PC Overwhelmed beginner seeking advice

Pangaearocks

Terrarian
Bought the game some days ago, and have been playing since. Only a few hours in a small world, then the current save in a medium classical softcore world.

Trying to be brief about progress: Killed Eye of Cthulhu, died once then killed Slime King, died once then killed Brain of Cthulhu (built a wooded platform for the second go). Until very recently I sported a platinum sword (+tools) and silver armour, but I have now upgraded the sword to Blood Butcherer and Crimson armour. The sword has bigger reach, which I like, but is a little slower. A bunch of NPCs have moved in, but probably all are unhappy. I've started to build a nicer base, but then went back to randomly exploring the deep mine, and found a way past the lava and into the Underworld (?). The music is different and some firespitting bats spawn and kick my arse, unless I can crowd them into a corner and kill them. Tried to take on the dungeon 'curse', but he kicked my arse pretty quickly (think I had 260-280HP at the time).

I've little idea what items I can get, what is sensible to upgrade to/from, and don't want to spoiler myself too hard by studying the wiki. Chests have also become a giant mess. Recently I've just put new stuff into new chests, so the little system I had in the beginning has gone out the window. I keep postponing overhauling it, but the idea was to do that in the crafting area at the bottom of the new house, which sort of morphed into a castle due to lack of other decent-looking materials. Since then I've bought some dynasty wood and shingles, and also fetched a crapton of marbles somewhere in the jungle (those bees are f-ing evil). Right now I have 400HP and 200 mana (though I don't use any mana items). Recently a meteor smashed down, and I've also somewhat luckily beaten back a Goblin invasion (all those ranged attacks were nasty).

So then...
1) What do you recommend in the chests/items inventory management department? What kind of system do you use, what items in what chests?
2) What items are worth keeping, and what can I safely sell or trash? I've kept much lately, but have sold some banners and statues, plus various seeds
3) How to solve the NPC happiness issue (I've heard about pylons)
4) What do you recommend I do with the house for now, how to expand on it to make room for more NPCs while going away from the boxes that are to the right of it? Kinda wish I could magically move that box further right, as I'm out of space! :(

Think that's it for now. This game is freakin HUGE, and it's easy to get overwhelmed by so, so many items. Hard to get a good grip on upgrade paths when the Guide only tells you of the next step, in a not-so-user-friendly manner.
Since this I've placed the Goblin's Workshop in the crafting area, and the Goblin Tinkerer and a Defender's Forge currency guy has moved into the "castle". Doesn't show here, but I also have an arena of sorts to the left, with 3-4 tiers of wooden platforms, torches and a bonfire.

Terraria House dev.jpg


Brain of Cthulhu killed.jpg
 
There is a lot of content throughout Terraria for sure. While it is overwhelming, taking time and working towards your own goals can help make it less overwhelming.

To answer your questions

1) What do you recommend in the chests/items inventory management department? What kind of system do you use, what items in what chests?

Inventory needs in general can get massive. There are other players that tend to sell items they don't need while I usually will build an entire chest room to sort everything in.

The type of system I use on most playthroughs is to have all ores and gems in 1 chest, all accessories in another chest, then dedicated chests for weapons, armor, vanity, and plants. Would recommend expanding the floor below the chests in your house to give more storage.

Organizing your chests into categories that make sense to you such as "Ores" "blocks" "materials" and "weapons" is a good way to help manage organization. It'll be easier to organize now compared to later as you'll continue to get more and more items as you explore more of the game and defeat more bosses.

2) What items are worth keeping, and what can I safely sell or trash? I've kept much lately, but have sold some banners and statues, plus various seeds

Seeds can be used to grow plants such as blinkroot so I would recommend holding on to them actually and making a garden to grow more plants. They are used to craft a lot of different potions that can give various buffs that will help you in future boss fights. Since you defeated the Eye of Cthulhu and Brain of Cthulhu, it is possible to buy planter boxes from the Dryad to plant seeds if you decide you want to create a garden for potion crafting.

It is generally best to hold onto materials dropped from different enemies since they can be components in crafting more items that may be useful.

3) How to solve the NPC happiness issue (I've heard about pylons)

NPCs become unhappy if there are too many grouped together in a close area. The way to solve this is to create homes in different biomes and to move some of your npcs there. That will help make them more happy. Each NPC also has their own biome preference that will give them extra happiness if they are in a biome they like. You can see what biomes NPCs prefer by looking in the Bestiary at the NPC entries. The biome that shows in their entry is the one they like the most. The Hallow Biome can't be accessed yet. That biome will appear later in the game.

