I'm trying to farm slimes. To start with, I built a spawn area for them -- I'll build the actual killing system, etc., once I reliably get slimes. It occupies an entire slime-generating 16x16 chunk (as identified by the chunkbase slime finder) one layer above bedrock, with a mix of dirt and jack-o-lanterns on the floor, two spaces high. I have a standby area slighlty over 25 blocks from the slime zone, a couple of levels higher (mostly because I had a tunnel there already).
It definitely works to some extent. Slimes spawn in my slime room; on three occasions, I've found small slimes there, one per time. But even when I go afk for half an hour or so in my "standby room", I generally return to a totally slimeless slime farm.
Clearly, I'm doing something badly wrong. I'm just unclear on what. Do I need to search upward in that chunk for caves I haven't found yet and light them up? How far? All the way to the surface, or only to a certain level? Do mobs in adjacent chunks (I can hear zombies somewhere in the next chunk over) interfere with slime spawning, or is it only in that one chunk? Should my spawn room be higher than 2 squares? (I'm given to understand that this will get me small and medium slimes, but my three have all been only small) Does the light level matter, beyond having enough light to prevent other mobs from spawning?
I've been banging my head on the table over this one. Something is clearly wrong, but I'm clueless about what it is. Any answers or suggestions are appreciated.
First and foremost - you need to make the spawn room 3-blocks high. Large slimes need a 3x3x3-block open area to spawn, and those will generally generate more slime balls since you can get up to 16 small slimes from one large slime spawning. Edit for clarification - upon killing: 1 large slime drops up to 4 medium slimes which each drop up to 4 small slimes.
Secondly, you can always add additional floors up to Y40 since slimes spawn up to that level currently.
For peak efficiency, light up all dark areas within 128 block radius of your slime farm.
Looting swords make life a lot easier, and you'll quickly have more slime balls than you need.
I'm trying to farm slimes. To start with, I built a spawn area for them -- I'll build the actual killing system, etc., once I reliably get slimes. It occupies an entire slime-generating 16x16 chunk (as identified by the chunkbase slime finder) one layer above bedrock, with a mix of dirt and jack-o-lanterns on the floor, two spaces high. I have a standby area slighlty over 25 blocks from the slime zone, a couple of levels higher (mostly because I had a tunnel there already).
It definitely works to some extent. Slimes spawn in my slime room; on three occasions, I've found small slimes there, one per time. But even when I go afk for half an hour or so in my "standby room", I generally return to a totally slimeless slime farm.
Clearly, I'm doing something badly wrong. I'm just unclear on what. Do I need to search upward in that chunk for caves I haven't found yet and light them up? How far? All the way to the surface, or only to a certain level? Do mobs in adjacent chunks (I can hear zombies somewhere in the next chunk over) interfere with slime spawning, or is it only in that one chunk? Should my spawn room be higher than 2 squares? (I'm given to understand that this will get me small and medium slimes, but my three have all been only small) Does the light level matter, beyond having enough light to prevent other mobs from spawning?
I've been banging my head on the table over this one. Something is clearly wrong, but I'm clueless about what it is. Any answers or suggestions are appreciated.
1) You will want at least 3 spaces high and 4 is better. This increases the odds of slime spawning because it enables all three sizes of slimes spawning.
2) Within the slime chunk up to level 40, you do not just want to light up the caves, but fill them in or floor them with slabs or flood them so slimes cannot spawn in the caves where your slime farm isn't. This also applies to any adjacent "unfarmed" slimes near your slime farm chunk. (Alternatively - make additional floors of your slime farm right up to level 40 and also convert adjacent slime chunks into farms; but I personally prefer filling the areas in up to level 40 and keeping the slime spawn to 1 floor). I don't get massive rates of slimes spawning, but I do get ample slimes for all uses in the game and I don't have to worry about building a massive collection system for them).
3) Outside the slime chunk, you want to light up all caves(or floor them with slabs or flood them) within about 144 blocks of the slime farm to discourage other hostile mobs from farming.
4) A common error in making slime farms is also to misread the slime finder. Check to make sure that you have cleared the correct chunk.
Another thing to do, if you don't want to add spawn pads at higher levels, is to half slab any caves that are in the same chunk as your slime farm. Would also help to half slab any caves that spawn slimes that are close to your farm.
144 blocks ... okay, I'm DEFINITELY doing it wrong. I misunderstood that spawn was independent in each chunk. Apparently those zombies I hear somewhere (I'm starting to suspect a zombie spawner; it seems it's just zombies) are doing their part to screw up my slime spawn. As is everything else in that quarter of the map. *sigh* Well, at least I'll get a lot of ore out of it.
