I'm not sure if anyone has thought about this, but..
For moving items (e.g. from a monster trap) most people build water channels like this:
If you watch items moving though this, you'll see that for the blocks the items move at a reasonable speed, but each time they reach a block they take ages to move to the next block. In this case it takes about 31 seconds to move an item 7 blocks, or an average speed of 0.225 blocks per second. Because items disappear after 5 minutes, the maximum distance you can move an item with this method is about 67 blocks.
Here's my faster alternative:
This method takes about 23 seconds to move an item 7 blocks, or an average speed of 0.304 blocks per second (or about 35% faster). The maximum distance you can move an item before it disappears works out to about 91 blocks.
For a large mob killer, this means items reach your collection point faster and take longer to disappear.
I built a massive 180*180 mob tower/trap, with a 10*10 grid of 18*18 spawning floors and a mob killer under each spawning floor (so, 100 mob killers). The items from the mob killers in the corners of this tower would travel about 80 blocks north/south then another 80 blocks east/west using the "slow" water channels. At least that was the idea - half the items probably disappeared before they got anywhere near my collection point.
For massive mob tower/traps, the speed of the water channels make a huge difference to the design (and maximum useful size) of the mob tower.
I started again. This time it's going to be more like this:
Where each represents a 20 * 20 spawning floor with a mob killer under it, and each [] represents unusable space (where the items would disappear before they get to the collection point).
This is very nice, but I actually prefer to make a channel that directs the mobs themselves down a channel and into a trap at the end; you get to watch them swarm though and die. It's quite entertaining, though I haven't tested it with the new spiders yet.
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Quote from dusty328 »
This man really is a genius. Never have i seen such a clear and well written forum post.
This is very nice, but I actually prefer to make a channel that directs the mobs themselves down a channel and into a trap at the end; you get to watch them swarm though and die. It's quite entertaining, though I haven't tested it with the new spiders yet.
For a massive mob tower (e.g. 144 * 144 or larger), my theory is that you reach the "200 mobs alive at a time" limit; and when you're at this limit the most important thing (for drops per minute) is killing mobs quickly - e.g. 200 mobs killed per minute rather than 200 mobs killed every 3 minutes. Moving mobs large distances (e.g. 70 blocks north/south then 70 blocks east/west) towards a central mob killer would seriously reduce your drops per minute.
Quote from th3raven »
Or you could use the all-round better method:
That still has the same problem - items move very slowly through the blocks (almost 8 seconds for that one block, rather than about 3.28 seconds for a "flowing" block).
The slowdown is due to the top layer of water moving fast while layers below move much more slowly. So in this example
the pink block is the 2nd layer of water and therefore moves slowly.
In both
and
the water is 1 layer deep so they will be the same speed. Being a water source doesn't affect the speed. So the only difference between yours and mine is that in mine the water flows 1 block further and takes up less vertical space.
The slowdown is due to the top layer of water moving fast while layers below move much more slowly. So in this example
the pink block is the 2nd layer of water and therefore moves slowly.
In both
and
the water is 1 layer deep so they will be the same speed. Being a water source doesn't affect the speed. So the only difference between yours and mine is that in mine the water flows 1 block further and takes up less vertical space.
Doh. I tested it, and you're right.
Now I need to fix my water channels again (lucky I haven't finished them yet I guess).
well for my mob trap (size: 144x144x127) i found it best to have my items delivered from 8 channels: N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW. each one of the lines will be a channel.
i do not know how i am going to have the channels that come for the N,S,E,W but this is how i will have the other channels: it is 12 blocks square from the start to the end and that it is going diagonal to make it a length of: (12x12)x2=288 and then the square root of 288 is: 16.97 meters (blocks).
i ran 4 timed tests on it that gave me an average time of: 37.62 seconds. so every second it travels: 0.45 blocks.
5 minutes has 300 seconds, and so in 5 minutes it can travel: 135.327 meters (blocks compared to the 90 so before.
i do not know how i am going to have the channels that come for the N,S,E,W but this is how i will have the other channels: it is 12 blocks square from the start to the end and that it is going diagonal to make it a length of: (12x12)x2=288 and then the square root of 288 is: 16.97 meters (blocks).
i ran 4 timed tests on it that gave me an average time of: 37.62 seconds. so every second it travels: 0.45 blocks.
5 minutes has 300 seconds, and so in 5 minutes it can travel: 135.327 meters (blocks compared to the 90 so before.
Doh. I didn't think about diagonal water channels. Now I'm going to have to redesign.
My main goal is to have a fully automated factory that generates items and delivers each type of item to the right group of chests for that item (with a huge warehouse just above bedrock full of chests).
For hostile mobs this means seperating spiders from creepers/zombies/skellies and killing them seperately, so that spider webs can be delivered to the spider web chests (gundpowder, arrows, bones and feathers get sent to a "misc." group of chests because there's no sane way to sort those mobs).
