Monster Spawners
Monster spawners (also known as mob spawners) are the only way to get mobs spawned into Skyblock without the use of a spawn egg (or if you are a $250 plus donor the /spawnmob command). Monster spawners can be obtain in 3 distinctive ways.

First be lucky
If you do /rewards it will list the chances of getting a rare item from voting. Currently you have a 1/500 chance of getting a monster spawner from voting. This is rare but it does happen:


Second is by trading
On .Net players will trade a monster spawner for 2-3 diamonds each. It is usually 3 diamonds each but sometimes someone will trade for 2 diamonds. Every once in a while, someone will be nice and just give you a spawner (or sell underpriced), but spamming people asking for one is a quick way to be /ignore'd

Final method is buying one with real money
For .Net the link to buy them is shop.skyblock.net. Under the ranks section you can buy the $25 package. One of the things it comes with is a monster spawner. You can also buy the $50 package which comes with a monster spawner (Note: if you bought the $25 package and upgrade to the $50 package you do not get another monster spawner). The final rank is the $100 package which comes with 2 monster spawners (Note: you only get 1 spawner if you bought the $25 package, you bought the $50 package, or you bought both of them and you upgrade to the $100 package). That is just the ranks portion of how to get monster spawners

Under the items section you can just buy monster spawners. A pig spawner is 5 U.S. dollars and 4 pig spawners is 15 U.S. dollars.

Under the kits section you can buy the mob spawner kit giving you access to /kit spawner. Through this kit you can obtain 1 monster spawner every 5 days.

The last section is the special section. There you can buy the Skygod package or upgrade to it. Buying it without being a donor first will give you 8 spawners. Upgrading from a $100 package will give you 7 spawners.

Different types of monster spawners
To use the /spawner command you need to be a $25 donor or higher. If you do /spawner it will list all of the available choices to change your spawner to. However, you do not have access to all of them and you will get a Error: You don't have permission to spawn this mob message if you try. This is a current listing of all of the choices and the ones that you cannot do are strikethroughed:

Globally Disabled Mobs
Now you can set monster spawners to some of the enabled choices above, but they still won't spawn. This is because they are globally disabled from being spawned. So what happens is the mob will spawn, but at that very instant they are de-spawned leaving no trace. From the enabled choices above, pigzombies and zombies are globally disabled mobs.

How To Make The Spawners Work
In case you are not aware, there are rules for mobs to spawn. If these rules are not met, then they will not spawn. Since there is no point in reinventing the wheel, below is the pseudo-code for spawning mobs obtained from Monster Spawner - Minecraft Wiki

Code:

This pseudo-code is derived from the de-compiled source of 1.7.10

if (there is a player within the range of activatingRangeFromPlayer)
{
if (spawner delay == -1)
{
reset spawner delay
}

if (spawner delay > 0)
{
decrement spawner delay by 1
cancel this spawn
}

loop for the number of entities we should spawn
{
if (the number of entityTypeName in a 2*spawnRange+1 centered cube > maxNearbyEntities) {
reset spawner delay
exit loop
}

X = Spawner.x + random(spawnRange*2)-spawnRange;
Y = Spawner.y + random(3)-1;
Z = Spawner.z + random(spawnRange*2)-spawnRange;

if (entity can spawn at (X,Y,Z))
{
Spawn entityTypeName at (X,Y,Z)
Play Sound Effect
Spawn Particles
}
}

if (at least one entity was spawned)
{
reset spawner delay
}
}

Default values:
activatingRangeFromPlayer = 16
spawner delay = 20
maxNearbyEntities = 6
spawn range = 4
entityTypeName = Pig

Outcomes (default):
A player must be within a 16 block centered sphere
There must not be more than 6 pigs within a 9x9x9 centered cube
The pig must be able to spawn at the chosen location (must not be inside a block, meet lighting conditions etc.)
If all mobs fail to spawn, it will try again on the very next tick.

old code

I feel this would have been really nice to know before I bought my first monster spawner. I wasted so much time planning and making a witch grinder just to find out I couldn't use one, so that is why I am posting. Cheers ^_^

Disclaimer: this information is current as of 24 May 2014 (monster spawner code 2 Jan 15) and is subject to change. Prices/packages are also subject to change both in game and the shop.skyblock.net site and should be used as a refrence only.

 

1st GG

 

but how do u do it it says do /spawner [mob] [delay] what does the delay mean???

 

Never seen [delay] in the command reference.
Just type /spawner (mobName)
For example, if I wanted a sheep spawner, I would look at the spawner and type /spawner sheep

 

There is a delay argument. I would need to test this/research it

 

[delay] looks nearly meaningless, besides being unnecessary when using the /spawner command.

The delay argument has secretly been driving me nuts for many moons.

Essentials' source code says it just passes that number on to Bukkit. Not too surprisingly, the Bukkit docs say this number is used to "set the spawner's delay." Peering into CraftBukkit's guts, where pretty plugin code has been translated into gory Mojangish code, I see this.

My first impression is that the delay is almost guaranteed to be overridden before you could ever notice an effect. (Side-note: it defaults to 20 ticks, so unless I'm imagining things, that's why a spawner seems to fire off a round almost immediately after setting it, but then settles into its random (default 10-40 sec, or mob-specific) groove.)

 

This is very helpful. Thank you for taking the time and doing this Wilson XD

 

You're welcome.

 

Thankies!

 

Such detail, much wow

Very helpful guide, thanks a lot

 

thanks man relly help but i just want to know this
two questions
how can i cut the spawer and not disapear. when i cut it with the god diamond pick it destroy
and i want to now if there is a list like this
first you recive a pig spawner
next you recive a chiken spawner
then you recive a cow spaener

or there is random

 

If by cut you mean pick up (or sometimes referred to as silked spawners) then its not possible. Without mods or custom versions of Minecraft you cannot pickup monster spawners. This server used to have a custom plugin that gave the ability to pickup spawners but this was a while ago. All spawners placed in Skyblock are turned back into Pig spawners regardless of the type of spawner it is. So it doesn't matter what kind of spawner you have. The only reason why people want them is because they are rare, not because they are more useful than normal spawners

You can get back a spawner in Skyblock.net but you have to be refunded. If you can find a mod that can do this they will teleport to you, break your spawner and give you a new one to refund you. That is how most players "pick up" spawners on this server

 

Pseudo code for the monster spawners was updated so I updated my post to be more accurate with the latest spawning algorithm

 

i accidently put my pig spawner where i didn't want, can i break it or place it in anouther location?

 

You are able to break a Spawner with a God Enchanted Diamond Pickaxe.

 

All good information, unfortunately spawners have essentially 2x in price, making them go around 5.5-7 Diamonds =(

 

Nice & Detailed.

 

Very helpful

 

Zpawners are now 5 - 6 dias

 

does the pick have to be diamond?