House Defense

Defending your house is important, your NPCs rely on your techniques, and so do you. There are a few techniques for different occasions, such as Blood Moons, goblin armies, and just cool stuff to kill enemies with.

Overview
Constant threats will terrorize your home including:


 * Blood Moon: Zombies and Demon Eyes will relentlessly attack your base until day breaks (regardless of how many NPC you have to keep enemies from spawning near your base) and they can open your door.


 * Goblin Invasion: Not as common as a Blood Moon, but worse. 80 goblins, plus an additional 20 per user with 200+ hp, will spawn and attack your base. The biggest annoyance is the Sorcerer, who will teleport all over the area (including inside your home) and can shoot through walls.
 * Wraiths: After you defeat the Wall of Flesh, they will spawn at night. They are capable of passing through solid blocks, but can only hover up to three blocks up. Constructing a home suspended at least this distance above the ground will be sufficient to stop them from entering.
 * Possessed Armor: After defeating the Wall of Flesh, they will spawn at night. They can open doors on any given night.
 * Werewolves: After defeating the Wall of Flesh, they spawn at night during a Full Moon and can break down doors, causing them to drop as items, and letting in all monsters that can fit through the door.
 * Clown: After defeating the Wall of Flesh, they will spawn during a blood moon. They throw bombs that can blow up your house giving both the risks of monsters killing you and making your house unsuitable for NPCs

One-Way Doors
Placing a block of any material in front of the door will keep it from being opened by zombies or goblins, though it'll also prevent you from using the door yourself. On the other hand, placing a platform, torch, or other background object (except for a wall) behind a door will prevent it being opened from the outside, yet still allow passage through it. Opening the door from the other side by players is simply done by facing away from the door then using it. This won't stop Goblins from breaking down the door, but will prevent Zombies from opening it.

Sand Defense
Placing sand on the opposite side of your door so that it will fall by gravity will damage every monster it lands on and lock down the door. Repeating the process of placing the sand then mining it back is a very safe way of dealing with monsters knocking on your doors.

Suspended Door
If you suspend your door above a flat area of land by just one tile, Zombies will be unable to open it. Goblins will still be able to break it down though. However, if the door is suspended 2 or more blocks, even they won't be able to break it down. Fortunately, NPCs can still use a door suspended by 2 tiles with ease.

Zombie Pits and Flying Enemy Cages
Main Article: Traps

Both of these are used to trap certain enemies. In the Zombie Trap's case, it's Zombies and goblins, and in the Flying Enemy Cage's case, it's any flying enemy (except for bats, harpys, and demons), including Demon Eyes, though it can be modified to trap slimes as well. Both traps can be utilized alongside other defensive mechanisms such as sand barriers, suspended doors, and even lava moats.

These types of traps can be set up right at the start of a new world for both safety and the ability to easily kill and loot early enemies. This is particularly useful when starting out in Hardcore Mode. At left is an example of an efficient structure that you can build before the first night.

Thrown Weapon Glitch
A glitch in version 1.0.4 with all the thrown weapons (Boomerang, Shuriken, Ball O' Hurt, etc.) allowed you to throw them through the door as long as you were aiming at the handle of the door or lower. This didn't work with melee, gun, or bow type weapons. The only exception being the Star Cannon, which could shoot through 1 block wide walls. This was due to the distance between the player and the projectiles' spawn area.

Digging a Deep Pit in Front of Your Door
A simple defense would be to dig a ditch underground that is too deep to jump out of, yet retains a way for a player to escape. A simple ditch would be dug out more than six blocks down, four blocks wide, with a ceiling of no more than four blocks high, while leaving a small area on the side of the pit opposite of your door so a player can jump up. If this is built properly, the only monsters capable of entering your house are the Sorcerer and the Demon Eye (most Goblins cannot enter because nobody can jump far enough with such a low ceiling). To remedy the Demon Eye problem, simply put a door on the other side of the ditch, as demonstrated on the left. Furthermore, if you dig a little farther until the Zombies can walk off screen, they will automatically despawn after enough time of being off screen, so you don't have to worry about risking your life to kill a horde of Zombies.

