Having found a skeleton spawner right near the location of my soon-to-be kingdom, I was delighted-- but wait! It's sunken into the side! Putting a building there would be awkward-looking and I'd have to extend my kingdom's previously square wall into a smooth mountainside for easy and safe travel to a trap horizontal to the spawner, creating a weak point in my defenses! Keeping the drop point in my kingdom's wall won't work because I'm more than 16 blocks from the spawner and it won't be activated from inside the wall's safety. The only safe place is on top of the hill itself. Items can't be moved upward, though... but what about the skeletons?
Most certainly! Even more rewarding is that my grinder's item deposit area is now on top of a hill, perfectly formed to place a safehouse-- and a big one at that-- around its spawner. Here's how I did it:
The full grinder apparatus. The actual killing device and drop point are at the top (no safehouse around it yet), but they're hidden behind the transport tube in this shot. The visible top is the end of the tube leading to the grinder, and the bottom is the entrance to the spawner's conveniently accompanying natural cave, sealed up to be safe from outside intrusion during the night. The middle of the tube is actually buried in the hillside, so it can't be seen.
A closer look at the entrance sunken into the ground. I wanted to avoid making an entire building like this, so I just sealed off the cave from outside mob access with a door and some cobble.
Just behind the door. You'll see that I have glass showing the insides of the tube (in case of blockage, I can see what the trouble is without having to murder 50 skeletons on the way), in addition to the spawner (a bit hard to see, it's the flames in the bottom window). The glass doesn't push the skeletons back down due to current because I filled the tube entirely with source blocks to negate glass pull, so the skeletons always swim up to the top once they're in the water.
The configured spawning room, dry and lit for viewing purposes, with its treasure looted (don't forget the moss stone on the floor!). Its only exit is a short opening to a ladder, directly above which is the vertical tube to the killing device. The water in the tube is kept from flowing back in by a ladder placed under it.
This ladder also boosts the skeletons up flawlessly into the tube's water when they're forced into it by the lower water flows, shown here (they weren't present in the first picture). Every point in this room has a water block that will push the skeletons to the intake tube. The water blocks in the corners are raised one block, by the way, to extend the flow a single block forward into the ladder. It wouldn't reach if they were on the ground. Far as I know, this change doesn't impact efficiency at all, except maybe making it impossible for skeletons to spawn in 2 out of 25 possible floor blocks, however I believe that spawners will just place their mobs somewhere else if that's the case.
The skeletons swim straight up the full length of this tube (I estimate it to be 12-16 blocks up, haven't actually counted) when their heads are bumped by the ladder into the tube's suspended water.
Topside, here's the grinder. The left window shows the top of the tube, blocked off on all sides but one and topped with an extra water source to make the current flow toward the killing area and out the front opening. The lava grinder in the right window can be seen better in the next screenshot.
Using the same concept as the booster into the tube, water currents push the skeletons into the ladder and up into the lava that it holds up. A block is put over the lava so that only the skeletons' heads can be immersed, and since items drop at their feet upon death, I've so far seen no item losses from this mechanism. I assume that the items, if they do burn, will be extinguished by the water below anyway since they drop very quickly. Mobs, however, don't need to be on fire to take damage, so if a skeleton drops back into the water for some reason (I've never seen it happen) his head will be caught in the lava again and he'll be taking enough damage to be killed in a second or two anyway. The lava grinder can also be directly attached to a spawner if you want, but technically there's no efficiency drop, it just takes longer to warm up when you stand by the collection point since you're farther away, just on the edge of its spawning radius (16 blocks, or so I've heard). Although I've not tested this theory, I postulate that you'll still get the same amount of items/mobs per minute than you would if it was linked directly.
The full device with storage chests, one for bones and one for arrows. So far, my sporadic travel between this point and my other projects in the world over about a Minecraft week has generated 3-4 stacks of bones and arrows. The water channel can be shortened to give a very compact grinder device, only 6 blocks in length, 3 in width and 4 in height.
The texture pack is Painterly, by the way.
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I just now realized the implications of this being incorporated into a fountain in the middle of an arena that spouts mobs. Or a nasty trick in SMP that uses doors and levers to let the mobs pop out to surprise villagers on command.
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[Just released!] Want formally-dressed, sophisticated mobs?
Banner by Vilborg. Click here for a vertical mob grinder!
I just now realized the implications of this being incorporated into a fountain in the middle of an arena that spouts mobs. Or a nasty trick in SMP that uses doors and levers to let the mobs pop out to surprise villagers on command.
I can totally imagine your current avatar laughing maniacally as skeletons pour out of a fountain and massacre everyone in sight.
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Quote from K_Kinnison »
If i were a mod, i would be destroying threads like a creeper at a hug-a-thon
Quote from Meddyan »
That's right, this elevator is powered by MURDER and ANIMAL CRUELTY.
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Manly blood is both highly acidic AND highly basic, but I'm glad to see you're paying attention.
Epic Win. Going to try this out the next time I find a spawner (with a few tweaks to the design... (nope, just joking this design is perfect (nested parentheses are awesome!)))
I really love the idea of a fountain spitting out skeletons. Can you explain or show how you make them go up the tube? I get how the ladder stops the water from flowing into the dungeon, but I don't understand the building process to make it so they can travel up.
It would also be pretty sweet if you had a switch that controlled if loot came out or skeletons, but I'm not sure if this is possible. I'm going to look into rerouting water with a switch if I can figure out how to make them float up.
I really love the idea of a fountain spitting out skeletons. Can you explain or show how you make them go up the tube? I get how the ladder stops the water from flowing into the dungeon, but I don't understand the building process to make it so they can travel up.
