Beginner's Guide to Blood Magic

[YX33A]

T3 altar has (I think) about 28 runes. I would do about 12-14 as self-sacrifice, and remove any speed runes you have until you finish this craft. Combine that with some LP being pumped in an I think it should work.

Dude! You're the one who makes this guide! How are you uncertain how many runes it needs?!

...Also how the balls does the blood pumping work? I wanna use this but I have no idea how to insert blood into the altar using pipes...

 

[Padfoote]

Dude! You're the one who makes this guide! How are you uncertain how many runes it needs?!

...Also how the balls does the blood pumping work? I wanna use this but I have no idea how to insert blood into the altar using pipes...

I think I wrote that around midnight on my phone, so I'm lucky I even got the tier correct.

And with pumping blood, what pipes are you trying to use? Pictures would help quite a bit with figuring this out.

 

[YX33A]

I think I wrote that around midnight on my phone, so I'm lucky I even got the tier correct.

And with pumping blood, what pipes are you trying to use? Pictures would help quite a bit with figuring this out.

That's the thing, I have no clue how to pump blood aside from:

• Fill buckets in the altar using some LP from it
• Store it somewhere, ideally in a good tank system
• Using some sort of fluid transport system to move the blood from the tank into...

And that's where my knowledge ends. Does the blood go into the altar itself? If so, I can get at least 5 connections(which isn't much) without using some voodoo. And god knows how many if I do that voodoo that I do.

 

[SawBlade]

You can use fluiducts and other liquid transports. But, it moves LP very very very slowly without the fluid speed upgrade runes on your altar. So, it may appear to be broken when it is actually just being slow.

 

[Padfoote]

@YX33A As @SawBlade perfectly covered, you can pump LP in and out of the altar itself with pipes, it's just quite slow. And IIRC, the TT transvector interfaces work with the altar.

 

[YX33A]

@YX33A As @SawBlade perfectly covered, you can pump LP in and out of the altar itself with pipes, it's just quite slow. And IIRC, the TT transvector interfaces work with the altar.

You've got me figured out, that is indeed the Black Voodoo Magic I'd be using.

So it is directly into the altar, I thought it would be. But again, knowing is better then not knowing.

 

[SawBlade]

You've got me figured out, that is indeed the Black Voodoo Magic I'd be using.

So it is directly into the altar, I thought it would be. But again, knowing is better then not knowing.

You can use TE Itemducts as well with alters for automatic slates / bucket etc creation.
As another idea for any other dabblers, I use it to make stacks of slates at a time.

 

[James_Grimm]

Weird thing with TE Itemducts. It puts stacks of smooth stone into the altar at a time, which process in batches compared to doing things by hand. (5 stone takes x5 blood and x5 time). Is that intentional?

Edit: Up to 25 Runes of Self-Sacrafice. If anything I would say the guide doesn't stress enough how crucial Runes of (Self)Sacrafice are. Totally different experience with my Altar compared to having half that number, and what I can easily/successfully craft with it.

 

[Padfoote]

Weird thing with TE Itemducts. It puts stacks of smooth stone into the altar at a time, which process in batches compared to doing things by hand. (5 stone takes x5 blood and x5 time). Is that intentional?

I have no idea tbh. I do all of my infusion by hand, including putting the stone into the altar. That's good to know though.

Edit: Up to 25 Runes of Self-Sacrafice. If anything I would say the guide doesn't stress enough how crucial Runes of (Self)Sacrafice are. Totally different experience with my Altar compared to having half that number, and what I can easily/successfully craft with it.

That is due to the bit of laziness I had in testing, since I didn't want to go and get the percent increase per rune. I will for sure go back and add that when I get around to doing that test for the wiki though.

Those runes are quite nice though. Get enough of them on and I think a single click should (I haven't tested this) fill the altar either completely, or very close to it.

 

[SawBlade]

I can confirm the multiple items stacking when piped into the altar. I honestly liked that, feature or bug, because when I was to the point of automation of slates...doing stacks at a time was icing on the cake.

 

[James_Grimm]

Those runes are quite nice though. Get enough of them on and I think a single click should (I haven't tested this) fill the altar either completely, or very close to it.

Doing some math based on my tests from my own Altar & runes, each rune is worth +20 LP with each knife click. So a Tier 4 Altar caps out at ~1200LP per knife click, and a Tier 5 Altar a bit over 2000 LP per knife click. So it should be 5 clicks to fill your altar.

No idea how that holds up with the Rituals of Feathered Knife/Well of Suffering. Haven't used them yet.

But I did get up to a Tier 4 Altar & Orb, and I'm using a Bound Sword & Pick! Tier 3/4 is definitely the sweet spot where the mod really starts to be fun. Still working towards Bound Armor.

Edit (for the maths!)
Base Knife - 200 LP - 1 Heart
(All Altars assuming max Runes)
Tier 2 (8 runes) - 360 Lp/heart
Tier 3 (28 runes) - 760 Lp/heart
Tier 4 (56 runes) - 1320 Lp/heart
Tier 5 (92 runes) - 2040 Lp/heart

Now here's the fun bit, That's for Runes of Self-Sacrafice, where the base input (the knife) is the same. So do the runes offer the same flat bonus (20 LP) for the Ritual of Feathered Knife, or the same percentage bonus (200/20 = 10% bonus per rune). This matters especially for Runes of Sacrifice, as the base input can be much higher. You could (theoretically, since I haven't tested) get to the point where you are wasting blood from a Villager in a Tier 5 altar, unless you have capacity upgrades, because it's base input is 2K, and as you can see above, you can get up to a 9.2x multiplier (assuming runes give percent increases, rather then flat ones).

