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all three liquids

Liquids are materials with unique physics. Liquids will "flow" downward and outward (rate varies with liquid type) until it is contained below and on both sides. Some special conditions exist for half blocks (i.e. water falls). They cannot be placed in the inventory like other materials. They must be picked up with a Bucket. One bucket will hold one block worth of liquid even if only one quarter of the liquid was available to pick up. This mechanic allows for Duplication.

Types[]

There are three types of liquids in the game: Water, Lava, and Honey. Each is described below.

Main article: Water
Water

Water is a Liquid found in pools of varying size on the surface of the world, underground, and Floating Islands. Water is used in crafting Bottled Water. Being submerged in water will impeded a character's movement less than lava or honey. Large amounts of water can be found on the left and right of the world in the Oceans. Water evaporates in The Underworld. Water will change color under different circumstances. See the water fountain below for more info.

Water Fountains
Water Fountains are items that can be used to change the color of all water in surrounding areas to the color of the water in the corresponding Biome. All fountains can be purchased from the Witch Doctor at no cost. The various fountains can be placed on any two block-wide surface and can be activated by either right clicking on them or by using Wire. When multiple fountains are activated at the same time, the game appears to give precedence to the bottom, rightmost fountain.

Types of Fountains Water Fountain

Notes

  • Water evaporates in The Underworld if the block it is in is updated. Sometimes a flood happening off-screen can cause pools of water to form, but it will quickly disappear as soon as the water is displaced in any way..
  • Water that reaches up 2 feet negates Fall Damage if you land in it, and is often used in Hellevators. Landing on water will however result in Fall Damage if you've drunk a Water Walking Potion (although the Water Walking Boots seem to nullify fall damage).
  • Water does not make Hellstone nor Meteorite blocks safe to walk on.
  • Entering water will cancel the On Fire! debuff, but if it is inflicted while the player is already submerged in water (for example through contact with nearby Lava or a Meteor Head) it will not be canceled unless the player leaves and re-enters water.

Bugs

  • Some odd behavior can occur when jumping out of water with a Shiny Red Balloon, or a combination of Cloud in a Bottle and Flippers. The increased jump height from the Balloon is not considered upon exiting water (in fact, the Balloon reduces jump height underwater by a few blocks), and the player will frequently not be able to double-jump if they have both Cloud in a Balloon and Flippers equipped. This is more obvious as of update 1.2, with the new items giving multi-jump capabilities.
  • The Grappling Hook items will not attach to some blocks placed in water; most notably Sand, although Gray Brick, Glass, Pearlstone and Ebonstone also exhibit this glitch on occasion. This appears to be a result of attempting to grapple onto a block or Platform that is in the same space as water.
  • Falling onto water while wearing the Water Walking Boots seems to cancel out fall damage, despite not actually falling into the water. This may or may not be intended.

Main article: Lava
Lava.
Lava is a Liquid found commonly in large pools once the player has reached a certain depth (about 1200-1500 feet below on the Depth Meter). It will cause a large amount of damage to the player and Monsters, and oftentimes falling into lava is fatal. If Water touches Lava, the Lava turns into Obsidian. Burrowing Monsters and monsters native to the Underworld seem to have an immunity to Lava Damage.

When lava comes in contact with most placed items, it will burn through them. However, Lava will not burn through regular Wood Blocks and Ice Blocks, and will also not burn through closed Wooden Doors (though as soon as the door is opened it is destroyed).

Damage from Lava
Lava deals 100 Damage to the player (modified by the player's Defense), and 50 Damage to monsters (modified by the monster's Defense). As such, being able to protect oneself from lava is a high priority when digging deep underground and in The Underworld. There are a few methods of protection available.

Potions

Accessories

  • A Lava Charm lava charm will allow you to dive into lava for 7 seconds. After that time you will get damage as usual. It is worth noting that if the lava is shallow enough, that even though it would do damage with the Lava Charm, it will protect you from damage without having a time limit.
  • As of the 1.2 Update, the Lava Waders are able to be crafted from the Obsidian Water Walking Boots. This accessory allows the player to walk on the surface of lava as well as to swim in lava for up to 7 seconds without risk of harm. It is worth noting that when wearing both Lava Waders and a Lava Charm, they will add up to giving 14 seconds of lava diving without risk.
  • Flippers will allow you to swim in lava (use in combination with other accessories or potions). The Diving Gear will also be useful.
  • While wearing an Obsidian Rose the player will still take damage, but it will be reduced by 30 after armor and it will reduce the duration of the On Fire! Debuff.

Lava Traps

An optimal lava trap. Note the shallow depth of lava, which will prevent incineration of items.

The optimal way to create a Trap is to have 1 Bucket of lava for every 6 blocks of the Trap, this way it still damages the player and creatures without destroying any Coins or loot. Players and most monsters who are harmed by Lava will always receive the "On fire!" Debuff .

Notes

  • Any item below Tier 1 will be destroyed by any lava pools deeper than approximately one-third of a block, with the exception of Fireblossom, Fireblossom Seeds, and Obsidian. All items of Tier 1 and above will be immune to lava.
  • When a world is being generated for the first time, it is possible for a lava pool to be generated over a Glowing Mushroom spot. In this situation, the large mushrooms and mushroom grass will not be damaged in any way until one of the submerged mushrooms is disturbed by the player, at which point the lava will destroy all nearby mushrooms.
  • Can be dodged from damage by equipping Master Ninja Gear

Bugs

  • There is a glitch where if you have an item such as a chest or gravestone placed, water and lava will touch without making obsidian where they are placed.

