Whoopie Cushion farming

[daimoth]

For those who don't know, Whoopie Cushions are rare accessories which drop from Diggers and Giant Worms. My broad approach is to allow these to spawn and nothing else, but first I need to understand worm spawning conditions.

So... what is known about the spawn conditions of Giant Worms and Diggers? If someone has the code decompiled and handy, would you mind looking into this for me? I'm currently looking through decompiled 1.2.4.1 code.

 

[Thiner]

As of 1.3.0.7 it seems like that if you are in underground layer and not Ice biome it spawns more frequently, although still very rare (1/50).

By the way you can't farm this creature in a spider cave, definitely..

[P.S. Whoopie Cushion is not an accessory... at least for player...]

 

[daimoth]

The term "underground layer" is often used ambiguously. Sometimes it includes the cavern layer, sometimes it doesn't. Makes figuring out stuff like this harder sometimes.

I'm wondering if worms can spawn inside blocks, or do they need air? Do they originate from spawnable surfaces, a la ground mobs?

 

[Sulejman]

Go to a non-hardmode world, dig yourself in underground layer, battle potion, couple of minions, water candle, surround yourself and minions with blocks to keep away slimes and other pests. Heart lantern+campfire+honey, if you lack armor. wait.
On a side note, farming for a tool that only farts.

 

[daimoth]

Much appreciated, but I'm aiming for a more targeted approach. The point is that it's a difficult to obtain item, and I mean to discover if it's possible to eliminate most other spawns.

Giant Worms also have fewer body segments than Diggers. Since each body segment has a chance to drop a whoopie cushion, a hardmode world is likely more ideal.

 

[Sulejman]

I'm not sure if body segments are still considered separate entities and dop chances are separate for each one. I recall worm enemies being made of segments with separate lifebars, (Destroyer and Eater of Worlds still have this mechanic), and killing one segment would kill the whole thing (thus AoE attacks weren't really effective). That's been changed long time ago and there is no confirmation that drop chances are still separate for segments.

 

[daimoth]

According to the Whoopie Cushion's wiki page, that's exactly the case. Of course it may be outdated information.

 

[Thiner]

Except for Harpy and Wyvern (well, and Martian Drone in the Martian event and Martian Probe) which can spawn in the air, ANY other mobs spawn on the ground with an space of at least 2 * 3 tiles. And there is no way to eliminate other spawns in this case. It is not like the spider cave, which rarely occurs to be the purest spawning place.

And only his head is counted when calculating active NPCs. And the drop chance seems to be not separate, as only a worm's head will drop loots except for EoW which is so special.

And, why do you want Whoopie Cushion farm? When I was farming things such as Vitamin, Blindfold, new Mimics' loots, Cursed Flames, Ichors and other things, I found a whoopie cushion in my inventory, so I think you needn't farm it specially....

 

[ZeroGravitas]

Someone else asked me a make a whoopie cushion farm guide a while back (don't know if hat was you too), can't remember why either, but I duly noted it down.

Go to the edge of a world (editied in TEdit) to block off-screen spawning, and watch what spawns at different heights at different layers. Or use binoculars elsewhere (I think that doesn't spawn block...?). It's what I did to figure out the spawn ranges definitively, and also showed a lot about the types of spawn. Code can be surprisingly ambiguous.

I am currently worry, however (e.g. with my turbo truffle worm farm), that (in 1.3 particularly) the spawn types might change massively for different points of progression, even within hardmode. So that's something I'm curious about...

 

[Thiner]

Someone else asked me a make a whoopie cushion farm guide a while back (don't know if hat was you too), can't remember why either, but I duly noted it down.

Go to the edge of a world (editied in TEdit) to block off-screen spawning, and watch what spawns at different heights at different layers. Or use binoculars elsewhere (I think that doesn't spawn block...?). It's what I did to figure out the spawn ranges definitively, and also showed a lot about the types of spawn. Code can be surprisingly ambiguous.

I am currently worry, however (e.g. with my turbo truffle worm farm), that (in 1.3 particularly) the spawn types might change massively for different points of progression, even within hardmode. So that's something I'm curious about...

Binoculars affect spawning if you constantly look with it.

And what I extremely admire you for is your ability to design experiments using merely in-game methods to dig out information which I can only peek in the code... such as the 10 ticks' cooldown for piercing weapons (though not 10 ticks always), the 30 ticks' cooldown for spawning statues, and in this case, the types of the spawn directly.

 

[daimoth]

And, why do you want Whoopie Cushion farm?

I have a fetish.

Alternatively, it's a weird, difficult-to-obtain item, and I'm a collector and/or completionist. Depending on your playing habits, they're absurdly rare. I managed to find a pre-1.3 Nymph banner before finding my first whoopie cushion.

Who cares why? You need 4 of them if you want every accessory.

You guys have effectively talked me out of looking for a way to farm these things. I'll just AFK underground somewhere and hope for the best. Thanks anyway.

 

[ZeroGravitas]

Binoculars affect spawning if you constantly look with it.

Of course they do, because the spawn box (an buffs from in-world items, e.g. campfires) stay centred on the screen view, not player, etc. Although I've seen the odd mob de-spawn this way, just now, t's not perfect...

I'll just AFK underground somewhere and hope for the best.

Well, sure, that's what Thiner's code insights seem to say: there's no way to 100% exclude other spawns, so yeah, undergound (i.e. and cavern), and you need at least 2x3 spaces to spawn them. I doubt there's much more certainty than that to gleen from just reading the code. I didn't mean to be dismissive of your code digging request, it's quite reasonable to have somewhere to start looking, but you do have to see what works in practice, and in this case I don't think there's too much more we can do to be more specific, since it's a probably a case of excluding all other spawning eventualities. I don't think I've ever managed to read the spawn code well enough to even start doing that from the inside...

So, I'd Make an underground spawn control area, perhaps an upside down version of my truffle worm farm, so that mobs spawn above you (that may limit the spawn success marginally), use a plain dirt block spawn surface (best guess), and then see how many worms drop down to you. (Most) other mobs (depending on progression) won't be able to get through the solid blocks to get to you, so they'll stay stuck in the spawn/despawn area and so disappear again after ~15s. You could set up traps up there to speed things up a little. But not necessary, and complicates things, having to dispose of loot (far from impossible)... 80 jungle blocks to boost spawn rate, etc. Minions to guard you, I guess. If worms do start to make it down, add dirt blocks to help them get where you want them, I suppose, maybe a item hoik setup below you to gather the drops as a last touch...