Tasks before Hardmode

Pangaearocks

Terrarian
I've been faffing around a lot, not knowing what to do in the game. Recently crafted a bunch of Brain of Cthulhu summoning items -- think it was 18. That netted a good bit of money and resources. Over 3200 crimson ore, 800 tissue samples and 1 platinum. Not sure what to do with it though, because it doesn't seem like crafting and then selling is worth it in this game :(

Don't know if this is lucky, but I have crafted the Cellphone, and some other items. Did set up a town for the Jungle NPCs, but sadly it wasn't enough to buy a pylon. Thought it would be. Have upgraded armour to molten, and crafted the Night's Edge. Probably very lucky on the latter, because it popped out as Godly :D

I have read a bit about Hardmode, so know the world will go nuts with crimson spreading like wildfire. However, is it really necessary to build several hellevators to separate areas, maybe even horizontally? Will the whole world turn evil if I don't?

Anything important I've missed, apart from the possibly huge mining jobs?
Post-Brain inventory.jpg


Terraria map.jpg
 
You could upgrade your boots 2 more times to Frostspark (Lightning boots + Ice skates) and then to Terraspark (Frostspark + Lava Waders) before starting hard mode if you're up for it. For Hellevators, id say make at the very minimum 1 on each side of the jungle incase biome spread ends up reaching it, though this may not help you should the hard mode V biome generation decides it wants to screw you over by cutting right through your jungle. As for biome spread itself, it is fast, yes, but you have much more time than you would think so long as you don't get out of control with altar smashing. 6 altars is a good amount to smash, 9 should be the absolute maximum as each altar smashed converts one random block anywhere in the world into hallow or crimson, which will then begin to spread.
 
Don't have ice skates (checked all three accessories chests), so can't make that one, and looks like they only drop from frozen chests (and some crates), so guess I was unlucky with those.

Took on the advice of building more hellevators. It wasn't quite as bad as the first one due to a better pickaxe (stone in one hit), and I really, REALLY hope this will suffice. Spent all yesterday on this. Even lined many walls with gray bricks. It became too mind-numbing to pull through 100%, but think I spent ~5000 bricks on this thing. The jungle was actually quite wide, so must cross my fingers the V doesn't screw me over too badly 🤞
Gray brick walls.jpg


Put a little zone around the ocean, as I'd like to put the Angler over there, and also some around the home area. Would be catastrophic if that was lost. Sounds like the jungle is most important to protect, so hope I'm lucky there. It's quite wide I see.

Hellevators map.jpg

It isn't too risky to go around smashing altars? I'm quite worried about the world converting en mass, with little chance to combat it.
 
That's pretty impressive, including the effort to mine all those hellevators.

I think it is pretty unnecessary to mine many hellevators, especially pre-hardmode.
It might be because I'm too lazy to do it, but I don't normally mine such XD I tried on my very first playthrough, but then part of the V spawned right through it, so it worth almost nothing XD lol, and since that, I don't normally mine them - however, where necessary, I make gaps too, but (sticky) dynamite does the job a real lot faster than if you just jump at it with a pickaxe in hand.

If this is your first playthrough, I wouldn't worry too much about things, just have fun and enjoy it. It's understandable though, that you're concerned. I know that the world of my very first playthrough is like 50+% crimson, so, I didn't done a very good job with protecting stuff there, but... it was a fun playthrough, so whatever XD

But let's see... Some advices.
The advice of @Someguyfromtheinternet regarding the terraspark boots is pretty good. By the way another interesting similar accessory is the amphibian boots, if you wanna go for it.

Also could look for the teleport shells from the desert (teleport to oceans) and lava (teleport to hell), they can be quite handy,
and, you could try to set up all the biome towns (except for hallow, as it's not there yet), to have several handy fast travel anchors. Although some towns might will be lost due to the V. but those that will remain, can be very helpful traveling to areas more quickly, since the area will be filled with much more dangerous monsters, particularly in some biomes like the crimson and the jungle. and the new night time enemies can be very dangerous too at first.

