The 'Drowning Trap' is a device that facilitates players in obtaining dropped objects. In this tutorial, we will introduce three types of drowning traps and explain their principles.
Before choosing the drowning trap you want to build, it is recommended to refer to your game version and the required drops. In most cases, it is recommended to manually execute drowning or zombies to obtain rare dropped objects.
Dungeon style drowning farm
The Dungeon Drowning Farm is based on [Tutorial/Brush Monster Cage Trap | Zombie Brush Monster Cage Trap] and can be easily built in survival mode. Although it does not produce the Trident (nor does it produce the Nautilus Shell [Java Edition only]), if you only want experience, tools, armor, and occasional weapons with interesting enchantments, this monster tower is also very useful.
Principle
This farm utilizes the characteristic of [zombies] being soaked in water to transform into drowning zombies. Zombies are generated through [zombie brush cage], and then the zombies produced by the brush cage are converted into drowning zombies.
Product
In addition to [Drowning Corpse # Dropped Objects | Drowning Corpse Dropped Objects], this device also generates [Zombie # Dropped Objects | Zombie Dropped Objects].
in Java Edition This device does not produce drowning trident and parrot shell.
in Bedrock Edition This device will produce a parrot snail shell, but it does not have a trident (since [bedrock version 1.16.0], drowning zombies transformed from zombies will no longer drop tridents).
Required materials
- Zombie Brush Monster Cage
- [Water]
- [Billboard]
- Torch
- Building blocks
- Armor, weapons, picks
- Optional
- Funnel and box (collecting items)
- Glass (observing the interior)
Construction
The illustration on the right shows a side view of a basic survival-mode drowned farm, showing the dungeon above and the trap / collection room below.
Start Trap
Finally, return to the room where the monster cage was painted. Remove the torch from the brush cage to activate the device. Be careful not to be washed down by the water, otherwise you will personally experience the fate of the zombies. In fact, the step of placing water flow can be completed at the end.
- Place two buckets of water, one in the corner opposite the entrance, completely covering the room and pushing you towards the entrance. If you expand the room so that water cannot fully cover it, you may need to place additional water on the walls or construct structures in the corners to allow water to cover a larger area. Stand anywhere in the room and push into the center of the entrance wall.
- Stand at the starting point of the entrance and step out of the water to prevent drowning. Dig out the floor in the center of the wall and allow water to flow into the passage of the collection room, covering the entire room.
- After destroying the torch next to the brush monster cage, quickly leave the room. You can seal the room with [glass] as shown in the picture to observe the interior of the dungeon.
- If there are no zombies generated, the lighting level is too high and the arrangement of torches outside the room should be adjusted accordingly
Start operation
[File: Drownedarm. jpg | thumb | right | The drowning trap that started operating as described above contains a drowning corpse and a zombie that has not yet drowned. The concave area with rounded stone steps on the floor provides players with a favorable position to attack their legs]]
When the zombie falls into the water trap channel in the collection room, its head will wander back and forth in the water channel at the top of the funnel. After being submerged for 30 seconds, the zombie began to drown and trembled for 15 seconds before changing color. Through the glass, it can be seen that its pants have changed from blue to green, and its eyes have also turned blue.
When the legs of the drowning corpse are in front of you, attack their legs. The experience ball will fly towards you, and the dropped object from the drowning corpse will fall into the funnel and finally enter the box (if there is no funnel, the dropped object will hit you when you are close enough). [Nautilus shell] [Bedrock Edition only], as well as [copper ingot], armor (leather, gold, chain, usually with [enchantment]]), [carrion], and other items will appear in your box together.
Due to the non stackability of weapons and armor, the box quickly fills up. You need a garbage disposal hole to dispose of unwanted items, which will disappear in a few minutes. You can repair damaged armor and weapons in the [workbench] to save space in the box.
[File: Drownedfarm_spawner. jpg | thumb | right | After crossing the creature limit, a monster house full of monsters will be cleaned up]
[File: Drownedarm_drowner. jpg | thumb | right | After bypassing the creature limit, execute a large number of drowning and zombies on the platform.]]
Occasionally, juvenile zombies may appear, but they are too short to drown. The round stone steps under the glass can prevent them from escaping, but if you get too close, they can still attack from below. Zombie villagers occasionally generate and do not drown, killing them immediately.