I just raised the roof level; hopefully that will help. Do I understand correctly that slimes won't spawn in my one-block-wide tunnels, just in the open area?
I guess I have my Minecraft project for the next week: finding and lighting up every possible place for mobs to spawn, so I'll get some slimes. Slimes mean slimeballs mean sticky pistons. *sigh* I'm up to my eyeballs in redstone, and I've gotten a grand total of six slimeballs all game. (one of those by luck when I went to clear a cavern and it had a slime bouncing around in it)
I've definitely cleared the correct chunk; a few slimes have spawned in my slime chamber. Just, so far, not very many. A total of three, to be exact (and one of those three didn't drop). Back to clearing caves .... Well, actually, back to productive work; after business is dealt with, then back to clearing caves.
144 blocks ... okay, I'm DEFINITELY doing it wrong. I misunderstood that spawn was independent in each chunk. Apparently those zombies I hear somewhere (I'm starting to suspect a zombie spawner; it seems it's just zombies) are doing their part to screw up my slime spawn. As is everything else in that quarter of the map. *sigh* Well, at least I'll get a lot of ore out of it.
I just raised the roof level; hopefully that will help. Do I understand correctly that slimes won't spawn in my one-block-wide tunnels, just in the open area?
I guess I have my Minecraft project for the next week: finding and lighting up every possible place for mobs to spawn, so I'll get some slimes. Slimes mean slimeballs mean sticky pistons. *sigh* I'm up to my eyeballs in redstone, and I've gotten a grand total of six slimeballs all game. (one of those by luck when I went to clear a cavern and it had a slime bouncing around in it)
I've definitely cleared the correct chunk; a few slimes have spawned in my slime chamber. Just, so far, not very many. A total of three, to be exact (and one of those three didn't drop). Back to clearing caves .... Well, actually, back to productive work; after business is dealt with, then back to clearing caves.
I think, but am not completely sure, that little slimes can spawn in 1-block wide tunnels; but since slimes spawn very slowly compared to other hostile mobs, it will usually only spawn them in small areas if there is absolutely no area that is more open for them to be spawned in. So, by opening up the chunk, you're increasing the game's "preferences" for spawning them in that area. Spawn of most hostile mobs is not limited to individual chunks but is active for a distance around the player in areas that are dark enough for them to spawn. If there is a spawner involved, the spawner itself becomes active if you're standing within 16 blocks of it. If there is no spawner, then any dark enough area between 32 and 144 blocks away will spawn hostile mobs (if that area is also tall enough for the mob (e.g. enderman need 3 blocks high, zombies 2, etc.). Slabs, transparent blocks, and water(?) will also prevent mobs from spawning on "floor" blocks even if the lighting it dark. The water may need to be a certain depth though (I'm pretty sure I have seen some skeletons spawn in shallow water around my survival island). This is also a preference thing though and I think the game may have a "minimum" number of hostile mobs to spawn (in addition to a maximum)... So, if you do too good a job of lighting this up, you may notice mobs start spawning in some relatively well lit areas. I purposefully leave a few darker areas to allow a small number of hostile mobs to spawn where I can control them if necessary. This may be why I don't hit the highest number of slimes spawning in my farms, but as I said, I get the numbers certainly high enough to easily meet all my needs (sticky pistons and potions).
Sometimes it just depends on the wait time too. Usually I'll check every half hour and come back to loads vs. only waiting ten minutes and coming down to only find one little slime.
Update on my slimes: First, I raised the roof of my slime spawning area by a level. This afternoon (when I should have been editing photos for a client, but oh well) I was a ways above the slime area checking for caves and slabbing all the open areas where I had removed ore, etc. When I headed back down past my slime area (I needed to dump some stuff in the chest in my "waiting room") I heard some promising splocking sounds. I looked through the windows into my slime spawner, and sure enough, there were three fat slimes -- two mediums and a large. So the advice y'all have been providing has definitely improved my slime generation. I have *sheepish look* 14 slimeballs now. Not a lot, but better than zero!
Update: Now 34 slimeballs. This is definitely working much better now!
Nice. Another trick to get them to spawn is by farming mobs from a spawner. Once you build up the mobs, and then kill them all, you should get some slimes to spawn. At least that's what I've seen happen on a pc server I played on and my slime farm on the xbox.