As for altars, they're tricky stuff. Normally, you wanna smash some because the gods will bless the early hardmode ores on your would because of that. However (you might read about those stuff, and that's why you're concerned, right?)
Smashing altars have, and can have a bunch of consequences.
  • Smashing the very first altar allows pirates and mech bosses to invade/attack on their own. this is a serious concern early hardmode, because pirates can be very tough with pre-hardmode gear, if you're so unlucky they decide to invade before you would have the time to mine some of the ores, and gear up.
  • each smashed altar can release a wraith or two. they're not all that tough to fight, so this is negligable, but if you would smash several quickly after each other, you might get overwhelmed by wraits.
  • each smashed altar has 1/3 chance, that a single, corruptible block somewhere in the cavern layer (most likely a stone block) gets corrupted/crimsoned (the same as your world evil) or hallowed. it will spread, rapidly in early hardmode, and might causes the forming of new pockets of crimson or hallow, potencially overtaking very large areas, if not noticed in time.
also. the first 3 altars blesses the largest amount of ores on your world. the first smashed altar blesses a large amount of cobalt or palladium upon your world. the next one does so with mythrill/orichalc, and the 3rd with adamantite/titanium.
the 4th smashed altar will bless cobalt/palladium upon your world again (the same ore the first one did) BUT, 1/2 as much, as the first one did. the 7th altar would bless (I think), 1/2 as much as the 4th one did. and so forth. (same goes for the others with their respective ores.)

Which means, it can be wise to not smash more than 3. the additional ones won't bless as much ore upon your world, and carry the same risks.

An alternative way to bypass smashing altars is to get the ores via crates from fishing, though this can be boring. if you don't feel like that, then smash altars (in fact, that's probably the best course for first playthrough anyway) just think about it if it worths smashing more than 3.


Also, I would strongly advise to try to get some sort of hardmode weapons first, before going for the altars. For example the shotgun the arms dealer sells from hardmode onwards, or once you fond the wizard, and feel brave enough to farm for stuff in the underground crimson (cavern layer!) you could get the golden shower tome - or if you look for crystal shards in the underground hallow, the crystal storm tome. you can get a few interesting stuff from fishing too like an anchor, and some mobs have a chance to drop pretty good items for early hardmode, such as a beam sword. But if you get something good drop from WoF, that might be pretty strong too.

This can be dangerous (though easier if you have some fast-travel achors (towns in various biomes)), but worths it, because if you end up having the pirates pay a visit very early, these early hardmode weapons will be a lot better against them than (most) late pre-hardmode weapons. there are a few exceptions though, like the flamelash. night's edge is also pretty decent.

Anyway, good luck!
 
Cheers, that's a great post :)

Am sorry for having spoiled myself, but it does sometimes happen in games like this, when I get unsure what to do next, and not wishing to miss anything. Thankfully know very little about hardmode yet, so will see how I fare once I get there. But yes, I am quite worried about large swathes of the world turning crimson (hallow doesn't sound as bad). That is why I took all the time to make those shafts. Just gotta cross my fingers it doesn't go like in the game you described, with the "V" going across them.

Looked up Amphibian boots, and looks like I already have the abilities. A few days I took the time to check lots of stuff with the Guide, and was then able to craft PDA->Cellphone, and Frog Gear. Coupled with an upgraded Horseshoe, that means I'm very careless with jumping around (would die a lot without horseshoe). Otherwise it would be very slow to get from one part of the world to another.

This is the equipment I have right now:
  • Molten armor
  • Lightning boots
  • Treasure magnet
  • Cloud in a bottle
  • Frog Gear
  • Obsidian Horseshoe
  • Cellphone in Inventory
  • +Godly Night's Edge sword (it came out like that)

With teleporters/teleport shells, do you mean pylons? I don't have any of those. Put Dryad, Painter and Witch doctor in the Jungle, and thought that would enable me to buy the pylon, but sadly not. Though one pylon would apparently not do much good anyway. Wanted to build houses for the NPCs, but yeah... not done it yet. So almost all live at the base. Can travel quickly home of course, but not back, or to whatever location I want. Jungle and (right) ocean would be nice, as they are in different directions, so then it would be easier to get to other locations over there, like the dungeon.

Okay, so weapons first? Good to keep in mind, as I assume it won't be easy to get a lot of ore (for armor). Have liked Melee so far, so thought I'd continue with that. Probably easier too when combat gets chaotic, instead of needing to target with a bow or whatever. I'm messing up enough as it is with the hook :D

Sounds like the world will become a lot more dangerous. Currently basically everything dies to 1-2 hits, and combat is easy, so I actually look forward to a challenge again, even if I end up dying more. Gotta hope the bosses or events you write about don't spawn right away. That would be brutal.
 
@Pangaearocks
Sounds like you're having fun, which is the most important thing, I think.

There are games when spoilers can be bad, but I think, it's not as bad with Terraria, as long as it's just a bit. The guide is helpful, but there are many things he don't really explains, I know I had lots of trouble at the very start, how am I supposed to build a house XD So, I looked it up on the wiki, after got angry that green slimes killed my character like 15 times XD lol But that was long ago.

