Showcase [Showcase] Truffle Worm Autofarm v2.0 (vastly improved in 1.3 Expert Mode)

DicemanX

Brain of Cthulhu
I constructed a much improved Truffle Worm autofarm after the changes to Truffle Worms in 1.3. Truffle Worms can now be killed by hostile mobs, and hostile mobs are much more difficult to kill via traps in expert mode, so the previous version of the farm is no longer very effective. The previous version can be found here:

http://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/truffle-worm-afk-farming-guide.4807/

The new version uses a very different and vastly superior approach, and is significantly easier to build because it avoids the need to farm multiple worlds for 16+ Lihzahrd Dart Traps. First, let's take a quick look at the action, and then discuss how the new farm works.


Video of Truffle Worm Farming + Beating Duke Fishron in Early Hardmode:



Short Video of Truffle Farm v1:



Explanation:

The spawn surface is lined with actuated teleporters, and hostile mobs that spawn are instantly teleported away. Truffle Worms and Glowing Snails cannot be teleported, so they stick around and crawl into a horizontal tunnel, and eventually drop into a chute where the player is positioned. The mobs are teleported to a teleporter that is at least 252 tiles away horizontally or 142 tiles vertically from the player's postion which causes the mobs to instantly despawn (source: http://terraria.wiki.gg/NPC_despawning) and thus prevent any backwards-teleportation. Backwards-teleportation is usually the main issue in using spawn surface teleporters, and thus it's much better to despawn mobs than to send them into a kill chamber. Plus, since despawning is near instantaneous, it generates a much more rapid turnover of mobs than taking the time to kill them.

There is one other major advantage to despawning the spawned mobs - it also instantly removes the Skeleton Merchant, who is otherwise a major problem if allowed to stick around. When he arrives all mob spawns are blocked.

To achieve the teleportation of mobs, a dummy ghost moves across a hoik track below the spawn area in cyclic fashion, activating pressure plates along the way. Each pressure plate is connected to a teleporter above in the spawn area, and all the wires from the teleporters are joined together and lead to the distant teleporter. When 3 or more teleporters are connected with the same wire, it is necessary to use a pressure plate closest to a given teleporter to teleport any mob from that specific teleporter - that pressure plate is incapable of teleporting mobs from any other teleporter.

Note that the mobs can still unfortunately spawn directly on top of the Truffle Worms, killing them instantly before they are teleported away. However, this is completely unavoidable, and doesn't happen all that often so the Worm capture rate is still very high.


Schematics:

2Fbn1cj.jpg


The player first enters the teleporter in the bottom right area where the hoik track is, and is hoiked across that track sending two dummies, in staggered fashion, into the teleportation system on the left. The player then starts autoswinging the net, and when farming is finished the player pulls the right lever to teleport back to home base. The green wire on the far left extends 252+ tiles to a teleporter to despawn the mobs. The blue wire at the bottom extends to home base. The height of the chute must be at least 11 tiles to ensure that the worms don't run away from the player.

The farm can also be constructed right after the first mechanical boss is defeated and access to teleporters is gained by using regular dart traps instead of spiky ball traps. The dart traps take about 4 times longer to defeat the bulbs, but they are still pretty effective as can be seen here:


Short Video of Truffle Farm v2:



Schematic:

2xuyI28.jpg


The player is teleported into the farm to the immediate right of the dummy. The player then walks over the 16 pressure plates (without using any speed-boosting gear) and stops at the end. Walking over the pressure plates this way generates a stream of evenly spaced darts, and the dummy ghost keeps the darts continuously firing by activating the pressure plates in the track to the left.


World Download:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4b_4cIU1vVBM3VubFZ4QWtiRGs/view?usp=sharing

To reach the Truffle Worm farm, input C1 in the teleporter hub. There's a net in the chest to your right when you teleport in.

EDIT: The latest version of the farm can be seen in action here:

 
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I'ma have to go update my farm when I get home, this is so much more elegant an approach than the one I was using. Very well done as always @DicemanX !
 
