Jatopian
Terrarian
A Terrarian's home is their castle. Or should be.
Unfortunately, the actual kinds of fortress that are practical are limited to the floating variety within a narrow band of depth. This is bad and there are no real fixes for it in the game today.
The idea is: A special block, item of furniture, or ideally back-wall that protects player-placed blocks nearby so that they cannot be phased through or teleported onto by non-boss enemies like wraiths, worms, wyverns, angry trappers, fungi spores, casters, chaos elementals... or enemy players in PvP. Could also block caster attacks but I feel this is less important, though it'd be cool to have a viable base in the Underworld. It wouldn't stop enemies that break down doors or nullify explosions that go thru blocks.
The "blocks nearby" condition could be within a particular radius, provided that radius is at least 50 tiles or so (or much more, the point being we don't have to spam the things) but it might be more interesting to just work on any block that is connected by other player-placed blocks.
It could be wireable, able to be turned off and the effect seen in the wiring layer. Or the effect could be visible with Spectre Goggles, though it'd work without them.
There are already a few areas that keep you out until you meet a condition, so it makes sense to craft this using items themed from those areas. The areas are: Dungeon, Lihzahrd Temple, Celestial Pillars. Therefore I suggest combining Jungle Spores, Bone, and Fallen Star at an Imbuing Station (the Witch Doctor is a Lihzahrd). If that's not enough, Spikes or Meteorite Bar could be added, or even Lihzahrd Power Cells since Temple enemies can spawn outside the temple pre-Hardmode. Other thematic possibilities include a vial of Holy Water, stingers, or some kind of herb.
All of these suggestions intentionally balance availability around early Hardmode or a dedicated late pre-Hardmode player.
But the Imbuing Station only makes flasks, you may object? Well, I am sort of thinking of the Old England folk magic concept of the witch bottle, one of various kinds of charm that could be hidden in a building's structure for magical effects.
That makes it appropriate to be back-wall, and easy to hide without compromising a structure's aesthetics.
Unfortunately, the actual kinds of fortress that are practical are limited to the floating variety within a narrow band of depth. This is bad and there are no real fixes for it in the game today.
It's all down to a few types of enemy with no countermeasure. Wyverns keep you out of the sky, so no floating island foundation for your fortress. Below ground there are worms, and quite nasty big ones in Hardmode. Where there aren't worms there are fungi bulbs, or angry trappers with a reach so long they can get at you or your NPCs from offscreen. Teleporters like chaos elementals sometimes, for whom distance is an illusion but who are all too real and in your face.
But the worst are wraiths. Wraiths spawn everywhere on the surface, every biome, even "hallowed" ground and even if you're in front of player-placed wall. Wraiths pass through everything, do not trigger traps or mechanisms of any kind, and come at you from 180 degrees. They do hover rather than fly, despite appearances, but you need about 9 blocks of vertical waste space because they'll float up without a 6-block gap and can get momentum going to jump a little past that.
And they fall diagonally, about a 45-degree angle plus a few blocks of pure Wile E. Coyote up front from horizontal momentum. Did you build your house on the ground like some kind of Earth human person? Well you better dig a big sloping pit then. Did you have a basement storage, as many real-life cultures do? Chests full of things you might need? Well unless you want to schlep the contents of every single chest upstairs somewhere so you can move your chests, you better dig a big valley. Your house now gets to hover precariously over your very own butt-ugly open-pit dirt mine. Hope you didn't need any of the ground around your base.
Oh and don't have an entrance from underneath into your house, because then flying enemies will come in. You don't get to keep them out anymore because if you put down walls to the side the wraiths will climb them.
What about NPCs? They decrease enemy spawns near a "town" if you have enough. Problem solved? Heck no. Even if you cram all your NPCs together it's not enough in Expert. But you don't want to do that anyway! Because this is Journey's End and now you're encouraged to spread your NPCs out. You'll want to have about 7 towns on the surface alone, nevermind any fishing shacks or other structures you can't spare NPCs for, nevermind anything underground. 2-3 NPCs per base is not enough! Hope you didn't build 7 towns with even a single block at ground level or even ordinary jumping height, because you're going to rebuild all 7 of them while dealing with new Hardmode mobs~
Oh, and there's events, which cancel out the NPC effect entirely. Good thing Blood Moons only happen every... more than once a week on average? Sometimes a few times in a row? Yeah, NPCs aren't an answer. And if you still don't believe that, NPCs will not attack wraiths. You're on your own, and they're on your own too. Don't take my word for it - it's on the wiki.
But hey, you'll be fine as long as you are on the surface, not in an event, and personally defend your base with good gear. And never, ever get distracted by something silly like crafting or inventory management.
And if you don't like that, you could always move to another depth and get killed by worms.
But the worst are wraiths. Wraiths spawn everywhere on the surface, every biome, even "hallowed" ground and even if you're in front of player-placed wall. Wraiths pass through everything, do not trigger traps or mechanisms of any kind, and come at you from 180 degrees. They do hover rather than fly, despite appearances, but you need about 9 blocks of vertical waste space because they'll float up without a 6-block gap and can get momentum going to jump a little past that.
And they fall diagonally, about a 45-degree angle plus a few blocks of pure Wile E. Coyote up front from horizontal momentum. Did you build your house on the ground like some kind of Earth human person? Well you better dig a big sloping pit then. Did you have a basement storage, as many real-life cultures do? Chests full of things you might need? Well unless you want to schlep the contents of every single chest upstairs somewhere so you can move your chests, you better dig a big valley. Your house now gets to hover precariously over your very own butt-ugly open-pit dirt mine. Hope you didn't need any of the ground around your base.
Oh and don't have an entrance from underneath into your house, because then flying enemies will come in. You don't get to keep them out anymore because if you put down walls to the side the wraiths will climb them.
What about NPCs? They decrease enemy spawns near a "town" if you have enough. Problem solved? Heck no. Even if you cram all your NPCs together it's not enough in Expert. But you don't want to do that anyway! Because this is Journey's End and now you're encouraged to spread your NPCs out. You'll want to have about 7 towns on the surface alone, nevermind any fishing shacks or other structures you can't spare NPCs for, nevermind anything underground. 2-3 NPCs per base is not enough! Hope you didn't build 7 towns with even a single block at ground level or even ordinary jumping height, because you're going to rebuild all 7 of them while dealing with new Hardmode mobs~
Oh, and there's events, which cancel out the NPC effect entirely. Good thing Blood Moons only happen every... more than once a week on average? Sometimes a few times in a row? Yeah, NPCs aren't an answer. And if you still don't believe that, NPCs will not attack wraiths. You're on your own, and they're on your own too. Don't take my word for it - it's on the wiki.
But hey, you'll be fine as long as you are on the surface, not in an event, and personally defend your base with good gear. And never, ever get distracted by something silly like crafting or inventory management.
And if you don't like that, you could always move to another depth and get killed by worms.
The idea is: A special block, item of furniture, or ideally back-wall that protects player-placed blocks nearby so that they cannot be phased through or teleported onto by non-boss enemies like wraiths, worms, wyverns, angry trappers, fungi spores, casters, chaos elementals... or enemy players in PvP. Could also block caster attacks but I feel this is less important, though it'd be cool to have a viable base in the Underworld. It wouldn't stop enemies that break down doors or nullify explosions that go thru blocks.
The "blocks nearby" condition could be within a particular radius, provided that radius is at least 50 tiles or so (or much more, the point being we don't have to spam the things) but it might be more interesting to just work on any block that is connected by other player-placed blocks.
It could be wireable, able to be turned off and the effect seen in the wiring layer. Or the effect could be visible with Spectre Goggles, though it'd work without them.
There are already a few areas that keep you out until you meet a condition, so it makes sense to craft this using items themed from those areas. The areas are: Dungeon, Lihzahrd Temple, Celestial Pillars. Therefore I suggest combining Jungle Spores, Bone, and Fallen Star at an Imbuing Station (the Witch Doctor is a Lihzahrd). If that's not enough, Spikes or Meteorite Bar could be added, or even Lihzahrd Power Cells since Temple enemies can spawn outside the temple pre-Hardmode. Other thematic possibilities include a vial of Holy Water, stingers, or some kind of herb.
All of these suggestions intentionally balance availability around early Hardmode or a dedicated late pre-Hardmode player.
But the Imbuing Station only makes flasks, you may object? Well, I am sort of thinking of the Old England folk magic concept of the witch bottle, one of various kinds of charm that could be hidden in a building's structure for magical effects.
That makes it appropriate to be back-wall, and easy to hide without compromising a structure's aesthetics.
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