Expert Guide: Waypoints
Waypoints refers to a technique where you can specify a location, and later teleport back there, when you choose.
Many methods have been invented to achieve this, this page covers:
Waypoints for loaded chunks
- 1 and 2-way builds
- Simple, and effective, but not very flexible.
Waypoints for arbitrary locations
- Cycle Waypoints
- Multi-Waypoint builds, that cycle through 2 or more destinations.
- Selective Waypoints
- Multi-Waypoint builds, with selectable destinations.
- Permanent Waypoints / Portals
- Stationary Portals, that remain for the rest of your run, even after restarts.
- Origin Teleport
- Teleport to the world spawn from anywhere.
While Waypoints for loaded chunks are very simple, creating waypoints anywhere is difficult. When you go too far from the chunk in which the waypoint is located, the chunk unloads, preventing any triggers from being interacted with. However there are different ways to prevent projectiles from unloading.
Similarly, Restarting Noita does not save the spells inside of a trigger, thus doing so will nullify existing waypoints.
Spells used to detonate
Most of the builds use some form of detonation method to activate the waypoint(s) from a distance.
If a build on this page uses Explosive Detonator, it has to be Explosive Detonator. If a build on this page uses Spells to Acid, any of the above list works, unless noted otherwise. In all cases, Explosive Detonator is recommended, as it has minimal side effects, works in all situations, and is easier to build around.
Waypoints for loaded chunks
These wand builds are extremely simple, but depend on chunks which are always loaded. Usually around the final boss.
One way build
There are the following ways to Keep Chunks loaded
Two-way builds
Two-way builds work by having you
- place down a waypoint at point A
- detonate
- go to point B
- place down another waypoint.
Now when you detonate again, you will teleport to point A (optionally placing down another waypoint here), then detonating again teleports you back to point B.
If you keep placing down a new waypoint after each teleportation, you can keep teleporting between the 2 points repeatedly. This is mainly useful for carrying items between Kolmi's lair and the Suns, due to being restricted to already loaded chunks.
The following build floats in air ignoring gravity.
Keeping Chunks loaded
There are very limited ways to keep chunks loaded away from the player. Namely, the following entities keep the chunks they reside in loaded until a restart of the game:
- Kolmisilmä
- Tiny Maggot
- Sun Child
- Sun
- Dark Sun
The most generally useful in this list is clearly Kolmisilmä. You can move the boss using Vacuum Field, and you do not need to activate the fight and can leave him in his passive state.
Waypoints for arbitrary locations
Wands in this section do not require you to keep the chunk loaded. They instead use one of the techniques described in the section "Chunks and Projectiles Unloading" to prevent the waypoint from unloading.
They also include the detonation method, and be used as stand-alone wands, unless stated otherwise.
Since regular teleport spells fail in unloaded chunks, a LDT-Payload is required. All wands in this section are built using Fish and Swapper. Other types can be used instead. Make sure to choose one that doesn't miss.
Cycle Waypoints - Nested Wisps
This approach involves a wisp with expiration trigger releasing spells capable of teleport to unloaded chunks.
It is possible to create a chain of one or more wisps, each releasing the next, until the last one performs the teleport.
Then we can create such a chain, while simultaneously detonating all existing wisps, advancing their chain by 1.
The length of the chain determines how many waypoints can be placed, before placing a new one teleports to the oldest one.
The player can cycle through the waypoints by casting the wand repeatedly. This is very convenient for low cycle lengths, but gets increasingly less practical the more locations/nested wisps you include.
Safe from unloading
These builds are capable of continuing to operate after the chunk they are in unloads without relying on other entities, by abusing the mechanics of the Summon Tentacle spell.
2-way tentacle cycle with Explosive Detonator
2-way tentacle cycle with Spells to X
Variants for more Waypoints:
| Cap | Mana | Wand |
|---|---|---|
| 19 | 378 |
2-way tentacle cycle DeluxeThis wand includes several quality of life improvements: Damage Field as a visual indicator Any Divide + Wand refresh to allow the rest of the wand to be used for storage and save some mana. Any, or all of these changes can be made individually if you like. |
| 19 | 378 |
3-way tentacle cycle
|
| 19 | 378 |
This approach can be extended, but Tentacle is fairly hard to turn into a wisp. Probably the highest possible with this concept is a 9-way, created by Noby. 9-way tentacle cycleThis is not recommended however, since the use of Chain Spell can randomly impact the accuracy drastically, which makes this very unreliable in practice.
|
Intentionally unloaded
Wands in this section use the mechanism of intentially unloading a dormant crystal, as described in this section to deliver the wisps to unloaded chunks.
In this way we can create cycle Waypoints similar to those using Tentacle, with some key differences:
- These waypoints break, if you (maybe accidentally) load the chunk they are in and leave again. One must consider this when using them.
- They can be significantly easier to build than tentacle wands, as they can use easier wisp solutions.
- They require the waypoints to be far enough apart to give the chunk a chance to unload in the first place.
- When teleporting back and forth between 2 locations quickly, the teleport might be delayed by a few seconds until the chunk unloads. Make sure not to fire a second time before the teleport completes.
- When using more than a 2-way, you need to wait between placements and activations for all relevant chunks to unload.
We use Delayed Spellcast for it's many desirable properties: It is slow, unaffected by gravity, has an Expiration Trigger, a built-in multicast for its payload and can easily be guaranteed to be a wisp.
2-way cycle
The note is not required, unless you want to add Wand Refresh for storage. It will not be cast, and can be any spell instead.
