Thanks! That should leave me enough for an entire diamond block, even after I make an enchantment table and a jukebox. Maybe I'll work it into the decor of my still-to-be-built house, in a special place on the mantle with other rare items or something. Guess I could put it into a picture frame on the wall next to my map and my (still to be created) golden apples
If you recall, I had to use the emergency chest when my villagers were killed, and while I was up there I brought the rest of the contents down (I put it all into a "do not touch" chest). Well, just for kicks I took the 3 diamond ore out and broke them with the fortune III pick. That gave me 6 more diamond, for a grand total of 19 (don't worry, I put those 6 back in the emergency chest).
So while it is still far from the theoretical max of 32 diamond (if each ore dropped 4 diamond), 19 total diamond is probably close to the realistic maximum possible (a Fortune III pick returns, on average, 2.2x the normal drops, so you would expect 17 or 18 diamond from 8 ore).
MegaTrain, I've stolen utilized your villager trap idea, and using a bit of redstone and sticky pistons have made it fully automatic. When I started, it was a horrible contraption that chewed up most of the iron golem spawn area, but I fiddled and fiddled (and fiddled) and when I was done, it was a mere 2 blocks deep (simply to house the piston and the block the piston pushes) and 2 blocks high (above the villagers head). That's (I think) just one more block deeper and higher than your method.
I don't know when I'll be able to implement it, but I hope to get a video of a small version in my test world out before the weekend. I'm a bit proud of it; it may be the simplest and most elegant redstone creation I've ever made.
The way it works is, the villager wanders into the little cubby hole and steps on a pressure plate that raises a block, trapping him in the cubby. You come by, check him out, and if you don't like his trade you flip a switch and a piston pushes a block into his head. As soon as he dies, the pressure plate releases and the trapper block goes away, and you can flip the switch to retract the killer block. At that point, the cubby is ready for a new villager.
I think - but am not sure yet - that come 1.5 I'll be able to easily release them in case 2 villagers manage to get into a cubby at the same time. I need a redstone block to implement my idea.
MegaTrain, I've stolen utilized your villager trap idea, and using a bit of redstone and sticky pistons have made it fully automatic. When I started, it was a horrible contraption that chewed up most of the iron golem spawn area, but I fiddled and fiddled (and fiddled) and when I was done, it was a mere 2 blocks deep (simply to house the piston and the block the piston pushes) and 2 blocks high (above the villagers head). That's (I think) just one more block deeper and higher than your method.
I don't know when I'll be able to implement it, but I hope to get a video of a small version in my test world out before the weekend. I'm a bit proud of it; it may be the simplest and most elegant redstone creation I've ever made.
The way it works is, the villager wanders into the little cubby hole and steps on a pressure plate that raises a block, trapping him in the cubby. You come by, check him out, and if you don't like his trade you flip a switch and a piston pushes a block into his head. As soon as he dies, the pressure plate releases and the trapper block goes away, and you can flip the switch to retract the killer block. At that point, the cubby is ready for a new villager.
I think - but am not sure yet - that come 1.5 I'll be able to easily release them in case 2 villagers manage to get into a cubby at the same time. I need a redstone block to implement my idea.
Very interesting, I would like to see your design! And there is nothing that says you have to install the "automatic" version everywhere at first, you could start with a manual design, and replace it gradually once you start getting the ingredients for sticky pistons (and only on the empty slots, you shouldn't have to retro-fit any that are holding "good" villagers.
I played around on a creative map and came up with a version that seems to work, not sure if it is the same as what you came up with. Mine requires a block 3 deep under the villager slot, though, to place a dot of redstone on.
I likely won't be able to record until Monday morning probably, so I'll try to get something together then. In the meantime, here are some pictures:
NOTE: Sandstone (other than being the entire world's land) is stuff that transmits redstone. Wood is stuff that moves, and glass is other blocks. They can all be anything, but I figured it was easier to see what was going on if everything was a unique block.
The underneath part, with the auto-closing block. Villager wanders in, steps on pressure plate, and the piston rises pushing the block in their way.
Type "A" trap. This one is vertical and is easier to understand and see.
Type "A" closed. The lever determines the state of the upper piston.
Type "A" with a villager. Note he's trapped due to standing on that pressure plate.
Type "A" killing the villager. Taken from the side to show it easier.
