So I am making an iron golem farm using one of the many tutorials on youtube. I have seen much discussion regarding the distance you have to build it from any other natural villages in the area for it to work right. What I haven't seen is much discussion about how far the PLAYER needs to be from a spawn farm for golems to keep spawning. I want to build it relatively close to my main housing segment and base because that will allow for me to spawn lots of iron while I work on other things. Is there a MINIMUM distance you need to be like with hostile mobs (24 blocks)? Is there a MAXIMUM distance you can be? Is it the 3D distance or the X and Z distance only that is relevant? Any help on this would be great cuz I don't wanna waste time and resources building my farm in the wrong place.
I believe it works with the general mob spawning rules - must be in loaded chunks and closer than 256 blocks, and since iron golems don't despawn, it shouldn't matter if you are over 128 blocks away. Effectively, you just need to have the farm loaded.
Iron Golems do not follow 'regular spawn rules', per se....
If the village in question is loaded in the world, and the farm built correctly (not going into valid spawn tiles, ranges, etc.),
* Golems will spawn until the current cap (maximum number of golems per that village) is reached.
* Players need not be 'in the area'
- the area can be artificially loaded (chunk loading) or in spawn, with no players online (server) or in the area (single-player - game running, but player far away or in another dimension).
Want a tutorial/tour of my server, and explanation of the mechanics? just PM me. It's a private vanilla SMP world with just a handful of mature casual (but advanced skill in some cases) players.
The main constraint on placing an iron farm near your base is to make sure there is never a misplaced validated door creating an accidental 'house' that moves the village center (and thus the golem spawn area) outside the farm.
A door is validatable (potentially able to from a valid house) when the number of blocks with an unobstructed view of the sky from 1-5 away from the block the door is on is unequal; should a villager be within 16 blocks of such a door horizontally and from 2 bellow to 5 above the door a valid house will be formed.
So long as the farm is loaded (in the "entity" chunks ie. the central 12x12 spawn chunks or the square around the player, but not lazy chunks) iron golems can spawn.
The 24<distance<128 rule applies only to hostile mobs [Fe golems are neutral] and Ocelot spawning {only the spawning, not the despawning of ocelots}
Iron golems will spawn in a 16×6×16 area, centered vertically and horizontally between the bases of the 21 or more valid doors in a village if it has at least 10 villagers. The chance of spawning is 1 in 7000 per game tick, which averages around one every six minutes. Iron golems can spawn provided the blocks it spawns in are transparent and the block it spawns on top of has a solid surface. The maximum number of golems that can be in a single village is one-tenth the number of villagers in that village, provided that the door requirement is met.
I heard that wooden doors are the only problem with this. I use iron doors in my house and I don't think I have any wooden ones nearby being used for anything. Is that true?
Also, the door validation thing is confusing as hell, is there a video anywhere demonstrating this? I doubt that I will be making this farm close enough to my house that my front door would interfere based on the math you provided. But I also have an iron door out front so that's why I asked my first question.
A village has a minimum radius of 32 blocks from the center of all valid doors (houses). So the small mock villages used for golem spawning in an iron farm need to be at least 64 blocks away from any other validated doors (houses).
HOWEVER, due to Minecraft's funky directional sensitivity the center may actually be 1 block to the north and/or west of the geometric center, depending on where the farm is built. So the minimum distance between villages to prevent merging should be 65 blocks, and the spawn floors should be 18x18 to encompass the possible shift in spawn area.
Technically, that's 65 blocks from village center to village center, but to be absolutely sure, use 65 blocks between the closest doors.
If you build your iron farm inside your spawn chunks, and you aren't using any mods that unload spawn (like the Smooth World option in Optifine), then the iron farm will operate as long as you (or other players) are in the overworld. If you build your iron farm outside of the spawn chunks then the farm will only operate when the chunks it occupies are loaded, and golems could spawn outside the trap if the mock village is not fully loaded.
