Rebuilding an infected Desert in Hardmode

[Nicol Bolas]

So, upon entering Hardmode, my Oasis-bearing desert was consumed by the Crimson. The underground-bearing desert was partially touched by the Hallow, so I just went ahead and infected the top of it, since it would happen anyway (also, the Dao of Pow is awesome and cheap, and the strip of Hallow hit the Jungle, so I had no surface Hallow unless I created it).

But this leaves me with a problem: no Desert.

Now, if it weren't for Happiness, I wouldn't care. But that exists, so I have to care. I have NPCs who want to live in the desert, and a desert Pylon that I'd like to use. But there's no actual Desert anymore.

Now, I can run over the Oasis desert with the Clentaminator and remove the top layer of Crimson. But that'll only last a little while before the lower layers re-corrupt it.

Should I dig down below the layer of sand and Clentaminate it from both the top and bottom? What happens if the sand is too thick to hit the middle layer from either the top or the bottom?

Would it be better to just Clentaminate the top-sand, excavate the sand with some rockets, and then throw down a layer of un-contaminatable block as a foundation for rebuilding the desert?

 

[GenericUsername]

Should I dig down below the layer of sand and Clentaminate it from both the top and bottom? What happens if the sand is too thick to hit the middle layer from either the top or the bottom?

You could try that first. Measure out about how tall the stacks of sand blocks are and compare it to twice the clentaminator's range. If they do end up being too high, you can do something more involved. Attached are images of what I have for a simple artificial oasis. I solely use it for fishing, but you could also build houses for NPCs. I bordered the entire thing with stone slab (5 blocks thick) and kept it small enough to adjust with a clentaminator, just in case something were to contaminate it.

Would it be better to just Clentaminate the top-sand, excavate the sand with some rockets, and then throw down a layer of un-contaminatable block as a foundation for rebuilding the desert?

If you're willing to put in the time, you may prefer this route, since you'll have more control over the final outcome. Be sure to structure it so it's manageable for a clentaminator, in case you need to adjust it later.

 

[Potato Masher]

Usually in these kinds of scenarios where an evil biome has taken root in a biome of interest, I take the quick and dirty route using bombs/dynamite and some quick tunneling.

For the deserts, I tend to start blasting trenches at either ends of the biome of considerable depth, or at least enough to ensure a clean surface. After getting deep enough I dig horizontal 6 block tall tunnels across the underground until I reach the trench on the other side, ensuring nothing can get in from the outer border.

After that just spray away with the Clentaminator over the top and bottom of the surface slice. Most deserts are usually fixed with no additional effort from here, however some may have larger hills of sand that might result in small patches in the center remaining contaminated.

Fortunately with the surface isolated from a majority of the rest of the contaminated underground desert, if there does happen to be some left you will easily be able to tell where it's growing from. Then you can just dig into the spot and spray around in a circle from the center of the affected area.

Personally making a whole new artificial desert (and making it look like one) sounds boring and may take a long time. Buuuuuut if you were planning on doing major terraforming anyways just starting from scratch may suit the needs of a future build better.

 

[Sora_92]

I had something very similar happening on this playthrough. I did used holy water to keep my desert town and pylon functioning (yes, desert pylon worked perfectly fine in hallowed desert too) and it doesn't matter that prices go up, because in hardmode you can get rich easily (plus it's a mage playthrough, so arms dealer matters little)

but, you can't catch oysters or mirage crates in a hallowed oasis it seems. which is bad.
once I got the clemtaminator, I cleaned the area from below, after dug some trenches around. sand is an awful thing to work with, but the pyramid might comes in handy with it too, since that holds a large area of sand in place, and the same time allows natural tunnels, so, from one side, if the pyramid is in good place, you trench leading to the pyramid might be enough, and you just have to dig another trench on the other side. and the area between is some marts of the underground desert, which naturally holds all the sand above, but probably the parts closest to the surface are close enough that the clemtaminator can clean the whole heap of sand.

the biggest pain in it is just that you're attacked by a bajillion monsters meanwhile. early hardmode, it's a very tough task. (I did made some quick quaranteenes at the start of hardmode when I seen the crimson spawned though the desert, and that was horrible, (because of djinns and those gargantuan worms...) likewise cleaning would been impossible too (plus no clemtaminator at the start...)
most mech bosses/post plantera it's probably doable though.

 

[SaintD]

The Pylon will still work. In one of my worlds the desert was completely Hallowed, the NPC's started selling Hallow pylons instead....the Desert Pylon placed there continued to work. Exactly the same thing happened to my underground village. Has a cavern pylon, got shot straight through by the Hallow strip, the NPC's started selling Hallow pylons, and the Cavern Pylon kept working.

It affects happiness and availability of buying new pylons, but if you've already bought and placed one, it doesn't matter. And, incidentally, Happiness isn't something to give that much of a damn about once you bought all the pylons anyway. Oh no, I pay a little more on the incredibly few things I buy from these dependent idiots. Who cares? Stop getting worked up about it. Just get your pylons situated before you trigger hardmode.

Hell, I've Hallowed the area around my desert and underground bases with Holy Water before because they were next to the crimson strip.

 

[Nemo]

One way is to dig 4 block wide tunnels between 116 block "islands" then slowfall down the tunnels spraying green solution, according to the wiki the Clentaminator has a 60 block range so it should clear the islands of all corruption when you spray both sides.

 

[Nicol Bolas]

The Pylon will still work.

The desert in question was consumed by the Crimson. NPCs won't live near that. And without NPCs living near them to power them, Pylons are non-functional.

 

[Sora_92]

The desert in question was consumed by the Crimson. NPCs won't live near that. And without NPCs living near them to power them, Pylons are non-functional.

obviously. but in the case of hallow, it will still work, even though the NPCs consider it hallow, not a desert.