First playthroughs are special though, and that's why it's still wise to avoid bigger spoilers. I know I was suprised by lots of stuff, like finding clay, or making a sword from shadewood, which had 9 attack, and I was like "Wow!" and I used it for a while. I probably still have it somewhere on a weapon rack. But, later, in next playthroughs, you will play in more "optimised" ways, and many of these discoveries will be normal, or even irrelevant for new playthroughs. When you know you can gain stronger weapons with barely more effort.


As for hardmode, it's bad at first, but it's not that bad. You'll figure out things eventually. It's harder than pre-hardmode, of course, but you also can get much stronger weapons, armor, and accessories.
The V is a tricky thing though. If you're lucky, it will spawn in some favorable way, but if you're not, things can go really uggly too. So, let's hope things will go well.
I generally usually try to quaranteene off the V at the edges with sticky dynamites. Though you can let the biomes spread to areas you don't care about. There are several valuable and interesting loot you can only get from these areas.

The jungle is often referred as the biome that needs to be protected the most, but this is actually only about the surface jungle. And only against evil biomes, because the hallow can't do much with it. Crimson and Corruption however can turn mud to dirt (mud with jungle grass too. it will turn into dirt with crimson grass (in a crimson world), so, repairing that damage is very difficult. the underground (cavern layer) jungle however has its own self-defense mechanism, clorophyte ore. you'll see that from the start of hardmode, clorophyte ore starts to grow in the jungle. it's an interesting and valuable ore you will likely want to mine, once you can (you won't have any tools at the start of hardmode that can mine it) and there will be plenty (and it grows!) to mine lots of it, but at areas where the jungle is facing evil biomes, leave clorophyte veins intact. clorophyte ore (and I read the bricks made from them too) protects its vicinity from the spread of evil. they can protect like a 10~15 blocks radius.
don't worry too much about it, but keep it in mind.

The desert is more vulnerable to spreading biomes. but you don't really need to worry about it much for now, I guess.


As for your eqipments, it looks kind of odd. But this is part of the beauty of first playthroughs. It doesn't looks optimal, but it's nevertheless pretty interesting. Lucky horseshoes are usually crafted with shiny red balloon derivates (e.g. cloud in a balloon) and obsidian skull usually goes into the cobalt shoeld (or water walking boots, or both, since obsidian skull is easy to craft)
By the way, the cellphone shows great dedication, it's pretty impressive you got it.


As for towns, can you show screenshots of your towns?
NPCs sell pylons only, if they're pretty happy. You're right that dyrad, witch doctor and painter makes good neighbors in the jungle, you just also have to build the houses in a way (at least until you get the pylon) that they live close to each other. their housing flags have to be 25 or less blocks from each other, to recognise each other as neighbors.

You could try to build a beach, desert, snow, and cavern town as well, and maybe a glowing mushroom one too. Note that they don't have to be on the surface. forest does, and cavern of course have to be in normal caverns, but the others can be built wherever you want in their respective biome. So, for example, if you don't need a snow town on the surface, but it would come in handy as a fast travel anchor in the underground snow, then build the town there.

as for shells though, I meant the conch shells. you can find them in chests or fish for them. they're rare, but they can help a lot with moving around. the magic conch can be found in desert chests and in oasises (crates, I think), and the lava conch can be fished up from lava (I think. or crates. and might be found in shadow chests, but I'm not sure about that). they teleport you to ocean and hell, respectively.


And, yes, I would generally adwise to go for weapons first, armor after.
Melee class is fun, so, go for it, if you like it. Do try out other classes too though, later or on later playthroughs, they're all fun. Regardless though, you might wanna have some other weapons too with more range, just in case. But melee is fun, yeah.

Good luck!
 
I've got a checklist of stuff I try to do before hardmode. If there's anything here you've not done, it may not be a bad idea to see to these tasks. I'll also be including stuff I know you've already done just for the sake of being thorough. Before transitioning into hardmode, I generally want to make sure I:
  • Acquire the cell phone, as the Angler's loot pool expands in hardmode and nymphs become much harder to find, making it harder to get the last few pieces.
  • Locate a spider nest and rescue the Stylist, both because it's harder to save her from hardmode spiders and also because knowing where a nest is is super convenient for me since I always play summoner (spider nests are important for summoners upon starting hardmode).
  • Get myself as geared up as I can be with pre-hardmode items, which includes having 400 health and 200 base mana. I don't necessarily include accessories in this one, but being thorough with those never hurts either.
  • Have a base of operations set up (most importantly, a storage room) and have as many pylons established as possible. In pre-hardmode, you should be able to get all but the Mushroom and Hallowed pylons done if you arrange your NPCs right.
  • Get an extractinator. This is doubly prioritized in 1.4 pre-hardmode since I want to spend as little time in the hardmode underground desert as possible, and the underground desert is the best place to find an extractinator.
  • This last one isn't a pre-hardmode goal, but I do make sure to do it before killing any hardmode bosses, so I'll put it here as an honorable mention. If I'm doing it (which I always do, because summoner), I always make sure to do some Old One's Army content so I can upgrade my ballista turret immediately upon reaching the next tier of the event.
The only other thing I could think to do in pre-hardmode is establish a rail network spanning across your world, especially if you happen to be playing on Expert or Master mode, since certain events can cut off pylon access and rails become the best way to get around during those times. This is more just a matter of convenience though, and isn't a hard suggestion.
 
