Guardian Farm Ideas

[Domsters931]

So as some of you know, I have a pretty big project I have been working on for a long time. I forget exact dimensions but its something like a 65x65 block natural guardian farm. I did not design the farm but I built it on famcraft. Its working great and I am still doing quite a few things to get it to mob cap but there has been one kinda major problem I have encountered. It isn't keeping all the mine carts with hoppers moving when Im the only one at the farm. I can't keep all the chuncks loaded so in the ones that aren't loaded, the mine carts stop moving. I am unable to get them moving again. Not all mine carts have stopped but I think a solid 1/4th have. The reason mine carts are a great option is it reduces the lag of having so many hoppers feeding into each other. They also pick up the drops from the glass that the guardians die on from fall damage. I have had a few ideas but myself and others have found flaws in them. Ill list them for references. 1. Switch it all to hoppers feeding into each other. (Too much lag and hoppers just don't always work great.) 2. Have the guardians die from fall damage on glass and then every few minutes, press a lever that would cause dispensers to dispense water that would push all drops into hoppers. (Problems with that plan include having so many entities on the ground that I would risk them despawning. Another problem with that is how often I would have to press that lever triggering the dispensers. It would be way to often to be practical to keep the items from despawning. Also, while the water is flowing, the guardians still spawning wouldn't die from the fall damage and that would just cause so many problems.) Those are the two kind of main ideas I have had but of course they wouldn't really work. I know very little with all of this. I know I also mess up with a lot of the terms but I hope you can understand what Im saying. Im willing to try anything and I appreciate all input. If anyone needs more details about the farm, or would like to see the farm in game, just message me in game or leave a comment on this thread. Thanks! -Domsters931/Skier_Dude

[Domsters931]

3rd unsuccessful idea: Use open fence gates since it provides a surface that the items will still get through. Problems, the guardians will just go through the fence gates so its pointless. I really didn't think this one through good... Also, this still doesn't provide a actual collection system. Im just posting all ideas I get.

[Vexern]

Did you gave light around the guardian farm? it can make it like way more efficient, so if you cave like in a 128x128 space with all lights only guardians would spawn, but the size your doing would be good for a 500x500 cave lighting thing. Good luck!

EDIT: Guardians also need daylight to spawn

[Vexern]

I can help u in game of needed.

[ChrisKnight44]

My first major project on Famcraft was to create my "Guardian Slayer" which I still use.  It only uses about 40% of the spawnable area for Guardians but most of the original monument is still intact.  It starts with one layer of source blocks up top which flow downward for many blocks into open fence gates.  They then drop into flowing water which feeds them to one of two 2x2 drop shafts.  After a free fall to like Y=10 they pass through a lava blade and hit 4 hoppers.  If the fall doesn't kill them they bounce back up into the lava until they die.  The hoppers then collect the items to a chest.

If you didn't care about preserving the monument like me, this would be a fairly efficient design.  So assuming you use the full spawning area:
Pros:  Fully automated, decent drop rates, and fish drops are cooked 99% of the time.
Cons:  Fall damage doesn't kill Guardians which may slow down spawn rates.

[Domsters931]

To answer your question Vextato, the farm spawn area is as efficient as possible right now because it is made of around 5200 glowstone blocks 6 blocks high in the best possible pattern that allows for every water block to touch one of the glowstone blocks while also having as few glowstone blocks as possible. ChrisKnight44, I have thought of your idea with the water flowing into the hoppers but there are a few things I am worried about if I use that method. Next time I see you in game, I would really like to tour your farm and have you see my farm just so you can understand a little better what Im describing. Also Vextato, whenever you see me in game, ask to tp and I will show you the farm so you can get a better idea of what we have to work with. Thanks for the reply's and if anyone has anymore, feel free to comment them!

[Vexern]

kk

[ChrisKnight44]

Sounds like a good plan   

[Domsters931]

I just had another idea and I have no idea if it would actually work or not but we'll see. I was planning on removing all water and blocks down to bedrock within 100 blocks of the farm in all directions and light it all up to remove all mob spawning to maximize mob spawning in the farm. Would it work to protect the whole area instead and just build a solid wall down to bedrock around the whole thing to block all caves? Would the protection fields stop mob spawn? Its just a idea and again, I am not knowledgeable very much on the subject so I need all of your help. Thanks again.

[ChrisKnight44]

I have a less time-intensive solution, which is what I use.  Use diamond block PS fields.  You can set four of them up in the area the monument spawned in and turn off the "prevent-mob-spawn" option so the guardians spawn.  Then, do another ring or two of PS fields with that flag still on.

This will prevent mobs from spawning in caves, on land, and in water in the surrounding areas.  Then you only have to worry about the area where you allow mobs to spawn.  You could clear the water in the area and dig to bedrock but I took the solution of just lighting up the caves really well that I found underneath.

[Domsters931]

Yeah. Im going with the ps field method. You said you still lit up the caves still even with the ps fields. Why did you do that?

[ChrisKnight44]

I light up the caves in all of my PS fields, especially where I disable the "prevent-mob-spawn" flag.  For example, if you have 4 PS fields intersecting at the center of your monument, and they have that flag disabled, Guardians will spawn but mobs will spawn in the caves beneath the monument as well.  Then as the Guardians die, the caves may get more mobs causing less Guardians to spawn.

Lighting up those caves guarantees only the Guardians will spawn.  If you light up ones leading out of the PS fields, there will be less chance of mobs wandering in to the Guardian spawn area to reduce the Guardian spawn rate.  As a bonus, you may find gold and diamonds in them there caves 

[Domsters931]

I will light up the surrounding caves but the guardian farm goes down to bedrock so there shouldn't be caves in the ps fields with the mob spawn on.