I spawned on a tiny island this world, so I used Amidst to find a village and used a boat to go there, all I've got so far is an iron pickaxe, I find a cave, I go down and BOOM! DUNGEON! Not surprising considering the dungeon count is 50 for this world. It's a zombie spawner, fyi. Now how do I turn it into a xp farm? In my head making it 9x9, digging down yada yada yada, placing water and making them fall 23 blocks down would work, but I've heard if you're too far away from a spawner it doesn't work as efficiently. I also heard that you can use "water elevators" to elevate them to 23 blocks, then drop them back down to a room at the same level of the dungeon. Problem is, this dungeon is like 3 blocks below the ground. (It also just happens to be at level 63, sea level.) I guess I could just build an elevator above ground though. Or would it not work? I'm not too sure. Look at the coords in this image.
There is some confusion caused by there being two kinds of "Spawners", it can mean either a dark room where mobs spawn naturally or a "cage spawner" like you have here. "Cage spawners" don't work at all if you are more than 16 blocks away.
The only reason not to put a water elevator above ground is if you don't like the way it looks, it would work the same as underground you'd just have to build the walls instead of digging it out.
I'd go ahead and build the water elevator above ground and maybe build a tower around it if it bothered me but it wouldn't be much more complicated to drop them 23 blocks down before walking into a water stream and bring them back up to the killing chamber.
Alright, ty. Any good tutorial? I tried xisumavoid's but it was way too complex and used sticky pistons, which I'm nowhere near having yet. (Although while I was waiting for someone to reply I got full iron stuff). All the other tutorials were horrible low quality ones that I couldn't stand watching.
The spawn area for dungeons and 2 high mobs is 4 blocks out horizontally, plus 2 above and 1 below the spawner block (9x9x4). The spawner detection range when checking for other mobs in the area is 9x9x9. So you'll want to dig out a 9x9 room with the spawner in the center and 2 blocks of space above the spawner plus 7 below (4 for the detection range + 2 for the mob height +1 because mobs hop up in water). This design ensures that the mobs fall out of detection range of the spawner quickly so it can fire again as soon as possible.
I prefer a center flush to move the mobs out of the room (signs control the flow of water).
It's faster and less prone to clogging than the diagonally stepped floor design found on the web.
From this room the zombies are flushed to a standard water/air mobivator, which is alternating water and air blocks that they naturally swim up in (signs contain the water blocks). The 1-high baby zombies can be problematic, so I filter them out by dropping them into lava at the bottom of the mobivator.
In the kill-collection room I have a true 1-hit mob softener that actually works (you can really kill any zombie or skeleton in 1 hit, regardless of armor they spawn with). But you might consider it too complicated for an early game build. The simplest, almost 1-hit softener is a 23 block fall (pretty sure it's 23 blocks, but you might want to double-check that).
There may be a way to build a simplified version of my design, so ask if you are interested.
Building the elevator above ground works fine (as noted above), and with the spawner @ Lvl63 will be necessary if you want to use the farm for Xp / rare zombie drops and use falling damage as a 'softener'. [If all you're looking for is the rotten flesh, a simple shaft that drops the zombies 24 blocks from the exit of the spawner waterflow will kill all but a few that generate with armor; these few will – however – tend to pick up items and become non-despawning, so you would need to manually clear them occassionally.]
The most common form of water elevator (somtimes called a bubble-vator) can be seen to the left in the second picture posted by Courageous_Marinade; it consists of alternating water source blocks and air with signs to hold the up.
Note: this design does not work with the 1-high chuckies (baby zombies).
[The slated addition in 1.13/14 of the soul sand bubble columns will likely become the favored method after that update.]
Using an elevator to move the mobs up then dropping them back to the kill room allows you to remain within the 16-block activation radius of the spawner.
If you opt for a different method of softening [pre-damaging] the mobs, you can simply place you kill room at the exit of the water floor.
Different "softener" types:
☛ Some types such as piston activated suffocation and Courageous_Marinade's lava hop model operate in batches — mobs are allowed to accumulate for batch kills.
Also, neither of these types will work on chuckies of chicken jockies (both are too short). Fully manual kills of these few, however, are not likely to be too taxing.
