Anyone have problems with mob grinders since the last update to the Xbox 360 edition? I was playing with GreenLad and GreenTeen over the weekend and the grinder we constructed doesn’t seem to be working. Specifically, it doesn’t seem to be spawning mobs.
The spawn floor design is similar to another grinder I made before the update. It consists of a 168 block rectangle enclosed on three sides by walls and (of course) a ceiling. All against one wall is a row of water spawn blocks, washing everything over to the fourth side which drops to another spawning unit. The next unit is of the same size, with its own blocks washing down to the third. The third unit drops into a trench that washes the mobs to a vertical shaft. The shaft has a one block wide, two blocks tall trench that pushes the mobs to a 33 chamber containing a cactus in the center.
The water flow looked all right during construction and was tested before the unit was closed and fired up. It does indeed wash a PC through each of the units, into the trench, down the shaft and into the cactus. Dropped inventory items are pushed, via the water, into the collection area.
But, mobs aren’t spawning. While the inside of the grinder is pitch black during the day, the latter third or so of the conveyance trench is walled on one side with glass, and the entire vertical shaft has a glass wall. So, I’m pretty confident that I would see any traffic jams or water-treading zombies. It appears that the mobs just aren’t spawning.
Any ideas? Were mob grinders deemed and exploit or otherwise disabled? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
I’ve never played the 360 version, so I don’t know all the details of the differences (I know it’s a bit behind the PC version in general), but are you saying that the spawning area is covered in running water so that the mobs immediately are swept away after spawning? On the PC version, at least, I don’t think that ever worked unless you were at an actual dungeon mob spawner. Instead you just had to have regular pads of stone where the mobs spawned, and you just had to wait for them to be stupid and fall into surrounding water streams to be swept away.
Sorry. Been very busy. Thanks so much for input. I modified the grinder by putting a level above that of the running water. Between the holes in that floor and its proximity to the first level’s floor, the mobs spawning there happily stepped off the ledge (since they don’t take damage from a fall of only two blocks.
The grinder was somewhat underperforming, so I did abandon it. But, thanks so much for the input.
I’ve since salvaged all the blocks from it and they went to a second grinder. This one a deadfall grinder with three levels of spawn space (about 18 X 18 blocks). The mobs spawn, bumble around until they fall to the 1st level, and (eventually) stumble into one of four water filled trenches which sweep them into a central aperture, where they fall to their deaths.
The throughput of this grinder seems pretty unimpressive. OTOH, all the drops are aquired with no effort or risk.
There are several caves near this site, where I am also building a base of operations. My understanding is that mobs generate randomly in a loaded chunk. They won’t spawn too near or too far from the player (the grinder is high enough that they will still spawn while I’m awaiting goodies). However, they must spawn in darkness, which also means that during the day, any unlit caves will be competing for spawn with the grinder. Once all caves are filled or illuminated, all daytime spawns will occur inside the grinder.
Anyone confirm that this is correct, or am I misunderstanding it?
Thanks in advance and so sorry for delayed acknowledgement.
That’s my understanding of basic grinder mechanics as well–light up all the caves and the area around (256 block radius, I believe, at least for PC) to maximize spawns.