Type "B." This one's a bit harder to see but just as easy to understand.
Top view of the above. I run it through the inverter simply so the levers will match Type "A"s levers.
Type "B" closed, also with a top view.
And finally, Type "B" with and killing a villager. You can see a little bit of Type "A" in the background.
(snip)
The underneath part, with the auto-closing block. Villager wanders in, steps on pressure plate, and the piston rises pushing the block in their way.
(snip)
Yep, that's the same design I came up with for the underneath part, it is simple and works well.
I just tested it, and determined you could get away with a normal (non-sticky) piston if you use a sand (or gravel) block, since gravity should let it fall right back down.
So regarding your top-piston designs, I'm not sure they are horizontally stackable, wouldn't the switch trigger BOTH pistons from adjacent booths if you had them next to each other? And at least in my village design, the piston coming from behind the villager would encroach on either the water (on the inside) or the doors (on the outside).
Here are a couple variations that put the switch directly above the villager:
Switch is directly above the piston, you'd have to light up or put a half slab on the very top. Also, other villagers can hop on the sand, and therefore might be able to jump on the block dividers.
This one is bulkier but fixes that problem:
Switch on the block in front, an extra block under to prevent villagers from jumping on the sand, and to hold the sign. Half-blocks on top to prevent mob spawning, or just torch it up (to make pistons you need cobblestone, and could therefore make a furnace and cook charcoal).
With either of these designs, you could drop the height of your outside and inside walls to only 1.5 high. Also no additional redstone needed.
I just tested it, and determined you could get away with a normal (non-sticky) piston if you use a sand (or gravel) block, since gravity should let it fall right back down.
True dat. That would cut in half the amount of slime you need. However, slime seems far more abundant than redstone, so if you have enough redstone, you'd probably have enough slimeballs.
So regarding your top-piston designs, I'm not sure they are horizontally stackable, wouldn't the switch trigger BOTH pistons from adjacent booths if you had them next to each other?
That's why there are 2 designs. You alternate them, You have a type "a", then a type "b", then another type "a". The switch WOULD activate 2 type "a"s but a type "a" switch won't activate a nearby type "b", and vice versa.
And at least in my village design, the piston coming from behind the villager would encroach on either the water (on the inside) or the doors (on the outside).
That's a problem, that I don't think is fixable. There's no other direction the piston can come from. I toyed with it coming from the bottom, and using a tripwire but you need 3 horizontal spaces for a tripwire and that eats up too much space.
Here are a couple variations that put the switch directly above the villager:
Switch is directly above the piston, you'd have to light up or put a half slab on the very top. Also, other villagers can hop on the sand, and therefore might be able to jump on the block dividers.
This one is bulkier but fixes that problem:
Switch on the block in front, an extra block under to prevent villagers from jumping on the sand, and to hold the sign. Half-blocks on top to prevent mob spawning, or just torch it up (to make pistons you need cobblestone, and could therefore make a furnace and cook charcoal).
It's stupid (especially considering how often you'll need to flip those switches... almost never) but I don't like the look of a switch way up in the air. However, now that I see the picture, it's a nice looking contraption and is a lot simpler than my idea.
True dat. That would cut in half the amount of slime you need. However, slime seems far more abundant than redstone, so if you have enough redstone, you'd probably have enough slimeballs.
Well, I have lots of cobble and redstone on my current Let's Play map, but no slimes yet. Maybe I'll work on that next. (If a villager offers me a redstone trade, I'll typically make a single trade just to see if his/her next offer is anything good. I have between 20 and 30 redstone using this technique.)
I was toying with the idea of deploying just the bottom piece, since I have no slimes. This would trap the villager automatically when he steps into the "booth of decision", but it turns out you can't kill them with sand like I do now (the pressure plate breaks the falling sand, just like a torch would, and then even if you do kill the villager another way (sword?), the floating sand items on the pressure plate keeps the bottom piston powered on until they de-spawn).