Note as well that bubblevators will not pick up the 1-high variants, so it is well to have a secondary kill system (typically lava- or catus-based) to prevent them from building up.
☛ Cactus- and Magma-block based softeners also function as full kill mechanisms. Using these in batch mode typically involves adding a piston that prevents the accumulating mobs from reaching the damage dealing/kill area.
These types can also be run unattended (so long as one is within activation distance of the spawner) simply to collect drops.
☛ Drop softeners have the advantage of being low tech (all that is required to build one is signs, water, and "blocks of choice").
By locating the collection floor / hoppers 24+ down they can be used unattended as drop collectors (with the usual need to clear the occasional armored mob).
If water is dispenced into the space 24 above the collection floor (leaving a drop of 23), the drop can be shortened to allow the drop shaft to function as in Xp mode. [Note this requires several blocks above the water so the mobs fall through it, or pulsing the water on & off.]
The more conventional design has the collection floor 23 down so typical 20 health mobs [eg. Zombies, Skeletons] become one-punch kills.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Why does everything have to be so stoopid?" Harvey Pekar (from American Splendor)
WARNING: I have an extemely "grindy" playstyle; YMMV — if this doesn't seem fun to you, mine what you can from it & bin the rest.
I found a skeleton spawner in a dungeon that was right on the surface. There was like 1 level of dirt above it, I kid you not. At first, I put water down as in the tutorials, but just had a simple chute going straight down. Part of this was convenience, but part of it was that above ground I had a barn, some crops, animal pens etc. I didn't want to ruin the look.
But the problem with the simple chute down is that you have to spend some time next to to the dungeon for them to generate. Then you have to go down to grind the collected skeletons. Very inconvenient. So I ended up making a proper water elevator chute. I put a silo around it for aesthetics.
The true 1-hit mob softener can be built much more simply using 2 buttons (instead of the 1 in my original post). This allows it to be built early game when resources are tight, then later updated to the 1 button version when you have resources to build the timer circuit. The most complicated thing you'll need to craft is a dispensor, which only requires a bow and 1 piece of redstone dust (+cobblestone).
* Pretend the gunpowder is redstone dust, since we don't have a redstone item in the smilies.
You'll also need a bucket and access to water and lava.
The manual sequence is as follows.
Push right button to turn off lava
Push left button to open trapdoor and drop mobs down
Push right button (again) to turn lava back on
Kill mobs, then collect XP and loot
When you get more resources build a timer circuit to automate the extra button pushes.
quote=1ite1So I dig 7 blocks below the spawner, and fill in the extra block that's already above the spawner, and then make it 9x9? I'm a bit confused, sorry.
Immediatelty above the spawner itself two blocks (preferably glass to maximize spawning) otherwise these two layers are air.
Vertical schematic below (general column on the left; the spawner column on the right)
A= Air F= Floor G= Glass R+ Roof S=Spawner W= Water Numeric heights are in relation to the spawner (designated as zero)
R.. ...R +3
A. ....G +2
A. ....G +1
A. ....S +0
A.. ...A -1
A. ....A -2
A.. ...A -3
A.. ...A -4
A. ....A -5
W.....W -6
F.. ...F -7
Note that you will want the spawner centered in a 9x9 horizontal footprint so the water and floor will be a bit more complex, exactly how depending on your collection/transport system.
Also this is one level shorter than Courageous_Marinade's design as I am under the impression that mob location is based on the level occupied by the feet of the mob; even if a mob bobs in the water, its feet will not get closer than level -5 to the spawner.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Why does everything have to be so stoopid?" Harvey Pekar (from American Splendor)
WARNING: I have an extemely "grindy" playstyle; YMMV — if this doesn't seem fun to you, mine what you can from it & bin the rest.
Alright, I've made the room 9x9x9 done the flush system yadayadayada. Now all I have to do is make the elevator go up 24 blocks, and then drop them into some area somewhere, right? And then get rid of the ladders and lights, of course. Here's a video: (Btw, the spawner in this video is one at like level 40, different from the one in the first post because it's a skeleton spawner not a zombie spawner and skele spawners are better iirc.)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
GENERATION 11: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.
