The only big difference is in the X-direction, and that's within 15-20 blocks at most.
You need to find the sweet spot where you can stand within range of both spawners. The collection point needs to be 9-32 blocks below where you stand. Further away than 32 blocks and you will lose mobs to despawning. You will need to stand in the sweet spot for a period, then once a few mobs have built up go down and kill them. While convenient you don't need to have a single collection point. As long as both collection points remain within 32 blocks of the sweet spot you won't experience despawning. I suspect that you could modify Ethos design to funnel the blazes to a spot directly below the player without too much trouble. See for example the design in this video:
Before you go making any grand plans first you need to be SURE that they really are close enough together to both be active at the same time. I was sorely disappointed in my own SSP when I discovered that the two blaze spawners I had found were one block too far apart.
Build a basic enclosure around the Blaze spawners with a glass block wall on the side they are closest and see if you can find a spot where you can stand between the spawners where both spawners are active (you should be able to see the little blaze spinning inside the spawner). If you are not sure switch to peaceful mode then back to your regular difficultly level and see if blazes spawn in both enclosures.
Assuming it has enough room to grow it can take anywhere from 1 minute to over 30 minutes for a sapling to grow. I planted 25 birch saplings, the first one grew within 1-2 minutes of planting, by around 15 minutes over half the saplings had grown while there were still a couple that hadn't grown by 30 minutes.
edit: In my tree farm I only have a dirt block directly under the sapling. The rest of the floor is smoothstone.
OK I've done some testing in creative mode. I created a 3x3 spawning platform and observed the mob behaviour at 25 and 33 blocks away. When I stood 33 blocks away the mobs only moved if there were multiple mobs on the platform. If a single mob spawned that mob would remain perfectly still until it despawned. My previous experience was that skeletons/creepers/zombies would move a few blocks immediately after spawning but I no longer believe that to be the case. This means that mob traps using 3x3 platforms will be very inefficient when the player is more than 32 blocks from the spawning pads.
So I am getting some results but I don't know if the mobs spawning up at the top most floors are moving or staying still.
Usually zombies/creepers/skeletons will move a small amount immediately after spawning. This is why you use 3x3 spawning pads. Even a small movement will almost certainly cause the mob to fall in your canal system and be transported to the fall trap. Spiders do not seem to move at all once spawned unless the player is within 32 blocks.
My question is whether I'm better off building it like that or being close to the bottom floor and finding some other method of killing the mobs when they drop?
I've tried the fall method for killing mobs and while it worked it doesn't allow the player to easily go AFK as the drops can be spread over quite a large area. I ended up building a water brake at the bottom of my fall trap and using a lava blade to finish the mobs off.
Also if I use signs and water will that break there fall and reset their fall damage?
Signs and water will brake their fall. In my testing it wasn't quite 100% perfect but 99% of mobs made it through okay.
Reason I ask was I was also considering making it an optional experience farm.
Dark room mob traps make really poor experience farms. The reason is that mobs are capped at 200. This means you must continually kill the mobs as they collect in your trap in order to allow new mobs to spawn. Experience farms that use mob spawners get around this as spawners will produce an infinite number of mobs as long as you are within 16 blocks.
You mean Fortune III as Looting is only applicable to swords. You have the best chance (approx. 27%) of getting Fortune III at Level 50 on a diamond pickaxe. Note that if you are extremely unlucky you may need to enchant 5-10 pickaxes at Level 50 to guarantee getting Fortune III.
Diamonds are common enough that I use diamond tools, weapons and armour exclusively. Once you have a Fortune III pickaxe a branch mine at Level 12 should keep you supplied with sufficient diamonds to do whatever you want.
I have built exactly the same mob trap. The design does not work as mobs won't move when you are more than 32 blocks away. The solution I used was to add a flushing system to the design. I've uploaded one of my creative test designs for you to take a look at. This contains a working flushing trap design based on the 21x21 mob trap design.
This design is very resource intensive as it uses loads of sticky pistons and redstone repeaters however it works very, very well. The eight level version of this trap I built in my survival world gives around 2800 items/hour.
edit: Just so you can compare I decided to upload the canal style version of this trap as well. Just a few minutes observing each design should be enough to see that the flushing design delivers far superior results.
Wrong, glowstone sounds like glass when it breaks but it's still considered a solid block (it used to be transparent but it was changed awhile ago). Therefore, slimes will still spawn on glowstone if you want to use that instead of jack-o-lanterns.
I could not replicate this in my creative test world. I filled in a complete slime chunk with glowstone and got no slimes spawning at all. I replaced the glowstone with pumpkins and slimes started spawning.
edit: Decided to test a little more. I created a two level structure, the bottom level entirely of Jack 'o' Lanterns and the upper level entirely of Glowstone. The glowstone level has not spawned a single slime, while the Jack 'o' Lantern level has five giant and a few small slimes already.
Conclusion: Slimes will spawn on Jack 'o' Lanterns BUT NOT on Glowstone.
Glowstone will block spawning as it is considered a transparent block, while Jack 'o' Lanterns are not.
You only need the chamber to be two blocks high. Giant slimes will spawn in two block high spaces and immediately suffocate and break down into smaller slimes.
Can anyone tell what is going wrong? Why I can't stand closer to the dieing floor.
I can tell you what is wrong. Mob AI in the latest versions of Minecraft means that mobs only MOVE when you are within 32 blocks of them. When you are further than 32 blocks from hostile mobs they do not move. The solution to this problem is to build a mob trap that moves the mobs for you using water or pistons. The simplest type of trap to construct is one that uses a simple canal system to move the mobs. The design in the link below should work well and is fairly simple to construct.
