Guide:Practical tips

There are many things in Terraria which are not evident from the get-go, and many other things that a player would definitely do different on a rerun of the game. It's true that much of the joy lies in exploring, but if that's your poison then you wouldn't be in this wiki now, would you?

NPCs

 * You'll be getting a lot of NPCs - arrange a building that you can keep expanding (upwards is best). Also, to avoid possible Corruption/Crimson contamination in the future, it can be helpful to dig a 4-5 block trench under your house.

Player/Items

 * Make a Hook after getting your first 15 gemstones of any kind - exploration of caves becomes much easier.
 * Even with full health, crystal hearts are good to craft into Heart Lanterns, which provide health regen and can give an edge against bosses. In general, prepare your boss-fighting arena with adequate lighting, Campfires and Heart Lanterns for health regen, and Stars in Bottles for mana regen if you use magic.
 * Stacks of items can be bought and crafted quickly by holding the right mouse button.
 * You'll be gathering a LOT of stuff, so best to separate your chests - one for ores and bars, next to an anvil and furnace. One for potion materials, next to a placed bottle. One for potions, one for weapons, one for equipables next to a Tinkerer's Workshop, and one for crafting materials.
 * All Piggy banks and all Safes share the same space - so you can leave one at home, and take one with you, effectively tripling your carry-able items! Piggy banks require furniture to set on, so take a workbench or some platforms as well. As of 1.3.0.1 you can get the Money Trough during a blood moon, meaning if you obtain one early, you no longer have to carry around some furniture.
 * Fishing up a Reaver Shark from the ocean, while it can be time-consuming, allows you to bypass all pre-hardmode pickaxe tiers - it has identical pickaxe power to the molten pickaxe and is faster.
 * Don't try using a Hardcore player right away. Stay on Softcore or Mediumcore until you have gained enough skill.
 * Don't run around with all your money. If you die you'll probably have trouble retrieving it. Consider keeping it in a chest (once you have the Merchant, you can purchase a Piggy Bank and Safe).
 * Don't jump down a large hole or cave without a second jump or lucky horseshoe. As a rule of thumb, you should not jump down if you can't see the glow of a torch or glow stick that you throw down. Platforms and rope can help you climb back up should you survive the fall.
 * Try not to fight Voodoo Demons over lava, otherwise they will drop the Guide Voodoo Doll into it, and the Wall of Flesh will spawn.
 * Don't be reckless when exploring areas with Hardmode enemies. Players usually enter Hardmode feeling confident that they can handle anything (as they were able to kill most pre-Hardmode enemies with ease), but Hardmode enemies will quickly break this illusion. Additional dismay may ensue if you lose all your items/coins and are unable to retrieve them.
 * Don't waste your Hardmode ores on one tier; instead, use them to upgrade your Pickaxe/Drill. These tools are the gateway to getting better armors and weapons for surviving.

World

 * It's good to dig a shaft all the way down from your house down to hell, with an unbroken chain of rope/chain/web rope, letting you ascend and descend really fast (after getting the lucky horseshoe, you can drop-jump all the way to hell). Enemies can't climb ropes, heightening their usefulness as opposed to other methods. Divert fluids by first blocking off ONLY the area you need with sand/slush/silt, digging a path underneath the area you want to divert with 'steps' leading it to one side, dig a little nook right near the bottom of the fluid but to the side so the fluid doesn't get on you (careful with the lava, take another block as precaution), and then dig the final block - the fluid should go right past you and you can keep going.
 * Don't look for hardmode ores in the underground jungle, corruption, crimson, or hallow when you first start hardmode unless you are VERY confident in your skill. Instead, if you have dug one, a hellevator most worlds have is a good place to start looking.

Other

 * Pressing Left Ctrl (Alt on Macs) key changes your mining style to smart cursor, which is extremely useful for strip mining.
 * You can descend relatively fast by auto-focusing the mining and digging a 2-block-wide shaft.
 * Be sure not to waste banners by placing them around areas where their correlating monsters will spawn.
 * Spiky balls, dropped by goblins and sold by the goblin tinkerer, are extremely helpful in fighting the pre-hardmode bosses - a goblin invasion yields around 150 balls, each doing 15 damage. It easily deals with the entire first form of Cthulhu's Brain and both the hands of Skeletron if set up correctly.
 * Fight all the mobs in Goblin invasions and Pirate Invasions for a higher chance to obtain their drops.
 * Set up your home with campfires and heart lanterns, placing banners around - that's where you'll be fighting a lot of mobs. It's also suggested to fight the Hardmode Bosses there, slightly to the side of the house, placing the Dryad close to you for the defense buff. If you prefer, you can set these up in an arena to make it an all-purpose combat area.
 * Every Crystal Shard from the Hallow can be crafted into 100 Crystal Darts, but unlike other darts, these ricochet and auto-aim, making clearing out mobs a piece of cake. Also, for worm-type creatures, the ricochet will hit all the segments on the way, making the job doubly simple. Effective against all enemies, and very gratifying.
 * You can right click with any Summon weapon on an enemy or boss to have your minions target it. You can tell an enemy is targeted when a purple circle appears over it and the enemy or boss starts trailing purple particles.
 * If your mouse has side-buttons you can rebind them to heal, for easy healing. (PC only)