Hi guys, I'm here to check if my concepts are correct or not. Please, correct every single one of them that's incorrect.
(Since I'm doing this on a 1.12.2 server, my concepts should be based on multiplayer and in version 1.12.2)
1. I should make farms where mobs can spawn 24-32 blocks (instead of 128) away from a player. Since mobs don't move beyond 32 blocks and will randomly despawn.
2. The system checks spawning condition from y:0 to y:255, so the lower I put the farm, the higher the spawn rate.
3. The more players in the server, the more mobs it'll spawn. (This omits the case they're grinding mobs as well)
4. The fastest way to move mobs from big spawning platforms is by water, instead of walking to trapdoors or scare creepers and skeletons with animals.
5. Since the area of the mob spawning mechanics is spherical, a donut-shaped farm is the best.
6. If a player far away takes all the mob cap space, my farm will spawn nothing.
7. Since it's spherical according to point 5, it'll be more efficient to stack vertically in a hoop than directly upwards
8. Except water dispensing system and item collection system (which might be an inefficient way), redstone machines cannot speed up the mob spawn rate no matter what.
9. It's useless to use packed ice as a spawning platform since the speedup effect only applies to items.
10. 1.13 and 1.14 changed the spawning mechanics, but doesn't have any impact on mob spawn rate in 1.12.
11. It's better to spawn-proof every block in range and leave 1 small (around 15x15?) platform spawn-able than to make as many spawning platform as possible within range.
12. Will the mob spawn rate increase if I add a wide roof near the spawning platform?
1: Or use an active flushing system, water released by redstone timers, pistons activated by tripwires etc.
Then it doesn't matter if the mobs don't move and with the right timing you'll get most of them before they despawn.
2:Putting the farm lower isn't enough, you have to remove all blocks above the farm as well, in the same chunks, to maximize spawn rates.
And that has to be weighed against the effort it would take to spawn proof all caves etc within 128 blocks of your position as opposed to building the mob farms AFK spot 128 blocks up in the air in which case no further effort is required.
3:Several corrections: It's not the number of players that counts, it's how spread out they are, the number of chunks within range of at least one player.
And the extra mobs won't necessarily spawn in your mob farm, it depends on how many spawnable blocks there are in the other chunks.
In general I'd say it would be better the fewer other players there are online. Though if they are all in spawn proofed areas then the more the merrier.
4.Probably.
5.Only if you are relying on the mobs moving and want to keep the whole thing between 24 and 32 blocks from you or you are making it more than 128 blocks across.
6.Yes
7.Same as #5. I'd say use an active system and just build whatever shape is easiest.
1: Or use an active flushing system, water released by redstone timers, pistons activated by tripwires etc.
Then it doesn't matter if the mobs don't move and with the right timing you'll get most of them before they despawn.
2:Putting the farm lower isn't enough, you have to remove all blocks above the farm as well, in the same chunks, to maximize spawn rates.
And that has to be weighed against the effort it would take to spawn proof all caves etc within 128 blocks of your position as opposed to building the mob farms AFK spot 128 blocks up in the air in which case no further effort is required.
3:Several corrections: It's not the number of players that counts, it's how spread out they are, the number of chunks within range of at least one player.
And the extra mobs won't necessarily spawn in your mob farm, it depends on how many spawnable blocks there are in the other chunks.
In general I'd say it would be better the fewer other players there are online. Though if they are all in spawn proofed areas then the more the merrier.
4.Probably.
5.Only if you are relying on the mobs moving and want to keep the whole thing between 24 and 32 blocks from you or you are making it more than 128 blocks across.
6.Yes
7.Same as #5. I'd say use an active system and just build whatever shape is easiest.
Thx for the reply. If I round up the informative you confirm, here's my rough idea.
