Agrarian Skys help, venting, and discussion thread

  • Please make sure you are posting in the correct place. Server ads go here and modpack bugs go here
  • The FTB Forum is now read-only, and is here as an archive. To participate in our community discussions, please join our Discord! https://ftb.team/discord

Adonis0

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
1,800
0
0
Maybe you can get a villager. Catch him in a net. Put him in a spawner thing. Spawn a ton of villagers and then pour witch water on all of them. At least one of them will probably turn into a zombie with brains?:confused:
Negative, they'll all turn into vanilla zombies. Witch water only does vanilla mobs.
 

Ieldra

Popular Member
Apr 25, 2014
1,810
733
129
A venting thread.... just what I need.

I must've spent an eternity trying to get my first Ender Pearl. The damned Endermen refuse to spawn in my little beginner's spawner room in spite of it being the required 5x5x3 size, and trying to get a Creepy Doll is equally time-consuming since the spawn rate of squids in my pool appears to be something around one every three hours. Problem is, any unpowered mobtraps that can kill Endermen need vacuum hoppers, for which you need an ender pearl. Power distribution needs lots of redstone, and that needs automated hammering and sifting if you don't want to go mad, but automated hammering is at least somewhat inefficient without a vacuum hopper (I've tried to funnel broken blocks to item collectors by various methods that didn't work - sand and dust blocks will travel through two blocks of stone instead of staying in the place where they were hammered into existence) - and for that I need ...an Ender Pearl. It's driving me up the wall.

Forget that Autonomous Activators are expensive in this pack. It's really nothing compared to trying to get a vacuum hopper.
 

Adonis0

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
1,800
0
0
A venting thread.... just what I need.

I must've spent an eternity trying to get my first Ender Pearl. The damned Endermen refuse to spawn in my little beginner's spawner room in spite of it being the required 5x5x3 size, and trying to get a Creepy Doll is equally time-consuming since the spawn rate of squids in my pool appears to be something around one every three hours. Problem is, any unpowered mobtraps that can kill Endermen need vacuum hoppers, for which you need an ender pearl. Power distribution needs lots of redstone, and that needs automated hammering and sifting if you don't want to go mad, but automated hammering is at least somewhat inefficient without a vacuum hopper (I've tried to funnel broken blocks to item collectors by various methods that didn't work - sand and dust blocks will travel through two blocks of stone instead of staying in the place where they were hammered into existence) - and for that I need ...an Ender Pearl. It's driving me up the wall.

Forget that Autonomous Activators are expensive in this pack. It's really nothing compared to trying to get a vacuum hopper.
You can use water flowing across the top of the sieves to collect the items into a vanilla hopper for the auto-sieving thing. It definitely works, because I have used that my entire game for sieving until recently, which I then switched to slime channels instead of water (but still acts like water)
 

Ieldra

Popular Member
Apr 25, 2014
1,810
733
129
You can use water flowing across the top of the sieves to collect the items into a vanilla hopper for the auto-sieving thing. It definitely works, because I have used that my entire game for sieving until recently, which I then switched to slime channels instead of water (but still acts like water)
I'm doing that already. The sifting isn't the problem, the hammering is. How do you prevent blocks from flying all over the place? Hammering cobble works reasonably well, but hammering gravel and sand? Not so much.
 

Adonis0

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
1,800
0
0
I'm doing that already. The sifting isn't the problem, the hammering is. How do you prevent blocks from flying all over the place? Hammering cobble works reasonably well, but hammering gravel and sand? Not so much.
If you're just hammering gravel and sand, use a pulveriser. It does the recipes of cobble -> gravel -> sand -> dust, and an igneous extruder will give you your infinite cobble needed for infinite resources

EDIT: The only time I use an Autonomous activator to hammer is when I'm hammering gravel and sand ores, those don't go through the pulverisers
 

ratchet freak

Well-Known Member
Nov 11, 2012
1,198
243
79
I'm doing that already. The sifting isn't the problem, the hammering is. How do you prevent blocks from flying all over the place? Hammering cobble works reasonably well, but hammering gravel and sand? Not so much.


