Minecraft Forums

I just built my first chicken farm in The End, in Survival Mode. I already had the maximum number of passive mobs in the Overworld, and now I can breed additional mobs in the The End as well. Has anyone else done this before? I don't see much mention of it online, but it seems to me like a valid and very useful activity. I haven't yet tried leading cows, pigs or sheep through the End Portal, but getting chickens into The End was easy, as they can spawn by throwing eggs around. Exceeding the pop cap in this way seems to be within the spirit and ethos of Minecraft. I'm not sure what the animals think about staring into the starless, sunless Void sky, but the grass blocks I had harvested with my Silk Touch shovel spread normally in The End (once I had terraformed some of the end stone into dirt), and the grass grew as per normal, even with poppies and daffodils.

How do others make use of The End once the Dragon has been slain? I guess Enderman farming, for both Ender Pearls and XP is probably the most common use for it, and I have heard of people building their main home base there. I guess now that The End can be regenerated, and an endless supply of obsidian (in the pillars) is available, this would also be a popular use for The End. I'm just looking for ideas.

By the way, I know my comment here isn't really Xbox360-specific, but as I only play Minecraft on my Xbox360 at present, I'd prefer to leave this post here, rather than posting it in the more general Minecraft gaming forums, where I'd be more likely to get replies that aren't relevant to (or workable on) my Xbox360-only gaming experience. So please don't suggest a wonderful creation in The End which uses blocks or items that aren't available on the Classic Console. Thanks.

I built my wool farm in the end because I can breed to the maximum number of sheep. Makes getting wool much faster than trying to do it in the overworld.

The nether has its own passive mob cap as well, so it can be utilized for animal farms too, as long as you do not need water. I built my first wool farm there.

Another good use for the end is villager stuff. With an iron farm that holds 48 villagers and a breeder and sorter in the overworld I run into cap all the time, so the ones I want to keep I send to the end, and open up cap in the overworld.

Hmm, I've been thinking more on this. My chicken farm in the End is working out great. Sheep and villagers though, sounds great, I'd love to do that, but I haven't worked out how yet. Silk Touch enchantment doesn't work on the End Portal frame blocks, and neither does TNT any more, apparently, so there is no way in Survival Mode to move the End Portal, that I know of. There is some suggestion elsewhere online of using a minecart to transport mobs to the End Portal. I assume that is how you've done it, Tom? Any other suggestions or advice?

I have a beginning of a minecart track leading from my base, and it could be used for this purpose, but the End Portal in my world is at Y:30, some 40 blocks below my base's ground level (not to mention that the monorail system I'm building is elevated slightly too), and it is surrounded on three sides by deep ocean, so the descent will be ... interesting, to say the least! I'll have to do a loop around and attack it from the only side that isn't a water entrance, haha. Either that or some judicious use of sponges, and a minecart that enters a tunnel down through the ocean. That could be an interesting build, in itself!

Yah, I send them via minecart track. You have to eject them and then push them through the portal somehow, as they will not go through until they are not riding another entity. I have a system of water and activator rails to do it automatically, you could just dump the minecart and villager into the portal so they are partially in the portal and break the minecart.

As far as taking the monorail through the ocean, I would run to the edge of the shore and transition to a tunnel that takes you in the rest of the way under the ocean floor.

Also, the rail system needs to keep the cart at a decent momentum, if it slows too much the villager will be able to control the minecart. If you opt for a manual system make sure the cart is not on a rail when it stops, otherwise the villager will take back off in the wrong direction (even if the rail it stops on is an unpowered powered rail). If you eject them automatically with an activator rail this is not required. I suggest you play with villagers in minecarts in a creative world, you will see what I mean right away, and it will save you a lot of rebuilding in survival if it doesn't work exactly the way you thought it would (like every single one of my first iterations of a project).

Thanks Tom, that's some great advice there. I now have a minecart track leading all the way from my main base, close to my villager farm, through to the End Portal itself. I haven't yet played with villagers and ejecting them from minecarts; that's the next part of my project; but at least the minecart itself works. It was a bit of a mission, as I dual-purpose my minecart tracks ... during the night the track is fully automated, with a minecart and chest running along and collecting any resources from hoppers from various locations. By day the minecart and chest return to a railyard, and I can then set switches for particular locations and ride a minecart to them. This is how I'll move the villagers. I now have a switch to set the track to divert to the End Portal, which is not a normal stop on my monorail track.

For the drop down to the End Portal itself, I decided to make a steep drop through the water from the main monorail line, and through a nice glass tunnel into the ocean, with sea lanterns around the base of it. I think it looks quite spectacular, and no doubt will look even better once we get the aquatic update, fixing the water which falls off the edge of the glass blocks at present.

Next step, ejecting the villagers from the minecarts. As you say, Creative Mode is great for this type of experimenting first. There I can also fine tune my build to consume the least amount of resources in my Survival world. Thanks again for all your help and advice Tom. Apologies for the quality of my screenshots. I don't have any video capture hardware, so it's just a digital photo from my TV, I'm afraid.

Looks great so far. Like you said though, it'll look better after the aquatic update. I bought a pc and java minecraft three weeks ago, so I've been able to play the snapshots a little bit. The new water is very cool, and looks much better with glass than it currently does.

I've never tried in survival, but they can be sent through the end gateway in a minecart. They take half a heart of suffocation damage as they pass through the bedrock, but as long as they don't spawn on the lower bedrock of the end gateway on the other side they arrive alive. All you need to do to prevent this is have solid blocks at the level of the gateway around it and they'll spawn on those. You don't even have to eject them from the minecart, since they are teleported to the same dimension. A splash potion of healing once they make it to the island and its like nothing ever happened.

One thing I should also mention, if any farms you plan to build in the end use dirt or grass you need to make it so that enderman cannot get close enough to pick up the grass/dirt/etc. The easiest way is to make sure there are no 3 high spaces for them to teleport into, although if thats not possible there are other methods, like water or double carpet. Simply lighting things won't work, they will eventually teleport to the lighted area and pick apart your farm one block at a time.

Most ppl won't go through the trouble of removing bedrock in survival, although it really isnt that difficult.

Thats a cool idea though, how do you collect the pearls? I never tested if the island stays entity processing if you are at the main island. Or do you just go through the gateway and pick up the pearls manually?

Thats good to know. My smelting array is at the island, and theres been a couple times I wished I could send items back and forth. You cant load two dimensions with one player on console, but at least I can automate the transfer from the end storage to the smelting array.