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Vortex Beater

Weapon · WeaponAssaultRifle2

[Tides of Terraria] A gun running on unidentified energy that puts out homing missiles at set intervals, tracking targets and detonating on contact. 66% of shots cost no ammo.

Vortex Beater is an early assault rifle: 52nd of 70 by attack, so treat it as a stepping stone, at 360 against the 15,000 of Charge Rifle.

It feeds no other recipe, which makes it a terminal item: craft what you will actually carry and stop there.

Details

Gold Value138600
Weight15
Max Stack1
attack360
durability4000

At 15 weight each it eats carry capacity fast, so bring a mount or park a chest nearby. At 138,600 gold it is worth real money to a merchant.

Vortex Beater Crafting Recipe

What it really costs, once every sub-recipe is expanded
Work: 40000

Crafting it takes 195 materials across 3 types, and the bottleneck is almost always the 120× requirement — line that up first and the rest follows.

Where to Find Vortex Beater

The recipe is not on the Technology tree — it is locked behind a schematic you have to find first. The best single source is chests in the Yakushima at 2.3% per container, and the table below lists every tier and where each one drops.

Every Tier of Vortex Beater

The same piece exists at 5 rarities, and the gap is not cosmetic: attack runs 300 to 450, a 1.5x swing. Which one you end up with is decided by the rarity of the schematic you built from, not by the recipe — so a legendary copy of this is worth more than the next item up built from a common one.

RarityItemAttackDurability
0Vortex Beater3003000
1Vortex Beater3303000
2Vortex Beater (this one)3604000
3Vortex Beater3905000
4Vortex Beater4506000

Ammunition Vortex Beater Uses

Vortex Beater fires Assault Rifle Ammo, and nothing else — running dry mid-fight is the usual way this weapon lets you down, so keep the recipe unlocked before you rely on it.

AmmoYieldCraft cost
Assault Rifle Ammo×20Refined Ingot ×1, Gunpowder ×2

Schematics That Unlock Vortex Beater

Vortex Beater is not learned from the Technology tree — you need a schematic for it. One schematic grants the recipe, and they are world loot — chests, boss Pals and the late-game pools — rather than anything you research. Higher-rarity copies of the same schematic raise the quality of what you end up crafting.

Fastest route. The fastest route is chests in the Yakushima, and the reason is the ladder rather than the top rung: that pool stocks every tier, so the common copies it hands you fuse upward into the one you want. Counting them, a top-tier Vortex Beater schematic works out at roughly 58 containers against the 80 the 4★ drop rate alone suggests. Spare low tiers are progress, not clutter. Schematics fuse five-to-one, so a lower tier with better odds can beat the top tier outright. Counts are containers of that source, not time.

SchematicRarityWhere it comes from
Vortex Beater Schematic 22★Yakushima chests — best 2.3% (grade 5)

Alternatives and Upgrades

Step up from here and you get Vortex Beater at 390 attack; step down and it is Vortex Beater at 330. The size of that step is what decides whether the crafting bill is justified yet.

Other assault rifles at a similar tier, for when you want to weigh this against the rest of its class:

Vortex Beater (2★) — How to Get & Uses | Palworld Database