A) It's ok to build a mob farm anywhere within the 128-block range, you just have to make the rest spawn-proof
B ) Shape doesn't matter a lot, you can stack the farm wherever you want within the range
C) It'll be better to stack them horizontally instead of vertically cuz the top height also matters
Please check. : D
(I added the 11th point, please check as well. thx)
7. Since it's spherical according to point 5, it'll be more efficient to stack vertically in a hoop than directly upwards
8. Except water dispensing system and item collection system (which might be an inefficient way), redstone machines cannot speed up the mob spawn rate no matter what.
9. It's useless to use packed ice as a spawning platform since the speedup effect only applies to items.
10. 1.13 and 1.14 changed the spawning mechanics, but doesn't have any impact on mob spawn rate in 1.12.
11. It's better to spawn-proof every block in range and leave 1 small (around 15x15?) platform spawn-able than to make as many spawning platform as possible within range.
7. Since it's spherical according to point 5, it'll be more efficient to stack vertically in a hoop than directly upwards
8. Except water dispensing system and item collection system (which might be an inefficient way), redstone machines cannot speed up the mob spawn rate no matter what.
9. It's useless to use packed ice as a spawning platform since the speedup effect only applies to items.
10. 1.13 and 1.14 changed the spawning mechanics, but doesn't have any impact on mob spawn rate in 1.12.
11. It's better to spawn-proof every block in range and leave 1 small (around 15x15?) platform spawn-able than to make as many spawning platform as possible within range.
#7: considering only mob spawning the most theoretically efficient shape would be a spherical shell, however the speed with which spawned mobs can be killed and the efficiency with which the drops/XP are collected also need to be considered. [Typically the mob cap is filled within a few seconds, so the rate at which one can remove mobs (which is much slower) becomes the constraining factor]
#6 the best performance will be seen when the percentage of loaded spawnable spaces contained in the spawner is 'high'. (Assuming vanilla and well spread out players, the game will attempt to reach a mob cap of 70 per player; this number will be spread over the total spawnable spaces loaded by all players. A player standing on a glass pillar >128 above a 'floor' {and under a bottom slab to stop MobB spawns} will increase the total possible number of mobs by 70, but create no spawnable spaces; that part of the total mob cap will then be available elsewhere.)
#8 Mob spawn rate is not likely to be the controlling factor and RS devices can speed up the rate at which mobs are removed from the check volume (important for cage spawner farms) and/or the rate at which mobs are killed. (Using one or more slimeblock 'pushers' to move mobs into the kill room would be one example; timed suffocation devices to reduce mob health for quicker kills would be another.)
#9 Correct, packed ice does not cause mobs to move faster.
#10 Possibly not understood: If you are playing 1.12.2, the changes made in later versions are relevant only if you are planning to update to a later version and want to avoid having to rebuild parts of the spawner; so long as you are in 1.12.2 any subsequent changes can be ignored.
#11 Spawnproofing everything outside the spawn floors is a good idea. (How close to perfect you find you can get before the marginal cost of finding the last few spaces exceeds the marginal performance hit those spaces are causing is an individual thing…)
My understanding of mob spawning is that the larger the number of spawnable spaces the more likely a given spawn check is to be successful which would argue for maximizing the size and number of the spawn floors…
As a practical matter, I'd make the spawning floors (size and number) based on what worked well with the collection and kill systems.
[Unless your main goal is to wring the last iota of performance out of a design, the effort of getting the last few fractions of a percent is unlikely to justify the marginal improvement.]
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.
#7: considering only mob spawning the most theoretically efficient shape would be a spherical shell, however the speed with which spawned mobs can be killed and the efficiency with which the drops/XP are collected also need to be considered. [Typically the mob cap is filled within a few seconds, so the rate at which one can remove mobs (which is much slower) becomes the constraining factor]
#6 the best performance will be seen when the percentage of loaded spawnable spaces contained in the spawner is 'high'. (Assuming vanilla and well spread out players, the game will attempt to reach a mob cap of 70 per player; this number will be spread over the total spawnable spaces loaded by all players. A player standing on a glass pillar >128 above a 'floor' {and under a bottom slab to stop MobB spawns} will increase the total possible number of mobs by 70, but create no spawnable spaces; that part of the total mob cap will then be available elsewhere.)
