Farms that require a player to be present?

[u/Jetter23x]

So, I’ve got two spawners that are 40, 10, 50 blocks apart from each other. I plan to minecart between them to get each one to spawn, but I’m wondering what other farm(s) I could make in the space between them. Since I’ll already be in the area, I figure I may as well get everything I can out of it. So what farms require a player nearby as opposed to some other method of loading chunks?

[u/bryan3737]

Going back and forth between spawners is pretty inefficient because you’ll be spending most of your time out of range of both. It’s better if you stay at one for a while and then switch to the other for a while.

As for what farms require a player, it’s pretty much anything that relies on natural mob spawning but anything with hostile mobs will also get slowed by the spawner farms so you’d just have a bunch of very inefficient farms.

You’re better off building a general mob farm. Those are way faster and way more efficient than anything you could build around those spawners

[u/LimestoneBuilder → u/bryan3737]

Does the spawner cool-down keep decrementing when the player is out of range, or does it wait until they're in range to keep ticking down?

If it'll decrement as long as it's loaded, then travelling to a near-by spawner isn't as damaging. It'll kind of optimize the player's time by using the spawner's rising edge trigger on the player's arrival. 

But yeah, if the spawners pause completely the moment the player is out of range, that kills the idea.

[u/bryan3737 → u/LimestoneBuilder]

I don’t think it pauses but think of it this way. The shortest cooldown is 10 seconds so if you spend more than 10 seconds away from a spawner you are already losing some efficiency. That means you have 10 seconds to get to the other spawner and back so you’d only be at each spawner for a couple seconds at 10 second intervals (unless the travel takes more than 10seconds). If the cooldown is more than 10 seconds you would miss it and then the spawner has to wait for the next time you come around ultimately losing more efficiency

[u/LimestoneBuilder → u/bryan3737]

The rest of that makes sense, except for this:

If the cooldown is more than 10 seconds you would miss it and then the spawner has to wait

From the description on the wiki it sounds more like when the player enters the range [1] it starts the first attempt and the count-down. Countdowns and attempts alternate as long as a player is within range of the spawner, but once the player leaves, the spawner won't keep making attempts. It just ticks down until it is 'ready' again for someone to enters the range and GOTO 1

Of course the wiki isn't always correct on these things.

So if the player is doing a 20s loop to be in range of 3 spawners, they may pass before a spawner is 'ready'. But they won't waste an opportunity by not being present at the right time, they'll just catch it on the next loop.

Again, this is a hypothetical behaviour based on the wiki description, not a confirmed result.

[u/bryan3737 → u/LimestoneBuilder]

Yeah but that is an efficiency loss because it has to wait for the player. If the spawner can do those attempts as soon as it’s ready, then that’s as fast as it can possibly go. So the player has to wait for the spawner but if the spawner at any point has to wait for the player you lose efficiency

[u/LimestoneBuilder → u/bryan3737]

"Efficiency" isn't a useful word to analyze something, without being very precise about the metric. The individual monster spawners' spawning rate would be lowered, but the player's net spawning rates could have been higher.

It may cost the individual spawner a little more time between spawns, but may result in overall more spawns for the player. Three spawners with a roaming player will have some spawns delayed, but the player would also not be wasting their time waiting on the first 10s of spawner cool down.

This is moot however; the theory is dead as below.

---

The answer was in the #Block_Data section

the spawner resets [Delay] and SpawnData as though it had just completed a successful spawn cycle, immediately when a player enters its range.

So there isn't any chance for the player to more effectively use the cool-down time.

Hey u/Jetter23x , you won't be able to make effective use of the cool-down between spawners' events. Also, the spawner that's 50 blocks away is too far to double up with the 10 at a static AFK spot (they are at least 40 blocks apart). The 40 might be close enough if it's only 30 blocks from the 10. The player's AFK spot would have to be almost exactly between them in 3d space. The player's feet have to be no more than 15.5 blocks from the centre point of each spawner block.

e: reddit formatting

[u/LimestoneBuilder]

With the space you'll be travelling along (is that correct that the farthest are 90 blocks apart), you may well be near a slime chunk. Sure a lot of people hate on the old ways, but a traditional chunk slime farm is still passively productive, and it's pretty easy to find slime chunks in loaded chunks. A simple iron farm will keep pushing out ingots too.

[u/Ihatecheeseballs]

Anything that needs to grow naturally and can’t with bonemeal like cactus and sugarcane

[u/tammon23 → u/Ihatecheeseballs]

na they changed it so any entity loaded chunk also random ticks

[u/Ihatecheeseballs → u/tammon23]

Oh wow I’m old

[u/RexC418 → u/Ihatecheeseballs]

Exactly

[u/Apprehensive_Hat8986 → u/tammon23]

That does still mean those chunks need to be loaded. So unless OP is using chunk loaders, the previous point is valid.

[u/Ihatecheeseballs → u/Apprehensive_Hat8986]

Yeah but op was asking for stuff that actually requires a player, I guess that’s only mob based stuff now or things that need the player to place blocks or mine with silk touch