I can confidently say that water is one of the most useful resources in Minecraft if you know how to use it properly. Water gives life; the same logic applies to a game like Minecraft. With so many game mechanics, it’s hard to keep track and know all of them, so relating to water, how does it work, and how far does it flow?
Water in Minecraft can spread precisely seven blocks horizontally from the source block, provided it’s a flat surface. If it’s spreading vertically, it travels infinitely until it hits another block. So, if you wanted to make a waterfall, you’d only need one bucket of water to make it come down.
Know that you know how far water flows; how can you apply this information to your Minecraft worlds? Can water become an infinite source somehow, even though you used a finite amount of water to create it, and in which situations can this become useful? Let’s learn more about water and its flow in the rest of this article.
Infinite water source
It’s a very well-known fact that when you place a bucket of water somewhere, if you take it out in the same spot, the water will disappear, and your beautiful pond or waterfall will disappear, so how do you go around this fact? You can’t, but you can make an infinite water source, so you never have to travel back and forth to get more water again.
To make the infinite water source, you’re going to make a pool one block deep, two blocks long, and two blocks wide. You’ll then need to get two buckets of water and place each of the buckets in the opposite corner of the pool. This will create an infinite water source, and you can keep grabbing as many buckets of water as you want without ever fearing that it’ll run out.
Is water finite in Minecraft?
Minecraft logic is something we all had to get used to. A bucket of water can save your life, blocks can float in the air, but not all of them, and water can be infinite even though it was made with finite resources. So, to answer your question, water in Minecraft is infinite as much as it is infinite. It all depends on the placement.
If you were to make a waterfall that flowed infinitely beyond the world borders and into the void, technically speaking, it would keep flowing to infinity. At the same time, if that same water touched the ground, water would stop flowing after a few blocks. Vertically falling water is infinite, and horizontally falling water isn’t.
What about the flow shape
Although water does flow exactly seven blocks, it does this in all directions. If It can, the center point from which it flows will spread out to seven blocks in a total of 4 directions. It will then flow diagonally to fill out any missing spots, so in reality, the water will flow a maximum of 15 blocks and will fill out a total of 113 blocks.
So how do we get to the 15 blocks if it flows for 7? The calculations count in the fact that the point from which it flows is zero, so in reality, It’s kind of like it will flow eight blocks. The water will gradually get the block on the 8th block and be combined with air, so it’ll be a partial water block in the end. The shape the water creates is similar to that of a diamond.
You’d be wrong if you think there’s no exact number for how much water fills the blocks. The first block fills out a whole block; the second one fills out three-fourths of a block, so 0.75; the third one will fill out anywhere from 0.625 to 0.75 of the block; the fourth will be the halfway point and fill out 0.5 up to 0.625, the fifth 0.375 to 0.5, the sixth 0.25 to 0.375 and the 7th block will fill only 0.125 to 0.25 of one block.
What about currents?
If we look at the diamond shape that formed when we let the water flow in all four directions, the water will pull you into whatever direction it’s placed, so not only does it flow seven blocks in each direction, but it also creates different currents. The question would then be, where do the blocks stuck between two directions take you?
The water takes you wherever the water flows. So, if water flows to the southeast, you’ll travel to the southeast once you get to a comfortable spot between the cardinal direction south and the cardinal direction east. You can get an idea of where the water will take you if you look at the texture of the water.
If you can’t, you likely have some shader turned on that makes the water appear more realistic than it is. I use the BSL shaders and always go back to the original texture of Minecraft when I need to use water because it’s so hard to manage the water current and even where water is if you’re using these shaders.
Taking advantage of water in Minecraft
So now that you’re armed with all this knowledge about how water flows in Minecraft, what can you do with it? For starters, you can use lava to easily create a tower that you’ll then decorate to make it your base. It’s based on the simple principle that when lava touches water, it creates cobblestone. Setting up a single block tower or even creating more sophisticated shapes, letting the lava flow from the very top, and then doing the same with water can save you some time when coming up with base designs.
Since cobblestone generates when water and lava get into contact, you can also make an infinite cobblestone generator by placing a bucket of lava one block deep and then placing a water bucket on the opposite side one block apart, two blocks wide. When you break the block separating them, cobblestone will begin generating.
