Locks and Dams

Locks & Dams

Build a working canal lock and move boats between different water levels. Locks & Dams combines smooth chamber water with Create-powered swing gates, physical pipe circuits, and an industrial control desk.

Build your own lock

Four corner hinges define a rectangular chamber. The upper and lower hinge pairs can sit at different heights, and canal ports establish the upper and lower water levels. Build the walls, gates, and plumbing to suit your canal.

• Individual gate panels assemble into continuous timber-and-steel miter gates with grated catwalks and handrails. The closed V points toward high water: into the chamber at the lower end and into the upper canal at the upper end.
• Create-powered hinges: positive rotation opens, negative rotation closes, and zero holds position.
• Rounded flanged pipes, chamber and canal ports, and an inline valve anywhere along each separate fill/drain circuit.
• Smooth managed chamber water that carries boats as the water level changes.
• Gate and water-level interlocks, obstruction handling, and emergency stopping.

Take control

Link a three-block industrial control desk to the lock controller. It includes upper/lower gate selectors, a FILL/DRAIN selector, labeled indicators, and a latched emergency-stop button.

• **Gate lamps:** green for closed, red for open, flashing yellow while moving.
• **Water lamps:** WARN during the pre-start countdown, FLOW during water movement, and CLOSED when idle.
• **Pre-start alarm:** selecting FILL or DRAIN starts a 10-second warning with a redstone output for your own alarm or siren.
• **Departure horn:** a 2-second redstone pulse starts 4 seconds after a commanded gate fully opens.
• **Emergency stop:** stops gate and water movement; deliberate reset does not restart previous commands.

Gate Control Nodes provide clutch and reversing-gearshift outputs for Create machinery. Use your configured Sneak + Use keys to open node settings. Alarm and horn sounds come from devices you connect; this mod supplies the redstone signals.

Requirements

• Minecraft Java **1.20.1**
• **Forge 47.4.10** (the supported setup used during development)
• **Create 6.0.8**
• Install Locks & Dams and Create on both client and server.

Commercial Systems is not required. Forge is the supported loader for this release.

Getting started

In a creative test world with commands enabled, run /locks demo_desk in a large clear area to build a wired example. Explore its gate controls and pipe circuits before building your own lock.

Each water circuit connects two Culvert Ports through pipes and one Inline Culvert Valve:

• **Fill:** upper canal intake → inline valve → chamber outlet.
• **Drain:** chamber intake → inline valve → lower canal outlet.

Use the Control Link Tool on the lock controller and then the desk. Keep the controller, desk, gate nodes, and machinery loaded together.

Construction and wiring guide · Plumbing guide

Release scope

Version 1.1.0-beta.1 introduces timber miter gates. New gate behavior has been checked offline but has not yet been tested in Minecraft. Existing assemblies keep their old geometry until edited and reassembled with suitable recesses. The mod provides working navigation locks with fixed canal water supplies. Finite reservoirs and dam simulation are not included. Gallery screenshots show earlier gate and plumbing designs during development; the control-desk gallery image is a Blender design render, not an in-game screenshot.

Source repository · Report an issue