I would recommend to have it higher up and above an Ocean if possible.. Good luck!
And you don't have to watch some convoluted 50min video.. It's simple just have a large dark area to spawn and water to lead them into a hole that's it...
No offense, but that kind of advice is only going to waste his time. When you have built a mob grinder that pushes out over 75,000 items per hour, then come back and give advice.
Having a large dark area to spawn is useless if other parameters have not been met. You see, 99% of minecrafters think that a large dark space is what makes mobs spawn, however 1% understand that it has nothing to do with the dark space and everything to do with the amount of available air blocks around the dark space. If you would take some time to watch the "convoluted" video mentioned, you would understand that.
Go to you tube and search "JL2579 advanced tutorial", it's the one that goes for 49 minutes. There is alot wrong with your mob grinder including size, position, surrounding light levels ect. If you take the time to watch this video ( which most people don't mind you), you will know more about mob grinders than 99% of minecrafters out there. That's a promise.
Sounds like the problem is the way you designed the farm, instead of building outward and outwards to increase its size, you must design it in a way that keeps the horizontal footprint as small as possible, then stack it vertically. Using water to move loot long distances will always ruin the output of any farm, whether it is for food or mob grinding( unless you put ice blocks under the water stream, although that requires creative mode at the moment, which would spoil your leader board aspirations). The key is to have loot fall to its destination.
That doesn't always work. There is always that lucky creeper or whatever that survives the fall..barely.
To improve on it, you could do the same thing, make it say, a block higher, and if you have 2 sticky piston, use those to push 2 normal pistons, which will activate, and push the items out a 1H by 2W hole. the normal pistons then deactivate (becoming "blocks" they arent treated like blocks when activated) and the sticky pistons retract, making the room normal again. It works, Its hard to get the redstone to do it, but it works.
but If you have them fall or whatever until they have like 1 or half a heart, use potions of harming. very effective.
in fact, best farm I ever saw, the guy had a zombie spawner, and water flowing so that the zombies moved away, and up (I'm still not sure how he did the water, it was like every other block was water, and it wouldnt flow down.) so that they moved out of the spawners range for spawning, and then it dropped them into a 1 x1 hole, with a slight opening for him to throw the potions (which killed all of them at once) and to pick up the items.
not quite what your wanting, but it was worth mentioning.
The problem of the odd mob surviving the fall is easy to rectify. That happens due to the mobs traveling too fast when they strike the fence posts and typically only occurs when mobs are falling from a height of 50 plus blocks. You can fix this by either installing a water brake or a much easier way now is to use the vines as a brake by having the mobs fall past one piece of vine attached to a wall, set the vine at a height of 26 blocks above your fence post and problem solved. I have one of xboxs most efficient mob grinders ever with an output of over 75,000 items per hour ( which is getting close to the theoretical limit for Xbox due to the 200 item cap), and absolutely 100% of mobs die when they strike my kill floor because I use the vines to reset the fall speed.
Make the mobs drop more than 24 blocks and have a floor covered with fences with water over the top. Because the fences are 1.5 blocks tall they cancel out the water saving the mob from the fall damage, so they die instantly, just set the water up to push the loot where you want.
Another solution may be to use the bucket of water as the last item your dispenser spits out and set it up so that the water flow triggers a BUD switch connected to your "empty alarm".
Ahh sorry bout that, but if you open the search bar in YouTube and enter "JL2579 advanced tutorial" it should be the first video on the list. The video goes for 49 minutes so grab a drink before you start.
Not too sure on how to link a vid here but here is jl2579's vid that cire was talking was talking about. In my opinion this video should be watched by everyone who has plans to build a mob spawner. The key to a good mob spawner is not the amount of dark space, but the amount of air blocks in close proximity to the dark space. This video explains why.
Ok, so the cause of your problem is related to the way the mob spawning algorithm works. To break it down into simple terms, when the game tries to spawn a mob it will try to find a dark enough spot with the correct amount of available air blocks above the said "dark spot" (let's assume that we are talking about a single dark block that is completely surrounded with well lit blocks, which may well be happening with your grid of lights).
Now although the game has decided to spawn a mob because of the dark block it actually can spawn the mob in a twenty block radius around the dark block regardless of light levels, so including the dark block, we are talking about a 41x41 area centered around the "dark spot". Now the chances of the game spawning a mob on a block around the dark spot as opposed to on the dark spot decreases in a linear manner to the point that the chance of the game spawning a mob 20 blocks away from the chosen dark spot is once for every 3 trillion spawning cycles ( which means if you witness it happening even once in your entire lifetime, you are very lucky/unlucky depending on how you view it).