Main article: Honey
Honey
Honey is a liquid found in pools in Beehive biomes, located within the larger Underground Jungle biome. It moves slower than the other liquids and also slows player, NPCs, and monsters which are touching the honey more than water.

Honey can also be created when breaking hive blocks, which may spawn bees.

Honey Buff
When submerged in one full block deep of honey, a player gains the "Honey" buff, which increases life regeneration. Players are left with a 30 second honey buff after leaving honey.

Crafting
Honey can be crafted into Bottled Honey by standing near it with a Bottle in the inventory.

Bugs

  • If you use the Rod of Discord while standing in honey, character movement will continue to be slowed while underwater. Once the character emerges in air, its movement will speed up again.
  • After stepping out from honey deep enough to give the regeneration buff and talk to an NPC or open the inventory, and if timed correctly, a nearby liquid particle will continue to grow in size indefinitely. As long as the dialog or shopping screen is kept open, it will grow. Once the dialog is closed, the particle will rotate and shrink until it dissapears. This can only be done in single player.

Falls[]

Naturally occurring Waterfalls, Lavafalls, and Honeyfalls will appear whenever the liquid flows over a half-block space. Falls are entirely cosmetic, and will not remove any torches from the floors or walls they flow on. The torches will stay there, as the fall passes them. Standing under a fall will not impede movement, nor will it cause the player to drown. Similarly, passing through or standing under a Lavafall will not inflict damage or apply the "On Fire" debuff.

Falls can be created with the use of a Hammer by cycling through different states for blocks. Using the Hammer to create a half block at the very edge of a pool of liquid will create a fall, so long as there is somewhere for the fall to go.

Although they can apparently go on forever as long as they are still touching blocks every so often, waterfalls will "fade out" if they fall into empty space of more than about 30 blocks and gradually disappear, never actually reaching the ground. In addition, despite the appearance of liquid falling, none is ever actually displaced after the initial appearance of the waterfall.

Submerged[]

Breath Meter

When the liquid level is at about the same area the mouth would be on the player's head, the player is considered submerged, and the Breath Meter that appears below the Health bar (represented by bubbles) will begin to drain. The character can stay submerged in liquid for approximately 25 seconds before they start taking drowning damage at about -5 hp per second. Movement is slowed down to about 50% of normal speed while in water and 25% speed while in honey when a character is in more than 1/8 a block deep of liquid. Drowning will stop if the player surfaces.

  • When a Breathing Reed is being held, the player will be able to breathe as long as the tip of the reed touches air. It also slightly extends the breath meter when the top of the reed is underwater.
  • The Diving Helmet and Diving Gear extends the amount of time a character can stay submerged. NPC's do not drown when submerged.
  • Flippers allow a player to swim up while submerged.
  • When a Neptune's Shell or Moon Shell is equipped, the player will change into a merfolk and be able to remain submerged indefinitely and will have unimpeded horizontal movement while also being able to swim vertically.
  • Gills Potion grants the ability to breathe in water for 2 minutes.

Combination[]

Liquids will create special solid blocks upon coming into contact with each other.

Combiners for liquids can be created. For example, this combiner can automatically combine all three liquids: Duplicator Small

Duplication[]

This section still needs work and methods need confirmation.

Dulication of liquids is a common and practical feature of Terraria. Duplication of liquids is possible do to a couple of mechanics: the "always full bucket" mechanic and the "more than you asked for" mechanic with pumps. A third mechanic involves servers and the lag time cause issues with liquid flow rates.

Always Full Bucket
The "always full bucket" means that whenever a bucket is used to collect liquid, it will fill the bucket with one block worth of liquid regardless of how much liquid was available to be collected. This leads to a few different styles of duplication.

  1. Pouring the liquid out of a bucket high enough in the air so it will then drop down. If timed well the player can grab a block of dropping liquid and there still will be left another block falling.
  2. Build and use a duplicator. All you need for a duplicator is a bucket filled with the liquid to be duplicate and some blocks to build a suitable site to store the liquid in.
This is the principle for how a duplicator works. Step one says "Fill your bucket" and is not neccessary if you already have a bucket with a liquid you want to duplicate.

You can build a simple duplicator by building a 3 block high "tower" and add 2 blocks right or left to the tower's base and add one new block at the rightmost (or leftmost) block. Now your duplicator is done! All you need is something to keep the duplicated liquid in after duplicating it.

The image to the right shows the principle of a very simple duplicator.

Liquids can be quickly and massly duplicated without needing to 'redirect it' assuming you're trying to pour it just into an area. By having a one tile wide block in the air, the player can repeatedly, and quickly clicking the spot above it with a bucket full of liquid. The Liquid will divide, but when you pick up a 'half bucket' full of liquid, it rounds up to a whole bucket.

Terraria_How-To_1_Liquid_Duplicator

Terraria How-To 1 Liquid Duplicator

This video shows you how to make an automatic duplicator.

(someone make this look better) you can mine and replace hellstone for easy infinite lava

Removal[]

Water remover with On/Off switch

Players may pump out the water of the area with an inlet and outlet pump.

A way of removing Water in 1.1 is by using Cursed Torches and Lava. By placing Cursed Torches in some Lava. The Obsidian block that would be generated when the Water comes in contact with the Lava can not be made because the Cursed Torch is in the way. This can also be done with other lava-proof objects such as Minecart Tracks.

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