Stairs

Stairs

Type	Solid Block
Requirements	None
Physics	No
Transparency	Yes
Luminance	No
Blast resistance	15 (Wood) 30 (Stone-type)
Tools
Renewable	Wood: Yes Cobblestone: Yes Brick: No Stone Brick: Yes Nether Brick: No Sandstone: No Quartz: No
Stackable	Yes (64)
Flammable	Wood: Yes Stone: No
Availability	?
First appearances	Wood, Cobblestone Alpha 1.0.0 12w25a Brick, Stone Brick Beta 1.8 Nether Brick Beta 1.9 Sandstone 12w21a Quartz 13w02a
Data values	Oak Wood Stairs dec: 53 hex: 35 Cobblestone stairs dec: 67 hex: 43 Brick stairs dec: 108 hex: 6C Stone Brick Stairs dec: 109 hex: 6D Nether Brick Stairs dec: 114 hex: 72 Sandstone Stairs dec: 128 hex: 80 Spruce Wood Stairs dec: 134 hex: 86 Birch Wood Stairs dec: 135 hex: 87 Jungle Wood Stairs dec: 136 hex: 88 Quartz Stairs dec: 156 hex: 9C

Stairs are blocks that allow the player to change elevation without jumping. They are a more compact alternative to slabs, allowing a greater elevation change in a shorter horizontal distance. Stairs will change their shape when placed in corners. A player appears to sit if it stands in front of a stair block and crouches.

[edit] Occurrence

Stairs occur naturally in NPC villages. Wooden Stairs make seating furniture in houses, as well as roofs for most structures in the village. Cobblestone Stairs occur in front of doors and inside churches. Cobblestone Stairs can also be found within strongholds. Sandstone Stairs can be found in Desert NPC Villages, replacing the stairs mentioned above. Nether Brick Stairs occur naturally in Nether fortresses.

[edit] Crafting

Stairs can be made using six of either wooden planks (all four types), cobblestone, bricks, stone bricks (all four types), Nether bricks, sandstone, and blocks of quartz, producing four stairs per craft. (Quartz does not exist in the Xbox version.)

Unlike many wooden items, wooden stairs must be crafted entirely from one type of wood, but by the same token, they keep the type (and color) of the wood used, thus "Birch Wood Stairs" and so forth.

Ingredients	Input » Output
Wood Planks, Cobblestone, Bricks, any Stone Brick, Nether Brick any Sandstone, or Block of Quartz	4

[edit] Usage

Stone brick steps being used to represent broken masonry.

Aside from their given usage, stairs can be used for a number of aesthetic purposes, mostly in simulating items that are not currently present in the game.

• Walking up stairs is faster and takes less of a toll on a player's hunger bar than jumping up a slope would.
• A popular use for stair blocks is to simulate benches or chairs. As of the Beta 1.8 update, NPC villages are generated using stairs for seats.
• Another popular use is as roofing for homes, also seen in NPC villages but widely used by players prior to the Beta 1.8 update.
• Just as normal stairs are used to smooth slopes in the floor, upside-down stairs can be used to smooth slopes in the ceiling. This makes it possible to create more realistic arches under bridges or in architectural buildings. (Unfortunately, the Xbox version does not appear to allow this.)
• Brick and stone brick steps, when stacked at the end of a wall made with other brick or stone brick blocks, gives the appearance of broken masonry.
• Stairs can be used to hide Redstone wiring, as power will go through the lower half of a stair block. With the full-sized end facing outwards, it can be used to hide wiring without placing a hole in a wall.

• Chests can be opened below stair blocks.
• Stairs can be arranged to form windows or halls with unique properties. These openings will block light (except for the inside edge of the stairs) and fluid, but will allow entities such as items and small animals to pass through (if the opening is large enough). Openings may be made the size of 1/4, 1/2, 3/4, or 1 block. Arrows may pass through these openings, as of snapshot 12w23a.

[edit] Behavior

As of the Halloween Update, stairs are placed facing the player so they may be immediately climbed. This may cause problems when constructing a stair; just start at the lower end to fix this. Alternatively, you can face the top of the stairs, sneak, and place stairs at your feet while hanging onto the edge of a block to place them in the correct location while descending the stairs.