Variants for more Waypoints:
| Cap | Mana | Wand
|
|---|---|---|
| 19 | 378 |
3-way cycle |
| 19 | 378 |
Using Requirements, we can double up the amount of wisps. And using Mu, we can save slots on the repeated lifetime manipulation necessary, allowing for up to 12 nested wisps, the most currently known: 13-way cycleSince keeping the cycle alive requires waiting after each shot, this is only really practical in a boss-rush setting, as a cycle can only be completed quickly, if there is no need to replace the waypoints.
|
Selective Waypoints
INFO: Builds in this section are very advanced and require further explanation to be used properly. you can find additional guides on how to use them in the official Noita Discord's wand-arsenal.
Builds in this section allow you to place multiple waypoints, and selectively teleport to the one you want.
Clock-Selection Waypoints
A design that allows a network of up to 24 different waypoints with a formation-based target selection. It is built for relative ease-of-use, and works just as well, independently of the number of waypoints currently placed down.
It relies on a fairly unique property of the Mist-Spells, that make them invalid targets for the detonation methods used in waypoint wands. This allows to create a loop, that triggers each time one of the detonation methods is cast, effectively creating a re-useable, remote-controlled, and near-instant receiver/transmitter setup as follows:
When placing a waypoint, a slot is assigned to the waypoint, each corresponding to a different time on an analogue clock. When activating, Homebringer Teleport Bolts shoot out from the player in a clock-like arrangement. The player then catches the right one. For a more detailed guide on how to properly use this wand, and even more advanced versions of this concept, visit the wand-arsenal in the official Noita discord.
Aiming Arc/Circle of Buoyancy
The first implementation of multi-waypoint builds, before newer Spells and Bugfixes were implemented. It uses two wands to create a transmitter, and a receiver. Their relative position, the player's facing direction, and either aiming arc or Circle of Buoyancy are used to trigger the right receiver, teleporting the player. It uses Berserkium for activation, instead of one of the detonation methods.
Explanations and guide: wand-arsenal
Permanent Waypoints / Portals
Using Homebringer, it is possible to create re-useable Portals, that continue working after being un- and re-loaded. This is possible since no triggers are involved in the actual teleport.
Homebringer saves its properties, including the teleport destination, when unloaded and restores them when re-loaded.
Homebringer Wisps however cannot be used in this context, since projectiles re-roll their lifetime randomness when re-loaded, likely resulting in a non-wisp. Therefore, a different approach is needed to make Homebringer last for a long time (practically forever).
To create a Portal, you can use the following wand at the portal destination, creating a Homebringer affected by True Orbit. Then, Pollen or any enemies are used to let Homebringer hit something, triggering its payload. Using enemies can cause lag, in particular, if they are melee immune.
Tentacle, when released from the final release of a trigger (Timer, or a trigger hitting a wall), adds its own lifetime to all parent entities. This includes Homebringer in this case.
40 Tentacles, each with 800 increase lifetime are spawned each time the payload is released. This amounts to 20 hours of lifetime added to Homebringer each time it hits something. The hit on its own does not count as a final release, so an intermediate tentacle timer is used. To remove the tentacles early, one of the Spells with alternative component lifetime is the simplest method.
Note that this lifetime only counts down while the projectile is loaded. A handful of releases of the payload is sufficient for most scenarios.
Once you have accumulated enough lifetime on your homebringer, you can take it to a different place in the world, and restart, Polymorph, or use Cessation with some open space around you. This will cause true orbit to detach from you, leaving homebringer floating above the ground.
Restarting will also remove Homebringer's payload, causing it to no longer trigger into tentacles, and no longer build up additional lifetime, while keeping the ability to teleport.
Homebringer will remain there, serving as a portal, until you kill it somehow or you keep the area loaded until it eventually times out.
Origin Teleport
This wand allows you to teleport near the starting spawn point from anywhere in the world. It relies on a bug with Fly Upwards and Fly Downwards, that allows for infinite speed.
Larpa Explosion creates copies of a Fish and Swapper Projectile at NaN. This spawns these copies at coordinates (0, 0) instead, which is very close to the spawn location. Chain Spell can be used instead.
Circle of Transmogrification transforms the fish to sheep. This is required, since the unmodified Swapper copies can hit Sheep, but not fish.
Nolla is not required, but the Circle would stay alive for 2 minutes, polymorphing everything currently loaded, except for the caster. Should you polymorph during this period, you would be stuck as a sheep for the rest of it.
Sheep have CameraBoundComponent, causing this wand to fail sometimes. It usually requires between 2 and 5 shots for a successful teleport.
Chunks and Projectiles unloading
The game tries to keep 12 chunks (512x512 pixel squares) loaded at all times, usually around the player. It loads new chunks in if there are fewer, and unloads old/far away ones if there are more than 12.
When a chunk unloads, entities within, including projectiles are saved, and deleted. If the projectile has an expiration trigger, that payload is released in the process.
Projectiles that have been unloaded will be loaded again when you visit the area in the future, but without any payloads they might have had.
Apart from a restart of the game, this is the only way in which projectiles "unload": When the chunk they are in unloads.
This means that a projectile can fly out of loaded chunks, and continue working normally. Once they are in unloaded chunks, projectiles are also safe from getting unloaded, as the chunk they are in would need to be loaded first, then unloaded, to unload the projectile.
We can intentionally unload a projectile with expiration trigger, such as dormant crystal. This gives us a very easy way to deliver its payload in unloaded chunks, keeping it safe from unloading, as long as you don't visit the area again.
Summon Tentacle
There is one useful exception to this: Tentacle wisps. The way tentacle works makes it a child entity of the player, or the timer/trigger releasing it. Tentacle can therefore essentially be part of the player entity, which prevents unloading (except on restart), no matter how many times the chunk is loaded and unloaded again.