Ensure that the drowning trap is at 9x
- Only after filling the channel with water, place the hoppers under each sign, pointing toward the chest at the end of the line. Be outside the channel before you install the hoppers, lest you end up drowning yourself.
- Hoppers are needed only to collect drops and move them into the chest.
- If you can't afford hoppers (due to the amount of iron required), you can use stone blocks. In this case, just dig a 1-block trench next to these stone blocks so that you can fit underneath the overhead slabs, to get close enough to the dropped items to collect them yourself.
- Place slabs underneath the glass to create a half-block high space, enough for you to swing a sword at the drowned's legs, but not enough for baby zombies to slip through.
Start the farm
Finally, go back into the dungeon above.
- Place two water blocks, one at each corner opposite your entrance opening. The water should completely fill the room, sweeping you toward the entrance. If you have expanded the room and the water doesn't cover the whole floor, you may need an additional water block on each side wall, or build a stone structure in the far corners for the water to cascade down and spread more. If you stand anywhere in the room, the water should push you toward the center of the wall at your entrance hole.
- Stand on the threshold of your entrance, out of the water, to avoid drowning yourself in this step. Dig out the floor block at the center of the wall, causing the water to spill down into the channel in the collection room below. The reason to dig this hole after flooding the dungeon is because placing a water block near a hole causes the flow direction rules to prevent the water from covering the entire room.
- Break the torch on the mob spawner. A zombie spawns the instant the torch breaks. Quickly seal the opening of the dungeon. You can seal it with glass blocks as shown in the illustration, to let you see into the dungeon. You can recover the torch from the chest below.
- If no zombies spawn, the light level in the spawning room may be too bright. Adjust your arrangement of torches outside the room accordingly.
Operation
Operational drowned farm as described above, showing a drowned and a zombie not yet drowned. The recessed area in the floor with stone slabs gives the player a better vantage point for whacking at the legs.
Go down into your collection room. As zombies fall into the water-trap channel, they wander back and forth across the tops of the hoppers with their heads in the water channel. After 30 seconds of having its head submerged, a zombie starts to drown, quivering visibly for 15 seconds, and then changes color. Its pants turn from blue to greenish. Its eyes, visible through the glass blocks, also change to a blue glow.
The legs of the mobs are exposed to you. With your cheap weapon, or even bare hands, whack at the legs of a drowned. Four hits with a stone sword can kill it. Experience orbs float toward you, and the drowned's possessions drop into the hoppers and end up in the chest (or if you didn't use hoppers, the drops come to you if you get close enough). Eventually nautilus shells[Bedrock Edition only], as well as copper ingots, armor (leather, gold, and chainmail, often enchanted) appear in the collection chest along with rotten flesh and miscellaneous other items.
The chest fills quickly because weapons and armor each occupy their own inventory slots. You may find it useful to have a garbage disposal hole in the ground somewhere in the room in which to throw unwanted items, which despawn after a few minutes in the hole. You can combine unenchanted armor and weapons in a grindstone to repair them, thereby saving space in your chest.
Principle
This should be the most practical method to obtain a Trident, with the design idea that drowning zombies will naturally [generate] on an aerial platform at least 24 spaces above the player, and the ground will be separated from the monster brushing range, so that the effective generation area is controlled at a high altitude. Drowning corpses will naturally generate under the correct lighting level of 0, and will be concentrated on a transitional platform for the first time to avoid direct falling to death. Finally, they will be concentrated in a small device for manual execution. This design cleverly utilizes a feature of building a glass based pool on the generation platform. Because drowning bodies cannot be generated on [glass], they are forced to generate a monster brushing platform under the pool. in Bedrock Edition As long as a layer of water is present, the light level gradually decreases with depth below that layer. The in Java Edition platform may require two layers of water to generate drowning bodies.
Its disadvantage is that it only produces Drowning Drops, including Trident, and does not produce Zombie Drops. Therefore, this is a good source for obtaining parrot shell, trident, and copper ingot.
