What order do you like to hit up the biomes in in early game and hardmode?

mathbrush

Terrarian
I usually

-scan the Forest for chests,
-go to Underground and maybe the top of Cavern to get things like Boots, jump accessories, Armor and a Heart Crystal or two.
-Go to the Ice Biome for more chests, hearts, and a Flinx Staff
-Peek in Corrupt Chasms or Crimson Hearts to try to find heart crystals
-Go to the Underground Desert trying to find as many of these I can: Bast Statue, Conch Shell, Ancient Chisel, and Desert Fossils for Amber Staff, Bone Javelins and/or Fossil Armor
-Use conch shell to make an Ocean base and start fishing
-Go deeper to Cavern and Underground Jungle for treasure, crafting materials and heart crystals
-Go to Dungeon after all the bosses
-Go to Sky Chests/Space (I try not to go earlier because Starfury makes bosses too easy)
-Go to Underworld

In Hardmode:
-I find a Spider Cave and get the two spider summons
-I go to regular Cavern and Underworld to mine (after breaking altars)
-I fight mummies in the Hallow Desert and Corrupt/Crimson Desert for shards
-I go to Underground Hallow and Underground Corrupt/Crimson for souls.
-I go to Space for souls.
-I only go to Ice or Desert for Key grinding (sometimes I try Pigron mount fishing or Spirit Lamp or Basilisk Mount hunting)
-Jungle, then Jungle Temple, then Hardmode Dungeon

What order do you do biomes in?
 
It really depends completely on the run.

Sometimes, I’ll go tundra right away, but oftentimes it’s blocked by world evil. If I’m melee or mage in a corrupt world, or if I’m ranged, I’ll break shadow orbs quickly, but otherwise I’ll wait on them. Usually I wait a while before Underground Desert but it’s easily the best place to obtain gems of the same type en masse (amber), so I explore it early on as a mage.

Usually, progression goes something like:
Surface varies with worldgen, everything is assuming the underground biomes:
Cavern
Snow
Corruption or Crimson
Desert
Hell
Jungle
Dungeon
Revisit Hell for shadow chests

When I visit the oceans and space depends entirely on how much of my world is blocked by dangerous biomes and when I get gravity potions.
 
Rng can affect the order, not only due to the biomes generating in different places. For example, if I manage to get my hands on an extractinator early on, then I feel pretty much obligated to explore the underground desert. That being said, here is my usual order in a regular (non-class specific) playthrough:

Pre-hm:
-build at least 2 houses in starting forest, explore to see the 2 nearest biomes and find natural cave entrances
-corruption, crimson and jungle (if it generates this close somehow) are off limits this early, desert is quite a struggle, so my two only reasonable choices are either the ice biome or regular caverns (usually I have to dig because of bad worldgen luck)
-next major target is the mushroom biome - healing potions and shine potions are insanely good to have.
-After some cavern looting, I raid the evil biome for some shadow orb drops, and also so goblins can spawn. After this I usually gear up and kill some bosses.
-Underworld exploration at this stage is dangerous, but so rewarding. If you can get your hands on an obsidian skin potion, you can jump deep into lava, where you will be safe against anything that isn't a bone serpent.
-Jungle time. The dryad and painter can arrive, so now is the best time to make the jungle village. The loot is good, and Queen bee is also a really important target for me. Finding any missing accessories and life crystals is also pretty easy due to the gigantic caves.
-Dungeon time! And by that I mean "grab alchemy and bewitching table as well as shadow key and leave" time.
-A quick tour around the world to finish up key builds such as an underground farm, fishing spots and quarantine hellevators. Underground desert may also be explored now because chisel.
-Back to the underworld to slap the Woffle!

HM:
-I may or may not stick around in the underworld for a hel-fire. If I don't, I will usually rush towards my underground mob arena to farm souls of light/night (depending on which biome overtook it, and if neither then I can corrupt it myself) as well as to attempt to spawn the skeleton merchant and the wizard, the former selling some decent yoyos and the yoyo glove, and the later being just all around useful. Any random beam sword or marrow drops are also welcome.
-next up are the demon altars. I should note however that I usually delay altars because random pirates and mechs can really screw me over, so I usually have some decent weapon on me before breaking the altars
-Next up, I create the biome opposite of my evil biome. I am a corruption fanboy, so obviously I make an artificial crimson.
-Sky's the limit, but not when I need wings, so space it is! Time to commit mass genocide on the entire wyvern population!
-Random trips around some other biomes to grab any potentially useful loot before wrecking the mechs
-Mechs are dead, Plantera time! And once that's done it's chlorophyte time! And why not take the temple down as well, dammit!
-Post-plant dungeon. The literal powerhouse of loot, and probably my second favorite biome in the game. Also, cultists live here.

Other biomes such as the ocean, I usually visit if I can and if I feel like it. As much as I enjoy the duke fishron fight, I just can't be bothered to make a truffle worm farm. Same goes for EoL and Queen slime.
 
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