Using Science to MAXIMIZE the Mob Spawning Algorithm

A deepdive into the mob spawning algorithm!
For the SoME3 Audience:
This video assumes some basic understanding of Minecraft, but you wont be too lost without the background. A "Mob" is an "alive" creature in the game that sometimes "spawns" (or suddenly appears). Minecraft players use "farms" to spawn, then they often kill these "mobs" to gather resources -- there is a whole technical community on this topic, and a lot of potential to apply math and science techniques! A huge amount of farms use the mob spawning algorithm, so such it is perhaps the most useful mechanic in Minecraft, but is quite complicated (and interesting).
Join the discord for access to our free, public SMP, technical support, and just generally good vibes.
Discord Link:
discord.nicoislost.com
For perks like early access, video shoutouts, and exclusive world downloads join my patreon, it is really appreciated:
/ nicoislost
People who helped in various ways (Most don't even know how they helped, but they did mostly just because they are awesome people:
@silnarm
@EmdyMC
@SRAZKVT
Nvertd (discord)
notDrain (discord): bithole.dev/
Minty (discord)
Farms showcased in this video:
@gnembon - The star of the video...
General Mob Farm - • Simple Hostile Mob Far...
Gold Farm - • Simple yet Powerful Go...
Ghast Farm - • Portal-based Gunpowder...
Zombie Reinforcement - • Boost Your Spawner 600...
@ianxofour - • Minecraft Elegance: In...
@iJevin - • Hermitcraft 7 - Ep. 50...
@Stromne - • Wiske Train | Wither S...
My Pillager Grinder -
@FastJaz - • Super Simple Witch Far...
@MethodZzS - • SciCraft 2: Super Fast... (Creeper Farm Concept)
@FrunoCraft - • Gunpowder farms up to ... (Creeper WDL)
End of Light Farm:
@Viktor40 & ImaMc
• End Of Light (EOL) Fas...
As always feel free to comment if you have any questions
#Redstone #Minecraft #SoME3

[@NicoisLOST]

I'm aware that the audio is a bit messed up for some people! If it really bugs you, you can try other headphones as it does depend on them. Otherwise, I will work to fix it for future videos! Sorry about the mistake! Appreciate the comments.

[@Akotski-ys9rr]

No it doesn’t depend on the headphones because the auto captions are also messed up

[@JasperWilliams42]

Jjjjjjjjj big fungus is Hot I love sexy big chungus

[@teresa7898]

😊

[@GreenJalapenjo]

It sounds a lot like a too aggressive noise gate.

[@General302Gaming]

@nicoisLOSt how are you getting mob cap to show what mod is it?

[@Mogswamp]

Came in skeptical I could learn anything after a dozen years of doing mob farms, but boy was I wrong. Super informative.

[@cohandora]

fr

[@tonytonychopper6017]

You should shout-out him then

[@michealwarren6681]

If you aren't educated in teaching, I suspect you might be, you're extremely well suited to it

[@spacexe123]

​@@tonytonychopper6017yeah you have in past given shout out to great creators And nico is definitely a addon for you @mogswamp

[@NicoisLOST]

Glad it was helpful :-]

[@kavinesh_the_legend]

This guy needs more audience and reach.

[@IdentifiantE.S]

Fr

[@zactastic4k955]

Exactly

[@Black_Jack09]

One could says he’s lost

[@exalented]

He literally sounds like a villager

[@DestinyHawk]

I am now one of them

[@Realicestorm]

This is such a nice video, so detailed yet decently easy to understand. Well done Nico. You did an amazing job.

[@NicoisLOST]

Thanks. Glad it hit a good balance for you :-]

[@IdentifiantE.S]

@@NicoisLOSTYou’re a genius ! Thanks 😄

[@siggenpaapiggen1879]

We definately need more of these vidoes!

[@ahuman997]

​@@NicoisLOST00000000

[@s66s46]

easy to understand? the other half of the video is very badly explained

[@SRAZKVT]

as someone who worked on EOL, having it called "too perfect" really rings a bell. It was fun and all honestly, but it did make it so that nearly every farm we could do afterwards was just not as good. One of the reasons i stopped playing in new versions, and moved to older versions (1.7 and 1.8), making good farms was just not satisfactory anymore

[@Beefercow]

You reached the limit of the game and inspired so many with your work. Thanks for what your group did!

