Building Gadgets

Overview

Building Gadgets is a quality-of-life mod that adds four energy-powered gadgets designed to speed up building in Minecraft. Each gadget serves a distinct purpose: the Building Gadget places blocks in patterns, the Exchanging Gadget swaps blocks already in the world, the Destruction Gadget clears large areas, and the Copy-Paste Gadget lets you duplicate entire structures. All four gadgets run on Forge Energy (FE) and can be recharged using the mod's Charging Station.

The mod also introduces a Construction Paste system that acts as a universal building material, letting you place blocks even when you don't have the exact item in your inventory. You can browse every item this mod adds using the Items tab above, and check the Recipes tab for all crafting recipes.

The Four Gadgets

Building Gadget

The Building Gadget is the workhorse of the mod. It holds 500,000 FE and costs 50 FE per block placed. Sneak-right-click any block to select it as your building material (the selected block appears in the tooltip), then right-click toward a surface to place blocks in the current mode's pattern. The gadget consumes the actual block items from your inventory; if you don't have enough, it falls back to Construction Paste.

The "Place Atop" toggle determines whether blocks are placed on the surface you're looking at or inside the target position. This subtle distinction matters when building walls or columns, as it controls which side of the clicked face blocks appear on.

Exchanging Gadget

The Exchanging Gadget swaps existing blocks in the world with a different block type. It holds 500,000 FE and costs 100 FE per operation, double the Building Gadget's cost. Like the Building Gadget, sneak-right-click to select your replacement block, then right-click on a surface to swap blocks. The Exchanging Gadget has 4 modes: Surface, Vertical Column, Horizontal Column, and Grid.

By default, Fuzzy mode is enabled, meaning the gadget replaces all matching blocks in the area regardless of their type. When Fuzzy mode is disabled, only blocks that exactly match the one you clicked will be swapped. The Exchanging Gadget will not replace Tile Entities (chests, furnaces, etc.), blocks with negative hardness (Bedrock), liquid blocks, or air.

Destruction Gadget

The Destruction Gadget removes blocks in a configurable rectangular region. It has the highest energy capacity at 1,000,000 FE and the highest base cost at 200 FE per block destroyed. The region is controlled by setting individual left, right, up, down, and depth values through its GUI (sneak-right-click to open). An overlay shows exactly which blocks will be removed before you commit.

The Destruction Gadget supports anchoring: press H to lock the target position, then walk to a better vantage point before activating. An optional Non-Fuzzy mode (disabled by default in the config) restricts destruction to only blocks matching the one you clicked, at a 2.0x energy cost multiplier (400 FE per block instead of 200 FE).

Copy-Paste Gadget

The Copy-Paste Gadget is the most powerful tool in the mod. It holds 500,000 FE and costs 50 FE per block placed. It operates in two modes: Copy and Paste. In Copy mode, right-click to set the first corner of a region, then sneak-right-click to set the second corner. The gadget scans the area and stores every block as a template (up to 32,768 blocks, maximum 125 blocks in any dimension).

Switch to Paste mode and right-click to place the copied structure at the target location. Before pasting, you can rotate or mirror the template, and adjust the X, Y, Z offsets through the Paste GUI (sneak-right-click in Paste mode). The gadget consumes actual blocks from your inventory for each block placed, falling back to Construction Paste when needed. Tile Entities in the copied region are noted but skipped during both copy and paste.

Building Gadget Modes

The Building Gadget offers 8 distinct placement modes, each solving a different building challenge. Press the Mode keybind (unbound by default; bind it in your Controls menu) to cycle through them.

Build To Me

The default mode. Builds a line of blocks from the target position toward you along the axis you're looking at. Great for quickly bridging gaps or extending platforms in your direction.

Vertical & Horizontal Column

These modes place a column of blocks either vertically (upward from the target) or horizontally (extending along the surface). The range setting controls how many blocks are placed. These are perfect for building pillars and long runs of blocks.

Vertical & Horizontal Wall

Wall modes place a flat plane of blocks, either vertically (like a wall) or horizontally (like a floor or ceiling). The range determines the wall's extent in both dimensions. These modes dramatically speed up large flat surfaces.

Stair, Grid & Surface

Stair mode places blocks in a staircase pattern ascending from the target. Grid mode places blocks in a checkerboard pattern with gaps between them, useful for placing Torches or decorative patterns. Surface mode covers an existing surface with blocks, respecting the shape of the terrain. Surface mode also supports Connected Area and Fuzzy toggles, which control whether it only affects connected blocks of the same type.

Construction Paste System

Construction Paste is a universal building material that acts as a substitute when you don't have the actual block in your inventory. When a gadget tries to place a block and can't find it among your items, it automatically checks for Construction Paste. If paste is available, the block is placed as a Construction Block that visually mimics the intended block's appearance, including its shape, color, and even collision behavior.

To produce Construction Paste, craft Construction Block Powder from Sand, Lapis Lazuli, and a Clay Ball. Place the powder in the world and it will transform into a dense construction block. Breaking the dense block yields Construction Paste. Loose paste can be stored in tiered Paste Containers: T1 Iron containers hold 512 paste, T2 Gold containers hold 2,048, and T3 Diamond containers hold 8,192. Paste Containers can be combined through crafting to consolidate and upgrade your paste storage.

Charging Station & Template Manager

Charging Station

The Charging Station is a block that recharges gadgets using burnable fuel. It has an internal energy buffer of 1,000,000 FE and generates 750 FE per tick from fuel. The fuel consumption rate is accelerated by a factor of 50x compared to a standard Furnace, so fuel burns much faster but produces energy rapidly. Items in the charge slot receive up to 2,500 FE per tick.

The station also accepts external energy input at up to 750 FE per tick, so you can pipe power in from other mods. It features a decorative animated sphere that changes color based on the charge level of the item being charged; this can be disabled in the client config for better performance.

Template Manager

The Template Manager is a utility block for loading and saving Copy-Paste Gadget templates. Place your Copy-Paste Gadget into its slot to manage stored templates. This is useful for sharing building blueprints between gadgets or backing up complex structures before modifying them.

Keybindings Reference

All keybindings are only active when a Building Gadgets item is in your main hand or offhand. Several keys are unbound by default and need to be assigned in the Controls menu.

The Undo System

Every gadget supports undoing its last operation by pressing U. The Building Gadget and Exchanging Gadget store a list of affected block positions and will remove placed blocks within a 64-block radius in the same dimension. The Destruction Gadget takes a full snapshot of the region before destroying it, allowing complete restoration of every block that was removed.

The Copy-Paste Gadget tracks only the most recent paste operation and can undo within 256 blocks. It checks that the current blocks still match what was pasted before removing them, preventing accidental removal of blocks you've manually modified since pasting. Keep in mind that each gadget only remembers its single most recent operation, so don't count on being able to undo multiple steps back.

Configuration

Building Gadgets has extensive configuration options split across server, common, and client config files. The most important server-side settings include the maximum gadget range (default 15, configurable from 1 to 32), the maximum build distance via ray trace (default 32 blocks, up to 48), and whether gadgets can overwrite non-air blocks like Water, Lava, and Grass (enabled by default).

Each gadget's maximum energy and energy cost per operation can be individually configured. The Destruction Gadget's Non-Fuzzy mode is disabled by default in the config and must be explicitly enabled. The block blacklist uses Java regex patterns to prevent gadgets from interacting with specific blocks; by default, all door blocks and Piston Heads are blacklisted. Server admins can use patterns like "awfulmod:.*" to blacklist all blocks from a specific mod.