AnvilPilot

AnvilPilot is a free, browser-based calculator that helps Minecraft Java Edition players plan lower-cost enchantment orders before committing experience at an anvil. Add the item you want to improve and the enchanted books or mixed books you have, then see a step-by-step plan instead of guessing which pairs to combine first. Each step shows the left-slot item, right-slot sacrifice, level cost, and resulting item, making the sequence straightforward to follow in Survival.
Order matters because each anvil use adds a prior-work penalty, so a different combination tree can change the experience cost substantially. AnvilPilot searches possible combination trees for the chosen item and materials and flags steps that would reach the Survival “Too Expensive” limit of 40 levels or more in one operation. This lets players compare plans before spending levels and helps avoid a sequence that cannot be completed in Survival.
Quick Plan is designed for fresh, unused enchanted books. Inventory Plan supports a more realistic setup by letting players enter prior-work values and combinations of books already in their inventory. For sets of up to eight sacrifices, the calculator can label a result Exact Optimal, meaning it completed the search and proves no plan ranks higher under the selected objective and tie-breakers. For nine to 32 sacrifices it uses deterministic bounded search and reports Best Found without claiming that the result is mathematically optimal.
AnvilPilot follows Minecraft Java Edition rules. New calculations use Java 26.3 enchantment costs, compatibility, prior-work values, and mixed-book behavior across 26 item groups and 43 enchantments. Existing Java 26.2 shared plans keep their original ruleset; check the version shown in the workbench when opening an older link. Bedrock rules and equipment sacrifices, renaming, repairs, durability merging, mods, datapacks, and snapshots are outside the tool’s scope.
Calculations run locally in the browser, with no app to install. Share Link stores validated inputs in a URL hash so a plan can be sent to a friend without creating a server-side record; the hash is not part of the canonical URL. If a mixed book includes enchantments that do not apply to the selected item, AnvilPilot surfaces a warning. Reference guides cover enchantments, prior-work penalties, the Too Expensive limit, and practical gear planning.
Made by VastPace in 2026, AnvilPilot is an unofficial community planning aid. It is not approved by or affiliated with Mojang or Microsoft. The calculator and guides are free to use.