How to Halt the Hordes: A Terrarian’s Guide to Corruption Prevention

The creeping dread of the Corruption or Crimson! Every Terraria player knows the sinking feeling of watching their meticulously crafted world slowly consumed by these spreading evils. Fear not, brave adventurer! Preventing the spread of Corruption and Crimson is a multifaceted endeavor, but entirely achievable with the right strategies and a bit of dedication. The core principle lies in creating barriers and purifying existing infected areas, utilizing both pre-Hardmode and Hardmode tools. In essence, you need to either isolate the evil biomes or cleanse your world.

Pre-Hardmode Prevention: Digging Your Way to Success

The Quarantine Trench: Your First Line of Defense

The most effective early-game strategy is the quarantine trench. Before defeating the Wall of Flesh and entering Hardmode, the spread of Corruption and Crimson is relatively slow and manageable. This is your window of opportunity!

1. Locate the Edges: Identify the boundaries of the Corruption or Crimson biomes.

2. Dig the Trench: Excavate a 3-tile wide trench on either side of the biome. Ensure the trench extends all the way down to the Underworld. A 3-tile width is crucial because thorns, one of the Corruptions’ methods of spread, needs 3 tiles to propagate over a gap.

3. Line with Non-Corruptible Materials: The most crucial step! Line the inner walls of the trench with materials that the Corruption and Crimson cannot convert. Excellent choices include:

   • Wood
   • Clay Bricks
   • Silt Bricks
   • Ash Bricks
   • Stone Bricks
   • Any block created from stone at a furnace, besides ebonstone, crimstone, and pearlstone.

4. Monitor and Maintain: Periodically check your trenches to ensure no grass has grown over the non-corruptible lining, potentially allowing spread.

Alternative Containment Strategies

While the trench method is the most comprehensive, other early-game options include:

• Surrounding Your Base: If you prefer to keep everything in one centralized location, you can dig a similar 3-tile wide trench around your entire base. This can be a large undertaking, but it guarantees the safety of your structures and NPCs.

• Strategic Placement of Sunflowers: Sunflowers prevent corruption/crimson spread two tiles beneath them and reduce the area’s overall Corruption score by 5 tiles. While not a complete solution, they can help slow the spread in localized areas.

Hardmode Cleansing: Embracing the Clentaminator

Hardmode throws a wrench into the works, as the Corruption and Crimson spread exponentially faster. Thankfully, you gain access to powerful tools to combat this.

The Mighty Clentaminator

The Clentaminator is your best friend in Hardmode. This tool, purchased from the Steampunker NPC, uses Solutions to convert blocks within a wide radius.

1. Obtain the Clentaminator: Defeat one mechanical boss to attract the Steampunker.

2. Purchase Green Solution: Buy Green Solution from the Steampunker when she is in a non-evil biome. Green Solution purifies blocks.

3. Purify! Use the Clentaminator with Green Solution to cleanse corrupted areas. Work methodically, starting from the surface and moving downwards.

4. Address the Caverns: The cavern layer is particularly vulnerable to rapid spread. Blow up the Caverns with powerful explosives, such as the Celebration Mk2 or DCU to create gaps. After, use the Clentaminator in large swaths.

Alternative Hardmode Methods

• Hallowed Ground: Convert corrupted areas to the Hallow using Hallowed Seeds, Holy Water, or the Clentaminator with Blue Solution. The Hallow will prevent further Corruption or Crimson spread, but keep in mind that it’s still a biome with its own challenges.

• Manual Purification: If you’re feeling patient, you can manually replace corrupted blocks with non-corruptible ones. This is extremely time-consuming but can be useful for small, isolated pockets of Corruption.

Maintaining a Pure World

Cleansing and containing the Corruption and Crimson is an ongoing process. Regularly check your world for signs of spread and address them promptly. Remember these additional tips:

• Defeating Plantera: Defeating Plantera for the first time reduces the spread of Corruption and Crimson by 50%. This is a significant milestone in your purification efforts.

• The Dryad’s Guidance: The Dryad NPC can tell you the percentage of Corruption/Crimson and Hallow in your world. This is a useful way to monitor your progress. When she says, “[Name of World] is completely pure. You have done an amazing job!” you’ve achieved true purification.

• Strategic Housing: Hallow biomes prevent Corruption or Crimson from spreading into nearby base locations where your NPCs live. It is a good idea to have your base Hallowed.

• Monitor New Corruption Spread: Defeating the Wall of Flesh will create two diagonally placed biomes of Corruption/Crimson and Hallow. Make sure to locate and quarantine/purify the new biomes

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Can Corruption spread through walls?

No. Background walls are completely separate from blocks, and Corruption/Crimson/Hallow will not spread from walls to blocks. You don’t need to worry about replacing background walls.

2. Do sunflowers stop Corruption?

Sunflowers provide limited protection. The two tiles directly underneath them cannot become Corrupted, Crimsoned, or Hallowed, even in Hardmode. Each Sunflower decreases an area’s total Corruption rating by 5 tiles.

3. What is the best block to stop Corruption in Terraria?

Corruption Prevention can be done easily using clay, bricks, silt, or ash. You can use those materials to your advantage like making a barrier around your base. Ensure no grass can grow on top of these to facilitate spread.

4. Can the jungle be corrupted?

Yes! The Jungle is unfortunately susceptible to Corruption and Crimson. It can quickly become overrun if near an evil biome. Quarantine trenches are particularly important to protect your Jungle.

5. Can Hallow overtake Corruption?

Yes, The Hallow does prevent Corruption from spreading. Corruption may be completely removed from a world by spreading the Hallow with Hallowed Seeds, Holy Water, or the Clentaminator with Blue Solution.

6. Does killing Plantera stop the corruption?

Defeating Plantera for the first time reduces the speed of the Corruption’s spread by 1/2 (50%). This is a significant slowdown, but not a complete stop.

7. Are gray bricks corruptible?

No, Gray Brick is a basic brick resistant to the spread of Corruption, Crimson, and Hallow.

8. Can Hallow spread through jungle?

The Hallow cannot spread through mud areas such as those found in Jungles.

9. Do altars count as Corruption?

No, Altars and ores don’t count toward the corruption percentage. You do not need to destroy these to purify the world.

10. Can you turn Corruption into crimson?

Although Corruption might replace Crimson at world generation, it does not prevent Crimson from being artificially created in a Corruption world, and vice versa. Spreading remains normal.

11. Can NPCs live in the Hallow?

Unlike Corruption/Crimson, NPCs can live in the Hallow without leaving. It’s often a good idea to have your base Hallowed.

12. What weapon stops corruption in Terraria?

The Clentaminator is generally the fastest means of removing Corruption and Crimson, and even converting Jungle to Glowing Mushroom Biome and vice versa.

13. Can evil spread through walls?

No, background walls will not cause corruption spread.

14. Should I let corruption spread Terraria?

As desirable as completely eliminating the spread might sound, leaving a part of the world with Corruption/Crimson and Hallow is not a bad idea if contained properly, since there are a lot of items exclusive to these biomes the player may need later, such as Souls and Biome mimics.

15. What does the Dryad say when you cleanse the world?

“[Name of World] is completely pure. You have done an amazing job!” when the world has no Corruption, Crimson, or Hallow. Or, “The world is in balance.” if a small amount of Corruption/Crimson/Hallow still exists.

Controlling the spread of Corruption and Crimson in Terraria is a challenging but rewarding task. By utilizing these strategies, you can keep your world pristine and enjoy all that Terraria has to offer. Remember that your play-style will reflect if you need to completely purify the world or not. Good luck, and happy digging!

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