Crates

Crates are grab bag-type items that can be hooked while Fishing, containing random loot such as Ores, Bars, Potions, Accessories, and other items. In addition, biome-specific crates can contain biome-specific loot. They can be right-clicked within the player's inventory to unload their contents. They can also be placed. Each Crate can be stacked up to 99 in a single inventory slot.

If fishing in Water with Fishing Power high enough to prevent junk catches (fishing power of 50) and the line does not break there is a 10% chance to harvest crates normally and 20% when fishing with a Crate Potion.

The kind of crate the player gets is dependent on the Fishing Power, with higher Fishing Power the probabilities of rarer Crates are raised. E.g with a Fishing Power of 100 in a Corrupted Biome the probabilities would be: Golden Crate: 6.57%; Corrupt Crate: 8.90%; Iron Crate: 28.37%; Wooden Crate: 56.16%

Rarer crate types contain more valuable loot, and the biome crates can have items otherwise found only in the matching biome chests. When fishing in an area with multiple biomes, the crate priority is, from highest to lowest, Corruption > Crimson > Hallowed > Dungeon > Jungle > Sky. For example, when a Floating Island is corrupted and changes to The Corruption, Sky Crates will no longer be harvested.

The currently only have Wooden Crates, Iron Crates and Golden Crates.

Variants
See Crates for additional information.

Tips

 * Only Wooden crates will contain ores, though any crate can have metal bars. While the bars will do for most crafting, only the ores can be used to craft various bricks and similar blocks.
 * Crates collected before Hardmode, but saved to open during Hardmode, will yield Hardmode ores and bars. A wise player will stockpile crates while the fishing is a lot safer, gaining a big head start when they enter Hardmode. With enough crates, a player won't even need to break an altar, and thus will have much more control over the Mechanical Boss fights.
 * The metals supplied will be (on average) evenly split between both alternate metals in each pair, regardless of which ore (if any) has been generated in the world. This applies to both ore or bar form of the metals. For instance, a Wooden Crate can yield Platinum Ore, even if the world is generated with Gold Ore instead of Platinum. Likewise in Hardmode, a crate is as likely to provide Adamantite as Titanium. Crates do not contain the "advanced" metals such as Meteorite or Chlorophyte, which do not have dual partners (and in some cases, like Hallowed Bars, don't have ores).
 * The Wooden, Iron, and Golden crates (but not biome crates) also offer a chance for the Enchanted Sundial if opened in Hardmode. The "evil" biome crates can also contain Souls of Night and Ichor/Cursed Flames. The Hallowed crates can't be stockpiled before Hardmode, but they do offer Souls of Light and Crystal Shards.
 * As soon as you have enough iron, replace your Wood Fishing Pole with a Reinforced Fishing Pole.
 * Pick your bait: worms are easy to come by on a rainy day, but a few butterflies and jungle critters are more powerful. Use the best bait you have available. If you have Fallen Stars to spare, you might want to create Enchanted Nightcrawlers.
 * Both the Angler and crates will provide better bait over time, and will also provide useful potions: As noted above, a Crate Potion doubles the base chance of catching a crate; a Fishing Potion boosts your fishing power (less junk, and higher-tier crates when you get one); a Sonar Potion saves time and bait, by letting you reject anything but crates and interesting fish (eg: Balloon Pufferfish).
 * Eventually, the Angler will also provide equipment that can still further boost your fishing power.

History
宝匣 Caisses