[@InsufficientYarsago]

I agree, I am trying to figure out ways to create farms in 1.0, I have gunpowder farm (~2 stacks/h) and gold ingot farm (~4stacks/h). It really is satisfaction to see that farm works with such a small amount of features.

[@savannahmavy7064]

Funny seeing you here Sarah :) /s /lh

[@randomthings8732]

you flowers of algernon'd your building.. damn.

[@SnoFitzroy]

I literally cannot imagine playing a version that old. I need my sweeping swords. None of that zero skill spam clicking lol

[@LividImp]

There are always these "the most extreme farm" examples, but by the time you can do that type of thing you don't _really_ need any of it. Even gunpowder and bones have their useful limits. What I want to know is, "what is the most _overall efficient_ farm to build in the beginning of the game when even arrows are considered good loot and not yet thrown away. And when I say "overall efficient", what I mean is effort to build verses returns. Bonus if you manage to include overworld endermen spawning.

[@GewelReal]

4 towers ig

[@figloalds]

I really enjoy a basic chickenator, you get a lot of cooked chicken and feathers You can use the feathers to get emeralds/arrows and the chicken is a decent food source It does require a trip to the nether tho, because of the comparator Now in general the endermen farm in the end is great, put some enchanting tools nearby and you get yourself everything you can possibly need for matters of enchanting: Trivializes a lot of things

[@rendezvous_]

Wow, that's a lot of information. I had no clue that the roof on the tower general mob farm helped with spawning and thought it was there to reduce light levels. Perhaps you could provide a text outline of all these concepts for easier review. Great video, I'm going to have to watch it again to absorb all the information.

[@Jakobus31]

koment

[@dinamiteurdinamiteur2324]

Same, good to know.

[@nikkiofthevalley]

I mean, it's used for that as well, otherwise the mobs wouldn't spawn at all.

[@byLags]

Would you buy the text outline if it were on Patreon?

[@The3gg]

You've very nicely filled Gnembon's math-based approach to farming niche

[@tero6889]

I love it when there are good graphs in a video and your graphs are amazing

[@artix4545]

you will be rich one day

[@CasMcAss]

I didn't know about the elevation checks at all! I always built them as high as possible to make sure that no mobs can spawn outside of the farm (on the ground). This info will actually help me in my builds

[@TheMrPog]

I like the fact Nico is giving us enough details to be able to take this and turn it around and be able to make our own farms to fit our own needs instead of being like "oh heres my farm guys, it may or may not work for your needs"

[@jacobhutchens9364]

I absolutely love how you go into depth on some of these obscure parts of spawning. For a later video, could you go into more detail on how witch/guardian farms differ from these since they aren't able to be expanded/moved

[@melontusk2591]

I love information heavy videos like these, this was a real treat to watch. Thank you!

[@ladyravendale1]

One of my favorite #SoME3 videos so far, it's both some awesome math and genuinely useful! I hope this gets one of the top spots

[@ThatGamerPilot]

What is some3?

[@ladyravendale1]

@@ThatGamerPilot Summer of Math Exposition 3. It’s the third year of an event hosted by 3Blue1Brown to encourage math related content, be it videos, articles, or anything else. At the end a few winners and honorable mentions of the best things produced are announced, as well as winning some prizes. I can’t post links, but just google “summer of math exposition” and you’ll find all the details.

[@impishlyit9780]

This was a SoME3 video?! And here I thought this was just some random Minecraft content, cool stuff.

[@ThatGamerPilot]

@@impishlyit9780 whats some3

[@_bastigaming8338]

Nah 12:22 got my german friend acting out 💀

[@EmdyMC]

Here early because moderator perks :P Got to say I'm getting a lot of nostalgia to Gnembon's videos from this, been a while since he's uploaded but it seems like the torch has been passed to you. Great job as always Nico, really jam packed with info and definitely a good resource for the community.

[@gnembon]

Yeah, what the heck is going on with that guy. Is he even still alive?

[@nuggetplan]

@@gnembonI almost seriously replied saying you are a Mojang dev now before noticing your tag lol

[@GOAT_GOATERSON]

​@@nuggetplanwhat do you mean? That's the real gnembon, right?

[@Codee_]

@@nuggetplansame thing here haha

[@Codee_]

@@gnembonhey gnembon love your videos , I’ve been a fan for a long time, hope you are doing well !