As for towns, can you show screenshots of your towns?
Sure, although they're not much to talk about really. The base building got halted a bit... Built temporary housing further east, and then new NPCs kept arriving, so I had to keep it all. The 'castle' couldn't expand further east, and to the west I have a wood platform arena in three floors.

Spent a good bit of time on the Jungle town, although I suppose it doesn't look all that hot :D The roofs ended up a little odd, but I tried to make suitable houses for the three NPCs living there. I get the exact same prices from all of them, 89 coppers for items that otherwise cost 1 silver (like the planter boxes).
Main base: Thought I could plant whatever in the planter boxes, but suddenly stuff started sprouting, so err... yeah! :D

(should have removed the tower wood platforms though, that was before getting double jump and the like, so needed them to get up there)
Terraria-main base.jpg


Jungle town. The western hut is a fisher spot, without one outer wall (and lacking some background walls due to removing a fugly roof section).

Terraria-Jungle town.jpg

Edit: Thanks @Yui the Summoner. I've done some on that list, but not everything. No railnetwork, no pylons and only one 'extra' town for NPCs. Not tried the Old One's Army either come to think of it. Kinda forgot about it, after reading you needed 120 straight tiles somewhere, which I don't have (not even the arena I think, as it's slightly jagged). Have 6-7 extractinators actually, so that'll do. Put almost 500 desert fossils through it earlier today.

However, I'm itching to get forward really, and not prepare more. I'm bound to make mistakes anyway, and possibly get overrun by crimson/hallow. Barely done any fisher quests either, as he keeps asking for sky fish (not found/been there). Have done a backup of the world, so if things really turn impossibly ugly, I can always go back (hopefully). Need to actually beat the boss too. That may not be straight forward.
 
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Those generally look good!

I think, if you move the painter to the farther hut, or do so with the witch doctor, I think, the middle houses in the jungle are close enough that two NPCs will recognise each other. The painter and the witch doctor doesn't care much for each other, but dyrad + witch doctor, or painter + dryad should get you the pylon.

You could try to set up some other towns too
(by the way, @Yui the Summoner you can get the mushroom pylon pre-hardmode. surprising, but, you don't need the truffle for it. merchant + nurse + golfer makes the merchant so happy, that he will sell practically all pylons, regardless if he doesn't loves the biome (as he loves the forest. the only exception is probably desert, which he hates, but that one is easy to get via arms dealer + nurse, or dye trader + arms dealer.)


But, yes, @Pangaearocks you can just go ahead and try to fight WoF. No point to absolutely over-prepare. Just enjoy the game, and things will work out somehow, I'm sure. Good luck!
 
Dropped the doll and did it. Oh boy was I ill-prepared for it. Had no idea what was coming 🥵

This... thing... was rather bigger than earlier bosses. Had no hell bridge or stuff like that (except some small sections). However, I DID have some potions, including obsidian skin protection and water walking potion. Tested it out by jumping on the lava before dropping the doll, and it actually worked! Easier than a million bricks.

Fight was brutal and I almost died a lot of times. Spent most of the fight frantically jumping and flying ahead of him (when I didn't get stuck in a building somewhere), trying to dodge the machine-gun fire, while looking at 2-4 hearts.
Not even sure how that worked out, but it somehow did. I did pop Lifeforce potion at some point, which probably kept me alive, and had regeneration too. Not sure on the delay on the 90HP potion because I haven't used it before (100HP instead), but I spammed that H button an awful lot! :D

Wall of Flesh defeated.jpg
Honestly couldn't see anything changed on the world map, and I zoomed in trying to squint some colours, but neh. Beamed back home and went east, going to pop an altar. Came across some flying light and a unicorn, so that's Hallow then. Means Crimson must be west, where the Jungle is, which is exactly what I hoped wouldn't happen. Damnit!

Blow up an altar, beam back home, and then head west to see if I can locate crimson somewhere.

It's not good news 😢
How screwed am I (or rather, the Jungle)?? It's almost smack in the middle of the jungle, or slightly to the east. Will the entire Jungle quickly get engulfed now? All that preparation, and it was all for naught :(

Jungle screwed!.jpg


Jungle map crimson.jpg
What can I do about this? Is it possible to salvage before it goes *poof*? What kind of timeframe am I looking at before things get out of control?
 