Just modify Ethos design a little. All you need to do is add to one edge so that the trap is 9x9 instead of 9x8 (I think those are the dimensions been a while since I built mine).
Splash potion of poison requires spider eye which are difficult to gain in quantity especially if you don't have a spider farm. Killing a blaze from full health using splash potion requires four potions. If your mechanism gets them down to 1-3 hearts you can kill them with a single potion. The small amount of effort required to make the suffocation circuit is more than paid for by the reduction in resources required to kill the blazes.
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You need to find the sweet spot where you can stand within range of both spawners. The collection point needs to be 9-32 blocks below where you stand. Further away than 32 blocks and you will lose mobs to despawning. You will need to stand in the sweet spot for a period, then once a few mobs have built up go down and kill them. While convenient you don't need to have a single collection point. As long as both collection points remain within 32 blocks of the sweet spot you won't experience despawning. I suspect that you could modify Ethos design to funnel the blazes to a spot directly below the player without too much trouble. See for example the design in this video:
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Build a basic enclosure around the Blaze spawners with a glass block wall on the side they are closest and see if you can find a spot where you can stand between the spawners where both spawners are active (you should be able to see the little blaze spinning inside the spawner). If you are not sure switch to peaceful mode then back to your regular difficultly level and see if blazes spawn in both enclosures.
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Assuming it has enough room to grow it can take anywhere from 1 minute to over 30 minutes for a sapling to grow. I planted 25 birch saplings, the first one grew within 1-2 minutes of planting, by around 15 minutes over half the saplings had grown while there were still a couple that hadn't grown by 30 minutes.
edit: In my tree farm I only have a dirt block directly under the sapling. The rest of the floor is smoothstone.
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Thanks xdMaelstrom, I stand corrected.
OK I've done some testing in creative mode. I created a 3x3 spawning platform and observed the mob behaviour at 25 and 33 blocks away. When I stood 33 blocks away the mobs only moved if there were multiple mobs on the platform. If a single mob spawned that mob would remain perfectly still until it despawned. My previous experience was that skeletons/creepers/zombies would move a few blocks immediately after spawning but I no longer believe that to be the case. This means that mob traps using 3x3 platforms will be very inefficient when the player is more than 32 blocks from the spawning pads.
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Usually zombies/creepers/skeletons will move a small amount immediately after spawning. This is why you use 3x3 spawning pads. Even a small movement will almost certainly cause the mob to fall in your canal system and be transported to the fall trap. Spiders do not seem to move at all once spawned unless the player is within 32 blocks.
I've tried the fall method for killing mobs and while it worked it doesn't allow the player to easily go AFK as the drops can be spread over quite a large area. I ended up building a water brake at the bottom of my fall trap and using a lava blade to finish the mobs off.
Signs and water will brake their fall. In my testing it wasn't quite 100% perfect but 99% of mobs made it through okay.
Dark room mob traps make really poor experience farms. The reason is that mobs are capped at 200. This means you must continually kill the mobs as they collect in your trap in order to allow new mobs to spawn. Experience farms that use mob spawners get around this as spawners will produce an infinite number of mobs as long as you are within 16 blocks.
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I have built exactly the same mob trap. The design does not work as mobs won't move when you are more than 32 blocks away. The solution I used was to add a flushing system to the design. I've uploaded one of my creative test designs for you to take a look at. This contains a working flushing trap design based on the 21x21 mob trap design.
http://www9.zippysha...15801/file.html
This design is very resource intensive as it uses loads of sticky pistons and redstone repeaters however it works very, very well. The eight level version of this trap I built in my survival world gives around 2800 items/hour.
edit: Just so you can compare I decided to upload the canal style version of this trap as well. Just a few minutes observing each design should be enough to see that the flushing design delivers far superior results.
http://www64.zippyshare.com/v/88454632/file.html
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I could not replicate this in my creative test world. I filled in a complete slime chunk with glowstone and got no slimes spawning at all. I replaced the glowstone with pumpkins and slimes started spawning.
edit: Decided to test a little more. I created a two level structure, the bottom level entirely of Jack 'o' Lanterns and the upper level entirely of Glowstone. The glowstone level has not spawned a single slime, while the Jack 'o' Lantern level has five giant and a few small slimes already.
Conclusion: Slimes will spawn on Jack 'o' Lanterns BUT NOT on Glowstone.
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You only need the chamber to be two blocks high. Giant slimes will spawn in two block high spaces and immediately suffocate and break down into smaller slimes.
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I can tell you what is wrong. Mob AI in the latest versions of Minecraft means that mobs only MOVE when you are within 32 blocks of them. When you are further than 32 blocks from hostile mobs they do not move. The solution to this problem is to build a mob trap that moves the mobs for you using water or pistons. The simplest type of trap to construct is one that uses a simple canal system to move the mobs. The design in the link below should work well and is fairly simple to construct.
http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/1308283-anyone-have-a-good-canal-setup-for-3x3-spawning-pads/
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Torches on the floor may slow or prevent slimes spawning. Put your torches in the ceiling or use jack 'o' lanterns in the floor for lighting.
You need to be between 24 and 128 blocks of the spawning area in order for mobs to spawn. If you stand too close nothing will spawn.
You need to light all caves/mineshafts/surface area within 150 blocks in each direction from the spawning pads to prevent other mobs spawning.
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One hit kill with a sword or one hit kill with your fist?