Talk:Tutorials/Drowned farming

Getting tridents
But Drowned that have been generated from drowning zombies have 0% chance of generating with Tridents. Only naturally generated Drowned will have Tridents. 59.149.187.125 08:34, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
 * Really? Then explain to me why I am getting a trident from the farm now and then. Amatulic (talk) 08:42, 23 September 2018 (UTC)
 * I see the problem. I have clarified that the farm produces tridents in the Bedrock edition, which by now would be the largest installed base. Even in 2012 the mobile versions (which became Bedrock) accounted for over 2/3 of new installations. Amatulic (talk) 09:00, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Reversion of rewrite
The point of this page is to present a basic drowned farm that can be built in survival mode. I had to revert the massive changes made to this page by User:Gregatron6000 because they created disorganization and in some cases imparted incorrect information. For example: Overall, I disagree with the editorial commentary being added about the utility of dropped items, detracting from the context of a zombie/drowned farm. We have articles on those subjects. Additionally, the lead section was reduced to a single sentence and failed to introduce the topic properly.
 * While drowned drops gold occasionally, it is far from an "easily renewable resource".
 * It is not easier to "craft and enchant" a fishing rod yourself, rather than acquire one by farming (or fishing), particularly since an enchantment table requires diamond and obsidian, and a drowned farm can be built long before a player gets to the point of acquiring diamonds.
 * A drowned zombie doesn't drop tridents in Java edition (see section above), so the bedrock-only tag shouldn't have been removed.
 * A trident doesn't "function much better than bows". They function differently. And using as a ranged weapon without the loyalty enchantment is worse than a bow.
 * Underwater designs are generally not practical for survival-mode farms. Describing complex designs up front doesn't serve the purpose of a tutorial.

On the other hand, there were some very good parts to the changes, which I have fully incorporated into the tutorial while expanding the original structure. The YouTube videos are great examples. ~Amatulić (talk) 03:40, 24 October 2018 (UTC)


 * It is clear from this that we have different views on what tutorials should be. I write tutorials that show the mechanics behind various contraptions so that other players can develop their own designs. It is also clear that I did not do my homework, and I appreciate the fact that you pointed it out before I could do any more harm.


 * The reason for my rewrite is because the page was showcasing one particular Bedrock Edition drowned farm that could yield tridents. I thought it was unfair that most of the page is dedicated to one design that only works in one edition. Again, it’s a difference in style.


 * As for the fact that underwater designs are impractical in Survival - conduits make their construction millions of times easier and they are surprisingly easy to obtain.


 * On the subject of the “Bedrock only” tag, I stated it in words because I have an extremely limited understanding of how tags work.


 * Gregatron6000 (talk) 07:29, 24 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your reply. In my view, a tutorial is a "how to" guide. Your revision had reduced it to general information about mechanics. That's helpful information to have, but having only that doesn't actually tutor someone on how to build a farm.
 * A lot of kids play Minecraft, not just adults. While general information such as you added (and which I retained in the current revision) is useful to a kid, someone like my 9-year old benefits more from reading detailed advice about an actual example. Kids are pretty imaginative; understanding how to build one thing often leads to the kid inventing creative variations.


 * Thinking about it some more, I imagine a farm tutorial would ideally be structured like this:
 * Lead paragraph giving an overview and purpose
 * Description of mechanics, including differences between Minecraft editions
 * Detailed description of the most basic farm that can be built without cheats, and with minimal resources, in survival mode.
 * Multiple subsections may be needed for different Minecraft editions if necessary. That isn't the case in this tutorial if you just want general zombie loot, but if you specifically want tridents, you do need a different farm than the example I provided, and it would be great to have a minimal no-cheat survival-build example for Java edition if such a thing exists.
 * The description would include considerations like location, preparation, materials needed, and a diagram, similar to what I did here.
 * Examples of more elaborate farms that may require creative mode, with Youtube links etc.
 * None of the tutorials on this site have that structure. Do you have thoughts about how a farm tutorial should be structured?


 * For my part, I find that other farm articles over-emphasize builds that are impractical in survival mode. Describing a survival-mode build is critical, in my opinion &mdash; after all, if you're going to enable cheats and build a farm in creative, that's great for coming up with fancy contraptions but it sort of defeats the point of survival mode. So I've been trying to balance that in the few works I've done here, such as this tutorial, Tutorials/Turtle farming, and the second example ("Survival build") in Tutorials/Iron golem farming. All of my survival-build tutorials show farms that my son and I have actually built and tested in survival mode without cheats. There are lessons learned doing this in survival that need to be conveyed in a tutorial; lessons that don't arise in creative mode. That said, I agree with you that my instructions may have too much detail, and I have already reduced the preparation section with this in mind.