In fact, I use a bit of redstone in my next Let's Play episode to automate my "everything farm":
Well, back to square two (my last backup before I went after the soil). I was just about finished with the village built after Megatrain's design (MegaVillage?) but I thought I'd be clever and build it one block below sea level to keep from needing a bucket to place water sources. I got the platform finished, the kill hole done with a below-surface access tunnel, and got all the short walls up and about half the fences in. I let my NPCs loose and put doors on the front and back walls to maintain symmetry, when I discovered the flaw in the whole thing - With the doors one block below the surface of the water, it doesn't recognize them as valid doors! My two NPCs just wander around without even thinking about breeding. I really don't want to knock the whole thing down. I might try removing the doors and putting down an extra layer of blocks to see if that fixes it. If not, back to my last save.
So just a warning to everyone else - building a mob farm one block below the surface works fine. The MegaVillage doesn't!
The patch worked! I took up the doors, placed another layer of blocks down and then put the doors on those. The doors now stick up a half block higher than the wall (I may go back and raise the wall another block just to make sure nothing can get in, but I'm still sleeping through every night right now so mobs don't really have a chance to spawn in), but I now have five villagers and counting! (First new villager is offering an iron helmet!)
The patch worked! I took up the doors, placed another layer of blocks down and then put the doors on those. The doors now stick up a half block higher than the wall (I may go back and raise the wall another block just to make sure nothing can get in, but I'm still sleeping through every night right now so mobs don't really have a chance to spawn in), but I now have five villagers and counting! (First new villager is offering an iron helmet!)
Very cool, I was going to suggest raising the level of the doors first, and if that wasn't enough, then raise the level of the outer ring (where the villagers live), and only if that didn't work, to raise the level of the iron golem spawner.
Very cool, I was going to suggest raising the level of the doors first, and if that wasn't enough, then raise the level of the outer ring (where the villagers live), and only if that didn't work, to raise the level of the iron golem spawner.
It's working great now - I've smothered at least 8-10 golems and got almost 50 iron ingots so far. I've got around 15 or so adult villagers now, but nothing really good in trades so far. Didn't have to raise the NPC ring or golem area. I still have to put the second ring of doors in, but since I haven't maxed out my villagers yet, there isn't a real hurry to add those extra doors.
I decided to expand my reed farm - 11 x 6, but I still have a few blocks of sand to fill up. I've now got sheep, cows and pigs that have spawned in the swamp biome - it's fenced in so they can't go anywhere. I'll make a larger corral soon and move them to that. Had one free-range chicken spawn in, but an ocelot spawned in soon thereafter and made short work of him!
All in all, it is coming along nicely. I'll try to get a couple of pics Sunday.
I think I finally have an answer to our slime problem. After some further frustration when a big build-out at the bottom of the ocean didn't result in any slimes, I decided I needed to do some further testing.
Here was my experiment: I created a custom flatland using this map's seed (-6310548451344270339). One layer of bedrock and one layer of clay. I fenced off an entire 10x10 grid of chunks (100 squares, 160x160 blocks total), centered at our island center, (x=288, z=582). Then I switched into medium difficulty and waited.
Here are the key results (the pillar with the anvil is at island center. Chunks that spawned slimes I marked with lime green wool):
Compare that to the slime finder map posted a several pages back:
(Different slime finders generate an identical map).
The slime finder marks the two in the center (that I marked in red) as slime chunks, but frankly, I'm not convinced that they really are, at least for a superflat (or at least for this map).
Maybe it has to do something with the reduction in slime spawning on flatlands they made in 12w25a? Perhaps they blocked mob spawning near the player's spawn point, or maybe 12w25a actually reduced the number of valid slime chunks on superflats??
Without looking at the code, this is going to be hard to prove, but I'm fairly convinced by my experiment (convinced enough that I know where I am going to build my slime spawner).
Very interesting analysis MegaTrain! I can guarantee that there is no such spawn-chunk protection in the current version (1.4.whatever) because my slime farm in my OceanBlock 3.0 map is getting me some pretty consistent slimes.
I have no idea what IS going on, but I am amused at how sparse slime spawns are around where I placed the island in 4.0. I didn't do that on purpose; I intentionally just left it up to chance and didn't even look at where the slimes spawned.
I thought (key word: "thought") that swamp slime spawning would be at the normal, non-superflat rate so that would be the obvious place to make your farm would be in the swamp area.