Now all this assumes that the game is operating under fairly normal circumstances, however in your case, with such a large area lit up it will force these kinds of anomalies to occur more frequently. Hope this helps.
so on the pc, they can target and know you are behind a 2 block thick wall if not on the other side of a very thick wall? I am refering to the initial part, not the actual tracking. I am talking about the part where they take notice of you, Los. After that I can understand the tracking. And yes tracking itself is intended, that I understand. And the new moving around terrain i understand it once they have sight of you and have started tracking. What I am looking forward to if it ever happens is I guess the better word for it is Spotting AI, where yes on open terrain there is a proximity.
However LoS needs work in the AI script in my opinion, not tracking. Otherwise you mind as well scrap that ai as you will always be in danger even in a 1x1 room built yourself, as they will initially see you through walls and "start" tracking you. That is what I am referring to. When they spawn I know they don't just start immediately start tracking you, due to the fact they will just wander around aimlessly till they "spot" you. That was the problem I was having with beds in the first place, as they will start tracking you as soon as they spawn. If I wanted to play that sort of game I would put a zombie game in the disc drive.
I am not expecting the best LoS, but at least something so that beds are useful beyond setting spawn. Cause once they spot you which is suppose to be unlikely through a thick wall; or well the way I see it, they will continue to track... It is the initial thing that starts them to tracking you that concerns me... And mainly what is happening in my case, even though there is no way for that mob to possibly to see or have a route to get to me.
The tracking is initiated by being within a 16 block radius of the mob (spiders and creepers), line of sight is not required. It can also be initiated by the mob wondering within a 16 block radius of the player. This mechanic is required for spiders and creepers to be a suitable threat, particularly with spiders in cave systems. Technically you can have 14 layers of blocks between you and the spider/creeper and they will still initiate tracking and try to find a path to you.
Well..hmm.. I guess that tells me that the ai needs some work. If there is a LoS type ai there already. If not that is the part that needs probably work on and all I can do is hope they get it worked out eventually.
Actually, the way the creeper and spider track you is an intended mechanic, so I doubt we will see any change in that department, in fact most of the AI updates that have made it to the PC version actually improve certain enemies ability to track you through walls and navigate difficult terrain in order o get closer to you, the zombie in particular.
Creepers will track you once you move within 16 blocks of them, regardless of line of sight. Spiders will also track you once within 16 blocks, once again regardless of line of sight (provided that either the spider spawned in an area with a light level less than 8 or is currently residing in an area with a light level less than 8, otherwise spiders are passive. Also, the radius for not being able to sleep in a bed if an aggro monster is nearby is most likely to be a multiple of 8, my guess is 16 blocks.
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No offense, but that kind of advice is only going to waste his time. When you have built a mob grinder that pushes out over 75,000 items per hour, then come back and give advice.
Having a large dark area to spawn is useless if other parameters have not been met. You see, 99% of minecrafters think that a large dark space is what makes mobs spawn, however 1% understand that it has nothing to do with the dark space and everything to do with the amount of available air blocks around the dark space. If you would take some time to watch the "convoluted" video mentioned, you would understand that.
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Out of curiosity, did you test this with empty item frames or ones with an item placed in them?
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The problem of the odd mob surviving the fall is easy to rectify. That happens due to the mobs traveling too fast when they strike the fence posts and typically only occurs when mobs are falling from a height of 50 plus blocks. You can fix this by either installing a water brake or a much easier way now is to use the vines as a brake by having the mobs fall past one piece of vine attached to a wall, set the vine at a height of 26 blocks above your fence post and problem solved. I have one of xboxs most efficient mob grinders ever with an output of over 75,000 items per hour ( which is getting close to the theoretical limit for Xbox due to the 200 item cap), and absolutely 100% of mobs die when they strike my kill floor because I use the vines to reset the fall speed.
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http://m.youtube.com...EHI
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Now although the game has decided to spawn a mob because of the dark block it actually can spawn the mob in a twenty block radius around the dark block regardless of light levels, so including the dark block, we are talking about a 41x41 area centered around the "dark spot". Now the chances of the game spawning a mob on a block around the dark spot as opposed to on the dark spot decreases in a linear manner to the point that the chance of the game spawning a mob 20 blocks away from the chosen dark spot is once for every 3 trillion spawning cycles ( which means if you witness it happening even once in your entire lifetime, you are very lucky/unlucky depending on how you view it).
Now all this assumes that the game is operating under fairly normal circumstances, however in your case, with such a large area lit up it will force these kinds of anomalies to occur more frequently. Hope this helps.
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The tracking is initiated by being within a 16 block radius of the mob (spiders and creepers), line of sight is not required. It can also be initiated by the mob wondering within a 16 block radius of the player. This mechanic is required for spiders and creepers to be a suitable threat, particularly with spiders in cave systems. Technically you can have 14 layers of blocks between you and the spider/creeper and they will still initiate tracking and try to find a path to you.
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Actually, the way the creeper and spider track you is an intended mechanic, so I doubt we will see any change in that department, in fact most of the AI updates that have made it to the PC version actually improve certain enemies ability to track you through walls and navigate difficult terrain in order o get closer to you, the zombie in particular.
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