I've built some just under the ground, sky ones, and one down near bedrock (or at least the drop kill and collection area was there). I don't care for the sky traps since they're inconvenient to get to and you're basically stuck AFKing which I hate doing. The one I built near bedrock (level 11/12) I don't like all that much either because of the fog effect.. So my preference it to build one just underground, or one approx 30 blocks up so my kill/collection area is right around ground level.
Yes, I light up caves in the area.. At least somewhat.. Sort of depends as, if you hit a really bad swiss cheese set of caves with multiple abondoned mineshafts it can take forever. Usually I'll just light up caves etc until I'm happy enough with the output of the trap and then every so often when I'm bored I'll go in and light up more for an hour or so.
It's a little hard to tell but it looks like you don't have enough glowstone... Glowstone is light level 15 and every block from it decreases the light level by 1. So at the ground level it would be 13 or 12 depending on the height of the glowstone. If any of the ground is below level 8, mobs can spawn there. The diagonals is where most people mess up though as that counts as a decrease of 2. Easiest way to check is to wait until night and walk around checking the BL (block light) number in the debug screen. The BL is the light level at your head and since the light is coming from above, it would be 1 less at your feet.. So if you're walking around and the BL says 8 or less, it will be 7 or less at your feet and mobs could spawn there.
My third and most likely best guess would be that you have some minor cave or passage nearby that you haven´t explored or lit well enough, "stealing" some of initial spawns and thus reaching the mob cap faster.
Spawners are not part of the mob cap and thus there is no need to light up the caves around the area.
Try removing the torches. Or getting rid of that stone on the ceiling.
The stone on top of the spawner is a good idea so that you don't get the mobs spawning on top of the spawner and then preventing more spawns as they would just stand there.
I've recently made a xp farm from a mob spawner which in this case is a skeleton spawner. I made it so that the skeletons drop 23 blocks to make it a one hit kill. I've stayed AFK for an hour and expected more than 30 skeletons but it only spawned 12 and the spawner stopped spawning skeletons like if it was it's limit. I even entered my spawning room without lights and they still wouldn't spawn. When I slaughter the skeletons it starts to spawn again.
I want to know what I am doing wrong. Can someone please help out?
More info:
-The spawner is located at Y coordinate: 12 (Close to bedrock and lava level)
-Spawner is in the center of a 9x9x7 room with water flow below it and water elevator in the corner
-Yes I am less than 16 blocks near it
Well from those pictures things look ok at least inside... You say you drop them 23 down and since it's at Y 12, I would assume you're using some sort of water elevator to carry them up and then drop them... I suspect your water elevator and perhaps holding area is within 8 blocks of the spawner which caps the number of spawns.. i.e. if it sees 6+ within an 8 block area around the spawner, it won't spawn anymore.. If that's the case, try moving your water elevator and holding area so they are at least 8 blocks from the spawner. I usually go 9 or 10 just to be sure. Usually it's best to move them horizontally outside that 8 block range first, as fast as possible, and then move them with the elevator.
For that floor, I'd try putting a pattern in it with piston lighting.. i.e. 2 blocks down, place a jackolantern or glowstone and on top of that a regular piston. The wooden piston head with the metal could look good with that.
It really comes down to the type of player you are... If you just play casually and don't undertake any large builds, then having to repair that stuff all the time probably isn't a big deal for you... But if you do a lot of very large builds, diamond tools are a must. All my tools are diamond.. My boots are diamond.. The rest of my armor is just whatever I happen to feel like wearing, typically chain. If I'm going to take on a wither, I'll put on a diamond set.
Something to keep in mind, diamond tools last roughly 6 times as long as iron ones... For some of the builds I've undertaken, I can't imagine having to head over to an XP farm to repair them that much more frequently.. As it is I often felt like I was constantly having to repair them.
As a side note, I've got over 4 stacks of diamonds myself as I do hardcore villager trading.. So when I repair my items, I just buy an unenchanted diamond tool and use that.. The only time I need to use the diamonds for repairs is for specialty tools like my high end silk touch or fortune pickaxes and my looting III sword. And I just LOVE my efficiency V, unbreaking III diamond axe.. That thing cuts thru wood like it's butter.
