Talk:House

I have rooms on my server map that attract NPCs just fine, yet lack doors.. Nokiemens 00:54, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Wooden platforms work as well. It does not have to be a door. --Demian 18:39, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

Is 7x5 requirement true? I couldn't get any NPCs until i expanded my rooms to 8x5. 178.141.117.237 18:40, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I keep seeing various numbers, sometimes including floor/roof and sometimes not. I'm not sure. --MissDolyl 12:11, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Of course, this is the size as measured from inside. Looks like the size requirement is defined by the area of the free space inside of the house, which presumably should be no less than 40 blocks (for example, 10x4 worked for me; non-rectangular works too, but needs more testing) 178.141.117.237 09:42, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Inside measurements of 8x4 always work for me, so the minimum must be less than 40 blocks.Blue Legion 06:46, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * To me it seems, that NPCs have different requirements. I built six houses, each 7x5 (9x7 inclusing the walls) and the guide, nurse, merchant and demolitionist each spawned and moved in their rooms. But despite having a musket and killing EoC twice neither the dryad nor the arms dealer arrived. Which is a problem if you need purification powder to break shadow orbs and don't want to use dynamite. Anyways, as soon as I made the rooms of my base 10x5 both, the dryad and the arms dealer moved in immediately. Maybe these two demand some more space to live.--93.220.82.23 18:34, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Indeed, my dryad did not arrive, even though I had a several houses saved for her. All these houses I triple checked and they were good (1 was even taken by my merchant after he died and came back). I later built a bigger house, and she arrived the very instant I placed closed it with the door.
 * On the other hand, 8x4 is enough for everyone on my latest world. Peek at the code, anyone? Otherwise we can speculate forever. --178.141.117.149 19:07, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the reason some houses that seem valid are not working is that there is 1 additional requirement, the NPCs need an open space to stand. table, workbench, platforms and solid blocks all block this, you can see the open space they have chosen by where they stand at night. The requirement seems to be at least 4 high and 4+ width, I need to do more testing to confirm the width, but they seem to need at least 4 blocks of non-platform flooring to stand on, they accept 3 tiles but only as long as the blocked area is platform, table or workbench, solid blocks and they wont come --Ket 11:06, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

sharing platforms
According to the page, houses "cannot share doors or platforms". yet, for some reason, the nurse and guide in this picture do not seem to have a problem with the platform they share as ceilling/floor respectively. (nevermind the merchant, i just tore his house down)

P.S: NPCs seem to have a problem with the whole floor being made out of platforms, as seen here (the rooms under the nurse's and the merchant's). As soon as i replaced the platforms with bricks, the rooms where occupied within seconds, as seen here. The NPCs do not seem to have a problem with the whole ceilling being made out of platforms though.62.143.60.43 18:18, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Seconded. Three rooms next to each other (so the center room has only the two shared doors) works fine. --Horsedrowner 13:05, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

Securing entrances
As far as I can tell, mobs (well, I've only seen zombies do this) can "bash" open doors, but only if the door isn't designed to open one way only. It seems to me all you need to do is simply make all your entrance doors open outwards one way only. Hell, I've gotten into the habit of making ALL my doors like that. Seems too trivial to secure houses from monsters. - Spinfx 02:02, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Zombies can bash open doors inwards during blood moons, so making them open outwards only is a viable defense then (they can't open doors at all outside blood moons), but Goblin Invasions are another thing. Goblins can destroy doors (as you would do with a hammer), so even if they're set to not open either way (with platforms) the goblins can still remove them.
 * I have some advice for anyone looking to secure their house. Yes, doors are simple. But once you get the mechanic (and thus get access to buying the wrench, wires, and switches), you can make and use active stone blocks as doors. It's fairly easy (though definitely more expensive than a wooden door) can be used for exits at the sides, roof or floor of a structure, and can be linked as part of a moat. IE, have a drawbridge that is only active when your door is open. Close the door and there is now just an open lava pit awaiting monsters to just fall in.

Logical Condundrum
"Has a chair and a table or a Work Bench."

Does this mean [(chair and table) or work bench] or [chair and (table or work bench)]?
 * It's . --Lunboks 13:13, 27 July 2011 (UTC)

Walls
I've slightly-edited the sentence on wall gaps in order to clear up some confusion. I'm seeing many, many people who build their houses with huge gaps or rifts in the walls and think the game engine things it's okay, so I bolded the sentence and added a little additional info on the purported max size of the gap because I keep seeing people with like, 2x8 gaps wondering why it's not working... 67.233.106.152 14:41, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Kinda Strange
The latest changes with toilet etc. is kinda strange..... Thanks to those changes my druid is now living at the bathroom...
 * The toilet is considered a comfort item like the chair. NPCs don't make a difference.--94.223.130.214 22:36, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Home/House
A home is the place where someone lives - in a cave, in a house, in an apartment, etc. A house is a structure built, usually with bedrooms and bathrooms, a kitchen, and is usually made of brick, wood, or stone.