OK I just thought of a cool additional feature:

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Just above the spawn surface I added bubble blocks with lava on top. I also added a platform that can be actuated or deactuated immediately underneath and exactly 2 tiles vertically from the spawn surface. The platform is connected to a lever next to the player. The idea is to pull that lever and prevent any further spawns (since spawns need a height of 3 tiles vertically) if a Truffle Worm appears, protecting that Truffle Worm and making sure it reaches the tunnel. Once it reaches the tunnel, the player can actuate the platform to resume spawns. The pic illustrates this approach - there's a Worm crawling towards the tunnel, and the platform above is in the deactuated state so no harm will come to the Worm.

This of course requires player input, but it's optional and allows the player to increase the worm capture rate if they don't mind actively farming. The lava incidentally doesn't affect the spawn rates in any significant way based on prior testing (I used this approach in my event/invasion/boss autofarm that I posted earlier in T-MEC).

EDIT: On second thought, maybe this idea isn't that hot, because normally the player doesn't see the spawn area. I'm using the T-MEC community mod (http://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/mefbaea.32598/) for the free cam mode in the showcase vids, but I imagine most wouldn't use free cam mode for such an in-game purpose.
 
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Great build, as always. Never would have thought to use teleporters to get rid of the mobs.

I do notice that snails are in the tunnel with the worms. If you dig up one block in the floor of the tunnel and put a bucket of lava in it, it'll kill the snails but the worms will crawl right over it. Dunno how much that would effect the spawns though.
 
Great build, as always. Never would have thought to use teleporters to get rid of the mobs.

I do notice that snails are in the tunnel with the worms. If you dig up one block in the floor of the tunnel and put a bucket of lava in it, it'll kill the snails but the worms will crawl right over it. Dunno how much that would effect the spawns though.

This is an interesting question - should we aim to remove unwanted critters in mob farms?

I actually did some testing a long time ago to see whether the critters affect spawn rates. I set up a surface glowing snail farm and hammered the edges at the top of a pit area to trap the snails like this:

kvqEDJH.jpg


I would let the snails accumulate and waited until the spawn rate was reduced to practically nothing (I would listen for sounds of mobs dying to the dart traps). Then I captured the snails to get a count:

83lWV8N.jpg


I repeated this multiple times, and I always ended up with 25-26 snails, although spawns were still taking place but very rarely. This was in pre-hardmode, and due to the presence of 80+ jungle tiles, the max spawns was 7 during daytime and 9 during nighttime.

Source: http://terraria.wiki.gg/NPC_spawning

From this test it was apparent that the critters contributed less than the average mob towards the max spawns count - in fact, it seems the snails have a weight of around 0.33 (different mobs have different weights, but they cannot sum to anything greater than the maximum for the area the player is in and based on the time of day).

It's likely the case then that the snails that spawn in the truffle worm farm have no impact on the spawn rate, because they won't spawn in sufficient quantities.
 
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i don't understand much about farming. Is it not possible to limit the spawns to just snails and worms by providing only 1 tile high spawning surfaces?
 
i don't understand much about farming. Is it not possible to limit the spawns to just snails and worms by providing only 1 tile high spawning surfaces?

All mobs, no matter what their size, need at least a 3x2 space to spawn. This includes Truffle Worms. Also, since spawns can initiate in mid-air, the area above the spawn surface should be free from obstruction all the way up to the vertical spawn limit of around 45 tiles from the top of the player's head. That's why in the mob farms I've showcased the space above the spawn surfaces is always clear.
 
All mobs, no matter what their size, need at least a 3x2 space to spawn.
Necessarily 3 wide by 2 high, or just min 6 tiles? Else, how did the turtle spawn in the arrow of your all farm then? I think he got teleported in and the dummies pushed him over.

Also, since spawns can initiate in mid-air, the area above the spawn surface should be free from obstruction all the way up to the vertical spawn limit of around 45 tiles from the top of the player's head.

From the way I am reading the wiki, unless it is a flying mob, the game looks downward from the first open tile looking for ground for the mob to stand on, so mobs don't spawn mid air? But I'm thinking the shaft increases spawn rate.
 
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Necessarily 3 wide by 2 high, or just min 6 tiles? Else, how did the turtle spawn in the arrow of your all farm then?