Very nice thread. People should also be aware of a bug that's been around since 1.4.2... There's two instances of it, the first seems to occur more often.... When you first start trading with a villager and you max out that trade, it will get locked.. However, there is a chance that when the villager generates his next trade, there will actually be no new trade and the first trade is still locked making him useless.... So one should always just do a single trade on that first trade until he's unlocked at least one more...
The other occurrence is more rare and happens if you max out the last trade and then, before the villager can reset himself, he gets unloaded from the game. So for example, if the game crashes, or you log out etc. In that case the last trade will be locked forever and he's become useless...
Also I don't use a infinite villager breeder. I do trust them, as I don't want to get banned from mishaps such as DocM experienced on MindCraft.
The problem with a lot of the more recent infinite breeders is that there's no way to turn them off. However, the one DocM uses in his world tour is self regulating, as long as he remembers to set it to kill mode... Also, a long time ago DocM did one that used a villager in a minecart to move him in and out of the house in order to be able to turn it on/off... I use that technique myself. So as long as you don't forget to turn it off, you'd be fine. And if you're still worried about it, you could use a timer to ensure it gets turned off.
If you're riding the minecart, though, make sure you use a transparent block like glass (or stairs and slabs) otherwise you'll take suffocation damage as you pass through.
Apparently putting a block over a rail isn't going to work all that well for 1.7 as it's been rumored that the baby zombie hit box is being reduced and they'll now be able to scurry their butts through that 1 block space... Going to be extremely painful to now protect from those buggers.
Okay, that seems plausible. How would I built these antenna? Would they just need to be high enough and dark enough at the top to be a viable spawn point?
Not sure what you're talking about.. In fact the whole filling the sky with blocks thing just seemed to be a misunderstanding of what that other guy said about the height of the spawner and I was just trying to clarify. If you've built your trap around 190 and are getting plenty of spawns without having to visit the top of it first, you should be good to go.
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Yes, I light up caves in the area.. At least somewhat.. Sort of depends as, if you hit a really bad swiss cheese set of caves with multiple abondoned mineshafts it can take forever. Usually I'll just light up caves etc until I'm happy enough with the output of the trap and then every so often when I'm bored I'll go in and light up more for an hour or so.
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Spawners are not part of the mob cap and thus there is no need to light up the caves around the area.
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Well from those pictures things look ok at least inside... You say you drop them 23 down and since it's at Y 12, I would assume you're using some sort of water elevator to carry them up and then drop them... I suspect your water elevator and perhaps holding area is within 8 blocks of the spawner which caps the number of spawns.. i.e. if it sees 6+ within an 8 block area around the spawner, it won't spawn anymore.. If that's the case, try moving your water elevator and holding area so they are at least 8 blocks from the spawner. I usually go 9 or 10 just to be sure. Usually it's best to move them horizontally outside that 8 block range first, as fast as possible, and then move them with the elevator.
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Something to keep in mind, diamond tools last roughly 6 times as long as iron ones... For some of the builds I've undertaken, I can't imagine having to head over to an XP farm to repair them that much more frequently.. As it is I often felt like I was constantly having to repair them.
As a side note, I've got over 4 stacks of diamonds myself as I do hardcore villager trading.. So when I repair my items, I just buy an unenchanted diamond tool and use that.. The only time I need to use the diamonds for repairs is for specialty tools like my high end silk touch or fortune pickaxes and my looting III sword. And I just LOVE my efficiency V, unbreaking III diamond axe.. That thing cuts thru wood like it's butter.
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The other occurrence is more rare and happens if you max out the last trade and then, before the villager can reset himself, he gets unloaded from the game. So for example, if the game crashes, or you log out etc. In that case the last trade will be locked forever and he's become useless...
The bug is here MC-749
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The problem with a lot of the more recent infinite breeders is that there's no way to turn them off. However, the one DocM uses in his world tour is self regulating, as long as he remembers to set it to kill mode... Also, a long time ago DocM did one that used a villager in a minecart to move him in and out of the house in order to be able to turn it on/off... I use that technique myself. So as long as you don't forget to turn it off, you'd be fine. And if you're still worried about it, you could use a timer to ensure it gets turned off.
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Exactly how have "recent updates" started preventing players from being able to use shifting floors?
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