Introduction to Terraria Wiring

An introduction to placing and using wiring and mechanical devices in Terraria.

There's Wires? Where?

Yes, indeed. There are wires in Terraria. There are even devices that you can connect to those wires. Some of which don't make sense in a real world. Torches, doors, pumps, explosives, timers, and other things can be wired together to make machines.

Wires and the associated accessories are aquired through purchase, crafting or scavenging. The mechanic, an NPC found underground in the dungeon, sells the starter tools:

In her sale menu, from left to right, we have: three wrenches (red, blue and green), wire cutters, wire, lever, switch, various pressure plates, and an actuator.

Why are there so many pressure plates? They come in a variety of colors, for starters. Secondly, the different plates react to different creatures. NPCs and monsters can trigger some, while only players can trigger others.

Crafting requires assorted items, such as lead, wires (purchased from the mechanic) and iron. Crafting gives us pumps, timers, explosives, and other goodies that we can use to shape the world.




I have only ever found a dart trap through scavenging. They tend to exist in dungeons and the underground areas of Terraria. They are usually paired with a player sensitive pressure plate and wiring. They tend to be located in or around solid stone, where they blend in quite well. A pick can be used to scavenge them, and a bank of dart traps (combined with some pressure plates) is a very good automated defense against zombies, skeletons and the like. More on that later.

But, How Does It Work?

Well, you certainly don't need to be an electrical engineer to do this. If you can draw a line from A to B, then you can certainly lay down wires and create your masterpiece machine.

First, buy one or more wrenches, some wire cutters and wire. Depending on what you are doing, you may also want a switch, lever, pressure plate or actuators.

The wrenches are used to place wires. We cannot place wires without a wrench, so make sure you get one! The wire cutters are used to remove wires that we might have accidentally placed in the wrong spot, or that you have decided to change the location of.

Next, decide where you want your device. For the purposes of demonstration, we're going to assume that we're making a trap for zombies or other creatures in an underground room.

First, we place our traps. Then our monster-sensitive pressure plates. Finally, we connect it with wiring, using the wrench.

Here, we have an almost completed dart trap. There are three dart bricks, stacked on top of each other. Several pressure plates (the small gray looking bumps on the ground) have been placed. Connecting it together is a red wire.

This wire is red, because it was placed with a red wrench. Different wrenches place different colored wires and are useful as your machines get more elaborate. We'll go into that further in a minute.

Notice how the wire seems to hang in the air? That's fine. Actually, that is what you want. The wiring doesn't lie on the ground, is not destroyed by lava (when placed, it is if it is just laying around loose), is not visible to monsters, and cannot be cut except with the wire cutters. (Which, oddly, no monsters seem to carry.....) It is also invisible to players unless they are 'holding' a wrench, wire cutters or other 'electrical' device in preparation for using it.

What the wiring does do, is connect anything in the "square" of pixels that make up a block. So, because the pressure plates are considered part of the square our wires pass through, they are connected. Just running the wire underneath will have no effect and the trap will fail. The torch in the picture is not considered connected to the wiring, even though it is right next to it.

If a zombie or a skeleton were to walk into this trap as it is now, the bottom two dart traps would fire, sending what appears to be wooden arrows flying into them. The top trap would not fire because it is not connected by wiring.

More Complicated Wiring

When you place wires next to each other, they connect if they are the same color.

In this picture, we have several pieces of stone connected by wiring. The golden squares are actuators, purchased from the mechanic.

This particular setup, which I have in my house, allows me to control the bricks blocking off my room from others. NPCs can't get in there to wander and neither can zombies. But, I'd like to get in without having to break out the pick every time. So, I step on a pressure plate and the blocks appear to recede into the wall behind them. I can pass through when that happens. Of course, so can anyone else, but nothing is perfect.

The connection of wiring is a good thing. It allows the 'energy' or 'signals' to pass from one wire to another. But, what if you don't want that to happen?

In this image, we have a mock up of a grinding machine. These machines have been used (until the most recent update) to quickly grind gold. They do not work as well now, but it is a good demonstration of the theory.

The dart traps are connected to pressure plates with red wiring. A switch and some actuators control the stone blocks that make up the 'door' to the machine. A lever and a five-second timer are connected to the statue inside. Notice how the blue wiring does not automatically connect to the red? This way, the door does not open when the lever is pulled.

Pre-update, a monster statue could have been placed in the machine and it would have spawned a monster when activated by the lever. The five second timer would have continued spawning monsters every five seconds until the lever was pulled again. The monsters would have wandered to pressure plates, killed themselves, and left behind gold or other items.

