Creeper Farm — 3D Build Guide

How to build the creeper farm, step by step

1. Chest and hoppers — Place a double chest, and four hoppers above it in a 2×2: the two over the chest point down into it, the two behind point into them. Build a small floor in front of the chest — this is where you wait while the farm runs.
2. Drop shaft — Above the hoppers build a 2×2 shaft straight up, walls 23 blocks high. With the channel on top, a creeper drops 24 blocks from the water to the hoppers: it takes 21 damage and has 20 health, so it dies when it lands and its gunpowder falls into the hoppers.
3. Water channel — At the top of the shaft lay a cross of channels two blocks wide around the 2×2 hole: a floor of cobblestone and walls one block high. Each arm runs 8 blocks from the hole, two past the floor you build next; put a block over those two ends so no light gets into the channel. The hole stays open.
4. Water — Pour two water sources at the end of every arm. Water flows 7 blocks, so it stops right at the edge of the hole and pushes everything in it off that edge.
5. Spawning floor — On top of the channel walls build a floor 14 by 14 with a one-block edge around it, and leave the cross over the channel open: two trenches two blocks wide.
6. Open trapdoors — Put an oak trapdoor in every trench cell except the 2×2 over the hole and open it, against the outer side of the trench. A creeper takes an open trapdoor for floor, steps on it and drops into the water.
7. Walls — Build walls two blocks high on the edge of the floor.
8. Carpets — Lay a carpet on every third cell, two and five cells from the trench both ways — 16 in all. A spider needs a free 3×3 to spawn; with the carpets it has none.
9. Trapdoor ceiling — Over every floor cell place an oak trapdoor in the top half of the second block and leave it closed. That leaves 1.81 blocks of room: a creeper (1.7) fits, a zombie, a skeleton or a witch does not.
10. Roof — Cover everything with bottom slabs. They keep the light out, and nothing spawns on a bottom slab.
11. The farm at work — Stand on the floor in front of the chest and wait. Creepers spawn on the dark floor, wander onto the trapdoors and the water takes them to the drop. The test build made about 170 gunpowder an hour from one floor.

Creeper farm — questions

How do you make a creeper-only farm in Minecraft Java?

Give the floor a ceiling 1.81 blocks high: a trapdoor closed in the top half of the second block. A creeper is 1.7 blocks tall and fits; a zombie, a skeleton and a witch are 1.95 or taller and cannot spawn there. Spiders fit under it, so a carpet in every third cell leaves them no 3×3 of free floor to spawn on.

Why do creepers walk onto the open trapdoors?

Mobs plan their path as if an open trapdoor were a block of floor. A creeper wandering about steps onto one and drops into the water channel under the trench.

Do the creepers explode in the farm?

No. A creeper only lights its fuse near a player, and the drop down the shaft is 24 blocks: the fall deals 21 damage, a creeper has 20 health, so it dies when it lands. On the test server none of them exploded.

Where should I stand while the farm runs?

In front of the chest at the bottom. Mobs only spawn at least 24 blocks from a player, and a creeper only wanders while a player is within 32 blocks; the spot by the chest is 28 to 30 blocks from every floor cell. Without a player nearby the creepers stand still.

How much gunpowder does this farm make?

One floor made about 170 gunpowder an hour on a vanilla server. A creeper drops 0 to 2.

Where should I build a creeper farm?

High above an ocean, with the chest at least 24 blocks above the water. Mobs that spawn in caves and on land within 128 blocks of you count towards the same limit as the farm, and over open water nothing else spawns. Do not build it over a mushroom island: creepers never spawn there.