Flood Machines on DonutSMP: How Team Flood Took Over the Server
Water-pushing flying machines are the biggest thing on DonutSMP right now. Here is how a flood machine works, why players build them, and what it means for your base.
If you have logged into DonutSMP in the last few weeks you have seen it: entire chunks of the overworld sitting under a sheet of water, bases half submerged, and chat split between people cheering it on and people screaming about it. Flood machines are the server's current obsession, and the community has effectively split into two camps, Team Flood and Team Anti-Flood.
What a flood machine actually is
A flood machine is a self-extending flying machine built from slime blocks, sticky pistons and observers that carries water sources with it. Instead of moving a player or a payload, it drags water across the map and keeps dumping new source blocks as it travels. Because the machine builds forward on its own, one player AFK in a boat can flood an enormous area without touching a single block afterwards.
- Slime blocks hold the contraption together as pistons push it forward.
- Sticky pistons provide the movement in both directions.
- Observers fire the pistons automatically in a loop.
- Water buckets supply the source blocks that get pushed along.
- A boat at the back is the AFK seat that keeps chunks loaded.
Why players build them
On a survival server with open PvP and no claim system, flooding is a weapon. A flooded area is annoying to navigate, hides entrances, ruins farm rates and forces players off a contested piece of land. Some groups use it to grief rivals, some use it to mark territory, and a lot of people build one purely because it is one of the most visually dramatic redstone contraptions you can run on a live server.
The height limit trick
Most builds start by pillaring up to roughly ten blocks below build height. Running the machine high up means the water falls over everything below it rather than being blocked by terrain, and it keeps the contraption out of easy reach of anyone who wants to break it. That single detail is why the good designs look so tall and skinny.
How far it goes
Reach comes from extensions. Each extra block of slime, pistons and observers adds another push cycle, and stacked extensions let one machine travel far past the chunk it started in. In practice the limits are chunk loading and whoever finds your AFK boat first.
Is it allowed?
Be honest with yourself here: large scale flooding sits close to griefing, and server staff can and do act on it. Rollbacks, warnings and bans have all happened on DonutSMP over flood incidents. If you build one, run it on land you or your team control, not on someone else's base, and check the current server rules before you start the machine. A schematic is not a licence to grief.
Get the schematic
The community upload of the flood machine is on the library with a full 3D preview and an Auction House cost estimate, so you can see the slime block count before you commit to buying materials:
- Flood Machine schematic — the machine itself, ready for Litematica.
- Anti Flood Machine schematic — the counter, if you are on the other side.
New to Litematica? Read the Litematica install guide first, then paste the machine in one go. If you would rather defend than flood, the anti-flood guide covers how to break one down and dry out a base.