You could leave the machine behind to grind gold while you explored, turned off the lever, then opened the blocks to collect your loot. This does still work to a certain extent. Mosnters will drop items, but not cash.

And, we can now get even more complicated.

Here, we see a blue and a red wire. Do you see where they connect at the purple? That purple wire was created by placing both a red and a blue wire in the same square. If you were to remove the wiring, the last placed color would be removed first. As I placed them in order of red then blue, the blue wire would be the first to remove.

Why would I want to do this? It's very simple really. You can set up triggers that only trigger certain items or all items at once. In this image, the switch on the upper left will only turn the red torch on and off. The lever, covered in purple wire, will turn both torches on and off. So, this allows me to trigger one by itself, or both.

This could be even further complicated by using the green wrench to place green wiring.

Teleporters

And, now, the section of the guide that I honestly have to say is the most requested: Teleportation.

To get teleporters, I'm afraid you have to go do something other than mess with wiring - you have to actually beat a hard mode boss. You don't actually have to have hard mode on the world, though it makes it easier to find a hard mode boss. You can summon them using crafted items brought from a hard mode world. If you do enter hard mode, be aware the enemies are more difficult, but the perks are fun.

After defeating any hard mode boss, you gain access to the Steampunker. She's hip, she's cool.... She's got a lot of stuff not relevant to this guide. The most important item she carries, for our purposes, is the teleporter.

The teleporter is a 3 wide by 1 block high device. Each block of the teleporter acts just like regular bricks. You can, for instance, use your hammer to flatten it down a bit or change the shape of the edges. Like regular brick, you can stack things on top (i.e. pressure plates). And, like regular brick, you cannot stack things on top if you have changed the shape with your hammer.

Each of the three blocks of the teleporter can be connected to a different switch, and different colored wire can be used to connect one teleporter with another. (More on that later.) There is, however a limit to how far apart these devices can be. Conflicting information on the various wikis state that it is either 1000 or 2000 bricks of wire between the two devices.

Basic Teleportation

Moving from point A to point B is instantaneous with the teleporter. The basic setup requires two triggers (switches, levers, or pressure plates), two teleporters and some wire. Teleporter A is connected to teleporter B via the wire and the triggers are connected using wire of the same color - one by each teleporter. Stand on the teleporter, hit the trigger, and you go from A to B or vice versa.

Examining the image on the left, you'll notice there is a second setup. Green wire connects switches and actuators. This is because I have my teleporter in something of an airlock. Why? Because teleporters will move monsters if they are on one when it is activated. So, since I can't see the situation on the other end, I've added the airlock to make sure none of them potentially gain access to my NPCs.

The image on the right is the same picture without the wiring, so that you can see how compact the setup really can be.

Connecting Multiple Teleporters

The act of connecting multiple teleporters is a little more difficult than just wiring in a straight line. The color of your wiring is extremely important when you set this up, so pay attention to it. Make notes, sketch out a plan, whatever. An example plan is depicted at left. Note that wire color is indicated.

Also, note the two Hell teleporters. Those are used - in concert - to take you to the deepest level of the map. The relay may or may not be needed, depending on the map size and the location of your 'Home.'

Notice how the first Hell teleporter has red connecting at two different locations on the sketch? This is because you technically have three points to connect on the teleporter. It's a rough sketch, obviously, but you can tell that the two wires are not supposed to connect.

If they did connect, the system would not work. To put it as simply as I can, each length of wire can only have two teleporters on it. Each teleporter, though, can connect to multiple lengths of wire.

As an example of the basic teleporter wiring with seven nodes (teleporters), see the picture at left. Note how the wires connect to the central teleporter, but not to each other? That's what we want.

Each wire runs to it's corresponding teleporter and to triggers that start the teleportion. Each wire must have its own trigger, within reach of the teleporter! If you are not standing on the teleporter, you will not teleport. There is no delay or countdown.

The triggers are easier to see in this picture. The central teleporter is using switches and the exterior ones are using levers. Ignore the extra lever on the upper right for the moment. We'll come back to it later.

It is possible to use pressure plates. However, as each trigger only controls one destination, that severely limits your flexibility with this extremely useful tool.

Adding a second destination to the next section of your circuit is not difficult. Remember that extra floating lever? Well, check out the wiring schematic now, at left.

