Why won't my villagers breed?

[Tyrindor]

http://i.imgur.com/9Xx7Z4E.jpg

This area is next to a town, and has been chunk loaded for 3 real days. If I stand around I will sometimes see hearts, and a small child, but it's rare... and they seem to disappear after some time. I started with 5 NPCs and still only have 5 NPCs, they use the houses at night and acknowledge that they are houses...

Why don't I have ~30 villagers here like I should? I used the same layout as DW20 did in his S5 lets play. It should be working? *confused*

 

[ThemsAllTook]

If I'm remembering correctly, doors check the sky visibility of 5 blocks in front of and behind themselves (excluding the block they're on). When the number of blocks in that area that can see the sky is added up, the two sides have to be unequal for the door to count as a house. With that layout, if I'm counting correctly, only the outermost doors and the ones on the 4-block-wide sides of the houses will be considered valid. Widening your buildings by one block or moving them one block farther apart should fix it.

Also, remember that it's 0.35 villagers per door, so if your setup has 36 doors, even if they're all counted you'll only get 12.6 villagers. If you want 30 villagers, you'll need 86 valid doors minimum. Unless, of course, you make an infinite breeding cell, which only requires 6...

 

[PeggleFrank]

Are there villagers in those huts? You need 1 minimum to make more spawn I think.

 

[Tyrindor]

If I'm remembering correctly, doors check the sky visibility of 5 blocks in front of and behind themselves (excluding the block they're on). When the number of blocks in that area that can see the sky is added up, the two sides have to be unequal for the door to count as a house. With that layout, if I'm counting correctly, only the outermost doors and the ones on the 4-block-wide sides of the houses will be considered valid. Widening your buildings by one block or moving them one block farther apart should fix it.

Also, remember that it's 0.35 villagers per door, so if your setup has 36 doors, even if they're all counted you'll only get 12.6 villagers. If you want 30 villagers, you'll need 86 valid doors minimum. Unless, of course, you make an infinite breeding cell, which only requires 6...

But if this was true wouldn't I have at least 1 villager in each hut? I have 4 villagers in one of the corner huts, 1 in the other at night. Wouldn't they run to another structure if these weren't registered as houses? Sometimes there's a kid, but they just disappear into thin air over time.

Direwolf20 does this exact same structure (about 23 minutes in), and even makes a turtle to make the houses for him. Later on in the let's play, he has about 50-60 villagers around ~10 of these huts. I don't get whats going on, these are vanilla mechanics and he's on the same version.

Are there villagers in those huts? You need 1 minimum to make more spawn I think.

There's 5 of them, they make kids every now and then.. but the kids just disappear. I don't have any idea where they are going. I even built walls around (as you can see) to prevent them from getting out.

 

[ThemsAllTook]

But if this was true wouldn't I have at least 1 villager in each hut? I have 4 villagers in one of the corner huts, 1 in the other at night. Wouldn't they run to another structure if these weren't registered as houses? Sometimes there's a kid, but they just disappear into thin air over time.

I'm not sure how the find-house-at-night algorithm works, but from my observations no attempt is made to distribute evenly between houses. Having all of your villagers crowd into a single house is normal, even if there's lots of other valid housing around.

Direwolf20 does this exact same structure (about 23 minutes in), and even makes a turtle to make the houses for him. Later on in the let's play, he has about 50-60 villagers around ~10 of these huts. I don't get whats going on, these are vanilla mechanics and he's on the same version.

At a glance, his spacing appears to be different from yours - at least some of those houses are only one block apart. It's the fact that lots of your doors can see the same number of open sky spaces on both sides that's making them not count.

There's 5 of them, they make kids every now and then.. but the kids just disappear. I don't have any idea where they are going. I even built walls around (as you can see) to prevent them from getting out.

That shouldn't be happening... Villagers don't despawn under normal conditions, so assuming no glitches, they must be escaping and/or dying somehow. Zombie sieges can happen at any light level, but if one happens while you're not around it usually wipes out the whole village. Maybe trap a child when you see one spawn, then keep an eye on them to see if they grow up?

 

[wolfsilver00]

Maybe they think they're chinese and are just going to the butcher to get a vasectomy?

 

[Raefar]

I dont know if this works on FTB however on villa you can make one large room and then just place doors on the roof.