Ores

Ores are primary crafting materials necessary for game progress. 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 in the Underground layer and below, and are mined with a pickaxe or drill. 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.

An Extractinator and Wooden Crates (from fishing) also provide ores as random rewards.

A world will generally only contain one ore type from each tier, which is chosen at random, for instance; one world may have Copper and Iron Ores, while another may have Copper and Lead Ores (see tables below). The alternate ore types that do not generate naturally in a world, but can be obtained by other means, such as Crates,, Slime drops, or loot from an Extractinator. Hardmode ore types are chosen at random as soon as the player destroys an Altar, and unlike Pre-Hardmode Ores, their pairings are consistent; Cobalt Ore will always be generated with Mythril and Adamantite Ores, and vice-versa.

Hardmode
The first three tiers of Hardmode ores are spawned by destroying Demon/Crimson Altars, which requires a hammer with 80% hammer power or higher, e.g. the Pwnhammer. Chlorophyte Ore spawns on its own once Hardmode is triggered, though it cannot be mined before killing all of the Mechanical bosses, and Luminite does not occur naturally. Neither ores are affected by destroyed altars.


 * Cobalt/Palladium is roughly twice as common as Adamantite/Titanium, with Mythril/Orichalcum halfway between.

Ore generation
The amount of ore veins generated upon destroying an altar is determined by the following formula:

$$\frac{ \bigl(\mathit{world\ size} * 310 - 85 * \mathit{ore\ tier} \bigr) * 0.85 }{ \left\lfloor \mathit{amount\ of\ altars\ destroyed} / 3 \right\rfloor + 1 } * \mathit{factor}$$


 * $\mathit{world\ size}$ is the width of the world divided by 4200: 1 for small, 1.524 for medium worlds and 2 for large worlds.


 * $\mathit{ore\ tier}$ represents the respective tier of ore:
 * {| class="terraria lined"

! colspan=2 | Ore type !! Value
 * || || 0
 * || || 1
 * || || 2
 * }
 * || || 2
 * }
 * }


 * $\mathit{factor}$ depends on the ore type, slightly increasing/decreasing the rarity of different types:
 * {| class="terraria lined"

! colspan=2 | Ore type !! Value
 * colspan=2 | || 1.05
 * || || 1
 * colspan=2 | || 0.945
 * || || 0.9
 * }
 * This reveals that worlds with Palladium instead of Cobalt, Orichalcum instead of Mythril, or Titanium instead of Adamantite will, on average, have 10% less of the respective ore.
 * || || 0.9
 * }
 * This reveals that worlds with Palladium instead of Cobalt, Orichalcum instead of Mythril, or Titanium instead of Adamantite will, on average, have 10% less of the respective ore.
 * This reveals that worlds with Palladium instead of Cobalt, Orichalcum instead of Mythril, or Titanium instead of Adamantite will, on average, have 10% less of the respective ore.

The table below visualizes this and shows how many ore veins will be spawned for each altar destroyed. If 264 altars were to be destroyed in one world, all following altars would only spawn one ore vein.


 * These values are for a small world.

All Hardmode ores will avoid spawning in the outer 100 tiles of the world. The highest location for Cobalt and Palladium to spawn is just below the surface, Mythril and Orichalcum start to spawn from the top of the Cavern layer, and Adamantite and Titanium start to spawn in the Cavern layer, lower than Mythril/Orichalcum. All ores stop spawning at 150 tiles above the world's bottom border, i.e. about one fourth into the Underworld.

The amount of altars smashed does not affect the size of ore veins, only the amount. As the generation of each vein is heavily randomized, it is difficult to give exact high and low values from "optimal" veins. Instead, a table of "good luck" vein amounts and "bad luck" vein amounts is shown below. Average yield is likely between 30–40% due to occasional lost ore.


 * Note that this is not related to the mechanic.

Note however, that the above table assumes that all the ore actually replaces blocks. Ore will not spawn if it attempts to spawn over any block not listed below.

In addition to this, Hardmode ores will not generate over Granite Blocks, Marble Blocks, or any hardened sands, and as such cannot be found in the, , and biomes.

Tips

 * Each Hardmode ore is chosen at the moment the first three altars in the world are broken. Ores can be "chosen" by quitting the world without saving (by ending the task or killing the process) after smashing the first altars. It is more easily done with a server, using the  command.
 * All ores except Hellstone and Obsidian are highlighted by the Spelunker buff, making it easy to find veins of ore. Hellstone is not lit up by the buff, but it is by a Dangersense Potion. Obsidian is easily found and made around lava.
 * Using a Crate Potion will improve the chances of obtaining crates and as such the ore-bearing Wooden Crates.
 * Filling in caves with spare natural blocks such as dirt before destroying altars can cause Hardmode ores to spawn in them. They can then also be seen on the minimap, presenting an easy way to convert extra blocks into ores with knowing their exact location.
 * In the, the Palladium Pickaxe and Drill can mine Adamantite and Titanium.
 * Most ores sell for the same as or more than the bars made from them. Prior to 1.4, the exceptions are the late pre-Hardmode ores (Meteorite, Demonite/Crimtane, Hellstone), and Chlorophyte, all of which are far more profitable as bars. (Hellstone and Obsidian are unsaleable as ores, and there is no Obsidian Bar).
 * However, as of 1.4, the sell values of Demonite, Crimtane, and Chlorophyte ores were increased, such that the respective bars sell for as much as their components. Hence, it is more efficient to simply sell the ores.
 * Meteorite and Hellstone remain exceptions, although raw Hellstone can now be sold.
 * Two ways to quickly find Hardmode ores is to use previously discovered Abandoned mine shaft s or search along the ceiling of The Underworld. Both of these methods feature large cave systems along a significant horizontal distance, the minecart tracks allow the player to outrun dangerous enemies, and pre-Mechanical boss Hardmode enemies in the Underworld spawn rarely and are easy to avoid.

Trivia

 * Hellstone's item sprite is a recolor of that of Silver Ore.
 * Hellstone is the only ore that cannot be infinitely generated within a single world. Others can be obtained from sources such as crates, an Extractinator, bosses, duplicable liquids, Meteorite crashes, and mud. Prior to 1.4.0.1, Chlorophyte was limited by the amount of mud (and dirt) in the world, however with the addition of Dirt Bombs, dirt can be infinitely created, which can be crafted into mud, which can be used to infinitely create chlorophyte.
 * Before the 1.4.0.1 update Iron and Lead ores did not have bricks.
 * Prior to 1.4, despite being a late-game ore, Chlorophyte Ore only sold for per ore. This could have been because it can be farmed indefinitely, but its bar (and derivative bars) fall right into sequence pricewise. Luminite sells for the most, netting  per ore.
 * As of 1.4, Chlorophyte Ores now sell for, which is exactly in line with their bar's value.
 * Palladium, Cobalt, and Titanium are the only Hardmode ores named after real metals.
 * As of version, there are a total of 21 types of ores in Terraria.
 * Luminite is the only ore that does not require a Furnace to craft bars.
 * As of 1.4, multiple ores of each tier can be obtained in the seed "05162020" that was teased in Red's tweet here. This is likely due to all the unusual world generation effects that happen on this seed. An example of this can be seen in the picture to the right. For more oddities like this, see Drunk World.