Grapnel

Grapnel adds one machine to Create: Aeronautics: a mounted launcher that fires a boarding hook on a rope.

This is not a hand-held grappling hook. There is no item to aim and no button to hold. It is a machine you bolt to a deck: it aims on Create rotation, fires on redstone, and winches on rotation again. Wire it up and your ship can catch, reel in and release another ship on its own — from a lever, a sequenced gearshift, or a full autopilot circuit — with nobody standing at the controls.

Point it at another airship, pulse the redstone, and the hook flies out in a long arc with rope paying out behind it. Wherever it lands, it bites in, and the two ships are tied together by an actual rope with real physics on it. Run the winch and they get pulled together.

It is not a weapon — the hook passes straight through players and mobs. This is for boarding, docking, towing and mooring.

What it does

• A machine, not a gadget. Aiming, firing and winching are all machine inputs, so the whole cycle can be automated end to end.
• A hook that really flies. About 100–160 blocks in a heavy arc, with the rope visibly coming off the drum behind it.
• A real rope. It is Create: Aeronautics' own rope: it sags, it swings, it drags both ships around, and it is still there after you reload the world.
• It never snaps. Pull too hard and the winch simply stops reeling in and the rope creaks until the load eases.

How you use it

The launcher is one block tall with a turret on top. Every input has its own face, and the face tells you what it does:

Redstone only connects on the front face, so the rest of the machine can be built right up against it. Clicking the launcher does nothing at all, so levers, buttons and shafts go up against it without sneaking.

There is an in-game guide: hold the ponder key over the launcher in your inventory.

Recipe

iron sheet    tripwire hook   iron sheet
shaft         rope winch      shaft
andesite      brass casing    andesite

Requirements

• Minecraft 1.21.1, NeoForge 21.1+
• Create 6.0+
• Create: Aeronautics — it brings the physics engine and the rope system this mod plugs into

Links

• Source and issues: https://github.com/Argorice/Grapnel

Code is LGPL-3.0. The machine wears Create's own block textures, referenced at runtime rather than copied, so nothing from Create or Create: Aeronautics is redistributed. The lever icon on the front face comes from Create Big Cannons' cannon mount texture by the Cannoneers of Create, used under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.