place the sand on top of the (vanilla) hopper that catches the drops

and enclose the space
 
  • Like
Reactions: SmokeLuvr1971

Ieldra

Popular Member
Apr 25, 2014
1,810
733
129
If you're just hammering gravel and sand, use a pulveriser. It does the recipes of cobble -> gravel -> sand -> dust, and an igneous extruder will give you your infinite cobble needed for infinite resources

EDIT: The only time I use an Autonomous activator to hammer is when I'm hammering gravel and sand ores, those don't go through the pulverisers
Thanks, that might work. My two roadblocks are redstone and ender pearls. Power generation is easily extended, but power distribution and storage requires lots and lots of redstone. Once I have that, I guess I can build a small mob grinder until I get a few Ender Pearls, and then move on to the stuff that requires vacuum hoppers.

@ratchet freak:
Yeah, I tried that. A significant percentage of blocks jumped through two blocks of solid encasement rather than going down into the hopper. It was altogether disconcerting to see what those blocks would do just to not have to go down the hopper.
 

ratchet freak

Well-Known Member
Nov 11, 2012
1,198
243
79
or put a water flow over top of the AA leading down into a hopper so the sand gets submerged and when the items jump away they are either over a hopper or in a water flow leading to a hopper
 

Ieldra

Popular Member
Apr 25, 2014
1,810
733
129
or put a water flow over top of the AA leading down into a hopper so the sand gets submerged and when the items jump away they are either over a hopper or in a water flow leading to a hopper
Thanks, but I think I'll just go with the Pulverizers for now. That way I can delay setting up automatic hammer management until I get to fully automated ore processing.
 

Golrith

Over-Achiever
Trusted User
Nov 11, 2012
3,834
2,137
248
A venting thread.... just what I need.

I must've spent an eternity trying to get my first Ender Pearl. The damned Endermen refuse to spawn in my little beginner's spawner room in spite of it being the required 5x5x3 size, and trying to get a Creepy Doll is equally time-consuming since the spawn rate of squids in my pool appears to be something around one every three hours. Problem is, any unpowered mobtraps that can kill Endermen need vacuum hoppers, for which you need an ender pearl. Power distribution needs lots of redstone, and that needs automated hammering and sifting if you don't want to go mad, but automated hammering is at least somewhat inefficient without a vacuum hopper (I've tried to funnel broken blocks to item collectors by various methods that didn't work - sand and dust blocks will travel through two blocks of stone instead of staying in the place where they were hammered into existence) - and for that I need ...an Ender Pearl. It's driving me up the wall.

Forget that Autonomous Activators are expensive in this pack. It's really nothing compared to trying to get a vacuum hopper.
If you can scavenge up enough resources, get a MFR grinder and a Thermal Expansion Reactant Dynamo. Build a standard mob tower (but doesn't have to be that high), use conveyor belts to drop the mobs into the central area for the grinder. Pump the Mob Essence into the Dynamo and put some gun powder in to get it generating RF. You'll now have a self powering Mob Farm that provides excess mob essence (I didn't bother storing it until I needed it) and mob drops. You'll just need a bit of power to get the grinder running first. I used a simple Survivalist Generator with some logs until the dynamo could take over.

I had that up and running long before my first Autonomous Activator.

That then gave me enderpearls at a fast enough rate for my needs. I then generated all the sand/gravel/dust from pulverizers which I kept manually sifting until I could get my first activator.
 

DaemosDaen

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
232
0
0
Found this video and it looks like a block spotlight on it
Unfortunately this does not go into range or what the settings mean.

I have all my mobs go to a central location, I am supposed to have spiders, enderman, and creepers go one way to a grinder, while zombies, v-zombies, skeletons and pechs go the other. but it seems to be random which get pulled which way. I keep getting mobs randomly going in separate directions.
 

Ieldra

Popular Member
Apr 25, 2014
1,810
733
129
If you can scavenge up enough resources, get a MFR grinder and a Thermal Expansion Reactant Dynamo. Build a standard mob tower (but doesn't have to be that high), use conveyor belts to drop the mobs into the central area for the grinder. Pump the Mob Essence into the Dynamo and put some gun powder in to get it generating RF. You'll now have a self powering Mob Farm that provides excess mob essence (I didn't bother storing it until I needed it) and mob drops. You'll just need a bit of power to get the grinder running first. I used a simple Survivalist Generator with some logs until the dynamo could take over.

