Natural Mob Spawning Rates are Decreased

[Sirc23]

Bug Description: General mob spawns appear to be decreased. Direct testing has been done in the End dimension, since it is the easiest to create an isolated demonstration. Apparently other dimensions are affected as well, though I have not verified this.

To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Start a vanilla instance of Minecraft 1.16.3.
2. Travel to the End, in between the main island and the Far End (as if you were trying to create an Enderman farm)
3. Create a 20x20 platform for Endermen to spawn, along with a spot for an Endermite to stand to lure the mobs.
4. Take note of mob spawning frequency.
5. Start a modded instance of Minecraft 1.16.3 containing this mod.
6. Repeat steps 2 through 4.
7. Compare mob spawning frequency of vanilla and modded instances.

Expected behavior Spawning frequency should be close to identical, within reason.

Screenshots or Crash Report Baseline Vanilla Spawning Rate (60s sample): https://www.dropbox.com/s/nym66qq27qqso8n/Vanilla.mp4?dl=0

Modded Spawning Rate w/o Vault (60s sample): https://www.dropbox.com/s/jp1o75fowp0axs2/Without_Vault.mp4?dl=0

Modded Spawning Rate w/ Vault (60s sample): https://www.dropbox.com/s/bxx3i2bapqx37me/With_Vault.mp4?dl=0

Info:

• World Type: Single Player
• The_Vault Version 1.0.2-public

Additional context We first discovered the issue after we built an Enderman farm (Ender Ender design w/ Endermites). Some digging revealed that other people had reportedly had similar issues when building Slime Farms in the Overworld, and Zombified Piglin farms in the Nether. If these reports are accurate, this indicates that something is affecting the base spawning algorithm... or perhaps, there is some other location in the world contributing to the mob cap? I'm not sure how this might happen if the only player in the world is floating in a void unless another dimension is spawning mobs (See #105 ?).

[Ithkamakazi]

Question, are according for mob spawners also in said loaded chunck in over world and other force loaded chunks, and verifying that they do not account for any of the mob cap?

[Sirc23]

Question, are according for mob spawners also in said loaded chunck in over world and other force loaded chunks, and verifying that they do not account for any of the mob cap?

I think you're asking if our testing accounted for mob spawners and other force loaded chunks. All tests were done in brand new worlds with no force loaded chunks. We just created the world, went to the End, and set up the platform.

Even if chunks were force loaded, no player would be in those chunks, so most hostile mobs would instantly despawn according to Vanilla spawning rules. Those that could stay would either be named or holding an item they picked up off the ground.

While monster spawners (like those found in dungeons) can spawn monsters that count towards the cap, they also require a player to be nearby in order to function.

[Ithkamakazi]

Just gotta ask the question to check, so if those aren't causing, what about some of the mods that generate mobs in specific locations, like the quark dungeons, the caves at about y 30-50 those tend to have a lot of mobs in them, possibly that could be a factor?

[kosma]

I have tracked the issue down to Quark. Investigating for possible fixes.

[kosma]

Fix inspired by https://github.com/Vazkii/Quark/issues/2001

--- config/quark-common.toml.orig       2021-04-05 15:23:59.110471200 +0200
+++ config/quark-common.toml    2021-04-05 15:30:28.664052600 +0200
@@ -1437,7 +1437,7 @@
                                #Allowed values: [[none, taiga, extreme_hills, jungle, mesa, plains, savanna,
                                # the_end, beach, forest, ocean, desert, river, swamp,
                                # mushroom, nether]
-                               "Biome Categories" = ["none", "nether"]
+                               "Biome Categories" = ["none", "nether", "the_end"]
                                "Is Blacklist" = true

                [mobs.stonelings.dimensions]
@@ -1460,7 +1460,7 @@
                                #Allowed values: [[none, taiga, extreme_hills, jungle, mesa, plains, savanna,
                                # the_end, beach, forest, ocean, desert, river, swamp,
                                # mushroom, nether]
-                               "Biome Categories" = ["none", "nether"]
+                               "Biome Categories" = ["none", "nether", "the_end"]
                                "Is Blacklist" = true

                [mobs.toretoise.dimensions]

[Sirc23]

Preliminary testing shows that this does indeed fix the issue! According to the person who captured the footage for Modded w/ Vault versus Modded w/o Vault, one of his first tests was disabling Quark (and not The Vault). He said that disabling Quark did not impact spawning performance, so he went on to disable other mods.

Intriguing then that the issue lies with Quark -- either way, our Enderman farm is at least 3 times more efficient than it was before. I'll leave this issue open until a developer decides to close it; the config file should be updated for the next release of the Vault Hunters modpack.