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Some sources say that there is no mob-limit-per-chunk, other say, that there is one. I found this formula on the Minecraft-Wiki: cap = constant * chunks / 256

Is this true for minecraft vanilla (PC)? If so:

  1. What it the value of "constant"?
  2. Will mobs despawn if a chunks reaches this limit but more mobs are delivered from other chunks?

Why am I asking this: I want to build a mob farm without using a mob spawner (see this video). I thought that it would be clever to create a bigger spawn-area by making it 4x the size from the farm in the video. If this limit exists, I would place the farm in a way that it reaches a bigger amount of chunks.

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  • TL;DR: Larger spawn area does not promise you larger spawn rates. This is because mobs will despawn beyond a certain range from an active player. That is why you will see mob farms that are towers but not huge and massive as they used to be. The mobs will simply despawn before they can be routed around properly.
    – James
    Commented Dec 1, 2014 at 22:04
  • there would be a semi limit as at one point they will start to push each other to the despawn zone, some people get into these situations, ofcause if you add things like bats and squid which can be on top of one another either they push eachother into the despawn zone or your get an out of memory error because you have all those entities running at the exact same time
    – Memor-X
    Commented Dec 1, 2014 at 22:46

2 Answers 2

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This limit is for all existing mobs in the loaded chunks. Generally mobs stop spawning when active mob count reaches this number, but a code quirk allows squids to exceed the limit.

Mobs will not despawn automatically when the limit is reached, only spawning is suppressed. If existing mobs despawn (using their independent criteria), spawning can continue.

Again, limit is per all loaded chunks, not per chunk.

Practically, for mob farms, you usually don't need to consider this limit. The true limiting factor is that mobs immediately despawn when further that 128 meters from the player, so your whole farm must fit a 128 m sphere around where you will stand.

As for the value of constant, try reading the next sentence in the wiki you quoted:

Hostile = 70
Passive = 10
Ambient (Bats) = 15
Water = 5
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  • Could you expand on the code quirk that affects squids? It sounds relevant (or at least interesting).
    – Alex
    Commented Dec 2, 2014 at 9:04
  • Thanks for this answer! :) Is the despawn range also affected in height? Means: If I build the farm on level Y=256, there won't spawn mobs in the "underground"?
    – codepleb
    Commented Dec 2, 2014 at 14:52
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    @TrudleR Mobs immediately despawn when further than 128 m from each player, Euclidean distance. To guarantee that no mobs spawn on the surface (y=63), you need to stand at y=192, and build your farm above that. Pro tip: by building above ocean you can cut 20-30 meters from that, allowing you to build at y=160, roughly 100 meters above sea level.
    – Orc JMR
    Commented Dec 3, 2014 at 6:23
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    @Alex The quirk is that the spawn cycle goes through all loaded chunks and tries to spawn mobs once in each, and the spawn limit is only checked once at the very beginning. This way, if you are out in the ocean, when there is a huge volume of water around you, a single spawn cycle of squids can result in several dozens, or even hundreds of them, immediately hitting the limit. Then you sail away from these waters until almost all squids unload, and BAM - dozens of them again.
    – Orc JMR
    Commented Dec 3, 2014 at 6:28
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from what i have seen and heard there is no spawn limit per chunk but a spawn limit overall. so the more poeple on a server the less mobs per unlit loaded area.

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    The calculation mentioned on the wiki and quoted in the question adjusts the overall spawn limit by loaded chunk count. This way mob density stays the same regardless of number of players or their relative location. Of course, if one player sails into the sea far away from another player, second one will get double quota of mobs - but this is not because of the limit - you can force mobs to spawn in a specific area in singleplayer too.
    – Orc JMR
    Commented Dec 3, 2014 at 9:10

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