I had that up and running long before my first Autonomous Activator.

That then gave me enderpearls at a fast enough rate for my needs. I then generated all the sand/gravel/dust from pulverizers which I kept manually sifting until I could get my first activator.
Very interesting. Actually, I have a High Oven and a significant amount of metals (about 20-30 blocks of the important ones) and generating medium amounts of power is not at all a problem. I have an easily-extended lava-based system running. I'm just stuck on Ender Pearls and redstone.

BTW, I have no experience in building more intricate mob spawners than large dark areas with a means to funnel the mobs to the killing grounds, and even the latter is optional with range upgrades on the Grinder. Is there anything more to this?
 

Golrith

Over-Achiever
Trusted User
Nov 11, 2012
3,834
2,137
248
Very interesting. Actually, I have a High Oven and a significant amount of metals (about 20-30 blocks of the important ones) and generating medium amounts of power is not at all a problem. I have an easily-extended lava-based system running. I'm just stuck on Ender Pearls and redstone.

BTW, I have no experience in building more intricate mob spawners than large dark areas with a means to funnel the mobs to the killing grounds, and even the latter is optional with range upgrades on the Grinder. Is there anything more to this?
Grinder doesn't have any range upgrades.

Expand your design to be like the classic mob tower. Build a column that the mobs are funnelled into, then a big platform around the funnel (so it's T shaped). Then Conv belts instead of water pointing to the hole. It's just a case of scaling up your small dark room. Larger the dark area, the more chance of mobs spawning.

2014-07-04_21-32-49-jpg.11784
The screenshot in the spoiler shows my mob spawner from the side. A large dark room built from the only resource I had at the time, cobblestone.

Some screenies from my world (until I got bored :p)
http://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/show-your-agrarian-skies-world.43639/page-12#post-691498
http://forum.feed-the-beast.com/threads/show-your-agrarian-skies-world.43639/page-12#post-701802
 

SmokeLuvr1971

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
753
0
0
A venting thread.... just what I need.
Snip...
5x5x3 size
... Snip
You're having difficulties because you're building your spawn areas too small and not making use of all the mods at your disposal.

For Endermen, I've got a single-level darkroom with 4 9x9 spawn pads [spider-proof'd] and I'll get 2-3 pearls an hour. You have 2 choices, either build the darkroom bigger or go the MFR route and safari net one. Then you can use the mob essence your small darkroom can generate to spawn Endermen as required.

Same thing for the squid. Build a 3x3 column of falling water the length of squid's Y-coord spawn range [62-46?]. Remove any other water sources between those Y-levels and you're guaranteed to get ink sacs. Or again, capture one with a net.

If you're adventurous, you can create a squid spawn egg with blood magic, tho it requires a blaze rod for the chemistry set.[DOUBLEPOST=1407419504][/DOUBLEPOST]
place the sand on top of the (vanilla) hopper that catches the drops

and enclose the space

I recently watched a video of this mechanic. Myself, I just use pulverizers.

edit: I do, however, wish this same mechanic worked for hammering sifted ores. It's kinda inconceivable that 'hammering of sifted ore' automation only works with a vacuum hopper or golems :(
 
Last edited:

pjfranke

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
139
0
0
I'm not having a problem getting endermen to spawn in my darkroom, but what do you mean by "spider-proof'd"?
I guess halfslabbed so there is no 3x3 for a spider to spawn
[Melvin]
Every 3rd block on every 3rd row drop a slab on top.

Spiders aren't 3x3, but specifically are >2.0 blocks in length and width, so the won't be able to spawn in the 2x2 gap left.
[/Melvin]

Frankly, I had no issues with a single row spawner like Bevo started with in his S1 and S2 LP. no spiders ever spawned, but that's OK.

I have to ask...you did make your spawn areas 3 tall? :p
 
Last edited: