Ores

Ores are primary crafting materials. They generally must be crafted into bars at a Furnace, after which they can craft several essential tools, weapons, armor, and other items. Some items require raw Ores themselves, most commonly bricks and potions. Raw Ores can also be used as plain blocks for construction.

Ores are generally found as veins of placed blocks Underground and below, and are mined with a Pickaxe. Lower-tier Ores can be found among Dirt near the Surface, or within Floating Islands. Some Ores are also dropped by bosses, namely Eye of Cthulhu, Eater of Worlds, Brain of Cthulhu, and Ocram.

An Extractinator, or Wooden Crates (from Fishing), may also provide Ores as random rewards.

A world will only contain one Ore type from each tier naturally, which are chosen at random (see tables below). The alternate Ore types that don't generate naturally in a world can be obtained from Crates, an Extractinator, or from other worlds. Hardmode Ore types are chosen at random when players destroy Altars.

Hardmode
Spawning the first three tiers of Hardmode Ore requires the destruction of Demon/Crimson Altars. This requires a Hammer with 80% hammer power or higher, e.g. the Pwnhammer. Each destroyed Altar spawns deposits of one of six new Hardmode Ores, replacing natural world blocks below the underground layer:


 * 1) First Altar: Cobalt Ore or Palladium Ore
 * 2) Second Altar: Mythril Ore or Orichalcum Ore
 * 3) Third Altar: Adamantite Ore or Titanium Ore


 * Destroying a fourth Altar spawns another round of whichever type spawned for the first Altar (Cobalt or Palladium). A fifth spawns more of whichever type spawned for the second Altar (Mythril or Orichalum), etc.
 * Destroying more Altars will never spawn Hardmode ore types beyond the 3 that were randomly assigned to your world during the initial round of destroyed Altars. A world with Palladium Ore deposits will never spawn Cobalt Ore deposits, or vice versa.
 * Chlorophyte Ore spawns on its own once Hardmode is triggered, and is not affected by destroyed Altars.

Tips

 * Each hardmode ore is chosen at the moment you break the first three altars in the world. You can choose the ores you like by quitting your world without saving (by ending the task or killing the process) after smashing your first altars. It is easier done with a server.
 * Almost all ores are highlighted via the Spelunker buff, allowing you to gather them in large amounts (this requires a tier 4 ore, but they can be found again with this). Hellstone is not lit up by this, although it is by a Dangersense Potion.
 * Using a Crate Potion will improve the chances of obtaining crates, and as such the ore-bearing wooden crates.
 * If you fill in caves with spare natural blocks such as dirt, Hardmode ores can spawn in them. They can then also be seen on the minimap, presenting an easy way to convert extra blocks into ores and know their exact location.

Trivia

 * Many ores' item sprites are modified versions of other ore sprites:
 * Demonite Ore sprite is a recolor of Iron Ore.
 * Meteorite is a recolor of Gold Ore.
 * Obsidian is a recolor of Copper Ore.
 * Hellstone is a recolor of Silver Ore.
 * Adamantite Ore is a reversed, 90-degrees-rotated and recolored version of Cobalt Ore.
 * Most of them in placed form also appear to be a modified stone texture, these being the ones released before 1.2, plus platinum and possibly paladium. Tin and lead also seem to share a base texture.
 * Hellstone is the only ore that cannot be created infinitely within one world. The 8 pre-Hardmode Ores can be obtained from an Extractinator; these plus the Hardmode Ores that spawn from destroying Altars can be obtained from Crates, Chlorophyte can be grown, Meteorite can fall infinitely onto replenishable blocks, and Obsidian can be created using liquid bugs.
 * Iron, lead, meteorite and chorophyte are the only ores not to have bricks.

History

 * Added Chlorophyte Ore.

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