Why can't I get Zombie Pigmen to spawn?

Question

I have spent the last several days making a Zombie Pigman Grinder/Gold Farm. this is on Minecraft SMP, and so this took a while. Now it is built, and I cannot get any Zombie pigmen to spawn for the life of me. I have waited at the base/ collection area of the trap for 10 minutes - and none spawned. Here are some screenshots of the trap:

This is the base of the trap, where the Zombie pigmen fall, and I can collect the gold nuggets here.

Looking up at the top of the trap. Basic working principle is that the pigmen spawn up there in the spawning area and walk onto the open gates as if they were solid blocks, then fall 30 blocks to their death.

Spawning Area, from the right side.

Spawning area, from the left side.

I know that they are spawning because there are a lot outside. I'm playing on the server 50.56.92.111, on Normal difficulty. Thanks so much for taking the time to help me solve my problem!

Asked by William

Answer

The answer you are looking for is hidden inside you own question: "there are a lot outside". The game randomly checks places to put mobs and since the outside is much larger than your trap, most of the zombie pigmen spawn there. The mob limit is exhausted pretty much instantly and the game doesn't spawn any more, unless some of the existing mobs de-spawn or get killed.

You will get zombie pigmen to spawn in your trap eventually, but you may have to wait hours for just a few spawns. You need to prevent spawning outside your trap to improve rates of your trap. This is very difficult to do in the nether, since you can't use light or water to prevent spawning. That is why you don't see zombie pigmen traps, building one is a monumental project. Notice for example here a huge area is covered with half-slabs to prevent spawning.

The spawnable area is +/- 8 chunks from each chunk where there is a player (minus the chunks on the edges of that area). If a single player is online, mobs spawn in 240x240 blocks area centered on the player chunk, that is roughly +/- 120 blocks from the player.

Answered by Kcats

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Why do my chickens keep dying?

Question

In order to get a constant supply of food and feathers, I decided to set up a simple semi-automated chicken farm, but for some reason, my chickens keep dying. Why is this? Here are the details:

The dispenser is triggered by a rapid pulsar. This way, approximately every 16 seconds a new chicken is spawned, until I run out of eggs. The chickens float on a 1-layer thick water surface to allow collecting eggs:

As you can see the floating area is about 2x10 blocks large.

There used to be many chickens in these containers, dropping an egg every few seconds. Then, they all died (I could collect meat instead of eggs). Luckily, I had a batch of eggs, so I refilled the dispenser and got around 20 chickens out of it. Leaving the farm for a while and coming back left me with just 2 chickens.

How can I avoid these mass extinctions?

Asked by blubb

Answer

The issue I see is (especially on SMP) Mobs are loaded before blocks (last experienced this on 1.2.4) so they move before the walls/blocks load. I have lost many a chicken this way.

also this is made worse on SMP as the chunks are loaded/unloaded much more often.

Edit: should have mentioned, there is a fix for this in the next release, but until then, the only way is to stay with your birds at all times.

Edit 2: the only fix I can recommend is to replace all the wood with glass and hope for the best, as you are on SMP I would also hide this whole thing in case it is a chicken hunter, not a bug killing them.

Answered by legacy

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possible to use Minecraft bukkit AND forge at the same time?

Question

I have a minecraft server which I can change the JARs on. Currently I am using v 1.2.5 of Minecraft_server jar with Minecraft Forge installed to allow the use of the Buildcraft mods. On my previous server I just had bukkit installed, this allowed me to install mods like worldedit, but not buildcraft.

I really need a mod that will allow world editing and creative building, but I don't want to loose buildcraft. Is it possible to have bukkit and forge running at the same time? How would I start? Seems you can only download bukkit as a JAR.

Alternatively, a mod which is/like worldedit that would be compatible - allthough I would rather like to get Bukkit loaded so i can use things like "Essentials"

Asked by RawryLions

Answer

Here is a version of buildcraft that has been ported to Craftbukkit format. It will work as a plugin.

Answered by Leafygreen19

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Can I host a Minecraft server from an iPad/iPod?

Question

My iPad is, by far, faster than my laptop. Would I be able to instead host a Minecraft server on my iPad?

EDIT: I found that the iPad 2 (which I have) only has 512MB of RAM. However, I wanted to do this since whenever I get on my own server, I gets lag messages in the console. I figured that if I run it on an iPad, I could go onto my server while running various programs (Chrome, recording software, etc.) with little lag, at least compared to hosting it on my laptop which has 2GB RAM that runs MANY various programs that may or may not be crucial to my computer.