 * Most of these farm articles could use restructuring and a shift in emphasis. Your attempt at rewriting this one gave me ideas for improvements, which I appreciate. ~Amatulić (talk) 17:09, 24 October 2018 (UTC)


 * I agree that most of the farm tutorials need to be reorganized. Your outline sounds very good and I am intrigued to see what comes out. It seems most farm tutorials are dedicated to showing how to build specific designs rather than showing mechanics. I end up writing tutorials that are the exact opposite - they overemphasize mechanics and only briefly mention designs. I think the balance depends on the tutorial - iron golem farms for example are ridiculously complicated to explain (I am currently trying to develop one and there aren’t many more hairs I can pull), but can be relatively simple to build. Your proposal has the best balance I have seen. The key is ensuring that tutorials are applicable to both Editions where possible.


 * For Survival purposes, it might be a good idea to add a main section about building in Survival. For example, if a farm is mostly underwater, what materials would be needed to avoid death?


 * Gregatron6000 (talk) 05:59, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Java survival build?
I'm all in favor of describing basic mechanics (update: today 10/26 I re-added the section on Machanics).

I'd like to reorganize this tutorial to include a survival build for Java edition, but I'm drawing a blank how to do it. The underwater builds require things like a villager. I can sort of imagine how I'd get a villager into an underwater room, but it would take ages of hazardous construction... just to get a trident? Could a sea turtle egg be used as bait instead? At lest then all you need is a tool with silk touch to get the egg. ~Amatulić (talk) 21:44, 25 October 2018 (UTC)


 * Turtle eggs can be unreliable. It seems that everything related to tridents in Java is a “go big or go home” situation. I personally have built a drowned farm in my Survival world, but it’s a world that I have been working on for about a year and a half. From what I have read and tested, there is no such thing as a “beginner’s trident farm” for Java.


 * Gregatron6000 (talk) 23:29, 25 October 2018 (UTC)


 * How are turtle eggs unreliable? Or are they unreliable in Java? In Bedrock, drowned will leave the water to trample on turtle eggs. It might be possible to build a drowned farm on land using turtle eggs placed on a non-sand block so they don't hatch, with a path to the eggs available only from the water.


 * Such a farm would work only at night, and it may not be a high-production thing, but it might work as a beginner survival-mode farm for naturally-spawned drowned.


 * Come to think of it, it would be even easier to put a villager in such a farm for bait. Or the player could be the bait, standing in the attraction spot, watching drowned come close and get funneled away, and then when 3 or 4 of them are in the holding area, kill them. ~Amatulić (talk) 19:17, 26 October 2018 (UTC)


 * OK, I tried this in creative, and it seems to sort of work. It has promise as a basic survival-mode naturally-spawned drowned farm for Java edition. The idea here is to farm the drowned on your turf, make them come up on land instead of you going down into the water.


 * I created a river running parallel to the beach, 2 blocks wide, spilling into a hole the width of the river and 4 blocks deep. The bottom of the hole had signs to hold up the water. Near to the hole, I put turtle eggs on the shore of the river away from the beach (putting the eggs on a block of dirt instead of sand so they don't hatch) and built fences and rock structure to ensure that the only way to the eggs is from the ocean and across my flowing river. Then I dug a tunnel to the bottom of the hole and built a trap room similar to that shown in the diagram in this article, only without hoppers.


 * Then at night, I placed a test subject (drowned egg) in the ocean near the beach. Sure enough, the drowned went for the turtle eggs. When it stepped in my river, it got pushed toward the hole v-e-r-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y because it was fighting the current to get to the egg. Eventually it fell down the hole but it took a long time. I might have had to give it a push. At that point, I could go into my underground room and see the drowned with its legs exposed to me next to the signs and head still in the water. Then I could whack its legs with a sword.


 * This was a contrived test. I still have to see if the naturally occurring drowned are attracted to the turtle eggs. One could even use a villager... it's far easier to transport a villager to another spot on land than to someplace under the ocean.


 * Possibly also, if I built a big wide roof extending out over the ocean to darken the path to the bait, the drowned might even be willing to come up during the day. Another thing to try is have the river sweep the drowned toward the bait so it isn't fighting the current, and right before it reaches the bait, the drowned passes over a pressure plate that opens a trapdoor to make the drowned fall into a hole just before reaching the bait.