Now, when we stand on the upper right teleporter and flip that extra lever, it will take us to the bottom right teleporter. The bottom right one, however, has no return switch wired in. With our current schematic, it would be easy to simply flip the lever to go 'home,' then back to the upper right.

Pro Tip: Switches do not have to be placed on walls and floors. You can also place beams in the background and set the switches on them! This allows you to run and walk through them. No blocks to maneuver around! This can save you a lot of space, making it easier to design and build your teleportation areas without having to worry about how many switches you'll need to plaster to a nearby wall or floor. (Edit: As of version 1.2.3, we can now place switches directly on the background - no need for beams!)


A simple method of keeping your wires straight at a teleporter involves making a simple loop around your switches. First, we place switches like this. Please note the spaces between the switches and the teleporter.

Next, we can make an outer loop containing ALL the wire colors available. Note that the top and bottom of the loop are a bit longer than the switches themselves. This just makes things look neater as it keeps them from attaching to the top and bottom switch from that location. Across each switch, we run the individual color. And, a single line containing all colors again to the connection point on the teleporter.

A wire can connect to any point on the outer loop without worrying about overlapping a switch, light or whatever other electronic that may be nearby.

At two gold each, plus wires and triggers, teleporters are not cheap. I hope this information will help all of you get the most out of each one, thereby reducing your costs and grinding time.

Hard Mode Traps

As most of us wander through the world, specifically the Underground areas of it, we discover a strange building. The structure is made of brown blocks that just won't break, no matter how long we sit there with the pick. It requires a key to enter. This is the jungle temple, also called the Lihzahrd Temple.

Inside this structure, are many strange and new things. However, we cannot access it until we have defeated Plantera. This hard mode boss drops the key and allows entry to the rich treasures within!

I am going to say this now, the Lihzahrd Temple is an electrician's dream. There are multiple new traps and plenty of pressure plates to scavenge. There's also wire to grab, if you bring your cutters. Best of all, there is a trap for every ten squares of temple floor. (Roughly.)

And, here we see them.

Starting at the top right is a Spiky Ball Trap. True to it's name, it drops an orange ball with spikes on it.. The ball bounces around for several seconds before it disappears. The average damage seems to be around 90, and it isn't difficult to get two or three bouncing around from one trap if you have them on a timer. The Spiky Ball Trap is apparently on a five second cooldown.

Next, to the left, we have a Spear Trap. In the dungeons, these tend to be found in banks of spears that drop down to skewer you. Rather similar to the opening scenes of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, only from the top instead of the side. They can cover rather large distances - up to 20 squares. The cooldown is supposedly one second.

There is - also supposedly - a bug where the spear head can be flung upwards as a projectile if the trap is made inactive with an actuator. I have not personally tested this.

Our next mechanism, down and left, is the new Super Dart Trap. It shares many similarities with the original dart trap, but deals more damage. It seems to have the same cooldown as a normal dart trap.

Our final hard mode trap is the Flame Trap. This trap shoots fire horizontally. (That is, left to right or right to left.) If you are standing on the trap, or within a square or so, you can still be damaged by it. Yes, even if you are not in the direct line of fire. The Flame Trap's cooldown is about 3 seconds.

As you can see from looking at the picture, the straight line of fire from the Flame Trap is not precisely straight. So, one square up and down still need to be cautious.

New Stuff - Update 1.3.1

All right, let's discuss the new stuff. We have a bunch here that is just fascinating to get through.

Here, we have just a few of the new things. First, there is a Yellow Wrench. Yes, folks, you can now use a fourth wire color. This makes things a lot easier for us designers, as we can wire without accidentally triggering and add - gasp- two more nodes per teleporter. Awesome!

But, wait! There's more!

The next tool is the Actuation Rod. This one is... honestly, both useful and useless. There are only a handful of situations in which I would need it. Still, the ability to change the state of actuators without a switch is, I suppose, not that bad. But, the price is prohibitive. It requires 50 actuators, 10 iron/lead bars, and 10 wire to craft. For actuators alone, that's 500 silver.

Next, we have the Junction Box. If having four strands of wire isn't enough, this box can prevent wires of the same color from connecting. Use your hammer to change which direction the wire inside connects - also potentially useful for things you need to reconfigure on the fly.

The Mechanical Lens. If you have it in inventory, allows you to see all wires on the screen. Get this from the Mechanic and you'll never be surprised by a trap again. The wire visual can be configured for bright, normal and faded - and is separated by color if you are tracing a specific strand. My only complaint is that you have to remove it from inventory to turn it off completely.

