Struggling with Thaumcraft 4

[MigukNamja]

Do you know if the nodes have vis in them based upon where they're spawned?
I've managed to get water, and earth vis because those are everywhere in the ocean. So that leads me to think perhaps the mountain platform ones would have air or fire?

Ah, vis. Mobs/monsters should drop little via orbs. They look like smaller, more colorful versions of the experience (essence) orbs. If you're not ready to fight at night, you can slaughter defenseless sheeps, pigs, cows, and chickens/ducks. I got quite a bit of vis from exploring the world, gathering cow leather and chicken/duck feathers.

To gather the vis in a wand, I *think* you have to have it on your hotbar and may even have to swap to it after killing the entity, but not 100% sure. The vis orbs don't last long at all - just a few seconds.

Thaumcraft (4) does indeed have a steep start and doesn't provide a lot of in-game guidance on how to do some of the basic things like gather vis, but it gets much easier from the rough start.

As for goggles, you could safely delay them in Thaumcraft 3, but not in Thaumcraft 4. You need goggles immediately after your iron-capped wand and Thaumometer. Fortunately, Azanor has made the goggles much easier to obtain early-game.

 

[RedBoss]

I have the goggles researched, I have plenty of research points, but I can't make them as they require vis in a wand, as I can't find nodes

Edit: reading back on the original post, it was a bit ambiguous, My apologies.
Research points are fine, but I'm having trouble finding nodes to fill my wand with. It currently has water and earth vis in it, because that's all I can seem to find.

Go to the twilight forest. That dimension solves all problems in modded Minecraft. There the light level is low enough to spot nodes even without goggles. (take your goggles though). If you have Ars2 installed be careful. Ars2 mobs don't respect TF spawning rules fyi.

You'll find tons of nodes in TF. When you find the twilight clearing biome, you'll usually find at least one barrow hill as well. This is awesome since they seem so rare in the overworld and they contain dark nodes with multiple useful aspects. Plus you can get the spawners and chest loot.

Whenever you're lacking in modded Minecraft, always seek the twilight forest.

 

[Yusunoha]

Go to the twilight forest. That dimension solves all problems in modded Minecraft. There the light level is low enough to spot nodes even without goggles. (take your goggles though). If you have Ars2 installed be careful. Ars2 mobs don't respect TF spawning rules fyi.

You'll find tons of nodes in TF. When you find the twilight clearing biome, you'll usually find at least one barrow hill as well. This is awesome since they seem so rare in the overworld and they contain dark nodes with multiple useful aspects. Plus you can get the spawners and chest loot.

Whenever you're lacking in modded Minecraft, always seek the twilight forest.

the nodes I found in the TF often were some crazy nodes with tons of aspects in them, and I mean tons.
I also found my first real hungry node in the TF, thank god for that tree that blocked me

 

[MigukNamja]

the nodes I found in the TF often were some crazy nodes with tons of aspects in them, and I mean tons.

How crazy ? As in, total of all aspects is 200+ ?

 

[Yusunoha]

How crazy ? As in, total of all aspects is 200+ ?

no, not that crazy probably the craziest I found was a terra node, or a perditio node counting around 120-130

 

[Succubism]

Hope I'm not too late to the party but I felt I'd give some advice as someone who's played ThaumLite and almost completed the research I began yesterday on their first real playthrough.

Thaumcraft is not meant to be easy. It's not a mod you can (easily) automate. It's not a mod you can take shortcuts with. It's heavily effort intensive. Your daily routine should be charging around the world, scanning nodes, sapping them with your wand, marking them on your minimap and scanning every single damn thing you point your meter at.

That said, this isn't an early game mod. Your time shouldn't be spent jumping into research when you have no resource. No, TC4 is nowhere nearly as draining on your resources as TC3, but that doesn't mean you should have a pretty impressive collection of everything before you even attempt research beyond a gold capped greatwood wand.

Why is this? It's because as soon as you deplete your research points you can quickly jump into your storage, drop/place an item and scan it for more or get the points you need to combine.

There are some aspects that you'll find are harder to come by than others. I get that, which is why you have to have good storage of everything. You'll have to do this anyway when it comes to infusion crafting. Believe me.

Finally... The best advice I can give. Get Research Mastery and know what you want to research. Just because a research is there doesn't mean you HAVE to complete it. It'll be there just the same when you want it.

 

[MigukNamja]

Thaumcraft is not meant to be easy. It's not a mod you can (easily) automate. It's not a mod you can take shortcuts with. It's heavily effort intensive. Your daily routine should be charging around the world, scanning nodes, sapping them with your wand, marking them on your minimap and scanning every single damn thing you point your meter at.

True indeed. It is neither easy nor shortcut-friendly. It meshes well with bees (roaming around looking for TC4 nodes *and* bee hives), with cave diving, and with anything else that involves roaming around and exploring the world. It also meshes well with combat, since killing stuff is a great way to (re)charge wands early-game.

For scanning, mossy cobblestone from TE3's Liquid Transposer is not a bad early-game technique. I got all 6 primals from mossy cobblestone. I setup my decon table by my research table and positioned my research table UI so I could see the decon table. I'd break out of the research table UI to click the decon table aspect that popped up. That way, I didn't have to stare at the decon table - just feed it more mossy from time to time.

