Thoughts on mobfarms

[Graphite]

Some discussion on irc led me to realise that I really don't like my mobfarm on a conceptual level. It's just too 'magical'. Once built it produces a steady flow of all kinds of useful items without any further intervention from me, ever! The whole thing feels rather overpowered for the fact that it's really just a big dark room with a saw or two at the end. There's no fancy timing required, no clever refilling mechanisms... you just build a big dark room with waterflows and out come the infinite resources... (guess HCB might make that the waterflows a bit more exciting atleast)

It wouldn't be so bad if zombie meat didn't trivialize the production of certain things, such as dung or glue. In the past I needed to grow and harvest wheat, feed my cows to make them multiply before dividing their numbers with my axe. I could then use the meat for my wolves and the leather for tanning or glue. Automating that requires some clever contraptions (particularly wheat is hell). Now, once the mobfarm is running, you'll have all the meat you need to keep your wolves crapping for the remainder of their long and miserable lives. Need glue? Just toss a few stacks of zombie meat in the cooking pot and you're set for life!

At my home base I have a half-finished design for a combined dung/leather farm. I constructed a really fancy splitter that would direct half the leather into a stewing pot for glue and the other half into a millstone for tanned leather. Now that my mobtrap is built, I might as well remove the part for the glue before I continue construction. It's not like I'll really need it anymore. To be honest, that sorta makes me sad.

Am I really the only one that feels that way?

P.S. I am sorta looking forward to building a zombie pigman farm. From what I can tell so far, atleast there's some challenge involved in those.

[StormBeforeDawn]

Try it with HCB. That makes it rough. Also, it is certainly not much more OP then camping a spawner, not when you consider all the time and effort required to get a high yield mobfarm running. Yes, it trivializes things, but that is the entire purpose of automation. Once complete it should save you a huge amount of time collecting whatever resource it is generating.

[Tekei]

The way I see it, the benefits of a mob trap is a rather suitable reward for completing such a project.
In my current world the process has been:
1. Complete tech tree.
2. Start building mob trap.
3. Realize you need a LOT of vine traps.
4. Build an automated vine farm to help with the materials.
5. Build the item sorting section while waiting for farm to generate resources.
6. Start a lot of other projects while waiting for farm to generate resources.

I've been more or less forced to start other projects along the way which has kept me busy, in a good way, and once the mob trap is complete I will have access to a lot of resources and EXP, but that is the whole purpose of the project to begin with. The zombie meat will no doubt be used for dung/tanned leather production, but that is a whole new project in itself and what makes BTW so enjoyable. Even with a fully functional mob trap there are still a lot of other contraptions to build. Especially now when we just had a new release. Have you finished your Infernal Library yet? ;)

[Graphite]

Try it with HCB. That makes it rough. Also, it is certainly not much more OP then camping a spawner, not when you consider all the time and effort required to get a high yield mobfarm running. Yes, it trivializes things, but that is the entire purpose of automation. Once complete it should save you a huge amount of time collecting whatever resource it is generating.

I feel it trivializes a few of the wrong things though. If it were just dragon-orbs dropping they'd be great contraptions. I never could be bothered to go hunt mobs for experience, so a way of automating it is awesome. Heck, I even approve of the occasional iron drop as that's not a replenishable resource otherwise (and I do love decorating with it).

What bothers me is that it trivializes a couple of interesting "tech trees" in the case of glue and dung. And since mobfarms can basically be built with just vanilla tech, a mobfarm can end up completely shortcircuiting that process so you'll never have to render leather into glue or feed a wolf anything other than zombie.

[Poppycocks]

So what you're saying is, that all extra functionality for rotten meat should be dropped, yes? :D

[Graphite]

So what you're saying is, that all extra functionality for rotten meat should be dropped, yes? :D

Nerfed into the ground! Based on some videos I've seen here and there, I've got a meagre farm and I can already make more glue than I'm going to use this year. And I've not even mentioned the abuse-potential of the skeleton-drops so far. I'd just need to build one single tree-farm, load it with saplings, then spam bonemeal on it to get all the wood I'll ever need. I blame that on the bonemeal though.