The Multicolor Wrench.... This thing of beauty allows you to place any color wire, or pick up any color wire. With this tool, you only use one inventory slot instead of four. Craft this at the Tinkerer's Workshop using all four wrenches and one wire cutter as ingredients.

The Grand Design is the grand-daddy of all wiring tools. It takes the place of wrenches, wire cutters, and the mechanical lens - all while allowing you to place wire and/or actuators anywhere on the screen. It requires a ruler, mechanical lens, 60 wire and a multicolor wrench to create. It is crafted on the Tinkerer's Workshop. Seriously, get this tool if you are heavily into wiring.

Here, we have logic circuits. I know our crafters and megalithic computer builders have been drooling for these.

In order from left to right on the top row, we have AND, OR, XOR, NAND, NOR, NXOR.
On the bottom row, we have 3 Lamps (on, off and faulty), two directions of Conveyor Belt, and a Multicolor Bulb that lights up based on what active wires are attached to it.... That last one, by the way, is excellent for troubleshooting complex systems.

Wow, that's a lot, huh? Don't worry, we'll get back to the logic circuits in a minute.

Conveyor Belts run the same price as Wire. So, from a cost standpoint, running conveyor belts all over the place may be cheaper. You still, however, wind up waiting to go from point A to B. If you want instantaneous transport, stick to Teleporters.

However, when grinding for cash, Conveyer Belts can be pretty nicely useful. More on that in a minute, too. First, let's go back to LOGIC. Ew.

Logic Gates

Okay, let's talk Logic Gates.

When the required conditions are met (generally considered the state TRUE instead of FALSE), the gate lights up and a signal is sent. The conditions are expressed by stacking lamps on the gate. They will only respond to lamps they are connected to. Keep in mind, that the signal is sent by the gate at the moment the condition becomes TRUE and then again at the moment the condition becomes FALSE.

1. For AND, all lamps are on. Simple. (A AND B are TRUE.)

2. OR activates when at least one lamp is on. One, two, ten... doesn't matter. (A OR B are TRUE.)

3. XOR is only activated when ONLY a single lamp is on. Doesn't matter how many lamps are attached, only one attached lamp can be turned on. (A, B, XOR C. Two are FALSE.)

4. NAND is on unless all lamps are on - it turns off if all attached lamps are on. It is on if all attached lamps are off. In other words, this is the polar opposite of AND. (A, B, NAND C. At least one is FALSE.)

5. NOR is only on when all attached lamps are off. Even a single attached lamp getting turned on will turn this one off. (A NOR B. Neither is TRUE.)

6. NXOR is only on when the total number of turned on (and attached) lamps is not equal to one. Therefore, zero, three, five, seven, two hundred and fifteen, and sixty will all activate this gate. (A, B, NXOR C. Either 0, 2 or all 3 are TRUE.)

There are also logic sensors that detect the presence of liquid and respond on that basis, but those are pretty much just simple switches and can be used as such for creating unmanned responses and actions.

A Simple Logic Gate

On the left, of course, we have the view without wires. On the right, is the wire diagram. (I could have probably made it simpler, but I've been up all night.)

So, we're using an AND gate. This particular gate has two lamps. One is connected to the actuators on the wood. The second is connected to the pressure plates to the lower left. The gate itself is set to send the signal to the traps at the right.

How it works --
1. If the actuators have turned the wood blocks into inactive bricks, then the first lamp is set to TRUE.
2. If something/someone steps on the pressure plates, then the second lamp becomes set to TRUE.
3. The AND gate notices that A and B are TRUE.
4. The AND gate triggers the dart traps at the right.

Finally, if I trigger the actuators to make the blocks active again and the second lamp is set to TRUE, then the dart traps will fire one last time (assuming that they aren't on cooldown).

Sensors

A lot of new sensors have been added to the game recently. It's got me all excited again. Let's take a peek, shall we?

Logic Sensors

Logic sensors are crafted, using an iron or lead bar, wire, and either a Soul of Sight, Light, or Night.

My personal new favorite is the Player Above sensor. It simply does what it says on the label: determines when there is a player above it. Place it, and you can set doors using actuators without having to leave pressure plates all over the place.

And, it doesn't have the issues that the pressure plates did. No missing the pressure plate here, as there is a nice large sensor area. If you're in it, it's activated. If a second player enters the area, it also stays active, unlike with a pressure plate. This makes it an excellent addition to any base in multiplayer.

