Wire
“Always buy more wire than you need!
—
The Mechanic

Wire is a unique item generally used to connect mechanisms to triggers, like a Pressure Plate, Timer, Switch, or Lever. Wires are placed using Wrenches (or their upgrades), and are retrieved using the Wire Cutter (or its upgrades), both of which can only be obtained from the Mechanic. Wire placed by differently colored Wrenches will be of different colors, which allows independent wire paths to overlap without interfering with each other.
While Wire is available for purchase from the Mechanic for 5 SC each, it can also be obtained from naturally-occurring mechanisms, which exist sparsely in the Caverns and more frequently in the Dungeon and Jungle Temple, such as in traps and Chain Lantern/Switch arrangements.
Wires occupy their own dedicated placement layer, and so can occupy the same tile space as blocks, walls, furniture, plants, and liquids. Wires can be placed in midair, without the need for support. Explosions have no effect on placed Wires.
By default, placed Wires are invisible unless the player holds a mechanism-related item as the tool in hand, (e.g., a Pressure Plate, Wrench, or even a stack of Wire itself). However, if the player is carrying a Mechanical Lens(Desktop, Console and Mobile versions) (or its upgrade, The Grand Design(Desktop, Console and Mobile versions)) they can not only see Wires at will, but can control the visibility of individual Wire colors.
With Wrenches and Wire Cutters, the player's Wire placing and cutting reach is roughly 25 tiles horizontally and vertically. With The Grand Design, the player can place or cut Wire anywhere on the screen.
Wires are considered "connected" to triggers and mechanisms when they are placed in the same tile space as those items. Usually, this is indicated by the Wire and the item visually "touching", though not all items fully occupy their tile space (e.g. certain statues).
Wire is considered "ammunition" for Wrenches, and can therefore be placed in the ammo slots of a player's inventory.
Tool | Use |
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Removes placed Wire. |
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Toggles Actuators on and off. |
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Places red Wire. |
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Places green Wire. |
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Places blue Wire. |
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Places yellow Wire. |
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Places and removes Wire of any color. |
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Places and removes Wire of any color, as well as Actuators. |
Crafting
Used in
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Notes
- Wire is only available as a usable item after defeating Skeletron, as the Mechanic is encountered in the Dungeon. Although a limited amount of Wire can be obtained prior to that (by transmuting harvested In-/Active Stone Blocks or Explosives via Shimmer), it cannot be placed without a wrench. Still, it can be crafted into timers, pumps, and other mechanism items which may have a use when combined with placed Wire that was naturally generated, i.e. in trap circuits.
Achievement
See also
History
- Desktop 1.4.4: Stack limit increased from 999 to 9999.
- Desktop 1.4.1: Now used to craft the Video Visage.
- Desktop 1.4.0.1: Trapped Golf, Spider, Lesion, Sandstone, Bamboo, Nebula, Solar, Stardust, and Vortex Chests added.
- Desktop 1.3.1: Now used to craft The Grand Design, Actuation Rod, Announcement Box, Trapped Chests, Sensors and Weighted Pressure Plates.
- Desktop 1.3.0.1: Sprite updated. Old sprite was
- Desktop 1.2.4:
- Levers can now power multiple wires.
- Dropped wires now stack themselves.
- Desktop 1.2.3: Wire length-limit removed.
- Desktop 1.2:
- Stack limit was raised from 250 to 999.
- Wire length-limit increased from 1000 to 2000.
- Different colors of wire can be placed with different colored Wrenches.
- Desktop 1.1: Introduced.
- Console 1.08:
- Wire length-limit removed.
- Dropped wires now stack themselves.
- Levers can now power multiple wires.
- Console-Release: Introduced.
- Switch 1.0.711.6: Introduced.
- Mobile-Release: Introduced.
- 3DS-Release: Introduced.