 * I'd also like to know if this works in Java edition. The river current is just barely enough to carry the drowned trying to walk against it. If Java edition gives the drowned the slightest bit of extra walking speed, this farm won't work. But if it does, it's an easy way to trap the drowned in Java edition without needing to embark on a huge underwater undertaking. ~Amatulić (talk) 01:14, 27 October 2018 (UTC)

Zombie and Drowned Sorting
I wasn't sure where to put this really, but I noticed in the process of building a Zombie/Drowned filter that Drowned can 'walk' up a single block while underwater, while Zombies get stuck behind it. I used this concept on a Zombie Spawner to convert Zombie into Drowned then allow them to walk up single blocks into a campfire grinder. Does anyone think this is worth adding a section on?

Bobaicecream (talk) 12:54, 8 October 2020 (UTC)


 * As the primary author of this article, I think your variation is interesting and worth including. My focus here was to describe farms that can be reasonably created in survival mode without exotic materials. Would you describe yours further? Amatulic (talk) 15:22, 8 October 2020 (UTC)


 * Sure, I was looking for a way to exploit Zombie/Drowned pathfinding differences to filter them before sending them to a grinder, and I noticed that Zombies attempt to "jump" in order to climb one block in water (and often fail to make the jump), while Drowned simply "step" up the one block gap not unlike horses do out of water. My initial design for the filter into which Zombies are funneled is three blocks wide and consists of a three-block-deep pool (it currently has source blocks only at the top layer) with a one-block-high lip (or in other words, a two-block-deep exit, no source blocks above, only flowing water).


 * I initially tested it with spawn eggs and a partially lit Zombie Spawner, and it seemed to work well, but currently attempting to implement in a Zombie Spawner causes some Zombies to be pushed up over the lip by the volume of spawns before they can convert to Drowned, so I'm still fine-tuning it. I apologize for initially overstating my success somewhat. I was a bit too excited and failed to test it more robustly. I'll also note their pathfinding seems to be somewhat ambivalent towards the player at times, which slows the flow of mobs through the filter. Maybe I have to stand in a water source block? Unsure.


 * Also, I'm working in 1.16.3 Java and switching between a creative world and multiplayer survival. Bobaicecream (talk) 16:51, 8 October 2020 (UTC)


 * In my experience, drowned in water don't pathfind to a player on land during the daytime unless the player has provoked the drowned, or the drowned has a safe way to get out of the water due to shade from trees or structures. If your funnel is already indoors, I'm not sure why the drowned don't go for you. I've been intrigued by the idea of using myself as bait in a drowned farm, although this is risky if a drowned spawns with a trident due to the repeated ranged attacks the drowned can make. That's a risk only for naturally-spawned drowned, though. Converted drowned don't have tridents.


 * A zombie spawner in Java doesn't allow more than 6 zombies to exist in a 9x9x9 volume centered on the spawner, so if your trap is directly underneath, it should be inside that volume and limit the number of zombies you must contend with. Once they convert to drowned, or leave the 9x9x9 volume, more zombies get spawned until the volume zombie cap is reached. Also, I seem to get more in my trap if some of them spawn as zombie villagers or baby zombies. The spawner's volume is bigger in Bedrock.


 * I have also noticed that zombies and drowned can occupy the same space but generally avoid it, causing newly spawned mobs to push existing mobs out of the way. A clever arrangement of funnel size versus spawn volume might help limit the zombies being pushed up over the step.


 * If you get the filter to work, it would be worth having a section on it in this article. One of the weaknesses of the design I described is that it's best with 3 or more hoppers, to let the drowned spread out. A drowning chamber 3 hoppers wide is sufficient, but occasionally I hit an un-drowned zombie with my sword if it gets too crowded. A way to filter them, if it allows reduction of the hoppers required (iron is precious if you don't have an iron farm), would be a good addition. Amatulic (talk) 17:58, 8 October 2020 (UTC)


 * My intent in making the filter was mostly so that I could just put them on a campfire afterwards to assist without worrying about whether the Zombies had finished converting. I used to use a Soul Sand bubble column to cram Zombies into a 1x2x1 space with a one-block outlet to carry the items over a hopper, but it required me to manually (or set up a clock to) operate a gate and wait for a batch of Zombies to drown, which I wanted to change.


