Floating Island

Floating Islands are masses of land that appear in the sky. Just like in forests, you can find trees and grass blocks growing over dirt blocks, with some stones and ores in the ground. They have a building made of ore bricks and a chest inside. The quality of the island's ore and chest are believed to be related to the type of brick the building is made of, though this is false. The monsters that spawn here are the same as the ones from the forest, with the addition of the Harpy if the island is at a high enough altitude.



Floating Island Generation
Floating islands are randomly placed in the upper sixth of the map and cannot be placed within the 80 tiles on either side of the center of the map nor within 80 tiles of each other horizontally. The maximum number of floating islands is dependent on the map size. There will always be at least one floating island on a map. Because the algorithm attempts to place floating islands roughly in the top sixth of the map, map size changes the altitude range of floating islands.

Finding Floating Islands
The easiest method of finding floating islands is to use a map viewer. This is considered cheating by many players, because you’ll have to access save files outside of the game itself. This tactic will not work for multiplayer maps where the player does not have access to the save file.



Hints
There are some natural hints which indicate the existence of a Floating Island:
 * 1) Irregularly shaped dirt walls on the surface (shown on the right). Although not all floating islands have these underneath them, when one is found, it usually indicates a Floating Island.: Might be rendered invalid by 1.0.5 Map generator changes
 * 2) The same is true for clay on the surface (note that no blocks must cover the clay): Might be rendered invalid by 1.0.5 Map generator changes
 * 3) When floating islands are above corruption, you'll see an abnormally high rate of slimes by day and zombies by night. These are falling down from the island above you. This applies to all locations below floating islands, but is more noticeable in areas of the corruption.

Hunting
A quick way to find them easily is to fire a Meteor Shot, or Water Bolt up into the air. If it bounces back a few seconds later, it's almost certain that a Floating Island is above you (note the angle that you fire up at).

Another way to actively detect Floating Islands is to fire a Space Gun into the air, because it gives an acoustic signal when hitting a block. (Note: Only works if you are max. 200 ft. below the Island). If you have enough falling stars left, you can fire them from a Star Cannon into the air and wait until you hear it cut the vines.

Another, more thorough way, which is more effort-intensive and is recommended for two players, is to build a skybridge near the top of the world. Player One will take several stacks of sand (or another physics-enabled block) and place them on the underside of the skybridge. Player Two will follow along at ground level to verify that all sand blocks reach the ground. The only way that a sand block will not fall from the skybridge to the ground is if it is blocked by a floating island.

Searching
If nothing else helps, you can use a Depth Meter to find the floating islands. They can usually be found at these heights: Then dig lots of blocks and go to one side of the map, making a bridge to the middle amount of height suggested above. After that, head towards the other side.
 * Small map - 100-475 ft. (430-475 ft is your best bet, but some have been known to spawn in the high 500's and high 300's 350-375)
 * Medium map - 500-700ft (650ft is your best bet).
 * Large map - 500-900ft. (You may be able to see a floating island at 450)

Loot
Loot research going on in Floating Islands/Drop research

Chests on a Floating Island may contain a variety of unique items, including 3 items uniquely found there:


 * Lucky Horseshoe
 * Starfury
 * Shiny Red Balloon

Each chest has exactly one of these items. The generator guarantees that for the first 3 floating islands, each will have a different item. After that, the item is chosen at random. The type of wall and brick (copper, silver, gold) is completely random and has absolutely no correlation with the loot found inside the chest.

Enemies

 * Slimes (day)
 * Harpy
 * Zombies (night)
 * Demon Eye (night)

Development
"The Desert and Floating Island biomes are present but have little to no features in this build.

What you can Expect : "We will be adding content to these two biomes over the next few weeks." - Blue