Guide:Bases

A base is the essential building that a player should build in a world. Bases are enclosed structures which usually contain houses which NPCs can live in, a crafting room, and a storage room. They're also used to defend the player and NPCs from Enemies. Most of them are built around a player's original spawn point. This is useful for players who do not have Beds, as they will spawn inside their base without having to travel to it.

NPC Houses
A NPC house is an enclosed structure which NPCs will move in. As multiple houses can have sharing walls, floors, ceilings and doors, multiple NPC houses usually become rooms within a larger building.

NPC houses can be built from all obtainable Blocks, as long as there are not more than 250 Corruption or Crimson blocks nearby.

NPCs might have trouble defending against enemies, so players will need to make sure that enemies cannot access NPC houses. For example:
 * You can place a block on both sides of your doors to keep enemies from breaking in.
 * Building NPC houses at least 7 tiles above the ground is the easiest way to defend NPCs from Wraiths at night during Hardmode.
 * Once the player has gained access to the Jungle Temple, traps are another viable option for defending NPCs.

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Bedroom
A base should also include a room containing a Bed in which the player will spawn in upon death or when using a Recall Potion, Magic Mirror, Ice Mirror, or Cell Phone. You can also transform this room in a NPC house for the Nurse if this room is located near to an arena, which allows the player to quickly restore their health and remove debuffs during major fights, or to restore health completely once you respawn after death.

It is also important for the player to be able to quickly exit a bedroom, as staying in the bedroom for too long during a boss fight will allow most bosses to move to your location and kill the Nurse or any other NPCs located in or near a bedroom, which is rather unhelpful.

Crafting Area
A base should also include a crafting area in which the Player can craft items. This area should contain the most-used crafting stations like the Work Bench, Furnace, Anvil, Placed Bottle and Tinkerer's Workshop. Additionally, it's useful to assign the Guide to the crafting area, as this will allow the player to look up recipes for items.

Please note that putting all crafting stations together has the downside of forcing the player to scroll through every potential crafting option to find the one that they need. You can check the expanded table instead (by pressing the Hammer button in ).

Storage
Storage is achieved through the use of Storage items like the Chests. It's important to build one, given the amount of items that can be collected. Using a variety of different containers can make a storage area more navigable, as can using decorative items, statues, signs, or renaming them. Usually players put similar types of items into the same containers. Some players may even wish to integrate their crafting area to provide a sort of structure.

Players may wish to organize their storage items the same way between all worlds so that they don't have to remember a new pattern for each one.

Putting all the containers near each other allows the player to use the "Quick Stack to Nearby Chests" feature to automatically put all items in the player's inventory into the chests they belong.

It may be useful to keep associated items in outposts near their biomes, e.g. make a base close to the Jungle, and store things you would get in the jungle in it. These outposts might include useful teleportation rooms, to quickly gain access to the biome from home and to that storage area.

Garden
A dedicated garden can keep the player supplied with a steady variety of Herbs for Potions.

Roof Access
The player may consider adding access to the roof, usually to gather the that can fall on a large base, or for other reasons, like a Minecart Station or Skybridge.

Teleporter Room
A Teleporter Room may be useful for late-game players who need to get to far-away outposts quickly. Setting one up, however, will take a long time and will be very expensive to build, considering the current price of Wire and the distances that need to be covered with wire to reach places like the Dungeon and The Underworld. Hoiks make it possible to build a teleporter room where the player can enter a code and it will automatically teleport them there, without need to run along a long line of teleporters. (How to build.)

Outposts
Most bases have some outposts, small mini-bases for the purpose of easy access and farming.

Base Defense
Player-made structures do not come with guarantees against enemies. With this in mind, it is a good idea to prepare defenses against a variety of possible scenarios. How much effort to invest depends entirely on the player; for example, having monsters wandering around plant farms may be no big deal but many would prefer their NPC areas to be protected. If you already built a base on the ground, and don't want to move, move your chest room within your town of NPCs, this will prevent monster spawns. Also, place Peace Candles around your house if it is large to minimize spawns.

Skybridge
Skybridges can be used for farming Fallen Stars. As of update 1.3.1, when Conveyor Belts were added, it is now possible to make an AFK Fallen Star farm, where Fallen Stars are automatically carried to the player. Hoiks can also be utilized for this purpose.

Floating Base
Structures do not need to rest on surfaces when built from materials that do not fall (i.e. not sand). Once built, the terrain surrounding the base can be dug out to create a moat around it, preventing easy access of most monsters. The Base Defense article provides more detail.

Actuator Door
By using actuators and grey, brown, blue, and Lihzahrd Pressure Plates, you can create a player only door that doesn't require you to use your mouse. Set up the door as you would an active stone/actuator door and because grey, brown, blue and Lihzahrd Pressure Plates can only be triggered by the player, mobs are unable to enter (or escape). You can provide defense using super dart traps and spiky ball traps. As of update 1.3.1, where Sensors were added, it is now possible to link the sensor (Player above) to an actuated door, allowing the player to pass by a door without having to step on a pressure plate.