I spawned on a tiny island this world, so I used Amidst to find a village and used a boat to go there, all I've got so far is an iron pickaxe, I find a cave, I go down and BOOM! DUNGEON! Not surprising considering the dungeon count is 50 for this world. It's a zombie spawner, fyi. Now how do I turn it into a xp farm? In my head making it 9x9, digging down yada yada yada, placing water and making them fall 23 blocks down would work, but I've heard if you're too far away from a spawner it doesn't work as efficiently. I also heard that you can use "water elevators" to elevate them to 23 blocks, then drop them back down to a room at the same level of the dungeon. Problem is, this dungeon is like 3 blocks below the ground. (It also just happens to be at level 63, sea level.) I guess I could just build an elevator above ground though. Or would it not work? I'm not too sure. Look at the coords in this image.
GENERATION 11: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.
There is some confusion caused by there being two kinds of "Spawners", it can mean either a dark room where mobs spawn naturally or a "cage spawner" like you have here. "Cage spawners" don't work at all if you are more than 16 blocks away.
The only reason not to put a water elevator above ground is if you don't like the way it looks, it would work the same as underground you'd just have to build the walls instead of digging it out.
I'd go ahead and build the water elevator above ground and maybe build a tower around it if it bothered me but it wouldn't be much more complicated to drop them 23 blocks down before walking into a water stream and bring them back up to the killing chamber.
Just testing.
Alright, ty. Any good tutorial? I tried xisumavoid's but it was way too complex and used sticky pistons, which I'm nowhere near having yet. (Although while I was waiting for someone to reply I got full iron stuff). All the other tutorials were horrible low quality ones that I couldn't stand watching.
EDIT: I don't know how to do a water elevator.
GENERATION 11: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.
Best tutorial I've ever seen for this type of farm:
He shows 2D pictures while he's building, so you can count block by block
Check out my Youtube channel, where I build a theme park in vanilla Minecraft!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeCiIIOoWhe-mq3nYd_nXXrKw9MkjnUU7
The spawn area for dungeons and 2 high mobs is 4 blocks out horizontally, plus 2 above and 1 below the spawner block (9x9x4). The spawner detection range when checking for other mobs in the area is 9x9x9. So you'll want to dig out a 9x9 room with the spawner in the center and 2 blocks of space above the spawner plus 7 below (4 for the detection range + 2 for the mob height +1 because mobs hop up in water). This design ensures that the mobs fall out of detection range of the spawner quickly so it can fire again as soon as possible.
I prefer a center flush to move the mobs out of the room (signs control the flow of water).
It's faster and less prone to clogging than the diagonally stepped floor design found on the web.
From this room the zombies are flushed to a standard water/air mobivator, which is alternating water and air blocks that they naturally swim up in (signs contain the water blocks). The 1-high baby zombies can be problematic, so I filter them out by dropping them into lava at the bottom of the mobivator.
In the kill-collection room I have a true 1-hit mob softener that actually works (you can really kill any zombie or skeleton in 1 hit, regardless of armor they spawn with). But you might consider it too complicated for an early game build. The simplest, almost 1-hit softener is a 23 block fall (pretty sure it's 23 blocks, but you might want to double-check that).
There may be a way to build a simplified version of my design, so ask if you are interested.
This design works equally well with skeletons.
Building the elevator above ground works fine (as noted above), and with the spawner @ Lvl63 will be necessary if you want to use the farm for Xp / rare zombie drops and use falling damage as a 'softener'. [If all you're looking for is the rotten flesh, a simple shaft that drops the zombies 24 blocks from the exit of the spawner waterflow will kill all but a few that generate with armor; these few will – however – tend to pick up items and become non-despawning, so you would need to manually clear them occassionally.]
The most common form of water elevator (somtimes called a bubble-vator) can be seen to the left in the second picture posted by Courageous_Marinade; it consists of alternating water source blocks and air with signs to hold the up.
Note: this design does not work with the 1-high chuckies (baby zombies).
[The slated addition in 1.13/14 of the soul sand bubble columns will likely become the favored method after that update.]
Using an elevator to move the mobs up then dropping them back to the kill room allows you to remain within the 16-block activation radius of the spawner.