NPCs also like and dislike other NPCs to various degrees. This part will take some trial and error, but generally if you put an NPC in a biome they like and together with an NPC they enjoy, they'll become happy enough to offer a pylon in their shop menu. You can get 1 pylon for every biome and they are all connected together as long as there are at least two npcs in a close area.

I'd recommend having no more than 3 npcs together in a close area. To act on this, I'd recommend moving some of your NPCs into different biomes such as the Snow, Jungle, and Underground biomes. And building houses in those areas for them.

4) What do you recommend I do with the house for now, how to expand on it to make room for more NPCs while going away from the boxes that are to the right of it? Kinda wish I could magically move that box further right, as I'm out of space!

This is pretty much answered in my response to Question 3, you can continue to expand your main base as needed. I would recommend moving some NPCs out if you want to invest in getting pylons for quick travel.



One final note that wasn't part of your questions, the Underworld you encountered is one of the more difficult biomes in the game. With Crimson armor and weapons it is possible, but not easy to get far in the Underworld. The Underground Jungle biome is easier to explore and will give you access to stronger weapons that may help with defeating Skeletron in the Dungeon. There's another boss in the jungle that you can fight that is optional.

That's most of what I have for now. Best of luck on your journey. I'm glad you're enjoying Terraria. I'm around along with other people incase you have more questions :dryadsmile:
 
Organizing your chests into categories that make sense to you such as "Ores" "blocks" "materials" and "weapons" is a good way to help manage organization. It'll be easier to organize now compared to later as you'll continue to get more and more items as you explore more of the game and defeat more bosses.
Yes, this is the problem I'm having. Worked on that house, wasn't sure how to proceed, but had an idea of building more NPC rooms to the right of the tower. Hazily looked at all those chests, probably 10 of them now with random crap in them, couldn't decide what to do -- then went spelunking down the hellevator, or started on the jungle. I've kept postponing it, but probably have to tackle it now rather than later, when it becomes even more messy.
I'd recommend having no more than 3 npcs together in a close area. To act on this, I'd recommend moving some of your NPCs into different biomes such as the Snow, Jungle, and Underground biomes. And building houses in those areas for them.
Suppose this has to be done to handle the happiness... but won't it make it a right pain in the arse when you need to talk to any of them, or check the shop? Currently I can't fast travel anywhere, except back home with an ice mirror or some such thing, so getting to different biomes is a slow process. Currently I've been exploring the underground jungle, then 'beam' home when the inventory is full and I can't find more to drop. After that, it's a fairly slow run back, and then try to get back down to where I was, which isn't as easy in the jungle due to a million nasty enemies in all directions. Much tougher than the Crimson so far, though I suppose the Crimson will have tougher enemies once I'm able to hack through it to go further down.

Great tip about the bestiary NPC biome tho, I hadn't thought about that.
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Another thing, is it possible to craft items without having all the ingredients in your inventory, or the one open chest? It makes it hard to know what I can craft with items I have right now, and going to the Guide to ask based on ingredient X or Y is pretty slow.
 
You can only craft of you have all the items either in your inventory or an open chest. As you play longer, you'll find yourself needing the guide less.

Do you have a safe and piggy bank? They can help haul more loot back to your base.
 
You can only craft of you have all the items either in your inventory or an open chest. As you play longer, you'll find yourself needing the guide less.

Do you have a safe and piggy bank? They can help haul more loot back to your base.
Thanks. Hopefully it gets easier with time. The game has a TON of items and "materials" though, so it's not feasible to remember most of it tbh. I have a piggy bank, but not a safe. A void bag came up when I checked something with the Guide, but don't think I had all the ingredients. Not sure how it worked either. The game itself doesn't give a lot of info about an item's properties etc.

One final note that wasn't part of your questions, the Underworld you encountered is one of the more difficult biomes in the game. With Crimson armor and weapons it is possible, but not easy to get far in the Underworld. The Underground Jungle biome is easier to explore and will give you access to stronger weapons that may help with defeating Skeletron in the Dungeon. There's another boss in the jungle that you can fight that is optional.
Did you mean the Queen Bee here? Good thing I built a small arena before popping that block, because it looked suspicious. Tough fight, but I won. Got a very nice sword out of it, Beekeeper. Had another go at Skeletron with it, after putting up a heart lantern over there, and managed to beat him :) Have descended in the dungeon and died a couple of times. Very nasty enemies there, and they spawn quickly and in big numbers, plus it's hard to move around with spikes everywhere and the hook often doesn't work because blocks evaporate. Fun area though, and I've been able to unlock some chests.