Congrats on defeating the Wall of Flesh, and welcome to hardmode! XD

Umm... how many altars you smashed? Just one? or did you smashed 3? If you smashed one, then might as well smash 2 others, so you get all 3 tiers of early hardmode ores.

By the way, lifeforce potion is extremely powerful indeed. If you don't have a lake in the hallow, you should set up one when you can - though if there isn't one on the surface, that's fine, there's probably one underground, right? in the now hallowed areas. To catch Prismites. they're needed for lifeforce potions. they can be a really big help with boss fights.

But before such... yeah, let's see... at the jungle, you probably should just mine (or blow up with explosives) a gap between the crimsoned area. if you wanna try, you could just mine out the crimsone, and crimsoned grass (or purify it with purification powder). I can't tell it for sure, but it looks like it only caught a small portion of the jungle. You should try to do something about it quickly, but the damage isn't very big (yet. don't worry, it won't spread thaaaat fast, but, it is not slow either.)
What seem to got it quite bad is that desert. Well... it do has some interesting loot, but evil deserts are among the most dangerous areas for early hardmode, because of djinns. On the other hand, the ghouls there drop ichor, so you can farm for it there too, not just from ichor stickers in the crimson caverns - though the desert is more dangerous probably.

But, I guess this is kind of why mining tons of hellevators pre-hardmode can be a waste of time, you can never know where the V will spawn. Though they won't be all just a waste, they will grant some protection. Particularly those around the spawn, that probably will help making your main base safe from the spreading biomes.
But now that the V appeared, if you try to quaranteene the edges of it, I would use explosives, not just mining. dynamite is much faster XD just be careful with it XD
 
Christ, I don't get this at all. Went back with a big stack of bombs, and started bombing down where I thought it began, keeping in mind it's supposed to be in a "V". Yet it keeps going further and further in, with single/few tiles here and there. Is that town already lost? Figured if I could stop the westward spread, at least the other shaft would stop it going to the east, but this looks a bit hopeless :confused:

Going by pictures on the wiki and suchlike, the start looks like a thick V, but this looks more like dotted infections all over the place, making it hard to see where it's going. Fitting in a pandemic, but damn... :(
Crimson fight1.jpg


Crimson fight2.jpg
Tough enemies too! Hitting for like 80 a pop. Seems better underground, at least for now. Can see why a better weapon is priority 1.
 
The V in that area appears "dotted", because when the V hits the jungle, it only converts stone, which can be found in the jungle in very small veins. The crimstone however will start to turn the mud blocks around it into dirt, and if this - in a 3 blocks radius - can reach jungle grass, it will convert that too, and then, the crimson grass will spread to adjacent jungle grass mud blocks.

This isn't going very fast, so right now, you will see it appearing dotted, as the harm now is not very big yet. Don't worry too much about things, just make a gap between the pure jungle and the infected parts. you can let the infected part fall, and just focus on making sure the rest remains pure.

by the way, as for the spread,
corrupted (and crimsoned and hallowed) blocks can infect corruptible blocks within a 3 block radius.
in pre-hardmode, the only corruptible thing was grass. and the spreading was so weak, that the only way the evil biome could spread was crimson grass preading to directly adjacent grass block. which is why it was largely negligable.

in hardmode however, lots of stuff that were immune in pre-hardmode, are now corruptible.
stone,
sand, hardened sand, sandstone (making deserts particularly vulnerable)
ice

But generally, in areas without grass, things can only spread to corruptible blocks within a 3 blocks radius. so, if you have a 3 or more blocks wide gap, between such blocks, or have such a gap filled with non corruptible blocks (they usually note clay regarding this, but clay is rare. granite is usually much more abundant, if you pick up all that granite monsters drop, but wood and artifical blocks like bricks also work, and, also, dirt is non-corruptible too! as long as there's no grass on it, dirt can't be corrupted either, making it pretty useful in areas - particularly cavern layer - for such.

the only specific case is grassy areas. thorns grow from crimson and corrupt grass, and vines grow on the underside of crimson and hallowed grassy blocks (corruption has no vines, and hallow has no thorns), meaning that via these, the biomes can spread much farther, in case of grassy areas, I usually go with a 8 blocks gap, instead of the usual 3. just to be safe.

note that sunflowers have very strong protection abilities, and they will protect the 2 grass blocks they're on. in pre-hardmode, it means that one, or a few sunflowers can completely strop the spread (though a few non-corruptible blocks do the trick as well), but their abilities apply to hardmode as well. if the pread would be on the surface only, 4-5 sunflowers right next to each other can make an effective barrier. but if the spread can go under them, then it will eventually pop up on the other side.
another very strong thing is clorophyte ore, but you can't mine it yet.

