Guide:Bases

A player's main base can be a powerful tool, source of resources, and entertainment. Most players at least create a bed with a chest stockpile nearby. Investing time in building a proper base can be quite useful in the long run.

Since player inventory is preserved across servers, players will often create small bases on each server but use one primary base for most of their needs.

Bedroom
The only truly mandatory part of a player's base is a bedroom. Walling off an area and placing a bed in it provides the player with a reliable place to respawn, and if the player has a Magic Mirror, a safe zone to restock after adventuring.

Crafting
While dropping a crafting table somewhere in the base is certainly mandatory, a centralized crafting area can keep things more organized. The crafting stations are workbench, anvil, furnace (or hellforge), alchemy station, table, and a chair next to either the workbench or table. These items altogether probably warrant their own room. Keep raw materials nearby, or even put this area near the main storage area.

Note that putting down a chair near a table/workbench may cause NPCs to move in. To avoid this, simply don't bother with the chair. The only recipes that the chair and workbench/table combination provide are the Goggles (which are a mostly cosmetic item), Sunglasses (which is also a cosmetic item), three different watches and the Depth Meter. Once all NPCs have moved in you can place the chair without fear of unwanted NPCs, unless of course one happens to die.

Storage
A hallmark of Terraria is that the longer you have played, the more storage you need. Several carefully organized, dedicated rooms of chests are recommended. Signs can be useful for labeling chests or rooms of chests.

Houses
See also House

A house is an enclosed area fitting certain requirements that will house an NPC. Getting NPCs to swap houses is very annoying and difficult, usually requiring the intentional death of at least one NPC. So it is generally a good idea to try to get this right the first time.

For best results, houses should open into each other and central hallways rather than directly to the outside. During a blood moon, it is easiest to defend the NPCs if there is only a single door to the outside that needs to be barricaded.

Appropriate decorations for each NPC house can add a bit of flavor - bottles in the Nurse house, books with the Guide, some flower pots for the Dryad, and so on. This should be done after the NPC has moved in, since otherwise it is nearly impossible to get the NPC to move to the house that you want.

Meteors
Farming Meteor Heads can provide large amounts of coin. An "artificial" meteor can be created by placing exactly 50 meteorite in close proximity to each other. This can be done inside under controlled circumstances to farm these creatures. To deactivate the meteorite, removing only one piece is required.

Arenas
Arenas are generally just big boxed-in areas designed to keep monsters out while focusing down a boss. They can certainly be decorated if the player is so inclined, and any addition to the arena that might confer an advantage to the player is recommended. Construct arenas near a demon altar and providing easy access to it if it is possible.

Eye of Cthulhu
A highly recommended project for players who are about to summon their first boss. An arena for the Eye of Cthulhu should be large enough to dodge and maneuver around in, but small enough to seal off any enemies from wandering in and making the fight more difficult. A recommended size is just about the width of the screen.

Adding in a roof is also recommended to protect from airborne enemies and to keep retrievable ammunition from flying too far away. Making several large wooden platforms can make dodging simpler. As the fight will be at night, add torches to help visibility, including several in the ground underneath the arena.

Eater of Worlds
Location is important for an arena of this sort. Specifically, the Eater of Worlds can only be summoned in Corruption. If there is corruption close to your base, then using it is recommended. Otherwise, artificial corruption using Corrupt Seeds and Ebonstone is necessary. Unfortunately, seeds alone usually won't do the trick - the game registers per corrupt square, so only the surface of the dirt generally isn't sufficient. Laying down about 300 Ebonstone underground is usually enough. You can identify a properly corrupted area by the change of music - a summon will be successful anywhere the corruption music plays.

The Eater of Worlds is, of course, a burrower, and will usually be offscreen and underground for much of the fight. A properly constructed arena can remove much of that advantage. Make the arena fairly tall and easily climbable with many wooden platforms. That way, you can not only see it coming, but have access to attacking its exposed body on every pass as well.



