Projectile

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A projectile is an entity that can be fired, shot, or thrown by mobs, other entities, dispensers, and players. Particles can also be summoned using commands.

List of Projectiles

Inheritance

• Entity
  • Projectile
    • Firework Rocket Entity
    • Fishing Hook
    • Llama Spit
    • Shulker Bullet
    • Abstract Arrow
      • Arrow
      • Spectral Arrow
      • Thrown Trident
    • Abstract Hurting Projectile
      • Dragon Fireball
      • Wither Skull Entity
      • Abstract Wind Charge
        • Breeze Wind Charge
        • Wind Charge
      • Fireball
        • Large Fireball
        • Small Fireball
    • Throwable Projectile
      • Throwable Item Projectile
        • Thrown Snowball
        • Thrown Egg
        • Thrown Ender Pearl
        • Thrown Eye of Ender
        • Thrown Experience Bottle
        • Thrown Potion

Table

Mobs and players equipped with bows and crossbows can use them to shoot arrows. The player can also throw various items as projectiles. Some mobs shoot projectiles directly as an attack.

Projectile	Sources	Damage	Item form
Ice Bomb‌[edu only]	Player, when used Dispenser, when shot	0	Ice Bomb
Fireball	Ghast, as an attack	6HP[note 1]	None
Small Fireball	Blaze, as an attack Dispenser, when shooting a fire charge Ominous Trial Spawner, when active	5HP	Fire Charge[note 2]
Dragon Fireball	Ender Dragon, as an attack	0	None
Launched Firework Rocket	Player, when used, and not gliding with an elytra Villager, after winning in a Raid Crossbow, when shot Dispenser, when shot	0	Firework Rocket
Llama Spit	Llama, as an attack	1HP	None
Shot Arrow	Bow or Crossbow, when shot Dispenser, when shot Ominous Trial Spawner, when active	8.5HP × 4.25[note 3]	Arrow
Spectral Arrow‌[JE only]	Bow or Crossbow, when shot Dispenser, when shot		Spectral Arrow
Tipped Arrow	Bow or Crossbow, when shot Dispenser, when shot Ominous Trial Spawner, when active		Tipped Arrow
Shulker Bullet	Shulker, as an attack	4HP	None
Thrown Bottle o' Enchanting	Player, when used Dispenser, when shot	0	Bottle o' Enchanting
Thrown Egg	Player, when used Dispenser, when shot	0	Egg
Thrown Ender Pearl	Player, when used	0[note 4]	Ender Pearl
Thrown Eye of Ender	Player, when used	0	Eye of Ender
Thrown Snowball	Player, when used Snow Golem, as an attack Dispenser, when shot	0[note 5]	Snowball
Thrown Splash Potion	Player, when used Witch, as an attack Dispenser, when shot	0	Splash Potion
Lingering Potion	Player, when used Dispenser, when shot Ominous Trial Spawner, when active	0	Lingering Potion
Thrown Trident	Player, when used Drowned, as an attack Dispenser, when shot‌[BE only]	8HP	Trident
Wind Charge	Player, when used Breeze, as an attack Dispenser, when shot Ominous Trial Spawner, when active	1HP	Wind Charge
Wither Skull	Wither, as an attack	8HP	None

Picking up

An eye of ender has a 80% chance of surviving when thrown. If it survives, it drops as an item where it stopped, which can then by picked up.

A trident thrown by a player can be picked up (in its projectile form), as long as its on the ground, doesn't have Loyalty, and the player didn't throw it while in Creative mode.

All other projectiles are either destroyed, turned into something else, or exist as a projectile which despawns after some time, and cannot be picked up or grabbed in their projectile form.

Initial conditions

This section is a work in progress.

 

Please help expand and improve it. The talk page may contain suggestions.

Shot from dispenser

All projectiles use the following calculations to get shot by a dispenser:

• To find the position, move out from the center of the block by DISTANCE and add Y OFFSET.
• Get the unit vector straight out of the dispenser.
• For each axis, add a random (64-bit) number between -0.0172275 * UNCERTAINTY and 0.0172275 * UNCERTAINTY, using a triangular distribution.
• To find the velocity, scale by POWER.

Throwable projectiles (except eye of ender)

The direction and velocity of throwable projectiles is slightly randomized and affected by the player's movement. More specifically, the game does these calculations in order:

• Get the facing vector of the player, with length 1. For the pitch, this uses the player's pitch plus PITCH (where positive PITCH makes the vector point lower).
• For each axis, add a random (64 bit) number between -0.0172275 and 0.0172275, using a triangular distribution.
• Scale the velocity by POWER.
• Add the player's velocity. If the player is on the ground, the Y component is unaffected.

The result is a shooting speed of around POWER towards where the player is facing, depending on randomness and the player's velocity.

Motion

Kind	Ticking order	Gravity[note 1] (m/tick/tick)	Drag (vertical)	Drag (horizontal)	Terminal velocity (m/tick)[note 2]	Terminal velocity (m/s)	Maximum horizontal travel distance (m/(m/s))[note 3]
Thrown eggs, snowballs, and ender pearls	Acceleration, Drag, Position[note 4]	-0.03 (double)	0.99 (float)	0.99 (float)	2.97	59.4	99
Thrown potions		-0.05 (double)			4.95	99.0
Thrown bottles o' enchanting		-0.07 (double)			6.93	138.6
Fireballs, small fireballs, wither skulls, and dragon fireballs	Acceleration, Drag, Position	0.10 (double)[note 1]	0.95 (float)		1.90	38.0	19
Dangerous wither skulls		0.10 (double)[note 1]	0.73 (float)		0.2703703	5.407407	2.703703
Wind charges		0.10 (double)[note 1]	N/A[note 5]		∞	∞	∞
Llama Spit	Position, Drag, Acceleration	-0.06 (double)	0.99 (float)		6.00	120.0	100
Fired arrows, and thrown tridents		-0.05 (double)	0.99 (float)		5.00	100.0	100

Collision

Projectiles perform a raycast from their current position to their next position and check for blocks and entities that would get hit.

