PC Alien Hornet Issues

[AeonicEclipse]

Has anyone tried and had luck at blocking alien hornet spawns? They seem to do whatever they feel like (as in spawn directly behind the player), looking for ideas.

Here's what hasn't worked (in a 3 tile high room):
The obligatory walls (and all following ideas include walls)
Full room of inactive blocks
Then later actuating while standing in front of it (making it a solid room of blocks, just with the player stuck in it)
Full room of statues (inactive, later active, Angel statues of course)
Platforms at chest height (all the way across)
Then later a full room of platforms
Made the room 4 tiles high, the lowest then becoming a layer of lava
Then back to 3 tiles high and being a full room of lava (with obsidian skin potion)

And invisibility potion for fun


For reference, I'm about 75 tiles about the pillar, all other spawns blocked (I think, looking into if the area is bigger than usual)

 

[stefnotch]

I think they are going to spawn, regardless of what you do.

Unlike the other NPCs, they are not naturally spawned. They get spawned by some projectile called "Vortex" with the ID 579 and ignore tile checks.
(Usually, the game checks if it is a valid position to spawn an NPC, then it spawns the NPC.)

 

[AeonicEclipse]

Indeed, odd that it doesn't do the checks but as projectile perhaps makes sense. Thanks for checking into it.

Fun facts (updates);
Spawn range doesn't appear to be different, I just missed some extra width for walking range.
ONE way to AFK them without invulnerability, stand underneath a room of some width and at least 3 high filled with lava. The center block(s) of the floor should be a bubble block (bubbles can be up to 2 wide but not 3). Stand directly under the bubbles and apparently they spawn above in the lava room. Seems they go for the highest point before a tile above the player's x-point?

 

[MappyGaming]

I can't look into codes so I'm not 100% sure, but this "projectile" is counted as Vortex Pillar's attack. Simply staying away from Pillar (but within the range that other vortex mobs can spawn) might block alien hornet's spawn. Also have you checked @Wahoa's 13th reply in this thread ? He is using almost the same method to yours.

 

[AeonicEclipse]

True, I haven't found the range of the hornet spawns. May look into it but just forcing them to spawn into lava is pretty hilarious.
And yes, I've blocked the pillars to their "safe" location and built the farms around it.

 

[Full Metal Kirby]

I might be mistaken, as I haven't done it in a while and can't check currently, but if I remember correctly...

Having a one block high line above the player, and then altering the blocks with a hammer to be not full blocks (I think I used half-blocks) causes them to spawn above the blocks, rather than on the player.

 

[AeonicEclipse]

half-blocks

Sooo much cleaner than what I was doing, it indeed worked, thank you.

@terramappy, I did finally check into ranges and it's something like 220 tiles above the pillar if you're within the width where the screen gets shaded (something like 240).

 

[MappyGaming]

I did finally check into ranges and it's something like 220 tiles above the pillar if you're within the width where the screen gets shaded (something like 240).

Wow, good work! It's much wider than I hoped, Last prism's range is 150 tiles so my method won't work. Thanks anyway for checking into it, one less mystery to solve.