Asked by Jonny B

Answer

Under normal conditions, you simply can't. You can't use the Desktop version of Minecraft on iPad because you can't run the Java files on iPad. A non-jailbroken iPad will never allow Java to run like that.

Some people are trying to get this to work with jailbroken iPads which can run java. It's still not working, and only an iPad 3 would yield remotely acceptable performance for a low-end server. I strongly recommend against trying unless you're doing this as a "because I can" project.

If you mean for Minecraft Pocket Edition, you can just play locally with other MPE players over Wifi. It's really easy, but it's not a "Minecraft Server" in the same sense and Desktop players won't be able to access your "server".

Answered by Ben Brocka

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Minecraft moon changes?

Question

So i was playing on a server of my on when i noticed one night a moon with a square in the middle of it appeared for some reason. I know in Terraria they had different Moon Phases that would cause different events. also note that any other night on my server and i get a normal moon.

Does this type of moon mean anything? or do anything to the gameplay?

Asked by Paralytic

Answer

There have been moon phases in Minecraft since release, I believe. You are looking at the new moon.

This has no affect on gameplay as it currently stands, however. There is no 'moon shine' so to speak.

Answered by James

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Are mobs immune to Lava fire in Minecraft?

Question

I have a tower with a trench around it. Suspended in the walls by signs I have pockets of lava. The intent was to have mobs fall in the trench, try to get me in my basement and eventually touch the lava and catch on fire. This they do, but they do not die.

I am running a mod-less server v1.5 Beta (So clearly this is an SMP game :))

I had two creepers, two zombies and a skeleton in the trench. They would catch on fire when trying to run into the wall with a lava block on it, but never die. They just sit there on fire until they move away from the block.

Is this supposed to be happening? Is this an SMP only bug? Looking for some guidance :)

Asked by James

Answer

So, this was noticed way back before release (0.8.0 or so if I recall correctly). I have attempted to reproduce this situation in the latest release as it stands now (1.2.3) and have not been able to get it to happen.

I am not sure if this is because of the fixes that were put in to where you could not longer catch on fire by being on just the right side of a block of lava, or if because the new AI stops them from constantly trying to push their way through solid blocks.

After several attempts with zombies and skeletons I was only ever able to get one skeleton to catch on fire and if I had to lay money I would say what happened was one of its arrows that hit the lava and caught fire, actually bounced back and hit the skeleton, catching it on fire that way.

Since it appears to no longer be able to catch NPCs on fire with out them actually going into the lava, I am going to chalk this up as a bug that has since been fixed, either directly or by coincidence.

Answered by James

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Creative Mode Permissions Node(s)?

Question

Is there a permissions node to disable a player from being in creative mode?

Read: Not one that disallows access to /gamemode, but one that would prevent /gamemode from changing a players mode.

If there is not a built in one, does anyone know of a plugin that does this?

At the very least I would like a permission node that disallows flying while in creative mode.

I have searched the bukkit plugins site, for 'creative', and have seen all of those.

Asked by bitfed

Answer

No such plugin exists, so I made a quick and dirty custom one I call ModeLock. You can download it here, which should in theory work with all future versions of Bukkit unless something drastic changes.

It will by default block all gamemode changes for all players. To allow a player change into the creative gamemode, give them the permission node modelock.creative. To allow them to become survival, give them modelock.survival. To give them both, you can use modelock.gamemode.

Answered by Jake King

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Bukkit Permissions, quick and simple

Question

I cannot for the life of me figure out how permissions.yml works for a CraftBukkit Minecraft Server. Here is what I want:

I would like three groups: admin, user, and default.

• Admins should have complete access to all commands
• Users should be able to use /tp and maybe a couple other commands
• Defaults should not be able to use any command.

Here's what I have:

  5 users:
  6     my-name:
  7         groups:
  8         - admin
  9 groups:
 10     default:
 11         permissions:
 12             bukkit.command.*: false
 13     admin:
 14         permissions:
 15             bukkit.command.*: true
 16         inheritance:
 17         - user
 18     user:
 19         permissions:
 20             bukkit.command.teleport: true
 21             bukkit.command.tell: true
 22             bukkit.command.me: true
 23             bukkit.command.kill: true
 24         inheritance:
 25         - default
 26 messages:
 27     command.*: '&cYou do not have permission to use that command'

Can someone please do me a huge favor and help.

Asked by kevlar1818

Answer

Quite simply, the permissions.yml file that is in the root directory of your server does nothing on its own. It's a somewhat odd and misleading feature, so it's understandable that you'd be confused. The permissions.yml file is used only to create custom permissions node aliases and group nodes. To be perfectly honest, I find it fairly useless.

