Mob Grinding Utils

Overview

Mob Grinding Utils is a focused utility mod that gives you all the building blocks for automated mob farms. Rather than adding new mobs or dimensions, it provides purpose-built machines and tools that handle every stage of the mob grinding pipeline: spawning mobs, moving them, killing them, collecting drops and XP, and storing or converting that experience into useful items.

The mod revolves around a few core systems. The Mob Fan pushes entities where you want them. The Mob Masher kills them with player-kill credit (meaning rare drops work). The Absorption Hopper vacuums up items and XP orbs. Singularity Tanks store liquid XP, and the XP Solidifier converts it into consumable XP Jelly Babies. On top of that, you get custom mob spawning blocks, an Entity Spawner that uses Spawn Eggs, Entity Conveyors, and quality-of-life tools like the Ender Inhibitor and boss sound mufflers.

You can browse every item and recipe this mod adds using the tabs at the top of this page. This guide walks you through how all these systems connect and how to build your first automated mob farm from scratch.

Mob Movement & Killing

Mob Fan

The Mob Fan is a directional block that pushes entities when powered by Redstone. It activates every 2 game ticks, applying a velocity of 0.5 per axis horizontally or 0.25 upward (0.2 downward when facing down). Its base push range is 5 blocks. The Fan accepts three upgrade types in its GUI: Width Upgrades expand the push area horizontally (+1 per upgrade, max 3), Height Upgrades expand it vertically (+1 per upgrade, max 3), and Distance Upgrades extend the range (+1 per upgrade, max 10, for a maximum range of 15 blocks). You can toggle the area-of-effect visualization in the GUI to see exactly where the fan reaches.

Entity Conveyor

Entity Conveyors move mobs and items along a horizontal path in the direction they face. They're crafted 6 at a time and are ideal for building long transport corridors. An important detail: mobs can spawn on Entity Conveyors, which makes them useful as part of your spawning platform. Line them up to funnel mobs from a spawning area into a fan corridor or directly into a kill zone.

Iron Spikes

Iron Spikes deal 5.0 hearts of damage (10 damage points) to any entity that touches them, using a custom "spikes" damage source that bypasses armor. They can be placed on any face of a block. Spikes will drop the mob's XP orbs directly at the spike's position. However, spike kills do NOT count as player kills, so mobs won't drop rare items or equipment that requires player-kill credit. Use Spikes for simple XP farms or as a budget option before upgrading to the Mob Masher.

Mob Masher

The Mob Masher is the mod's advanced killing machine. It uses a fake player internally, so all kills count as player kills. This means mobs drop their full loot table including rare drops, and zombie reinforcement events are automatically suppressed. The Masher operates every 10 ticks when powered by Redstone.

The Mob Masher has 6 upgrade slots, each accepting a specific upgrade type. Sharpness Upgrades multiply the enchantment level by 10 (so 10 upgrades = Sharpness 100). Smite and Bane of Arthropods work the same way, multiplied by 10 per level. Looting and Fire Aspect apply their level directly (10 Looting Upgrades = Looting X). Beheading Upgrades give a 10% chance per level for mob heads to drop, meaning 10 upgrades guarantee a head drop every kill.

Collection & XP Storage

Absorption Hopper

The Absorption Hopper is a smart vacuum that collects both items and XP orbs in a 7x7x7 area. It has an internal fluid tank of 16,000 mB that stores collected XP as Fluid XP (at a rate of 20 mB per XP orb). It checks for items every 8 ticks and for XP every 3 ticks. Each of its six faces can be independently set to output items, output fluid, or do nothing by right-clicking. Sneak and right-click to open the GUI, where you can insert Absorption Radius Upgrades (+1 range per upgrade, max 6) and adjust the collection area's offset position.

Singularity Tank

The Singularity Tank stores 32,000 mB of any fluid, primarily used for Fluid XP. It renders the fluid level visually so you can see how full it is. You can right-click a tank containing Fluid XP with a Glass Bottle to create a Bottle o' Enchanting (costs 200 mB). Tanks can be reset by crafting them alone in a Crafting Table, which clears any stored fluid.

Jumbo Tank

The Jumbo Tank is an upgraded version holding 1,024,000 mB, which is 32 times the capacity of a standard Singularity Tank. It's crafted by surrounding 4 Singularity Tanks with Iron Ingots. For large-scale farms, a single Jumbo Tank replaces an entire wall of regular tanks.

XP Drain Singularity Tank

The XP Drain Singularity Tank (Tank Sink) functions like a regular Singularity Tank but additionally drains XP from players standing on top of it. Every time a player walks over the Tank Sink, it converts 1 XP level into Fluid XP and stores it in its internal tank. This is useful for manually depositing your own XP into the fluid system.

XP Tap

The XP Tap attaches to the side of a Singularity Tank and converts Fluid XP back into XP orbs. It extracts 20 mB per operation (every 3 ticks) and spawns an XP orb below the tap. Place it on the bottom side of a tank above where you stand to create a simple XP shower.

XP Solidification System

The XP Solidifier converts liquid XP into edible XP Jelly Babies. First, craft an XP Mould Blank from Gold Nuggets and a Fluid XP Bucket, then convert it into an XP Mould Jelly Baby by crafting the blank mould alone (you can convert it back the same way). Place the mould in the Solidifier's mould slot, and pipe Fluid XP into its internal 16,000 mB tank. The Solidifier takes 100 ticks (5 seconds) per Jelly Baby by default. Each Jelly Baby requires 1,000 mB of Fluid XP.

XP Jelly Babies are consumable food items that grant 50 XP each when eaten. They stack to 64. If you sneak while eating a full stack, you consume the entire stack at once for 3,200 XP total. You can also compress 9 Jelly Babies into a Solid XP Block, which is a bouncy decorative block. The XP Solidifier's output direction can be configured in its GUI, and you can add XP Speed Upgrades to increase processing speed.