Entity collision

This section is a work in progress.

 

Please help expand and improve it. The talk page may contain suggestions.

Throwable projectiles

Throwable projectiles (Ender pearl, snowball, egg, potion, experience bottle, eye of ender) treat entities as being 0.6 blocks larger than they actually are in every axis (0.3 in every direction). They collide with all living entities, all minecart types, boats, end crystals, falling blocks, and tnt.

To calculate the collision, the game uses the following process:

• Make a box from the current tick's position to next tick's position
• Inflate it by 1 in every direction
• Get every entity in the box
• For each entity:
  • Inflate it by 0.3 in every direction
  • Check if it intersects the line connecting the current position and the next position
  • Keep the intersection if it's the closest to the projectile so far, otherwise throw it out

Abstract arrows and abstract hurting projectiles

Abstract arrows (Arrow, tipped arrow, spectral arrow, trident) and abstract hurting projectiles (Fireball, dragon fireball, wind charge, wither skull, dangerous wither skull) use a raycast to calculate entity collisions, and don't inflate entities like ThrowableProjectiles.^[verify]

Block collisions

All blocks collisions are checked using a raycast from the projectile's current position to its next position, which hits the block's collision box, with a few special cases:

• The top of scaffolding is only hit if the projectile begins its movement below it, because that collision box only exists for entities that are above it.
• Walls, fences, moving pistons, the back of piston arms, and other blocks whose collision box extends beyond a full cube are only seen by the projectile if the raycast intersects the full cube space where the block is actually located.
• End portal blocks and exit portal blocks have no hard hitbox, so projectiles will only enter if they tick inside the portal blocks.

Ender pearl specific block collisions

• If a pearl hits a Nether portal, it is sent to the nether. If the pearl would have hit other blocks after the portal, that collision position is used as the position where the pearl entered the portal. Otherwise, the final position it would've ended at is used. See Nether portal for more details on how entities get placed after going through portals.
• If a pearl hits an End gateway, it teleports the player as if the player had gone into the gateway. The pearl itself is deleted.

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Entity	Identifier	Translation key
Fireball	fireball	entity.minecraft.fireball
Small Fireball	small_fireball	entity.minecraft.small_fireball
Dragon Fireball	dragon_fireball	entity.minecraft.dragon_fireball
Firework Rocket	firework_rocket	entity.minecraft.firework_rocket
Llama Spit	llama_spit	entity.minecraft.llama_spit
Arrow	arrow	entity.minecraft.arrow
Spectral Arrow	spectral_arrow	entity.minecraft.spectral_arrow
Shulker Bullet	shulker_bullet	entity.minecraft.shulker_bullet
Thrown Bottle o' Enchanting	experience_bottle	entity.minecraft.experience_bottle
Thrown Egg	egg	entity.minecraft.egg
Thrown Ender Pearl	ender_pearl	entity.minecraft.ender_pearl
Eye of Ender	eye_of_ender	entity.minecraft.eye_of_ender
Snowball	snowball	entity.minecraft.snowball
Splash Potion	splash_potion	entity.minecraft.splash_potion
Lingering Potion	lingering_potion	entity.minecraft.lingering_potion
Trident	trident	entity.minecraft.trident
Wind Charge	wind_charge	entity.minecraft.wind_charge
Wind Charge	breeze_wind_charge	entity.minecraft.breeze_wind_charge
Wither Skull	wither_skull	entity.minecraft.wither_skull

Bedrock Edition:

Entity	Identifier	Numeric ID	Translation key
Ice Bomb	ice_bomb	106	entity.ice_bomb.name
Fireball	large_fireball	85	entity.large_fireball.name
Small Fireball	small_fireball	94	entity.small_fireball.name
Dragon Fireball	dragon_fireball	79	entity.dragon_fireball.name
Firework Rocket	fireworks_rocket	79	entity.fireworks_rocket.name
Llama Spit	llama_spit	102	entity.llama_spit.name
Arrow	arrow	80	entity.arrow.name
Shulker Bullet	shulker_bullet	76	entity.shulker_bullet.name
Bottle o' Enchanting	xp_bottle	68	entity.xp_bottle.name
Egg	egg	82	entity.egg.name
Ender Pearl	ender_pearl	87	entity.ender_pearl.name
Eye of Ender	eye_of_ender_signal	70	entity.eye_of_ender_signal.name
Snowball	snowball	81	entity.snowball.name
Splash Potion	splash_potion	86	entity.splash_potion.name
Lingering Potion	lingering_potion	101	entity.lingering_potion.name
Trident	thrown_trident	73	entity.thrown_trident.name
Wind Charge	wind_charge_projectile	143	entity.wind_charge_projectile.name
Wind Charge	breeze_wind_charge_projectile	141	entity.breeze_wind_charge_projectile.name
Wither Skull	wither_skull	89	entity.wither_skull.name
Wither Skull	wither_skull_dangerous	91	entity.wither_skull_dangerous.name

History

Issues

Issues relating to "Projectile" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.

See also

• Projectile Protection - an enchantment that reduces damage received from projectiles.

References

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