Guide T-MEC Tips Collection - Simple to Advanced Terraria Engineering Insights

[ZeroGravitas]

What super-concise, one line tips have you got for the rest of us, or for new, Terraria wiring enthusiasts?

Post here a simple fact you found indispensable, a little diagram you always reference, a short gif or video you found revelatory, or a url to quality tutorial.

For example, I've just made this on a whim to demonstrate how wire activations proceed by wire colour (red, blue then green), and how teleporters act instantaneously.
I was previously aiming to make a cheat-sheet, with diagrams, and tables (including the trap and statue mob characteristics), but carefully planned perfection has a tendancy not to happen; let's see if we can get a rough and ready resource going here! It may or may not get compiled in this top post, we'll see how it goes.

You could also post short questions about the inner workings of the game if you think the answer would be helpful to all (post to the forum help thread for more involved questions, or make you own entirely new thread for assistance with a project).

 

[Mimp]

Because I'm a bit of a n00b with them still what I find myself referencing all the time is your Hoik world to find mounting points/styles for player hoiks... Yesterday I used it to find a good down hoik mount for my hellivator, (because locomotion via gravity is so blasé.)

 

[Thiner]

1. Lava floated by bubble blocks will nearly kill all items that lava usually can kill, no matter how thin the lava is.
2. 102 mph = 20 pixels per tick = 75 tiles per second
3. Falling damage > mount invulnerability > melee damage > projectile damage when handling invulnerability.
4. Actually mobs can spawn farther than 47 tiles vertically from the player, and the upper limit is somewhere a bit larger than 140 tiles, beyond which the mobs can despawn immediately they spawn.
5. Spider caves only spawn one type of spiders under proper conditions.
6. Standing on marble blocks in cavern layer can make 4/5 of the spawns cavern styled.
7. --To Be Continued--

For example, I've just made this on a whim to demonstrate how wire activations proceed by wire colour (red, blue then green), and how teleporters act instantaneously.

Well, I am surprised about that fact... Very surprised.

 

[Lucky Lucky Horseshoe]

I'm interested to see what people put on here. I'll try to come up with a few things as well.

 

[DicemanX]

Since the dart traps now have a cooldown of 3.33 seconds, 1-second timers are no longer ideal. We can easily switch to dummies to ensure that each dart trap in a battery is activated as soon as the cooldown expires. Here's one method:

30 dart traps are needed to ensure no gaps between volleys (compare to 28 dart traps in previous versions of the battery, powered by 1-second timers). The dummy now makes it significantly easier to build batteries since you no longer have to track down hundreds of pieces of gold ore to make 1-second timers. Even the bird statue is not strictly necessary; without any speed boosting gear the player walks at the same speed as the bird, so the player could simply walk over the pressure plates to activate the traps in staggered fashion.

The above set-up is a single-switch mechanism. The switch turns the battery on and off. Turning off the battery involves teleporting the dummy ghost back to its starting position, above the rightmost teleporter.

Curiously, the dart traps are not actually perfectly evenly spaced anymore, although that doesn't matter due to the hit cap on piercing damage.

 

[ZeroGravitas]

I find myself referencing all the time is your Hoik world

Heh, glad it comes in handy, I have to reference it myself too! I might try to put a concise primer on here, but the details will have to stick to the main guide (which needs updating with @inomanoms insights, for a start). Actually, I was meaning to ask if anyone else has a good, reliable way to mount a player down elevator, preferably without wire or crossing over the head of the hellevator (possibly getting in the way of an Up on the other side.

locomotion via gravity is so blasé.

Although, have just got the slime mount in my playthrough, I'm tempted to say making a down hoik is going to be virtually unnecessary now...

Actually mobs can spawn farther than 47 tiles vertically from the player, and the upper limit is somewhere a bit larger than 140 tiles,

Does that apply to more than just slime rain? (Forced) boss spawns are different too ofc.

Standing on marble blocks in cavern layer can make 4/5 of the spawns cavern styled.

*On* blocks? Or in front of natural marble walls (like the conditions for Temple and dungeon, etc)?

Also, people, don't be afraid to go super simple!: I mean, when I started wiring again in Terraria 1.2 I couldn't figure out how to get teleporters to go and there's probably a lot of very little wiring details we take for granted (like knowing it needs to overlap, not just touch (unless you're on console )).