That would mean this page should be titled House. 15:47, 28 August 2011 (UTC)
 * By your argument, it should be located here at Home. This page describes the places in which the NPCs will live. It's possible to create a structure, a 'house', into which no one will live, if for instance each room is too small. --74.102.143.152 13:28, 29 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree that "House" is a better name than "Home". On the forums, "House" is used far more frequently than "Home", and a building you've build doesn't necessarily have to be a home for the player, just a house (for an NPC). Mark (Talk) 20:33, 6 September 2011 (UTC)
 * If you talk to the guide, sometimes he says "In order for a room to be considered a home, it needs to have a door, chair, table, and a light source. Make sure the house has walls as well." This means that the game calls it a house/room when it is not hospitable for NPCs, and a home when it is.  --Excavater9 22:11, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Walls (Gold Bricks)
So, I tried building a house out of gold bricks, but nobody showed up. Do they have to be Blocks as shown in the blocks row of Blocks or am I doing something else wrong? --Havvy 13:16, 4 September 2011 (UTC)
 * I assume you are using background walls, have a light source, a chair and a table? And there's an NPC ready to move in (ie. life crystal found, dynamite in inventory, 50+ silver)? Mark (Talk) 20:35, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Housing Guide/Experimentation
Not sure how much use this would be and how much of this people would like to see added, but I did a ton if in-game experimentation to figure out what works and what doesn't and posted a guide on the Terraria Online site:.

'Windows' in walls causing Monsters to spawn inside your house?
How frequent is this? Is it a guaranteed occurrence? I just wanna add some 2x2 windows or something for looks, but don't wanna walk up to my house to find Zobmies or Flying Eyeballs beating the crap out of my welcomed and allowed residents. BetrayerOfNihil 15:29, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that while you can place spawn point there, monsters will not spawn. -- gamecreator (T|C) -- 16:19, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

As of 1.1, Glass walls have been added, and glass walls prevent mob spawning while providing u a nice window.

Piano as a flat surface item
Is this correct? iLiaWneK'''|talk|contributions]] 15:09, 15 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I can confirm that one, I put one in for my merchant. --Theothersteve7 17:24, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Requirement upgrade
I went ahead and changed it slightly since there seem to be a lot of folks that follow the requirements to the letter and still not getting NPC's .. from what I gathered the 3 clear spaces is something required and not listed .. I extended
 * Is at least 5 blocks tall and 7 blocks wide (or 4 blocks tall and 8 blocks wide, not including walls, floor or ceiling).

into


 * Is at least 5 blocks tall and 7 blocks wide (or 4 blocks tall and 8 blocks wide, not including walls, floor or ceiling)*.
 * Note: NPC seem to need 3 free horizontal spaces for a place to stand still at night.

If in doubt or when NPC's refuse to live there, make it wider. Don't focus too much on minimum requirements but start with a walled up 10x5 inside space (structural- and back-wall and door), A chair with either table or workbench and you should get NPC's quickly.

Lalophobia 14:41, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Move request?
Any plans so far? -- Beschutzer 22:16, 2 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I do feel that "house" is a more appropriate title. However, looking at the page history, "The reason I am moving the info from House to Home is because the guide uses that same terminology in-game."  In-game terminology trumps pretty much everything.  So I vote we leave as-is.  --Theothersteve7 17:27, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Housing Query Steps
As of patch 1.1 there is this neat addition of asking the game if a room is suitable as a home (menu, housing, query, click on a room). The game then tells you about the room the tile belongs to.


 * 1) Validity - The area is a housing.
 * For this to happen, the room must be surrounded by solid walls and/or door elements (closed), have an appropriate background wall without large gaps and span certain minimal dimensions which are apparently:
 * Height 3 * Width 10
 * Height 4 * Width 8
 * Height 5 * Width 7
 * Height 6 * Width 6
 * Height 7 * Width 5
 * Height 8 * Width 4
 * Height 10 * Width 3
 * Height 13 * Width 2
 * If one of these aspects is not fulfilled, the game outputs "This is not valid housing.[sic (v1.1)]"


 * 2) Requirements - Furniture elements are given.
 * This means the room, as described in the article, has a light source item, a surface item, a comfort item and a door item. Apparently, a single wooden plank can count as door element.
 * If any of these elements is not available, the game tells you what is missing.