The format you are using does not go in the root permissions.yml, it goes in the config.yml of a plugin known as PermissionsBukkit. This is a plugin that actually manages the permissions for you, and you need some kind of permissions plugin to use the system effectively. You should be able to cut/paste your current permissions.yml file into the PermissionsBukkit config.yml, and it should work just fine.

This is a somewhat opinionated note, but I think it's worth pointing out that there are other permissions plugins out there besides PermissionsBukkit. There are two other main permissions plugins out there, PermissionsEX (my personal favorite) and bPermissions. These have a format slightly different from PermissionsBukkit, but they have many more features, including a good command system and much better APIs, so they might save you trouble in the long run.

Answered by Jake King

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Can I limit the amount of mobs within a chunk?

Question

Is there a plugin to limit the number of mobs that occupy a chunk in minecraft?

I'm concerned about players breeding or afking a mob spawner and bringing the server down by over concentrating mobs.

Asked by Kort Pleco

Answer

There is also EntitySuppressor, but I don't know if it supports per-chunk settings.

Answered by Tobias Kienzler

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[warning] 'Player' moved wrongly?

Question

I'm getting this warning from my server console (and just happens to be for the same player each time). I'm the only mod of the server so I know no one is using commands to teleport themselves and even if they did it would leave a log. What causes this warning?

Asked by deztructicus

Answer

This warning is generated every time a player moved to a position or at a speed which the server thinks is impossible. This can happen spuriously, as the assumptions the server makes aren't quite the same as what you can actually do (the server doesn't analyze the player's exact inputs), or it can happen due to an attempted cheat, or due to the world changing as the player attempts to pass through it (e.g. player moves through a block the server knows about but the client hasn't seen yet due to latency).

Whenever this happens the server sends a message to the client resetting the player's position to the last valid one (this can be noticed as a sudden shift).

Answered by Kevin Reid

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How much bandwidth does a Minecraft client use in SMP?

Question

How much bandwidth does a single Minecraft client use in SMP (up and down, in KB/sec)?

I'm asking this question for two reasons: 1) I plan on running a small MC dedicated server on my VPS, and want to make sure it won't obliterate my (currently barely used) monthly bandwidth cap, and 2) I'm looking at getting a mobile hotspot to play a little SMP on the go... I wouldn't be doing this much (and know it will be laggy) but I was wondering whether it would even be feasible.

Asked by Doktor J

Answer

Well, according to this discussion:

Over a 100second test window, I recorded a mean of 31,630 bytes/sec and a max of 159,371 bytes/sec. That works out to an average of 0.1Gb/hr/user

As a rough ballpark measure that seems fairly believable (this was posted just under a year ago however, so SPM network performance could have changed since then).

Of course it depends a lot on what the users are doing, for example if a player moves around a lot then I imagine that the network use may be greater as the server needs to send more environment data to the client, similarly whenever users connect and disconnect network use will probably spike.

My advice would be to have a go yourself using 100 Mb / hr / user as an initial guess. You should also take into account the distinction between upload and download bandwidth, as many ISPs have a much smaller limit on upload bandwidth.

Answered by Justin

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How can I get the server time in Minecraft?

Question

Is there a plugin to tell what time it is in my SMP server (time in game) without changing the time? I'm hoping for a plugin, and not a mod like Single Player Commands that I have to compile into the server .jar. My other idea is to parse the logs for the last time someone used /time and figure it out from there.

Answer

Figured it out. The data is in the level.dat file. Assuming you're using Python, here's a code snippet that should get the current time (run "sudo pip install nbt" first):

import nbt
def get_time():
    n = nbt.NBTFile('%s/%s/level.dat' % (minecraft_dir, session_name))
    if n == None:
        return None
    else:
        return n[0]["Time"].value % 24000

For bonus points, you can change the modulo to a division sign and get how many days it has been since you started.

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Why is it snowing in a forest?

Question

I started building in a forest biome, no snow at all. Then, after awhile into the build, it starts snowing and the water in the area starts freezing. I am wondering how or why an area would change temperatures.

I would also like to note that occasionally the server likes to take a 16x16 area and revert it back to the way it was before I started building. It's made for some frustrating fixes of large structures.

Answer

The biome generator has changed between different game updates, and the server is assigning a biome based on the seed, but not generating new terrain.

I have several desert areas discovered during alpha that are now considered tundra or arctic, and are as such covered with snow.

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How can I make a functioning piston elevator in SMP

Question

I've recently been trying to build a piston elevator in SMP from bedrock to the surface. However, every design I've tried (some of my own, and some from Youtube) results in me getting stuck in a block part of the way up. Are there any ways to get around this? If it's lag related would slowing the elevator down by adding an extra repeater or two between each level be sufficient?