The dummy now makes it significantly easier to build batteries since you no longer have to track down hundreds of pieces of gold ore to make 1-second timers. Even the bird statue is not strictly necessary

Much "yes". This is the principle by which I've built a new batch of dart engine alternatives, ready for a new guide (starting afresh I think, rather than purely revising the old one). So I've been meaning to ask you opinon @DicemanX, on what we should call this kind of technique? I couldn't find where in your Frostmoon Horseman's Blade farm thread @Unftf had specifically talked about this design innovation (you mention it in your video). Does the honourable forum member has a preference himself?...

I'm thinking along the lines of "Cool-down juggling rapid-fire trap engines" (a real mouth full), but aiming to get across the concept that it works by just repeatedly 'throwing' those traps back into the air cool-down as soon as they are available. And it doesn't need to be a dummy engine per-say (or even a hoik engine). Speaking of which, I like your waist height dummy hoik engine better than my prototype: narrower of course. But you've gone with a single plate for 30 act/s there, which I might suggest could have delayed half of your darts by 1 tick (the bunching pattern)... Although, it's actually shocking how slow an engine this works with; I simply had the same bird enter a 2 plate engine at the end of my track and that looked fine to me! (Slower firing pattern though.)

 

[DicemanX]

I'm thinking along the lines of "Cool-down juggling rapid-fire trap engines" (a real mouth full), but aiming to get across the concept that it works by just repeatedly 'throwing' those traps back into the air cool-down as soon as they are available. And it doesn't need to be a dummy engine per-say (or even a hoik engine). Speaking of which, I like your waist height dummy hoik engine better than my prototype: narrower of course. But you've gone with a single plate for 30 act/s there, which I might suggest could have delayed half of your darts by 1 tick (the bunching pattern)... Although, it's actually shocking how slow an engine this works with; I simply had the same bird enter a 2 plate engine at the end of my track and that looked fine to me! (Slower firing pattern though.)

Ah, so that explains the slight spacing differences between darts. I added the extra pressure plate to make it 60act/sec:

The result is more evenly spaced darts, although there is an extra tile space between two darts every 4th dart. Doesn't really matter of course, but looks better .

We'll have to see if Unftf wants to append a particular label to the trap activation approach seen in this set-up.

 

[ZeroGravitas]

trap actibation

Not a bad suggestion in itself... Darts still not *quite* perfect, but smeg it, like you say, over-kill anyway. I've been seriously considering reducing the number of plates just to decrease the darn clatter! (Not as bad as a teleporter engine, mind.)

 

[Thiner]

boss spawns are different too

Well, the boss spawning mechanics is more interesting..(Exceptions are Golem, Duke Fishron, and Moon Lord, although some bosses don't at the first time follow the boss spawning general mechanics, such as Wof and Skeletron. We are discussing bosses that can be summoned using items.)
First, the spawn range of the boss is double of the normal NPCs, both vertically and horizontally.
And, boss spawning won't check lava...
Boss only spawn on the ground, which is surprising and kind of funny, as when it chose your hellevator as the first spawn point, it is very likely that you are in the surface while the boss is in the underworld.. By the way, bosses won't despawn instantly, but they will after 12.5s.(I suspect whether a EoC can fly from the bottom of the hellevator to where it can't despawn in 12.5s...)
They also check the 2*3 air tiles above the spawning point, which is more ridiculous than surprising.
King Slime will ask for more space, though.
They also don't spawn too near to the player, and to be precise, we are saying the safe range which is a bit bigger than normal spawning.
But, when it has tried 999 times and hasn't found a good spawning point, the game will just skip all the inspection and just spawn the boss somewhere.

*On* blocks? Or in front of natural marble walls (like the conditions for Temple and dungeon, etc)?

Standing on the marble blocks is the easiest way, not the only way. The other conditions that can lead to a marble spawn include that the NPC spawning point is on a marble block, the NPC is near some marbles(the mechanics are complex, but it suggests that a bunch of marbles can lead to marble spawns ~30 tiles away..), or the player is near some marbles. Granite biome mechanics is similar. As a marble mini biome is mostly used for Medusa Head, Standing on marble blocks is the easiest way.
By the way, marble walls can't affect any spawns.

 

[ZeroGravitas]

They also check the 2*3 air tiles above the spawning point, which is more ridiculous than surprising.... But, when it has tried 999 times and hasn't found a good spawning point, the game will just skip all the inspection and just spawn the boss somewhere.

That fits with experience then; Diceman had a bit of a go at boss spawn blocking previously, posted somewhere around here. Even with everything blocked up tight, they still consistently appeared, and from the same place off the the left each time I think. (Not all that important really, I guess, unless doing some very clever speed kill.)

