Mob Sorting

[johnt]

Does anyone do any mob sorting as opposed to item sorting in their mob traps? Is there any benefit to doing that?

[Mason11987]

Does anyone do any mob sorting as opposed to item sorting in their mob traps? Is there any benefit to doing that?

BTW doesn't really suit this as sorting mob drops is built into the mod, and there is no need to keep mobs at 1 heart (because XP can be collected, just like drops). These are the main functions of mob sorting systems.

The only other reason I can think to do this in BTW is a record farm.

[embirrim]

Search on youtube, there are some pretty good tutorials.
Off the top of my head, zombies are attracted to villagers, you can aggro mobs with snowmen, spiders can be sorted due to their size, and there are some pathfinding differences between mobs that can be used to your advantage. I think that is the basic gist of it, but youtube/google is your friend =)

EDIT:
Did the work for you:

Spoiler

Show

(around 7 mins onwards, something like that)
Apparently you need to aggro the snow golems, using spiders (not sure if other mobs work), and get them to crossfire across the mobs paths. It is important that zombies "see" villagers before they get hit by snow golems, that way they path towards them and ignore the golems. Creepers path directly to the golems, and skeletons apparently go "around" them. Seems pretty cool, more of a challenge than a functional build, but those are always fun with BTW.

[magikeh]

The only real benifit to sorting mobs before is the fact that their drops will all be that much easier to sort. But in the long run i strongly suggest you kill the mobs as quickly as possible and allow their items to be sorted. The reason i say this is because (from what i know) the likleyhood of a mob spawning is dependant on how many other mobs are loaded in the world, this means that if you take the addational time to sort your mobs out you will decrease the potential to produce that your mobtrap has. Also with the use of hoppers and waterstreams you can easly sort many of the items into their own specific chests.

The only reason that i think one would feel the need to sort the mobs rather than the items is if they plan to make a fighting arena (much like Docm77's) or if they can just not figure out how the hoppers and their various filters work.

Just my two cents on the matter, good luck! ^_^/

[dawnraider]

While it is definitely a cool concept, BTW. Provides much better alternatives. And, as magikeh was saying, it eats up your mob limit so the trap is less effective.

[johnt]

It shouldn't eat up your mob limit any more than any other trap does.

If you turn on a hose, it doesn't matter how long the hose is, you get the same amount of water out. You may get a little bit slower rate as it gets started, but once the killing starts, you should get one in, one out, like any other trap.

[FlowerChild]

It shouldn't eat up your mob limit any more than any other trap does.

If you turn on a hose, it doesn't matter how long the hose is, you get the same amount of water out. You may get a little bit slower rate as it gets started, but once the killing starts, you should get one in, one out, like any other trap.

Not exactly, as the hose has leaks.

You have to keep in mind that mobs begin to despawn after they've been in existence for awhile. Thus, the faster you move them through your trap, the greater your total output.

This is why piston-based traps are so effective and can be worth the time and resource investment to build. They get the mobs to the kill zone very fast, leaving little or no time for them to potentially despawn.

[johnt]

Interesting.

Well then you'd either you'd have to sort fairly quickly or there'd have to be some substantial benefit to mob sorting to make it worth while, aside from oddball uses like record farms, which there doesn't really seem to be any.

[TheGatesofLogic]

looks like with the added chopping block a new light has been shed on this topic. Anyone know of a quick and easy way to separate spiders from everything else that doesn't involve their size? im getting annoyed that spiders will clog up my mobtrap by avoiding my chop-block-with-piston mechanism and i cant seem to implement a fast size sorting system in the space I have.

[embirrim]

looks like with the added chopping block a new light has been shed on this topic. Anyone know of a quick and easy way to separate spiders from everything else that doesn't involve their size? im getting annoyed that spiders will clog up my mobtrap by avoiding my chop-block-with-piston mechanism and i cant seem to implement a fast size sorting system in the space I have.

Why isn't size an option? seriously, having holes in a mob's "path" on their way to the killing area is just easy.
I suppose you could always aggro them and have climbable walls for spiders only.

[Ancilangeli]

i usually fix the spider problem by just not allowing them to spawn in the first place.. the half blocks kill your rates ever so slightly in any style farm ive managed as of yet but only very very slightly if you arrange them properly

[Rianaru]

looks like with the added chopping block a new light has been shed on this topic. Anyone know of a quick and easy way to separate spiders from everything else that doesn't involve their size? im getting annoyed that spiders will clog up my mobtrap by avoiding my chop-block-with-piston mechanism and i cant seem to implement a fast size sorting system in the space I have.

I seem to remember seeing some sort of mobavator system that suffocated spiders back when vanilla mobtraps were popular. They're relatively small and short, so it shouldn't add much potential despawning time to your mobtrap.