Components
The main components of the aerial drowning farm include (from low to high altitude):
- A location, preferably in the deep sea, preferably at least 50 squares away from land
- A tower for climbing, from which the high structure will be built
- A platform for execution
- A falling shaft
- A falling platform; A small horizontal platform at a certain distance (such as 20 squares) from the execution platform, used to gather drowning bodies into a falling shaft and then fall onto the execution platform
- A monster brushing platform, at least 24 grids away from the execution platform
Preparation work
You need to:
- Several sets of round stones
- Round stones are not only used for construction, but can also be used as stone picks to collect round stones, and to make stone stairs to walk around the top of the farm. There are also stone steps to prevent exposed horizontal surfaces from being painted
- Four or five groups [glass]
- Several sets of [ladders] or [scaffolding] that can be climbed up again after slipping during construction
- A funnel (optional, making it easier to collect falling objects)
- One [box] (or two)
- A pile of buttons or billboards to control the water flow
- A set of steps
- Two buckets of water
- At least two or three torches
Construction
Reason: trans
[File: Drowned farm climbing tower. jpg | thumb | right | This climbing tower is built on kelp with a small stone brush next to it]
- Climbing tower
Climbing the tower is your way to the execution platform in the sky. In survival mode, building on the sea ensures the safety of falling, but if it falls, it is only inconvenient to climb again.
The most effective way to raise a tower on the sea is to row a boat to a deep, long kelp area, which allows you to build directly above the kelp without having to climb all the way from the bottom of the sea or swim. Or use multiple materials and time
Preparation
Before starting, you need to collect:
- Several full stacks of cobblestone
- If you can get a lava bucket, you can make a cobblestone farm to get an endless supply
- You need cobblestone blocks not only for building, but for making stone pickaxes to harvest cobblestone from the farm, and to make stone stairs for getting around the top of the farm, as well as stone slabs to prevent mobs from spawning on exposed horizontal surfaces
- 4 to 5 full stacks of glass blocks; this may be the hardest material to collect without a desert nearby
- A couple stacks of ladders or scaffolding for climbing back up your farm if you fall during construction.
- A hopper (optional, but makes collecting loot easier)
- A chest (preferably two for a double chest)
- A handful of buttons or signs to control water flow
- A stack of slabs
- Two water buckets
- At least 2 or 3 torches
Building from the bottom up
This climbing tower is built on top of kelp. The structure on the left is a small cobblestone farm.
- Climbing tower
The climbing tower is your access to the killing platform in the sky. In survival mode, building over the ocean offers safety in falling, unlike building over land. If you fall, you just have the inconvenience of climbing back up.
The most efficient way to start the tower over the ocean is to row a boat out to a deep spot with kelp growing near the water surface, allowing you to build from the top of the kelp without needing to build your tower all the way from the ocean floor, and without needing to swim. You can also put a lily pad on the water to start building from. Or, with a bit more materials and time, you can build a sea-level path from your land base out to your build location, and start building a tower out of any material, as high as you need. If you forget some materials, simply jump into the ocean and replenish. You can build a ladder up one side as you build the tower, or if you have enough material and time on your hands, your tower can be a staircase.
Example of killing platform, with a hopper and chest. The ladders are for aiding construction in survival mode.
- Killing platform
The first platform you build from this tower is the killing platform, and this is where you wait for the drowned to fall from above, so the minimum altitude must be out of the spawning range to the ocean floor or nearby land.
In Bedrock Edition, mobs spawn in the range of 24-44 blocks from the player. In Java Edition, mobs spawn in the range of 24-128 blocks from the player. Building over deep ocean far from land allows for somewhat lower altitude. The killing platform where you wait for the drowned must be more than the maximum spawning range from any possible spawning location on land or in the ocean.
The basic killing platform has:
- enough space for you to move around
- a chest
- a landing block onto which the drowned fall; if this is a hopper, it feeds into the chest
- a half-block space between the top of the landing block and the bottom of the drop shaft above it; the half-block of space lets you attack while preventing any baby drowned from escaping.
- one or two torches to keep the platform lit, to prevent mobs spawning on it while you're away
Two views of the drop shaft, partially open to see drowned falling, although it works best completely closed off.
- Drop shaft
The drop shaft is a vertical tunnel through which mobs fall onto the killing platform. The walls of the shaft need not be solid for the whole distance, it's enough to close off the sides of the shaft and leave 6 blocks of space open in the front, if you want to view the drowned falling. Drowned can drift while falling, so an open drop with no walls might prevent the drowned from falling onto the killing platform at the bottom.
The shaft doesn't have to be tall, but if you want to kill the drowned with one hit from your sword, ideally the drowned should fall 21 blocks before landing on the hopper in your killing platform. Make it too tall, and the drowned die from the fall, and you don't get any experience or tridents or other drops. If you make the shaft shorter, you just have to hit the drowned more times to kill them — up to four hits with a stone sword, which is also required from the flooded dungeon farm described above. One hit with a stone sword is sufficient to kill a mob that fell 21 blocks.