If you opt for a different method of softening [pre-damaging] the mobs, you can simply place you kill room at the exit of the water floor.
Different "softener" types:
☛ Some types such as piston activated suffocation and Courageous_Marinade's lava hop model operate in batches — mobs are allowed to accumulate for batch kills.
Also, neither of these types will work on chuckies of chicken jockies (both are too short). Fully manual kills of these few, however, are not likely to be too taxing.
Note as well that bubblevators will not pick up the 1-high variants, so it is well to have a secondary kill system (typically lava- or catus-based) to prevent them from building up.
☛ Cactus- and Magma-block based softeners also function as full kill mechanisms. Using these in batch mode typically involves adding a piston that prevents the accumulating mobs from reaching the damage dealing/kill area.
These types can also be run unattended (so long as one is within activation distance of the spawner) simply to collect drops.
☛ Drop softeners have the advantage of being low tech (all that is required to build one is signs, water, and "blocks of choice").
By locating the collection floor / hoppers 24+ down they can be used unattended as drop collectors (with the usual need to clear the occasional armored mob).
If water is dispenced into the space 24 above the collection floor (leaving a drop of 23), the drop can be shortened to allow the drop shaft to function as in Xp mode. [Note this requires several blocks above the water so the mobs fall through it, or pulsing the water on & off.]
The more conventional design has the collection floor 23 down so typical 20 health mobs [eg. Zombies, Skeletons] become one-punch kills.
I found a skeleton spawner in a dungeon that was right on the surface. There was like 1 level of dirt above it, I kid you not. At first, I put water down as in the tutorials, but just had a simple chute going straight down. Part of this was convenience, but part of it was that above ground I had a barn, some crops, animal pens etc. I didn't want to ruin the look.
But the problem with the simple chute down is that you have to spend some time next to to the dungeon for them to generate. Then you have to go down to grind the collected skeletons. Very inconvenient. So I ended up making a proper water elevator chute. I put a silo around it for aesthetics.
So I dig 7 blocks below the spawner, and fill in the extra block that's already above the spawner, and then make it 9x9? I'm a bit confused, sorry.
GENERATION 11: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.
The true 1-hit mob softener can be built much more simply using 2 buttons (instead of the 1 in my original post). This allows it to be built early game when resources are tight, then later updated to the 1 button version when you have resources to build the timer circuit. The most complicated thing you'll need to craft is a dispensor, which only requires a bow and 1 piece of redstone dust (+cobblestone).
* Pretend the gunpowder is redstone dust, since we don't have a redstone item in the smilies.
You'll also need a bucket and access to water and lava.
The manual sequence is as follows.
When you get more resources build a timer circuit to automate the extra button pushes.
quote=1ite1So I dig 7 blocks below the spawner, and fill in the extra block that's already above the spawner, and then make it 9x9? I'm a bit confused, sorry.
Immediatelty above the spawner itself two blocks (preferably glass to maximize spawning) otherwise these two layers are air.
Vertical schematic below (general column on the left; the spawner column on the right)
A= Air F= Floor G= Glass R+ Roof S=Spawner W= Water Numeric heights are in relation to the spawner (designated as zero)
R.. ...R +3
A. ....G +2
A. ....G +1
A. ....S +0
A.. ...A -1
A. ....A -2
A.. ...A -3
A.. ...A -4
A. ....A -5
W.....W -6
F.. ...F -7
Note that you will want the spawner centered in a 9x9 horizontal footprint so the water and floor will be a bit more complex, exactly how depending on your collection/transport system.
Also this is one level shorter than Courageous_Marinade's design as I am under the impression that mob location is based on the level occupied by the feet of the mob; even if a mob bobs in the water, its feet will not get closer than level -5 to the spawner.
Alright, I've made the room 9x9x9 done the flush system yadayadayada. Now all I have to do is make the elevator go up 24 blocks, and then drop them into some area somewhere, right? And then get rid of the ladders and lights, of course. Here's a video: (Btw, the spawner in this video is one at like level 40, different from the one in the first post because it's a skeleton spawner not a zombie spawner and skele spawners are better iirc.)
GENERATION 11: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.
It's done.
GENERATION 11: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social experiment.