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How to use Conduits in Minecraft

Posted: Dec 9, 2022 in Minecraft

mc head By Kevin Lott

Overview

Ever since the oh-so-popular 1.13 Update Aquatic, living in an underwater world has actually been quite realistic. Before then, there were no oceanic biomes. No actual fish swimming in the water. But now, the ocean is as interesting as the world above. Unfortunately, unless you’re running the Origins mod you’re most likely unable to breathe underwater in Minecraft. Luckily I have the perfect thing for you! Today, we’ll learn about Conduits, how they work, and how you can make your own! Let’s begin.

Conduit animation

Conduit? Like Electricity?

No. A Conduit is a beacon-like block that provides Conduit Power and attacks hostile mobs underwater. When activated, conduits give the “Conduit Power’ effect to all players in contact with rain or water, within a spherical range of 32-96 blocks. This effect enables the player to breathe underwater, gives underwater night vision, and increases mining speed by a considerable amount. That last effect is mainly used to counteract the effects of being underwater making you mine slower. Conduits also damage any hostile mobs, like drowned, guardians, and elder guardians within a range of 8 blocks of the conduit.

Crafting a Conduit

If you would like to craft a Conduit you’re going to need the following:

– Heart of the Sea
– 8 Nautilus Shells

Conduit crafting recipe

Both of these items are obtained almost exclusively through fishing, treasure hunting, and what I would consider ‘luck.’ They do not have a crafting recipe or any reliable way to ensure you attain them. My best advice is to genuinely just play around the ocean biomes more killing Drowned, searching for buried treasure, and other activities that involve the ocean. Ideally, this will give you the best chance of finding these items.

Activating the Conduit

To activate a Conduit, it needs to be placed in the center of a 3x3x3 volume of water (source blocks, flowing water, and/or waterlogged blocks) which must also be enclosed within an activation frame. The activation frame is built out of blocks in three 5×5 open squares centered on the conduit, one around each axis. This means a minimum of 16 blocks are required. Only prismarine, dark prismarine, prismarine bricks, and sea lantern blocks in the frame contribute to activation. Once activated, removing any blocks away from the conduit frame blocks deactivates the conduit.

Conduit frame

Ok, so these instructions, although exact, maybe a little difficult to follow. You can use this image for reference but to make your life easy just imagine you’re making a 5×5 box around the conduit without actually filling in the sides, only the frame.

The effective radius of the conduit is 16 blocks for every seven blocks in the frame, though the effect does not activate until the minimum of 16 blocks is included in the build. Thus, it extends to 48 at 21 blocks, 64 at 28 blocks, 80 at 35 blocks, and 96 with a complete frame of 42 blocks. A complete frame also carries the additional advantage of attacking hostile mobs within 8 blocks of the conduit every two seconds, as long as they’re in contact with water or rain.

Conclusion

That’s all there is to Conduits! Very few of us have any reason to make an underwater base, but hopefully, with the addition of the almighty conduit, we can try something new. On top of giving you underwater night vision the conduit apparently counts as a light source, giving off a light level of 15. A little redundant, but whatever. In any case, I hope this guide helped you learn a little more about the Beacon’s less attractive cousin. Have a great day!

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