Answer

To make a piston elevator I use the "staircase" design

The way this design works is by pushing you up stairs using pistons.

Here are some pictures of how this works:

Note: The first repeater is on 2-delay, and the second is on 1-delay.In the screenshots is different, sorry.

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Change the weather on vanilla SMP? [closed]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Is there an SMP Server Command to change weather conditions?

Is there any command to change the weather on SMP, because sometime i just want to experiment with stuff and the rain gets in the way, and so is there any way plugin or command to do so? (NO BUKKIT PLEASE)

Answer

Update as of Minecraft 1.0:

Server operators can use the command /toggledownfall to start or stop rain-/snowfall.

Original answer:

Vanilla Minecraft has no command to change the weather. You'll need to install a mod of some kind.

However, it's difficult to recommend mods if you're set against Bukkit — it rather dominates the server mod scene. In fact, I wasn't able to find a non-Bukkit weather mod which is compatible with the current version of Minecraft.

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How do I spawn mobs in SMP?

Question

I'm trying to setup a Minecraft server so I can play with fluffy dragons.

As the server admin how can I spawn mobs in SMP? Can I do it in the vanilla server? Do I have to use bukkit or a plugin?

Answer

As of release 1.1, you can enter Creative mode and use the new "Spawn Eggs" item to produce monsters, even in vanilla.

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Is there a way to keep a clock ticking with no players logged into SMP?

Question

I'm planning to build a clock tower for my SMP server; however, it's occurred to me that my plans have a gaping flaw: when nobody's online, the redstone clock won't keep time. I'm using vanilla, so Bukkit mods to keep chunks loaded won't work. Is it possible to use a different clock to count off hours, one that will keep running while I'm gone? Or better yet, somehow derive the time from the sun position?

Answer

The only solution I can think of is using a light sensor to manually correct the time displayed on the clock, but it would likely be very complicated, and depending on how the clock tower is built, it might not work. What you would do is build a light sensor and feed its output into a special reset line that sets the clock to a certain time. When the sun rises, it would activate the light sensor and set the clock to whatever time sunrise should be.

Ideally, you would also take the output of the clock, and give the clock a time range in which to ignore the light sensor, so that the clock wouldn't be changing times every morning (because the time at which the light sensor activates is slightly random). If, say, you wanted sunrise to set the clock to 7:30, you could create a signal that is turned on when the clock reads any time from 7:20-7:40, invert it, and connect it to one input of an AND gate (the other being the output of the light sensor). The output of this AND gate would be the signal to set the clock to 7:30. This way, if the light sensor activated and the time was already near 7:30, the clock would ignore it. (Now that I think about it, this would be a good way to implement error detection in the clock as well, in case the timing is slightly off).

Here's a video of a light sensor and how to build it:

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Minecraft SMP: [warning] 'Player' moved wrongly?

Question

I'm getting this warning from my server console (and just happens to be for the same player each time) I'm the only mod of the server so I know no one is using commands to teleport themselves and even if they did it would leave a log. What causes this warning?

Answer

This warning is generated every time a player moved to a position or at a speed which the server thinks is impossible. This can happen spuriously, as the assumptions the server makes aren't quite the same as what you can actually do (the server doesn't analyze the player's exact inputs), or it can happen due to an attempted cheat, or due to the world changing as the player attempts to pass through it (e.g. player moves through a block the server knows about but the client hasn't seen yet due to latency).

Whenever this happens the server sends a message to the client resetting the player's position to the last valid one (this can be noticed as a sudden shift).

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Wilderness Regrowth with Towny

Question

Is it possible to use the Towny plugin for Bukkit for Minecraft to regrow "wilderness" areas?

I'm hoping to allow blocks that are commonly harvested, like sand, to regrow over time so the landscape isn't destroyed by people harvesting sand for glass (as an example). I know you can do this with creeper explosions, so if there is a way to do this for player destruction then please let me know.

Answer

It looks like this has already been suggested and shot down a month ago, so the short answer is no. Interesting feasibility analysis there in the response, though the issues seem possible to overcome...

The source is available though if you want to take a crack at it.

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Is there an SMP Server Command to change weather conditions?

Question

The latest version of Minecraft (1.5) brings, among other things, a number of different weather conditions. Most of these annoy me to no end. I tend to spend a lot of time playing on an SMP server, so I'm wondering if at least here, there is a way to effect changes in the weather: maybe through server commands?

Answer

There is no such command available in vanilla Minecraft servers, sorry.

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