MC 1.3: Pigmen Spawn near Nether Portals

[Heightren]

Hmm...with 1.3 zombie-pigmen spawn near nether portals, which means that they could now be farmed on the Overworld! (maybe)

[FlowerChild]

a) This isn't mod related, and thus belongs in off-topic.

b) From what I've already said about this, I'm likely to disable that behavior in BTW, so don't get too excited.

[Larmantine]

Umm... thank you Captain Obvious, for letting us know, but I think it still would be easier to farm them in the Nether.
Edit: Ninja'd partially

[FlowerChild]

Umm... thank you Captain Obvious, for letting us know, but I think it still would be easier to farm them in the Nether.

Hehe...coincidentally, before posting above, I ran a youtube search on "Stating the Obvious" hoping for a comical video clip to emerge ;)

[Urian]

Before more info has been gathered on the spawn rate and if multiple portals affect the spawn rate I don't think speculating on the matter will lead to much. From what I've seen so far the spawn rate is very very low so unless portals have a significant effect on spawn rates I don't think overworld pigmen farms will be viable.

[FlowerChild]

Before more info has been gathered on the spawn rate and if multiple portals affect the spawn rate I don't think speculating on the matter will lead to much. From what I've seen so far the spawn rate is very very low so unless portals have a significant effect on spawn rates I don't think overworld pigmen farms will be viable.

I'd personally rather make the decision as early as possible. I really don't want to wait for people to build massive portal-farms before disabling something like that.

IMO, in this case, disabling it preemptively is the better course of action. Then, it can be reenabled later if it turns out that it doesn't present an issue.

[Urian]

I'd personally rather make the decision as early as possible. I really don't want to wait for people to build massive portal-farms before disabling something like that.

IMO, in this case, disabling it preemptively is the better course of action. Then, it can be reenabled later if it turns out that it doesn't present an issue.

Aye, not arguing against that :) I'm merely pointing out, since I've seen it mentioned elsewhere as well, that it's too early to tell if it'd actually be possible to use it as a farm or not.

[FlowerChild]

Aye, not arguing against that :) I'm merely pointing out, since I've seen it mentioned elsewhere as well, that it's too early to tell if it'd actually be possible to use it as a farm or not.

Yeah, I do agree with you there. However, I think we can never underestimate the skill and determination of MC players with regards to this stuff :)

I'm just really afraid of the nether being deprived of one of its primary resources.

Given the recent videos of zombies wearing gold armor though, that might be the least of my worries in that regard. But regardless, I'll cross that bridge when I get to it ;)

[Heightren]

Sorry, my bad. Won't happen again.

[wolfe]

Spoiler

Show

So far this huge structure makes 1 pigman every few minutes. I think if you ARE going to farm them, then don't expect gold pouring out by the truckloads.

[FlowerChild]

What happens though, if you stack that and eliminate other mob spawns? I remember hearing something about them being tied to the spawn limit of other mobs.

[wolfe]

Now after I made an area that was free of mobs, I made a similar build to my example but stacked 3 times into a tower. This lead to the amount of pigmen raising to about 5-7 per level each minute.

However, the amount of obsidian and other materials it takes to make one of these and turn it into a profitable mob grinder is astronomical, needing over 200 blocks of obsidian to make enough portals for it to get the said amount of pigmen. So I don't think the nether will lose very much from this, unless the player already has a few stacks of obsidian handy to make a very inefficient mob grinder.

[FlowerChild]

Obsidian generators are fairly easy to build in BTW. People aren't really limited by resources here.

[wolfe]

There's still the matter of efficiency. It takes a lot more time to gather the resources for one in the overworld, versus making a grinder in the nether which requires no special resources aside from netherrack for the pigmen spawning.

[jorgebonafe]

There's still the matter of efficiency. It takes a lot more time to gather the resources for one in the overworld, versus making a grinder in the nether which requires no special resources aside from netherrack for the pigmen spawning.

Did you ever try to make an efficient pigman farm? Its not so easy... With an efficiency V mattock you can get obsidian pretty fast too

[Urian]

Keep in mind that it's likely to be disabled in BTW so the question of how easy it is to get obsidian should be from a vMC perspective.

[FlowerChild]

There's still the matter of efficiency. It takes a lot more time to gather the resources for one in the overworld, versus making a grinder in the nether which requires no special resources aside from netherrack for the pigmen spawning.

That's not necessarily true. What this allows someone to do is consolidate many of their overworld operations into a single area. Since most systems are overworld based, and since automated systems in one dimension don't work in the other, giving the potential to farm gold in your main base is much more appealing than doing in the nether.

Also, if you already have an area lit up for a regular mob-farm in the overworld, it may actually be less work to build one of these pigman farms there, as a good portion of the work involved in creating a mob-trap is either lighting up the area, or paving over the Nether.

My overall concern with this is that it devalues the Nether substantially, which acts counter to some of the design goals of this mod.

Keep in mind that it's likely to be disabled in BTW so the question of how easy it is to get obsidian should be from a vMC perspective.

Well, that's part of the question that I'm hoping this thread will help me resolve, so BTW efficiency is definitely something I'm wondering about here ;)

[Haidaes]

Obsidian generators are fairly easy to build in BTW. People aren't really limited by resources here.

What? Last time I checked they still need lava sourceblocks to generate obsidian and two lava sourceblocks do not generate infinite new ones either, so what functionality is making it possible to build a generator out of it? I'mobviously missing something major here.

