Lava. It burns every man-made items in the game. Gaddy wanted to make the lava "the ultimate danger." This is why he refused to make geothermal power generator and lava-resistant walls. If you're like me, you probably disagree with the idea of lava being the ultimate danger. Geothermal power generator and lava-resistant walls are still cool. With enough repair turrets and thorium reactors, we can make something that is pretty close to lava-resistant walls.

I'm going to assume you have reached tier 5, so this guide will only cover how to setup your repair turrets properly and as efficient as possible. Know that if you're in singleplayer, you can spam quicksave/quickload to your advantage. This is a game where everyone is trying to kill you, so you got to use all tricks and exploits at your disposal.

Welcome to the battle of the molten rock.

Can't you use dirt to block lava?
You're WRONG!
Dirt turns into basalt when in contact with lava, and basalt breaks under high lava pressure. It's a useless strategy.

But, what about water?
Still nope. Lava pushes water away with expanding bubble of basalt, no matter how much water you have, the lava will still win.

You got to think like a professional players playing Dark Souls. Cheap tricks get patched by the developer.

The solution? Repair turrets.
Put a bunch of them near a burning block. With enough turrets, the turrets will outperform the damage dealt by lava. Simple as that. For every block, you'll need 10 normal repair turrets, or 3 advanced repair turrets + 1 normal repair turrets.

Actually, equal is not enough. You need more. You should make it 11 normal repair turrets, or 3 advanced repair turrets + 2 normal repair turrets, or 4 advanced repair turrets.

The math is simple, Normal repair turrets does -4 DPS, advanced repairt turrets does -12 DPS, and lava does 40 DPS per block. So, if you have 8 blocks to seal then:

40*8=320

Either you need 320/4=80 normal repair turrets, or 320/12=26.6666... advanced repair turrets. But again, you need to do more. So, let's assume you need to heal 44 DPS instead of 40 DPS:

44*8=352

352/4=88 normal repair turrets or 352/12=29.3333... advanced repair turrets.

All there's left to do is to think how to place them so they can heal blocks. Unfortunately, repair turrets have limited repair ranges. For base building, this is no problem. For sealing the volcano, this is a problem.

You'll want to explore the volcano first to find the best places.
(I'm using a freshly generated world with creative mode enabled to get the point across)
I'm using ultimate walls here, but you can add a reinforced door for easy access in and out. Just don't forget to close the door when lava rises!

Basically, find some bottlenecks that lead to dead end, block the neck, and put a bunch of repair turrets. Easy, right?

Here's one:
One block is the best. You don't need to spend lots of repair turrets for it.

You can also do this:
Depending on your turret arrangement, sometimes you'll want to place wall like this for better turret placement.

These solutions are also acceptable:


Sometimes, you couldn't find any dead ends, or you just don't want to.
In that case, you can use 2 blocks instead of 1. Just find any veins and block both ways.

If you dare, try staying near the magma chamber.
Remember that lava rises at mid-day!

Unless you did hundreds of blocks of wiring from the surface to the volcano, you'll need a thorium reactor. Obviously, the sun is pretty far from the base and there's nowhere to build your dam near your base.

Explosives can be used to expand the base, therefore more space for turrets. Mind that this causes the volcano to erupt!

Remember, extra turrets. The last thing you'll want is a missing teleporter arrow. RIP teleporter and thorium reactor.

This will get the job done:

But if you're smart enough, you can squeeze more space for normal repair turrets before placing advanced repair turrets, and have enough power left for a teleporter!

So far, I've never seen a base powered with only normal repair turret, therefore removing the need for thorium reactor. This is the closest I've got:
Have fun planning the possible arrangement for best efficiency.

Place backwalls on your base to make sure no monsters can spawn and break from the inside. Put one or two particle turrets for a good measure.
I'm using 5 normal turret and 2 advanced turrets. 4 + 4 + 4 + 12 + 12 = 44DPS outweighs the 40 DPS the lava give.

Lava has risen at the mid day, and I live.
NOTE: Don't place any other objects (platform, lights, walls, etc that gets submerged in lava near the repair turret. It'll distract the repair turret into repairing the object and eventually failing the base. Essentially, the repair turret tries to repair that object too.

Congratulations. You have taken over a small chunk of land in the volcano. Put a "flag" on the base. Now, you can either move on to sealing the volcano or expanding your base.

I don't recommend staying in there for nighttime, mobs will spawn on basalt at night (when there's no other place to spawn).

Here's mine I made in my second playthrough:
I built this base as an easy access to leave the volcano when I blew up the volcano (to get a diamond) and the volcano erupts. Many days later since the eruption, and it still stands.

Or plugging the volcano, if you prefer.

Claiming a small portion of land is not enough. You want to win the war against lava. Therefore, you decided to seal the volcano.

We all ever thought of plugging the volcano (either in real life or in cartoons) to stop an eruption, right?

In real-life, this is actually a bad idea. The pressure will continue building up until there happens to be something to relieve the pressure, usually in form of leaks or cracks in other place. If not, the entire thing could explode.

...But that doesn't apply in this game.

Most of the time, you'll want to do this just for fun or to stop an eruption from wrecking your map. People usually only build this in creative mode back before the ultimate brush item. Now, with ultimate brush item, one can just close off the volcano by placing ancient basalts over the lava.

Same principles still apply. Find a suitable place, wall it off, fill it with repair turrets, and bam. Only this time, we cannot use normal turrets, as they have short ranges and weak repairing. Also, you need a hell of a lot of advanced repair turrets and plenty thorium reactor (to power the repair turrets).

Find a place that has a larger area above the plug. You need space to place these turrets. Once you found it, start working fast. Place platforms and turrets above the block. Having more than 3 rows of turret array is useless, since the turrets have limited range. Use the extra space on the left and right to accomodate more turrets (or thorium reactors). Use composite materials only to seal.
There will be lots of lava monsters, so place 6 or more particle turrets ar0und the zone.

Here's an example:
30 turrets contributing repair of 360 DPS outhealing the 320 DPS lava damage received by the block. Not bad.

Don't forget to seal the smaller veins beside the main vent. Use doors to allow easy access in and out. Just remember to keep it closed afterwards.
NOTE: You don't have to seal this vein below. Lava can only move horizontally and vertically but not diagonally.

The war ends. You win. The lava retreats to the magma chamber. Now, it's time to sit back and relax in the volcano, knowing that the particle turrets will deal with the rest of the monsters.

Never been in a volcano? Didn't have time to explore the volcano? If so, I've composited pictures of the minimap, removed the rest of them, and added few descriptions. Enjoy!

Thanks for reading this guide. I hope you enjoyed!

Please comment, like, and subscribe.

Credits? ME.