Goblin Army
Location is important for this arena as well. The goblins will naturally target your initial spawn, that is, the center surface of the map. So no matter what you actually have there, that's the general area where you will encounter goblins when they arrive. You may as well prepare a proper greeting for them.

Make sure there are no NPCs in this area, as they will be attacked and possibly killed during the fight. Goblin Sorcerers' attacks go through walls and they can teleport indiscriminately, so the only defense is to make sure that your NPCs are not nearby.

Flatten out an area and make sure that there are no pits or jumps. Walls are not necessary, as during an invasion the newly spawned monsters are the target rather than a distraction. Make certain that any platforms or areas can be easily and quickly reached from anywhere else on the screen, since most players will be looking to quickly close in on casters with their melee weapons.

King Slime
The King Slime only spawns some distance away from the center of the map. As most bases are started near the original center spawn, a secondary outpost is necessary to farm this creature. Additionally, to facilitate spawning, a large flat area covered in grass reduces wait times.

Though this boss is particularly easy, and an arena probably isn't necessary, it's possible to exploit this creature's unwieldy size and movement pattern to create an area where it is impossible for the player to take damage during the fight. Create several "foxholes" poking up to the surface, large enough for the player to jump (and shoot) through but too small for the boss to travel in. Then connect them all with a tunnel.

Underworld Outpost
The underworld has valuable resources not found elsewhere, so having an outpost accessible from your main base is important once you have progressed to that point. It currently has two enemies, the Fire Imp and the Bone Serpent. The former can be farmed for the Flower of Fire and the Plumber's Hat, and the latter can be farmed for Flamelash and Sunfury. Each of these two creatures requires a different configuration to make kills fast and (relatively) safe.

Dropshaft (Hellevator)
For the advanced player, reaching the underworld is quite a chore unless the player constructs a fast way down. Digging a 2-wide shaft that extends all the way from the surface to the underworld can save much time and trouble. Adding a secondary base in the landing zone is a possibility. Using this to transport water can make an area of the underworld much safer.

Fire Imp Arena
Fire Imps, as anyone who has fought one knows, teleport quickly and shoot fireballs. The most important thing about an area you intend to fight imps in is mobility. An arena should be set up so that any location the imp teleports to can be quickly closed to melee range. Fast melee weapons, such as the Muramasa, lock down imps and leave them unable to attack or teleport.

Bone Serpent Altar
Bone Serpents die if any one segment of their body, including head or tail, is reduced to zero health. The segment that dies is the only one that drops loot. If multiple segments die simultaneously, each drops loot. This can be accomplished through creative use of Dynamite.

The first step of a bone serpent altar is to make a platform out of a dynamite-proof material such as Hellstone. Add a small lip to either side to prevent the dynamite from rolling off. Then, add a wooden platform up above the first platform.

To farm bone serpents, throw dynamite onto the first platform timed such that most of the serpent will be caught in the explosion. Then, jump up to the wooden platform straight above the dynamite (but out of range of the explosion) to lure the serpent right into your trap. This takes practice. If a bone serpent is caught just right, upwards of ten to twelve times the normal amount of loot is dropped. This more than covers the cost of the dynamite and actually turns a tidy profit.

Reservoir
Large water and lava reservoirs provide some convenience for projects, experiments, or quick obsidian. A large pool of water may spawn Goldfish at the bottom. Building the area for the liquid to sit in is easy, but filling it quickly and efficiently requires manipulation of the liquid physics.

Harpy Nest
An arena area at the top of the map can be used to fight Harpies. This requires a very tall climbable structure in order to reach it. Harpies do not spawn close to the center of the map, so this must be made some distance away.

Roof Access
A minor consideration at most, 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 roof to grab these. Depending on the layout and size of the base, a player may be able to simply jump to the ceiling from inside rooms in their base, and the star will pass through the ceiling to the player.