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.
Ender Pearl Cannons and 360 Pearl Cannons
An ender pearl cannon uses explosions to fire an ender pearl to an exact spot, so the player teleports there: fast, long-distance travel. A 360 degree pearl cannon can hit within a few blocks of any target in range, in any direction, by choosing how many explosions go off on each side of the pearl.
What are the parts of a pearl cannon?
minecraft.wiki's 360 pearl cannon tutorial lists five parts:
- An aligner that puts the pearl in an exact, repeatable position.
- A source of explosions whose count can be controlled: usually TNT dupers, but TNT dispensers, ghast fireballs and wind charges are used too.
- A basket that places the TNT so explosions happen in reliable spots near the pearl.
- A ROM (read-only memory) that stores the explosion counts for many destinations.
- A user interface to pick a destination.
How can one cannon aim in every direction?
Every explosion gives an entity the same push, added to its current velocity. So pushes behave like vectors: two explosion spots give two directions, more explosions in a spot scale that push, and explosions on the opposite side push the other way. With two explosion positions (and their opposites) a cannon can reach any point on the flat X-Z plane; reaching any point in 3D would need three. The tutorial solves for the explosion counts with linear algebra, then tries the four round-up and round-down combinations of the two counts to get whole TNT. Push basics: explosion mechanics.
What is a pearl cannon basket?
- Basic 4-corner basket: TNT goes into the corners around the pearl; any one shot uses two corners, so only one quarter of the world is reachable per pair. The TNT can sit no closer than 0.79 blocks from the pearl.
- Differential basket: separates one batch of TNT so it can be split in any ratio between two corners, using all the TNT.
- Circle basket: the widest range of the three, per the tutorial's comparison.
Lava is commonly used to stop the explosions from breaking the basket; water also works but changes the pearl's movement and cannot be used in the Nether.
Who built the first 360 pearl cannons?
The tutorial credits the first 360 cannon to Rechenmaschine and describes '360 FTL', the first 360 pearl cannon to use TNT duping, designed in March 2019 by the Monkeys Discord community and released on YouTube on 24 March 2019.
Can you use pearl cannons on servers?
Large pearl cannons usually rely on TNT duplication, which many servers ban; see TNT duplication. Pearls also have a 1-second cooldown since 1.9; see ender pearls. Chunk loading matters too: chunk loaders. Pearl basics: ender pearls.
Frequently asked questions
What is a 360 pearl cannon?
A pearl cannon that can send an ender pearl, and so a player, to within a few blocks of any target in range, in any direction.
Why do pearl cannons use lava?
To stop the explosions from breaking the cannon; water also works but changes the pearl's path.
Sources
Every fact on this page was checked against these pages; the wording is ours.