Suspended House
Building your house in the air prevents any sort of land monster from entering your house regardless of their ability to knock down doors. Flying creatures can still be a problem but are easily nullified with platform traps and doors. Building a house like this is completely impenetrable except by Sorcerer, Worms, or bosses. As seen in the screenshot on the right, only one Zombie is allowed to spawn despite Blood Moon due to how many Demon Eyes are trapped. In addition, the player can fight on the ground with melee or from the central "airlock" of the house with ranged weapons. The only issue with this type of house is it can be detrimental to one's sense of reality.

Trick the Zombies
The main feature of this structure (#2 in the image) is that this exact design is accessible by players but tricks the zombie AI into jumping back down the hill. It will jump up against the base-side of the wall a few times, but not high enough. Eventually it will jump higher, but backward away from the base, up through the platform and over the block, back down the hill. This has not yet been tested on goblins. Optionally this could be converted into a horizontal falling-sand block (#1 in the image). To make it easier to access your base once you have a Grappling Hook, add some wood platform on the outside (#3 in the image).

No Doors
Another trick is to have no doors. Though this makes your house ineligible to have NPC's live in it, this method makes a fortress with little work. To create a house with no doors all you must do is 1. Build a house (It doesn't need to be complex) with a pit underneath. 2. Build a staircase-like shaft leading up from the pit. 3. Build a long shaft leading from the staircase-like shaft straight down however far you wish, as long as zombies,goblins, and other monsters cannot jump up into your home. This method allows for much growth after the initial building of the tunnel/shaft system. It also works with many house types.

Simple wall
Simply barricade your door during a Blood Moon or goblin army. This strategy always works, and requires almost no resources. However, this will not allow you to build monster farms or prevent goblin sorcerers from teleporting in.

The Essentials in Building a More Secure Base
There are ways to keep your base locked down tighter than a prison. Make only two entrances to your base (via door) on either side of the base. Depending on whether or not you make towers, you can leave these doors open.

In the first screenshot you can see the doors and how everything is completely symmetrical. Have a simple layout and add aesthetic appeal later when the functionality aspect is finished. The major defense against basically all enemies is to have some type of block that stands out from all the others, and put it above your door, then put at least three blocks of sand above it. You can now leave the door open almost 95% of time. Make sure that the door is opposite of where the sand is, otherwise the sand will just land on the door and sit there.

You can also add small cubes to the sides of your house in front of doors, and fill them with lava. Dig a six block long trench below them. When attacked, you destroy the bottom block of the cubes. The lava will create a moat that will not destroy items, although if the trench is one block deep into the ground and goes all the way to your door, then Zombies will not be able to open it anyways.

Now this is good if you want to just sit there and wait for the event to end, but most people find that boring. So, if you have time, construct towers (this is the one thing that should be copied to the tee) that look similar to the picture to the right. Make sure to add the sand method (below) to this as well. Flatten the land outside the tower (measured mine to 20 blocks out, make sure its lit) and then just follow the picture. If done correctly, the only enemy able to get in would be Demon Eyes, and that's only occasional. You should be able to move around a bit in almost complete safety and hit all enemies with ranged weapons (In the picture im using the Ball O' Hurt, originally I designed this for Arrows and the Boomerang). Any ranged weapon will do but something that is quick and does not consume ammo is the best bet, as well as good penetration so that it will pass through many enemies at once. With this technique, the only thing that should be able to kill your NPCs are bosses, plus it will also look super awesome.



Another technique that can be used is attaching two bunkers, as shown here, to your home. Simply by making two boxes on the sides of your house 4 blocks high with a 2 block gap, you can use any weapon to defend your house as you wish. Then put the doors into your house above the boxes (Or stair-shapes, as I have here). As long as you remain on the bottom floor, monsters will not jump onto the part with the doors, and you can stand inside the box and swing a sword or shoot a ranged weapon through the gap.

If you have managed to get to the Dungeon, you can actually mine the Spikes with a Hammer to put on your base. The spikes themselves will not actually harm monsters but can and will hurt players/NPC's, the only real use for spikes is either aesthetic purposes or PvP.

