Minecraft Forums

Quote from TheWesson

If your entity count is 0-4 where you're going to be standing while using the mob farm, you're doing great. The hostile mob cap is pretty high (79? might be more) so if you really only have that few hostile mobs not in your farm, you'll be in good shape.

The hostile mob cap is the real limit. The game will make a spawn attempt (using some random location within X chunks of you) of 4 mobs every 1/20 of a second as long as the hostile mob cap has not been reached.

I am surprised you are only seeing 0-4 mobs at y=124. That means there is a large extent undergound where only 4 mobs can spawn?!? Either you did a terrific job of lighting everything undergound within 128 blocks of you at y=124 (that's a lot of volume, down to bedrock), or you didn't wait long enough to see the mobs spawn underground pushing down the number of mobs that can spawn in your spawner.

By the way, you can check 'lc' in the F3 view to see if you NEED an antenna. Only if 'lc' (limit of viable blocks in this chunk) is somehow below your spawning platform Y level do you need an 'antenna'. Otherwise the antenna is actually slightly counterproductive.

Also by the way, 128 blocks above the ground is just fine, or probably even just 120 blocks above the ground - the slice of ground you'd need to light up is still pretty small if the intersection of that giant sphere around you (the 128-radius sphere) with the ground is only 10 blocks thick.

Quote from Courageous-Marinade

Umm... 64+144=208, not 228. Add another 25 to the spawn pads and you are only at Y=233. Plenty of room left. I have 2 levels of spawn pads and still have enough sky overhead to add more.

Quote from RurouniTim

It'd be nice if the Enderdragon had more ways to attack than just swooping down, which is both predictable and easy to deal with. The Hardcore Ender Expansion Mod makes the Enderdragon fight a lot more challenging, and I wish Mojang would do something like that for vanilla.

Quote from Courageous-Marinade

You can get one with the /summon command.

Quote from Courageous-Marinade

Yea, way too easy. I was surprised how quickly I took him down, and I didn't even have to kill all the Ender Crystals (healing towers). I wish I could take one of those crystals as a souvenir. I got the egg, but it's ugly.

Quote from WildmouseX

you always have the option of lighting up all the caves and surface under the trap, instead of moving it. and as said above, they actually do spawn 144 blocks out, but despawn after 128 - but it does affect trap spawning.

Quote from Zzxcvxx

Playing on Peaceful has its own disadvantage. You can't craft a Bow without Spiders (unless you found a Dungeon chest with Strings or maybe find an Abandoned Mineshaft). You can't craft TNT's without Creepers (unless you found a Dungeon Chest with Gunpowder). Also, you can't make use of a Dungeon and you can't make a mob system. If anything, playing on Peaceful is like playing without using all the features of the game (you won't get the fun of blowing up with a lot of TNT's and stuff).

The only reason I'd say using Peaceful is cheating is in a scenario when a Creeper is about to blow up and then you immediately switched to Peaceful or when you're hungry and you don't have any food and then you switched to Peaceful.

I play on Peaceful sometimes but that's only on Creative actually. When I need to do something without having to type "/time set day" every once in a while to prevent mobs spawning and interfering with you.

Quote from WildmouseX

you built your trap in the wrong spot... mobs can spawn within 128 blocks away from you, if you are at y=190 that means that all caves, and surface area that is not lit up from layer 62 on up can/will spawn mobs and kill your trap. high altitude traps work best out over the ocean, as sea level is set at 64, so you don't have to worry about caves and surface area.

your two options at this point are to light up the surface and caves under the trap, or build another one at y=190 out over the ocean. also too, you don't need a roof, an antenna works fine - just make sure that you light that up as well, or mobs will spawn up there also.

Quote from Realtime911

You don't need the roof..., and you may want to build it above the ocean, because if you make it above the lands, the spawning in your spawn pads will be decreased, because the mob caps will be quickly increased with mobs in the cavern below the grinder, so if you want to make it above the lands, be sure you had lit enough cavern below the grinder

Of course if you want more spawn in your grinder, make more levels on your grinder

And remember, mobs only spawn within 128 blocks from you (as WildmouseX says), so you need to higher the grinder (if it only 20 blocks tall) to work properly

Quote from Courageous-Marinade

Mobs will spawn within 144 blocks of your position, although mobs that spawn more than 128 away will instantly despawn (but it still does have a small affect on your spawn rate).

So ideally, your work platform, where you are hanging out to kill mobs and collect your loot, should be 144 blocks up above any possible spawn location. That's Y=208 at minimum, which is sea level (64)+144. Again, that's from where YOU are, not your spawn pads, because you are the center of the spawn zone. Then you need to build your spawn pads at least 24 blocks above that (for a drop tower style farm).

That's assuming you are building over water or sea level ground. If your ground level is higher than Y=64, then you need to go 144 above the highest point nearby to eliminate any possible spawning outside of your farm.

That's the formula for maximum spawnage!

So it's not your roof that's in the wrong position. Your whole farm is not high enough.

EDIT:
And I don't get what the additional roof is for. I don't have that, and I get crazy spawn rates from only 2 levels.

Quote from BigAlanM

Of course you are. You can mention Amidst if you wish or not, your choice.

Quote from Kovastrin

Well, it depends on how you would use it. Minecraft is all about the player and their style of game play, so if you think using Peaceful mode is cheating, then it is. If you don't, then it isn't.

I usually play on Peaceful mode whenever I need a more relaxed style of game play, whereas other modes are reserved for if I want to get serious.

If you're showing off things you built or did in any game mode, it might be a good idea to state which you used, so that other people can form opinions of your accomplishments with more accuracy. Purposefully holding back that information would qualify as being dishonest.

TL;DR: It depends.