 

[inomanoms]

Yesterday, I wrote a comment, but deleted it after posting, because I felt it was arrogant:

<hr/>

"Why I think this thread is a brilliant idea:

Alot of basic information about hoiktronics is strewn about in threads sunk deep in thread history. In the threads themselves, where these tidbits of information exist, they are hidden in a wall of text. People have started putting together guides to particular topics, but have not finished since the amount of what they want to say has turned their guide into some back-burner project or because new discoveries overshadow their old ones. To work against this tendency towards authors creating hidden unfinished tutorials, and to push forward new insights into a broader awareness, a collaborative such as this one is in order.


How I think this should work:

This thread needs heavy editing before it turns into a mess. Any posting below the OP should be a submission to the first post. A single post should deal with a single concept and will not be considered for assimilation into the header post without a diagram or short video to explain the simple concept. The OP reserves the right to redact your post before adding it to the first. When a post gets added to the first, the original gets deleted. The type of information being looked for should primarily deal with game mechanics rather than game stats, except where a stat is relevant to why or how a build works.


Why this "tips and tricks" instead of full-on tutorials:

Don't get me wrong; I am very much partial to full-length tutorials. But I feel an insights thread would be useful to slowly aggregate and organize knowledge we have about hoiktronics. The objective here is oversight. People shouldn't be afraid to submit concepts they feel are too simple and already well known, that they are not worth submitting. In addition to submitting the demonstration of a concept, you should be allowed to submit the keyword of a concept you feel has not been adressed yet in this thread. As this thread grows it will serve as a basis for individuals to create their own full-length tutorials.

</hr>

Final note: obviously the above is an opinion and not what the thread is or what Zerogravitas intended this thread to be. This is the reason I deleted the post. It assumes and demands too much of the OP.

 

[z26]

Not sure this is very useful, but... falling down a single block height won't activate a button you fall on, but falling down two blocks height on one will.

(like diceman said seems to works with players but not with dummies, which was quite confusing)

 

[DicemanX]

Not sure this is very useful, but... falling down a single block height won't activate a button you fall on, but falling down two blocks height on one will.

Interesting that you say this - it would explain my earlier observation that town NPCs stopped activating certain pressure plates when they were dropped onto them from head-high top hoiks. Curiously, the dummy ghosts do activate those pressure plates in those hoik systems - I fixed all of my hoiktronics contraptions by swapping town NPCs with dummies.

 

[Thiner]

Not sure this is very useful, but... falling down a single block height won't activate a button you fall on, but falling down two blocks height on one will.

Well, I didn't get your idea actually. May I ask for a diagram?

 

[z26]

Sure!

Mining, deactuating or stepping left off the white block won't make the green plate tick in the first image. But on the second one, it will. Dummies will make the plate tick in both circumstances.

 

[DicemanX]

Here's another example:

The NPC is stuck because of a failure to activate the pressure plate after dropping out of a head-high top hoik. This wasn't a problem before 1.3.

 

[Lucky Lucky Horseshoe]

Here's a simple wiring tip that's probably around here somewhere, but I wouldn't know where to find it and get a link: all statues (even the ones that appear to be 2x2) occupy a 2x3 space, and can be wired separately for each space. This is useful for statue farms and heart/star/bomb statues.

 

[DicemanX]

Here's a simple wiring tip that's probably around here somewhere, but I wouldn't know where to find it and get a link: all statues (even the ones that appear to be 2x2) occupy a 2x3 space, and can be wired separately for each space. This is useful for statue farms and heart/star/bomb statues.View attachment 68029View attachment 68030

This is true for mobile/console, but not for PC anymore - the 1.3 update changed the way statues work. They can only be activated once before initiating a cooldown (0.5 sec for mob statues, and 10 seconds for mana/heart statues).

 

[Lucky Lucky Horseshoe]

This is true for mobile/console, but not for PC anymore - the 1.3 update changed the way statues work. They can only be activated once before initiating a cooldown (0.5 sec for mob statues, and 10 seconds for mana/heart statues).

Aw, that sucks. They just screwed up all kinds of farming techniques, didn't they?

 

[Thiner]

Aw, that sucks. They just screwed up all kinds of farming techniques, didn't they?

Actually they made some kinds of farming harder(e.g. conventional statue farming) while made some easier(The Axe's drop rate has increased drastically, and the bug net can make great profit now as you can sell the critters), and some farms are unaffected mostly(slime staff + lucky coin)... To be fair, the devs are not the Death of the farms.