I think I finally have an answer to our slime problem. A[size=medium]fter some further frustration when a big build-out at the bottom of the ocean didn't result in any slimes, I decided I needed to do some further testing. [/size]
Here was my experiment: I created a custom flatland using this map's seed (-6310548451344270339). One layer of bedrock and one layer of clay. I fenced off an entire 10x10 grid of chunks (100 squares, 160x160 blocks total), centered at our island center, (x=288, z=582). Then I switched into medium difficulty and waited.
Here are the key results (the pillar with the anvil is at island center. Chunks that spawned slimes I marked with lime green wool):
[size=medium][/size]
[size=medium]Compare that to the slime finder map posted a several pages back:[/size]
[size=medium](Different slime finders generate an identical map).
The slime finder marks the two in the center (that I marked in red) as slime chunks, but frankly, I'm not convinced that they really are, at least for a superflat (or at least for this map).
Maybe it has to do something with the reduction in slime spawning on flatlands they made in 12w25a? Perhaps they blocked mob spawning near the player's spawn point, or ma[size=medium]ybe 12w25a actually reduced the number of valid slime chunks on superflats??[/size]
[size=medium]Without looking at the code, this is going to be hard to prove, but I'm fairly convinced by my experiment (convinced enough that I know where I am going to build my slime spawner).[/size]
[size=medium]I posted a question in an old slime thread here: [/size][size=medium]http://www.minecraft...g/page__st__280[/size]
[size=medium]but haven't received any useful replies. [/size]
[size=medium]Your thoughts?[/size]
[size=medium]EDIT: I opened a ticket for this in the Mojang bug database, hopefully we'll get some answers![/size]
[size=medium]https://mojang.atlas...browse/MC-10303[/size]
Just a guess..... I know 5th altered the four chunks around the anvil to put small biomes (Jungle, Desert, Swamp, and Tiaga) in them. I bet in altering them something happened to the slime code in the red "?" slime chunks. I do not think it got rid of them completely because he had slimes spawn on his floor, although not many.
Very interesting analysis MegaTrain! I can guarantee that there is no such spawn-chunk protection in the current version (1.4.whatever) because my slime farm in my OceanBlock 3.0 map is getting me some pretty consistent slimes.
I have no idea what IS going on, but I am amused at how sparse slime spawns are around where I placed the island in 4.0. I didn't do that on purpose; I intentionally just left it up to chance and didn't even look at where the slimes spawned.
I thought (key word: "thought") that swamp slime spawning would be at the normal, non-superflat rate so that would be the obvious place to make your farm would be in the swamp area.
Yeah, at a certain point for me this became more about solving a frustrating mystery than just about making a working slime farm. If I'm able to pass along useful information to other Oceanblock players and even the Minecraft community at large (so that slime finders can be fixed), then even better.
At first, it just seemed a nice double-benefit that you could gather lots of dirt and sand at the same time you are clearing space for a slime farm, so it was pretty frustrating that the most natural place to do that (right under the island where slime finders said there were slime chunks) didn't seem to actually work. It sounds like multiple people have experienced this same frustration.
Kranky916 hit this same issue on the ocean floor, and when I asked, he confirmed that his rebuilt (and working) slime farm is centered at (x=264, z=600), which is the right of the two working slime chunks in my pic above.
But you might ultimately be right, building a swampland slime spawner might have been easier
Just a guess..... I know 5th altered the four chunks around the anvil to put small biomes (Jungle, Desert, Swamp, and Tiaga) in them. I bet in altering them something happened to the slime code in the red "?" slime chunks. I do not think it got rid of them completely because he had slimes spawn on his floor, although not many.
5th, what did you use to put the four biomes in?
I considered that, but I don't think that's the problem. My test world was a new custom superflat that simply used the same seed, I don't believe it would have carried into it any world edits, like the biome changes.
And I'm now convinced that the two tiny slimes I got on my Oceanblock map were actually because I dug just one block into the next slime chunk (and only 1x1 could spawn), and not because the two diagonal chunks were just very slow spawners.
Yeah, at a certain point for me this became more about solving a frustrating mystery than just about making a working slime farm. If I'm able to pass along useful information to other Oceanblock players and even the Minecraft community at large (so that slime finders can be fixed), then even better.
At first, it just seemed a nice double-benefit that you could gather lots of dirt and sand at the same time you are clearing space for a slime farm, so it was pretty frustrating that the most natural place to do that (right under the island where slime finders said there were slime chunks) didn't seem to actually work. It sounds like multiple people have experienced this same frustration.
