Mob grinders

[Rayraka]

so recently I started a new minecraft world and was building all the usual stuff, XP farm, storage room, furnace, etc.
and then I started to make a spawning room for mobs so that I could grind them and get their drops, I dug out a 50x50 blocks room with water channels taking the mobs at the centre of the room. Each isle was a 10x10 which is enough for good spawn rate. But as I was waiting for the drops to reach me, I noticed that they were really rare, so I made some test, checking if the spawning area was filled and if the channels did their job. Still couldn't find the problem.
Then I went on MC Wiki and read this article:
http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/File: ... ranges.png
This made me realise that the actual spawning area of your mob farm was between 24 and 32 block away from you, which means that only mobs that spawn in the 8 block annulus are the ones that will be reaching your grinder, as no mod can spawn in a 25 block range from you, and the mobs further than 32 block away from you won't move, therefore won't fall in your channels.
If I got anything wrong please correct me, but my conclusion is that the rentability of a mob farm is very small.

[Mr_Hosed]

That's pretty much correct. I built a sky grinder and ran into the same problem. There seem to be 2 common solutions to the radius issue and with BTW there's a third solution.

1. A power minecart loop that keeps you 25 blocks away from all spawn pads, but loops around the grinder so that at some point all mobs are atmost 32 blocks away from you

2. A flush system using water to push mobs off the pads into the water channels set on a timer.

3. An elevator set 25 blocks away that goes up and down continuously, again allowing all spawn pads to come into the 32 block radius at some point.

Oh, and I guess there's a 4th way using the funnel designs that Etho and Docm have done. Every spawn space has a pressure plate on it hooked to a piston, which pushes them off, etc.

The elevator solution has a certain cool factor, but can only be used on verticle traps. The flush system seems to be the cheapest and most effect means of building a spawn trap.

[Rayraka]

That's pretty much correct. I built a sky grinder and ran into the same problem. There seem to be 2 common solutions to the radius issue and with BTW there's a third solution.

1. A power minecart loop that keeps you 25 blocks away from all spawn pads, but loops around the grinder so that at some point all mobs are atmost 32 blocks away from you

2. A flush system using water to push mobs off the pads into the water channels set on a timer.

3. An elevator set 25 blocks away that goes up and down continuously, again allowing all spawn pads to come into the 32 block radius at some point.

Oh, and I guess there's a 4th way using the funnel designs that Etho and Docm have done. Every spawn space has a pressure plate on it hooked to a piston, which pushes them off, etc.

The elevator solution has a certain cool factor, but can only be used on verticle traps. The flush system seems to be the cheapest and most effect means of building a spawn trap.

this really cleared a lot of things for me, I'll test some of the possibilities you gave me
as for the elevator that goes up and down continuously I've seen it in action in one of Battosay's videos but still didn't manage to get a hold of what happens in the background.
Thanks for quick reply

[Mr_Hosed]

The only way to do the elevator is with either a timer or 2 detector blocks and a flip-flop. There's a few threads on how to make this work already on here so I wont get into it.

[MoRmEnGiL]

The extremely annoying thing with carts or elevators is that you have to afk for it to work..

[DaveYanakov]

I generally build these things only when I find a dungeon spawner. They seem to override the usual spawning mechanics and are a lot easier to filter.

[Poppycocks]

I generally build these things only when I find a dungeon spawner. Theyseem to override the usual spawning mechanics and are a lot easier to filter.

Fixed,

From the wiki:

Spawning conditions vary from mob to mob. For example, Overworld monsters can only spawn in darkness (light level 8 or below), and animals must spawn on top of grass with a light level 9 or above. However, spawner blocks can spawn mobs in mid-air, ignoring general rules about spawning on solid ground.

[Battosay]

From the wiki:

Spawning conditions vary from mob to mob. For example, Overworld monsters can only spawn in darkness (light level 8 or below), and animals must spawn on top of grass with a light level 9 or above. However, spawner blocks can spawn mobs in mid-air, ignoring general rules about spawning on solid ground.

Old wiki infos, obviously ;)

[Poppycocks]

From the wiki:

Spawning conditions vary from mob to mob. For example, Overworld monsters can only spawn in darkness (light level 8 or below), and animals must spawn on top of grass with a light level 9 or above. However, spawner blocks can spawn mobs in mid-air, ignoring general rules about spawning on solid ground.

Old wiki infos, obviously ;)

May be :).

[danielngtiger]

I'm not sure that is old, passive mobs still spawn, just at ~1/200th of their original rate, right?

[Kazuya Mishima]

I didn't realize this at all. So basically for a large dark room to work you have to AFK quite a bit once you have a automated system in place to harvest drops and stay within the range of the system ?

[Thalmane]

Build your base above your spawning area keeping the design so that your always traveling within the range for mobs to spawn. should work swimmingly and never require you to be afk

[Rayraka]

Of course, but if you build your spawning area under you and you make sure that the mobs keep spawning by moving around, it still won't change the fact that as they get 32 blocks away from you they will start despawning randomly. As I see it, the best way to build a mob farm is building a square room, not too big around 50 blocks per side. All channels bring the mobs to the centre, where you have an elevator bringing the mobs upward, closer to you, preventing them from despawning, then you set a mob grinder and all their drops fall in a hopper or sorting system. Meanwhile you are in a minecart above the Spawning area, AFK, turning around the central axis.
I'll make a test to see if it works.