It would also be pretty sweet if you had a switch that controlled if loot came out or skeletons, but I'm not sure if this is possible. I'm going to look into rerouting water with a switch if I can figure out how to make them float up.
Thanks for sharing!
Hey so I made my tube out of glass so I could watch it in action.. turns out that made it not work. I switched to cobble and now they all go up !
It would also be pretty sweet if you had a switch that controlled if loot came out or skeletons, but I'm not sure if this is possible.
Unlikely, at least with the current setup. Though, I'll have to attempt that.
Also, to make them go up the tube, it MUST be COMPLETELY full of source blocks, not just one at the top. That's so the current is neutral.
They go up with just one source block as long as the walls aren't glass. I made a pretty cool zombie collection room, now I'm trying to figure out how to get this to work with spiders
It's now possible to make a large underground spawning area, sort the mobs underground (tall mobs go up one tube and spiders go up the other tube), and then deal with them however you like on the surface, like so:
Most certainly! Even more rewarding is that my grinder's item deposit area is now on top of a hill, perfectly formed to place a safehouse-- and a big one at that-- around its spawner. Here's how I did it:
The full grinder apparatus. The actual killing device and drop point are at the top (no safehouse around it yet), but they're hidden behind the transport tube in this shot. The visible top is the end of the tube leading to the grinder, and the bottom is the entrance to the spawner's conveniently accompanying natural cave, sealed up to be safe from outside intrusion during the night. The middle of the tube is actually buried in the hillside, so it can't be seen.
A closer look at the entrance sunken into the ground. I wanted to avoid making an entire building like this, so I just sealed off the cave from outside mob access with a door and some cobble.
Just behind the door. You'll see that I have glass showing the insides of the tube (in case of blockage, I can see what the trouble is without having to murder 50 skeletons on the way), in addition to the spawner (a bit hard to see, it's the flames in the bottom window). The glass doesn't push the skeletons back down due to current because I filled the tube entirely with source blocks to negate glass pull, so the skeletons always swim up to the top once they're in the water.
The configured spawning room, dry and lit for viewing purposes, with its treasure looted (don't forget the moss stone on the floor!). Its only exit is a short opening to a ladder, directly above which is the vertical tube to the killing device. The water in the tube is kept from flowing back in by a ladder placed under it.
This ladder also boosts the skeletons up flawlessly into the tube's water when they're forced into it by the lower water flows, shown here (they weren't present in the first picture). Every point in this room has a water block that will push the skeletons to the intake tube. The water blocks in the corners are raised one block, by the way, to extend the flow a single block forward into the ladder. It wouldn't reach if they were on the ground. Far as I know, this change doesn't impact efficiency at all, except maybe making it impossible for skeletons to spawn in 2 out of 25 possible floor blocks, however I believe that spawners will just place their mobs somewhere else if that's the case.
The skeletons swim straight up the full length of this tube (I estimate it to be 12-16 blocks up, haven't actually counted) when their heads are bumped by the ladder into the tube's suspended water.
Topside, here's the grinder. The left window shows the top of the tube, blocked off on all sides but one and topped with an extra water source to make the current flow toward the killing area and out the front opening. The lava grinder in the right window can be seen better in the next screenshot.
Using the same concept as the booster into the tube, water currents push the skeletons into the ladder and up into the lava that it holds up. A block is put over the lava so that only the skeletons' heads can be immersed, and since items drop at their feet upon death, I've so far seen no item losses from this mechanism. I assume that the items, if they do burn, will be extinguished by the water below anyway since they drop very quickly. Mobs, however, don't need to be on fire to take damage, so if a skeleton drops back into the water for some reason (I've never seen it happen) his head will be caught in the lava again and he'll be taking enough damage to be killed in a second or two anyway. The lava grinder can also be directly attached to a spawner if you want, but technically there's no efficiency drop, it just takes longer to warm up when you stand by the collection point since you're farther away, just on the edge of its spawning radius (16 blocks, or so I've heard). Although I've not tested this theory, I postulate that you'll still get the same amount of items/mobs per minute than you would if it was linked directly.
The full device with storage chests, one for bones and one for arrows. So far, my sporadic travel between this point and my other projects in the world over about a Minecraft week has generated 3-4 stacks of bones and arrows. The water channel can be shortened to give a very compact grinder device, only 6 blocks in length, 3 in width and 4 in height.
The texture pack is Painterly, by the way.
Banner by Vilborg.
Click here for a vertical mob grinder!
Banner by Vilborg.
Click here for a vertical mob grinder!
I can totally imagine your current avatar laughing maniacally as skeletons pour out of a fountain and massacre everyone in sight.
RIP 9Kbits2011-2012
It would also be pretty sweet if you had a switch that controlled if loot came out or skeletons, but I'm not sure if this is possible. I'm going to look into rerouting water with a switch if I can figure out how to make them float up.
Thanks for sharing!
Hey so I made my tube out of glass so I could watch it in action.. turns out that made it not work. I switched to cobble and now they all go up !
Unlikely, at least with the current setup. Though, I'll have to attempt that.
Also, to make them go up the tube, it MUST be COMPLETELY full of source blocks, not just one at the top. That's so the current is neutral.
Banner by Vilborg.
Click here for a vertical mob grinder!
They go up with just one source block as long as the walls aren't glass. I made a pretty cool zombie collection room, now I'm trying to figure out how to get this to work with spiders
Actually it's 16 blocks.
It's always a good idea to double check your facts against the wiki before you spout nonsense.
http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Mob_spawner
I find the wiki to be mostly correct and a reliable source for most questions.
by c0yote
I tried it with terrible results. I gave my wife my glasses for a second, a creeper showed up and now my wife is pregnant.
Stupid 3D..