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Inactive Stone Block
  • Inactive Stone Block item spriteold Inactive Stone Block item sprite
  • Inactive Stone Block placed
Stack digit 9Stack digit 9Stack digit 9
Statistics
Type
Placeable✔️ (1 wide × 1 high)
Use time14 (Very fast)
Rarity0
Sell2
Active Stone Block
  • Active Stone Block item spriteold Active Stone Block item sprite
  • Active Stone Block placed
Stack digit 9Stack digit 9Stack digit 9
Statistics
Type
Placeable✔️ (1 wide × 1 high)
Use time14 (Very fast)
Rarity0
Sell2

Active Stone Blocks and Inactive Stone Blocks are blocks that act as mechanisms. A given pair behave as a single block whose presence can be switched 'on or off' using wire and a trigger.

When triggered, an Active Stone Block becomes an Inactive Stone Block, and vice-versa. Wires must pass through all Active/Inactive blocks that are to be triggered, and the wires must connect to a trigger, such as a Pressure Plate, Switch, or Timer. These blocks are useful for creating traps, floodgates, hidden passages, drawbridges (e.g. over water, lava, or empty space), skybridges, and much more.

  • An Active Stone Block is a foreground object. This means it looks and behaves as an ordinary Stone Block, inhibites movement, allows entities to stand or walk on it, blocks light, and can stop liquids.
  • An Inactive Stone Block is a background object. While still visible it looks and behaves like a Stone Wall tile. It is essentially empty space, allowing the passage of players, items, liquids, light, etc.

Both the Active and Inactive phases can be crafted. Players will usually want to craft the Active version, as the Inactive blocks cannot be placed next to each other without the support of other adjacent foreground blocks. Active blocks do not have this shortcoming, and switching them to Inactive afterwards using wires will still provide the same outcome.

Placing Active Stone Blocks, switching them to Inactive with wiring, then mining them and picking them up again, will cause you to pick up Inactive blocks, and vice-versa.

Active/Inactive Stone Blocks occur naturally in Boulder traps found in the Cavern layer, where Active blocks that are wired to Pressure Plates suspend a Boulder in the ceiling. An enemy or player walking on the Plate cause the Active blocks to turn Inactive, allowing the Boulder to fall through and damage whomever is below.

Crafting

Recipe

ResultIngredientsCrafting station
Active Stone BlockActive Stone Block
By Hand
Inactive Stone BlockInactive Stone Block

Notes

  • This behavior can be generalized to all blocks via actuator. For example, you could have a very dense (and expensive) Mushroom Farm with many layers of Active Grass one tile apart, so that all the mushrooms would fall when the Grass becomes Inactive.
  • Furniture placed on Active blocks that are turned Inactive will be freed and fall as dropped items. Blocks placed adjacent to them will remain in midair, the same as if the other blocks had been mined away.
  • When in a Hardmode biome, it can be easy to spot these naturally generated Active Stone Blocks if the surrounding blocks have been either corrupted or hallowed.
  • Inactive blocks will be freed by explosions.

Tips

  • Even without a mechanic (required to obtain wiring tools), this item still has use if harvested from naturally-occurring Boulder traps underground. You can select this item in your toolbar to see a layout of all wires on screen, which is useful for detecting and avoiding natural traps.
  • A vertical strip of three Active Stone Blocks wired to a nearby Switch or Lever serves as a good alternative to Doors that only players can open. NPCs won't be able to use them to stray outside, and no enemy can ever open them. Note that this will not fulfill a House's entrance requirement, so at least one actual Door will still be required in order for an NPC to move in (though the Door need not lead "outside", and can merely open into another room of a larger structure). Using Blue Pressure Plates on either side causes the 'door' to turn inactive for a moment, then return to active the very instant the player reaches the other side. As Blue Pressure Plates are only triggered by players, this can also keep zombies and such out during a Blood Moon.
  • To conserve storage space, consider switching all Inactive Stone Blocks to Active Stone Blocks, or vice versa. This can easily save an inventory or storage slot by combining the stacks.

See also

History

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