Part 4: My Town

#4 - My Town



Hello there, I didn't hear you come in. Welcome back to Rivershire! I'm bringing you tomorrow's update early.



So what do you think about expanding even more? But not outward. No, we're going up. But first we're going to need to make some scaffolding.



It ain't pretty, but scaffolding is always a function over form thing anyway. We just gotta be able to jump to the second floor.



Like so! This new block that we're placing down is called a platform. We've seen them before, in the tree last time. These are another in the "incredibly handy to have while spelunking" category of items. They are super cheap to make: 1 piece of wood creates 2 platforms. You can walk on top of them freely, but if you tap the S button while on them, you drop right through!

We won't be doing it here, but you can also use platforms to create doorless rooms for NPCs. As long as the entire floor isn't made of them, you can use them as the "doors" for an NPC's dwelling. Some people use this to create tiny coffins for their poor tenants, rooms that are just barely wide enough for a chair and a workbench side-by-side.



The shell of the second floor is mostly done! We just need an easy way in and out, and I think I have just the thing...



Wheeee! Anyway, the upper floor is gonna need some special wall tiles, and I know just where to find them. So we'll just tear down the scaffolding and make our way back underground.







The planked wall has a nice look to it. Kind of like what you would find in a cellar. It's not exactly appropriate for the second floor of our clubhouse, but it'll do right now.



Looking pretty sharp if I do say so myself. Sure the second floor is defying every law of physics simultaneously, but that's part of the charm.

Anyway, we're going to need some more wood for furniture. So I'm going to go collect that. I'll spare you all the trip, because nobody needs to see yet more screenshots of me cutting down trees.



While I was out, the traveling merchant showed up. He has a 1-in-4 chance of showing up each day, provided we have at least two NPCs. So let's go see what he's offering.



Bohemas is apparently admiring our handiwork.



Shit, that's too rich for our blood. Anyway, I briefly mentioned it last time, but fishing is indeed a thing in this game. We can make a simple wooden fishing pole, so we don't really need this monstrosity. Not yet, at least. _{even if it is the third best fishing pole in the game}

Anyway, the other stuff he has for sale right now is...

DPS Meter - 5 Gold coins - (Displays your DPS on the right side of the screen)
Portable Cement Mixer - 10 Gold coins - (Increases wall placement speed. INCREDIBLY useful, but we can't afford it)
Chalice - 50 silver coins - ( It... looks... nice?)
Extendo Grip - 10 Gold coins - (Increases tile reach. Like the cement mixer, incredibly useful to have, but we can't afford it)
Stopwatch - 5 Gold coins - (Displays your movement speed on the right side of the screen)

We can't afford anything but the decorative chalice, so Bohemas can linger in the empty upstairs apartment all he likes.



So you know what our little fortress-clubhouse needs? Actual tree bark for walls. This is the use of the Living Wood Wand that we found last time.



We've even got a little balcony entrance. Now it's time to show off another useful feature of the hammer. You see those rough stairs next to the door? What if I told you that we could smooth them out?



You can smack any block with the hammer to change its shape. In the case of jagged stair-like edges, you can smack it twice to create a smooth slope.



It looks much nicer as a result. Now, we need to be able to get in and out of the base. But the ledge we're standing on is just barely high enough that a zombie could jump up. So we're left with a slight dilemma. It's time to set up some defenses!



First we clear out the nearby trees and use the pickaxe on the first couple layers of soil. This makes the balcony above impossible to reach from the ground. You can see on the mouse pointer the solution for getting in. Enemies in this game can't use ropes, which makes the base all but impregnable by ground assault.



Using the leaf wand, we also make the base start to look like a particularly squat tree.





Now for the second part of the defenses.

Thanks to a weird quirk of the jumping system, we're just barely able to get out. Any hostile creatures that wind up down there aren't likely to be so lucky.



Now for the other important part of having a permanent base. We need item storage and badly!



On the right side of the menu for chests is the option to rename them. This is new as of a few months ago!



I give it a slightly more appropriate name. This chest is gonna hold all the wood and dirt and sand and whatever else we find that we can build stuff with.

The next three chests are for Potions and Ingredients, Minerals, and Everything Else. The minerals chest will hold ore, bars, and gemstones.



As the third day draws to a close, our little wooden base is starting to look more and more like a tree. Something else happens as well...



Terraria Soundtrack Vol. 2 - Rain

It starts to rain.

I've also swapped to the official Re-Logic bandcamp pages instead of random youtube videos. There are unmarked spoilers for the tracks on these pages, so be aware that you might be spoiled for all kinds of stuff if you click through.

Anyway, raining is mostly a cosmetic thing. Certain things do happen in the rain, but right now none of it affects us.



No sooner is the next room completed when...



Seriously. It was less than 5 seconds before he showed up.



Kind of a short fellow, but we won't hold that against him.



As you might expect, the Demolitionist is the NPC we qualified for when we found that grenade last time.



Grenade - 75 Copper coins - (60 Throwing Damage, doesn't destroy tiles)
Bomb - 3 Silver coins - (Small explosion. Destroys a few tiles. Probably will kill you if you are caught in the blast)
Dynamite - 20 Silver coins - (Large explosion. Destroys tiles*. Also 60% cheaper than it used to be)

Dynamite is a special case for the "destroys tiles" description. Specifically it will destroy everything that isn't explicitly marked as explosion proof. Containers with items inside are explicitly explosion proof.

Anyway, we don't buy any of his goods... yet. There will be a time in the not too distant future where we will be well acquainted with Dolgen and his goods.



Here we're walking out into the wilderness to take advantage of one of Terraria's quirks. See, Dolgen can't use ropes either. So he's currently trapped outside of our clubhouse.



But if we go a couple screens away at night and then return to the base...



Oh, right. During rainstorms, zombies will wear raincoats. They even have a nonzero chance to drop either the coat or hat for us.



Anyway, we're back at home and Dolgen has magically transported up to his new room. How? Why? Well, leaving your base specifically at night and walking away for a couple screens causes the game to teleport every NPC to where they're supposed to be.



I take this opportunity to make the left side of our base as equally unreachable as the right portion.



Because we're using so much living wood otherwise, no reason we can't set up the Living Wood Loom to see what else we can make.



But before we do, take a look at this. During rainstorms, goldfish will get up out of their ponds and walk around.



Living wood walls sound good, right?



It has kind of a wooden fence look. I like it.



So how about living leaf walls?



I really like that look. As a bonus, the chill from the nighttime rain is kept out.



Now tell me that doesn't look warm and cozy. It ain't the prettiest base ever made, but it's ours. And that's also enough for now.

NEXT TIME: Caves! Mining! Spelunking! Lots of torches!