Kamelose

Here

I laid out a proposed portal arrangement for twelve portals with dirt blocks. I was thinking of an open to the sky building, sort of like a druid temple thing. A nice colorful floor with a geometric pattern, but no walls or ceiling. We could later put the rail hub underneath if we want. Lighting could be in the floor with glowstone, I'm a little short - anyone have some? I quite like the use of netherack in floors for the red color, and it contrasts nicely with obsidian -which I have some of both. Kamel - you've seen the floors in my throne room - maybe something like that? Sandstone looks nice to give a white contrast. Personally I don't like to use wool in floors, although it gives more color choices. I don't like that squishy sound when you walk on it. I think for a portal room it needs to sound like you are walking on stone.

The rail line to Kamelose's house will need some minor re-routing.

I didn't want to make the structure too large or grandiose since to get bigger it will take a lot of landscaping to level the surface. But if we want the portals further apart or in a different arrangement, say in a square, we'd have to do more landfill.

Let me know what you guys think.

Ok, nice. Let's try and meet on Saturday or Sunday, I'll let you know when and if I'm available. I got my final in fish-biology on Wednesday and I'm studying hard for it. I have some extra glowstone, it's in the nether related chest if you need it. Rerouting the rail line is no problem!

We can always expand or make another hub if we run out of space.

12 sounds reasonable, not to much and still a lot of possibilities. As to the design, I haven't given it any thought. I'm generally open to anything, since I will be mostly busy with IRL until late summer.

Maybe we could set up a meet in Trollaria for an hour or two and decide on this?

Let me know when you plan to do one, I'd like to watch and see how it is set up. I've not done done and am not quite sure about the lift mechanism with the signs and water. Also, there seems to be some discrepancy about whether you need to be within a certain number of blocks from the spawner or not within that distance. Only one answer can be right - do mobs spawn within about 16 blocks of the player or not within that distance?

Sorry I didn't see this earlier. I've done the basics for the skele grinder just need to make it look nicer and more accessible. I'll show it to you when we meet online.

When you go a certain distance from the spawner and if it's still visible you can see it stops spinning at that point you know it's not going to spawn any monsters. I think it's the 16 block rule, but I usually just guess it I know it works when monsters start dropping down the drop shaft.
If you want to be sure, just dig a straight line from the spawner until you see it stop spinning and shooting out flames.

This is of course just to keep the monsters spawning, they can go a long way after they spawn, so as long as your within 16 blocks and they end up close to you, your good.

This is similar to the design I've been using on my grinders, works great and fun to build!

I'll do a dual spider spawner grinder when I've done with the skele grinder, it's a bit harder to get them to work properly, imo.