I thought you knew me Qwerty. It doesn't exactly rain ink sacs upon my head, but it works. If you want me to come out and work on yours with you pm me.
Great write-up Bem! Nice and simple to follow. Really glad you did this. I will have a vid of me building one in EMC ready to view once I fix my editing software. Did you link to JL2579's vid?(ah, i see you did.. little vague though, a more significant link would be really great!). The vidoe covers more info and allows you to see more detail of the building as well. But I like how you kept your blog post simple and easy to build! Some things to note when watching JL's video is EMC custom technical stuff, such as: - EMC spawn range is 64 blocks from the player. - EMC has a mob limit of 250 entities (animal and hostile), but natural hostile spawning will stop once it reaches around 90 hostiles. (a spawner can go beyond this to the full 250 entity limit) - Squids are considered non-hostile 'animal' spawns, and hostile spawn limit will not stop them spawning. (I think Pad mentioned that) - torching, slabbing, etc to limit hostile spawning has no effect on squid spawning. - Spawn rates are significantly lower in EMC than Vanilla. The drop rate of ink sacs for a 20 x 20 farm as described by Bem's blog post is more like 1 stack per hour. (more if you make EMC specific improvements to the build) Other spawning dynamics of vanilla minecraft and EMC. - Squids can 'swim' in any water, even swimming 'up' in a down current. (But will eventually be pushed to the bottom and fall). - Aikar correct me if i'm wrong here: Mob spawning algorithm will pick a valid spawn block, and check if there are any of the same type mob within 20? blocks. If there are, they will not spawn. - Squid can spawn in ANY water, still or flowing. (Hence will spawn anywhere in the 18 high range of flowing water as detailed in the farm) So, given the above info, a few things that can improve spawn rate of this farm: 1. Kill the squid as fast as possible after they spawn to allow more to spawn quickly. Do this by reducing the distance they must be 'pushed' down by water before they drop to their death. (Perhaps 10 blocks high of water, rather than 18 blocks). 2. If space allows, it's possible to extend the farm all around the player in a 124 x 124 area, but over 24 blocks from the player (mobs will not spawn within 24 blocks of player). That would mean a 124 long and 38 wide farm on each side around player. This is excessive IMO, but extending the farm to a 40 x 38 or 60 x 38 area will allow more squid to spawn simultaneously, as well as increasing chance of spawn success each cycle by having more spawning locations. OK.. this is getting long, i'll shut up now. I have built and have used a public squid farm on SMP5, here's the livemap link: SMP5 Wilderness: -373,-407
Actually, I think you're right I've been in need of ink many times, and maybe have used 6 iron on emc? Where'd you need iron for anyway
I was speaking in terms of recipes that are available for these two raw materials. Iron can be used in many, ink in 4 or 5, maybe
Not defending it or saying one is better than the other but... Ink: Sorta rare unless you have 2323242423423432 squids or Looting 3, or Want to stand all day fishing. Uses: Written books Black,Grey/Gray, Light Grey/Gray dyes for sheep, wool blocks, leather armor, dog collars, stained clay, color of fireworks, fade effect in fireworks, and somehow in Pocket Edition adding it with Orange Dye gives you cocoa beans. Iron: Pretty easy to find while mining. Not as abundant as Coal (which is like...all your embarrassing moments in life you try to repress, always there) Or you can build a torture chamber that houses villagers forced to mate and create golems to then be sacrificed in a fiery death for your entertainment to gather ingots while you AFK. Uses: Iron Armor, Tools, Tripwire Hooks, Anvils, Rails, Mine-carts, Buckets, Cauldrons, Compasses, Doors, Flint and Steel, Hoppers, Iron Bars, Pistons, Shears, Weighted Pressure Plates and in 1.8 Trapdoors, and in Pocket Edition Nether Reactor Core (whatever the flippity-doodah that is). Both are pretty important and needed.
The wiki lists 26 recipes for iron ingots under which are buckets, shears, armor and tools. I guess, these are more essential items on a survival server for most players, unless maybe you have a book store or not venture out in the wild/nether Next are pistons, hopper, rails and anvils, that IMHO are also more important than gray dye or black wool. Just my opinion... Anyways, it's about a squid farm and I am happy and surprised to hear they work on EMC
