What happens when a pre-hardmode altar is destroyed?
I'm on a world where Hardmode has not been activated, and I found a demon altar spawned over some sand. Here is a visual representation:
[*]
DDS
DDS
[*] = Altar
D = Dirt
S = Sand
I was clearing the path and by mistake I removed the bottom sand block, making the upper one fall, and then the altar wasn't over 3 blocks anymore. The game made a sound like when a zombie dies, and the altar dissapeared.
No message appeared. I didn't lose any HP. It may have any colateral effect in-game?
Best Answer
There is nothing on the wiki proper about it, but it is mentioned on the talk page:
If the blocks below the altar is sand and that you break the blocks below the sand blocks, it will destroy the altar.
There is no explicit mention of whether this will spawn hard mode ore or not, but the wording seems to imply that it will not. The only way to know for sure would be to check the decompiled game code.
EDIT: Brian Hansen has included code from the game in his answer which answers whether this spawns hard mode ore definitively.
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What happens if you break more altars?
The more Altars you smash, the more hardmode ore your world will have. Note that every ore cycle yields less and less ore \u2014 fewer veins are generated each time, plus they have a chance to generate inside already-existing deposits.What happens if you destroy all Crimson altars?
Also, how do you destroy EVERY PIECE OF CRIMSON? Just to be clear, destroying Altars and Hearts/Orbs does little to stop the spread of corruption. They spread as long as there are corruptible tiles within 4 tile range from any corrupted elements including corrupted vines and Ebonstone.Terraria: Loot From Smashing 1 MILLION Demon Altars
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