Mushroom farming assistance

[Holycobra]

Okay, I honestly did some reasearch before setting this farm up and as far as I know it should be working.
Would anyone be so kind as to point out what I'm missing?

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I remove the torch in the background and have the regular floor filled with half-slabs to prevent monster spawing, so it should be dark enough. 1 mushroom on either side. (removed the 3rd after taking the picture.. shouldn't matter but just in case.)

[Gunnerman21]

i think you need a lot more space for them. I have a 3 by 9 room with 4 mushrooms in the middle, and they produce 2-3 every day or so. But there's gotta be someone here who really knows how mushrooms work...

[Feliponius]

Mushrooms have a very VERY odd spawn mechanic. There are a few rules you should be aware of when trying to create an adequate mushroom farm.

- A mushroom has a greater chance of spawning on a block that is on the same level as the seed mushroom.

- If there are 4 mushrooms in a 9x9x3 area around the spot chosen by the game to plant a new mushroom, a new mushroom may not grow there.

- Mushrooms can grow up to two blocks away from the seed mushroom.

- Mushrooms can grow in light up to lvl 12. Meaning you can put a torch 2 block above the mushroom and still expect growth.

Because of the incredibly slow spread rate of mushrooms and because of the limitations on how many mushrooms can grow in a certain area, it is not as easy to grow mushrooms based on the old mechanics of sticking a few seed mushrooms one block above and filling up a room.

One great way to do this now is to make a 4 block high pyramid with one mushroom placed on top. You will want to do this multiple times. You really can't make just one or two and expect adequate output of mushrooms. You really need at least 8 or more of them. And even then, it's not always true that you'll receive a whole bunch. Mushrooms require a TON of space to grow.

Another good way to begin your mushroom farm is to plant a mushroom on flat ground. Every time it produces a mushroom put it exactly 2 blocks away. Repeat this process until your line of mushrooms is becoming rather large. Based on a youtube video explaining this process the pyramid design has greater output, but requires more space. Whereas the " xoox " pattern requires less space but outputs less mushrooms per seed mushroom.
oooo
oooo
xoox


Watch this video for a great in-depth explanation of mushroom farming and mechanics.

[Holycobra]

So... a retarted amount of space, but the light level isn't as dark as I was thinking... hmm... challenge accepted XD

Thank you both a ton for replying! I'll post my finished farm, but I don't think it'll look very plesent..

[Holycobra]

A startling suprise from a couple silverfish later.

Just basic function, here's what I have:

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The pyramids are hollow, which in hindsight I should fill in so they don't spawn where I can't reach them... I can reach what I need to with only two half steps so I don't have to jump and don't sacrifice much space.

It's hard to tell if I have the light level safe and functional, so I'll have to wait and see.

Thanks again Feliponius and Gunnerman21!

[Feliponius]

Looks great! You may want to light it up a little bit more on the sides so as to avoid spawns :P

My spawn rooms are pretty darn near bright and I have no problems spawning mushrooms in them, except that it's as slow as all-get-out.

Don't forget to try the other "field" method in comparison. I think in the early stages of building a farm the "field" method can maximize your yield:space ratio until you have more seed mushrooms on pyramids, then go with the pyramids.

[SterlingRed]

There is one more method you haven't considered. The whole hog method. Build a large auto shroom farm and for the most part the inefficiencies and wonkiness of spawn behavior doesn't matter. If it's not producing enough, just add floors. My seed mushrooms are 1 above the spawn floor in order to protect them from water harvesting. Yes the initial growth is slow, but harvest timing can be easily adjusted to allow for maximum growth time periods.

[Holycobra]

There is one more method you haven't considered. The whole hog method. Build a large auto shroom farm and for the most part the inefficiencies and wonkiness of spawn behavior doesn't matter. If it's not producing enough, just add floors. My seed mushrooms are 1 above the spawn floor in order to protect them from water harvesting. Yes the initial growth is slow, but harvest timing can be easily adjusted to allow for maximum growth time periods.

I had debated going straight for the auto shroom setup (hog method?) I thought I should get my Hemp farm away from being manual first maybe.. I only just now finished my saw and can make hoppers, It shouldn't be too bad setting up the water to wash the mushrooms.. I've only set up Hemp on a switch for pistons in my old world a year ago and have my millstone set with water to go to the hopper without losing pieces. Took me way too long to figure out to split the water so it doesn't get trapped on the wall.

And I seem to have Iron farming troubles, so it encourages me to get further up the tech tree so I can set up a mob farm and get iron that way. Seems a way off though..

[Rianaru]

How have you guys been doing auto farms? I messed around with it for a few minutes the other day, but I was wondering if anyone came up with something that was fairly high-yield, because mine's really slow for how many modules I have.

[SterlingRed]

Yeah if you don't have the resources for a large auto build, maybe a manual farm or a single water harvested shroom farm triggered with a lever would suffice until you need something more.

[SterlingRed]

How have you guys been doing auto farms? I messed around with it for a few minutes the other day, but I was wondering if anyone came up with something that was fairly high-yield, because mine's really slow for how many modules I have.

The one I built in ssp uses 4x4 spawn areas with a seed mushroom 1 higher. I've tiled 4 of those modules together per floor and have 5 floors. Water flows come in from the 4 outside corners and push shrooms to a drop tube in the middle where they are collected in a hopper. It harvests once per day cycle using a daylight detector and edge detector. It yields 3-4 shrooms per day which make 5 stew per shroom so it more than suits my needs. I could probably help the production rates a lot more if I just harvested every other day since the initial spread from the seed shrooms takes a while but goes faster once shrooms are on the spawn floor.

[Kallowe]

I might be wrong, but wasn't using half blocks to prevent mob spawning removed in one of the previous updates to BTW.

[DaveYanakov]

That would be incorrect. Half slabs only work if the top half of the space is open air. If the top of the space is a solid surface, mons will spawn just fine. This has been vanilla behavior ever since the option to place slabs in the top half of a space became an option.

[Psion]

I wonder if you could get the benefits of the pyramid method while using water flows to automate it. I'm thinking maybe when you wish to harvest, a block dispenser next to the top mushroom sucks it up, then pistons allow water to flow down the pyramid, washing the grown mushrooms down to a collection stream, then the pistons turn the water stream off and the BD spits the seed mushroom back where it belongs.

Granted, I'm not sure if it would be more space efficient than a less growth efficient linear auto farm.

[tom_savage]

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7082

[Holycobra]

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=7082

My error for not using the search function. I should have known this would have been discussed shortly after HC Hunger.

Thank you for the link!

[Holycobra]

I now have more mushrooms than I currently need with this setup for anyone needing a decent manual mushroom farm for early game (Right after getting your first iron pick maybe?)

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The packed dirt squares are where I keep mushrooms, two identical pyramids. Three mushrooms per pyramid. After trying in this way I haven't experimented other methods because this did me plenty. Remember half dirt and cobble are your friends!

Lighting varies with how deep your farm is.

This is mainly to 'wrap up' the thread, so unless it's to reply to a comment I intend for this to be my last post on this subject. Felt like I left this unfinished.