Kranky916 hit this same issue on the ocean floor, and when I asked, he confirmed that his rebuilt (and working) slime farm is centered at (x=264, z=600), which is the right of the two working slime chunks in my pic above.
But you might ultimately be right, building a swampland slime spawner might have been easier
I considered that, but I don't think that's the problem. My test world was a new custom superflat that simply used the same seed, I don't believe it would have carried into it any world edits, like the biome changes.
And I'm now convinced that the two tiny slimes I got on my Oceanblock map were actually because I dug just one block into the next slime chunk (and only 1x1 could spawn), and not because the two diagonal chunks were just very slow spawners.
Really nice research Mega. You are correct if you had one square into the slime chunk. I have no idea why those would not be slime chunks.
Nice thought, though I don't know how that would affect it. Granted, I don't know how the code works but I'm pretty sure it's based solely on the seed.
The only 3 tools I use are Minecraft, MCEdit, and BiomePainter. The latter I use for the biomes (duh).
BTW 1.5 is coming out in about 2 weeks. I hope to have 4.1 out by then, and maybe 5.0 (or "something else") out shortly after.
Nice thought, though I don't know how that would affect it. Granted, I don't know how the code works but I'm pretty sure it's based solely on the seed.
The only 3 tools I use are Minecraft, MCEdit, and BiomePainter. The latter I use for the biomes (duh).
BTW 1.5 is coming out in about 2 weeks. I hope to have 4.1 out by then, and maybe 5.0 (or "something else") out shortly after.
Cool. Going to update the initial post? Or start a new thread?
You've gotten quite a bit more traction with this map recently, you should see if you can do some sort of "promo video", and maybe an updated sig banner.
Thanks! That should leave me enough for an entire diamond block, even after I make an enchantment table and a jukebox. Maybe I'll work it into the decor of my still-to-be-built house, in a special place on the mantle with other rare items or something. Guess I could put it into a picture frame on the wall next to my map and my (still to be created) golden apples
If you recall, I had to use the emergency chest when my villagers were killed, and while I was up there I brought the rest of the contents down (I put it all into a "do not touch" chest). Well, just for kicks I took the 3 diamond ore out and broke them with the fortune III pick. That gave me 6 more diamond, for a grand total of 19 (don't worry, I put those 6 back in the emergency chest).
So while it is still far from the theoretical max of 32 diamond (if each ore dropped 4 diamond), 19 total diamond is probably close to the realistic maximum possible (a Fortune III pick returns, on average, 2.2x the normal drops, so you would expect 17 or 18 diamond from 8 ore).
stolenutilized your villager trap idea, and using a bit of redstone and sticky pistons have made it fully automatic. When I started, it was a horrible contraption that chewed up most of the iron golem spawn area, but I fiddled and fiddled (and fiddled) and when I was done, it was a mere 2 blocks deep (simply to house the piston and the block the piston pushes) and 2 blocks high (above the villagers head). That's (I think) just one more block deeper and higher than your method.I don't know when I'll be able to implement it, but I hope to get a video of a small version in my test world out before the weekend. I'm a bit proud of it; it may be the simplest and most elegant redstone creation I've ever made.
The way it works is, the villager wanders into the little cubby hole and steps on a pressure plate that raises a block, trapping him in the cubby. You come by, check him out, and if you don't like his trade you flip a switch and a piston pushes a block into his head. As soon as he dies, the pressure plate releases and the trapper block goes away, and you can flip the switch to retract the killer block. At that point, the cubby is ready for a new villager.
I think - but am not sure yet - that come 1.5 I'll be able to easily release them in case 2 villagers manage to get into a cubby at the same time. I need a redstone block to implement my idea.
Did you know I write Science Fiction? Well I do. Check it out at http://planetretcon.com/books/
Very interesting, I would like to see your design! And there is nothing that says you have to install the "automatic" version everywhere at first, you could start with a manual design, and replace it gradually once you start getting the ingredients for sticky pistons (and only on the empty slots, you shouldn't have to retro-fit any that are holding "good" villagers.
I played around on a creative map and came up with a version that seems to work, not sure if it is the same as what you came up with. Mine requires a block 3 deep under the villager slot, though, to place a dot of redstone on.
Oh, btw, here is my episode 14: To the Nether!
