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I'm am trying to build a mob farm in Minecraft SMP, but barely any mobs spawn near it. I know there is a limit of 85 hostile mobs for the whole world. But even when I am the only player logged on, I barely see any.

Is there any way that I can get information as to how many mobs are spawned, which types they are, or even where they are?

I am the server owner so I am able to install a mod if needed.

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MobLocator

Due to there not being any plugin that currently does this, I have developed one.
It is called MobLocator and can be download here.

  • /mobloc shows the number of each type of mobs that are present in the world.
  • /mobloc [mobType] shows the location of the 10 closest mobs of type mobType. (Using euclidean distance). Note, you can use a mobType of all.

/mobloc

/mobloc creeper

Feedback welcome.

Edit: Updated link to version 1.0.6, I forgot squid.

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  • Wow, that was fast! Nice work, this looks like a very good plugin. :)
    – Kevin Yap
    Aug 24, 2011 at 7:56
  • Thanks :) I've just updated it to version 1.0.6, I forgot squid.
    – DanielGibbs
    Aug 24, 2011 at 10:14
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You don't need to use any mods – a lot of the information is already given to you simply by hitting F3 and reading all the confusing values.

enter image description here

The E value stands for Entities. My game is currently showing E: 7/68. This means that there are 68 total entities in the chunks currently loaded, and 7 are on-screen (if you could view through blocks). Now, the term "entity" refers to to dropped items (the kind you can pick up). It also refers to mobs. Because of this, if there are no stray items in the game, you can tell how many mobs are currently roaming around. You can also move your mouse around to see how the first value of E changes. If you hit an area where the value suddenly spikes, there's a good chance a cave is somewhere underground (that you could see if no blocks were obstructing your view).

A second use of F3 is that you can see where every mob in the game is. When F3 is pressed, each mob will have text hovering above its head, similar to a player name. The text is the entity number assigned to the mob, but that doesn't really matter. The nice thing is that you can see these text windows through blocks. If you see a clump of numbers, there's a good chance there is a dark cave (or possibly even a dungeon!) that you should explore, to make your mob trap more efficient.

However, F3 won't tell you which types of mobs have spawned (and I don't know of any Bukkit mods that allow you to do so).

Screenshot of a probably cave

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  • Thanks, I am aware of F3, but that only tells me how many mobs are in the chunks that I have loaded, but not the whole server. It also includes other entities such as dropped items, and paintings. I am considering writing a mod that will do what I want if none already exists.
    – DanielGibbs
    Aug 23, 2011 at 23:57
  • If you do end up writing a mod, be sure to report back here because I'd definitely be interested in it. Yes, it's unfortunate, but this is probably as much detail as you're going to get.
    – Kevin Yap
    Aug 23, 2011 at 23:59
  • Will do, it should be done in a few days. Also, how do have 119 entities??? I only seem to have about 8, and the most I've ever seen is 40ish... Is it affected by the render distance of the client?
    – DanielGibbs
    Aug 24, 2011 at 0:16
  • I'm not sure. It could be random items somewhere in my world, but I don't think I've left any items. When I turned the difficulty to Peaceful, it dropped down to 60ish, so perhaps there are some stray items somewhere.
    – Kevin Yap
    Aug 24, 2011 at 0:32
  • " a cave is somewhere underground (that you could see if no blocks were obstructing your view)." If there were no blocks obstructing your view, it would be a cave in itself.
    – Timtech
    Aug 16, 2013 at 10:49

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