The inventory mess isn't getting any easier though. Holy cow. More NPCs flocking to our lodgings too, and once again it's not big enough. Neither is the crafting or chest area. Clearly I should have built it much bigger from the beginning. I'm starting to understand why some bases I've looked at are gigantic.

...yet I keep postponing sorting out the chests and house, because it's more fun to explore and fight enemies.

Want to ask again, though: Are some items or item types "safe" to sell, without the fear that I will need them for something way down the line? For example items without the "Material" tag on them? I've got a bunch of rain hats and the like, a few ancient iron helmets, mining pants/helmets, stuff like that. Is this safe to sell? It would free up a little room at least.
 
Thanks. Hopefully it gets easier with time. The game has a TON of items and "materials" though, so it's not feasible to remember most of it tbh. I have a piggy bank, but not a safe. A void bag came up when I checked something with the Guide, but don't think I had all the ingredients. Not sure how it worked either. The game itself doesn't give a lot of info about an item's properties etc.

It will get easier, for sure, especially considering crafting does have a kind of theme. If it's jungle armour/weapon it'll need jungle materials etc. That helps narrow down the materials you are likely to need. I've just gotten used to housing the guide wherever I've set my spawn using a bed, so he's easy to get to when I can't remember specifics.

A void bag is like a vacuum cleaner. If your main inventory is full and you have a void bag on you, it will suck up any items and deposit them in the bag. You can the use the bag or a void vault to access those items, much like you would a piggy or safe. It's craftable quite early (defeating Skeletron is really the only requirement to access bones for the recipe, though you would need to fight Brain of Cthulhu or Eater of Worlds but defeating them isn't necessary as they drop materials during the fight.) It's a useful item so well worth making as soon as you're able. EDIT: you've beaten Skeletron (should have read your post better lol) so you should be able to get all the ingredients now.
 
Suppose this has to be done to handle the happiness... but won't it make it a right pain in the arse when you need to talk to any of them, or check the shop? Currently I can't fast travel anywhere, except back home with an ice mirror or some such thing, so getting to different biomes is a slow process. Currently I've been exploring the underground jungle, then 'beam' home when the inventory is full and I can't find more to drop. After that, it's a fairly slow run back, and then try to get back down to where I was, which isn't as easy in the jungle due to a million nasty enemies in all directions. Much tougher than the Crimson so far, though I suppose the Crimson will have tougher enemies once I'm able to hack through it to go further down.

The Pylons actually do enable quick teleportation. If NPCs are happy enough in specific biomes, they'll sell the pylon for that biome. After you've bought and placed at least 2 pylons from 2 different biomes, they can be used for quick teleportation.

The traveling between biomes to get NPCs moved into new homes will take time yes. But after getting pylons from them, it becomes much easier to fast travel :dryadsmile:

Did you mean the Queen Bee here? Good thing I built a small arena before popping that block, because it looked suspicious. Tough fight, but I won. Got a very nice sword out of it, Beekeeper. Had another go at Skeletron with it, after putting up a heart lantern over there, and managed to beat him :) Have descended in the dungeon and died a couple of times. Very nasty enemies there, and they spawn quickly and in big numbers, plus it's hard to move around with spikes everywhere and the hook often doesn't work because blocks evaporate. Fun area though, and I've been able to unlock some chests.

Yes Queen Bee was the boss I was referring to earlier. Congrats on defeating it! Beekeeper is a good weapon to have.

...yet I keep postponing sorting out the chests and house, because it's more fun to explore and fight enemies.

I understand the feeling. It is easy for sure to want to go out and explore more rather than organize inventory.

The Void Bag mentioned earlier is also a fantastic item to have. One of the best in the game for sure that will allow you to expand your exploration expeditions greatly and bring more items home. Now that you've defeated Skeletron and have access to the Dungeon, its possible to make one now along with a Void Vault (Void Vault just acts as the stationary version of the Void Bag that you can place down anywhere)

Some of those Dungeon pits can also have lakes within them that make good access points for fishing if you like fishing :dryadsmile:
 
Learn to use the favorite feature to mark the items you want to stay in your inventory and use quick stack to automatically clean all the junk from your inventory. Make densely packed rows of chests on platforms so you can have almost all chests in range at once, then hit quick stack and you are done. Use the built in label feature on chests to find items quickly.

If you don't keep at least one copy of each item you don't want, quick stack will not be able to automatically remove them from your inventory.

When the chests get too full, divide them among several chests or sell all but one item. A large portion of your chests will need to be devoted to non-stackable weapons and armor unless you are okay with manually selling those items every time you find them. Cosmetic items have many unique un-stackable items so you might just want to sell them manually or store them separately from your main quick-stack chests.