Exterior of 3×3 drop platform, in which water sweeps drowned into the drop shaft where they fall down the desired distance.
- Drop platform (if using Bedrock Edition glass roof)
This is needed only if you are using the glass-roof darkness mechanic in Bedrock Edition.
This is a small room at the top of the drop shaft. The drowned fall into this room from the spawning platform above it. The purpose of this room is to create a measured distance for the drowned to fall, because the spawning platform is by necessity a lethal fall distance higher than the killing platform, and you don't want the drowned to die except by your own hand! So you must build a small platform covered with flowing water for the drowned to fall into safely, and be swept by the water into a 1×1 hole in the corner of the room, which is the top of your drop shaft.
One water source block diagonally across from the exit hole is sufficient. Place a wooden button or a sign on the wall just above the hole to keep the water from flowing into it.
Example of interior of a spawning platform with water sweeping into a center hole that empties into the drop platform.
- Spawning platform
The water in the spawning platform must be at least 24 blocks from the killing platform, because mobs don't spawn nearer than 24 blocks from the player. Make it as large as you want. it can be as small as 2×2 but larger means more drowned. Flowing water is used to sweep mobs into a hole. A small spawning room can sweep the mobs to a hole in the side or corner of the room. A large spawning room, say with at least a 16×16 surface, would have water sweeping the mobs into a hole in the center.
(If you make the center hole 3×3, you can float a stone block above the hole with a turtle egg on it to attract the drowned to the hole, with trap doors around to make the drowned think there's a path to the egg. The turtle egg doesn't hatch when not on sand. However, getting a turtle egg requires a tool enchanted with Silk Touch, which may not be readily available to a player in survival mode. The farm still works without the turtle egg although the drowned are slower about falling through.)
Your spawning platform should be completely covered with flowing water to sweep the drowned into the drop platform room below. Ideally the water should just reach the edge of the hole, but if water flows into the hole, you can stop the flow with a sign or button. Your drop room below the spawn chamber should be configured so that drowned are swept into the drop shaft.
- Spawning room
The walls around the spawning platform should be tall enough to provide sufficient darkness on the spawning floor. In Bedrock Edition, it should be 8 or 9 blocks tall to guarantee sufficient darkness on the floor after the transparent roof is in place. In Java Edition, you will need the wall to be at least 9 blocks high to accommodate a layer of signs and several layers of water (17 layers of water guarantees total darkness on the spawn surface). Place slabs on the top of the wall to prevent mobs from spawning on it.
One layer above the flowing water on the spawn platform floor, you need a layer of signs covering the area, to hold up columns of water above.
On top of the signs, place 18 or more layers of water to make the light level zero at the bottom. Drowned spawn in this water and drop through the signs onto the spawn platform. The deeper you make it, the more opportunities drowned have to spawn, especially in the daytime during which the top 17 layers of water are not dark enough for spawning drowned.
View of a spawn platform roof: a layer of glass blocks covered with water blocks.
- Alternative spawning room (Bedrock Edition only)
This alternative requires a layer of glass blocks and only one layer of water, instead of several layers of water. It works only in Bedrock Edition.
Make the ceiling completely from glass blocks, with at least six blocks between the floor and bottom of the glass. 1 block of stone wall (excluding the slabs on the top edge of the wall) should extend above the top of the glass, to form a shallow pool that you must fill completely with water source blocks (no flowing water). You can build a temporary infinite water source off to the side to work with as you fill the pool.
Using a glass-bottomed pool for the ceiling takes advantage of the fact that drowned spawn under water but not on transparent surfaces, so they end up spawning on the platform under the glass. The water attenuates the sky light by 2, and each block of space under the glass causes further attenuation. One needs at 13 blocks of space (including the glass) under the water for the light level to be zero on the platform to let drowned spawn during the daytime. Drowned also cannot spawn on bottom slabs, but using bottom slabs instead of glass for the bottom of the pool makes the farm inoperable. The bottom of the pool must be glass.
Operation
After the first 15 minutes of operation, this farm already collected a trident, some gold (copper ingots in 1.17 and later), and a nautilus shell (hard difficulty).
