[Challenge] The Engineer Playthrough!

stupidjesse said:
hey its all fair game especially if its naturally generated traps. i never thought of using naturally generated traps until i saw a video last week of someone doing that in a let's play series... i was like how come i never thought of that?!
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You told yourself that traps are useless until you get your hands on the mechanic. On console at least, you can put pressure plates you dig up adjacent to (not in the same block as) existing wires and they will work just the same.
 
Zemmy6 said:
This seems really fun! I've started and found and converted a dart trap into a skeleton farm to collect the bone pickaxe for mining meteorite!
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Nice idea, going after the Bone Pickaxe with existing wiring and a pressure plate!
 
I'm going to get Episode 2 done soon, but i'm wondering if I should make a separate thread for all the videos. thoughts?
 
Very impressed with all you guys blazing a trail here, and how far you've got into this challenge. The videos/streams are a great resource to look for inspiration, and check see what's working and what isn't.

I would suggest posting a couple of cropped screen shots, to this thread too, of some of the key structures you've built so far: e.g. your improvised statue farms (with wiring visible!) and goblin invasion farms (an essential turning point!).

@Raislin - impressed with your Terraria gaming skills (from flicking through your Twitch recording), a little concerned that so far things are more of an "only tools as weapons" playthrough. But onviously pre-mechanic and I guess that's to be expected for early game, plus hammaxes won't cut it forever! Have you seen DicemanX's skeltron busting boulder setup? I mean, you got the job done (+ more!), but obviously it wasn't nearly so elegant to watch, or quick. ;) I wonder if you could have save a lot of effort on your goblin invasion trap, which looked very well executed, nonetheless, but could you not have made one side *just* lava, forcing casters to spawn the other side, and perhaps made the lava on platforms (on water) section on that other side a fair bit smaller (to save barrels)? Also, what did you mean by?:
Raislin said:
built both a west and east kill arena for the goblin army
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I thought goblins descended only on the centre 16% of map (around spawn point), so you'd only ever need one goblin grinder...? (Could someone also clarify if spawn goblins will attack a bed based spawn point that's far from centre?) All critique intended as constructive, of course! :)
 
Found the bone pick! While I was down there I collected bombs from vampire miners so now it's time for corruption!
 
Digging a hellevator while doing this challenge is extremely frustrating.

This is fun though. Thankfully the Eye hasn't spawned yet. Not ready! I need to get the Goblin Tinkerer before I can fight bosses
 
What about using buckets of lava? If I recall flowing lava damages bosses as well. With pumps skeleton should be possible too.
 
ZeroGravitas said:
@Raislin - impressed with your Terraria gaming skills (from flicking through your Twitch recording), a little concerned that so far things are more of an "only tools as weapons" playthrough. But onviously pre-mechanic and I guess that's to be expected for early game, plus hammaxes won't cut it forever! Have you seen DicemanX's skeltron busting boulder setup? I mean, you got the job done (+ more!), but obviously it wasn't nearly so elegant to watch, or quick. ;) I wonder if you could have save a lot of effort on your goblin invasion trap, which looked very well executed, nonetheless, but could you not have made one side *just* lava, forcing casters to spawn the other side, and perhaps made the lava on platforms (on water) section on that other side a fair bit smaller (to save barrels)? Also, what did you mean by?:

I thought goblins descended only on the centre 16% of map (around spawn point), so you'd only ever need one goblin grinder...? (Could someone also clarify if spawn goblins will attack a bed based spawn point that's far from centre?) All critique intended as constructive, of course! :)
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First, thanks for the compliment about my playing ability. Second, I love your ideas! I haven't had a go at continuing this as I discovered FTL and got distracted by unlocking everything in that for a few days.

Here are some things I'd like to clarify:

1) I had, unfortunately, been awake for very near 24 hours by the time I posted that skeletron fight. I very well could have had better planning and patience in design from changing that alone.
2) I have nearly 0 experience in Terraria engineering. I played with hoiks when you first released your video, but all I really did was move through a few short walls. I've also never built a grinder. I jumped into this with the intent to learn as I go.
3) I'm pretty sure you're right about the goblin invasion spawn mechanics. I don't know why I didn't give it more thought. Also, considering I had no ideas on how large to build the lava sections -- and none of them went to the edge of the screen -- I wonder how compact it can be without losing its effectiveness.

