CHAPTER 4

CREEPER FARM

ONCE YOU HAVE AN ELYTRA, you will want a steady source of gunpowder to make the rockets that keep you aloft. Happily, the creeper can provide you just that. This creeper farm uses two features of the creeper to make it work:

• Creepers run from cats.

• Creepers are shorter than other 2-block-high mobs, at just 1.7 blocks high. This means you can prevent other mobs from spawning in the farm by keeping the height just enough to fit a creeper.

Like almost all nonspawner mob farms, the drop rate of this creeper farm depends on no other mobs spawning nearby. You can place this creeper in the air, with the base y=124 (or higher) rather than ground level. Or you can light up all the caves and surfaces around within an approximate 130-block radius. It’s a large but simple building that is 32 blocks high.

Step by Step

1. Build a base that is 15x15 blocks square.

2. On this base, at the corners, will be 4 towers some 25 blocks high that the creepers will drop down. At each corner, mark the location where the towers will be with temporary blocks, as shown.

3. Place a double chest in the center of one of the tower’s walls facing the interior of the base.

4. Repeat Step 3 for the other 3 towers as well.

5. Place a square of 4 hoppers pointing toward 1 of the double chests, as shown.

6. Repeat Step 5 for the other 3 double chests.

7. Replace the temporary blocks with building blocks to finish the first layer of the towers.

8. Above the first layer of a tower, place 2 rows of glass blocks.

9. Repeat Step 8 for the rest of the towers.

10. Above the glass blocks, build each tower up with another 22 layers of blocks.

11. When the 4 towers are finished, fill in the area between them to create a square 15x15 platform that has 4 holes in the corners.

12. Build a wall around the platform that is 3 blocks high.

13. Find the very center of the platform and place a carpet on it. Then place trapdoors around it, as shown.

14. Now, you need to bring a tamed cat up to sit inside these trapdoors. Your cat should teleport to follow you up to this platform. Once it does, make it sit and then push it to the middle of the trapdoors.

15. In one of the corners, above the opening to a tower, place 6 trapdoors as shown on the outer walls.

16. Repeat Step 15 for the other 3 towers as well.

17. Roof in the platform, leaving a 2-block high space within.

18. To make the 2-block-high space shorter so that skeletons and zombies will not spawn, place trapdoors on every ceiling block except the blocks above the 4 tower holes.

19. Place carpets as shown in the cross-section diagram on page 64. These carpets prevent any 3x3 floor spaces for spiders to spawn. Now only creepers can spawn. Hopefully, you have planned your exit! You can loiter around the base between the 4 columns to collect your drops. Don’t forget to light up the area and caves to make spawning rates high.