Yep. I've mentioned this before around here, somewhere. I already used glowstone in the ceiling of my slime chunks, before the pumpkin-farming update. But if I extend the slime farm to lower levels, I'm definitely using jack-o-lanterns in the new floors/ceilings.
Well, the slime spawning is working nicely now. I've got a couple of stacks of slimeballs stored, which should be quite enough for at my sticky piston construction needs for a while.
UpUp is onto something with the part about a minimum number of mobs spawning, by the way. I met a skeleton marching around in a brightly lit area just outside my slime farm. I'm not sure who was more surprised, but a diamond sword with Sharpness (and Looting, of course) on it can make short work of a skell, so it wasn't surprised for very long. I'm not sure whether that skell spawned on the top of the slime farm (it's only one level) or in the area outside the slime chunk. I have miles of tunnels down there ... this could be a problem if they start randomly spawning mobs, despite having torches every four spaces to prevent this.
I think I'll take UpUp's advice and make a dark spawning chamber to take care of this problem, before I walk out there some day and find a creeper waiting to blow up my slime farm.
I honestly use a mob grinder directly above a slime chuck with a cave system going through it. I grind at the mob grinder till lvl30 and then go to the cave. there usually is a few slimes in there. I have 3 full stacks of slimes this way. doesnt mess up my grinder and i dont have to make some huge farm. Caves already had to be made brighter, so win win
You seem to have this pretty well in hand now, but I'll give some advice anyway.
Rather than flooding or slabbing everything around your slime farm (which I find pretty tedious), or building a multi-tiered slime farm, you could remove every block up to y40. Personally, I go nuts with TNT. Not only does it make short work, its also quite satisfying. Clean up the rough edges, throw some glowstone into the walls and you have one epic looking room. This also has the added function of forcing the slimes to spawn on only one level.
You seem to have this pretty well in hand now, but I'll give some advice anyway.
Rather than flooding or slabbing everything around your slime farm (which I find pretty tedious), or building a multi-tiered slime farm, you could remove every block up to y40. Personally, I go nuts with TNT. Not only does it make short work, its also quite satisfying. Clean up the rough edges, throw some glowstone into the walls and you have one epic looking room. This also has the added function of forcing the slimes to spawn on only one level.
The point of multiple levels is to increase the spawns by adding more surface area where slimes can spawn. If you blow up everything, you are wasting a lot of slime-friendly surface area.
And jack-o-lanterns are more suitable than glowstone, because they can go inside floors as well as ceilings. Slimes will spawn on them, unlike glowstone.
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Retired StaffIt definitely works to some extent. Slimes spawn in my slime room; on three occasions, I've found small slimes there, one per time. But even when I go afk for half an hour or so in my "standby room", I generally return to a totally slimeless slime farm.
Clearly, I'm doing something badly wrong. I'm just unclear on what. Do I need to search upward in that chunk for caves I haven't found yet and light them up? How far? All the way to the surface, or only to a certain level? Do mobs in adjacent chunks (I can hear zombies somewhere in the next chunk over) interfere with slime spawning, or is it only in that one chunk? Should my spawn room be higher than 2 squares? (I'm given to understand that this will get me small and medium slimes, but my three have all been only small) Does the light level matter, beyond having enough light to prevent other mobs from spawning?
I've been banging my head on the table over this one. Something is clearly wrong, but I'm clueless about what it is. Any answers or suggestions are appreciated.
The golden age: it's not the game, it's you ⋆ Why Minecraft should not be harder ⋆ Spelling hints
Secondly, you can always add additional floors up to Y40 since slimes spawn up to that level currently.
For peak efficiency, light up all dark areas within 128 block radius of your slime farm.
Looting swords make life a lot easier, and you'll quickly have more slime balls than you need.
1) You will want at least 3 spaces high and 4 is better. This increases the odds of slime spawning because it enables all three sizes of slimes spawning.
2) Within the slime chunk up to level 40, you do not just want to light up the caves, but fill them in or floor them with slabs or flood them so slimes cannot spawn in the caves where your slime farm isn't. This also applies to any adjacent "unfarmed" slimes near your slime farm chunk. (Alternatively - make additional floors of your slime farm right up to level 40 and also convert adjacent slime chunks into farms; but I personally prefer filling the areas in up to level 40 and keeping the slime spawn to 1 floor). I don't get massive rates of slimes spawning, but I do get ample slimes for all uses in the game and I don't have to worry about building a massive collection system for them).
3) Outside the slime chunk, you want to light up all caves(or floor them with slabs or flood them) within about 144 blocks of the slime farm to discourage other hostile mobs from farming.