Get Research Mastery and know what you want to research. Just because a research is there doesn't mean you HAVE to complete it. It'll be there just the same when you want it.

I couldn't agree more ! I went for this immediately after goggles and the decon table. I set aside research sheets I didn't need/want yet and tried for something else.

 

[casilleroatr]

A lot of really good advice here. I feel more confident starting Thaumcraft on my next playthrough. On the other hand there are a couple of less researchy magic mods out there which I believe compliment Thaumcraft well and they are Witchery and Blood magic. If you want a good magic world then witchery especially gives you a few things to do straight away.

 

[WTFFFS]

A lot of really good advice here. I feel more confident starting Thaumcraft on my next playthrough. On the other hand there are a couple of less researchy magic mods out there which I believe compliment Thaumcraft well and they are Witchery and Blood magic. If you want a good magic world then witchery especially gives you a few things to do straight away.

Witchery is a very nice mod it's internally consistent and not incredibly overpowered, it does things in a different manner to a lot of mods (which basically give you better tools of one sort or another) and it also is a nice pack partner to Thaumcraft. The Witchery items, plants mostly, have well thought out and very very useful TC aspects on them, it doesn't trivialize getting TC aspects completely but it does give you alternate routes to some of the harder to obtain ones.

 

[MigukNamja]

Witchery is a very nice mod it's internally consistent and not incredibly overpowered, it does things in a different manner to a lot of mods (which basically give you better tools of one sort or another) and it also is a nice pack partner to Thaumcraft. The Witchery items, plants mostly, have well thought out and very very useful TC aspects on them, it doesn't trivialize getting TC aspects completely but it does give you alternate routes to some of the harder to obtain ones.

Ah, cool. Great to hear - added to my short of list of mods to add to my server !

 

[RedBoss]

Ah, cool. Great to hear - added to my short of list of mods to add to my server !

Just come play RR with us!

 

[casilleroatr]

You get to have a flying broomstick in witchery too. It handles a bit like a boat but in 3 dimensions and looks so cool.

 

[Succubism]

I would love to see some crossover addons/integration for magic mods and tc4.

 

[Yusunoha]

I would love to see some crossover addons/integration for magic mods and tc4.

this, so much this. Thaumcraft has always been more of a standalone mod for me, a mod that's better to just play by itself with any other mod installed to enjoy the full experience with it. but if mods started to work on compatibility with Thaumcraft, maybe even adding new items and blocks, Thaumcraft will be a much more enjoyable mod to run alongside other mods

 

[MigukNamja]

this, so much this. Thaumcraft has always been more of a standalone mod for me, a mod that's better to just play by itself with any other mod installed to enjoy the full experience with it. but if mods started to work on compatibility with Thaumcraft, maybe even adding new items and blocks, Thaumcraft will be a much more enjoyable mod to run alongside other mods

It integrates...sort of. I can auto-feed my essence furnace, which makes the higher-end Infusions less tedious. Also, the golems are great at chopping down trees and harvesting and re-planting crops, which integrates well with any mod that processes wood, saplings, fruits/nuts, and crops in general.

Also, the Crucible will accept piped-in water. I have a TE4 AA + liquiducts keeping my Crucible filled with water at all times. It may also be possible to automate the crucible with a CC Turtle. Then, combine that with an appropriate CC peripheral for reading the inventory of choice and then keep that inventory stocked with Crucible recipes.

TC4 has essence "liquid" pipes. Has anyone gotten those to work with non-TC4 pipes and/or tanks or otherwise been able put TC4 liquid essence into any other liquid tank ?

 

[casilleroatr]

I would love to see some crossover addons/integration for magic mods and tc4.

Also, the Crucible will accept piped-in water. I have a TE4 AA + liquiducts keeping my Crucible filled with water at all times. It may also be possible to automate the crucible with a CC Turtle. Then, combine that with an appropriate CC peripheral for reading the inventory of choice and then keep that inventory stocked with Crucible recipes.

You two have gotten me really excited about Thaumcraft 4 by explaining how the thing actually works in terms that my simple brain can comprehend. As a result I am going to share some information that you may both enjoy.

Logistics pipes has some useful integration with Thaumcraft. It has a request pipe which you can connect to your logistics system (including AE storage) which allows you to see everything you have in your inventory a bit like the AE
access terminal. When you have discovered an items aspects you can see them in the request pipe by clicking on that item and request them to your thaumcrafting area. It turns out that the AE access terminal also has this functionality too.

Another useful thing about logistics pipes is a thaumic aspect sink module. I have never used this properly so I don't know how it works but you might find it helpful (I think it just automatically routes items which have a certain aspect into a particular inventory, maybe useful for when you want a ready supply of a certain essentia for your alchemical furnace).

Finally there is the vanilla dropper which you can place above your crucible which will drop single items in when you give it a redstone pulse (extra utilities clocks work well for this). Unfortunately, the vanilla droppers aren't very good at dropping in a straight line and will on occasion miss the furnace. Fear not though because open blocks has their own dropper now which seems to be much more reliable. If the extra utils clock is too slow then you could always use the timer from either redlogic or project red, or make one with computercraft.

Also did you know hoppers could put things onto arcane pedestals.

Some screenshots for demo purposes

Spoiler