[Flipside]

Found a Spider Spawner in a Mineshaft, rather than the more annoying cave-spider ones Built myself a rough-and ready mob trap around it, and I'm one step closer to solving my wool shortage problem

Really need to figure out how to do a sealed water trap for cave spiders, they spawn at a higher rate which means a higher output of string

[Mongoose]

You'd think it'd make more sense for wool to be crafted into string, instead of the other way around.  At least in real life, you go from wool off the sheep to spinning thread.

[Flipside]

Heh, true, but until breeding comes out in 1.9 and there's a bukkit update, it's a faster way to get wool than chasing sheep

[BlueFlames]

Heh, true, but until breeding comes out in 1.9 and there's a bukkit update, it's a faster way to get wool than chasing sheep

Just hang out near a ground-level rail line.  Sheep seem to be drawn to those like magnets.  Incidentally, despite only having about ten meters of ground-level rail out by the Ubertree, I still want a cattle-plow attachment for my minecart.

[IronBeer]

I seem to remember reading that domestic animals are drawn to light sources at night...

[BlueFlames]

I seem to remember reading that domestic animals are drawn to light sources at night...

They're not drawn to light sources.  They can only spawn on well-lit grass blocks, and since their wandering pattern is largely random, they rarely stray far from the light source near which they spawned.  The net effect is still that you get passive mobs clustered around light sources at night, but any such mobs that are still out when night falls won't go actively seeking out a light source.

[Flipside]

Oh, I see them on the rail when I'm not carrying shears, they're everywhere if I don't have the tools on me :/ They just all seem to run and hide the moment the shears come out...

That's where amimal breeding is going to useful, I'm not certain how it works, whether 'breeding' stock are like wolves and hang around your house and reproduce when you are around, or whether you have to go bring in some animals every time you want to farm wool or whatever, but either way, being able to turn 2 sheep into potentially lots of sheep is a good thing for people who like wool and dyes

[Sandwich]

They can only spawn on well-lit grass blocks...

Apparently not true anymore... I think they can now (as of 1.8) spawn on any well-lit solid blocks.

[Pred the Penguin]

Just FYI apparently when you kill sheep on the server they still drop wool. o_o

[Hades]

Just FYI apparently when you kill sheep on the server they still drop wool. o_o

They're supposed to. They just drop less than if you had sheared them.

[Mongoose]

Speaking of things spawning, I got out of bed and went outside my cave to throw a few more blocks on the wall of my house.  Hopped up on the wall, turned around...and saw a creeper staring up at me right on the base of my wall.  So we basically had a staring contest for a few minutes, because apparently the things don't arm themselves when you're above them. I think that's the first one I've ever seen outside my mines.

(Also went on a massive mining run earlier.  Something like 17 diamonds, a bunch of redstone dust, and tons of iron.  Whee!)

[deathfun]

What's with all this talk of shears? I thought the best way to obtain wool from them was TNT

[rev_posix]

I stopped by the server a bit earlier, and qaz and Kyad showed me around the Fenris.  I've seen the pictures, but they didn't do any justice to the sense of scale you get when you're standing inside it.

I got a tour from sandwich and, I believe, Kyad.  The pictures, no, they don't do it proper justice.

[Commander Zane]

What's with all this talk of shears? I thought the best way to obtain wool from them was TNT

[-Sara-]

What's with all this talk of shears? I thought the best way to obtain wool from them was TNT

Or pet wolves.

[deathfun]

What's with all this talk of shears? I thought the best way to obtain wool from them was TNT

Or pet wolves.

Pet wolves to herd them into TNT

[Flipside]

Well, I made 7 stacks of Wool in about 16 hours of afk It's a start.

Damn Binvox has got me planning more projects than I have resources

[Mongoose]

Okay...there's something very weird going on with the game mechanics, and it's now scared the hell out of me at least twice and nearly killed me.  Since the start of the game, I've been sleeping in my little cave with one door to the outside and one door to the top of the huge cavern complex, and I've never had any issues.  Anyway, I've been building my house right outside the cave, and once I had the exterior walls a few blocks high, I made a tunnel connecting my cave to it and ditched the door.  Since I was still enclosed, I went to bed, and just as things faded to black...HOLY CRAP ZOMBIE RIGHT ON TOP OF ME AARGH.  Needless to say, I was freaked out, but I figured the thing had just spawned somewhere up the hill and dropped down into my walls, so I sealed off the cave entrance and then slept fine.  The next day, I rush to put a roof over my head (made of wood planks for now, since I'm going for two stories), and since the first floor is well-lit and I'm now completely enclosed, I figure I'm safe.  Wrong.  Zombie time again.  Now I'm really freaked out, and I go out of my way to over-light the inside of my house, as well as plop torches all around the exterior and on the roof.  Surely now I have to be fine, right?  Go to sleep again, and there's ANOTHER ZOMBIE right in my face.  What the hell.