Sand Shell Method


A much more effective Blood Moon/Goblin Invasion defense system is shown here where the player breaks a torch and sand falls on the entire home, blocking off all entrances. You can make the sand as tall as necessary depending on how many entrances you have. However, setting up the system is comparatively tedious, as is cleaning it up.

Sniper Nest
A good way of taking out Zombies, Slimes, and Demon Eyes in relative safety is to make a sniper nest shown on the picture to the left. This allows you to shoot straight, down, and up at your enemies, while the nest itself prevents said enemies from reaching the player. When paired with other defenses, like suspended doors and zombie pits, you could protect your home from even Blood Moons or Goblin Invasions, assuming that you have enough ammunition for whatever ranged weapon you decide to use. Or just make your own nest.

Tower Method of Self-Defense


Although it utilizes a similar method to the floating base, it is connected to the ground. The tower can be locked down by triggering sand traps to block the bottom entrances of the tower. The tower uses two Flying Enemy Cages to allow capture and harvesting of Demon Eyes (and Eaters of Souls). The advanced versions of the tower can use a secondary sand blocking system, and can also incorporate Zombie Pits and/or Lava Traps to deal with Zombies and Goblins.

Double-Door Pit Trap
As the name implies, this trap consists of two doors with a two block wide space between them; this space is occupied by a pit that is too deep to jump out of without assistance. Due to this, it would not be wise to attempt this trap without a Grappling Hook, Cloud in a Bottle, or a pair of Rocket Boots. The concept of the trap is that enemies will be able to enter through the first door, but will find themselves falling into a hole when they attempt to break down the second. The player can jump over the pit by opening both doors at once and jumping straight through; this is not an easy task with a low ceiling, so make sure that you own one of the previously mentioned items.

Water U-bend Gate
By constructing a U-shaped structure and filling it with water, you can prevent most enemies from getting from one side of the U to the other yet still allow players to do so (it will not work on enemies that can teleport or burrow). For some reason, players can jump higher in water than jumping enemies - they can jump out of the water to a platform up to 7 blocks high (enemies can only reach 4 or 5) with a normal jump. Flying enemies and Slimes will not enter the water at all.

Since there is no equivalent to a reverse wooden platform that prevents flying enemies from passing up through the bottom of it while letting players through, this is one of the few reliable methods for preventing enemies from getting up into the bottom of a base that has underground tunnels connected to it or is suspended in the air. For example, placing this structure at the top of a hellevator attached to the bottom of your base can prevent enemies using it as a way in. The obvious alternative is a normal door, but this method doesn't require the extra step of opening and closing the door to get through it.

Double/Single Outer Walls
These can be built with any number of walls but usually are built with only one or two walls. These are very good for defending larger structures especially if you use doubles. They are two walls as tall or taller than your house and have a door and the bottom with torches up and down. They are very useful for a situation like if a Blood Moon starts and you get home as fast as you can and zombies are opening the doors, because the double door on the walls might give you enough time to block off the doors before the zombies get into your house.

Lava Pit
In the Lava Pit the monster fall into lava. Some times these can be hard to build since you need access to lava to make. If  you want to collect items that the monster drop make sure that you put only one Lava Bucket in each pit (1 bucket of lava x 6 blocks wide = no item burning). Other wise the items will be destroyed.

Wire Traps
As of patch 1.1 wires can be used to build traps, such as dart traps, that can be triggered by enemies. These kinds of traps are relatively easy to set up and can be extremely useful in all situations, from blood moons to goblin invasions.

Lockdown Device


The Lockdown Device is simple, but very effective, device that prevents all monsters, except for monsters that dig/pass through walls, from entering any house. First, lay down a wire line that goes underneath the entire area you wish to defend. Next, put a lever in every house that is being locked down. Third, put a wall of active stone blocks one block away from the outside doors of each house. Attach it to the house right above the door if being used for PVP, to keep lava out. Finally, Wire the levers and the active stone blocks to the wiring you laid out in the first step. Now, you can activate a citywide lockdown from any building.



Dart Trap Fortress
If you can get your hands on enough Dart Traps, wires, and pressure plates, then you can design a dart trap defense as shown below, simply put, when this many dart traps are wired up, you can effectively fight blood moons, goblin armies, and frost legions from the comfort of your throne.