 * 3) Suitability - An NPC could move in.
 * The NPC needs to move around in his home so the necessary paths can't be blocked, see free space at night. It seems the requirement is a 4x3 area with at least one entirely free ground surface tile but I can't say for sure if that's it. Refer to the article, the space must apparently be close to the comfort items.
 * If there's not enough space in the right place, the game outputs "This housing is not suitable."


 * 4) Occupied - The room is still free.
 * Only one room per NPC, no home sharing. Now easily visible via the red banner displaying the inhabitant's face.
 * If someone has already flagged this room as his home, the game outputs "This housing is already occupied." Otherwise, the housing is described as suitable.

Experimenting around

 *  Validity 

I wanted to know what the game considers a sufficient size and I built a home from dirt using planked walls as background texture, I started with a 3x5 room and kept expanding it horizontally, the game did not accept it as valid until I reached 3x10, that's how I figured out the basic dimensions. But I wanted to know if it was the number of background tiles (30) that counted or the maximum height / width or if the room had to have at least one rectangular shape with the minimum requirements. So I added and removed dirt asymmetrically to an extent where there wasn't even any real space left for furniture. The game still said I had a valid housing despite the lack of space, even diagonally connected room tiles were counted. Some places needed to be left free, others could simply be blocked. Then my valid house looked like this:

http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/4170/housing.png (Image as of Dec 8th 2011)

The entire area of the pseudo-room was valid, clicking outside was invalid. Note how the diagonally connected tiles are part of the room. When I blocked them, the house got invalid.


 *  Requirements 

I put a chair and workbench in my weirdly shaped dirt hole, torch and one platform tile as door element so the requirements were met. There was no actual door, I couldn't leave the room but that isn't necessary for a room to count as home. The game still said the house was not suitable but there were no elements left to place.


 *  Suitability 

So I experimented around adding and removing space and it turns out you really need a 4x3 area for the folks to stand in, like it has been pointed out. I have tried moving the space a bit and regardless of the constellation, you seem to need a free ground tile close to the comfort item and 4x3 units of non-obstructive space around it, like stated in the article. And there are probably more requirements I haven't figured out so far, apart from the NPCs' specific needs, only regarding the housing query telling me the house is suitable or not. These, by the way, are suitable housings:

http://img706.imageshack.us/img706/5807/housing3.png (Image as of Dec 8th 2011)

http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/6890/housing4.png (Image as of Dec 8th 2011)

http://img861.imageshack.us/img861/6384/housing5.png (Image as of Dec 8th 2011) Shows Guide occupying it.

As you can see in housing5.png, the guide HAS actually moved in in all 3 of these versions so the calculation is a bit different from looking for rectangular rooms, seeing as the only halfway rectangular area is the minimum movement requirement around the comfort item. Other than that, this housing has overall dimensions of 4x9 including the pseudo-spaces, so it fits the above mentioned width-height ratio. Other than that, it has an even floor of 5 tiles width, only about 22 free tiles and it fulfills the standard requirements of light, comfort and surface, not sure what's relevant of it all.

I think it's somewhat interesting to see that even diagonal connections count even if they even block out water. Note that the background wall isn't complete but there is no gap of more than 4 tiles in size just like stated in the article.

Also, platform and door tiles do not count as inhabitable space, the door element needs to be outside of the minimum area.

So by opening a door you can invalidate an otherwise valid housing. Experiment: Two rooms, each 4x8, separated by a door. If the door opens, the room towards which it is opened gets invalidated despite the maximum span being sufficient and there being lots of space. However, the room is valid again if it gets expanded vertically by one tile, maybe due to the dimensions not being 4x(8-1) but 5x(8-1) although it barely makes sense to me. A little hole in the ceiling was sufficient.

If someone can use the data I assembled and maybe integrate some of it into the article, that would be great. I don't mean to post stuff directly, especially since I don't REALLY see through it all. Also, the images have been taken by me and anybody is free to use them. Regards. --178.8.177.29 02:06, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Chairs: The Secret Destroyer of Homes
I wrote in the main article that opened door(s) affect the "standing block" requirement. Here's the short story of how I came to that conclusion:


 * My house includes a chair placed directly next to a table.
 * With the doors closed, the house was suitable; when I opened a door inwardly, the house was unsuitable.
 * I moved the chair over so there's a 1-block gap between the chair and table. House remains suitable even with the door open.

