The Rocket editor, /rocket editor, is given to all VIP and VIP users, and may be given to everyone for contests or special events.

The interface allows you to easily create complex effects and then save/load fireworks.

Rockets can be created with up to 3 effects, you can toggle which effect you’re editing using the Effect Switch icon (item frame). Left clicking will go to the next effect, right clicking goes back.
Each Effect has three controls, Colour, Effects and Shape. Each of which have their own sub-menu opened from the first three icons.

You can select multiple colours, simply left click to add the colour and right click to remove.
I would be careful about adding too many colours – it is best to choose a small group of colours which you know work well together.

Fireworks also have a “fade to” colour, which you can change by clicking the Colour Switch icon (magma cream). After the star explodes, the colour will fade to the fade colour after a short amount of time. A common trick is to fade to brown, which makes the firework “burn out” more realistically.

There are currently two effects you can add, Twinkle and Trail. You can add them simply by clicking their respective icon, and right click to remove. These can be used to add extra interest to the firework, although they do add some extra paticles and can cause a lot of lag – especially the trail effect.

There are 5 shapes available, for each Effect you can select only one shape.
Small Ball, Large Ball, Star, Creeper, Burst

A comparison is shown below of each shape.

It’s worth noting that the rotation of the Creeper shape is random, and wont always face the viewer, so often it’s best to fire multiples of creeper shaped rockets so that atleast one can be seen.

You can also select a power for the rocket, using the menu opened from the icon (Redstone dust), which determines the height it will go to. You can of course, not select a power and this then means the firework explodes almost immediately.

The higher flight powers (3,4,5) can often be hard to see from a distance, and the rocket also starts to stray horizontally.

A chart is given below showing the range of flight times for each power. Please note that there is a random factor to the flight time. This shows the flight time – which means the time before the rocket explodes. The minimum, maximum and Average times are shown. (Note that it is not a linear distribution).

Times are given in both Server Ticks, Seconds and Redstone Ticks.

Now that you’ve created your rocket, you can get a stack of it by clicking on the rocket item in the middle of the ui.

You can also load a rocket into the editor to either get more of it, or to change something. Simply hold the rocket and use /rocket load hand

You can fire your rockets one of two ways:

By Hand:
The easiest option is to hold the rocket and right click to fire it.

By Redstone/Dispenser:
Using a dispenser to fire rockets gives quite a lot of flexibility, not only can you use multiple to time a show together, but you can also use some cool tricks to change various things about the rockets.

Changing Direction:
Placing flowing water over a dispenser will change the direction of the firework rocket, making it angle slightly in the direction of the water flow.

This can be used to create fan effects by placing water in the middle of a line of dispensers.

Cobwebs:
Placing a cobweb in the path of a firework rocket will cause it to get stuck, and consequently when the star explodes, it goes around the web.

Flattened:
Explosions can be squashed by exploding under, or next to a solid block. Combining this with the cobweb trick, you can create a narrow “mine” like effect emerging from a tube.

One of the big issues with Fireworks in minecraft is the excess of particles they create. Particles are capped at 4000, and if this limit is reached older particles are removed. This can make fireworks look bad since they just pop out instead of actually fading away.

Each different firework shape creates a different number of particles (see the table below), and the trail effect adds a lot more to this, and the twinkle effect just adds an extra 2:

Shape	Plain	Trail
Small	98	1300
Large	387	4000
Star	122	1600
Creeper	266	3500
Burst	72	930

Trail Values approximated.

Having a lot of fireworks, or a lot of particles doesn’t actually look that good, so try to be selective with effects and colours, rather than just adding as many as you can.

By using black as the initial colour, then having a brighter fade colour, you can create something similar to what are known as “Ghost Shells” in real life, The rocket will explode, looking like nothing happened, then a ball (or any shape) of colour fades in.

Using black, fade to white, effects with twinkle creates white strobes that appear part way through the explosion.

Using the burst shape, with a trail and a cobweb above the dispenser creates an effective ‘mine’ effect.

Using a large ball, and small ball can look quite nice. Works best using contrasting colours between each ball.

By opening the rocket editor, and only selecting a power (No colours) you can easily create a rocket with no star. This can look effective being just a vertical line of particles.