AFK farm trouble. Can it not switch to desert?

V

Vic 2.0

Terrarian
I built my AFK farm in the caverns because I heard that's the best place for hardmode farming. And I read that 1,500 blocks of sand is supposed to convert the biome to desert but it's not happening. Is it not possible to do this?

Could it be because half of my blocks are hardened sand (rather than regular sand) maybe?
 
I think "desert" is a surface only biome. though certainly, mumies might spawn on sand underground too, but most other desert enemies doesn't. I think.

the "underground desert", which is the underground version of the biome generally made up of sandstone, not sand, but it also has one special thing about it, I think, which is the background walls. it has sanstone (and hardened sand) walls everywhere, and you're considered to be in the biome if are in front of those (although the enemies might spawn there even if you're not in front of the walls, just close by.
 
Hmm. Will the mummies (which I understand are strictly hardmode enemies) spawn if I simply have 1,500 blocks of sand/sandstone onscreen or will they need to spawn on top of the sand? Because I can leave my AFK farm as it is if it'll pay off later. Otherwise, I might as well replace the sand blocks with crimson, corruption and later hallow blocks.

I'm using my own method, where I leave all the blocks there, just one short of completing the biome and then simply add a block when I'm ready to farm that biome. Working great for the snow, but not for the sand (yet).
 
I see... well, I'm not sure how it would work, but I do think mumies spawn on sand (and other variants on their respective variant.

for example, if would have something like a very tiny patch of sand (crimsand) in the underground crimson, when looking for something like ichor stickers or floaty gross or whatever, sometimes I would see a blood mumy as well. So, they don't need to be in the desert, I think, if there are just a few sand blocks, they can spawn on the top of those.
Of course, the more sand blocks there are, the more common mumies will be.

But you won't get other stuff like antlion chargers or anything, I think. (without background walls. I wonder if you can make valid, enemy-spawning sandstone walls with ecto mist?
 
Not sure. But what you said gives me an idea. I'm going to try and have a row of sand on either side of my pyramid that I can just actuate on and off, depending on if I want desert enemies to spawn. Then I'll take that huge block of sand I built away and put something else there.
 
I believe they spawn on top of sand (not sandstone). And you don’t need 1,500 blocks for it. I accidentally left some sand on my hellbridge and got some mummies.
 
Alright.
But what you want to farm for by the way? Completing bestiary? Or farming for biome keys?
 
Vic 2.0 said:
I built my AFK farm in the caverns because I heard that's the best place for hardmode farming. And I read that 1,500 blocks of sand is supposed to convert the biome to desert but it's not happening. Is it not possible to do this?

Could it be because half of my blocks are hardened sand (rather than regular sand) maybe?
Click to expand...
Desert can only go down to underground, but not Caverns depth.
Also I think it's just 500 blocks to change a biome
 
Sora_92 said:
Alright.
But what you want to farm for by the way? Completing bestiary? Or farming for biome keys?
Click to expand...
Well I'm just wanting each farm to be able to do as much as possible. I know it's not very efficient, I just like the idea of making each thing the best it can be.

Snapshot03 said:
Desert can only go down to underground, but not Caverns depth.
Also I think it's just 500 blocks to change a biome
Click to expand...

They recently changed it for PC players, from what I've read. But thanks for the info on desert biomes not being creatable in the caverns! It would explain everything, really.
 
But well, what you want to farm there...? Mumies drop mumy vanity, and a little money. evil biome/hallow mumies drop dark and light shards respectively, but only a few weapons uses those. You really don't need to farm mumies, if you're not interested equipping 20 mannequins as mumies.

Making an artifical underground desert might would be more useful, for slightly more useful drops. it still generally only has vanity and a mount. but you might get the desert key, which is quite nice.

edit: I forgot, some mumy variants drop ank charm components. so, yeah, that might be useful, but you can get those from other monsters too.
 
OMG! Now the corruption blocks are doing a similar thing! I place the 300th block, the music and background change and still no corruption mobs! What the hell!?
 
They might not be close enough together for it to be 1 biome. A very long 1 block path for example, won't work
 
Corruption mobs spawn on corrupted tiles, the biome the player is in shouldn't have a particular effect (albeit it's still necessary for souls of night). What you want to make sure of is that there's corrupted tiles reaching offscreen on either side as you want the game to try and spawn mobs on those specific tiles.
 
W1K said:
Corruption mobs spawn on corrupted tiles, the biome the player is in shouldn't have a particular effect (albeit it's still necessary for souls of night). What you want to make sure of is that there's corrupted tiles reaching offscreen on either side as you want the game to try and spawn mobs on those specific tiles.
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But I've seen videos of AFK farms where all they did was convert a bunch of regular stones (contained and on screen) to corruption and the enemies started showing up...
Is it because I'm not in hardmode yet, and maybe corruption/crimson enemies don't spawn that deep until hardmode?
 
Vic 2.0 said:
But I've seen videos of AFK farms where all they did was convert a bunch of regular stones (contained and on screen) to corruption and the enemies started showing up...
Is it because I'm not in hardmode yet, and maybe corruption/crimson enemies don't spawn that deep until hardmode?
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Nope, the spawn system explicitly checks for spawns off-screen and decides the mob based on the chosen tile. Exceptions to this are marble, granite and meteorite biomes. If you can find me said videos I might be able to tell you what's going on in those specific instances.
 
W1K said:
Nope, the spawn system explicitly checks for spawns off-screen and decides the mob based on the chosen tile. Exceptions to this are marble, granite and meteorite biomes. If you can find me said videos I might be able to tell you what's going on in those specific instances.
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Here's one:

I also know for a fact this works to at least some degree, because I have 1,500 snow blocks nearby (with only stone bricks that anything can spawn on) and I'm getting snow biome enemies.
 
Vic 2.0 said:
Here's one:

I also know for a fact this works to at least some degree, because I have 1,500 snow blocks nearby (with only stone bricks that anything can spawn on) and I'm getting snow biome enemies.
Click to expand...
Ah. I suppose underground corruption/hallow mobs might be an exception. The spawn codes are literal hell to look at.

Either way, as far as non-underground desert mobs go, all of them spawn exclusively on sand and supposedly should be able to spawn underground as well but don't quote me on that. Hardened sand does not count for this, supposedly normal mobs will spawn on those. Underground desert mobs should be dependent on the biome the player is in instead (that is, enough sand blocks and underground combined).

Ultimately it depends on what the purpose of the farm is.
I would personally build an underground corruption or hallow farm for both souls and money, as mentioned earlier, desert doesn't exactly pay off very well. This can also net you biome mimics for extra payout BUT killing them AFK isn't a simple task albeit possible.
For money specifically, the jungle provides huge spawn chance boosts but man eaters can get in the way of your farm and are a pain to automate killing of.
I like setting simple underworld farms using hallowed or corrupted blocks as well to benefit from underworld spawn chances, weaker enemies and easy soul drops. Might not be the best but is in my opinion the best low-effort farm to setup as long as you can deal with imps.
Also, if you need some specific spawn requirements for a certain mob, I can snoop them out for you.
 
I don't know what happened here, but mobs mainly only spawn off screen. Those blocks on screen change the biome but don't have spawn space as it's on screen. There's still a massive platform above that reaches off screen for mobs to spawn. Also that guide is a 1.3 guide, 1.4 made a lot of game channges
 
Personally I prefer ocean farms as they're 100% afk-able, Happy Days also has a tutorial for that and it is a great way to farm for dungeon biome keys. If it's for money, get the coin from the pirate invasion, a slime staff, add a little platform so the fish can't escape and you make a lot of money. This must be hardmode though
 
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