#8 Mob spawn rate is not likely to be the controlling factor and RS devices can speed up the rate at which mobs are removed from the check volume (important for cage spawner farms) and/or the rate at which mobs are killed. (Using one or more slimeblock 'pushers' to move mobs into the kill room would be one example; timed suffocation devices to reduce mob health for quicker kills would be another.)
#9 Correct, packed ice does not cause mobs to move faster.
#10 Possibly not understood: If you are playing 1.12.2, the changes made in later versions are relevant only if you are planning to update to a later version and want to avoid having to rebuild parts of the spawner; so long as you are in 1.12.2 any subsequent changes can be ignored.
#11 Spawnproofing everything outside the spawn floors is a good idea. (How close to perfect you find you can get before the marginal cost of finding the last few spaces exceeds the marginal performance hit those spaces are causing is an individual thing…)
My understanding of mob spawning is that the larger the number of spawnable spaces the more likely a given spawn check is to be successful which would argue for maximizing the size and number of the spawn floors…
As a practical matter, I'd make the spawning floors (size and number) based on what worked well with the collection and kill systems.
[Unless your main goal is to wring the last iota of performance out of a design, the effort of getting the last few fractions of a percent is unlikely to justify the marginal improvement.]
6. I heard that the system checks the spawnable space from y:0 to y:255. If that's the case, idling 128+ blocks above ground will decrease the spawn rate cuz the system check the block you're standing? Or is this factor not causing much issues?
10. The server might update to 1.13+ soon, so it's worth asking. Also, the mob spawning mechanic I learns is possibly from 1.13+, so I wanna know the difference between 1.12- and 1.13+.
11. I can't rly seek for perfection cuz all the players are either in the wild or usng guardian farm... So from what you say, the most important factor is how fast you kill the mobs and release the mob caps?
The mechanism has changed but the principle is the same, just that now apparently it's measured to the exact level of the highest block in the chunk.
If I'm understanding it properly,
in 1.13 the game tries to spawn mobs from the highest nontransparent block in the chunk down to Y=0 (or 1?) so you want as few wasted levels as possible under your mobfarm and nothing above it. Plus you want the farm itself to be as flat as possible, it's probably better to only have a single layer since the spawn rate on it may be higher than if it's spread out over several layers.
Before 1.13 the Y level of the highest block in the chunk was rounded up to a multiple of 16 and the game tried to spawn mobs from that level (minus 1 probably) and down. That meant that before 1.13 you wanted to keep the farm, including roof, in the bottom 16 levels but there was no reason to try to make it lower than that since it would still spread the spawn attempts over the first 16 layers.
And if it needed to be higher then you might as well have built it so it filled up the bottom 32 levels because it would still spread the spawn attempts over 32 layers even if it was only 17 layers high.
--
I'm not absolutely certain about transparent blocks not being counted so don't take that as a fact without checking further.
6. I heard that the system checks the spawnable space from y:0 to y:255. If that's the case, idling 128+ blocks above ground will decrease the spawn rate cuz the system check the block you're standing? Or is this factor not causing much issues?
10. The server might update to 1.13+ soon, so it's worth asking. Also, the mob spawning mechanic I learns is possibly from 1.13+, so I wanna know the difference between 1.12- and 1.13+.
11. I can't rly seek for perfection cuz all the players are either in the wild or usng guardian farm... So from what you say, the most important factor is how fast you kill the mobs and release the mob caps?
Anyways, thx for the reply.
#6 The reason I specified a glass pillar and standing beneath a bottom slab is that (AFAIK) the spawn checks are based on the highest solid block. [Transparent blocks do not count.] The specifics of by how much the time needed to do the calculations with taller farms increases in a typical survival build (as opposed to a superflat or void world) are not something on which I have yet seen a clear explanation… My empirical experience suggests this is a minor effect; probably not more than ~10% difference between gnembon's supper optimized designs and more conventional (and much easier to build) designs.
