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After defeating the Wall of Flesh I headed off to the nearest corruption and destroyed a bunch of demon altars. Upon destroying the fourth one the message "Your world has been blessed with cobalt" appeared again and the cycle repeated. Is my world actually getting more ore with each altar I destroy?

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Yes, this is indeed the case. The more Altars you smash, the more hardmode ore your world will have. Note that every ore cycle yields less and less ore — fewer veins are generated each time, plus they have a chance to generate inside already-existing deposits.

Smashing a Demon Altar actually does 3 different things, provided you've unlocked hardmode:

  1. Adds a bit of the ore named in the broadcast message to your world.
  2. Summons a few Wraiths to your location.
  3. Has a chance to either corrupt or hallow a random part of your world by planting a single block of Pearlstone or Ebonstone/Crimstone.
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    My sounce is data mining in this case - Data mining refers to inductively finding patterns in large databases. I'm not sure what you mean by that.
    – BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft
    Commented Dec 3, 2011 at 10:21
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    @BlueRaja Yeah, that's not right. What I meant was I went through the source code.
    – a cat
    Commented Dec 3, 2011 at 10:37
  • When you say you went through the source code, do you mean the original source or decompiled? And if original, are you allowed to share?
    – Fambida
    Commented Dec 3, 2011 at 11:54
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    @Fambida Decompiled, via dotPeek. Sharing would probably not be a wise move, but you could use it on your own copy of Terraria.
    – a cat
    Commented Dec 3, 2011 at 12:19
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    Ah, that's why I died so quickly after finding like 8 altars together. I managed to smash just 5 of them, before I got surrounded by too many Wraiths.
    – Teo.sk
    Commented Dec 17, 2011 at 17:04
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From the Terraria Wiki [http://terraria.gamepedia.com/Altar]:

Hardcore Altar smashing ore spawning/progression:

  1. Smashing 1st altar: Cobalt or Palladium Ore, chosen randomly.

  2. Smashing 2nd altar: 1/2 the ore spawned from 1st altar; randomly either Mythril or Orichalcum Ore.

  3. Smashing 3rd altar: 1/3 the ore spawned from 1st altar; randomly either Adamantite or Titanium Ore.

  4. Smashing 4th altar: 1/4 the ore spawned from 1st altar; Cobalt or Palladium (same as 1st altar).

  5. Smashing 5th altar: 1/5 the ore spawned from 1st altar; Mythril or Orichalcum (same as 2nd altar).

  6. Smashing 6th altar: 1/6 the ore spawned from 1st altar; Adamantite or Titanium (same as 3rd altar).

  7. Smashing 7th altar: 1/7 the ore spawned from 1st altar; Cobalt or Palladium (same as 1st altar).

...and so on; 1/8 then 1/9, etc., rotating between ore types in the same progression as above.

These hardmode ore spawns will never overwrite existing Minerals or placed Wood block squares; they only transmute biome blocks (Dirt, Mud, Stone, etc).

The answer from 'a cat' includes some of the effects from smashing altars other than this "ore transformation" effect (such as the spawning of Ebonstone, crimstone or pearlstone from rock tiles and the cration of their related biomes), but not mentioned by him are the start of random mechanical boss spawns and the trigger of possible Pirate Invasions.

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yes actually some demon altars will lower the minerals of your world in which you already have, so be careful of which demon altar you pick!

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  • Do you have a source for this?
    – kotekzot
    Commented Dec 4, 2013 at 9:44
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    @kotekzot Destroying a demon altar can sometimes spawn new ore in the place of an ore that was already there, so he's not wrong about that. However, I am pretty sure that new ore placement is picked randomly each time an altar is destroyed, so it makes no difference WHICH altars you hulk smash.
    – Fambida
    Commented Dec 4, 2013 at 20:50
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    @Fambida if ore is being replaced by ore then there's no way for it can "lower the minerals", at worst there will be the same amount. Not to mention that the spawned ore is likely more useful than what it replaces.
    – kotekzot
    Commented Dec 4, 2013 at 23:53

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