Note that I did not change the size of the room at all. Based on that observation, I wonder if "opened doors affect the house size requirement" is true, or if increasing the size of the house actually created the necessary standing block. To be further tested. --Sinister Stairs 12:47, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Update: My new understanding is that chairs need an empty non-platform block in front of them. In my example above, it's moving the chair that fixed the house; not the chair fixing the door (duh). Other examples supporting this:


 * 
 * 

--Sinister Stairs 19:08, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Dungeon Bricks/Walls
"Dungeon walls (Blue, Green, Pink) render housing unsuitable." It is not true I (Kamushki) made house out of pink (dungeon) blocks and games said that house is suitable for NPC. For proof pm me in Skype. Also i can send screenshots that confirm my words.


 * Correct. When players now place blocks and walls down, there is an internal flag of "Player  Dungeon Brick" that allows regular home requirements. Player placed Dirt walls are also now flagged if placed by the player. --Ragen 21:45, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Corruption Rating
If I'm reading the code correctly, Corruption Rating is calculated on a 45-tile "radius" around the home. I'm not certain I'm interpreting it correctly though, so I'm putting it here instead of the main article. Can any confirm/correct? --Sinister Stairs 16:29, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

What do we mean by minimum size requirement?
I just made an edit which may be right or wrong depending on what we consider minimum size. Previously we had 7 tiles wide, 5 tiles tall as the minimum size requirement. I thought my 8 tiles wide by 4 tiles tall was smaller because 7x5=35 but 8x4=32; the area is smaller and they use the same number of resources. But somehow it was previously decided that the smallest was 7x5. So when we say a house has to be "at least" yay big, what are we judging it by? --98.116.189.111 07:38, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Actually I did my math wrong. Both houses use 28 blocks for the walls, floor, and ceiling, but the 8x4 uses 32 tiles for the back wall while the 7x5 uses 35. In total, the 8x4 uses 60 blocks for the house minus furniture while the 7x5 uses 63. Someone made a previous edit to the article saying that the code confirmed the 7x5 size requirement but the 8x4 is technically smaller area-wise as well as cheaper to build, but only just. --98.116.189.111 08:08, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

House issue
I am playing on Xbox and I just built a second floor for a NPC that is set it as a home for the NPC. It has wood platforms 6 blocks from the ground and it is set as guides home All the NPC does is walk back and forth, making no attempt to jump up the 6 blocks to get upstairs May someone help?
 * NPCs don't jump. Simply leave the world and join again or walk far enough away and the guide will teleport inside. --0icke0 (talk) 16:55, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Background Wall Criteria
Hey folks, just wanted to bring this to your attention:



While I am well aware that you cannot make background wall gaps extend more than 4 tiles vertically or horizontally, it is apparent that if the gap itself changes direction within that distance (i.e. 3 tiles or less, then the game will not consider the gap to be too large, even if the overall gap is larger.

I have attached a thumbnail to illustrate; as you can see, the gap spans from the ceiling to the floor (which is 5 tiles, overall), but only spans a maximum of 3 tiles before changing direction. As a result, the housing is deemed suitable.

I wasn't sure if this was already known or not, but I felt it was worth mentioning.
 * This is indeed new to me and should allow for some creative ideas. Thanks for sharing. --0icke0 (talk) 09:21, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I did some further testing, and I believe that I have found the most wall-efficient pattern possible using this information:
 * Wall_Suitable.png
 * The NPC flag indicates that the wall still meets the background criteria, however I have not yet tested as to whether this "broken" pattern allows hostile mob spawning within the building.

Corruption/Crimson housing message
I recently encountered an interesting anomaly. I had created rooms underground near some underground crimson. The rooms that were far away from the crimson were suitable, and the rooms that were close to the crimson gave the "housing is corrupted" message. But there were some rooms in between that continued to show the notoriously ambiguous "this is not valid housing" message. I went crazy trying to figure out what was wrong, until I decided to clear the crimson as a last ditch effort to make it work. That ended up fixing the problem. This would mean that just because you are not getting the "housing is corrupted" message doesn't mean that corruption isn't your issue. Note that I only experienced this deep underground (just above the underworld) and with the crimson. Can anyone confirm this?

Light sources
I've noticed that several light sources were removed (Candelabras, Lanterns, and Chandeliers) in a previous edit, despite their respective pages saying they are valid light sources. Has anyone had any issues with them? Going to add back in after some testing to confirm (and possibly creating a disambiguation page for Lanterns) unless anyone has objections.