The sensor area is designated by the cyan rectangle in the picture at left. The rectangle shows up in game, that's not something I added, so you should have no trouble with placement. The rectangle is a little tall, as you can probably tell by the clock next to it. The sensor area is approximately 5 blocks wide by 10 blocks tall. Still, it isn't difficult to adapt at least your "ground" floor design to account for it. The height also makes it ideal for activating trap doors.

Of course, it's most easily disguised in a home made of gel due to the color. But, I guess we can't have everything.

Day and Night Sensors


Next, we have the day and night sensors. In the picture above, the day sensor (orange, on the left) is active. The night sensor to the right of the pit is inactive due to it being daytime.

This, if you can't guess, is a variant on my usual trap. I built this one to test these two sensors. When the night falls, the day sensor becomes inactive and the night becomes active, triggering the actuators placed on the obsidian bricks and opens the trap to deal with zombies. When daylight arrives, night falls inactive and the day sensor triggers the brick again - closing the trap. I've built in a few switches to allow me to get in and collect drops. One for the actuators at the top, and a second for the bricks near the bottom.

The wire diagram is below.


Liquid Sensors

Liquid sensors are not some of my favorite things. I can see some uses for them - regulating flow when using pumps, for instance.

Liquid sensors are available to detect lava, water, honey, and all of the above. They are crafted using 5 cogs, a magic dropper of the appropriate liquid(s), and wire. They are color coded to their particular liquid, though the "Any Liquid" sensor can be a bit difficult to see. It has all three colors jammed into the sensor.

Okay, let's say for whatever reason, you have a concern about liquid getting into your building. For the sake of argument, I'll go so far as to say that one of your fellow players on whatever server aren't very nice and you made the mistake of building your home next to a large body of water or they just keep dumping liquid in there by the bucketful. A lot of silly work and they're probably going to get kicked/banned, but whatever.

We could, of course, just leave an opening through which the liquid could drain (assuming the terrain allows). However, that would also leave a gaping hole in our building. So, instead, we're going to craft an inlet pump, an outlet pump, a timer, and a liquid sensor. I used the any liquid sensor, but you can use whatever one concerns you.

Keep in mind: The sensor does not block movement, so anyone and anything can run straight through it. This also means that the timer will not sit directly on top of it. You can put it to the left or right. You can put it under it. You can put a block over the sensor and set the timer on that. But it will not support the timer or anything else.

Below is the basic setup, though you can obviously put the outlet anywhere you can run a wire. As usual, the wired version is on the right.



And, here is the setup in action:



"But... what can I use it for?" you ask me. All sorts of things. Using pressure plates and logic sensors, you could decide what reservoir of liquid to fill. You could set up a duplication tank that decides for itself when to reproduce. You can set up billboards using lights, automate basic calculations, set up self-filling and cleaning lava traps.... Truly endless possibilities.

Gem Locks

They are crafted using five of the particular gem that you want the lock to apply to (not the large gem, the normal size one) and ten stone blocks. Large Gems, used as the key, are crafted using
fifteen of the appropriate gem. The crafting station is the anvil for the gems and the Heavy Work Bench for the locks.

Gem locks were originally added in 1.2, but have been updated for 1.3.1.

To start, the gem lock can now have a large gem placed inside of it. On placement or removal, a signal is sent. This makes it very useful for making boltholes in your PVP arena with backup supplies or setting traps that can be triggered by only one team. (I am, as always, a fan of building a bolthole or similar structure for demonstration purposes. It's a lot easier to reset for a good picture than, say, a bomb.)

Placing or removing the gem is done with a right click. To pick the gem back up, you must have room in your inventory.

Below, I have built a simple bolthole. There's plenty of room inside, lighting, a chest, a safe, a piggy bank, and a gem lock holding the entrance shut. The very simple wiring scheme is on the right.

Machines: Grinders, Traps, and Defenses. Oh my!

There are several machines that can be built in Terraria. These range from the basic dart trap to the more complicated Obsidian machines and various spawn powered engines. Each of these requires wiring and either a limited knowledge of the mechanics of the game or a good set of instructions.

Traps

Traps (described previously) are activated using pressure plates and wire. While more than one pressure plate can be used, the traps themselves have a cooldown timer. This means that that they will only fire once and then pause before firing again. For this reason, it is seldom worth it to do as depicted and place upwards of seven pressure plates as triggers. One or two should be sufficient.

The Automated Obsidian Machine

The Automated Obsidian Machine can be used to grind out the obsidian needed for molten armor and tools, in addition to making money by forging and selling obsidian skulls. When activated, it uses the duplcation glitch to create more lava and water from almost nothing, saving you the need to go gather it from various (possibly far-flung) locations. You do need a supply to start with, however, as it is a duplicating glitch.

