Question [Question] Which mobs spawns on what surfaces?

[Eotall]

... or is there a lot of other things dictating spawns?

Of course, we know of some obvious things that do (lihzahrd/dungeon background, standing in water...) but doing a lot of testing, I've found irregularities that i can't seem to find mentioned elsewhere. There doesn't seem to exist any super-thread regarding what-mob-spawns-where under all conditions in 1.3, so lets make it! (if it already does, please point me to it while kindly not laughing).

It seems to me that there are some heavy prioritization regarding what mobs the game decides to spawn, other than the surfaces they spawn on.
I'm currently trying to build a farm that can farm EVERY possible enemy in the game (save for the two variations of spiders and event enemies), and on my test world I've found this:


Above ground spawning:
The surfaces tested are: Grass, jungle grass, mushroom grass, snow, sand, ebonsand, crimsand, pearlsand.
This seem to enable all possible mob spawns for this layer (correct me if I'm wrong).

Spoiler: fig. 1

Using the setup in fig. 1, all surfaces work like a charm. Biome blocks for increased spawning and key farming can be added without interfering with spawns.


Bellow ground spawning:
The surfaces tested are: Stone, jungle grass, mushroom grass, marble, granite, sandstone, ebonsandstone, pink ice, purple ice, red ice.
This seem to enable all possible mob spawns for this layer (based on banners and drops (I know that two variations of ghouls are not in this)).

Spoiler: fig. 2

(NOTE: the marble layer in this picture is in fact marble "bricks" and not natural blocks. In testing this is not the case. Also, in testing I've been using a lot of different configurations - adding layers, removing layers etc. This is just one of them.)

In this setup, there are a number of problems.
1. Biome issues - By changing the biome the player stands in (to increase spawns and able keys to drop), the mobs that spawn seem to change to (unlike the above ground farm). By creating a jungle biome, for example, regular bats cease to spawn and only jungle bat variant spawns, regardless of surface to spawn on. Why is this?
2. Stronger surfaces - some surfaces (marble and granite) seems to take priority over other regarding spawn even if they are actuated. In fig. 2, granite mobs will spawn for all surfaces except jungle grass and mushroom grass. It seems that the granite blocks being in the 2x3 spawning rectangle for the mobs disables the spawning of granite mobs, but otherwise greatly overwrites the regular spawning for that surface. This seems very wierd. Does anyone have more info on this?
3. The sandstone surfaces need sandstone background wall in order to correctly spawn underground desert mobs. This wall needs to be behind the blocks, not above as in fig. 2. It seems though that any variation of sandstone wall (pure, corrupt, crimson or hallow) is good enough and doesn't affect the spawn variations (different Lamias for example). Is this intended/correct?
4. Trying to include spider nest spawning in this setup is not a good idea. By just having a spider wall in the proximity (how many tiles?) seems to make almost all spawns into spiders.


Special spawning:
Known special spawning cases: Sky, meteorite, underworld, spider nest, dungeon, lihzahrd, ocean, weather spawns

1. Sky - harpies and wyverns spawn naturally. Seems that other mobs can spawn based on surfaces (needs to be confirmed). Meteorite can not overwrite this biome.
2. Meteorite - overwrites most other biome spawns. (more testing needed?)
3. Underworld - spawns underworld enemies. Can co-exist with jungle spawning and can be overwritten by meteorite (according to wiki).
4. Spider nest - dictated by spider walls. Overwrites regular spawns nearly every time.
5. Dungeon - spawning requires dungeon surface as well as dungeon background wall (behind the player and the mobs). The three different variants of the latter dictates which mobs spawn.
6. Lihzahrd - spawning requires lihzahrd surface as well as lihzahrd background wall (behind the player).
7. Ocean - ocean mobs only spawn in water, and only aggro on player if player is in water.
8. Weather spawns - some mobs only spawn during certain weather conditions, such as Moon phases och heavy rain.

NOTE: is marble and granite supposed to be in this category?

Any information regarding above questions or other stuff regarding surfaces, biomes and spawning would be very much appreciated!
I will be doing more testing regarding this, trying to answer the questions above and those that may pop up.

 

[Bahamut2001]

Above ground spawning:
The surfaces tested are: Grass, jungle grass, mushroom grass, snow, sand, ebonsand, crimsand, pearlsand.
This seem to enable all possible mob spawns for this layer (correct me if I'm wrong).