Mob Spawning

Dreadful Dirt

Dreadful Dirt rapidly spawns hostile mobs (Zombies, Skeletons, Creepers, and other monsters from the current biome's spawn list) when the light level is below 10 and there are fewer than 8 hostile mobs within a 5-block radius. It ticks every 20 to 60 game ticks, making it spawn mobs much faster than natural spawning. Dreadful Dirt is flammable and will ignite if exposed to direct skylight during the day, so always keep it underground or covered. Create it by using a Rotten Egg on Grass, Dirt, Mycelium, or Farmland, which converts a 5x5 area.

Delightful Dirt

Delightful Dirt is the peaceful counterpart, spawning passive creatures (Cows, Sheep, Pigs, Chickens, and other biome-appropriate animals) when the light level is 10 or above. It also grows flowers and Grass randomly on top of it. When exposed to the sky at night, it generates a Snow layer on top. Create it with a Golden Egg on the same block types as Dreadful Dirt. Like Dreadful Dirt, spawning caps at 8 creatures within the area.

Entity Spawner

The Entity Spawner is an advanced, controllable mob spawner. Place a Spawn Egg in the top slot and fuel it with XP Jelly Babies. It spawns mobs in a 3x3x1 area by default, which can be expanded with Spawner Width Upgrades (+1 per upgrade, max 5) and Spawner Height Upgrades (+1 per upgrade, max 5). The base spawn time is 100 ticks (5 seconds), reducible with XP Speed Upgrades. The spawn area position can be offset through the GUI, and you can toggle the area-of-effect visualization.

The Chicken Feed System

Mob Grinding Utils uses Chickens as a quirky but effective Spawn Egg factory. The process starts with a Mob Swab, crafted from Wool and Sticks. Right-click any mob (except those in the "noswab" tag) with the Mob Swab to collect its DNA, creating a Used Mob Swab that stores the mob type.

Craft the Used Mob Swab with Seeds and a Fluid XP Bucket (this is a special recipe requiring liquid XP) to create GM Chicken Feed tagged with that mob's identity. Feed it to a Chicken and it will begin a 20-tick fuse countdown, visually swelling like a Creeper. When the timer expires, the Chicken explodes and drops a Spawn Egg matching the stored mob DNA, along with 4 Feathers.

Two special feed variants exist. Cursed Chicken Feed (crafted with hostile mob ingredients like Spider Eyes, Rotten Flesh, Bones, and Gunpowder) makes the Chicken drop a Rotten Egg instead of a Spawn Egg. Using a Rotten Egg on Grass or Dirt creates a 5x5 area of Dreadful Dirt. Nutritious Chicken Feed (crafted with wholesome ingredients like Carrots, Potatoes, Beetroot, and Wheat) produces a Golden Egg, which similarly creates a 5x5 area of Delightful Dirt.

Utility Blocks & Items

Ender Inhibitor

The Ender Inhibitor prevents all entity teleportation within an 8-block radius when active. This includes Enderman teleportation, Chorus Fruit, and Ender Pearls. It can be attached to any face of a solid block (12 placement orientations total) and toggled on/off by right-clicking. This is essential for Enderman farms, as it prevents them from teleporting away from your kill zone.

Tinted Glass

Tinted Glass blocks light completely while remaining transparent, letting you observe the inside of your mob farm without raising the light level. They connect visually to adjacent Tinted Glass blocks and are tough enough to withstand Wither explosions. Crafted 4 at a time from Coal and Glass in a checkerboard pattern.

Wither & Dragon Mufflers

The Wither Boss Death Muffler silences Wither sounds within 8 blocks and can hide the boss bar when right-clicked (persists per player). The Ender Dragon Death Muffler does the same for Dragon sounds within 32 blocks. Both are invaluable for Wither farms where constant boss sounds would be unbearable.

Monocle

The Monocle is a head armor piece using Chain armor stats with 256 durability. It's crafted from Glass Panes and Chain. A purely cosmetic vanity item for the distinguished mob farmer.

Complete Farm Layout Example

A standard mob farm using Mob Grinding Utils follows this flow: mobs spawn on a platform (either naturally or via Dreadful Dirt), Entity Conveyors or water channels move them to the edge, a Mob Fan pushes them through a corridor into a Mob Masher. Below the Masher, an Absorption Hopper collects items and XP. Items are piped into Chests, and Fluid XP flows into Singularity Tanks or a Jumbo Tank. From there, you can use an XP Tap to shower yourself with experience, fill Bottles o' Enchanting, or run the fluid through an XP Solidifier to produce XP Jelly Babies.

For the spawning platform, Dreadful Dirt spawns hostile mobs rapidly when kept below light level 10. Use Tinted Glass walls to observe without letting light in. Place Ender Inhibitors if you're farming Endermen. The Entity Spawner is an alternative approach, letting you farm a specific mob type using Spawn Eggs obtained through the Chicken Feed system. Both approaches feed into the same fan-masher-hopper pipeline.

Configuration & Fine-Tuning

Most machines in Mob Grinding Utils have GUIs with offset controls and area-of-effect toggles. The Absorption Hopper's collection area can be shifted up to 4 blocks in any direction and expanded with upgrades. The Entity Spawner's spawn area is similarly adjustable. Both the Mob Fan and Entity Spawner display a visual box showing their active area when toggled in the GUI, which is extremely helpful for precise placement.

The Absorption Hopper's face-based output system lets you route items and fluids separately. Each of the six faces cycles through three modes: no output, item output, and fluid output. Point the item output face toward a Chest or Hopper chain, and the fluid output face toward a Tank. This removes the need for separate item and fluid collection systems.