[@gnembon]

Niceeee

[@ImVortex01]

I've been watching a few videos of yours today and I really love the way you explain all the concepts and how much I'm learning from these videos. Honestly, very good content and very good work, it shows that there are hours behind each of your videos

[@sylermurphree7477]

I was gonna say, I wish there was a video explaining exactly how spawns worked with solid blocks above farms, and the non opaque blocks built out around spawning platforms or roofs, and this really just came out just a day later. Cheers

[@jameskoomler3255]

This video and the one you did on iron farms have really helped a lot! The only thing I would like to see now is a video about raid spawns. Love the videos, keep up the good work man!

[@NicoisLOST]

There's endless topics, but it's one I do have an interest it looking into ;-)

[@harnoorsingh1015]

Great video brother, i loved your raid farm. Please don't stop making this type of content

[@feb926]

Your videos are packed with so much education and are calm and nice to watch. Keep it up.

[@yin-fire3263]

Seeing such a detailed videos into the nitty gritty, it's just amazing. This is a great contribution for something not generally talked about in KZbin.

[@theliberator0390]

Saw the iron farm video when it came out and i'm delighted to see you're analyzing more farms. Keep it up !

[@nodrogkram]

This is very comprehensive, and is presented and explained perfectly. Thank you and well done 👍

[@Some_Awe]

i really like how you showed the farms at the start before we knew anything and then at the end again :) And its even more amazing to see it work so efficiently :) wouldve liked to see the end points of the portal kills

[@nathanielcarlosruiz3397]

este es el unico video que e encontrado en todo google asi de completo y bien oredenado, llevo 2 años tratando de entender todo, muchas gracias

[@KuryKat]

Although I understand the needs of clickbaits... cause of the KZbin algorithm... I honestly dislike fake ones... I didn't see any mention to the HUGE number on the Thumbnail...

[@colorfuk1688]

It literally is just EoL spawn rates 70 per 2 ticks, 72000 ticks an hour, equating to 2,520,000 mobs an hour just basic math

[@maxlin5998]

I love the scientific and engineering approach you’ve brought to a block game, really shows the importance of these methods! A quick bit of feedback to improve your videos: I noticed what sounded like artifacts of aggressive noise reduction or smth where the quieter bits of your voice are getting cut out. (Ex “spawn attem…”). There are tools where you can feed some sample noise to a reducer noise reducer and it’ll match it well, better than what sounds like a gain cutoff. If that’s not it, then idk, treat this as a bug report 😂

[@WillyBotson]

This guy needs his PhD in Minecraft awarded already. He has greatly expanded the knowledge about Minecraft.

[@krzysztofturant4886]

Love all technical vids the amount of information and math is do useful you definitely need more Reach on the community keep up the work

[@kylewhite5695]

This is really good, some of the best technical Minecraft content out there

[@madsromlund3835]

Hey, love the vid so far! Ive noticed that your mic has these short cutouts that makes your voice sound robotic, ive had a simular issue. I fixed it by getting another noice filter, but it might be a background noice remover, im not sure. It could allso be a noise gate, or noise limiter thats causing the issue, but i thought id throw in this info, to hwlp fogure out whats causing it! Took me a little while too 😁 Great vid!! Very technical but its awesome! 😊

[@madefromtrash4655]

This is genuinely one of the best videos i’ve seen in years, I really hope this blows up. The world needs more people who can focus on something to this level with this level of dedication. only after creating research based videos could i fully understand how much work goes into something like this. good work lol ❤

[@herzogheftig1479]

Such a great video! Really well put together and explained. Never learned that much about mob spawns in one vid before👍🏻🙏

[@0wl0fth3nil3]

You're clearly super duper passionate about the vids you’re making, it really shows. You start off with a list of learning goals, and I've literally never seen a channel doing explanation/tutorial stuff have such a genuine and driven goal to actually instill an *understanding* of these base concepts rather than simply explaining the actions happening onscreen as they happen. Super high quality videos, keep up the good work!

[@lumberwand]

Glad to see Methodzz and Stromne's farm designs showcased here. They are personal friends of mine and know that they work hard to produce interesting and efficient farms. Keep up the good work!

[@N0ark.]

As soon as I saw this I clicked, I have recently fallen in love with the spawning algorithms, and I have been researching everything I can to make the most efficient designs I can possibly make, while still being vanilla compliant. Thank you for the new source of information.

[@NicoisLOST]

Awesome, glad it was helpful :-]

[@N0ark.]