When starting a new game, I suggest players pick up every chest they find and bring it back to their base to start their storage depot. You don't need to craft chests if you keep every one you find. You can easily swap them out for better looking ones later without having to move the items.

base.png

Note that the pylon is close to the bed so I can magic mirror to the bed then instantly warp to any other settlement. After warping back from mining or exploring I just dash to the left, hit quick stack and all inventory management is finished. The chests on the roof can be accessed and quick-stacked from inside the base.
The two deep gap in front of each door makes it so enemies cannot break into the house through the doors. (They will jump instead of breaking or opening the doors, but the player can run across the gap.)

What is not shown in the picture is that there is that there is a small house with 3 more npcs offscreen to the left.

My standard way of building settlements:
  • A settlement's primary use is to act as a fast travel point. Put settlements near the most important places you want to warp to.
  • A settlement covers a 120x120 block area. You will have one of these for each biome that will have a pylon.
  • Settlements contain either 1 or 2 buildings. Each building holds 2 or 3 npcs (Pets do not count.) (This is a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 6)
  • Settlements have an empty space of at least 25 blocks in-between the two buildings. (Can be an indoor space as long as it is not valid housing.)
  • Each building's npcs must be within 25 blocks.
  • Npcs within each building should like or love each other if possible. (They will tell you if you talk to them.)
  • A pylon needs 2 npcs to be active. If you don't have enough npcs, a pet can stand in for an npc to allow a Pylon to function.
  • Pets can share a building with an NPC and never trigger crowding penalties.
  • Pets will decrease enemy spawn rates.
  • Keeping the Angler happy will increase the odds of getting usable quest rewards. He gives some extremely good exclusive items, so optimize his happiness before everyone else's. (Put him in the ocean with the Demolitionist and later add the Party Girl)
  • Put the Arms Dealer and the Nurse together in the Desert for and he will sell the desert pylon and cheap ammo.
 
Checked out the void bag recipe again with the Guide, and had everything, so made both the bag and vault. It's fantastic! Would be nice if items in chests went into it directly as well, but it's so much more pleasant when I don't have to venture back home every so often.

Have picked up many chests as well, as a hoarder it's hard to leave anything behind, hah. Now I have 17 gold chests plus a bunch of others. In other chests :D
Some of those Dungeon pits can also have lakes within them that make good access points for fishing if you like fishing :dryadsmile:
I haven't tried out fishing yet, I assume it works a bit like in Stardew Valley, in which there are many different types of fish, plus other stuff you can haul up. Inventory issues are big as it is :eek: However, isn't it hard to fish in the Dungeon due to the massive amount of enemies that spawn? Especially those magic guys that shoot through blocks are really bothersome.

Thanks a lot @Mail for that post and image. My mess keeps getting worse so I have to sort it out, but like in real life, cleaning up isn't the most fun activity. I have to expand the crafting and chests area and come up with some type of system. And hope that won't be badly undersized, because I don't think we can move chests with content in them, and if I need to split up later, it can be bothersome due to chest names and whatnot.

One thing that I don't particularly like with how this NPC happiness system appears to work, is that it limits how we want to set up our worlds, while maintaining good happiness and low prices. NPC x,y,z must be there, etc. Would be nicer to have it set up as we like, for example a big base with NPCs more spread out throughout it (like I originally intended).

Speaking of the Dungeon: I've spent a lot of time there today, and think I have went everywhere possible now. There are some chests I can't open though. What's up with that? Have 6 shadow keys that I haven't found a use for, and currently 29 spare golden keys. Surely more than I'll ever need. Crazy amount of enemies down there, and they keep throwing keys at me. Can't remove any blocks there, but haven't found more porous blocks to remove.

Another question: With a new pickaxe, I was able to remove the crimson blocks, and I cleaned out a few small-ish crimson areas. Does this stop the spread somehow? It doesn't look that way :( Thorns are back almost instantly (beam back home due to close death, then go right back, and thorns are re-grown). is there a way to stop the spread?
This area had crimson blocks before, but they have been removed. Enemies still spawn though, and the thorns get back superfast too.

Crimson removed.jpg
Edit: One more thing. Is it really true that the spawn rate for Ancient necro helmet is only 0.22%? I saw that in the wiki. Admittedly I've killed many enemies there, but it can't be thousands upon thousands, and right now I have 6-7 of those helmets.
Necro helmets.png
 
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Those chests are biome chests that hold special weapons. I'll not spoilt too much, but you don't get the keys until hardmode (they are rare and you'll know when you get one), and the keys won't work until after a boss.



