Ops, sorry, hadn't seen these replies, weirdly...
Pedguin has been using a house design with a bunch of platforms so that the NPCs can shoot up or down at enemies.
Yes indeedy. He actually says: "
So this is the most efficient way possible to have NPCs live in your house, and they can attack all around as well..." A bold claim, I wonder if we can totally trump this?
Thanks for the NPC info
@Snot Bubbles and...
the NPC page on the wiki lists their attacks.
http://terraria.wiki.gg/NPC?cookieSetup=true
Absolutely, it lists their weapons, but little more. What's their attack frequency, AI, etc? The Wiki doesn't even have stock images of them with weapons out yet (if people looking to contribute).
Regarding tactics, a couple of NPCs really stand out:
- Nurse - can heal so fast she could might even be used as a 'tank', or more in a back-line support role, if her powers can indeed be used to heal the other NPCs too/instead.
- Dryad - seems very powerful for this task, with her 'blessing' giving a large area of effect attack (and buffs). One's entire strategy might be based purely around her, with the line of sight NPCs only for bonus damage, or held back purely for sniping/defending against specific threats like goblin casters.
- Demolitionist, Goblin tinkerer (and Cyborg later) - each have multi-hit attacks, that might have massively increased utility when confining enemies to a small target area. It becomes somewhat like a tower defence game (which I like): "shape their paths".
I'm currently still presuming the NPCs would be most use early (pre-lava, even) before the monsters get too much health/defence, but later NPCs do have more damage too (or weapon upgrades, like arms dealer), so please tell me I'm wrong and pirates/eclipses are NPC farmable too!
explain the concept of a "ghost wall"?
Sloped platforms (stairs) or sloped inactive blocks against the side of slid blocks lets things pass through that side that shouldn't. I started to call it 'ghost walls' for lack of a better reference. (I first
mentioned it online here, but we haven't trumpeted it too loudly for temple breaking, since it's pretty cheap.)
I had a quick (unplanned) play with these and the cyborg - it seems that because NPCs are smart enough not to walk into walls they won't attack through them either, so they need uninterrupted line of sight (except the Dryad [
EDIT: actually, including Dyad - it's weird]). So perhaps best to use ghost walls to trap invaders into a confined kill zone (to rain death on them).
If starting from Pedguin's effort and adapting, I might suggest trying an elevated mezzanine that's just too high for the enemies to jump up to (or even higher (too high to hit with bows?). Or reverse things?; could you have NPCs right below? Will the goblins drop through platforms if you are above, as bait (I forget).
Also, remember that you can do
some really crazy things with valid NPC housing (aside from little cells, or boring old
hoik house engines), these kind of weird topologies might come especially in handy now. Although, given that you (the player) will need to be there the whole time anyway (for the bad guys to attack) you don't need their housing to remain valid - you could dump them out into the desired places via trap doors (or just mining their floors away).
[Left -
Reddit/imgur guide. Right - Power Cosmic's NPC house design
on old forum.]
Is tight clumping going to be too risky for various applications? Will they attack bosses (I don't even know)?; build a shooting gallery above Skeletron to take pot shots at him while he swipes at you. Minecart rails for AFK dodging, or keep things simple, etc, etc?...