Depicted at left is a basic model. The switch, at the bottom of the tank, is connected to the one second timer. From there, the wiring splits, to lead to inlet pumps at the bottom of each tank and outflow pumps at the top. After adding a small amount of lava and water to the bottom - I believe it was five to six bucketfuls each for this small machine - you can turn on the pumps. The liquid travels from Inlet to Outlet pump. There, it is split by the blocks below.

The duplicating glitch means that it does not take a full square of water to fill another square. (A bucket, for example, is filled on approximately 1/3 of a square, yet produces a full square when emptied.) So, when the water is split by the machine, the result is two full squares of liquid falling to the bottom, having been created from one square. Then, the liquid is sucked back to the top where this is repeated.

(Prior to the introduction of pumps and such, this same principle was still used. However, it was a much more consuming task, as it had to be manually manipulated with buckets.)

At the bottom of the machine, there is a slightly offset area where the lava and water mix to create Obsidian. Please note: Lava flows more slowly than water. This means, unless you offset the area as depicted, you can wind up with water in your lava tank. This gives much Obsidian, but destroys your lava supply, necessitating a refill once the tank is cleaned out.

Also, if you have both tanks on the same wire, you must ensure that you have enough of each liquid to keep the pump flowing. Otherwise, your lava pump (or your water pump) might start drawing from the other tank. The result? A lot of obsidian, and the need to clean and refill your tank. This can be avoided by using different colored wire for each tank. You would simply need to run a double line - one in each color - on the switch and the timer.

Automatic Doors

Automatic Doors are simple machines, using wiring and one or two gray or brown (triggered by the player only) pressure plates. They allow you to simply run into and out of any facility in which you need a door. However, they will not stop the battering effect of zombies during a Blood Moon. The door can still be broken open.

For this reason, I usually use this as a control mechanism for where my NPCs wander inside the building I use to hold their houses. It is an effective crowd control measure.

As one last drawback, there is a reported bug where the door becomes unseated and the block beneath it destroyed after a variable amount of time has passed.

Instead, you can use actuators and whatever block you chose to make the building out of. This creates, in essence, a hidden door. It still uses the gray or brown pressure plates, but has the added bonus of not being able to be battered. This does not, however, stop wraiths, goblin mages, etc.

This can also be a bit expensive, as actuators are not cheap. However, if you are not concerned with the aesthetics of the situation, activated/deactivated brick can be used instead of actuators.

Pit Traps

This same trick can be used to create pit traps outside the home. The bottom can be covered with a very thin layer of lava - killing the monsters and leaving the drops, the sides can be lined with scavenged traps, such as dart traps, or it can simply be too high to jump out of. The last option leaves the monsters as sitting ducks, so you can safely end them with your ranged weapon of choice. When there are no monsters attacking, you can close the activated brick and run right over the top.

The version depicted at left has a rope on either side to allow players that accidentally fall in to escape. The sides, please note, are too high for players and monsters to exit without the use of a hook or some other form of jump assistance. (Rocket boots, for instance.)

The Lava Trap Grinder

This particular machine is created using fewer rare materials than the other grinders. There are no scavenged traps, Just the items we can purchase or fabricate.

At the top, we have an entrance, a switch, and a 3 second timer. In the mid area, there is a statue of whatever creature you wish to grind. (Non-flying works best.) At the bottom, there is a layer of activated brick and - directly below that - a thin layer of lava.

The entrance should be placed too high to jump, even from the platform that the statue rests upon. (Alternately, you can close it off with more activated brick.) The statue itself, is placed too high for the monsters to jump back up to it from the lava. It's fine if you can jump up to it from the activated brick.

To the right, we see the wiring of the machine. As was pointed out to me, you can right click the timer to start the countdown on the statue. The switch controls the activated brick for when we collect the loot.

At no point should the player drop down into the lava. Unless equipped with a Lava Charm or Lava waders, it will kill the player. Even then, you only have seven or fourteen seconds to leave the lava area. The Obsidian Skin potion gives you about four minutes, but it seems a waste.

I would suggest saving those potions for when you are fighting the Wall of Flesh.

The harvesting procedure is simple:

• The player stands on the top and opens the activated brick with the switch.
  
• The player triggers the timer.
  
• The monster spawns, walks off the platform supporting the statue and falls into the lava below.
  
