Long time lurker first time poster. This forum has been very helpful to me in the past but right now I could use some direct advice. I've used google and the forum's search function to find MOB trap/farmer/grinder tips but most of what I find is "Build this..." or "I improved ____'s design." and very little raw data. The basics of a MOB drowning trap (dig ditch, flood ditch, ????, profit) are incredibly simple but it's the actual MOB spawning information that I seek.
1) What is the smallest area necessary for a dark room to spawn MOBs?
2) How close do you need to be for MOBs to spawn in darkness? (I read 50 blocks somewhere but I am unsure.)
3) What block should I use to encourage the MOBs to spawn? If I use soil will the non-hostile MOBs spawn as well?
4) Will MOBs spawn in shallow water or do they only spawn on dry blocks?
I am attempting to turn a multi-layered strip mine into a drowning trap (complete with loot drop zone). The mine shaft is a 5x5x25 hole that continues down past 4 layers and stops at the 5th layer which is larger and will be the base (safe room) of the trap. Each of the 4 middle layers is 3 blocks high and 5 blocks deep all the way around the mineshaft. I understand that these layers are a bit small for spawning rooms but I thought the fact that there will be multiple rooms will help (yes? no?).
I don't know if this image will help but here is what the mineshaft looks like from below:
I've built a MOB drowning trap before but that was a copy from a Youtube video I watched. This will be the first "custom" trap that I've made and I don't want to block off and flood these rooms only to find out that I've failed (no MOBs spawn, loot doesn't flow down, spiders get clogged, etc). Thanks for any help you can provide (even if you just link to other threads on the subject that I might have missed).
TL;DR What is needed for basic dark room to spawn MOBs? How to make them fall into drowning trap?
1) The smallest are necessary to spawn mobs and the smallest area necessary to spawn a useful number of mobs is a bit different. Assuming a center location, i.e. the middle of a room, I would suggest something on the order of, at least, 45x45 square (22 blocks in each direction horizontally). I've tested 35x35, 50x50, and 75x75 and found that the number of mobs that spawn go from little/none to many to horde respectively. So any room at least 20 to 25 blocks in length from your center mine shaft should be sufficient. Though my testing was done from the bottom of my trap which situated me 4 to 5 levels below the floor of my spawn room which has some effect on the linear distance from my position to the outer walls of my room. To be safe, I would say make sure your rooms are 35+ blocks in length
2) If I recall correctly, mobs will spawn up to 70 to 80 blocks away from you. They also have a minimum distance of, I believe roughly 25 blocks. There is some +/- wiggle room on those numbers.
3) Mobs that are friendly will only spawn on tiles I believe. Using any natural occurring surface should function the same. The floor of my spawn room is entirely made of and and works great. should also work fine, but I have not tested it personally to see.
4) Can't say for sure, but the roof of my spawn room is made entirely of glass with another room above it for me to observe the monsters below (tip: monsters will not spawn on ). I have never, personally, observed monsters spawning in any of the water I have in the room. As such, I keep my large transport canals near my trap (since monsters will not spawn near me anyways) and make smaller canals only one tile wide near the outer parts of my room to keep the spawnable surface area as high as I can while still having water traps they can fall into.
Having multiple floors, I would think, would help as it gives more surface for them to spawn on. However, remember that there is both a minimum and maximum spawning distance. If the rooms are too small then they will fall under the minimum distance and, as such, you will see few to no spawns in them regardless of there being multiple levels.
See viewtopic.php?f=35&t=40917 for more information on spawn information. Not all the information is one the first page so you'll need to read through all of it to see what different people have observed/tested.
I've tried a number of different designs for traps, but variations on the basic design of this trap (viewtopic.php?f=35&t=15282) has been the most effective for me. The modification/diagram for my version of it is on page 6. I like this trap as you will get all the loot that drops from monsters that fall into the trap and drown. Using a cacti modification (see the diagram for mine) just above the water level feeding the trap will insure that all spiders are killed (there will be a loss of string drops from them due to the design though).
I do, also, suggest adding some form of water feed system in your rooms to help trap and move the mobs toward the trap that will kill them. I noticed that when I first made a large room with just a trap in the middle that the mobs just wandered around the outskirts and waiting on them to wander over to my trap was fairly inefficient. Adding something to move them closer and then keep them from wandering away from the trap helps out a lot. Be creative with your canal system for moving mobs :smile.gif:
1) The smallest are necessary to spawn mobs and the smallest area necessary to spawn a useful number of mobs is a bit different. Assuming a center location, i.e. the middle of a room, I would suggest something on the order of, at least, 45x45 square (22 blocks in each direction horizontally). I've tested 35x35, 50x50, and 75x75 and found that the number of mobs that spawn go from little/none to many to horde respectively. So any room at least 20 to 25 blocks in length from your center mine shaft should be sufficient. Though my testing was done from the bottom of my trap which situated me 4 to 5 levels below the floor of my spawn room which has some effect on the linear distance from my position to the outer walls of my room. To be safe, I would say make sure your rooms are 35+ blocks in length
2) If I recall correctly, mobs will spawn up to 70 to 80 blocks away from you. They also have a minimum distance of, I believe roughly 25 blocks. There is some +/- wiggle room on those numbers.
