Can You Mine a Spawner with Silk Touch?

Key Takeaways:

Silk Touch enchantment does not allow mining monster spawners in survival mode.
Spawners are tile entities that cannot be obtained as items without commands or mods.
There have been suggestions to add Silk Touch II to pick up spawners, but not implemented.
In the past, Silk Touch briefly let players mine spawners in certain versions.
Spawners can be moved with pistons but not picked up in vanilla survival Minecraft.

Also Read:

Introduction:

Monster spawners are unique block entities found in dungeons and mineshafts that spawn mobs when players are nearby. With a captivating spinning animation and ability to produce endless hordes of mobs, spawners are understandably desirable blocks that many players wish they could pick up and utilize for mob farms and other contraptions. However, their specialized nature as tile entities precludes them from being obtained as normal inventory items.

This article will thoroughly cover whether it is possible to mine monster spawners with a silk touch enchanted pickaxe and pick them up for later placement and use in survival mode Minecraft. Information on the Silk Touch enchantment, the technical nature of spawners, whether Silk Touch can work on them, and methods players have used to transport or hack in spawners will be examined. The goal is to provide a definitive reference on the interactions between silk touch and spawners across Minecraft versions and mods.

Understanding if and how spawners can be mined with silk touch is valuable for players aiming to collect spawners for ambush traps, efficient mob farms, or simply as trophies. The information here will equip Minecraft builders with accurate knowledge regarding silk touch, spurring creative problem-solving for acquiring spawners within the game’s limitations.

Can Silk Touch allow mining a monster spawner block?

No, in vanilla survival Minecraft, the Silk Touch enchantment does not allow players to mine a monster spawner block and obtain it as an item in their inventory. Spawner blocks are considered tile entities, meaning they have special behaviors and properties that prevent them from being dropped as a standard block item when mined.

Also Read:

Why doesn’t Silk Touch work on spawners?

Silk Touch works by allowing players to harvest blocks that would otherwise be unobtainable in survival mode. This includes blocks like ore, glass, and ice. However, it does not work on tile entities like chests, furnaces, and spawners. These blocks have associated data like inventory contents that require more than just block information. Spawners specifically have creature spawn data that must be retained.

Has Silk Touch ever worked on spawners?

In some early versions of Minecraft like Alpha v1.2.2, Silk Touch could briefly mine monster spawners. However, this was quickly removed. As spawners evolved into more complex tile entities, the Silk Touch enchant was changed to no longer interact with them. There are a few unreliable sources that claim Silk Touch can still mine spawners in modern Minecraft, but this is not the case. The spawner block will simply break and not drop anything.

Also Read:

Why do players want to mine spawners with Silk Touch?

Being able to pick up and place monster spawners with Silk Touch is desirable for many players. Having an item spawner in the inventory would allow easy transportation and reuse of spawners for traps and farms. Players usually want to collect spawners from dungeons and mineshafts to utilize the mob spawning mechanic elsewhere. Obtaining spawners legitimately takes considerable effort, so a Silk Touch method is appealing.

Have any new enchantments been proposed to pick up spawners?

Due to popularity of transporting spawners, the idea of adding a higher tier Silk Touch II has been proposed many times. This hypothetical enchantment would allow pickups of special blocks like spawners and beacons. However, Mojang has not indicated plans to add this enchantment. The technical challenges and game balance implications likely make it improbable.

Also Read:

Can spawners be moved by pistons in survival mode?

Yes, while the Silk Touch enchantment does not work on spawners, regular pistons are able to push or pull spawner blocks and transport them short distances. Using piston contraptions, players can slowly inch spawners to desired locations in survival mode. However, this is extremely laborious over long distances in the Nether/Overworld compared to instantly picking up and placing spawner items.

What options are there for obtaining spawners in survival mode?

Without Silk Touch, options are limited for acquiring spawners legitimately in survival. Players can find them by exploring dungeons and mineshafts, utilizing coordinates from online seeds to locate them. Mods like Spider Spawners provide crafting recipes for spawner types. In pure vanilla survival, transporting found spawners with pistons may be the only option. Ultimately, spawners are purposely restricted by game design.

Also Read:

Can Creative Mode or commands give access to spawners?

In Creative Mode, the /give command can generate spawner items instantly. The command is:

/give @p spawner{BlockEntityTag:{SpawnData:{id:”minecraft:spider”}}}

This provides a convenient way for builders to easily obtain any type of mob spawner for projects. Some server mods also enable spawner trading or loot box rewards.

Do any mods allow mining spawners with Silk Touch?

There are a couple of mods like SilkSpawners and More Minecraft that enable Silk Touch to pick up spawners. These directly change the code to allow the enchantment to work on spawners. Other mods like SuperTools tweak Silk Touch itself or add a new version like Silk Touch II. So while not possible in pure vanilla Minecraft, mods can directly enable the mining of spawners with silk touch capabilities.

Also Read:

Can tunnels/caves underneath affect spawner mob rates?

Yes, research from SciCraft indicates that spawner rates can be reduced by players standing near unsuitable spawn spaces outside the 9×9 spawning area, such as tunnels and caves below the spawner. This causes “wasted” spawn attempts that diminish the overall spawn rate. By blocking off all ground beneath spawners down to bedrock, rates can be optimized.

Conclusion:

In summary, monster spawners cannot be mined and picked up with the Silk Touch enchantment in vanilla survival Minecraft. Spawners are specialized tile entities that do not drop items when broken. While alluring for building mob farms, the game purposely restricts spawner collection and transportation. With Creative mode and certain mods, obtaining spawners becomes trivial. But within the limitations of survival gameplay, players must use pistons for laborious movement of found spawners or rely on randomness to find them exploring naturally generated structures. The functionality of Silk Touch does not extend to the unique mechanics of mob spawners. Despite player desire for recipy or Silk Touch solutions, acquiring spawners legitimately requires considerable effort and luck.

Also Read:

Editorial Team

The Editorial Team at AnswerCatch.com brings you insightful and accurate content on a wide range of topics. Our diverse team of talented writers is passionate about providing you with the best possible reading experience.