Don't forget about the Rainbow Slime and Ice Golem. They have special spawning conditions. The Rainbow Slime needs rain, hallow biome, and non hallowed blocks to spawn on. The Ice Golem needs a rain (blizzard) and a snow biome. (wiki says 400 blocks instead of the normal 300 are necessary)

some surfaces (marble and granite) seems to take priority over other regarding spawn even if they are actuated.

I haven't done testing on this, but from what I've seen, marble and granite mobs will spawn as long as you are near their respective blocks regardless of surface.

7. Ocean - player needs to be standing in water in the ocean biome to enable ocean spawns. (NOTE: is the "standing-in-water" true for all water-enemies, eg. pirahnas?).

Pretty sure the player doesn't need to stand in the water to enable ocean mob spawns, they are just not aggressive unless your are.

Meteorite can not overwrite this biome.

I always thought that meteorite overwrote everything, learn something new everyday.

 

[Eotall]

The Rainbow Slime needs rain, hallow biome, and non hallowed blocks to spawn on.

It can't spawn on hallow blocks? Is this true for hallowed sand as well?

Pretty sure the player doesn't need to stand in the water to enable ocean mob spawns, they are just not aggressive unless your are.

Ah, this is something I've always thought to be true, but I just realized I've never actually tested it. Thanks!


Have anyone made some research into how many marble/granite blocks that is needed to begin spawning resp. mobs, or how near they have to be?

 

[DicemanX]

This thread is a great idea - I was thinking about eventually compiling a list of what mobs spawn where and under what conditions, so I'm glad to see you got the ball rolling on this! I have quite a bit of info to contribute, especially due to the recent mob farms I've been working on. Here's some preliminary info for underground mob farming:

Some surfaces are "restrictive" - they only allow for the spawning of mobs related to that biome surface. Examples include corruption, crimson, and jungle surfaces.

Other surfaces are "open" - they not only spawn mobs related to that biome surface, but they also allow the spawning of mobs related to other biomes. Examples include hallowed, snow, desert, mushroom, granite, and marble surfaces. However, the granite biome enemies won't spawn on marble surfaces, and marble biome enemies won't spawn on granite surfaces.

Here are the biome mobs that can spawn on any "open" surface (provided there are enough biome blocks present):

Jungle Bats (jungle biome)
World Feeder (corruption biome)
Ice Tortoise (snow biome)
Ice Mimic (snow biome)
Snow Flinx (snow biome)
Icy Merman (snow biome)
Armored Viking (snow biome)
Medusa (marble biome)
Hoplite (marble biome)
Granite Golem (granite biome)
Granite Elemental (granite biome)

So, for example, a pearlstone surface allows for any one of the mobs above to spawn (provided there are sufficient biome blocks around), along with all the underground hallowed mobs and any mimics. An ebonstone surface, however, will only allow corruption mobs to spawn along with any of the mimics.

Here are the mobs that can spawn on any surface, provided the player is in the correct biome:

Corrupt Mimic (corruption biome)
Crimson Mimic (crimson biome)
Hallowed Mimic (hallowed biome)

All other biome mobs spawn based on surface, and *not* the biome that the player is in. For instance, Corruptors will spawn on an ebonstone surface even with less than 200 corruption blocks near the player; likewise, Chaos Elementals will spawn on pearlstone surfaces with fewer than 100 hallowed blocks nearby.

I'm not sure yet what prompts the granite or marble mobs to spawn, but I can definitively say that they do not need their respective surfaces to spawn, nor do they need any of their respective biome blocks near the player. They also don't need any biome background walls. Instead, they apparently need some minimum number of granite/marble blocks near the spawn surface.

 

[Bahamut2001]

I'm not sure yet what prompts the granite or marble mobs to spawn, but I can definitively say that they do not need their respective surfaces to spawn, nor do they need any of their respective biome blocks near the player.

I stand corrected.

 

[Eotall]

Interesting info DicemanX. What method have you used in order to find all this?

A question still lingering to me is to what grade "regular" spawns (from the surface) are overwritten by these "biome" spawns. I have a testing farm with a stone surface, but with a chunk of ice blocks dictating the biome to be snow. The mobs that spawn are almost exclusively snow mobs, but once in a while a skeleton or even a bat spawns, so there seems to be some factor in play.


Also, lets make a challenge out of all this info:

Spoiler: Challenge

To make an ultimate mob farm (able to farm ALL mobs with the exception of Wall Creepers and Event mobs), how many different "pods" or locations do you need to visit?
(for example, you would need one seperate "pod" for dungeon, lihzahrd and underworld, but you can combine forest with desert by actuating the surfaces in one "pod").
AND
Is it possible to reduce the number if the criteria changes to [able to farm ALL banners and items dropped by (non-event and Wall Creeper)-mobs?

