Terraria – How to find more orichalcum ore in Terraria

terraria

I just recently reached Hardmode on my first-ever Terraria world, smashing Demon Altars to unlock the three Hardmode ores. Finding cobalt ore has been a breeze; however, I have experienced great difficulty in finding orichalcum ore. I have mined deep down into the world, practically down to the Underworld, but I could find almost no orichalcum down there. I have tried using Spelunker Potions, but even with those, I barely found any orichalcum. I smashed twelve Demon Altars to generate more ore, but that still did not help. I have literally found more adamantite ore (which I cannot mine so far) than orichalcum ore.

What am I doing wrong? Is there anything I can do to find more orichalcum? Thank you in advance for your help.

Best Answer

There isn't a definite answer to your question besides to keep looking. The game makes use of a lot of random generation, so it's possible you just have a bad generation of the ore.

However, there is a certain point it spawns at on the map. According to the Wiki, depending on the map size, it will spawn accordingly:

  • On a small map Orichalcum spawns below a depth of 1,000 feet (500 tiles).
  • On a medium map Orichalcum spawns below a depth of 1,400 feet (700 tiles).
  • On a large map Orichalcum spawns below a depth of 2,000 feet (1,000 tiles).

I know you said you went down pretty far, but you at least have some sort of reference to look for it now.

Also, smashing additional altars does help create more ore, but be aware that the amount of ore that spawns decreases with how many altars that get smashed. The Wiki has a formula and example to determine the decrease percentage which they call the multiplier:

This "multiplier" can be calculated with the formula 1/(ceiling(n/3) + 1 - sgn(n)) where n is the number of Altars destroyed. So, destroying the 19th Altar would yield one-seventh of Cobalt/Palladium Ore compared to the first Altar.