Iron doors can be placed near an iron farm, as they don't count as doors/houses (only wooden doors can be houses). Fencegates and trapdoors also have no effect on iron farms (they aren't houses either).
quote=GrandpaDucky
I heard that wooden doors are the only problem with this. I use iron doors in my house and I don't think I have any wooden ones nearby being used for anything. Is that true?
Yes. Imprecision on my part, having fallen into the habit of saying door when wood door is meant…
Also, the door validation thing is confusing as hell, is there a video anywhere demonstrating this? I doubt that I will be making this farm close enough to my house that my front door would interfere based on the math you provided. But I also have an iron door out front so that's why I asked my first question.
If you have built your golem farm somewhere you are always at, yes it will work, if you got 6 chunks away from it, it might not work, just afk relatively close to it.
I haven't done it often, but the times I've built iron farms I built them in the spawn chunks and have, in the case of one world, been nearly 500 blocks away from the farm and came back to a nice increase in iron in the collection chest.
One of the builds is on a 1.12.2 server and the iron farm definitely produces as long as there is one player logged in anywhere in the world.
There are no dangerous weapons. There are only dangerous people. R.A. Heinlein
If you aren't part of the solution, then you obviously weren't properly dissolved.
One caveat to the always works in spawn chunks rule:
The spawn chunks have to be loaded.
As long as one is in the overworld this will be true...
... unless using some mods (including the Optifine "Smooth World" option).
If one is not in the overworld, the spawn chunks will unload after a few seconds unless special effort is made (eg. using a clocked dropper to throw junk items through a portal).
In vanilla, as long as one is in the overworld, the spawn chunks wil be loaded and the farm will work; distance is not a factor.
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So I am making an iron golem farm using one of the many tutorials on youtube. I have seen much discussion regarding the distance you have to build it from any other natural villages in the area for it to work right. What I haven't seen is much discussion about how far the PLAYER needs to be from a spawn farm for golems to keep spawning. I want to build it relatively close to my main housing segment and base because that will allow for me to spawn lots of iron while I work on other things. Is there a MINIMUM distance you need to be like with hostile mobs (24 blocks)? Is there a MAXIMUM distance you can be? Is it the 3D distance or the X and Z distance only that is relevant? Any help on this would be great cuz I don't wanna waste time and resources building my farm in the wrong place.
I believe it works with the general mob spawning rules - must be in loaded chunks and closer than 256 blocks, and since iron golems don't despawn, it shouldn't matter if you are over 128 blocks away. Effectively, you just need to have the farm loaded.
When you say general mob spawn rules, are you referring to non hostile mobs or what? I only know of explicit rules for HOSTILE mobs.
Iron Golems do not follow 'regular spawn rules', per se....
If the village in question is loaded in the world, and the farm built correctly (not going into valid spawn tiles, ranges, etc.),
* Golems will spawn until the current cap (maximum number of golems per that village) is reached.
* Players need not be 'in the area'
- the area can be artificially loaded (chunk loading) or in spawn, with no players online (server) or in the area (single-player - game running, but player far away or in another dimension).
Want a tutorial/tour of my server, and explanation of the mechanics? just PM me. It's a private vanilla SMP world with just a handful of mature casual (but advanced skill in some cases) players.
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The main constraint on placing an iron farm near your base is to make sure there is never a misplaced validated door creating an accidental 'house' that moves the village center (and thus the golem spawn area) outside the farm.
So long as the farm is loaded (in the "entity" chunks ie. the central 12x12 spawn chunks or the square around the player, but not lazy chunks) iron golems can spawn.
The 24<distance<128 rule applies only to hostile mobs [Fe golems are neutral] and Ocelot spawning {only the spawning, not the despawning of ocelots}
This is the Fe golem spawn info from https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Iron_Golem
The door requirement mentioned is >20 doors (ie. minimum of 21) q.v. https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Tutorials/Iron_golem_farming#General_requirements
Scots,
I heard that wooden doors are the only problem with this. I use iron doors in my house and I don't think I have any wooden ones nearby being used for anything. Is that true?