#10 There are a LOT of changes between 1.13.x & 1.12.2 – I'm far from certain I've found all of them and am still working on converting all the builds broken by the various changes before converting my main world. Partial list:
Items float rather than sink in water;
undead do not swim up;
normal ice is now a spawnable block;
squid spawn only in ocean & river & beach biomes;
drowned spawn without needing a solid block [very ugh, this has cost many hours of hanging lights in the water features of various bases];
MobB spawns without regard to the mob cap, but counts against it;
etc; etc....
If you've not settled on a design, I'd recomend looking at some 1.13.2 [ie current] designs and finding one that can be adapted to 1.12 with the added criterion that simpler will be more likely to survive any future changes changes. [The early two 18x18 spawn floors with centr drop iron farms being a case in point.]
#11 Yes, my experience has been that killing spawned mobs (rather than the wait for new mobs to spawn) is the rate limiting factor in mob farms not baswed on cage spawners.
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.
The mechanism has changed but the principle is the same, just that now apparently it's measured to the exact level of the highest block in the chunk.
If I'm understanding it properly,
in 1.13 the game tries to spawn mobs from the highest nontransparent block in the chunk down to Y=0 (or 1?) so you want as few wasted levels as possible under your mobfarm and nothing above it. Plus you want the farm itself to be as flat as possible, it's probably better to only have a single layer since the spawn rate on it may be higher than if it's spread out over several layers.
Before 1.13 the Y level of the highest block in the chunk was rounded up to a multiple of 16 and the game tried to spawn mobs from that level (minus 1 probably) and down. That meant that before 1.13 you wanted to keep the farm, including roof, in the bottom 16 levels but there was no reason to try to make it lower than that since it would still spread the spawn attempts over the first 16 layers.
And if it needed to be higher then you might as well have built it so it filled up the bottom 32 levels because it would still spread the spawn attempts over 32 layers even if it was only 17 layers high.
--
I'm not absolutely certain about transparent blocks not being counted so don't take that as a fact without checking further.
Oh... I thought it's from y:0 to the highest (from bottom to top).
Thanks for the reply again. I added Point 12 cuz of the video I mentioned.
12. Will the mob spawn rate increase if I add a wide roof near the spawning platform?
Thanks for the reply again. I added Point 12 cuz of the video I mentioned.
#12 Short answer: Yes. [It is unclear to me by how much.]
The main point of an extented roof is simply to lower the light level in the farm (for very tall farms the extended roof will require less material than would walls).
However, there is a lesser, second effect of allowing some spawning attempts that start outside the farm proper to end with successful spawns. In 1.12 this requires only that the spaces around the farm be shielded from the sky [The number five sticks in my head as the required width, but you may want to check that – try gnembon's guardian farm videos.]
In 1.13, there is the additional consideration of placing this roof as low as possible above the farm.
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.
Hi guys, I'm here to check if my concepts are correct or not. Please, correct every single one of them that's incorrect.
(Since I'm doing this on a 1.12.2 server, my concepts should be based on multiplayer and in version 1.12.2)
1. I should make farms where mobs can spawn 24-32 blocks (instead of 128) away from a player. Since mobs don't move beyond 32 blocks and will randomly despawn.
2. The system checks spawning condition from y:0 to y:255, so the lower I put the farm, the higher the spawn rate.
3. The more players in the server, the more mobs it'll spawn. (This omits the case they're grinding mobs as well)
4. The fastest way to move mobs from big spawning platforms is by water, instead of walking to trapdoors or scare creepers and skeletons with animals.
5. Since the area of the mob spawning mechanics is spherical, a donut-shaped farm is the best.
6. If a player far away takes all the mob cap space, my farm will spawn nothing.
7. Since it's spherical according to point 5, it'll be more efficient to stack vertically in a hoop than directly upwards
8. Except water dispensing system and item collection system (which might be an inefficient way), redstone machines cannot speed up the mob spawn rate no matter what.
