Building a Power Grid Inside Minecraft with BFS Algorithms

Every cloud service needs power. AWS has data centers, Azure has regions, GCP has zones — and they're all connected by networks that distribute energy and data. So we built the same thing in Minecraft: a multiblock Data Melter, energy storage blocks, cable networks with BFS traversal, and wireless energy transmission.

This is the post where our cloud-themed mod becomes a proper tech mod.

🎮 The learning angle: The BFS energy transfer algorithm is the same algorithm used in real network routing. The multiblock structure teaches you about distributed systems — one controller, multiple workers, shared resources. And energy storage tiers mirror how cloud providers offer different storage classes (S3 Standard, Infrequent Access, Glacier).

The Data Melter — A 3x3x3 Multiblock

The Data Melter is a 27-block structure:

• 22 Data Melter Casings — the shell
• 1 Bandwidth Block — the center (animated digital fluid)
• 1 Controller — the top (where you interact)

Click any casing to open the GUI (it searches for the controller in radius 3). This is how distributed systems work — any node can be your entry point, but they all route to the controller.

// Find controller from any casing click
private DataMelterControllerBlockEntity findController(World world, BlockPos pos) {
    for (BlockPos check : BlockPos.iterateOutwards(pos, 3, 3, 3)) {
        if (world.getBlockEntity(check) instanceof DataMelterControllerBlockEntity ctrl) {
            return ctrl;
        }
    }
    return null;
}

Recipes: Shard Infusion

The Data Melter processes materials that regular crafting can't:

• Cloud Shard → Data-Infused Cloud Shard
• Blazing Shard → Data-Infused Blazing Shard
• Quantum Shard → Data-Infused Quantum Shard
• Plus bonus yield recipes for vanilla materials

BFS Energy Transfer — Network Routing

The most technically interesting feature: energy flows through cables using Breadth-First Search.

When the Data Melter (or Cloud Generator) produces energy, it doesn't just teleport to consumers. It travels through cables — Internet Cables and Fiber Optic Cables — searching for connected machines that need power.

private void distributeEnergy(ServerWorld world, BlockPos source, int energy) {
    Queue<BlockPos> queue = new LinkedList<>();
    Set<BlockPos> visited = new HashSet<>();
    List<BlockPos> consumers = new ArrayList<>();

    queue.add(source);
    visited.add(source);

    // BFS through cable network (max 256 blocks)
    while (!queue.isEmpty() && visited.size() < 256) {
        BlockPos current = queue.poll();
        for (Direction dir : Direction.values()) {
            BlockPos neighbor = current.offset(dir);
            if (visited.contains(neighbor)) continue;
            visited.add(neighbor);

            if (isCable(world, neighbor)) {
                queue.add(neighbor); // Continue searching
            } else if (isConsumer(world, neighbor)) {
                consumers.add(neighbor); // Found a machine
            }
        }
    }

    // Distribute evenly among consumers
    int perConsumer = energy / consumers.size();
    for (BlockPos consumer : consumers) {
        addEnergy(world, consumer, perConsumer);
    }
}

This is literally how network packets find their destination. BFS explores all paths equally, finds all connected consumers, and distributes load evenly — like a load balancer.

Energy Storage — Tiered Like Cloud Storage

Block	Capacity	Cloud Analogy
Network Buffer	10 GB	S3 Standard — fast, limited
Bandwidth Accumulator	50 GB	S3 Infrequent Access — more capacity
Cloud Gateway Core	200 GB	S3 Glacier — massive storage

Each has a GUI with a color-coded energy bar (green → orange → red as it fills) and one storage slot.

Wireless Energy — Like WiFi

For when cables aren't practical:

• Energy Transmitter — broadcasts energy in radius 8
• Energy Receiver — picks up wireless energy

It's WiFi for power. Limited range, no cables needed, but less efficient than wired connections. Just like real networking — wired is faster and more reliable, wireless is convenient.

Cloud Generator — The Power Plant

The Cloud Generator converts fuel into energy:

• Cloud Shard: 500 MB
• Redstone: 50 MB
• Coal/Charcoal: 25 MB

It produces energy at 100 MB/s with 45 GB internal storage. Connected via cables to your machines.

Cloud Engineer Lens — The Monitoring Dashboard

A wearable item (helmet, trinket, or held) that shows an HUD overlay with:

• Energy levels of nearby machines
• Connection status of cables
• Production/consumption rates

It's CloudWatch for your Minecraft power grid. Observable by default.

Trinkets Integration

public static boolean isWearing(PlayerEntity player) {
    // Priority: Trinket slot → Helmet → Offhand → Mainhand
    if (FabricLoader.getInstance().isModLoaded("trinkets")) {
        if (TrinketsCompat.isInTrinketSlot(player)) return true;
    }
    // Fallback checks...
}

Optional mod support with runtime detection — the mod works with or without Trinkets installed.

Vertical Cable Fix — A War Story

Here's a debugging story. Internet Cables connect horizontally fine, but vertical connections (up/down) were broken. The multipart blockstate model uses X-axis rotations for vertical variants, but 1.20.1's renderer doesn't handle X-axis rotations correctly for multipart models.

The fix: create dedicated _up and _down models with pre-positioned geometry instead of relying on rotation. Sometimes the elegant solution doesn't work and you need the pragmatic one.

Lessons Learned

Challenge	Solution
BFS can be expensive	Cap at 256 blocks, run once per tick
Multiblock detection	Search from any block, find controller
Vertical cables broken	Dedicated models instead of rotation
Energy sync to client	toUpdatePacket + toInitialChunkDataNbt
GUI without texture files	Programmatic rendering (DrawContext)

What's Next

We have power, machines, and networks. Now we need protection. In the next post: 4 armor sets with set bonuses, a dodge system, and integration with the Accessories mod. Because in the cloud, security is a shared responsibility.

---

Connect with me:

• LinkedIn
• X/Twitter
• GitHub
• Dev.to

I'm Carlos Cortez, this is Breaking the Cloud, and today we built a power grid with graph algorithms. See you in the next one! ⚡