Renewable Iron: Spawner vs Darkroom Trap

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fraff
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Dec 11, 2013 10:54 am

Renewable Iron: Spawner vs Darkroom Trap

Post by fraff »

Hi all,

I have a quick question about the viability of using zombie spawner traps as an initial (poor) source of renewable iron. I haven't found too many definitive answers by searching, so I wanted to hear your guys' experiences. :(

To preface, I am very aware that FC has made changes to discourage spawner traps, and that the ultimate end-game goal for efficient automation is a big "dark room" style mob trap.

I've recently hit crucible tech for the first time, and I was really excited to find a zombie spawner directly underneath my base. I thought to build a trap out of it and use it to recover a bit of iron before starting work on bigger and better things. I'm very busy IRL, but I figured I could use that to my advantage by AFKing a few hours and save up for a couple saws and screw pumps. However, I was dismayed to find that in my first hour, I had sawed down over 200 zombies and received 2 scrolls (hooray!), but NO tools.

I didn't expect to get iron very quickly, but I thought I would at LEAST get a reasonable trickle over hours of time. I did a really rough test in Creative, and the results are in the spoilers below in case you guys don't like seeing numbers.
Spoiler
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My Creative test yielded that naturally spawned zombies are equipped anywhere from about 1:15 to 1:25 times, so this means my luck with spawners shows at least a tenfold decrease in rate.
My question is this: Are the adjusted spawner rates for equipped zombies really this abysmally low, or am I just off to an unlucky start? Or perhaps am I unrealistic with my expectations for the timeframe for renewable iron, even from a big darkroom trap? I don't get a lot of free time, but I understand if this sort of thing is expected to take a while.

Thanks!!
Norton
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed Jan 29, 2014 11:41 pm

Re: Renewable Iron: Spawner vs Darkroom Trap

Post by Norton »

fraff wrote:Are the adjusted spawner rates for equipped zombies really this abysmally low, or am I just off to an unlucky start? Or perhaps am I unrealistic with my expectations for the timeframe for renewable iron, even from a big darkroom trap? I don't get a lot of free time, but I understand if this sort of thing is expected to take a while.
Having tried that at one point... very low, as in zero. Changelog 4.64: "Changed mob spawners so that they won't spawn creatures wearing armor or with other equipment"

Gamey but not cheatey:
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If you've done a good job lighting up the surface and nearby cave systems, the output from a small dark room will add up pretty quickly.
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fraff
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Dec 11, 2013 10:54 am

Re: Renewable Iron: Spawner vs Darkroom Trap

Post by fraff »

Ah shoot, didn't see that. Thanks!

I recently got a tool, but I guess that was actually a naturally spawned zombie from the spawner room. Time to switch my efforts to building up a real mob trap, then... probably just expand from the spawner room so I don't have to shift my machinery.

Good to know that the darkroom traps are effective, though. Hopefully the time input will pay off reasonably quickly!
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Sarudak
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Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2011 7:59 pm

Re: Renewable Iron: Spawner vs Darkroom Trap

Post by Sarudak »

Never trust any test you do in creative mode.
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dawnraider
Posts: 1876
Joined: Sun Dec 11, 2011 7:00 pm

Re: Renewable Iron: Spawner vs Darkroom Trap

Post by dawnraider »

My own mob trap, a darkroom with automatic flushing with water (instead of vine traps I turn on water every 16 seconds which pushes the mobs off the platforms) which works very well. It's a bit slow because there's a lot of unlit caves, but once they're lit up even a small one will work very quickly. Mine is only 2 floors, with about 16x16 spawnable space in it (it's bigger than that but the rest is air), and though actively pushing mobs through makes it a bit more efficient, that isn't necessary.

Also, if you afk for a couple hours, you're going to come back to a very dead you. You still use hunger while just standing to prevent that sort of behavior.
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