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If you are building a mob grinder (not powered by a spawner but by natural mob spawning) right above the ocean, and the very bottom of the grinder is at y = 63 (the top of the water), what is the best y level to afk at? I remember reading somewhere that mobs will only spawn with a certain range of the player, but I don't remember exactly what it was. I don't want things like drowned to spawn in the water, because it will count towards the mob cap and decrease the amount of mobs that spawn in the farm. So, how high up should you be so that the mobs will spawn in the farm, but not in the ocean?

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"While mobs spawn in a 15x15 square of chunks centered on the player, they immediately despawn if they are not within 128 blocks from the nearest player, meaning mob spawning is effectively within a 128 block radius sphere around the player.

In 1.2.1, the max build height was raised from 127 to 255. This made building farms way up above the previous height limit, or just having the player AFK there, an attractive option. For example, if you built a mob farm in the sky at around y=90 and AFKed at y=200 or above over a relatively flat area, then the only mobs that would (effectively) spawn would be those in your mob farm, since your farm would be within 128 blocks but the mobs on the surface at about y=64 and below in unlit caves would be more than 128 blocks away and not affect the spawning rates. "

This means you would need to AFK at 63 + 128 = Y 191 so mobs will not spawn under Y 63.

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  • Have you tested this???
    – EmojiMaker
    Commented Dec 8, 2020 at 20:51
  • I haven't tested this myself, but a lot of people seem to have experimented with this. It is also not that hard to try this yourself, start up a world, make multiple layers of a block that hostile mobs can spawn on from Y63 to whatever number you want, then AFK at different heights and see how many mobs spawn. This isn't an accurate result, since the mobcap could have been different, but it will give you a rough estimate which will show that Y 191 is the height you have to AFK at so hostile mobs won't spawn under Y 63. (If there is anyone that is close enough of course mobs will spawn)
    – NickFris
    Commented Dec 8, 2020 at 20:55
  • @EmojiMaker I have tested and this, time and again. Starting with 1.13.2 (as a hotfix on CodAI) spawn attempt of any mob that would despawn immediately is cancelled, so there's no spawns outside the 128 block despawn sphere whatsoever, not even for 1 tick. So 63+128 is the simple maths for the afk location. Building the farm itself as low as possible is beneficial for spawn rates, just make sure at no point do mobs exit the 128-block sphere.
    – SF.
    Commented Dec 9, 2020 at 10:40

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