• In the case of a skeleton (this statue), the monster's damage ticks twice. It is dead and the loot, still collectable and not destroyed, rests in the lava.
  
• The player can go do whatever.
  
• The player turns off the timer after feeling enough time has passed.
  
• Once all monsters are dead, turns on the activated brick.
  
• The player drops down and runs across the activated brick and the loot is collected.

Remember, the monsters spawned in this way will not drop coin. They will only drop valuables. In the case of the skeletons, I usually get bone swords, hooks, and two variants of ancient helmet. Sometimes, I wind up with skeleton banners.

(TBC....)

Meteor Grinder

The Meteor Grinder is a fairly popular way of making money. Leave it long enough, and you get ore drops, as well. The grinder/machine requires 50 blocks of meteor ore, wire, and a timer. I add switches and a pair of teleporters for ease of ingress and egress.

Here, we can see the basic setup. I've put 25 blocks of meteor on each side, surrounded by glass blocks. (The glass isn't really needed, I just like the look.) In the middle, we have a hide and super dart traps, flame traps and geysers. If geysers are an issue, flame traps and spear traps can be made to point up or down using your hammer.

Note: Like all other traps, geysers are found by searching in the world. Find them in the cavern layer of your map.

I've placed this particular grinder fairly high in the air to avoid having to worry about altering the natural biome below. On either side, the glass barriers stop the darts from continuing farther than we want. I have also, just below the screen, placed a line of glass to allow for easy drop pickup. No need to worry about the regular terrain!

Though, it's difficult to see in these pictures, there is a heart lantern, a meteor banner (earned with this grinder - one of many), and a campfire. The campfire, I'm afraid, kept flickering on and off due to the placement of the wires. This is easy to fix, though. Just run the wire around instead of through.

On the left, we have the setup. On the right is the wire map and what this grinder looks like when active.

Conveyor Belt Fun -- Gold Grinding Hide

Okay, we've all been there. Need money. Always need money.... But, want to watch a movie or something. So... what to do?

Well, there's this delightful little hide:

As usual, on the left is the normal view and the right is the wire diagram.

At the bottom, we have dug out a pit. One bucket of lava means bad news for the critters that fall down there. Like with the statue grinder, we have brick and actuators to provide a platform for retrieving treasure.

Our hide is bounded by wood - no problems with Crimson or Corruption, here. The bottom border of the hide is also set up on actuators. When the switch is flipped, our door closes and the lava trap is active. Flip it again and we can go down and grab treasure. Because we're very thorough (of course) a heart lamp and a campfire help boost our health rate. Just in case.

On either side of the hide are projectile sensors. Pirates or other creatures shooting from the side will trigger super dart traps.

On top of the hide are more pressure sensors. These are connected to geysers, and upward angled spear and fire traps.

You ready for conveyor belt fun? See them on each side? All that loot caused by the dart traps will be dragged into the lava. The conveyors DO NOT move enemy NPCs, but will grab the loot they drop. Even better, for some reason, loot dropped off of a conveyer and into the lava does not get destroyed. So, no running all over the place to grab your loot. Convenient delivery.

Oh, and bonus, if you have the stardust cell summoning rod, the cell will trigger the traps as it passes. So, free show.

Hides similar to this can be build in any area of Terraria and used indefinitely.

Appendix: Specific Items

This section has not been fully updated for 1.3.1. It is in progress.

Actuators - These are used to make blocks move forward and back, into and out of the background. When in the background, the Player, NPCs, monsters and other moving substances (i.e. liquids), can pass through the location. When in the foreground, the way is blocked (please forgive the pun) as normal. The Presserator - acquired from the Travelling Merchant - places actuators while laying blocks, if equipped.




Beams - While not technically a machine part, these are great for putting switches in the background. Switches have to cling to something, and these make it so that you don't have to put them on a foreground wall made of blocks or the floor. Unlike the foreground walls or the floor, you can run right through the beam (and the switch)! This saves space and makes it easy for you to build your designs!


Dart traps - These traps send a wooden bolt out the side to attack monsters or players. Do not stand in the way when they trigger, or you will be hit!



Deactivated Brick - These are crafted using stone blocks and wire. They do not require actuators to recede into the background or emerge to the foreground. Deactivated Brick starts in the background in its default state. The reverse, Activated Brick, can also be crafted, it just starts in the foreground.



Doors, such as the glass one depicted here, can be controlled with wiring as long as you run the cable through the blocks the door is in when it is closed. This can be useful for setting pressure plates if you don't want to have to manually open and close the doors to your home or castle.