I think I know what's happening after some wiki diving, though.  I saw something about beds being placed right against a wall possibly allowing mobs to spawn through the wall (which makes no sense whatsoever, but good to know), but there are at least a couple layers of rock next to my bed, so that's not it.  I think it's due to the fact that I decided to put double doors on the front of my house, because they look cool.  According to the wiki, placing a door right next to another one creates some goofy behavior where the second door is rotated 90 degrees and has its open and closed positions reversed.  So even though the door appears closed to me, and I can't walk through it, apparently mobs can, which explains why I had a zombie trying to sleep with me on more than one occasion. To close the door to mobs, you actually have to have it open visually.  I have to say, I don't mind dying because I was stupid or because the game can be hard, but dying because of a completely illogical (and frankly bugged) mechanic doesn't exactly please me.  I don't feel like keeping track of which door needs to be open or closed, but I really do like how the doors look, so what I might wind up doing is building a fence out front, so I can keep the look and still be closed off from the undead horde.

Oh, and there's something else.  Like I mentioned before, I've only really seen one Creeper spawn outside up to this point.  But now that I have the first floor of my house all framed out, I've seen groups of two or three outside on a couple of mornings, and one of them managed to 'splode in my face.  Do these things just get naturally attracted to crap the player builds?  And why for the love of God can't they burn up in sunlight?

[Flipside]

Yup, if you are too close to a dark area, they can spawn on the other side of the wall, no matter how well lit that room is, used to have that if I built a base in a mine.

As for Creepers, it does seem that group size for hostile mobs increases the longer you stay in the same area, and yes, I wish they burned in daylight as well, but they are at their scariest in mines anyway, when you are happily chipping away at the stone and then you hear that tell-tale 'hsssssssss' behind you. At the point it's just a question of hoping your armour can take it

[Lester]

Okay...there's something very weird going on with the game mechanics, and it's now scared the hell out of me at least twice and nearly killed me.  Since the start of the game, I've been sleeping in my little cave with one door to the outside and one door to the top of the huge cavern complex, and I've never had any issues.  Anyway, I've been building my house right outside the cave, and once I had the exterior walls a few blocks high, I made a tunnel connecting my cave to it and ditched the door.  Since I was still enclosed, I went to bed, and just as things faded to black...HOLY CRAP ZOMBIE RIGHT ON TOP OF ME AARGH.  Needless to say, I was freaked out, but I figured the thing had just spawned somewhere up the hill and dropped down into my walls, so I sealed off the cave entrance and then slept fine.  The next day, I rush to put a roof over my head (made of wood planks for now, since I'm going for two stories), and since the first floor is well-lit and I'm now completely enclosed, I figure I'm safe.  Wrong.  Zombie time again.  Now I'm really freaked out, and I go out of my way to over-light the inside of my house, as well as plop torches all around the exterior and on the roof.  Surely now I have to be fine, right?  Go to sleep again, and there's ANOTHER ZOMBIE right in my face.  What the hell.

I think I know what's happening after some wiki diving, though.  I saw something about beds being placed right against a wall possibly allowing mobs to spawn through the wall (which makes no sense whatsoever, but good to know), but there are at least a couple layers of rock next to my bed, so that's not it.  I think it's due to the fact that I decided to put double doors on the front of my house, because they look cool.  According to the wiki, placing a door right next to another one creates some goofy behavior where the second door is rotated 90 degrees and has its open and closed positions reversed.  So even though the door appears closed to me, and I can't walk through it, apparently mobs can, which explains why I had a zombie trying to sleep with me on more than one occasion. To close the door to mobs, you actually have to have it open visually.  I have to say, I don't mind dying because I was stupid or because the game can be hard, but dying because of a completely illogical (and frankly bugged) mechanic doesn't exactly please me.  I don't feel like keeping track of which door needs to be open or closed, but I really do like how the doors look, so what I might wind up doing is building a fence out front, so I can keep the look and still be closed off from the undead horde.

Oh, and there's something else.  Like I mentioned before, I've only really seen one Creeper spawn outside up to this point.  But now that I have the first floor of my house all framed out, I've seen groups of two or three outside on a couple of mornings, and one of them managed to 'splode in my face.  Do these things just get naturally attracted to crap the player builds?  And why for the love of God can't they burn up in sunlight?

A piston door would be a good solution. If you're willing to mess with redstone, that is.