 * The filter is indeed outside the 9x9 volume to increase spawn rates. After observing it some more, I've found that most of the time the Zombies won't try to jump if water isn't pushing them into the lip and you aren't moving, but the Drowned will still be pushed up and over the lip. I'm still not sure why the Drowned sometimes seem reluctant to walk off the lip to their deaths, but they do all eventually get pushed off by the flow of mobs. Once they exit the filter, they can probably be dropped into a smaller 1x1 hole with a single hopper. I'd like to see if others get the same results first, since it seems like a simple design, but it also seems like there's some nuance to whether it'll work consistently?


 * Sorry if I'm not supposed to add schematics to the talk page. Bobaicecream (talk) 20:32, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

No problem with schematics on talk pages.

It seems to me that the drowned are reluctant to step off the lip because the drop is too steep; I think they prefer a 1-block down-step over a 2-block down-step, and the 1-block step is behind them, not ahead. You need to put an open trapdoor there, which the drowned see as closed, so it looks like a continuous surface to them. They step on the open trapdoor (encouraged in that direction by the flowing water in the top layer) and fall through. I suggest the modification to the trap area in the schematic on the left. Amatulic (talk) 22:28, 8 October 2020 (UTC)


 * The Drowned still occasionally choose to walk away from the drop, which suggests to me that it's some other aspect of their behavior, but it's difficult to test an issue of consistency as it seems to work reasonably well with or without trapdoors - it just occasionally gets clogged because some Drowned choose to swim against the flow. I think it may have to do with a reluctance to leave the body of water, as removing the drop entirely and just replacing it with flat ground with a clear path to my position still sees some Drowned trying to walk back into the stream.


 * Interestingly, I've noticed that when they do fall down the drop and there isn't a way to path to me, they'll attempt to path back into the water, even a different body of water. This could potentially be exploited if it is found to be consistent (and they walk pretty fast, too), and it seems not unlike their daytime behavior (as far as I've read on this wiki anyways) despite being in a cave at around 30 height. The water flowing above the drop might also be away to address that behavior, but I've noticed it also has a tendency to cause the Drowned to float without dropping, so it needs more investigation. It's also interesting to note that placing the trapdoors causes the Zombies to jump more frequently, likely because they also see it as an opportunity to path to the player. Bobaicecream (talk) 00:56, 9 October 2020 (UTC)


 * On initial testing in creative, it seems like the daytime tracking for water is active even if I enclose them in a stone box, and light level also has no effect. The pathfinding range is up to 9 blocks away and 4 blocks below the block they're standing on. They'll attempt to get as close as possible to water if they can't actually get into water. Possibly exploitable for a river biome farm in the sky if lacking turtle eggs or villager transportation. Bobaicecream (talk) 15:01, 9 October 2020 (UTC)


 * I wonder if, instead of putting a sign there at the drowned's feet, you just let the water fall into the drop, putting a sign at the bottom to stop the flow? Maybe the drowned are hesitant to step into a space not covered in water.
 * In the aerial platform farm described in this article, I have noticed when I switch to creative mode and peek into the spawning platform, that the drowned (and also fish that spawn there) tend to face upstream most of the time, resisting the flow of water into the first drop hole, but no water is actually flowing into the hole. Maybe if water flows into the drop, that might encourage them. Amatulic (talk) 00:20, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Is this up to date?
Does the aerial platform method still work in 1.16? It doesn't help that that section has no images with it, either. --73.67.178.233 08:25, 7 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Yes, it's definitely up to date. I built that farm in 1.16 and wrote that part of this article. I still need to get around to uploading the pictures. Unfortunately, the computer on which I was playing Bedrock for Windows 10 died for good 3 days ago. I have a backup of my world but no computer to run it on (I'm typing this message on a Mac). Amatulic (talk) 08:42, 7 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Ah, thanks for the clarification. Well it's possible that your farm only works for Bedrock Edition then, because I'm on Java. There might be more restriction on where Drowned can spawn. Then again, I may have just done something wrong. --73.67.178.233 08:54, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Hmm. I don't know anything that would prevent it from working in Java. The farm relies on the water-covered glass roof to induce spawning in the space below the roof. I had read or heard that mechanism is supposed to work in both bedrock and java. The roof has to be high enough above the floor to be sufficiently dark for drowned to spawn.
 * On youtube I found a java aerial farm built over a river biome: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwhMrE94SFQ - short but informative video. Amatulic (talk) 10:13, 7 November 2020 (UTC)


 * Update: After nearly a year I finally got around to adding pictures of my aerial survival-mode drowned farm that produces tridents. I switched it over to creative to take pictures.
 * I still would like to know if the feature of drowned spawning under a glass-bottomed pool of water works in Java Edition. The trick is that the flowing-water spawning surface below the pool has to be far enough below to make the spawning surface dark enough. If anyone tries it out, remember the kill platform needs to be isolated from the world at least 128 blocks in the air. Amatulic (talk) 06:48, 20 May 2021 (UTC)

Aerial farm for Java
In the Aerial farm section, it says "In Java Edition, two layers of water may be needed for the platform to spawn drowned."