there's also of course, the clemtaminator, which can be used to purify (or currupt, etc.) very large areas very quicky, though the "ammo" for it is quite expensive. you don't have access to it yet though, so don't worry about it for now. By the way, even if you purify things, as long as there are no barriers between corrupted and now purified areas, it will eventually spread back there.

so, my opinion is, that the easiest way is, to make barriers with explosives, at the edges of the spreading biomes. not necessarily right at the edge, you can leave a small "puffer" area there for the evil to completely take, but make sure it can't spread further than that.


on a small side note, early hardmode, these biomes spread quite fast. this also means that this is an ideal time if you want to set up artifical biomes of them. for instence, now the dryad sells the seeds of the opposite evil (corruption in this case), if she's housed in a graveyard biome.
it could be a good idea, to buy a few, and create a not too big surface and a likewise not too big cavern corruption biome - in areas you sealed off prior to infecting them, so it won't spread further than the area you want. you can make an artifical corruption biome pretty fast now. (the spread's speed will be decreased significantly, once you defeat Plantera. so, I mean, no need to hurry with setting up an artifical curruption biome, but it can be wise to make it prior to defeating Plantera (that's like mid-hardmode)
 
Thanks, that makes things more clear.

Unfortunately the world has become a major disaster area. I've tried to seal off the crimson in the jungle, but don't know if I got all. So, so hard to do anything there now with hordes of super-hard enemies that hit like a truck. But I see the other side of the bombed/mined out area is already taken. There was nothing when I started. Naturally there is dirt and grass all over the place down there as well, so I suppose it will jump across sooner or later.
The line down is just rope. No chance to get anything else done.

Jungle shaft.jpg
Have collected an impressive amount of gravestones, so there is that :-/

Also, things look pretty bleak on the other side. Hoped the shaft there would protect from hallow, but nope. The V probably went straight through that shaft as well, so the base is under threat too. I've not even tried to do anything about that, though, but it will slowly creep up through the ground.

Have been downing potions like an alcoholic, including spelunking potions to try to spot the new veins. Only smashed one altar earlier, because apparently I can't mine more than the lowest tier new ore anyway, so I figured I could smash more altars later. However, I'm really struggling to see any difference in the colours with that potion. I can see where there are ores, but I can't tell what is what. Lots of wasted time really, but at least I found a few blobs, mostly in the open while I didn't have spelunker effect. I know you said weapon first, but it would have done less damage than the Night's Edge, so I went with new armor instead. Was able to get a full cobalt armor set. Only a few extra points of defense, which is basically worthless now anyway, but I figured it would be better than the one I had.

So the short of it is that I struggle a lot now. The jungle shaft still needs more work, but I keep dying and gave up for the moment, and the main base will be under threat too, from hallow. Very unlucky that all that shaft work basically does F all. Crimson popped smack in the middle of the jungle, and hallow went straight through the shaft on the other side, and hit close to the main base.

Oh yeah, I've got 2 status message about cold, which I assume is one of the bosses. The first time I dropped down the shaft, hoping it will prevent it, and the other time I was already down there. Considering random beetles are chewing my head off, a boss would not be a good idea right now :eek:

Why would I want a corruption biome btw? This is bad enough :(
 
Don't worry too much about things. It can be overwhelming at first, to fix up all that mess, but really, you don't have to worry too much about it. it's fine to seal off a few infected areas, and that should do well for now. Don't worry too much about it.

By the way, yes, mech bosses, much like EoC, won't spawn, if you stay underground the entire night. You could smashed 3 altars the same time though, so you can at least detect the ores of later tiers too. By the way, they can be seen on the map too, in already discovered areas, so that should be a help.

as for artifical corruption, it's useful so you can get the respective bestiary entries, and, also, because there are some loot unique to that biome. as for hardmode, particularly cursed flames, the corruption equivalent of ichor, though it works kind of different in weapons.

I think, the next things should be, to try to mine more early hardmode ores, and try to gather other valuable loot, particularly in the underground hallow and crimson. soul of night, soul of light, ichor, crystal shards, etc. don't worry about bosses yet. try to gear up for early hardmode. once you feel confident enough, and also have a mytrhil/orichalc anvill, you could try to fight wyverns so you can craft pretty good wings. and try to "create" some greater mimics with keys made from souls of light/night, and fight those. they can spawn in the cavern on their own too, but they're rare, and you're usually at a big disadvantage against them down in the caverns. you can get some very powerful stuff from them (as well as from regular mimics too). just look for treasures and gear up. and don't worry too much about dealing with the biome spread, if it's no fun.
 