@NicoisLOST yes, thank you, with confirmation of some features regarding pack spawning and the height map I have proudly designed a Guardian farm (singleplayer) that not only rivals the guardian gusher from raysworks but shows a 21.2% increase in drops. (Both were tested for at least 24 hours in a double monument setup, and sliced portals were used to prevent pigmen spawning in both designs during testing, though I plan to keep my sliced portals)

[@N0ark.]

However one thing I'm not 100% on is the guardian pack size, since when I boost my spawn rates to ~ 300 (to look for potential improvements and mishaps) I see big clumps of guardians spawning in groups way over 4.

[@fracazer]

Amazing video, with a lot of helpful information. Cleared of lot of obscure point I wasn't totally sure about when making farms.

[@Script_Plays]

This was amazing! Thank you for throwing it all together!

[@chibi5694]

I love your videos. Keep the good work

[@sebbes333]

*@Nico is LOST* 32:01 Would it be better to stagger the activation of the water-flow? The idea is that at least one platform is always available to spawn on, so it removes "dead time" where all platforms are flooded & no spawns can happen, or is this bad somehow?

[@ottlight]

for the regular design it makes little difference due to not hitting the mobcap however it would be better to increase availability IF the mobcap is hit when available AND it is not hit when not available. TLDR: L if the mobcap is maxxed 0% of the time or 100% of the time it makes a no difference, else then it might make a difference

[@ottlight]

he says in the video theres an average of >69 mobs per tick so thats basically 100% filled. so it would make no difference

[@maxwellli7057]

It makes little difference, and it's more convenient for the "off" state of the farm to have totally flooded platforms

[@hurotowel6539]

I love your presentation style! The emphasis on pack spawning was definitely the highlight for me

[@Anercomp]

Thanks for taking the time to get into this in detail

[@dashdartfun]

This is a great video and the mobs in my world are going to get farmed probably just as inefficiently because I cant make good mob farms.

[@sim2769]

I love how you put a normal gold farm next to eol in the start

[@Melancholic_Fox]

this is easily one of the best channels on youtube for this stuff. i cant believe you only have 50k subs, you totally deserve 1mil+

[@lemonbread378]

youve certainly achieved your goal of a solid intro now i know why all those farms have the freaking giant roof i always assumed it was for light level reasons also watching the spawn probability simulation was super satisfying, especially whe ln you showed that when tiled it evens out an amazing video all in all, cant wait to see more from ya!

[@jfht318]

For anyone confused on the pack spawning roof explanation , let me try to connect the dots a bit better. Withought the pack spawn roof, the air blocks around the sides of the platforms would not be considered valid pack spawn origins as the height map is currently set to the grass blocks below those air blocks . When we build the roof , the airblocks now have something above them and therefore the heightmaps for those columns with the airblocks is now raised. Hence, those airblocks are now valid pack spawn origins and they can result in something spawning on the platforms even with an airblock origin.

[@defaultnano]

32:30 do you think offsetting the water on different sections could increase the farm’s efficiency more? i’m not sure how to explain it but i feel that having two sections with opposite water timings would make the farm faster

[@seralpa]

That is a lot of information explained and condensed in a very clear way. To me, the highlight are the graphs and empirical test to show how much of a difference optimizations make. Amazing job!

[@andykohler2865]

A fascinating journey into mob spawning mechanics. I lost track of time while watching, really engrossing. Very well done!

[@Assassinsahab]

I am surprised how good the minecraft videos on #SoMe3 are great deepdive both for mc nerds like us and math people !

[@ihatealanfitch7718]

12:10 🙂 12:20 👀 12:29 🙂 On a real note tho… love this video and how in depth it goes.. can’t wait to get home next week and put this all to the test 🔥

[@exactlyonesasquatch2572]

Got part of the way into the video very impressed and gave a like. Got the the end of the video blown away and subscribed ;)

[@z4pp820]

awesome video, highly enjoy when minecraft videos delve into some math. i'd highly recommend setting the gate release time on your mic to be a little longer, since it seems to be ducking very quickly resulting some consonant sounds disappearing.

[@Squilly4]

i've been super into technical minecraft stuff for like 3 years, and this video was so helpful! One of the things I've been struggling to understand was the Heightmap and some aspects of Pack Spawning, both of which I have a much better understanding of because of this video. Thank you so much!

[@NicoisLOST]

Glad it helped!

[@carpenterxl5999]

you made this really easy to understand. thank you so much. that's a sub for me. keep em coming.

[@martontoth2365]

Thank you! I really needed this!

