Falling Sand
Sand
Gravel| Entity ID | 21 |
|---|
Falling Sand is the entity a block of sand or gravel becomes while it falls.
Spawning
Sand and gravel fall 3 ticks after they are placed, or after a block beside them changes, if the block below is air, water, lava or fire. The block becomes a falling sand entity in the same space.
Where a chunk within 32 blocks is not loaded, the block moves straight down to where it would land instead, and no entity is made. A block that falls while a chunk is being populated moves the same way.
Behaviour
Falling sand moves straight down. Each tick it gains 0.04 blocks a tick of downward speed, then loses 2% of its speed, so it approaches 2 blocks a tick. Water does not slow it, and fire and lava do not harm it.
It falls through players and mobs, and lands as a block even in a space one of them stands in.
On landing, it becomes the block again in the space it stopped in. If that space already holds a block, such as a torch it fell onto or a slab it landed on, it drops as an item instead. Water, lava, fire and snow layers do not count as blocks, and are replaced.
A block still falling after 100 ticks, about 117 blocks down, drops as an item where it is.
The item is always the block itself. Gravel dropped this way never gives flint.
Timed piston movements can preserve the original block as well as the falling entity; see Sand and Gravel Duplication.
Data values
- Entity network ID:
21
The entity saves the id of the block it carries as Tile. The game names it
FallingSand whichever block it carries.