Updated 25 October 2026. Facts on this page come from minecraft.wiki, community sites named in the text and the live Artemis PvP server; sources are listed at the bottom.
How to Learn Cannoning: A Step-by-Step Path
Learn cannoning in this order: how TNT and explosions behave, then a simple shotgun cannon in Creative, then water and alignment, then tunnelers, then sand and hybrids for water walls, and finally how factions bases are defended. Each step below links the page that explains it, with its sources.
What is the learning path?
- TNT physics: the 80-tick fuse, prime motion and power 4. How TNT works.
- Explosions: how pushes add up and how blocks break. Explosion mechanics.
- Vocabulary: boosters, projectiles, chambers. Cannon terminology.
- First cannon: a shotgun. Shotgun cannons and TNT cannons explained.
- Water and alignment: water in cannons and accuracy.
- Depth: tunnelers.
- Water walls: falling blocks and hybrids.
- Factions: raiding and base building.
How should you practise?
- Build in Creative or a single-player world first; minecraft.wiki notes many Survival cannons follow premade blueprints and that Creative builds are a good way to experiment.
- Fire into a test wall made of the same blocks your target uses.
- Use F3 + B to see TNT hitboxes; see intel tools.
- Save working designs as schematics; see tools.
- Change one thing at a time: a delay, a booster count, a block.
What mistakes do new cannoners make?
- Skipping alignment: TNT that is not pushed into a wall drifts randomly when lit, so shots miss.
- Forgetting what the explosions hit: in vanilla, propellants that explode outside water can break the cannon's own blocks.
- Too many projectiles in a shotgun: minecraft.wiki says more than 4 is almost never worth it.
- Copying a design without matching the target's blocks and distance, then blaming the cannon.
Where can you get help?
Communities share schematics and answer questions; see cannoning communities and creators.
What changes on a factions server?
Servers change physics with plugins: obsidian durability, sand behaviour, custom TNT, cannon speed rules. Learn vanilla first, then read your server's rules and test in its cannon area if it has one.
Frequently asked questions
What is the easiest TNT cannon to build first?
A shotgun cannon, which minecraft.wiki calls the easiest cannon type.
Should I learn cannons in Creative?
Yes; build and test in Creative before using a design in Survival.
Sources
Every fact on this page was checked against these pages; the wording is ours.