MrMutant

figured it out kinda, if your using an ethernet cable you gotta set it to discoverable in your settings

what i assume is the game basically has a chance to run a spawn check on a block and if reqs are filled it spawns a creature. currently I'm on a floating island at 122 elevation for the mainland but im expanding downwards for drifters cause flax fibers are a good drop. drifters seem to spawn in abundance while animals seem to spawn extremely rarely after a chunk is loaded. hopefully i can get a large animal on the spawn tho

Some updates. A trader and a fish have spawned. This at least confirms any suspicions of broken spawning mechanics so that's good. After lots of testing and editing spawn chances I can confirm its in fact forest density and block availability. it seems without whole solid surfaces spawn rates are insanely low like days of real time before a single spawn. thanks for the help.

I went through and read some of the files, but somethings still leave me confused such as what tryOnlySurface: true means and what chance actually means in relation to spawn time. like is every second in game a chance to spawn or what. Currently I'm doing a skyblock world and have gotten lots of drifters to spawn but no luck with animals. Another thing is minforest. Does that mean certain mobs can only spawn on forests blocks? Also while I was able to find a check to despawn away from the player I'm still unsure how radius to the player effects spawning in.

I'm looking for some insight on how mobs spawn. Mainly how the game decides when to spawn a mob when the requirements are made. I'm also looking for any information on said requirements that aren't mentioned on the wiki which are (temp, rainfall, light level). Things like how much open space is needed and what blocks animals can spawn on. All info is appreciated and thank you for reading.