Also, the door validation thing is confusing as hell, is there a video anywhere demonstrating this? I doubt that I will be making this farm close enough to my house that my front door would interfere based on the math you provided. But I also have an iron door out front so that's why I asked my first question.
A village has a minimum radius of 32 blocks from the center of all valid doors (houses). So the small mock villages used for golem spawning in an iron farm need to be at least 64 blocks away from any other validated doors (houses).
HOWEVER, due to Minecraft's funky directional sensitivity the center may actually be 1 block to the north and/or west of the geometric center, depending on where the farm is built. So the minimum distance between villages to prevent merging should be 65 blocks, and the spawn floors should be 18x18 to encompass the possible shift in spawn area.
Technically, that's 65 blocks from village center to village center, but to be absolutely sure, use 65 blocks between the closest doors.
If you build your iron farm inside your spawn chunks, and you aren't using any mods that unload spawn (like the Smooth World option in Optifine), then the iron farm will operate as long as you (or other players) are in the overworld. If you build your iron farm outside of the spawn chunks then the farm will only operate when the chunks it occupies are loaded, and golems could spawn outside the trap if the mock village is not fully loaded.
Iron doors can be placed near an iron farm, as they don't count as doors/houses (only wooden doors can be houses). Fencegates and trapdoors also have no effect on iron farms (they aren't houses either).
thank you so much! This is exactly what I needed to know.
I don't know about videos but there's a tutorial in the Wiki:
https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Tutorials/Village_mechanics
Just testing.
quote=GrandpaDucky
I heard that wooden doors are the only problem with this. I use iron doors in my house and I don't think I have any wooden ones nearby being used for anything. Is that true?
Yes. Imprecision on my part, having fallen into the habit of saying door when wood door is meant…
Also, the door validation thing is confusing as hell, is there a video anywhere demonstrating this? I doubt that I will be making this farm close enough to my house that my front door would interfere based on the math you provided. But I also have an iron door out front so that's why I asked my first question.
The clearest explanation video I've seen is How Iron Farms Work, A Minecraft 1.12 Guide. posted 05Aug16
He has an updated version (posted 14Nov17)out that is longer (58 vs 36 minutes) How Iron Farms Work, Now Includes Resettable Farms, A Minecraft 1.12 Guide that I just found while looking for the link...
I've not yet watched the update, but the first is a very clear explanation of the mechanics (at some cost in concision).
If you have built your golem farm somewhere you are always at, yes it will work, if you got 6 chunks away from it, it might not work, just afk relatively close to it.
I haven't done it often, but the times I've built iron farms I built them in the spawn chunks and have, in the case of one world, been nearly 500 blocks away from the farm and came back to a nice increase in iron in the collection chest.
One of the builds is on a 1.12.2 server and the iron farm definitely produces as long as there is one player logged in anywhere in the world.
There are no dangerous weapons. There are only dangerous people. R.A. Heinlein
If you aren't part of the solution, then you obviously weren't properly dissolved.
The latest release of Amidst, version 4.6 can be found here:
https://github.com/toolbox4minecraft/amidst/releases
You should probably also read this:
https://www.minecraftforum.net/forums/mapping-and-modding-java-edition/minecraft-tools/2970854-amidst-map-explorer-for-minecraft-1-14
You can find me on the Minecraft Forums Discord server.
https://discord.gg/wGrQNKX
One caveat to the always works in spawn chunks rule:
The spawn chunks have to be loaded.
As long as one is in the overworld this will be true...
... unless using some mods (including the Optifine "Smooth World" option).
If one is not in the overworld, the spawn chunks will unload after a few seconds unless special effort is made (eg. using a clocked dropper to throw junk items through a portal).
In vanilla, as long as one is in the overworld, the spawn chunks wil be loaded and the farm will work; distance is not a factor.
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