Minecraft - Tutorial: Hostile Mob System (Revised)
Why Arqade Stack Exchange recommends it
Gaming Stack Exchange (Arqade) answerers and askers point to it as the standard Etho mob grinder build, and for its plain explanation of how mob spawning works.
Recommended by 2 people across 2 different months, 2011 to 2014.
What it is
A 45-minute Minecraft tutorial by EthosLab showing how to build a compact 30x30 underground hostile mob spawning and collection system from scratch. It also explains the basics of mob spawning and how to make a mob farm more efficient with little effort.
What people said
Strong rec Tzarium · 2011-05 · Arqade Stack Exchange · on “How do you make an effective Minecraft mob trap?”
I highly recommend Etho's excellent subterranean spawning pads with a water-based mobevator for moving mobs to the surface. An ammended tutorial for the mob-spawner and transporter can be found here [this video] . The video doesn't include a mob-killing mechanism but there are multiple examples on his youtube channel. Personally I prefer transporting them a bit to the side of the mobevator, then leading them up a 2x2x4 tube of water with signs creating a gap one tile up from the ground. The mobs swim to the top and drown in the enclosed 2x2x2 cube of water, while their drops fall through the gap and into the bottom 2x2x1 water stream that you can channel wherever you want to. [Edit: I forgot to a
Recommends James · 2011-07 · Arqade Stack Exchange · on “What's wrong with my mob trap?”
[this video] This is an EthosLab for making a mob trap.. It also explains most of the mob spawning logic in a fairly simple manner.. I would suggest watching it even if you never actually build this system.
Cites Matt · 2011-05 · Arqade Stack Exchange · on “What is the real truth about Minecraft mob spawning?”
When I look for information on mob spawning and mob grinders I find a lot of links to these two items: Hostile Mob System Tutorial [this video] Mob Spawning Science [LINK] The problem is, they seem to have contradictory information in them. The first one espouses the much-credited idea that to improve your mob spawning area you must light up all the caves around it. This is built on the assumption that when the game goes to spawn a monster, it looks for an appropriate place to put one, so eliminating anywhere but your mob machine would increase the rate of mobs spawning within it. The "Mob Spawning Science" post claims an algorithm that goes chunk by chunk, and within each chunk it picks a random
Cites BaronGrivet · 2014-02 · Arqade Stack Exchange · on “How to de-mob a deep/large underground chasm in Minecraft?”
I'm working on my first Etho mob grinder using his revised underground system: My location and world type couldn't be better - the top is on a tiny island off the shore of a plains biome. This means theoretically there should be very few other places for the mobs to spawn. However I've dug down 24 blocks and come across a huge deep underground chasm right where half of my mob grinder should go. I can't see the bottom and can only see one end. So I want to ensure the chasm won't act as a spawning ground for mobs as this will impact the efficiency of my mob grinder. What is the easiest way to achieve this? Here's a few thoughts I had: I could go down to the bottom of the chasm and cover it wit