Explosives - Crafted using dynamite and wire, these are activated by a trigger that they are wired to. They do destroy brick, and their blast radius is something to write home about, so don't set up your lever or switch too close to them. These do not destroy wire, so you can come back along behind and reclaim it. The blast radius is 9-10 blocks.

Beware when exploring underground. There have been isolated reports of explosive traps wired to pressure plates. The reported damage is 300 health.

Light Sources - More traditional electric lights and (illogically) torches, candles and lanterns created using stars can all be controlled with wiring. The Water Candle, Skull Lantern, glow sticks, forges, Jellyfish Necklace and Mining Helmet cannot be wired to turn on and off. The Water Candle also increases enemy spawn rate when placed or held in hand.


Mechanic - Your friendly neighborhood NPC that sells all your mechanical needs. Seriously, the woman is an extortionist. Check out those prices!


Pumps - These items are placed in pairs, consisting of an inlet pump and an outflow pump. (Outflow is pictured.) When activated, they can move water or lava from one location to another. They must be connected by wiring, which will also act as the pipes for the liquid to flow through.

This is an essential device when creating an Obsidian Machine using the duplicating glitch.



Steampunker - A later addition to the NPCs, you can only get her after defeating a hard mode boss. She sells the Teleporter, a useful object that can cut travel time considerably, for 2 gold.

Statues - Many of the statues in Terraria can be triggered to spawn monsters. Bear in mind that these monsters do not drop gold. This was done in the latest patch in order to stop users from creating machines for grinding gold, though items still drop.

Also, some statues - heart and star most notably - drop immediate use items when triggered. These statues have a ten second timer and the items dropped restore health and mana.

Teleporter - This object allows instantaneous travel between two or more locations. Be aware, it can be expensive to set up the system. Like regular bricks, the hammer can be used to change the size of each individual brick of the teleporter, and it can support objects such as pressure plates, chairs and tables. It is not, however, able to hang in the air without supporting brick.

Timers - Used to make a device repeat a motion. On activation, the device will repeat the motion at the interval the timer is designed for. (i.e. a five-second timer will cause the device to perform an action every five seconds.) Either a switch, a pressure plate, or a right click directly on it can activate the timer.

Triggers - This includes switches, pressure plates, and levers. These are used to activate or trigger various devices. In 1.3.1., Logic Gates and weighted pressure plates have been added. Logic Gates act as triggers under specific conditions. Weighted pressure plates act as triggers when stepping onto AND when stepping off of them.

Also added as triggers are projectile sensor pads - these can be mounted on the ground, ceiling and walls , and will trigger whatever they are connected to when interacted with by a projectile.

Wire - This ties together all the components of your machines and makes them run. It must be placed with a wrench. Wiring is invisible unless you are 'holding' a wrench, wire cutters, switch or other 'electrical' device in preparation for using it. Wire is not destroyed by lava, does not electrify water, and is not seen or altered by monsters and NPCs.

Wire Cutters - Used to remove wire. Essential if you make a mistake or just want to redesign your machine. Can also be used to scavenge wire in dungeons.

Wrenches - Used to place wires. Each wrench will place wiring that appears to be a different color. (Please note: You do not have to buy different colored wire to place it. In fact, the mechanic only sells one color!)

[Local Cinnamon Roll]

wow this is awesome i needed help with lots of wiring stuff now i have this awesome guide right at my fingertips

[zubxru]

Might I recommend you make a video explaining this, it's a very detailed and helpful guide but not everyone learns by reading (not a dis to what toy wrote but rather an enhancement) should get some decent viewership too if that's what you would like to aim for

[tmantheheman]

Nevermind I figured it out. I did not place a wire in the middle of the teleporter, only on the sides

[tmantheheman]

I have built teleporters at my base and on a floating island and they don't work. They both have switches and there are no missing wires. Is this just because it is a little over 1000 blocks? or am I doing something wrong?

[Anna Druvez]

Do you mean more than one square or more than one color? You can do both with the Grand Design item.

[Cloudyhook]

is there a way to place multiple wires at once?

[Blockotron]

Nevermind, I'm an idiot and can't read. I found them so don't worry with answering my question.

[Blockotron]

With the logic gates, I don't understand what a "lamp" is, can you elaborate and tell me where to get them.

[Anna Druvez]

Glad I could help and, remember, I did it too. ;) Took me a while to figure out the problem.

[somnomania]

Ohhhh that did it, thank you. That was a dumb thing for me to not realize, lmao.