eat, and enter love mode on their own. How it works: The trough uses a fake player technique: when an animal’s AI scans for food, Quark injects a fake player positioned near the trough that holds the correct breeding item. The animal then pathfinds toward the trough as if a real player were luring it. The trough’s inventory UI matches the Dispenser layout (3×3 grid). Right-click to open and fill it with breeding items appropriate for the animals you want to breed.

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Redstone Components

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Redstone Randomizer

The Redstone Randomizer is a flat, comparator-shaped block that randomly routes an incoming redstone signal to either its left or right output — never both, never neither. When it receives a signal from the front it powers one side at strength 15; when the signal drops it powers off. Signal routing:

• Input: block directly in front of the randomizer’s FACING direction
• Output: either the left or the right side of the block (chosen randomly when the input goes high)
• Output strength: always 15 (or 0 when off)

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Ender Watcher

The Ender Watcher is a block that emits a redstone signal proportional to how directly a player is looking at it. The closer to the exact centre of the face a player’s crosshair is, the stronger the output (0–15). Rules:

• Detects all players within an 80-block range.
• Requires line-of-sight between the player and the block (ray-traced up to 64 blocks).
• Players wearing a carved pumpkin (or any item tagged as an Enderman mask) are ignored — the block does not react to them.
• Outputs redstone strength 0 when not watched; up to 15 when a player stares at its dead centre.
• Completing a “stare at dead centre” (output = 15) triggers a hidden advancement.

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Metal Buttons

Two new button variants that don’t exist in vanilla: Both buttons can be individually toggled in the config (enableIron, enableGold).

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Obsidian Pressure Plate

A pressure plate made from obsidian that activates only when a player steps on it. Mobs, items, and other entities are ignored entirely. This makes it ideal for:

• Player-only doors (mobs cannot open them by walking across)
• Entry sensors in adventure maps that only trigger for the player
• Traps that appear safe to mobs but activate for players

The plate requires a pickaxe and has obsidian-level blast resistance (1200), so it cannot be blown up.

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Piston Mechanics

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Pistons Move Tile Entities

When this module is enabled, pistons can push and pull blocks that have block entities (tile entities) — chests, furnaces, hoppers, dispensers, and so on. The block entity’s data (inventory, progress, etc.) is preserved through the move. Key details:

• Double chests optionally move together as a unit (configurable via enableChestsMovingTogether).
• Dispensers and droppers receive a one-tick delayed update after being moved so their internals settle correctly.
• A configurable blacklist prevents specific blocks from being moved (defaults include spawners, trial spawners, vaults, ender chests, enchanting tables, and some mod-specific blocks).
• A namespace blacklist allows blocking entire mods’ blocks from being pushed.
• Blocks that are playing music (jukeboxes with a record) cannot be moved until the record is removed.

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Chains Connect Blocks

When a chain block is positioned along an axis between two blocks, a sticky piston pushing one of those blocks will pull the other block along — the chain acts as an indirect connector along its axis. Connection rules:

• A chain oriented on the Y-axis connects blocks above and below it.
• A chain oriented on the X-axis connects blocks to the left and right.
• A chain oriented on the Z-axis connects blocks in front and behind.
• Two chains can only connect through each other if they share the same axis.
• A chain does not connect blocks that are on the same coordinate as itself along its axis (e.g., a Y-axis chain won’t connect blocks at the same Y level).

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Physics & World Interaction

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Gravisand

Gravisand is a sand-textured block that can fall both downward and upward when triggered by a redstone signal. Without any redstone signal it sits in place like a normal block. When a neighbouring redstone signal is detected, a 2-tick scheduled tick is triggered: the block first attempts to fall downward (like normal sand); only if the space below is blocked does it instead launch upward (if that space is free). After moving, neighbouring gravisand blocks are also scheduled — so a column of gravisand can chain-fall or chain-launch. Behaviour:

• Placed like a normal block; visually matches sand.
• Only moves when a neighbour redstone signal is present; no signal means no movement.
• Fall direction priority: DOWN first, UP only if DOWN is blocked.
• After moving, all six neighbouring gravisand blocks are also scheduled for the same check.
• Emits a comparator output signal of 15 at all times.
• Registers as a falling-block entity (Gravisand) while in motion.

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Iron Rod

The Iron Rod is a directional, rod-shaped block (visually similar to an End Rod but made of iron) that acts as a collateral mover for pistons. When a piston pushes an iron rod along its facing axis, the rod also pushes the block directly in front of it — extending the push chain by one extra block beyond the normal piston range. Crafting note: By default the recipe requires post-End progression materials. Set usePreEndRecipe = true in the config to unlock an earlier recipe. Connection rules:

• The iron rod only acts as a collateral mover when pushed along its FACING direction.
• Blocks tagged #quark:iron_rod_immune are not pushed by the rod, breaking the chain at that point.
• The rod has a CONNECTED block-state property used for visual rendering.

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Dispenser Enhancements

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Dispensers Place Blocks

When this module is active, dispensers gain the ability to place any block item in their inventory directly into the world in front of them — not just the handful of blocks that vanilla dispensers support. Details:

• Applies to all blocks not in the configurable blacklist (defaults: water, lava, fire).
• Stairs are placed facing toward the dispenser (rotated correctly).
• Slabs are placed against the floor (using an UP direction context) rather than floating mid-air.
• If a block already has a custom dispense behaviour (e.g., shulker boxes), the module attempts to wrap that behaviour and falls back to placing the block only if the original behaviour fails.
• Set wrapExistingBehaviors = false to prevent wrapping optional existing behaviours.