3 tiles high and 2 tiles wide. The turtle didn't spawn in the arrow by the way (it cannot spawn on screen anyways) - it got teleported there when I jumped from the right farm to the left farm. You can see the Turtle is about the exit from the hoiks above the inbound teleporter and gets immediately caught by the player teleporter.


From the way I am reading the wiki, unless it is a flying mob, the game looks downward from the first open tile looking for ground for the mob to stand on, so mobs don't spawn mid air? But I'm thinking the shaft increases spawn rate.

Correct, mobs don't spawn in mid air (except for Harpies and Wyverns), but the spawn events can initiate in mid-air as you just read on the wiki, hence the need to keep clear that space above the spawn surface. All other flying mobs also spawn on the ground first.
 
Correct, mobs don't spawn in mid air (except for Harpies and Wyverns), but the spawn events can initiate in mid-air as you just read on the wiki.

But how is it important where it initiates? Does the game not continue randomly selecting a tile within a game tick, if it fails after its first attempt?

All other flying mobs also spawn on the ground first.

Ooh. Good to know.
 
But how is it important where it initiates? Does the game not continue randomly selecting a tile within a game tick, if it fails after its first attempt?

The greater the area above the spawn surface, the greater the chance of a spawn event initiating. If you reduce the area, you reduce the spawn rate.
 
So I replicated this farm on my world but it doesn't seem to work the same way. The teleporters don't seem to pull enemies out to be despawned correctly. I used the same layout but what I get above the spawn surface is just an explosion of yellow particles above every teleporter as the mobs get moved back and forth between them. I'm not sure if the difference is that I'm using a multiplayer server or not. I'll copy the world off the server tonight and try it on my machine locally to see if the problem persists. If I go into the spawn chamber I get teleported back and forth in it too... every now and again it'll spit me out to the far teleporter but it usually takes 10+ seconds of hopping before that happens. Nothing like your video.
 
So I replicated this farm on my world but it doesn't seem to work the same way. The teleporters don't seem to pull enemies out to be despawned correctly. I used the same layout but what I get above the spawn surface is just an explosion of yellow particles above every teleporter as the mobs get moved back and forth between them. I'm not sure if the difference is that I'm using a multiplayer server or not. I'll copy the world off the server tonight and try it on my machine locally to see if the problem persists. If I go into the spawn chamber I get teleported back and forth in it too... every now and again it'll spit me out to the far teleporter but it usually takes 10+ seconds of hopping before that happens. Nothing like your video.

Since the far teleporter is properly connected to the spawn surface teleporters based on your player getting occasionally teleported there, then this sounds like a server issue. Either the rule of teleportation doesn't apply, or the despawn rules are different on a server. How far away is the distant teleporter in your build? You can try putting it much further to see if that solves the issue. Also, definitely try your build locally and not on a server.

Incidentally, the 252+ tile rule for despawning is directly taken from the wiki, and I have not personally verified this info. In my world the distant teleporter is actually 900 tiles away, so maybe 252 tiles is not enough.
 
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In my world the distant teleporter is actually 900 tiles away, so maybe 252 tiles is not enough.

Ok, good to know. I think mine was about 260 tiles away, I can extend that significantly and see if the behavior changes.
 
Ok, good to know. I think mine was about 260 tiles away, I can extend that significantly and see if the behavior changes.

I just tried host and play with my map and everything worked exactly as it did in the video (except the worms sometimes moved away from the player initially), so perhaps it is indeed the distance issue. Did you build your truffle farm on a map you're hosting?
 
Yes. I'm about to download it now and have a look. (If you want to check out the world sometime add me on Steam, I'll send you a PM with my ID.)
 
Wouldn't it be quicker if the floor the worms crawled along after the teleporters was a hoik rail hooked up to the dummies? That way there'd be more spawning as you'd be catching them quicker.
 
Wouldn't it be quicker if the floor the worms crawled along after the teleporters was a hoik rail hooked up to the dummies? That way there'd be more spawning as you'd be catching them quicker.

There's no benefit to catching them quicker, so it's not really worth the effort to set up a hoik track. I prefer to maintain the simplicity of the farm.
 
There's no benefit to catching them quicker, so it's not really worth the effort to set up a hoik track. I prefer to maintain the simplicity of the farm.
So it's not a case of the quicker you catch them, the quicker a replacement spawns?
 
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