NOTE: to clarify, not only should you be able to farm all mobs, but you should be able to select mobs as specifically as possible, eg. not just cramming all possible surfaces into one farm and go "done!"

 

[DicemanX]

Interesting info DicemanX. What method have you used in order to find all this?

I built a multi-surface farm recently:

http://forums.terraria.org/index.ph...keys-3-biome-mimic-drops-rod-tons-more.36330/

I use that to gather info about mob spawning.

I also have worked on designing the ultimate mob autofarm by chaining a bunch of mob farms together in 1.2.4:

http://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/autofarming-guide-the-ultimate-chain-autofarm.3244/

The chained farms included a surface farm, dungeon farm, temple farm, underground multi-surface farm, and an underworld farm, and the player would periodically bounce from one farm to the next in a fully automated way if the chaining was turned on. Alternately, the player could farm at one location if the chaining was truned off. 4 of the 5 farms in the chain were capable of farming souls of light and night and all 5 biome keys because the player would travel from the hallowed end to the crimson/corruption end via minecart.

The chain autofarm didn't cover all possible mobs, because I didn't think they would be useful to farm (this included recluses, enemies that spawn in water, and sky enemies).

A question still lingering to me is to what grade "regular" spawns (from the surface) are overwritten by these "biome" spawns. I have a testing farm with a stone surface, but with a chunk of ice blocks dictating the biome to be snow. The mobs that spawn are almost exclusively snow mobs, but once in a while a skeleton or even a bat spawns, so there seems to be some factor in play.

Yeah, this is consistent with my obervations - the snow mobs require any "open" surface and that includes a non-biome surface. The open surfaces also periodically allow for the spawning of non-biome enemies.

 

[Eotall]

Yeah, this is consistent with my obervations - the snow mobs require any "open" surface and that includes a non-biome surface. The open surfaces also periodically allow for the spawning of non-biome enemies.

Do you believe there to be a way of making one "pod" farm able to farm both these snow mobs and regular cave mobs reliably (i.e. being able to select reliably), or should we just accept that we would have to create a lot of different pods in order to manipulate spawning?

 

[DicemanX]

Do you believe there to be a way of making one "pod" farm able to farm both these snow mobs and regular cave mobs reliably (i.e. being able to select reliably), or should we just accept that we would have to create a lot of different pods in order to manipulate spawning?

Yes, you can shift player position relative to the spawn surface to change what biome the player is in. You can make the shifting automated via a cascade timer or just shift the position manually. Alternately, you can add 299 snow biome blocks near the player, and have the player add the 300th block if the player wanted to primarily farm snow mobs. The same could be done for the other biomes.

 

[Eotall]

Yes, you can shift player position relative to the spawn surface to change what biome the player is in. You can make the shifting automated via a cascade timer or just shift the position manually. Alternately, you can add 299 snow biome blocks near the player, and have the player add the 300th block if the player wanted to primarily farm snow mobs. The same could be done for the other biomes.

Sure, making a timer to change the player positition will of course work (you could potentially create one surface and one player position for every possible spawn alteration (somewhere to 30+), but that wouldn't be such an... elegant solution!), and then I guess you could have somewhere around 4 positions per spawn surface (or 2 if you want to teleport the mobs somewhere). This does decrease the number of potential spawn surfaces you would need, but perhaps there are other ways... I got an idea I'm going to try out when I get time.

 

[DicemanX]

Sure, making a timer to change the player positition will of course work (you could potentially create one surface and one player position for every possible spawn alteration (somewhere to 30+), but that wouldn't be such an... elegant solution!)

I think the best solution ultimately is to leave it be - since non-biome mobs can still ultimately spawn on the "open" surfaces, and since it's possible to generate both a maximum spawn rate and a very high kill rate, you can farm the non-biome mobs fairly reliably.

To farm every possible mob however will require jumping among many pods. Here's the minimum:

Dungeon Farm: 3 surfaces needed to farm all dungeon spawns; the wall type behind the spawn surfaces control the dungeon mobs that spawn (similar to your observation regarding what controls the spawns of underground desert mobs)

Temple Farm: the player needs to be in front of a naturally-placed temple wall, and the spawns need a temple brick surface. The temple brick surface can be substituted with a regular non-biome surface to farm all the non-biome mobs reliably.

