MFR Automatic mob spawner build

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netmc

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
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I have built my automatic mob spawner. It will automatically generate it's own monster essence as needed. I used a xycraft tank with the level emitters to generate a redstone signal at different tank levels. At the lowest level, it will only generate slimes to replenish the monster essence. At the middle level, it will generate both slimes and the mob of your choice. At the high fill level, it will only spawn the mobs and disable the slime spawning. I will end up feeding my cow, chicken and pigs into the kill room, so those will generate monster essence while away, so I should likely only need to spawn slimes if I run the mob spawner for an extended length of time.

MFR machines go into a permanent sleep state when supplied a redstone signal. I use this feature to turn the spawners on and off. Most importantly, everything is handled by one switch. Everything else is automatic. (Except placing in the safari nets. That is manual.)

View from control center.
2013-05-13_17.56.20.png

Here is a closeup of the MFR auto-spawners. Underneath the covers on the left side are the buildcraft pipes with monster essence feeding both machines, and on the right are redstone jacketed wire connecting to each machine. There are covers in between to separate the redstone signals.

2013-05-13_18.14.55.png

Redstone signal from the control switch comes in from the left. At the top of the image, a signal comes from the xycraft tank level emitter. This is the high level indicator. It runs through a not gate as I need to inverse the signal. The left center is the XOR gate. This makes it so the that turning on the lever will turn on the machine provided the high level indicator is not triggered. As soon as the high level indicator is triggered, the machine will turn off (provided the control lever is on).

When the control lever is turned on, the level emitter works properly. However with the nature of a XOR gate, the moment the control lever is turned off, the spawner will turn back on, which is not what we want. To address this issue, I had to split the control signal and feed two different gates.

The NOT gate on the right is there to make sure the machine is turned off when the lever is switched off. The two repeaters are there to act as a diode and prevent the redstone signal from backtracking. The red alloy wire at the bottom of the screen is actually connected, but is just out of frame.
2013-05-13_17.57.25.png

Along the left side you can see the red alloy wire running from the lever as well as the NOT gate in the previous picture. This image shows the NAND gate along with the middle level emitter. The NAND gate inverses the output of an AND gate, so two gates in one. This turns off the signal allowing the second spawner to run when both the lever is turned on and the level indicator is triggered showing at least a little monster essence is present. When the monster essence drops, the second spawner is disabled and allows only slimes to spawn to create more essence. The redstone wire along the right runs up to the second spawner.

2013-05-13_17.58.27.png
 

Emy

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
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Neat. I like your control mechanism.

(Though, sadly, slimes multiplying mob essence is not intended and will be fixed sometime soon.)
 

netmc

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
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Probably, although I'm going to enjoy it while I can. I know the new version already has the rare drops disabled, so only the normal drops are produced. So no enchanted weapons anymore. I found out that firebats aren't killed by the mob grinders. I left it running only to find a room full of firebats. eh. Luckily they are killed by water, so I've added a firebat kill mechanic that will kill the firebats and push all the drops to a collection location. It will have to be a manual switch though. Don't know how to automate it all in one lever.

Firebats and slimes are attracted to the player even through glass/walls unlike other mobs which need to have a clear line of site.

Hopefully once I get the animal farms moved and connected to the main grinder area, I'll have more than enough mob essence to work with. I have to void the slimeballs/magma creams as it is as I have way to many of them.
 

Hoff

Tech Support
Oct 30, 2012
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I lol'd at probably.

Poor Emy; the unsung hero :p

Emy is the other dev of MFR for anyone who didn't know.

Regardless this design is very cool. Personally I prefer making a void age using a MFR enhanced vanilla mod trap for all mob essence needs but to each his own ;)
 

netmc

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
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Poor Emy; the unsung hero :p

Emy is the other dev of MFR for anyone who didn't know.

I actually didn't know. I've only started playing with MFR in the last couple weeks. This is my first real project. I scrapped my animal breeder and slaughterhouse, and am merging it into this one. I'm going to have pens on the side of the building for cows and pigs. I'll post some more pics to the thread when done. That part will be a lot more simple.

Thanks for the likes. It took a while to figure out which logic gates would do what I want, and even longer to get the NAND gate configured properly.
 

Malkuth

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
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Awww don't fix the mob essence thing... :( Just the way slimes work....

Dammit... Better start running it 24/7 and save up that essence.
 

KirinDave

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Jul 29, 2019
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Your build's awesome. I can't wait to see you bring it to 1.5.1, because it will be a lot better when you can use Rednet to handle it. It's made for stuff like this in a way you may not be ready for. :)
 

power crystals

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
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Emy does all the magic to make us compatible with everything ever, along with his actual new contributions. He's great.

Also, one minor point that maybe I'm just misreading - the spawner will not immediately turn on; there's a 10 second countdown before it resumes. So if the redstone signal goes low for a moment you're fine.
 

netmc

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
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There is a delay when throwing the lever and anytime the level emitters are triggered, but that is ok. It gives a bit longer timeframe to kill the slimes as it takes a while to kill them. As long as I have power, it can run on its own. Because of the way it is wired, at the transition levels, it's a little slow to get running at full speed. The first mob will spawn, lower the essence levels so the redstone level gets triggered, then 10 seconds later, will start back up and spawn at normal speed. (in this window, the mob essence has risen enough so spawning no longer causes it to drop below the threshold.)
 

MilConDoin

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Jul 29, 2019
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A question from some tests in a creative world: Is it correct, that the spawn range of the mobs is bigger than the killing range of the grinder? (using MC 1.4.7 with MFR 2.3.2) It feels like a spawn range of 9x9, so 4 grinders needed to kill all possible mob zones.
In my tests I had a creeper spawning in my sheep-pen :) (16 sheep (one per wool color), bred with wheat, kids extracted and then adults from them extracted to the killing zone which also included the spawner. Each killed sheep spawned 2 creepers. Everything underlaid by one sewer in the center with a size 4 upgrade.)
 

Ako_the_Builder

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Jul 29, 2019
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grinder range is 5x5, spawner range is 8x8. Easiest way to manage I've found is to use walls to limit your spawner to 5x5 too (double thickness on North and West sides).

edit: oops auto-spawner, read your post but not the thread title so my text above may be total balls
 

Malkuth

New Member
Jul 29, 2019
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grinder range is 5x5, spawner range is 8x8. Easiest way to manage I've found is to use walls to limit your spawner to 5x5 too (double thickness on North and West sides).

edit: oops auto-spawner, read your post but not the thread title so my text above may be total balls

Thats what I had to do.. Make double walls... Stops em cold.

Another goofy thing you could do... Is use conveyors to keep them inside the 5x5 if you want to make the room 8x8.