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What is Pylon?

Pylon is an upcoming Minecraft Java technology plugin that will hugely expand vanilla gameplay with new content: electricity, diesel machines, new fluids and fluid pipes, logistics, and much, much more!

🔧 Features

  • ✅ Manual machines (mixing pot, grindstone, magic altar, hammer, and much more!)
  • ✅ Hydraulic machines (early-game automation)
  • ✅ Fluid pipes & new fluids
  • ✅ Smelting & alloying system
  • ✅ Multiblocks
  • ✅ Research system (unlock new items with research points)
  • ✅ Per-player language support
  • ✅ Comprehensive and user-friendly in-game guide
  • ✅ Extensive server customisation options (including per-machine settings and customisable recipes)
  • ✅ First-class addon support (even all of Pylon's base content is added using an addon!)
  • 🚧 Performance tuning options (limit the number of blocks per chunk/player, configure tick rates, etc)
  • 🚧 First-class texture pack support + 'official' texture pack (including blocks)
  • 🚧 Diesel machines (mid-game automation)
  • 🚧 Cargo system (automatically move items from A to B)
  • ⭕ Electric machines (end-game automation)
  • ⭕ AE2-style endgame logistics system
  • ⭕ Builtin profiler for determining what's causing the most lag
  • ⭕ Bedrock support (via Geyser)

📆 Provisional timeline

  • December 2025 - Most/all diesel machines fully implemented
  • January 2025 - Cargo system fully implemented
  • February 2025 - Open alpha testing (likely hosted on MetaMechanists - my own server) begins. We will most likely run several seasons of Pylon that each last a few weeks, to iron out bugs, test performance, improve stability and UX, and make sure the plugin is ready to be released.
  • April 2025 - Electricity fully implemented
  • Mid 2026 - Pylon officially released

🖼 Pylon in pictures (so far)

A Pylon fluid setup Hovering over research pack in Pylon guide Hydraulic fluid setup Copper fluid tank Pylon research in the guide Medkit in guide Placing copper pipes Purification tower config Searching items in the Pylon guide Using the hydraulic grindstone turner Using the magic altar Using the smeltery

🛠 For server admins

Performance

  • ⚙ Even huge multiblocks will have almost zero performance impact compared to a normal Pylon block
  • ⚙ Most of Pylon will eventually run asynchronously
  • ⚙ Performance is literally built into Pylon's design - systems like fluid pipes and cargo were designed from the ground up in the most performant way possible
  • ⚙ You will be able to limit the number of each type of block per player or per chunk
  • ⚙ Pylon will have many more performance options, such as making fluid pipes tick less often, or reducing tick rates of individual types of machines
  • ⚙ We plan to add a purpose-built profiler so you can see exactly what blocks & items are using the most CPU or memory

Stability

  • ⚙ Easily disable any problematic blocks or items
  • ⚙ Pylon will refuse to start if it detects any configuration issues
  • ⚙ Blocks that throw errors will be safely unloaded
  • ⚙ Removing addons is safe, with all the data kept intact and restored if the addon is re-added
  • ⚙ Pylon data is stored in the world data itself - no need to keep extra backups

Customisation

  • ⚙ The unlocks and costs of each research are configurable
  • ⚙ All recipes are configurable
  • ⚙ Most blocks and items have settings determining their tick rate, speed, diesel usage, etc

⌨ For developers

Addon development

  • ⚙ Pylon has first-class addon support; all the base content is added using an addon!
  • ⚙ Pylon supports addons written in Kotlin
  • ⚙ Blocks, items, recipes, guide pages, fluids, and entities are all easy and intuitive to add
  • ⚙ Pylon will have extensive high-level documentation on all the features it has to offer

⚠ Currently, addon development is not supported due to how rapidly Pylon is still changing.

Examples

See the following code to get a feel for how Pylon works:

🕵 The team

Lead developers

@seggan 🇺🇸 - a veteran Slimefun addon developer (SlimefunWarfare, SFCalc, Galactifun), with a impressive contribution record for SF addons, Paper, and Slimefun. Seggan is responsible for many core Pylon systems, including translation, WAILA, researches, the smeltery, the recipe system, and more. @ohmvir 🇨🇦 - new to plugin development, but has done a fantastic job getting up to speed and adding lots of base content, like talismans and the beheading sword, as well as a lot of various smaller technical changes & bug fixes. @overlordidra (me!) 🇬🇧 - owner of a Slimefun server for 5 years & Quaptics developer. I have developed many of the core systems including the Pylon guide, fluid system, hydraulics, cargo, diesel, automated tests, block storage, and more.

Artists

@pandicka 🇨🇿 - a talented texture pack artist who worked on Slimefun texture packs, and has created the majority of the Pylon resource pack.

Developers

@vaan1310 🇮🇹 - previously headed a geopolitics server and has been doing a lot of valuable work on the 'smaller stuff' - resolving issues, fixing bugs, adding polishing, making technical changes, and lots more. @justahuman_xd 🇺🇸 - head developer on my server for 3 years and works professionally in the Minecraft space. He has done the majority of the texture pack support side of Pylon, and other various smaller refinements. @tinalness 🇨🇳 - former Slimefun addon developer (JustEnoughGuide, SlimefunTimeIt, MSUA, AdvancedBan, and more) who has contributed to Pylon (primarily the recipe ingredient calculation system) and also has already written two addons. @ihateblueb 🇺🇸 - has run a Slimefun server (Orchid) for several years and has added some neat content like the elevator.

Interested in helping out? Ask us on Discord and we can find you some issues to get started.

❓ Q&A

Q: How do I install Pylon? Read the installation guide at https://pylonmc.github.io/installation/installing-pylon/. Beware that Pylon is still experimental and you should not run it outside of an expendable test server.

Q: Will Pylon support Slimefun addons? No. Migrating from Slimefun to Pylon is non-trivial, and we advise addon developers to rewrite their addons entirely to better suit Pylon's progression and style rather than attempting to migrate them 1-to-1.

Q: What versions will Pylon support? We plan to keep each Pylon version compatible with the latest version of Minecraft at the time. To make it easier and faster for us to update, each version of Pylon will only support one version of Minecraft. This means you will need to use older versions of Pylon for older versions of Minecraft. Critical fixes will be backported.

Q: What server software can Pylon run on? Paper or paper forks only. Folia support may come later down the line.

Q: Will Pylon support bedrock (via Geyser)? Eventually, yes, but it is not a high priority and will be one of the last things added. Geyser is very hard for a project like this to support and there will be some jank.

Q: When will Pylon be ready? See the 'Provisional Timeline' section above

If you have a different question, drop a message on Discord and we'll be happy to answer.