I'm doing similar things with passive mobs, where they're sorted into type (a "chicken pre-filter" where other mobs fall through water and chickens don't, and then the other mobs are sorted according to their height). Bacon to the bacon chests, cow-hide to the cow-hide chests, etc. I've been experimenting with chicken processing, and I've worked out a way to have an "egg or feather" switch in the warehouse to control if chickens get converted into feathers or if they are kept alive to lay eggs (feathers to feather chests, eggs to egg chests). I'm also planning on doing a sheep shearing section where the new dispensers are used to remove wool before the sheep are cremated. Maybe one day (if I can figure out how the squid spawning works) I'll be able to add a black ink generator to it too. Oh - there's also a cactus generator.
For hostile mobs this means I end up with at least 2 channels from each mob processor (although I've been using 3 for convenience). Here's a picture showing the hostile mob processors and water channels for my current factory:
Everything else is processed close to the collection point, where item delivery isn't a problem.
I'm not sure if anyone has thought about this, but..
For moving items (e.g. from a monster trap) most people build water channels like this:
If you watch items moving though this, you'll see that for the
Here's my faster alternative:
This method takes about 23 seconds to move an item 7 blocks, or an average speed of 0.304 blocks per second (or about 35% faster). The maximum distance you can move an item before it disappears works out to about 91 blocks.
For a large mob killer, this means items reach your collection point faster and take longer to disappear.
Cheers,
Qweesdy
Can't be worse than my mess....
I built a massive 180*180 mob tower/trap, with a 10*10 grid of 18*18 spawning floors and a mob killer under each spawning floor (so, 100 mob killers). The items from the mob killers in the corners of this tower would travel about 80 blocks north/south then another 80 blocks east/west using the "slow" water channels. At least that was the idea - half the items probably disappeared before they got anywhere near my collection point.
For massive mob tower/traps, the speed of the water channels make a huge difference to the design (and maximum useful size) of the mob tower.
I started again. This time it's going to be more like this:
[] [] []
[] []
[]
[]
[] []
[] [] []
Where each
Cheers,
Qweesdy
For a massive mob tower (e.g. 144 * 144 or larger), my theory is that you reach the "200 mobs alive at a time" limit; and when you're at this limit the most important thing (for drops per minute) is killing mobs quickly - e.g. 200 mobs killed per minute rather than 200 mobs killed every 3 minutes. Moving mobs large distances (e.g. 70 blocks north/south then 70 blocks east/west) towards a central mob killer would seriously reduce your drops per minute.
That still has the same problem - items move very slowly through the
Cheers,
Qweesdy
or does that first lower block become a source (
the pink block is the 2nd layer of water and therefore moves slowly.
In both
and
the water is 1 layer deep so they will be the same speed. Being a water source doesn't affect the speed. So the only difference between yours and mine is that in mine the water flows 1 block further and takes up less vertical space.
Doh. I tested it, and you're right.
Now I need to fix my water channels again (lucky I haven't finished them yet I guess).
Thanks,
Qweesdy
i do not know how i am going to have the channels that come for the N,S,E,W but this is how i will have the other channels:
i ran 4 timed tests on it that gave me an average time of: 37.62 seconds. so every second it travels: 0.45 blocks.
5 minutes has 300 seconds, and so in 5 minutes it can travel: 135.327 meters (blocks compared to the 90 so before.
Doh. I didn't think about diagonal water channels. Now I'm going to have to redesign.
My main goal is to have a fully automated factory that generates items and delivers each type of item to the right group of chests for that item (with a huge warehouse just above bedrock full of chests).
For hostile mobs this means seperating spiders from creepers/zombies/skellies and killing them seperately, so that spider webs can be delivered to the spider web chests (gundpowder, arrows, bones and feathers get sent to a "misc." group of chests because there's no sane way to sort those mobs).
I'm doing similar things with passive mobs, where they're sorted into type (a "chicken pre-filter" where other mobs fall through water and chickens don't, and then the other mobs are sorted according to their height). Bacon to the bacon chests, cow-hide to the cow-hide chests, etc. I've been experimenting with chicken processing, and I've worked out a way to have an "egg or feather" switch in the warehouse to control if chickens get converted into feathers or if they are kept alive to lay eggs (feathers to feather chests, eggs to egg chests). I'm also planning on doing a sheep shearing section where the new dispensers are used to remove wool before the sheep are cremated. Maybe one day (if I can figure out how the squid spawning works) I'll be able to add a black ink generator to it too. Oh - there's also a cactus generator.
For hostile mobs this means I end up with at least 2 channels from each mob processor (although I've been using 3 for convenience). Here's a picture showing the hostile mob processors and water channels for my current factory:
Everything else is processed close to the collection point, where item delivery isn't a problem.
Thanks,
Qweesdy