[Kazuya Mishima]

Meanwhile you are in a minecart above the Spawning area, AFK, turning around the central axis.
I'll make a test to see if it works.

I didn't realize mob traps where so AFK dependent. In my last game i happened upon a mushroom island (no hostile mobs spawn except in actual mob spawn blocks in dungeons) with a dungeon and a skeleton spawner. I built a rather simple crushing trap that then deployed water to filter all the drops out and it worked fine as it was in my main base but as i started to move further away and create some farms it just became somewhat pointless as it would never activate. Darkness mediated spawning doesn't really increase that range that much and while i thought the solution to my dilemma with the spawners was to rely on darkness but it doesn't even seem to give you that much of an advantage in range. The real solution seeems to be AFK based strategy.

I recall seeing a mod that has a block that when you place it it allows an area around the block to be always rendered or always resident in memory. It was not used for mob spawners though but for enabling quick transit via the portal gun mod as the guy had to keep part of his main base in active memory to send a remote signal back to a device that then opened a portal back to this base.

Has anybody tried Somnia with a spawn trap and do systems operate to ensure drops while your sleeping ?

[Mason11987]

Meanwhile you are in a minecart above the Spawning area, AFK, turning around the central axis.
I'll make a test to see if it works.

I didn't realize mob traps where so AFK dependent. In my last game i happened upon a mushroom island (no hostile mobs spawn except in actual mob spawn blocks in dungeons) with a dungeon and a skeleton spawner. I built a rather simple crushing trap that then deployed water to filter all the drops out and it worked fine as it was in my main base but as i started to move further away and create some farms it just became somewhat pointless as it would never activate. Darkness mediated spawning doesn't really increase that range that much and while i thought the solution to my dilemma with the spawners was to rely on darkness but it doesn't even seem to give you that much of an advantage in range. The real solution seeems to be AFK based strategy.

I recall seeing a mod that has a block that when you place it it allows an area around the block to be always rendered or always resident in memory. It was not used for mob spawners though but for enabling quick transit via the portal gun mod as the guy had to keep part of his main base in active memory to send a remote signal back to a device that then opened a portal back to this base.

Has anybody tried Somnia with a spawn trap and do systems operate to ensure drops while your sleeping ?

The mod you're refering to is additional pipes, it is the chunk loader block, it unfortunately doesn't do much to help in this case.

[Kazuya Mishima]

The mod you're refering to is additional pipes, it is the chunk loader block, it unfortunately doesn't do much to help in this case.

Well this is kinda disheartening. The only thing i could think of now is something like somnia.

[Rayraka]

Meanwhile you are in a minecart above the Spawning area, AFK, turning around the central axis.
I'll make a test to see if it works.

I didn't realize mob traps where so AFK dependent. In my last game i happened upon a mushroom island (no hostile mobs spawn except in actual mob spawn blocks in dungeons) with a dungeon and a skeleton spawner. I built a rather simple crushing trap that then deployed water to filter all the drops out and it worked fine as it was in my main base but as i started to move further away and create some farms it just became somewhat pointless as it would never activate. Darkness mediated spawning doesn't really increase that range that much and while i thought the solution to my dilemma with the spawners was to rely on darkness but it doesn't even seem to give you that much of an advantage in range. The real solution seeems to be AFK based strategy.

I recall seeing a mod that has a block that when you place it it allows an area around the block to be always rendered or always resident in memory. It was not used for mob spawners though but for enabling quick transit via the portal gun mod as the guy had to keep part of his main base in active memory to send a remote signal back to a device that then opened a portal back to this base.

Has anybody tried Somnia with a spawn trap and do systems operate to ensure drops while your sleeping ?

The problem with your spawner is somewhat different from a mob farm. Spawners start spawning mobs when you are within 16 blocks range of it (in all direction),. If you go farther, then it will stop spawning.
and as for as for the chunk loader block, it is, as Mason said, from additional pipes, but in this case it will not solve our problem as the for mob to spawn it requires the player's actual presence.

[Kazuya Mishima]

The problem with your spawner is somewhat different from a mob farm. Spawners start spawning mobs when you are within 16 blocks range of it (in all direction),. If you go farther, then it will stop spawning.
and as for as for the chunk loader block, it is, as Mason said, from additional pipes, but in this case it will not solve our problem as the for mob to spawn it requires the player's actual presence.

Yes i understand, i just didnt' understand how the additional pipes mod altered the way the engine judged your proximity to an area. Darkness mediated spawning only increases the threshold 50% so your kinda limited to where you can move for an active system to harvest.

That has me wondering if something not somnia can circumvent this. According to the somnia developer "No sleep-triggered monster spawns: Monsters spawn normally and may still attack you in your sleep, but only if they can actually reach you."" mobs are active".
Somnia might be a way to accelerate drops rather then AFKing excessivly but that doesn't verify if redstone systems and such operate normally.

[TheAnarchitect]

They do. To oversimplify, Somnia basically runs the entire simulation as normal, simply skipping the part where it renders a view for you. All your automated machines, be they mob farms or soul urn factories, will work as if you were AFKing. It's especially helpful with the amount of automation BTW allows.