Multi-surface underground farm: already discussed above

Underworld farm: this can also be multi-surface, because it is possible to get hallowed, jungle, snow, crimson, and corruption spawns in the underworld. However, the underworld is mutually exclusive with marble and granite spawns (after testing my multi-surface farm in the underworld I could never get granite and marble enemies to spawn)

Multi-surface above-ground farm: similar to the underground farm, but for mobs that only spawn above 0-alt. It would be necessary to have both a snow biome and hallowed biome as well to spawn Ice Giants and Rainbow Slimes respectively when the rains come. If the farm is at a high enough elevation, it should be possible to get Harpies and Wyverns to spawn as well.

Spider Farm: for farming recluses.

Underground Desert Farm: since this farm requires the appropriate background walls that cannot be farmed and player-placed, it cannot be part of the underground multi-surface farm.

Ocean Farm: to farm all the aquatic enemies. This too would require various biomes for the biome-specific aquatic mobs, but would also require the player to shift positions to enter certain biomes.

Any other pods I'm missing?

 

[Eotall]

Maybe a Marble/Granite pod should be added, removing it from the "regular" Multi-surface underground farm. This would make sure that the spawns in the regular farm will be of their respective surfaces instead of being affected by nearby marble/granite.

Perhaps those surfaces could be combined with the Spider farm? Although I assume not.

The problem of spawn rates also applies, I would think. For maximum spawn rates, a jungle biome at the player is preferred, but having said biome appears to eliminate some mob spawn (cave bats seems to turn into jungle bats). From my testing this only seem to be the case below 0 altitude, so maybe the Multi-surface undergound farm should be split in two, having the affected surfaces elsewhere to allow for increased spawning rates on the unaffected.
Do you know of more enemies to be "cancelled out" like this due to another biome (maybe not just jungle)? I'm guessing that the corr/crim/hall, mushroom and probably ice is safe, leaving only the regular cavern/stone surface.

Wait, just read your text again... Regarding the Temple Farm, can "regular" mobs spawn if the surface isn't temple brick? If so, the stone surface could easily and reliably be added there.
EDIT: Also, is this then true for the dungeon farm as well?

 

[DicemanX]

Maybe a Marble/Granite pod should be added, removing it from the "regular" Multi-surface underground farm. This would make sure that the spawns in the regular farm will be of their respective surfaces instead of being affected by nearby marble/granite.

It would be worth checking out marble/granite in the dungeon or temple farms.

The problem of spawn rates also applies, I would think. For maximum spawn rates, a jungle biome at the player is preferred, but having said biome appears to eliminate some mob spawn (cave bats seems to turn into jungle bats).

Jungle Bats are only jungle biome spawn with 80+ jungle blocks around so the jungle biome should be present at every farm except where you want regular bat spawns. One thing the wiki doesn't discuss is the spawn rate in the mushroom biome. The mushroom biome doesn't generate any unique spawns on regular surfaces, so that might be a good replacement if the regular bats are desired if it turns out the mushroom biome has spawn rates as high as the jungle biome.

Wait, just read your text again... Regarding the Temple Farm, can "regular" mobs spawn if the surface isn't temple brick? If so, the stone surface could easily and reliably be added there.

Yes, regular mobs will spawn if the spawn surface is a non-biome surface. That's why I had to put telepoters underneath the temple bricks in the spawn area in my recent temple farm, instead of using the teleporters for the spawn surface.

 

[Pseudoname]

I at least know granite and marble mobs only spawn below surface layer(had a minibiome glitch and generate on the surface and got nothing. used tedit to make the minibiomes on the surface and still nothing)

 

[ZeroGravitas]

Very nice thread, covering the 'basic science' of Terraria. It is kind of a shame that no one place is viable for farming all mobs. Even in a very heavily edited world, to get everything, you need to use an entire column of it, from sky to hell, and at one end or other of the world (for ocean biome mobs). Is that right? Does ocean block some desert spawns, or anything else, at surface (so would have to be on the boundary of the ocean)? Any way, given how much the player would have to be moved vertically, I can't see a huge motive to confine one's space horizontally (rather than just teleport to farms around a more natural world, as Diceman has already done with his chained auto-farms).

Possible objectives for enumerating all possible spawn conditions might be:

• To make a world expressly capable of farming for all mob banners.
• A world for farming all item (drop) types (and make all armors). (A smaller subset than above, with perhaps more practical import.)
• The minimum areas you would need to farm to beat the game 'normally' (rather than via a spectacular, pre-made world of contraptions ).
• List the (minimal) areas and setups necessary to farm for all the components for crafting items of particular interest (e.g. the Ankh shield being a particular favorite).