Cheers, I will try to keep that in mind. It's just that since this is my first time, and basically all my people are at the main base, I'm worried about it becoming unlivable and being impossible to fix the situation. Then I see it spreading like wildfire, and all those tough enemies (dying over and over), and it seems really hard to deal with it.

Haven't gotten any good weapons or such yet from drops; is that something that can happen, or must it be crafted from ingredients the new enemies drop (like soul of light)?

Also, noticed I got an item called Rod of Discord. Hoped it would be possible to teleport on the main map, which would solve the issues of lacking pylons, but doesn't look like that is possible. What are good uses for it? Just another accessory to stash away?
 
NPCs can live in the hallow, in fact, some of them even have that as their favorite biome (though some others hate it). And evil can't really overtake hallow. So, there are some who use the hallow itself, to counter the evil, that's an interesting tactics as well.
As long as you're near a town, no enemies will spawn (on normal mode) at all - except for events. So it doesn't matters what stuff are in the hallow outside of towns, but, of course, outside of towns, it can be dangerous.

The trenches around the main town seems decent enough to protect it though, at least on first glance.

Some enemies drop weapons too, yes, and some drop accessories too. some of them are uncommon, such as the beam sword. but when you see mimics and greater mimics, they always drop something valuable when killed. somethimes just a grappling hook (although pretty good ones), but there are pretty strong weapons and accessories too.

as for Rod of Discord, is that "beginners' luck" you have there? It's a super rare tool many players spend very long time to farm for. I mean it's really-really rare. it requires quite the luck to get one. How many chaos elementals you killed?
RoD is not a weapon, and it can't be used to teleport you on the map - pylons work like that though. and you'll soon have access to teleporters too, which also can be used to teleport you even to very far places, but setting them up is MUCH more expensive than pylons.
RoD can teleport you to the cursor's position in the world (not the map), which means, you can reach places without having to mine through stuff, which can make exploration faster, and if you can use it well, it also can be a tool to help you escape from dangerous situations.
Note though that right after you use it, you get the "chaos state" debuff for a short time, and if you use it again while having that debuff, it will hurt you a bit.
 
Hopefully the trench on the left side will suffice, since the crimson is further west. But the hallow is already on the inside of the right-side trench, because it cut right through it. A good thing on the right side however, is that hallow now is squeezed between our main base and crimson. The snow biome is probably doomed, and same with the desert (some 5000HP dude spawned there during a sandstorm, and I got him down to 300HP before I died... so close!). So it's not all bad, certainly, especially if hallow-ing the main base doesn't matter as much as I worried about.

Played a lot yesterday, and there was a pirate invasion. I was underground at the time and hoped that would prevent it, but sadly not. Died at some point and was put back in bed, and there they were. Incredibly difficult, especially those near-immortal 3000HP captains with machine-guns firing 10 times a second or something. Kills me in 1-2 seconds. Managed to take them down eventually (by avoiding said captains), but must have died about 10 times, and half the NPCs were killed too. Had a Frostbrand sword at the time, which fires a projectile intermittently. Thankfully those flying ships got caught between the arena and castle-roof at times, so it was possible (but slow) to grind them down. Utterly brutal, though. We have no way to stand up to these forces without better gear and weapons.

Got a Cutlass out of that, though, which I used for a while. Speaking of the beamsword, that is what I'm sporting currently. No idea where I got it. Was it from a mimic? I've faced some of those, but from what I've seen only get money from them (but quite a lot). Came across a great mimic too, but he fried me.

Sounds like Rod of Discord is pretty darn rare, and sought after :) Used it a lot so far actually, because I noticed it was much easier to use during mining, because it is possible to teleport into small caves and stuff, without having to mine to it. What you write about the damage must be why I died when testing it out earlier. Teleported again and again, and suddenly died with a weird death message. Know I have killed quite a few chaos elementals after getting it, so hard to tell for sure the number. Upon starting the game now and seeking one out, the kill count is 21. Reckon it may have been 12-15. Having looked it up on the wiki, that is indeed very lucky!

Chaos elemental count.jpg


Same with the Crimson Key. Again I don't know exactly when we got it, because I only noticed it left in the inventory after stashing the chests in the base. Hopefully there is something good inside one of those chests in the Dungeon. Is there one for each biome?

Things are still very difficult, but at least I've got a bit of new ores now. Was able to get enough mithril to make an anvil, so next task it to collect enough to make weapons, armor and tools. Everything hits so hard. Will we ever get enough protection to handle the enemies well here, or would it be better to go ranged instead, and also be able to dodge everything? Just something like skeletal archers absolutely ruin me if they get the chance. Whatever spawned in the (underground) desert kept nuking me too. Practically everything is very, very dangerous, and suddenly 400HP is 'nothing'.
 