I appreciate the comments and ideas. Got any thoughts on how to take advantage of engineering ideas before defeating skeletron or the goblin army? I'd like to pick this back up soon, now that I'm done with FTL.

Edit: I watched the Skeleton video you linked. Great stuff. I'll probably be running this one from scratch again once I have more experience, so I'll remember that idea.
 
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Raislin said:
Got any thoughts on how to take advantage of engineering ideas before defeating skeletron or the goblin army? I'd like to pick this back up soon, now that I'm done with FTL.
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Well, there's already been suggestions of using the wire from natural traps for making limited statue farms (although I'm not sure what this'll get you on PC beyond gel, hooks, etc...).

Then, if you want to utilise all options at hand, you could use (through-ground) horizontal hoiks to get about quickly. You could even try hoiking boulders up at skeletron, once you get them (size 2 up-hoiks, limited range).
 
Raislin said:
3) I'm pretty sure you're right about the goblin invasion spawn mechanics. I don't know why I didn't give it more thought. Also, considering I had no ideas on how large to build the lava sections -- and none of them went to the edge of the screen -- I wonder how compact it can be without losing its effectiveness.
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I can confirm that all invasions can occur anywhere on the map so long as there is at least 1 NPC nearby. Since you have grinders on the sides of the map, all you'd have to do is build a temporary house for an NPC, wait until that NPC teleports there, and run the invasion.
 
ZeroGravitas said:
Oh right, so it doesn't matter where *your* spawn point is, just an NPC's...?
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It would be interesting to determine if the invasions would even happen at the spawn point if no NPCs were nearby - they might only converge there because of the presence of at least 1 NPC.

I tested invasions at edges of the world (Goblin and Pirate invasions) yesterday because my next grinder I will feature in a video will be a pirate map + pirate invasion grinder, which basically involved shifting my existing surface grinder to the edge of the world and building a house for an NPC.
 
ZeroGravitas said:
You could even try hoiking boulders up at skeletron, once you get them (size 2 up-hoiks, limited range).
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Oh, that actually sounds like a fun idea to try out. I decided to take DicemanX's boulder idea and reimagine it a little bit so that it feels even more like a grinder you just switch on.

Here it is:

It's a bit crude, as I didn't take the time to pretty it up, but it's functional.
 
Raislin said:
Oh, that actually sounds like a fun idea to try out. I decided to take DicemanX's boulder idea and reimagine it a little bit so that it feels even more like a grinder you just switch on.

Here it is:

It's a bit crude, as I didn't take the time to pretty it up, but it's functional.
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Genius idea with the lava and platforms! Well done!
 
What is the rule on using hoiks to enter the lizard temple to get traps early/without key?
Without it Hardmode bosses will take ages to kill.
It's either that or slime damage avoidance and digging claws, which is then tools as weapons.
 
mshunter said:
What is the rule on using hoiks to enter the lizard temple to get traps early/without key?
Without it Hardmode bosses will take ages to kill.
It's either that or slime damage avoidance and digging claws, which is then tools as weapons.
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You can still evade using teleporters and minecarts, or you can offset damage by using heart statues (if you're lucky enough to find one). You can actually beat the Destroyer and The Twins using regular dart traps, but it will take a bit of time. Skeletron Prime is a different story because you won't kill him with darts before the night is up, and he'll go into instakill mode by dawn. You can still evade him with teleporters and use darts to finish him off, or get creative with boulders :).

It's the player's choice ultimately if they do a playthrough using glitches and exploits, but I'd encourage players to try to go without them and only resort to them if they get truly stuck. The problem with mob statue damage evasion is that it can trivialize the playthrough completely if a mob statue is found.
 
There's nothing against it, as far as I would be concerned. It's painful and uninteresting to stay in the walls while you collect and ridiculously dangerous to actually go inside, though. If speed is a concern pre-super traps, then creative use of boulders could help any encounter as they do a solid amount of damage.
 
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