 

[Padfoote]

@James_Grimm So if I'm reading this correctly, it's a 20 LP increase per rune, correct? If so, that's not much, but it sure adds up. Definitely helpful info, so thanks for posting it. I'll edit it into the main post here in a minute.

And I agree that tiers 3-4 are the most fun, just due to the awesome tools you get. The Bound Pickaxe is probably the main thing I'm missing the most in my new world. Although, with v1.0.0 now being released, the new spell system is tempting to mess around with instead.

Edit: Just added the info to the main post. Fun fact with the main post: I currently can't even fit an additional space into it, I'm completely out of characters.

 

[James_Grimm]

20 is what I got every time I tested it with a knife and the self-sac. runes. It's easy enough to verify, just empty your altar, and stab once with all your runes, and once with one missing. You should get exactly 20 less.

.... but I suspect most people with T4/5 Altars use rituals to fill them up instead of the knife.

 

[Padfoote]

20 is what I got every time I tested it with a knife and the self-sac. runes. It's easy enough to verify, just empty your altar, and stab once with all your runes, and once with one missing. You should get exactly 20 less.

.... but I suspect most people with T4/5 Altars use rituals to fill them up instead of the knife.

20 sounds about right from what I remember, but I'll check again once I get to the point of making runes in my current world.

 

[James_Grimm]

Also I really wouldn't bother trying to make a Tier 3/4/5 Orb without nearly maxing out your runes first unless you have some serious regeneration from something. I had many painful failures on MF2 even using potions of regen, until I hit about the 75% mark on the runes for both tiers (assuming it holds true for 5, since it has been scaling upwards so far). Slates become easy to make with full runes as well.

I suspect Ars Magica is making it smoother for non-MF2 folks (since it has earlier access to regeneration & healing compared to Thaumcraft/Blood Magic/Vanilla).

 

[Padfoote]

I suspect Ars Magica is making it smoother for non-MF2 folks (since it has earlier access to regeneration & healing compared to Thaumcraft/Blood Magic/Vanilla).

It makes it trivial TBH. It's far more difficult to progress through the tiers without the Ars regeneration / healing. With Ars, the only problem I ever had was a lack of stone to process into slates.

 

[James_Grimm]

I can assure you between the lack of easy healing, and Jaded making the Runes (both Self & Mob versions) much higher in cost that makes it quite a slow and difficult process. I've harvested something like 200 ender pearls for making enderium, and my Tier 4 still needs about 6 more runes to be maxed out.

I think the mob farm version would be slightly easier, since it only needs fluxed electrum, but then it's more work setting up the mob farm (which I'm less familiar with).

 

[Padfoote]

I can assure you between the lack of easy healing, and Jaded making the Runes (both Self & Mob versions) much higher in cost that makes it quite a slow and difficult process. I've harvested something like 200 ender pearls for making enderium, and my Tier 4 still needs about 6 more runes to be maxed out.

I think the mob farm version would be slightly easier, since it only needs fluxed electrum, but then it's more work setting up the mob farm (which I'm less familiar with).

That sounds like a painful experience trying to get all the materials... Might have to try that out this week and see how it goes.

 

[James_Grimm]

MagicFarm2 is pretty hard I must say. It's actually a lot of fun, but you have to rethink your expectations or you'll get frustrated. It actually makes it where setting up a manual farm that deals with all your food needs a serious early game goal that is fun compared to vanilla's 30 seconds worth of work and a single farm plot to last for eternity.

Most of the extra difficulty comes from increased resource costs and harder mobs, along with the tool & hunger rpg-like systems. So no extra time spent at crafting tables, but it does mean that you have to stay pretty humble for the first few days, because it takes a little while to climb the tech tree into metal tools. I highly suggest DrowElf's thread for help on planning towards high quality food if you've never played with Harvestcraft+HungerOverhaul before.

I'm thinking of trying another pack sometime just for a change, MF2 was my first large FTB pack, I used to assemble my own. I can't decide between DW20/Horizon/MagicWorld2, as I don't think my laptop will handle monster very well. But MF2 has given me some nice exposure to some really cool mods, like Blood Magic which I never tried before but I think I would add into a pack lacking it now.

 

[James_Grimm]

On the plus side for stabbing yourself in MF2, you can continue to naturally regenerate with only half your hunger shanks filled, and it doesn't use up your hunger very much due to HungerOverhaul. This means you can sit there and fill your altar yourself slightly easier then I imaging it is in vanilla (where you're probably munching food all the time), if you already have your food situation in MF2 sorted out (Where I eat maybe once or twice per multiple complete refills of the altar).

Of course the increased costs for Runes more then balance that small benefit out (and some of the Sigils too, Green Grove is expensive too, 3 MFR Harvester, 2 Fertilizers, and 2 Planters, but sooooo worth it to watch your farm go into overdrive when you stand in it. I think the lava crystal was also increased in cost, along with the 2 Runes that boost Altar LP gain)

That's most of the differences in MF2-Blood Magic, mostly the same, just slower progression due to resource costs. Looking forward to trying out the Ritual of the F. Knife/Regen combo:

Question - will it fit under a tier 4 altar, or do I need do build the shape of a Tier 5 to make it fit? Cause I ain't farming Withers to make a real T5 any time soon.

Edit: Also if you try MF2, I really recommend enabling Ominous Woods in the BOP configs (disabled by default), as otherwise you are stuck waiting on the RNG for a Endermen to fight. Ominous Woods only allows 2 mobs to spawn, Endermen & BOP Poison Spiders, so you can usually get a fight at night if you find one (but being MF2 you'll want good gear to go out at night, or bosses will eat you).