This statement isn't very helpful, and seems speculative. Does anybody know for sure if this works in Java? If so, HOW does one build the two layers of water? With glass between them, or signs, or what?


 * Hi, I wrote most of this tutorial and built these farms in Bedrock survival. Yes it's speculative. I don't have Java Edition. I've been hoping someone who knows the spawning mechanics in Java Edition could suggest a change so that this aerial farm works in Java also. The only thing that would need to change is the spawning room.
 * I think two changes are needed for Java Edition: Two layers of water are required for drowned to spawn, and the ceiling should be opaque. Based on what I have read, a layer of water blocks on a glass ceiling does not attenuate light as it propagates beyond the water like in Bedrock Edition, it just attenuates light once as light passes through the water.
 * So the platform would need to contrive a way to have one still layer and a flowing layer of water above it, while still leaving a hole in the center. It could be done with signs.
 * I assume that Java Edition has no elevation restriction like drowned can spawn only below layer 63 or something.
 * I also assume that a drowned would be pushed by a top layer of flowing water. However, it is possible that baby drowned would accumulate in the bottom non-flowing layer. Amatulic (talk) 23:50, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * OK, thank you. I will try to tackle the two-layer problem and see if I can come up with a way to make it work. It could take me a while, though. I'll report back if I figure anything out. SirDaddicus (talk) 18:28, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * It is also possible that drowned spawn only in water that is exposed to the sky. In that case making an opaque ceiling would not work (and does not work in Bedrock either). It might be that a glass ceiling with 8 layers of water are needed to provide adequate darkness. Does light get darker as you dive down deeper? If not, then layers of water separated by glass might be needed to provide enough light attenuation. And with 8 layers of water in the ceiling, possibly 1 layer of flowing water in the room is still enough because the drowned are still spawning under a lot of water. Amatulic (talk) 13:38, 24 September 2021 (UTC)


 * I think I found a better way, although it requires more resources. I built up higher, high enough to allow fifteen blocks between the surface of the water and the spawning area, and then some more blocks below that for the drowned to actually spawn in. (Fifteen blocks was chosen in anticipation for the change coming in 1.18 requiring light level zero.)


 * I put a single layer of water source blocks at the top, a wall around the top (to keep them from climbing out), walls around the sides (to keep light out), and signs at the bottom (to stop the downward flowing water). I made a twenty-block layer of air under the signs (for falling damage), and then built my killing chamber four blocks below that. This seems to work.


 * The only drawback is that the killing chamber/AFK area has to be so high that the whole thing stretches to over 220 blocks, putting a crimp on aesthetics, to say the least. I'm working on making it better-looking. :) SirDaddicus (talk) 14:27, 11 October 2021 (UTC)


 * Cool. It shouldn't need to be that tall though. Your description is hard to visualize. Are the drowned spawning on top of signs?
 * I am thinking your spawning chamber could be 2x2, with 17 layers of water (two at the bottom to spawn in, one at the top flowing down to those at the bottom) with signs at the bottom. Your bottom layer would therefore need to be only 128 blocks from the surface, or even less if you build over a deep ocean, so the top of the farm wouldn't need to be higher than 140 (approximately). Your killing platform can be about 20 blocks below the bottom. I would still let the drowned first fall into a funnel (as in the aerial farm design) going into a drop chute so that you need only one hopper on the killing platform.
 * Do you have a picture? If that works, it would probably work in Bedrock too, and I can change this farm design. I never liked having to build a huge room way up in the air. Amatulic (talk) 16:57, 11 October 2021 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's way up there. Since the mob cap is in a 128-block sphere, it really should be way up there. But, you're right that it doesn't have to be a huge block. Minimum would be 2x2x17. But, I found the more columns of water there are (over the river), the more drowned spawn. Spawn rate is higher at night, because then the top 8 blocks are lightless, but even during the day they spawn.

I also plan on using the surface, during the day, for fishing. Double-duty. :)

Yeah, I'm using signs at the bottom, with a layer of water source blocks at the top.

For aesthetics, I intend to build a tower around it, possibly looking like Sauron's Tower in the Lord of the Rings movies. SirDaddicus (talk) 00:37, 23 October 2021 (UTC)