Water will flow over stairs as if it were a completely solid block. If one attempts to place a torch on top of a stair block, the torch will be placed instead on the closest available non-stair block.

Wooden stairs and fences are flammable.

Stairs can also be placed upside down by one of two methods.

1. Right-clicking on the bottom side of a block.
2. Right-clicking on the top half of the side of a block.

[edit] Video

[edit] History

Alpha
1.0.0		Added wood and cobblestone stairs. Wooden stairs do not burn up.
1.2.0		Before this version, stairs would determine their orientation based on the surrounding blocks (changing if they were changed). They would attempt to face a block adjacent to the stairs, so as to create a climbable surface towards that block. However, this was often more annoying than helpful, and was therefore changed to be placed facing the player.
1.2.2		The old light transparency Stairs now had the odd property of being transparent to light; when placed one or more spaces above the ground with air beneath, sunlight or other light sources would shine through and light the blocks beneath/behind the stairs exactly as if nothing opaque were present between them.[1] Other atmospheric effects such as snowfall did not penetrate stair blocks, making them an unusually effective material for creating roofing which kept weather out, but still let daylight in. Snow could not accumulate on top of stair blocks, grass was able to grow on the block directly underneath a stair block, and grass wouldn't disappear if a stair block was placed on top of it. Any stair block placed in Alpha 1.2.0_02 to Beta 1.5 would keep this property in later versions until it or an adjacent block is changed or removed, causing a lighting update.
Beta
1.6		Wooden stairs and fences are now flammable.
		Fixed light transparency from Alpha 1.2.2. Reversed the inventory icon for stairs to show a more recognizable figure.
1.8		Added brick and stone brick stairs. Stone brick stairs could drop one of either mossy stone brick or cracked stone brick when broken due to the data value carrying over. Mining a stair block would yield the stair's source material, rather than a stair block, thus wasting material.
1.8.1		Stone brick stairs now always drop regular Stone Brick.
1.9pre1		Added Nether brick stairs.[2]
1.9pre6		Mining a stair block now drops the stair block instead of the stair's source material.
Official release
1.2.1	12w08a	Added upside-down stairs. Before they were added, edited data values of 4 through 15 would create invisible stairs that could be walked through; these higher values are now used for upside-down stairs.
1.3.1	12w21a	Added sandstone stairs.[3]
	12w25a	Redstone (including repeaters, torches, levers, and pressure plates) and rails can now be placed on stairs positioned upside down.
		Added wooden stairs for the remaining three wood types (birch, spruce and jungle).
	12w26a	Added crafting recipes for birch, spruce and jungle wood stairs.
1.4.2	12w34a	Stairs now automatically change shape into corner stairs depending on location.
	12w39a	Stairs interact properly with lighting now.
		Smooth lighting on stairs is slightly bugged.
1.5	13w02a	Added quartz stairs.
	13w05a	Fixed stairs lighting when Smooth Lighting is on.
	13w05b	Stairs no longer stop sprinting.

[edit] Issues

Issues relating to "Stairs" are maintained on Mojira. Report issues there.

[edit] Trivia

• Placing 6 Mossy Stone Brick, 6 cracked stone brick, or 6 chiseled stone brick in a crafting box will only make stone brick stairs, not mossy/cracked/chiseled stone brick Stairs. The behavior is the same for the different types of sandstone.
• Prior to Beta 1.8, stairs' entity had the larger “item” rather than “block” size, a bug shared with cactus.
• Cobblestone stairs are mistakingly called Stone Stairs.

[edit] Gallery

• 

  Naturally occurring cobblestone stairs in NPC villages.

• 

  Naturally occurring Nether brick stairs in Nether fortresses.

• 

  First image of up-side-down stairs released by Jeb.

• 

  Stair window with a pig entering.

• 

  Example of a safe door mobs can't pass through.

• 

  All the stairs ingame as of 13w02a.

• 

  A creeper face in a wall made by using stairs and slabs

• 

  A creeper face in the floor made by using stairs and slabs

• 

  Stairs, corner stairs and slabs used for roof construction

[edit] References

1. ↑
   http://www.minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=169150&p=2434702#p2434702
2. ↑
   jebtweet:106850957891076097
3. ↑
   http://www.mojang.com/2012/05/minecraft-snapshot-week-21/

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