I guess I could always suggest that eating zombie-meat can make your wolves sick as well (just like yourself), causing them to eventually die unless they're fed proper meat as well. It would probably break a lot of existing farms, though...

[FlowerChild]

Ok, take it easy. You're effectively discussing features new to the mod here, and features that I am actively developing and integrating into the mod at present.

Previously, the stuff you're talking about was pretty much the only incentive to build mob-traps, and you still weren't building them, which to me, indicates that the benefit they provided was not overpowered.

Now, you have additional incentive to build them, so the other benefits that you're getting off of them seem to be too powerful. That's natural.

Give it some time. It's obvious I'm working hard on properly integrating mob-farms into the tech-tree for the mod. I don't even disagree with many of the points you're making, they're just premature.

[Graphite]

Well, to be honest, the whole thing did go half off-topic as I had two concerns and only one is getting discussed. The other point that annoyed me was that the classic mobfarm effectively felt like the equivalent to cobble-generators to me. Relatively simple to build (often mostly digging) and, once built, they'll provide you with free resources for the rest of your life. It just felt a bit... off... to me. Emphasis on "me" there, mind you, so I was curious whether I was the only one that felt that way.

If you say you're still working on integrating them, then I'll hold my peace for now though. Tekei and I had a bit of a discussion on the value of glue anyhow. In my world I haven't found reliable sources of slime yet, but apparently once you've got one of those, you'll never need glue anyhow. That would make glue the 'alternative' to slime, making it somewhat less important how difficult it is to produce. (though personally, I'd love to see that relation reversed :P)

I'll probably focus on zombie pigmen, enderman, and villager farms next as they certainly seem a bit more challenging to build.

That having been said, it's time for bed now as collecting your thoughts is hard when midnight comes around.

[FlowerChild]

Well, to be honest, the whole thing did go half off-topic as I had two concerns and only one is getting discussed.

Well, your other point seems to basically be "I don't like mob-farms". That's been a perpetual debate in the MC community for ages now, and I think it's pretty obvious which camp I fall into, which is why I chose to ignore it.

If you just don't like them, then BTW will probably not be the mod for you, as I fully intend to make them a fully integrated aspect of gameplay. Debating that point here is entirely futile, and will likely just go into Rule #3 territory.

In other words, my response to your other point is: "I don't care".

[Graphite]

Well, your other point seems to basically be "I don't like mob-farms".

Well, I don't mind mob-farms so much as the mob-farm mechanics at the moment. Tree-farms need saplings; wheat-farms need seeds; pig-farms need wheat; dung-farms need meat; mob-farms, once built, require nothing at all. It just feels a bit too cheap and easy to me. Unfortunately I have no suggestions on how to improve that situation and since I don't know what you have planned for them in the future, I don't know whether it all might become a moot point anyhow.

I'll consider that my final statement on this matter, so unless you wants to discuss it further, feel free to lock this thread. I highly doubt we'll see other people posting here after our exchange anyhow :P

[Ribky]

You'll see me posting.

Just a quick little counterpoint though. Yeah, all those other types of farms require specific items in order to function. But what about cobble farms? Or smooth stone farms for that matter? Mob farms aren't the easiest to make to begin with, and they require a lot of things other than items to function. Darkness, a little luck, and of course the mobs themselves. Building a mob farm is no different then building a tree farm and loading up automatic tree planting BDs so you can sit back with a bucket of milk and relax. It's all about the setup in any farm.

EDIT: speling and gramar...

[FlowerChild]

Tree-farms need saplings; wheat-farms need seeds; pig-farms need wheat; dung-farms need meat; mob-farms, once built, require nothing at all.