9. It's useless to use packed ice as a spawning platform since the speedup effect only applies to items.
10. 1.13 and 1.14 changed the spawning mechanics, but doesn't have any impact on mob spawn rate in 1.12.
11. It's better to spawn-proof every block in range and leave 1 small (around 15x15?) platform spawn-able than to make as many spawning platform as possible within range.
12. Will the mob spawn rate increase if I add a wide roof near the spawning platform?
That should be it. Thanks for taking your time.
1: Or use an active flushing system, water released by redstone timers, pistons activated by tripwires etc.
Then it doesn't matter if the mobs don't move and with the right timing you'll get most of them before they despawn.
2:Putting the farm lower isn't enough, you have to remove all blocks above the farm as well, in the same chunks, to maximize spawn rates.
And that has to be weighed against the effort it would take to spawn proof all caves etc within 128 blocks of your position as opposed to building the mob farms AFK spot 128 blocks up in the air in which case no further effort is required.
3:Several corrections: It's not the number of players that counts, it's how spread out they are, the number of chunks within range of at least one player.
And the extra mobs won't necessarily spawn in your mob farm, it depends on how many spawnable blocks there are in the other chunks.
In general I'd say it would be better the fewer other players there are online. Though if they are all in spawn proofed areas then the more the merrier.
4.Probably.
5.Only if you are relying on the mobs moving and want to keep the whole thing between 24 and 32 blocks from you or you are making it more than 128 blocks across.
6.Yes
7.Same as #5. I'd say use an active system and just build whatever shape is easiest.
Just testing.
Thx for the reply. If I round up the informative you confirm, here's my rough idea.
A) It's ok to build a mob farm anywhere within the 128-block range, you just have to make the rest spawn-proof
B ) Shape doesn't matter a lot, you can stack the farm wherever you want within the range
C) It'll be better to stack them horizontally instead of vertically cuz the top height also matters
Please check. : D
(I added the 11th point, please check as well. thx)
I still need answers for these 5.
#7: considering only mob spawning the most theoretically efficient shape would be a spherical shell, however the speed with which spawned mobs can be killed and the efficiency with which the drops/XP are collected also need to be considered. [Typically the mob cap is filled within a few seconds, so the rate at which one can remove mobs (which is much slower) becomes the constraining factor]
#6 the best performance will be seen when the percentage of loaded spawnable spaces contained in the spawner is 'high'. (Assuming vanilla and well spread out players, the game will attempt to reach a mob cap of 70 per player; this number will be spread over the total spawnable spaces loaded by all players. A player standing on a glass pillar >128 above a 'floor' {and under a bottom slab to stop MobB spawns} will increase the total possible number of mobs by 70, but create no spawnable spaces; that part of the total mob cap will then be available elsewhere.)
#8 Mob spawn rate is not likely to be the controlling factor and RS devices can speed up the rate at which mobs are removed from the check volume (important for cage spawner farms) and/or the rate at which mobs are killed. (Using one or more slimeblock 'pushers' to move mobs into the kill room would be one example; timed suffocation devices to reduce mob health for quicker kills would be another.)
#9 Correct, packed ice does not cause mobs to move faster.
#10 Possibly not understood: If you are playing 1.12.2, the changes made in later versions are relevant only if you are planning to update to a later version and want to avoid having to rebuild parts of the spawner; so long as you are in 1.12.2 any subsequent changes can be ignored.
#11 Spawnproofing everything outside the spawn floors is a good idea. (How close to perfect you find you can get before the marginal cost of finding the last few spaces exceeds the marginal performance hit those spaces are causing is an individual thing…)
My understanding of mob spawning is that the larger the number of spawnable spaces the more likely a given spawn check is to be successful which would argue for maximizing the size and number of the spawn floors…
For any spawner design there is likely an optimal number and arrangement of spawning spaces, for details of this sort of thing I suggest gnembon and the Sci-Craft server folks. (https://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Spawn#Java_Edition_and_Legacy_Console_Edition may also be of interest)
As a practical matter, I'd make the spawning floors (size and number) based on what worked well with the collection and kill systems.
