Guide:Bases

A player's main Base can be a powerful tool, source of resources, and entertainment. Most players create at least a Bed with a Chest stockpile nearby. Investing time in building a proper base can be useful in the long run. Bases are often used as safe havens where the player can craft and organize their inventories in relative peace. A well-enclosed area with NPCs nearby to decrease enemy spawn rates is helpful.

Most bases are composed of abundant block types like Wood or Stone, with Wood or Stone background walls.

Houses


A House is an enclosed area fitting certain requirements that will house an NPC (See House for detailed requirements), but as multiple Houses can be connected by sharing the same walls, floors, ceilings, and Doors, the individual NPC "Houses" usually become mere rooms within a single total house structure.

For best results, these rooms should be connected and open into each other or to central hallways, rather than being actual separate Houses that open directly to the outside. During a Blood Moon or Goblin Invasion, it is easiest to defend the NPCs if there are only one or two doors to the outside that need to be barricaded.

Floating House
If you have the Rocket Boots, Grappling Hook, or Ivy Whip, you can build and have access to a House that resides well above the surface. Such a House can be built out of jumping range for walking enemeies, and can mean never having to worry about Blood Moons or Slimes, and making Goblin Invasions a more simple matter of dealing with Goblin Sorcerers alone. A House can be built in midair by stacking blocks up to the point you wish to build, then mining away the lower blocks. A shallow Lava pit underneath the structure will kill all walking enemies as they attempt to jump towards you while you're in your house, and if shallow enough, will collect their drops in one location for easy collection later.

Bedroom


The player's own room within the larger structure should contain a Bed, which will server as their spawn point (See Bed for detailed requirements). If the player has a Magic Mirror, this is where they will teleport to when using it. It is better to spawn and teleport to a safe enclosed room in your home, rather than somewhere outside in the open.

Crafting area

 * See also: Guide:Crafting.

Having a centralized crafting area can keep things more organized. The crafting stations are the Workbench, Anvil, Furnace OR Hellforge, Alchemy Station, a Chair combined with a Table, a Loom, and a Keg. These items altogether probably warrant their own room. Keeping a Chest or two next to your crafting area is an efficient way to store and access your crafting materials quickly.

It is possible to have access to all crafting stations but the chair/table/demon altar simultaneously, with smart use of wooden platforms, and submerging the anvil and workbench. See Guide: Crafting for several techniques.

Storage
Storage is achieved through the use of Storage items like the Chest. Storage is necessary given the amount of items that can be collected. A dedicated room in your base, or a lineup of storage items near your crafting area, are possible placement options.

Keeping your items carefully organized will save you a headache in the longrun. Most Storage items can be moved and collected with any tier of hammer. Items that you may need on a multiplayer server can be stored in the Piggy Bank or Safe. These items can then be retrieved from any other Piggy Bank or Safe that you find or place.

Some players may wish to organize their Storage items same way between all worlds, so that they don't have to remember a new pattern within each one.

Roof Access
Often a minor consideration, but a player that spends a fair amount of time in a large base has a good chance that Fallen Stars will accumulate on the roof overnight. The player may consider adding access to the flat roof along its length to grab these. Depending on the layout and size of the base, a player may be able to simply jump to the ceiling from rooms inside their base, and the star will pass through the ceiling to the player.

Underworld Outpost
The Underworld has valuable resources not found elsewhere, so having an outpost there is valuable once you have progressed to that point. Players often construct Hellevators to provide easy access to the Underworld. The Underworld currently has five enemies, the Fire Imp, Bone Serpent, Demon, Lava Slime and Hellbat. The Demon can be farmed for the Demon Scythe. Before 1.6, Bone Serpents and imps were farmed for Sunfury, Flamelash and Flower of Fire, respectively. Each of these creatures requires a different configuration to make kills fast and (relatively) safe. However, when mining hellstone, these creatures can be extremely dangerous, so when mining in the underworld it can be a good idea to create an artificial Meteor as Meteor Heads replace all other mob spawns, and are easier to deal with compared to ordinary underworld monsters.

As of 1.6, Shadow Chests can rarely be found in the underworld.