3) Mobs that are friendly will only spawn on tiles I believe. Using any natural occurring surface should function the same. The floor of my spawn room is entirely made of and and works great. should also work fine, but I have not tested it personally to see.
4) Can't say for sure, but the roof of my spawn room is made entirely of glass with another room above it for me to observe the monsters below (tip: monsters will not spawn on ). I have never, personally, observed monsters spawning in any of the water I have in the room. As such, I keep my large transport canals near my trap (since monsters will not spawn near me anyways) and make smaller canals only one tile wide near the outer parts of my room to keep the spawnable surface area as high as I can while still having water traps they can fall into.
Having multiple floors, I would think, would help as it gives more surface for them to spawn on. However, remember that there is both a minimum and maximum spawning distance. If the rooms are too small then they will fall under the minimum distance and, as such, you will see few to no spawns in them regardless of there being multiple levels.
See http://minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=40917 for more information on spawn information. Not all the information is one the first page so you'll need to read through all of it to see what different people have observed/tested.
I've tried a number of different designs for traps, but variations on the basic design of this trap (http://minecraftforum.net/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=15282) has been the most effective for me. The modification/diagram for my version of it is on page 6. I like this trap as you will get all the loot that drops from monsters that fall into the trap and drown. Using a cacti modification (see the diagram for mine) just above the water level feeding the trap will insure that all spiders are killed (there will be a loss of string drops from them due to the design though).
I do, also, suggest adding some form of water feed system in your rooms to help trap and move the mobs toward the trap that will kill them. I noticed that when I first made a large room with just a trap in the middle that the mobs just wandered around the outskirts and waiting on them to wander over to my trap was fairly inefficient. Adding something to move them closer and then keep them from wandering away from the trap helps out a lot. Be creative with your canal system for moving mobs :smile.gif:
Thank you SO much for this extremely useful information. I wish someone would compile it into a tutorial and post it on Minepedia. I'd do it myself but I'm still rather noobtastic at this game.
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1) What is the smallest area necessary for a dark room to spawn MOBs?
2) How close do you need to be for MOBs to spawn in darkness? (I read 50 blocks somewhere but I am unsure.)
3) What block should I use to encourage the MOBs to spawn? If I use soil will the non-hostile MOBs spawn as well?
4) Will MOBs spawn in shallow water or do they only spawn on dry blocks?
I am attempting to turn a multi-layered strip mine into a drowning trap (complete with loot drop zone). The mine shaft is a 5x5x25 hole that continues down past 4 layers and stops at the 5th layer which is larger and will be the base (safe room) of the trap. Each of the 4 middle layers is 3 blocks high and 5 blocks deep all the way around the mineshaft. I understand that these layers are a bit small for spawning rooms but I thought the fact that there will be multiple rooms will help (yes? no?).
I don't know if this image will help but here is what the mineshaft looks like from below:
I've built a MOB drowning trap before but that was a copy from a Youtube video I watched. This will be the first "custom" trap that I've made and I don't want to block off and flood these rooms only to find out that I've failed (no MOBs spawn, loot doesn't flow down, spiders get clogged, etc). Thanks for any help you can provide (even if you just link to other threads on the subject that I might have missed).
TL;DR What is needed for basic dark room to spawn MOBs? How to make them fall into drowning trap?
2) If I recall correctly, mobs will spawn up to 70 to 80 blocks away from you. They also have a minimum distance of, I believe roughly 25 blocks. There is some +/- wiggle room on those numbers.
3) Mobs that are friendly will only spawn on
4) Can't say for sure, but the roof of my spawn room is made entirely of glass with another room above it for me to observe the monsters below (tip: monsters will not spawn on
Having multiple floors, I would think, would help as it gives more surface for them to spawn on. However, remember that there is both a minimum and maximum spawning distance. If the rooms are too small then they will fall under the minimum distance and, as such, you will see few to no spawns in them regardless of there being multiple levels.
See viewtopic.php?f=35&t=40917 for more information on spawn information. Not all the information is one the first page so you'll need to read through all of it to see what different people have observed/tested.
I've tried a number of different designs for traps, but variations on the basic design of this trap (viewtopic.php?f=35&t=15282) has been the most effective for me. The modification/diagram for my version of it is on page 6. I like this trap as you will get all the loot that drops from monsters that fall into the trap and drown. Using a cacti modification (see the diagram for mine) just above the water level feeding the trap will insure that all spiders are killed (there will be a loss of string drops from them due to the design though).
I do, also, suggest adding some form of water feed system in your rooms to help trap and move the mobs toward the trap that will kill them. I noticed that when I first made a large room with just a trap in the middle that the mobs just wandered around the outskirts and waiting on them to wander over to my trap was fairly inefficient. Adding something to move them closer and then keep them from wandering away from the trap helps out a lot. Be creative with your canal system for moving mobs :smile.gif:
Thank you SO much for this extremely useful information. I wish someone would compile it into a tutorial and post it on Minepedia. I'd do it myself but I'm still rather noobtastic at this game.