Biome spread is a little complicated, but generally speaking you need a 6 block wide tunnel to stop its spreading. Either a tunnel to stop it spreading from where it is (i.e. all around the edges of the infection) or one around an area you want to protect from infection such as spawn or NPC housing. Some blocks can't be infect so you can also protect/contain with those, but I can never remember which they are and it does take a while.

Personally, I tend to go for protecting important areas, as biome spread doesn't bother me much anymore and I know all the places that are vulnerable. Plus containing it can be a time consuming.

Keep an eye out though as it spreads quite a bit faster in some places than others, and you may need to take action if it's getting out if hand.

Eventually you'll be able to get something that is much better at clearing infection.
 
Fishing in Stardew Valley is much more difficult, an entire mini-game that takes quite different skills. Terrraria's fishing is much simpler — cast, wait, click to pull your catch in.

I usually end up with so many chests that I have to paint them to remember what's where.
 
Thanks, sounds like the crimson spreading will become a major headache :(

Finally went through the labour of sorting out the inventory mess. Probably spent a week in-game just putting items in their right chests, but now there is a system at least, so I'll see how that works out. Three chests for accessories is already little I see.
Bedroom became pretty crowded, but it will have to do -- for now.

Chests sorted out.jpg

Came across a pyramids or something of the sort in the Jungle, but with a locked door. It was pretty much completely submerged in a lake. Have drained it a fair bit now. Can't find a way in, though. Do I need to kill another boss or something to get the key? I've gone around close to the entire thing now, digging out tiles, but have only found that one entrance.
This is roughly the outline of it. The entrance is where my character is standing, a little more to the right of him.

Jungle pyramids.jpg

Tried my hand a little at fishing too. A truckload of bass, but otherwise not very big diversity it seems. I was first in the Forest, before going to the Jungle.
 
Regarding that jungle building you found -- You're right, that does require another boss, but one a ways away from now; that's the jungle temple, and it holds one of the last bosses in the game within, so it'll be a while before you get to it.
 
Thanks, then I have something big to look forward to in there.

Huh, didn't know that several events could happen simultaneously. Thought I read something about it on the wiki, that only one could occur at a time, but perhaps that was about a particular event. I was just fooling around trying to figure out what to do with hellstones from a trip to the bottom of the world (so much lava...), when slimes started to drop from the sky. While I was dealing with that, there was a message about goblins invading from the east.

Wondered if they would actually come, and they did. Eventually the slime king showed up too, so it was a little hectic :D
Goblins and King Slime.jpg
A bit on what to do actually. Have descended a good bit from the desert and the jungle, getting to areas with lots of lava, and also went a little down in the winter area. Not found anything of particular interest (apart from the jungle temple, obviously). Would I be better off trying to collect more hellstone to forge better armor? Right now enemies are easy as it is, but I don't know how hard upcoming bosses will be. Forged the Fiery Greatsword with the 20 hellbars I had acquired, but not sure if I'll use it :-/ It does more damage, sure, but I really like this Bee keeper sword with a horde of bees popping out all the time and cleaning up foes. Plus, it's super-fast, which makes it easy to deal with enemies when they come at me in groups, because they usually don't get in between swings.

This is what the world map looks like right now. Hopefully you're able to tell what's what.
There is a meteor at the top of the desert, left of our base, but I haven't mined very much of it yet.

Current world map.jpg
 
Forged the Fiery Greatsword with the 20 hellbars I had acquired, but not sure if I'll use it :-/
Yeah, when I make it, I don't really use it either. What I recommend you do, is get 4 different swords, the Blood Butcherer, the Blade of Grass, the Murumasa and the Fiery Greatsword, and them bring them all together at a Demon Altar. I won't spoil what happens when you do, though, that's for you to find out. ;)
 
Thanks. That is what I ended up doing, because after a check with the Guide, noticed I only lacked the Blade of Grass. In early Hardmode now, so the Night's Edge couldn't quite compete any more, but it was awesome for a long time.
 
Thanks. That is what I ended up doing, because after a check with the Guide, noticed I only lacked the Blade of Grass. In early Hardmode now, so the Night's Edge couldn't quite compete any more, but it was awesome for a long time.
make sure you keep that Nights Edge, you'll need it later. Did you keep the Pwnhammer that the Wall of Flesh dropped?
 
Yeah, it's still in the hotbar, haven't dared to drop it to a chest yet.
Don't worry about losing the Pwnhammer too much, you can get a new one by killing the wall of flesh again. You might want to farm the wall of flesh sooner rather than later, because his drops will become outclassed if you go back for them after getting further into hardmode. Wall of flesh drops 4 types of emblems so you are unlikely to get the one you need on the first kill. Weapons and armor you can get without beating any bosses in hardmode will make farming the wall of flesh pretty easy.
 
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