[@notsureifimollie359]

this is such an amazing video dude, your hard work shows ❤️

[@redbot1233]

This video has so much effort put in it and because of that it’s super informative! I learned so much, you really should have more subs.

[@NicoisLOST]

Thank you :-]

[@WONDERGAMER9947]

Great video, keep up the great content. Amazing effort was put into this video

[@YourNeighborNat]

Thanks for the info, and all the effort put forth to gather and present it. :)

[@socarrrr]

Great work man !

[@BlackHeartScyther]

This is super detailed, exactly what ive been looking for as a technical minecrafter. Keep up the good work!

[@viewyevening8719]

That was really interesting and entertaining, thank you

[@sepplschpeedruns281]

This is awesome. I honestly didn't think I was going to learn anything since I am quite familiar with the "mobspawning system" but boy was I wrong. Such a great Video, thanks for the amazing work!

[@neonphoenix5661]

This honestly helped me fix the farm that i designed for my server. Thank you so so much!

[@sysco2k5]

Thanx for all your work! Pretty informative Video for the topic of Mob-Spawning and Mob-Farming in Minecraft.

[@I3ashor]

amazingly condensed and illustrated information, thanks alot and bravo! this should be the goto if s1 asks about mob spawning in minecraft

[@baum851]

Thank you for your hard work you are really one of the best youtubers that I know. Keep it up

[@calvindang7291]

Aha, finally a good explanation on why you want a roof. I was never sure about that part.

[@justinpockrus3588]

Love all your videos. Thank you.

[@JusTryNc]

Good stuff man! It’s much appreciated

[@theflyingfool]

A superb video thank you Nico!!

[@michaeleaster1690]

Very fascinating and helpful!!!

[@B_Skizzle]

This is an excellent breakdown! I knew a few basic things about spawning/despawning already (mostly just the ranges) but now I feel like I have a good enough understanding to build my own farms. Oh, and you’re probably already aware of this, but I noticed some audio issues with the ends of words like "ticks" and "blocks" getting cut off. Something to do with your mic, maybe?

[@exoneratedgaming4393]

Amazing content in every single video. Great work!

[@SuperLlama88888]

Wow!!! This is a great video! Great investigation and work!

[@JohannTheBotha]

Fantastic video on the topic! I have watched many and this one explains it really well ❤

[@JohannTheBotha]

No you CANNOT make method's farm a general mob farm. Baby zombies... The performance dies in 10 seconds flat... I tried it....😅

[@JohannTheBotha]

Aside from that, this is the best video on the Internet on the topic and frankly you inspired me. Mob farm design in progress

[@aivibez7144]

Thanks for the lesson! I appreciate you!!

[@treechickens1232]

Great vid! Very well detailed

[@Fauxvale]

Fantastic video! Wish I'd seen it sooner. Clean editing, well explained with helpful and engaging graphics. Thank you so much, 10/10

[@alexpare4518]

Your channel deserves way more attention

[@epicman1470]

i love how these videos allow for us to know what other creators look for when creating a new mob farm style

[@ninethousand2b]

Great video! Very informative!

[@genericgamer2003]

This was an awesome video! Definitely got my like, comment, and subscription haha.

[@teefreeze50]

Nice Video! I love the math. I hope ypu blow up and get big and keep on this videos!!! And I appreciate the work behind this video

[@hanrecoetzer428]

Such a great video! Thank you!

[@cmorris7104]

Great vid. Always amazed by your dedication

[@trym309]

Good job, thanks for explaining and teaching us this information ❤

[@oONice1Oo]

Damn awesome video, thank you for your Work!

[@theothertored]

thanks for the illustration of how pack spawning works, very informative video and pleasant to watch too

[@thebonecrusher5017]

Nice Work Nico, Good Luck On Future Video's. :)

[@Ogur4ik.Pickle]

This is just the thing I needed, thank you a lot

[@dimittrikovk2]

This is such an informative video, thank you!!!

[@justpeachels]

this explanation makes me want to design my own farms now that i know what to look out for. great video!!

[@Calypt0]

Thank you for putting in so much work into these videos. Compared to your last video, the beginnings and endings of when you speak get cut off. Did you add a noise gate or noise filter that's too aggressive?

[@NicoisLOST]

Yeah it was a recording error. I struggle with the audio part but am aware and working to correct it (with prof help). Thanks though :-].

[@ajaxdossd948]

as soon as I saw the graphs, I liked the video. Incredible job!

[@michaelip5067]

Love these max efficiency farm vids dude