Microwave Grinder

The Microwave Grinder is an HV tier multiblock for grinding mobs and collecting their drops. The Microwave Grinder damages mobs/players inside or on top of the structure every second while active and teleports the drops into the output bus. The damage ignores armor and automatically cooks anything that can be cooked. Set the power setting inside the GUI of the controller to determine the power consumption and damage per second. There are three soft caps on the damage per second to hinder its scaling potential, but there is no upper limit. The Microwave Grinder also has a timer setting which is mandatory and caps the maximum runtime at 3,000 seconds, although it can stay permanently enabled with a machine controller cover. Use a powered spawner or cursed earth to spawn mobs and fans or the corporeal attractor to force them into the machine. The Microwave Grinder is superseded by the Extreme Entity Crusher in EV.

The Microwave Grinder consists of a single type of casing and has no tiered components. Buses/hatches are limited to the edge casings on the bottom layer of the structure, not including the corners. Multi-amp and laser energy hatches are not supported, but there can be multiple regular energy hatches. The interior is entirely mandatory air so nothing can go inside it, other than mobs. There is no muffler hatch. Use the Multiblock Structure Hologram Projector to visualize/build the structure.

Structure

• Controller: Front center, 2nd layer
• 60-69 Clean Stainless Steel Machine Casing
• 1+ Energy Hatch: Any bottom edge casing
• 1 Maintenance Hatch: Any bottom edge casing
• 1+ Output Bus: Any bottom edge casing
• Mandatory Air: Interior and top center of the structure

The Microwave Grinder damages mobs/players inside or on top of the structure every second while active and automatically teleports the drops into the output bus. The damage ignores armor and automatically cooks anything that can be smelted in a vanilla furnace. The Microwave Grinder has no means of spawning mobs itself and typically relies on a nearby powered spawner or cursed earth farm. There are two configurable parameters inside the GUI of the controller, listed below along with their valid ranges in parentheses.

• Power Setting - Determines power consumption and damage (≥ 300).
• Timer Setting - Duration in seconds before shutting down (≤ 3,000). Use a machine controller cover to keep it permanently enabled.

The power consumption of the Microwave Grinder is simply half the value of the power setting, as seen in the following equation. There is no overclocking and no minimum voltage.

${\displaystyle {\displaystyle {\text{EU/t}}={\frac {\text{Power}}{2}}}}$

The damage per second of the Microwave Grinder also depends only on the power setting, as seen in the following equation. The minimum operators apply soft caps at three specific power setting levels. The first soft cap is at 512, the second soft cap is at 6,144, and the third soft cap is at 196,608. The damage can technically scale infinitely beyond the third soft cap, but it is not very efficient and not recommended at all.

${\displaystyle {\displaystyle {\text{Damage/s}}={\text{Min}}{\Biggl (}{\frac {\text{Power}}{64}},8{\Biggr )}+{\text{Min}}{\Biggl (}{\frac {\text{Power}}{256}},24{\Biggr )}+{\text{Min}}{\Biggl (}{\frac {\text{Power}}{4,096}},48{\Biggr )}+{\frac {\text{Power}}{262,144}}}}$

The casings of the Microwave Grinder are NOT blastproof so avoid exploding creepers in or around the machine and do NOT try to use it for withers, unless there is mob griefing protection from ServerUtilities. There is also no way to increase its looting level to gain more drops per kill.

The following table lists the power consumption and damage per second of the Microwave Grinder for various power setting levels. This is not an all inclusive list since the power setting can be any integer value and scales infinitely. The voltages are also only provided as a reference.

The challenge in using the Microwave Grinder effectively is spawning mobs and forcing them into the structure. Other than a dark room, the only realistic options for spawning mobs are the two listed below. Note that the powered spawner does not require any particular light level and does not need anything to pull mobs into the Microwave Grinder because it can be placed directly above it. Cursed Earth simply accelerates the natural spawning process and therefore requires a low light level for mobs to spawn.

• Powered Spawner - Requires RF and a broken spawner of the desired mob type.
• Cursed Earth - Obtained with silk touch after completing the activation ritual for the divination sigil. Burns when exposed to sunlight.

The only realistic options in the early game for pushing/pulling mobs are the three listed below. Note that the Corporeal Attractor must be 1-2 blocks above the Microwave Grinder because its pull is stronger than gravity--any higher and the mobs float above the machine. The following images show how to use the last two with cursed earth.

• Flowing Water - The water cannot enter the interior of the structure because of the mandatory air. Prevents mobs from spawning on cursed earth.
• Fan - Pushes mobs in the direction that it is facing upon receiving a redstone signal. The area of effect is 3 blocks wide and 8 blocks long.
• Corporeal Attractor - Pulls mobs towards it upon receiving a redstone signal. The range is half the strength of the redstone signal.