Hopefully your trenches will keep some of the place safe from the spreading biomes, yes.

As for the encounter with what's presumably a sand elemental, they are indeed very tough minibosses, along with their snow biome counterpart, the ice golem, but they have some unique and rare drops. though as far as sand elemental's concerned, the forbidden fragments they drop is more valuable for mages (and summoners), it doesn't have much use, if you're melee.

as for the pirates, that sounds very similar to my first encounter with them too. they are brutal, and can easily massacre the entire town, and if your gear is not very good, it can take very long to defeat them, and the'll kill you a bajillion times. and unlike bosses, invasions never go away on their own, the only way to clear it is by defeating them. (that doesn't apply to those related to day/night, etc. like blood moons, of course, those do go away on their own, but stuff like pirates and goblins won't)
this is why I noted on it when talked about altars. and that getting better weapons can be top priority early hardmode.

as for weapons, I think, beam swords are dropped by blue armored skeletons underground (the new variant of sketeon there, besides the archers). it's often regarded as a not very good weapon, and it will get outclassed later, but for early hardmode, it's a decent sword, I think.

mimics always drop something. but most of the time it's accessories. they don't have many weapons in their loot pool (except for ice mimics). so, you probably got something, like a cross necklace, philosophers' stone, or something. they can be pretty useful. you might wanna get a titan glove, if you're melee class, and tinker it to get a mechanical glove/fire gauntlet or a berserker's glove. (note that in single player, the "enemies more likely to target you" is completely irrelevant. because by base, everything targets you anyway.)

as for Rod of Discord, yes, it's very useful, and good that you figured it out too. and indeed, that sounds like very lucky. The other time, I was farming for stuff in the underground hallow - not specifically for RoD - and it was between 100 and 150 chaos elementals down, that I got a RoD, and I considered it pretty lucky. sometimes it can take much longer (though I don't usually farm for it specifically)

and, yeah, the keys are also very lucky finds. they're very very very rare. Though if you spend long time in the biome, you will likely eventually get one drop. anything in the biome can drop it, so it's not related to a specific enemy, but the chances are super low that anything will drop a key. (by the way, in hybrid biomes, you could get both keys. e.g. in a crimson desert, you could get the crimson key and the desert key too. (not from the same enemy probably XD lol)
there are; crimson, corruption, hallow, desert, jungle, and ice keys, I think. though your world is crimson, so there's sadly no corruption chest, even if you would get the key.
each of those chests in the dungeon hold a powerful weapon, but as you probably see the keys are "cursed by a powerful jungle creature" or something, which (likely) means Plantera, as the curse will go away from the keys after you defeated her. So, they're like mid hardmode weapons. For now, you could just store the keys in a safe place, like the piggy bank or something, to know where they are, as they're not very useful at the moment, but definitelly use them to open those chests, once you can.
the crimson chest has a melee weapon by the way, so if you play melee it will profit from melee armors' set bonuses and stuff, a lot. you can try out ranger and mage though anyway.

so, you got cobalt, mythril and... what's the 3rd ore? the 3rd tier is very rare by the way, but can be found often at the ceiling of hell. (though can be found elsewhere too, just rare).
early hardmode, you're quite weak, but don't worry, there are quite some powerful weapons, accessories and armors ahead.
also, 400 HP isn't the final, the max HP there is 500 HP (which will be temporarily 600 with a lifeforce potion, so that will be quite good for boss fights.)
once you defeated 1 of the 3 mech bosses (the destroyer, the twins, skeletron prime. it's not important which one you defeat first.), life fruits start to grow in the jungle. at first they're rare, I know I usually spend a long time around that stage of the game, to look for them, (each givey you +5 HP, I think?) but that +100 HP (in total) can be quite handy.

ah, by the way! dunno if you use it already or not, but don't miss out on using ichor. it will be very helpful in fighting pretty much anything (only a few stuff are immune to it) it decreases enemy defence. you could get the golden shower tome, or arrows or bullets made with it, but for melee, you can get flasks, with the imbuing station. flask of ichor is very powerful. it will imbue your melee weapons with ichor, so you can decrease the enemies defense, and since the buff is for your weapons, they stay even if you get killed, so, I mean, when you respawn, you will still have the "weapon imbue: ichor" buff. (note that imbue flasks don't stack, you you can't use more imbue than one at a time. e.g. if you would make a flask of poision as well, you can't have both being active the same time, one will override the other, if you try to use that too.

and, once you feel confident, try to look for wyverns. you probably will need to kill around 3 of them to get 20+ soul of flight, which are crafting materials for most wings.
 
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