4) A common error in making slime farms is also to misread the slime finder. Check to make sure that you have cleared the correct chunk.
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Retired Staff144 blocks ... okay, I'm DEFINITELY doing it wrong. I misunderstood that spawn was independent in each chunk. Apparently those zombies I hear somewhere (I'm starting to suspect a zombie spawner; it seems it's just zombies) are doing their part to screw up my slime spawn. As is everything else in that quarter of the map. *sigh* Well, at least I'll get a lot of ore out of it.
I just raised the roof level; hopefully that will help. Do I understand correctly that slimes won't spawn in my one-block-wide tunnels, just in the open area?
I guess I have my Minecraft project for the next week: finding and lighting up every possible place for mobs to spawn, so I'll get some slimes. Slimes mean slimeballs mean sticky pistons. *sigh* I'm up to my eyeballs in redstone, and I've gotten a grand total of six slimeballs all game. (one of those by luck when I went to clear a cavern and it had a slime bouncing around in it)
I've definitely cleared the correct chunk; a few slimes have spawned in my slime chamber. Just, so far, not very many. A total of three, to be exact (and one of those three didn't drop). Back to clearing caves .... Well, actually, back to productive work; after business is dealt with, then back to clearing caves.
The golden age: it's not the game, it's you ⋆ Why Minecraft should not be harder ⋆ Spelling hints
I think, but am not completely sure, that little slimes can spawn in 1-block wide tunnels; but since slimes spawn very slowly compared to other hostile mobs, it will usually only spawn them in small areas if there is absolutely no area that is more open for them to be spawned in. So, by opening up the chunk, you're increasing the game's "preferences" for spawning them in that area. Spawn of most hostile mobs is not limited to individual chunks but is active for a distance around the player in areas that are dark enough for them to spawn. If there is a spawner involved, the spawner itself becomes active if you're standing within 16 blocks of it. If there is no spawner, then any dark enough area between 32 and 144 blocks away will spawn hostile mobs (if that area is also tall enough for the mob (e.g. enderman need 3 blocks high, zombies 2, etc.). Slabs, transparent blocks, and water(?) will also prevent mobs from spawning on "floor" blocks even if the lighting it dark. The water may need to be a certain depth though (I'm pretty sure I have seen some skeletons spawn in shallow water around my survival island). This is also a preference thing though and I think the game may have a "minimum" number of hostile mobs to spawn (in addition to a maximum)... So, if you do too good a job of lighting this up, you may notice mobs start spawning in some relatively well lit areas. I purposefully leave a few darker areas to allow a small number of hostile mobs to spawn where I can control them if necessary. This may be why I don't hit the highest number of slimes spawning in my farms, but as I said, I get the numbers certainly high enough to easily meet all my needs (sticky pistons and potions).
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Retired StaffUpdate: Now 34 slimeballs. This is definitely working much better now!
The golden age: it's not the game, it's you ⋆ Why Minecraft should not be harder ⋆ Spelling hints
From the Wiki on Jack o'Lanterns:
"Jack o'Lanterns can be used for a slime farm to light up the room, as they are opaque blocks which mobs can spawn on."
http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Jack_o'Lantern
lvl 31790????????? I can not see how that is even possible
he claims he does his stuff in legit survival but after that, i call BS
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
Retired StaffUpUp is onto something with the part about a minimum number of mobs spawning, by the way. I met a skeleton marching around in a brightly lit area just outside my slime farm. I'm not sure who was more surprised, but a diamond sword with Sharpness (and Looting, of course) on it can make short work of a skell, so it wasn't surprised for very long.
I think I'll take UpUp's advice and make a dark spawning chamber to take care of this problem, before I walk out there some day and find a creeper waiting to blow up my slime farm.
The golden age: it's not the game, it's you ⋆ Why Minecraft should not be harder ⋆ Spelling hints
Rather than flooding or slabbing everything around your slime farm (which I find pretty tedious), or building a multi-tiered slime farm, you could remove every block up to y40. Personally, I go nuts with TNT. Not only does it make short work, its also quite satisfying. Clean up the rough edges, throw some glowstone into the walls and you have one epic looking room. This also has the added function of forcing the slimes to spawn on only one level.
The point of multiple levels is to increase the spawns by adding more surface area where slimes can spawn. If you blow up everything, you are wasting a lot of slime-friendly surface area.
And jack-o-lanterns are more suitable than glowstone, because they can go inside floors as well as ceilings. Slimes will spawn on them, unlike glowstone.