The farm becomes operational as soon as the glass-bottomed pool is filled and you descend to the killing platform. Whack at the drowned legs with your sword (or your fist), and start collecting loot and experience. Fish also spawn in this farm and mostly swim upstream avoiding the fall, but once in a while they fall through and die. This does not affect drowned spawning, but expect to see an occasional raw cod or salmon appear in your chest.
To increase the farm performance, stand on your killing platform and clear all the hostile mobs from the world by temporarily switching the game to peaceful difficulty and then back. Then the only available location where mobs can spawn is your spawning platform. Switching the difficulty to "hard" yields better loot in the collection chest.
Improvements
The aerial farm described here is slow, although it does produce tridents and nautilus shells. This is the most basic farm, needing only basic materials that are readily available in survival mode.
One reason for the slow yield is due to the mob cap. For example, In Bedrock Edition, only five naturally spawned drowned can exist at any given time. The drowned try to resist the water flow in the spawn platform; therefore they spend much time facing upstream inside the platform before eventually falling through the hole.
To speed things up, the drowned need to face the hole. One way to do accomplish this is to find a turtle egg. Unfortunately, once you find a turtle egg, retrieving it requires a pickaxe enchanted with Silk Touch, which may not be available easily in survival. If you can get a turtle egg, your spawning platform should have a 3×3 hole in the center with a block suspended in the middle, connected to the edge of the hole by trapdoors in the open position so that drowned are fooled into thinking they can pathfind to the egg to trample on it. Instead, they fall through the trapdoors. The turtle egg doesn't hatch unless it's on sand. Drowned are not automatically attracted to turtle eggs; they must happen to look in the right direction first, but once a drowned sees it and can find a path to it, the drowned goes for it and falls through the hole.
The best bait is a villager, but in a survival build, it is impractical to transport a villager high in the sky to the spawn platform. Also, if playing an island survival game with few resources, there may not be any villages available to poach. This gets into more exotic farms. The purpose of this tutorial is to teach the basics of drowned farming in survival mode.
To bypass the mob cap and dramatically increase the production rate, you can have the drowned be swept into a Nether portal, so the drowned disappear from the Overworld and drop onto a killing platform in the Nether. This works fine if you are the only player in the world, but if there are other players in the Nether, they need to be within the despawning radius of the killing platform to prevent the drowned from despawning in the Nether.
Complex variations
The basic flooded-dungeon drowned farm described in this tutorial is quick and simple to construct in survival mode. It isn't automatic, however. It requires your involvement to harvest items from the drowned. While it doesn't yield tridents (and doesn't yield nautilus shells in Java Edition), that farm is still useful for a survival-mode zombie loot farm to get experience, tools, armor, and weapons with occasional interesting enchantments, as well as other items — without needing to build a deep falling pit or a tall structure in the sky.
Drowned farms on the ocean floor are more complicated because they function similarly to a mob farm, capturing naturally-spawned drowned. First, the drowned should be attracted to one location. Once they are attracted, they need to be funneled into one area where the player can easily kill them. The attracting is often done with villager bait and the funneling is often accomplished with bubble columns.
Fancier variations
Some farms incorporate innovative ideas such as bubble-column elevators to bring items to surface level, and devices to sort items. The player can circumvent the hostile mob cap (but not the maxEntityCramming gamerule) by pushing the attracted drowned into the Nether dimension. If the Nether dimension is unusable for this purpose, then the bubble columns can transport the drowned up to the player's AFK spot, typically high in the sky.
YouTube examples
Java Edition
A river biome converted to an aerial drowned farm (1.17 and lower):
A river biome converted to an aerial drowned farm that takes advantage of terrain generation changes (1.18+):
This river biome farm uses a flying machine to place over a million water blocks quickly. The depicted method of harvesting the drowned from this farm, however, is dangerous in survival as it involves swimming after trident-throwing drowned in a crowd of other drowned.
Basic underwater farm:
Advanced river farm (fastest design):
This design relies on the zombie reinforcement mechanic to allow new zombies to spawn regardless of the mob cap, and converts the zombies into drowned. It does not yield any tridents, but allows for the farming of copper at rates much higher than natural spawning-based drowned farms.
A slightly easier design:
Bedrock Edition
The user can also go fully AFK during the use of this Overworld only farm.
The following farm utilizes Nether Portals to increase the spawn rate of Drowned, thus increasing the rates of this farm. AFK can only persist for a short period as the Drowned teleported to the Nether might cause serious lag.