[Unless your main goal is to wring the last iota of performance out of a design, the effort of getting the last few fractions of a percent is unlikely to justify the marginal improvement.]
6. I heard that the system checks the spawnable space from y:0 to y:255. If that's the case, idling 128+ blocks above ground will decrease the spawn rate cuz the system check the block you're standing? Or is this factor not causing much issues?
10. The server might update to 1.13+ soon, so it's worth asking. Also, the mob spawning mechanic I learns is possibly from 1.13+, so I wanna know the difference between 1.12- and 1.13+.
11. I can't rly seek for perfection cuz all the players are either in the wild or usng guardian farm... So from what you say, the most important factor is how fast you kill the mobs and release the mob caps?
Anyways, thx for the reply.
Wait a second. According this video:
Point 2. is 1.13+ exclusive? Is that right?
No.
The mechanism has changed but the principle is the same, just that now apparently it's measured to the exact level of the highest block in the chunk.
If I'm understanding it properly,
in 1.13 the game tries to spawn mobs from the highest nontransparent block in the chunk down to Y=0 (or 1?) so you want as few wasted levels as possible under your mobfarm and nothing above it. Plus you want the farm itself to be as flat as possible, it's probably better to only have a single layer since the spawn rate on it may be higher than if it's spread out over several layers.
Before 1.13 the Y level of the highest block in the chunk was rounded up to a multiple of 16 and the game tried to spawn mobs from that level (minus 1 probably) and down. That meant that before 1.13 you wanted to keep the farm, including roof, in the bottom 16 levels but there was no reason to try to make it lower than that since it would still spread the spawn attempts over the first 16 layers.
And if it needed to be higher then you might as well have built it so it filled up the bottom 32 levels because it would still spread the spawn attempts over 32 layers even if it was only 17 layers high.
--
I'm not absolutely certain about transparent blocks not being counted so don't take that as a fact without checking further.
Just testing.
#6 The reason I specified a glass pillar and standing beneath a bottom slab is that (AFAIK) the spawn checks are based on the highest solid block. [Transparent blocks do not count.] The specifics of by how much the time needed to do the calculations with taller farms increases in a typical survival build (as opposed to a superflat or void world) are not something on which I have yet seen a clear explanation… My empirical experience suggests this is a minor effect; probably not more than ~10% difference between gnembon's supper optimized designs and more conventional (and much easier to build) designs.
#10 There are a LOT of changes between 1.13.x & 1.12.2 – I'm far from certain I've found all of them and am still working on converting all the builds broken by the various changes before converting my main world. Partial list:
If you've not settled on a design, I'd recomend looking at some 1.13.2 [ie current] designs and finding one that can be adapted to 1.12 with the added criterion that simpler will be more likely to survive any future changes changes. [The early two 18x18 spawn floors with centr drop iron farms being a case in point.]
#11 Yes, my experience has been that killing spawned mobs (rather than the wait for new mobs to spawn) is the rate limiting factor in mob farms not baswed on cage spawners.
Oh... I thought it's from y:0 to the highest (from bottom to top).
Thanks for the reply again. I added Point 12 cuz of the video I mentioned.
#12 Short answer: Yes. [It is unclear to me by how much.]
The main point of an extented roof is simply to lower the light level in the farm (for very tall farms the extended roof will require less material than would walls).
However, there is a lesser, second effect of allowing some spawning attempts that start outside the farm proper to end with successful spawns. In 1.12 this requires only that the spaces around the farm be shielded from the sky [The number five sticks in my head as the required width, but you may want to check that – try gnembon's guardian farm videos.]
In 1.13, there is the additional consideration of placing this roof as low as possible above the farm.