NOTE: Sandstone (other than being the entire world's land) is stuff that transmits redstone. Wood is stuff that moves, and glass is other blocks. They can all be anything, but I figured it was easier to see what was going on if everything was a unique block.
The underneath part, with the auto-closing block. Villager wanders in, steps on pressure plate, and the piston rises pushing the block in their way.
Type "A" trap. This one is vertical and is easier to understand and see.
Type "A" with a villager. Note he's trapped due to standing on that pressure plate.
Type "A" killing the villager. Taken from the side to show it easier.
Type "B." This one's a bit harder to see but just as easy to understand.
Top view of the above. I run it through the inverter simply so the levers will match Type "A"s levers.
Type "B" closed, also with a top view.
And finally, Type "B" with and killing a villager. You can see a little bit of Type "A" in the background.
Did you know I write Science Fiction? Well I do. Check it out at http://planetretcon.com/books/
Yep, that's the same design I came up with for the underneath part, it is simple and works well.
I just tested it, and determined you could get away with a normal (non-sticky) piston if you use a sand (or gravel) block, since gravity should let it fall right back down.
So regarding your top-piston designs, I'm not sure they are horizontally stackable, wouldn't the switch trigger BOTH pistons from adjacent booths if you had them next to each other?
And at least in my village design, the piston coming from behind the villager would encroach on either the water (on the inside) or the doors (on the outside).
Here are a couple variations that put the switch directly above the villager:
Switch is directly above the piston, you'd have to light up or put a half slab on the very top.
Also, other villagers can hop on the sand, and therefore might be able to jump on the block dividers.
This one is bulkier but fixes that problem:
Switch on the block in front, an extra block under to prevent villagers from jumping on the sand, and to hold the sign. Half-blocks on top to prevent mob spawning, or just torch it up (to make pistons you need cobblestone, and could therefore make a furnace and cook charcoal).
With either of these designs, you could drop the height of your outside and inside walls to only 1.5 high. Also no additional redstone needed.
True dat. That would cut in half the amount of slime you need. However, slime seems far more abundant than redstone, so if you have enough redstone, you'd probably have enough slimeballs.
That's why there are 2 designs. You alternate them, You have a type "a", then a type "b", then another type "a". The switch WOULD activate 2 type "a"s but a type "a" switch won't activate a nearby type "b", and vice versa.
That's a problem, that I don't think is fixable. There's no other direction the piston can come from. I toyed with it coming from the bottom, and using a tripwire but you need 3 horizontal spaces for a tripwire and that eats up too much space.
It's stupid (especially considering how often you'll need to flip those switches... almost never) but I don't like the look of a switch way up in the air. However, now that I see the picture, it's a nice looking contraption and is a lot simpler than my idea.
Did you know I write Science Fiction? Well I do. Check it out at http://planetretcon.com/books/
Well, I have lots of cobble and redstone on my current Let's Play map, but no slimes yet. Maybe I'll work on that next. (If a villager offers me a redstone trade, I'll typically make a single trade just to see if his/her next offer is anything good. I have between 20 and 30 redstone using this technique.)
I was toying with the idea of deploying just the bottom piece, since I have no slimes. This would trap the villager automatically when he steps into the "booth of decision", but it turns out you can't kill them with sand like I do now (the pressure plate breaks the falling sand, just like a torch would, and then even if you do kill the villager another way (sword?), the floating sand items on the pressure plate keeps the bottom piston powered on until they de-spawn).
In fact, I use a bit of redstone in my next Let's Play episode to automate my "everything farm":
So just a warning to everyone else - building a mob farm one block below the surface works fine. The MegaVillage doesn't!
Very cool, I was going to suggest raising the level of the doors first, and if that wasn't enough, then raise the level of the outer ring (where the villagers live), and only if that didn't work, to raise the level of the iron golem spawner.
It's working great now - I've smothered at least 8-10 golems and got almost 50 iron ingots so far. I've got around 15 or so adult villagers now, but nothing really good in trades so far. Didn't have to raise the NPC ring or golem area. I still have to put the second ring of doors in, but since I haven't maxed out my villagers yet, there isn't a real hurry to add those extra doors.
