Better Orbital Strike Cannon

Launch a wide-spreading nuke, a focused stab shot, or an ender pearl with a fishing rod or commands. The nuke and stab shots are made to match the real redstone Orbital Strike Cannon (MK4) as closely as possible, without having to build the entire cannon yourself.

The nuke spreads TNT out in rings across a large area, while the stab concentrates its TNT into a narrow, downward shot. The ender pearl shot uses 20 TNT to launch your pearl downward toward the target. Pick your target, cast the rod, and watch it go.

Commands

Use /orbital nuke, /orbital stab, or /orbital enderpearl with one of these targeting options:

• playerposition — targets where you ran the command. You can move afterward without changing the target.
• playerposition <player> — targets another player’s location when you run the command. Replace <player> with their Minecraft name.
• 100, -250 — targets specific X/Z coordinates. Replace these numbers with your own.
• aim — targets where you’re looking when you cast, rather than where you were looking when you got the rod.

For example, /orbital nuke aim gives you a nuke rod that fires at the spot you’re looking at.

Cast the rod to fire—there’s no need to reel it back in.

Launch without a rod

You can also fire a shot directly with a command:

• /orbital launch nuke playerposition
• /orbital launch nuke 100, -250
• /orbital launch stab playerposition
• /orbital launch stab 100, -250
• /orbital launch enderpearl playerposition
• /orbital launch enderpearl 100, -250

These launch the shot without giving you a fishing rod. You can also use playerposition <player> with any of them.

Customize your shots

Want a bigger spread? Add a ring count to any nuke command:

• /orbital nuke aim 32
• /orbital nuke playerposition 32
• /orbital nuke 100, -250 32
• /orbital launch nuke playerposition 32

You can choose between 1 and 128 rings. More rings make the nuke spread farther out. This only changes the nuke—the stab and ender pearl shots stay the same.

The default is 10 rings. Set your preferred amount with /orbital settings defaultrings 10. If you leave the ring count out of a nuke command, it uses your saved default.

Rod settings

Each rod can fire once, including in Creative. You can choose what happens to it afterward:

• /orbital settings durability break — the rod has one durability remaining and breaks when used.
• /orbital settings durability full — the rod stays at full durability after firing and can be used for normal fishing, but cannot launch another strike.

This setting applies to new rods you get, so changing it won’t affect rods already in your inventory.

TNT settings

Use /orbital settings tntspawnhight 208 to set the height where TNT spawns. The default is Y=208. New rods and direct launches use your saved height; rods already in your inventory keep their original height.

When you change a setting, only you see the confirmation in chat. Firing a shot doesn’t send a chat message.

On Paper and Spigot, the plugin automatically sets max-tnt-per-tick to -1. If it needs to change the server config, it saves a backup of the original first.

Inspiration

This mod was inspired by YouTuber CubicMetre and his Orbital Strike Cannon, built entirely with redstone.

I tested his MK4 cannon and wanted to bring its nuke and stab shots into a mod that you could use with a fishing rod or a command. His cannon is the reason this project exists, and all credit for the original redstone design goes to him.