The short answer is no.
The long answer is that they only operate when a player is nearby. Spawners from mods may allow you to get around this (depending on the type and version), but there's still the issue that mobs instantly despawn if players aren't around - something the spawners themselves have no control over.
It's possible to circumvent even that by setting up a spawner in a player-less dimension - the despawning code apparently bugs out if it's not possible to check the distance to the closest player (eg, there's no player in that dimension to check against).
In 1.6, there's almost no point in using Soul Shards 2 (atm), reasons given by Juanitierno.
Also, you need to break a lot of spawners to get what you need to make the SS2 cage and soul shards. On a server, this means unneccessary conflicts (non-pvp servers) when it comes to spawners.[DOUBLEPOST=1385969920][/DOUBLEPOST]@Wratheous, try using MFR auto-spawner. You need mob essence for them but you could always use those vanilla spawners you've jacked with a Force Wrench to generate a tank of essence then run the auto spawners. Grinders gives you 100 mob essence for each mob while the auto spawner takes 150 per spawn. You will be making a loss for each spawn but the loss will be little and you can always top up the tank by standing next to your vanilla spawner setup everytime you are back o .
True, what i would do would be turning it on while you're playing around base and turning it off when you log off.Be careful with the MFR set-up though, it works if there's no players in that dimension, and works quite well, but if somebody logs onto a server while it's running, if they are 128 blocks away from your spawner, it will spawn mobs which instantly despawn. Thus you run out of mob essence very quickly for no gain
neat trick for autospawners: spawn size 8 slimes (hit a big slime with an embigenning syringe, capture it with safari net, set spawner to exact). when you spawn one of those monsters, the grinders will generate more than enough essence to keep the spawners going. same with magma cubes.
neat trick for autospawners: spawn size 8 slimes (hit a big slime with an embigenning syringe, capture it with safari net, set spawner to exact). when you spawn one of those monsters, the grinders will generate more than enough essence to keep the spawners going. same with magma cubes.
if you can scrounge some cursed earth (you only need a few blocks, it will spread like grass to surrounding dirt blocks in darkness), make a dark room with grinders. free spawns = free mob essence, use that to feed the auto spawners
and i dont think players need to be near for cursed earth spawns...ill have to test that.
Does this trick still work in 1.6? I thought there was a change to make it so grinder doesn't split slimes anymore?
It has nothing to do with overpowered or not. The auto-spawner is not meant to be self-sufficient in terms of mob essence. It was a bug that it ever was. The mobs now are killed and the extra spawns are simply despawned without being killed.ok..so let me get this straight...they would actually break the game mechanics, just to keep people from getting a little extra in return? starting to sound like i should stay with 1.5.2 unleashed. i understand people want to balance things. perhaps just remove the grinder if its too 'overpowered' ?
The idea is you have to think of something else to get a source of mob essence. I'm assuming the idea was a vanilla spawner trap with grinders to get the essence, but there's other ways with mods out.ok..so let me get this straight...they would actually break the game mechanics, just to keep people from getting a little extra in return? starting to sound like i should stay with 1.5.2 unleashed. i understand people want to balance things. perhaps just remove the grinder if its too 'overpowered' ?
Well, MFR can be self sustainable with regards to mob essence so it is still okay in my books.
Though I got to ask, how many small slimes does 1 large slime splits into? I'm thinking of using the auto spawner on exact mode and run the big slime through ExtraUtilities' Iron Spikes before grinding all the small ones. Will I get a profit of essence out of that?
Then, am I correct to say that with the Huge Slime in an Auto-Spawner on Exact mode could net me 6400mb of mob essence per 500mb spent?a huge slime (embiggening syringe) could spawn 4 big slimes, each spawning 4 mid size slimes, each spawning 4 little ones. 4 * 4 * 4 = 64 max. same with magma cubes