Anyway, I really like the idea of the nether "coming through" into the overworld, and somehow incentivising a more save approach to building portals. Zombie pigmen were quite a bad choice for that though because they are passive and don't have alot of destructive potential. I'm also not a huge fan of mob traps, because they always felt way more cheaty to me than most of the other things which are considered cheating/too easy. But I get how that could cause problems for the mod. Too bad beeing in the nether and beeing in the overworld is not possible at the same time (in the way that both chunks are loaded and can interact with one another). I'd actually like a reason to fortify both ends of the portal besides making the other end ghast prof and putting the overworld end into some remote location where the fucking sound doesn't drive me nuts.

Bah I hate technical limitations, I'm off to figure out how to build an obsidian generator.

[Mason11987]

Obsidian generators are fairly easy to build in BTW. People aren't really limited by resources here.

What? Last time I checked they still need lava sourceblocks to generate obsidian and two lava sourceblocks do not generate infinite new ones either, so what functionality is making it possible to build a generator out of it? I'mobviously missing something major here.

Anyway, I really like the idea of the nether "coming through" into the overworld, and somehow incentivising a more save approach to building portals. Zombie pigmen were quite a bad choice for that though because they are passive and don't have alot of destructive potential. I'm also not a huge fan of mob traps, because they always felt way more cheaty to me than most of the other things which are considered cheating/too easy. But I get how that could cause problems for the mod. Too bad beeing in the nether and beeing in the overworld is not possible at the same time (in the way that both chunks are loaded and can interact with one another). I'd actually like a reason to fortify both ends of the portal besides making the other end ghast prof and putting the overworld end into some remote location where the fucking sound doesn't drive me nuts.

Bah I hate technical limitations, I'm off to figure out how to build an obsidian generator.

youtube has plenty of videos, basically if lava falls on top of redstone that has water next to it, the redstone turns to obsidian. Really weird, buggy behavior, but that's how it is.

[Haidaes]

Doh now I remember, yeah. That still means I need shitloads of redstone. Which can somehow be harvested with BTW iirc. Ok, I think I get it now.

Something diffrent though:
Would you consider changing the spawning behaviour to something else (agressive mobs) but limit the spawn so that stacking portals would not increase the spawnrate?

[Kreyesh]

Hey FC, I love most of what this mod does because for the most part it focuses on adding to the base MC and giving the player MORE tools to use. So I would really hate to see the mod take something out of the game. I really trust that you are intelligent enough to figure out something else you can add to the nether that we will all need for a future developmental stage so that we will all spend time there without removing something as hard to exploit and fairly balanced as this.
So what I'm saying is please dont remove something that the developers add in, outsmart them and add something of your own that guides the player back to the path you want them to take.

Also, that stupid obsidian bug... its a bug, it needs to be fixed and should not be used to discuss balance issues in creating a mob farm. Anytime you use an exploit or bug balance is ruined, so basing your "this is too easy" to get obsidian argument on a exploit/bug is not a valid argument.

[FlowerChild]

Even without the redstone glitch, just collecting and pouring lava manually into a system, then collecting the obsidian with BDs makes for a much more efficient means of gathering obs than mining it.

That's the way my obsidian generator works in my world. I posted a vid of it a very very long time ago, but it has since been removed from Youtube.

[FlowerChild]

Hey FC, I love most of what this mod does because for the most part it focuses on adding to the base MC and giving the player MORE tools to use. So I would really hate to see the mod take something out of the game. I really trust that you are intelligent enough to figure out something else you can add to the nether that we will all need for a future developmental stage so that we will all spend time there without removing something as hard to exploit and fairly balanced as this.
So what I'm saying is please dont remove something that the developers add in, outsmart them and add something of your own that guides the player back to the path you want them to take.

It isn't at all balanced, and it really isn't hard to do in the mod even without using an exploit. If it's so hard to begin with, then why is anyone bothered that I'd remove this?

Mojang doesn't balance for mob-traps. I do. I can't effectively do that without nerfing some of the changes they make (like I did with rare drops already) while also adding in other bonuses and incentives for mob-farming.

They also seem to be trying to move players out of the Nether rather than into it, which is also acting counter to the design-goals of this mod.

Most likely what I'll be doing is actually swapping the pigmen for ghasts. I agree with what was said above about Mojang have pussied out in making it a non-aggro mob that spawns.

[Kreyesh]

Ok, maybe i'm just not as hardcore of a farmer as everyone else is since it seemed balanced to me.... but Ghasts!?!?!? Are you serious!?!?!? Fuck my entire wooden base with all my wooden farms and buildings and.... Never ever ever building a portal within 1km of my base again.

[wolfe]

It isn't at all balanced, and it really isn't hard to do in the mod even without using an exploit. If it's so hard to begin with, then why is anyone bothered that I'd remove this?

Mojang doesn't balance for mob-traps. I do. I can't effectively do that without nerfing some of the changes they make (like I did with rare drops already) while also adding in other bonuses and incentives for mob-farming.

They also seem to be trying to move players out of the Nether rather than into it, which is also acting counter to the design-goals of this mod.

Most likely what I'll be doing is actually swapping the pigmen for ghasts. I agree with what was said above about Mojang have pussied out in making it a non-aggro mob that spawns.

On topic of moving players out of the nether, you can grow netherwarts in the overworld and the end. Now that makes the nether less useful, as the only vanilla plant that grew exclusively there can now be farmed in the overworld.

Also, ghasts seem like a bit too much, and from what I have seen it looks like the pigmen spawn inside the frames. So there will be the question of how a huge creature could fit through that portal, if mojang is implying that they traveled through it(Which makes quite a bit of sense for the pigmen, as those creatures and magma cubes are the only common mobs in the nether that can fit inside the frames)