X-Ray

X-Ray is a cheat or texture pack that lets players see through blocks to find ores and hidden bases, commonly blocked by anti-cheat plugins. By making most blocks invisible or transparent, X-Ray reveals valuable resources like diamonds, ancient debris, and hidden player structures that should be impossible to see through solid stone. While some players use X-Ray in singleplayer worlds for convenience, it's considered cheating on multiplayer servers and is actively countered by anti-cheat systems.​

How X-Ray Works

X-Ray comes in two main forms; texture packs and mods, each with different capabilities:​

X-Ray Texture Packs

Texture packs (also called resource packs) replace block textures to make most blocks transparent or invisible while highlighting valuable ores. They work by:​

• Making stone, dirt, and common blocks completely see-through​
• Keeping ore blocks visible and often making them glow or stand out​
• Only showing blocks that are already rendered by the game (exposed to air or caves)​

Despite this limitation, texture packs are popular because they're easy to install, don't require modding, and can be quickly toggled on/off by switching resource packs.youtube​​

X-Ray Mods

X-Ray mods (hacked clients) are more powerful than texture packs. They modify the game code to:​

• Force rendering of all blocks, even those completely hidden underground​
• Show ore locations through solid stone with no exposure needed​
• Often include additional cheats like flight, speed hacks, and ESP (seeing player locations through walls)

Mods provide true "see through everything" X-Ray but are detectable by anti-cheat plugins and typically result in permanent bans on servers.

Why X-Ray Is Considered Cheating

X-Ray fundamentally breaks Minecraft's progression system and fairness:​

• Unfair advantage: Players find diamonds, ancient debris, and other rare resources instantly instead of exploring and mining​
• Ruins economy: On servers with economies, X-Ray users flood the market with resources, devaluing legitimate players' efforts​
• Enables griefing: X-Ray reveals hidden bases, allowing raiders to find and destroy builds meant to be secret​
• Destroys trust: Other players can't trust that someone's success came from legitimate gameplay​

Even in singleplayer, many players consider X-Ray "taking the fun out of the game" since it removes the exploration and discovery elements that make mining rewarding.

How Servers Block X-Ray

Most modern servers use anti-X-Ray plugins that prevent cheaters from benefiting:​

Packet Obfuscation

Anti-X-Ray plugins modify the data sent to players' clients by:

• Replacing hidden ores with fake stone blocks until players mine near them​
• Mixing fake ores (like fake diamonds) into unexposed areas to create false positives​
• Only revealing true ore locations when blocks next to them are broken​

This makes X-Ray useless and cheaters see either nothing or a confusing mess of fake ores.

Resource Limits

Some plugins track how many rare ores each player finds and flag suspicious activity:​

• If a player finds 20 diamonds in their first hour on a new server, moderators get notified​
• Limits can be set to automatically kick or ban players who exceed realistic mining rates​

Detection and Logging

Advanced anti-cheat systems log when players:

• Mine directly to ores without exploring nearby areas first​
• Find statistically impossible amounts of resources too quickly​
• Have mining patterns that suggest they're following hidden veins

Bypassing Anti-X-Ray (And Why It Doesn't Work)

Some cheaters try to bypass anti-X-Ray using methods like:

• SeedCracker mods: Attempt to determine the world seed and calculate ore locations​
• Targeting new blocks: Exploiting anti-X-Ray configs that don't account for newly added blocks​

However, these methods are unreliable, server-side anti-cheat is constantly updated, and getting caught results in permanent bans. Modern anti-X-Ray is essentially unbeatable for genuine ore detection.

Legitimate Alternatives

If you want to find ores efficiently without cheating:

• Strip mining: Mine in straight lines at Y-level 11-16 for diamonds (pre-1.18) or Y -59 to -64 (1.18+)
• Cave exploration: Explore natural caves where ores are exposed on walls
• Fortune III pickaxe: Maximize ore yields from what you legitimately find
• Spectator mode glitches: Some vanilla glitches allow limited X-Ray in singleplayer without mods

Server Administrator Considerations

If you run a server, implementing anti-X-Ray is essential:

• Use plugins like Paper's built-in anti-X-Ray, Orebfuscator, or Anti-XRay for Bukkit/Spigot​
• Configure engine mode 2 (obfuscation) for best protection​
• Monitor player mining statistics to catch suspicious patterns​
• Clearly state X-Ray is banned in your server rules

X-Ray gives players an unfair advantage by revealing hidden ores and bases that should be impossible to see. While texture pack variants are easy to use, modern anti-X-Ray plugins effectively neutralize them by obfuscating ore data until legitimately exposed.

Using X-Ray on multiplayer servers is considered cheating and typically results in permanent bans and with modern anti-cheat systems, it's both detectable and largely ineffective anyway.