JE:Bedrock (Item)

Bedrock is a block intended to be unbreakable. Normally, bedrock can not be obtained in survival but there have been several methods in the past that allow players to obtain bedrock in survival. Several more complicated methods exist that work in some full releases of the game as well.

Indev Item Chests
From to, bedrock was available in the Indev house that generated upon starting a new world. The chest included 99 of every block, including bedrock. This stack count made the bedrock overstacked.

After those versions, in, the bedrock would appear in a stack of 100 instead of 99. After these versions, the chest's items were removed.

Enderman Holding Bedrock
In version and, the newly introduced enderman could pick up almost any block. This meant that in this version you could obtain an enderman holding bedrock. However, killing the enderman holding bedrock in this version would not drop it. If you keep the enderman holding bedrock until ( snapshot) or later upon killing the enderman it will drop the bedrock it is holding.

B Creative
In 11w49a pressing B could be used to toggle between gamemode survival and creative. While some consider this cheating, it does allow the player to gain access to the creative inventory and obtain discontinued items. Among the items available, bedrock is in the creative inventory. You can also use this method to get spawn eggs.

End Crystal
From version 15w44a to 15w51b bedrock was obtainable by using an end crystal bug. This bug allowed crafted end crystals to drop bedrock when bedrock generated inside it. Keep in mind this method is not 100% guaranteed. It may take multiple attempts to get the bedrock to drop without being exploded by the end crystal explosions.

15w44a to 15w47c
In these versions, there is a simpler method to obtain it utilizing the fact that end crystal can be used to destroy bedrock. This method is demonstrated in the video on this page. First, the player must put the end crystal on the side of the pillar to remove the bedrock and place the end crystal in the bedrock's location. Next, the player must begin the ender dragon's resummoning sequence using 4 end crystals on the sides. Finally, the player should interrupt the summoning sequence by exploding the crystals on the 4 sides. The explosions can be done by punching the end crystals or shooting them with a projectile safely from a distance. It should be noted this method will also work if you kill the ender dragon rather than interrupting the dragon's resummoning sequence or if you put the end crystal in a location other than the center pillar.

15w44a to 15w51b bedrock removal method
From 15w44a to 15w51b, bedrock could be obtained using a method more difficult than the one above. However, this will allow bedrock as an item to be obtained after 15w47c which the above method can not be used for. Instead of using the glitch that allows end crystals to destroy bedrock, first, the player must use another method of bedrock removal to destroy a bedrock in the portal. Then like before place the end crystal at the location of the destroyed bedrock. Once the portal regenerates either through killing the dragon or interrupting the resummoning sequence, the bedrock will drop as an item.

Old world upgraded to 15w44a - 15w51b method
This method of obtaining bedrock using the end crystal requires no bedrock removal in order to work. The player must learn where the new end portal will generate when the ender dragon is killed for the second time. To do this, the player can go to a world with an identical seed and kill the dragon. In the copied world take the coordinates of where the new portal will generate. Next, go to the location of where the exit end portal will generate upon killing the dragon and place an end crystal in that location. Finally, kill the ender dragon and the bedrock should drop when the end portal attempts to generate in that location.

Alternative Bedrock Generation
While all the above methods deal with the generation of bedrock on the exit end portal, bedrock can also generate in end gateways and end pillars (see below). If the end crystal is at either of these locations when that bedrock generates it will also cause bedrock to drop as an item.

End Pillar Generation
This method of obtaining bedrock is difficult. However, this method works in a full official release of the game. It was the first method found for obtaining bedrock in a full release, later both the silk touch and falling sand methods were discovered.

Generation
Before you even think about making all the machines and theory crafting you need to find the perfect way to generate the bedrock that you are going to break. Bedrock layers from the overworld and nether are nowhere near a good candidate as it is not apart of chunk population which means you can't set up a machine there before it is generated and the bedrock wouldn't be accessible on most sides and End Gate Ways have too many variables to factor. The best choice for generating bedrock is the end pillars as they are a part of the chunk population meaning you can setup a machine there before it's generated and is easily accessible from 5 sides but there is still a problem you can't determine where it will generate in the 2*2 chunk area that's where rng comes into play.

Chunk Population
Generation, it isn't as easy as placing a few chunks you know it's very difficult to determine if a structure or block can be placed in a certain area, so that's why in versions up to 1.12.2 chunk population was a thing. Chunk population is adding to the bare bones of the terrain it's the trees, flowers, structures, ores, etc. these things are only added after a 2*2 chunk area is loaded to help ensure the structure or block will fit or make sense to place there. Two sides of the world do population in the bottom half of the 2*2 area and the other two sides do it in the middle.

RNG Manipulation
RNG Manipulation can be used to force the pillar to generate in a certain location.

Breaking The Bedrock
Breaking the bedrock to make it drop as an item uses scheduling pistons to push blocks as the chunks populate. First, the piston checks to see if it can push by examining all the blocks in front of it the bedrock hasn't generated yet so it can push. Second, the piston makes two lists one for pushing and one for breaking blocks all the slime block positions are put into the push list and all the water blocks in front of the slime are put into the break list because it occupies the space the slime is going into. Lastly, the piston goes through both lists to break and push blocks but at this moment the water block is replaced with bedrock because the chunk has just been populated so the slime blocks are moved and the bedrock is broken and dropped as an item as if it was a torch or sign. Also, when the piston is moving the bedrock it can be exploded. The explosion method can work without slime blocks although even more difficult. This allows it to work as far back as 1.3.

Silk Touch Instant-Mine
This method is extremely complicated but allows for the most current acquisition of bedrock working at least up to 1.12.2. In summary, this method works by tricking the game into getting the player to instant-mine redstone when it was trying to extinguish fire. It relies on the fact that bedrock that was silk touched would drop bedrock.

Video: earthcomputer

Any Falling Block
An unconfirmed method for obtaining the bedrock item might be using the any falling block on a bedrock block created using the structure population method. Work on getting this method to be obtainable in survival is ongoing.

Videos

 * xcom6000
 * eddxample