Reeds, hemp, pumpkins, melons, chickens, cactus, and wheat all provide self-sustaining farms which require either no input or where you can feed the seeds right back into the process.

I've never heard you complain about them, so I return to my original point: you don't like mob-farms, and I do. It's not a point worth debating. "My mod...nya nya".

I think the real question with regards to any such system is the balance between the output and the cost/effort to create the system, which as I said: I'm in the process of working on, so again: not worth discussing.

Even at present, the output of mob-farms is relatively useless. So, you get food for wolves and glue out of the process...big deal. You still basically "need" to create the same systems that would have been required for those resources otherwise for Tallow and Tanned Leather. I've been sitting on a massive stockpile of glue for a long time now considering I've had a massive-output mob-farm in my world since before I created the mod, and I've still also felt the need to create automated cow and pig farms with the corresponding wheat farms to feed them.

So, considering that while I plan to tweak things further, I don't really see a severe problem that any of this is really causing at present, and considering you seemed disappointed that people weren't discussing that part of your initial post, I think really this whole thing once again comes down to: you don't like mob-farms, and are trying to create other arguments to justify that.

EDIT: ...and trees as stated above :)

[Graphite]

But what about cobble farms? Or smooth stone farms for that matter?

I'll readily admit I have a couple of those standing around my new base. No doubt I'll be labeled a hypocrit for using them, but I'd rather spend my time building stuff instead of grinding out a huge, useless cave belowground to get the stone required.

I think the real question with regards to any such system is the balance between the output and the cost/effort to create the system, which as I said: I'm in the process of working on, so again: not worth discussing.

This is exactly the part that annoys me about mobfarms. The output feels too great for the kind of effort you need to put into a mobfarm. Sure, they take a lot of time to build so a lot of effort go into them, but most of that time involves grinding away while you dig it out. I'd rather spend that same time figuring out some interesting contraption to farm mobs somehow, to be honest. That's also what makes a self-sustaining wheat-farm (and other similar machinery) an accomplishment as those things are a bloody pain to get working properly.

..., I think really this whole thing once again comes down to: you don't like mob-farms, and are trying to create other arguments to justify that.

I've stated several times now that I don't like the mob-farm mechanics. Please stop trying to second-guess what I think by insisting I don't like mob-farms in general. It really feels rather rude. I've even stated at the top that I'll be looking into zombie pigmen, enderman and villager farms as I feel they'll provide me with a more interesting challenge than the 'vanilla' mobfarms.

This time I am going to ask for a lock. If I haven't by now, I'm not going to get my concerns through and well, you're not going to convince me that I hate mob-farms in general instead of just the mechanics. Since we can't discuss the latter without treading on future-development territory, I'd say this thread has served its purpose.

If anyone does feel like discussing my stone-generator hypocrisy, I'm on IRC daily :P

[FlowerChild]

I've stated several times now that I don't like the mob-farm mechanics. Please stop trying to second-guess what I think by insisting I don't like mob-farms in general. It really feels rather rude.

That's interesting, as I find critiquing a system a couple of days after a major release and continuing to harp on the point after I've said it's something I'm actively working on rather rude, so I guess we're even.

And I do maintain that this begins and ends with you not liking mob-traps man. There's no way you would have gotten this excited about it otherwise, whatever else you've been saying.

[MoRmEnGiL]

Well you need some farms to be self sustainable, otherwise you are in a supply loop that eats most of the resources you produce to merely sustain itself.

Also, judging by Fc's replies, it is premature to talk about mob farms right now, since he has plans involving them.

Personally I like mob farms, because they offer a lot of room for innovation, architectural decisions, preparation, and generally a lot of labour and they take a lot of space, that in essence they are probably the centrepiece of an established base. My only problem is, as always, performance hits, but that can be somewhat mitigated by using performance friendly designs.

[Battosay]

Not going anywhere ...
For everybody's sake : closed.