Better Than Wolves Forum

So I'm experimenting with setting up hoppers to collect everything that drops (including XP). It seems like every automated mob trap I make ends up with some losses -- items stuck in corners, dragon orbs passing over soul sand hoppers and getting stuck on regular hoppers, etc. Is that pretty much the way it goes, or does anyone have any thoughts on ways to design perfectly efficient hopper setups?

If you have a hopper you NEED stuff to fall into, like a soul sand one, place it as far away from a water drop as possible, so there is shallow water above, and undertow plus speed up wont carry items past it.

jkievlan wrote:So I'm experimenting with setting up hoppers to collect everything that drops (including XP). It seems like every automated mob trap I make ends up with some losses -- items stuck in corners, dragon orbs passing over soul sand hoppers and getting stuck on regular hoppers, etc. Is that pretty much the way it goes, or does anyone have any thoughts on ways to design perfectly efficient hopper setups?

I know what you mean. In my admittedly small amount of experience (three different mob grinders) I have seen exactly what you mean. Orbs and even items just seem to hang up in places, sometimes right above a hopper. Sometimes I think it is just a graphic glitch and they really aren't there. One thing I have done is place two soul sand hoppers at the end of my set up. One hopper under the last square of water and one hopper at the end of the last square of water but not under it(adjacent to the water but not under it). Hope that makes sense. Sometimes you just have to experiment with slightly different set ups for how you channel the flow of water.

In other words, keep messing around until you find the maximum efficiency and look at any youtube setups you can find. Sometimes those dragon orbs are like trying to flush a pingpong ball down the toilet.

Hope this doesn't take you off topic but, have you gotten any Arcane Scrolls from your grinder? I have never gotten an Arcane Scroll from my grinder. I know they're rare drops though so I'll be patient, unless there is a trick to it that I missed.

I've noticed this as well on occasion although I've encountered it more on servers than ssp. My strategy that I used the most that seemed rather reliable was to run a water stream output carrying items and orbs out as far as it can go with a soul sand hopper under the second to last water block and a normal hopper at the end after the water stream. This let's you separate orbs from items into independent streams without corners and at the shallow end of the stream to avoid issues with hc bouancy. After that if you're having problems with items getting lost or stuck in your sorting consider the following:
Instead of extending water by dropping it down one level at the 7th shallow block, use a hopper to dump things into a separate water stream. This resets the item decay timer and avoids the delay caused by hcb with items in the first water block. This however costs you two vertical spaces and the extra pain of routing an additional water stream.
If you're system uses a lot of corners in your water flows and you're having item loss problems, consider straightening things out. In the very least I found it was easier to diagnose issues with my sorter when my streams used more 1d space.
Keep in mind item decay. If you're output is not what you expect, consider timing your items from the last hopper they pass through to your storage. I know in mine I hit this limit with my orbs.

heypaint wrote:Sometimes those dragon orbs are like trying to flush a pingpong ball down the toilet.

Haha I like the way you put that :) I can't help thinking that in the end I'm just going to have to accept that there will be some losses and just try to minimize them as best I can. I can always just build another mob trap if I'm not getting enough drops.

heypaint wrote:Hope this doesn't take you off topic but, have you gotten any Arcane Scrolls from your grinder? I have never gotten an Arcane Scroll from my grinder. I know they're rare drops though so I'll be patient, unless there is a trick to it that I missed.

Actually, no -- not one in all the time I've played BTW. But I have noticed I tend to get more losses with items that float, and IIRC Arcane Scrolls float...so I wonder if maybe that's the cause.

It may be worth noting that soulsand hoppers have a limit to the amount of xp they can absorb at one time. This usually only applies when you have a mob grinder with massive output, but it should be kept in mind regardless. Having two soulsand hoppers in a row or slowing the water flow as mentioned below should help if this is the case.

Edit: I'm talking about powered hoppers, in case the above was ambiguous.

jkievlan wrote: Actually, no -- not one in all the time I've played BTW. But I have noticed I tend to get more losses with items that float, and IIRC Arcane Scrolls float...so I wonder if maybe that's the cause.

That's an intentional aspect of how Hardcore Buoy works. In order for an item to be collected by a Hopper, it has to come into contact with the top surface. This means you want a floating item to pass over a Hopper in the shallow parts of the flow if you want to collect it. My own filters are setup to take that into account, and never miss a single item they're not supposed to.

This behavior both makes item processing more interesting and provides filtering opportunities which wouldn't exist otherwise, by effectively separating items that float from ones that do not, even if they would pass through the same Hopper filter.

I can say that I've had a fully functional Mob grinder for about a month or 2 now. It has 10 levels and a fairly decent mob output ratio. I have only gotten 4 Arcane scrolls through the grinder. They drop they are just rare.
Also when I setup my grinder initially I had to change the location of collection areas to take into account hardcore buoy so I wouldn't miss drops like you are. Those floating items can be a pain sometimes. Move your hopper further downstream or water source further upstream if possible to solve the issues.

Also note, soul sand hoppers can hold regular xp orbs too so you can stick a powered soul sand hopper at the beginning and pass the xp orbs off to a completely separate water flow for storage. I always put a catch all filterless hopper at the end of the line to catch anything missed and those pesky heads/vines.

milkmandan wrote:Also note, soul sand hoppers can hold regular xp orbs too so you can stick a powered soul sand hopper at the beginning and pass the xp orbs off to a completely separate water flow for storage. I always put a catch all filterless hopper at the end of the line to catch anything missed and those pesky heads/vines.

Good to know! I actually assumed they'd only catch dragon orbs, so I've designed all my setups around having only one level of hoppers for XP collection. That will make things simpler.

As per suggestions in this thread, I've moved my hoppers to the furthest point my water will flow, and that seems to help. I still see a few items caught at the bottom of the water drop but a few losses won't kill me. Thanks for the help guys :)