I decided to expand my reed farm - 11 x 6, but I still have a few blocks of sand to fill up. I've now got sheep, cows and pigs that have spawned in the swamp biome - it's fenced in so they can't go anywhere. I'll make a larger corral soon and move them to that. Had one free-range chicken spawn in, but an ocelot spawned in soon thereafter and made short work of him!
All in all, it is coming along nicely. I'll try to get a couple of pics Sunday.
Here was my experiment: I created a custom flatland using this map's seed (-6310548451344270339). One layer of bedrock and one layer of clay. I fenced off an entire 10x10 grid of chunks (100 squares, 160x160 blocks total), centered at our island center, (x=288, z=582). Then I switched into medium difficulty and waited.
Here are the key results (the pillar with the anvil is at island center. Chunks that spawned slimes I marked with lime green wool):
Compare that to the slime finder map posted a several pages back:
Here is the chart with the slime chunks in green!
(Different slime finders generate an identical map).
The slime finder marks the two in the center (that I marked in red) as slime chunks, but frankly, I'm not convinced that they really are, at least for a superflat (or at least for this map).
Maybe it has to do something with the reduction in slime spawning on flatlands they made in 12w25a? Perhaps they blocked mob spawning near the player's spawn point, or maybe 12w25a actually reduced the number of valid slime chunks on superflats??
Without looking at the code, this is going to be hard to prove, but I'm fairly convinced by my experiment (convinced enough that I know where I am going to build my slime spawner).
I posted a question in an old slime thread here: http://www.minecraft...g/page__st__280
but haven't received any useful replies.
Your thoughts?
EDIT: I opened a ticket for this in the Mojang bug database, hopefully we'll get some answers!
https://mojang.atlassian.net/browse/MC-10303
I have no idea what IS going on, but I am amused at how sparse slime spawns are around where I placed the island in 4.0. I didn't do that on purpose; I intentionally just left it up to chance and didn't even look at where the slimes spawned.
I thought (key word: "thought") that swamp slime spawning would be at the normal, non-superflat rate so that would be the obvious place to make your farm would be in the swamp area.
Did you know I write Science Fiction? Well I do. Check it out at http://planetretcon.com/books/
Just a guess..... I know 5th altered the four chunks around the anvil to put small biomes (Jungle, Desert, Swamp, and Tiaga) in them. I bet in altering them something happened to the slime code in the red "?" slime chunks. I do not think it got rid of them completely because he had slimes spawn on his floor, although not many.
5th, what did you use to put the four biomes in?
Yeah, at a certain point for me this became more about solving a frustrating mystery than just about making a working slime farm. If I'm able to pass along useful information to other Oceanblock players and even the Minecraft community at large (so that slime finders can be fixed), then even better.
At first, it just seemed a nice double-benefit that you could gather lots of dirt and sand at the same time you are clearing space for a slime farm, so it was pretty frustrating that the most natural place to do that (right under the island where slime finders said there were slime chunks) didn't seem to actually work. It sounds like multiple people have experienced this same frustration.
Kranky916 hit this same issue on the ocean floor, and when I asked, he confirmed that his rebuilt (and working) slime farm is centered at (x=264, z=600), which is the right of the two working slime chunks in my pic above.
But you might ultimately be right, building a swampland slime spawner might have been easier
I considered that, but I don't think that's the problem. My test world was a new custom superflat that simply used the same seed, I don't believe it would have carried into it any world edits, like the biome changes.
And I'm now convinced that the two tiny slimes I got on my Oceanblock map were actually because I dug just one block into the next slime chunk (and only 1x1 could spawn), and not because the two diagonal chunks were just very slow spawners.
Really nice research Mega. You are correct if you had one square into the slime chunk. I have no idea why those would not be slime chunks.
Nice thought, though I don't know how that would affect it. Granted, I don't know how the code works but I'm pretty sure it's based solely on the seed.
The only 3 tools I use are Minecraft, MCEdit, and BiomePainter. The latter I use for the biomes (duh).
BTW 1.5 is coming out in about 2 weeks. I hope to have 4.1 out by then, and maybe 5.0 (or "something else") out shortly after.
Did you know I write Science Fiction? Well I do. Check it out at http://planetretcon.com/books/
Cool. Going to update the initial post? Or start a new thread?
You've gotten quite a bit more traction with this map recently, you should see if you can do some sort of "promo video", and maybe an updated sig banner.