Best tool (pickaxe) to use in TC4 Arcane Bore ?

MigukNamja

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I had never used the Arcane Bore until recently in TC4 and when I did, it went through my Repair II, Silk Touch I, Efficiency II Thaumimum Pickaxe like it was a wooden pickaxe. Before I realized it, it had taken the durability to 0, which apparently prevents Repair from self-healing.

Currently, I'm using my levels to make another one based upon Unbreaking rather than Repair and I'm thinking that will last a lot longer. I'm using the Thaumic Rehabilitator to repair stuff - expensive to build/make, but cheap and easy to use.

In your experience, what's the best tool (pickaxe) and enchantments to use in the Arcane Bore and how do you (semi-)automate the repair and replacement process ?

  • Diamond, Thaumium, Pickaxe of the Core, or other ?
  • Unbreaking or Repair ?

This is mainly for fun - I'm getting my resources through other means, but am trying to explore all of Thaumcraft and use magic whenever possible.
 

tedyhere

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Sapphire would be best with enchants or Thaumian with repair and some other enchants.
 

Democretes

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Unless you want to swap out pickaxes, I'd just go with some saphire pickaxes with fortune on them. It takes far too long for the Pick 'o' the Core to repair itself entirely. With Saphires/Rubies/GreenGemThing you can make oodles of replaceable pickaxes that can easily be repaired in an anvil.
 

MigukNamja

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What mod are the rubies, sapphires, green-gem-that-looks-like-emerald-but-emerald-was-already-taken-so-it's-not-called-emerald gems from ?

I'm in 1.6 and RedPower2 and GregTech are not good options, IMHO.

But, yeah, Repair takes too long and it requires the item to be on my toolbar to repair. I'll be using Unbreaking instead of Repair and will just repair the broken tool. As for tools, I'll try Diamond next. It seems to be at least as durable as RP2/GT gems.
 

Greevir

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What mod are the rubies, sapphires, green-gem-that-looks-like-emerald-but-emerald-was-already-taken-so-it's-not-called-emerald gems from ?

I'm in 1.6 and RedPower2 and GregTech are not good options, IMHO.

But, yeah, Repair takes too long and it requires the item to be on my toolbar to repair. I'll be using Unbreaking instead of Repair and will just repair the broken tool. As for tools, I'll try Diamond next. It seems to be at least as durable as RP2/GT gems.
Biome O' Plenty adds Ruby, Sapphire, and Peridots. As does Project Red.
 
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Drawdenion

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As of the newest update for TC4, Void Pick with Efficiency V, Repair III, and Unbreaking III is the best, It never loses durability
 
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Pyure

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In Infitech2, if that's the environment you're using, Dark Steel is amazing.

Its extremely enchantable, and if that's not good enough for you, you can also upgrade it on an anvil with xp and various doodads.

Not sure how that compares to Void Pick mentioned above.
 

HeroWing2

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Keep also in mind that you can Enchant the Focus in the bore too which will effect the bores speed
 

GreenZombie

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And drilling diameter. Its possible to do a 7x7 hole, which conveniently just happens to be the height of a GT ore vein in infitech2.

Drilling diameters are 5,7,9,11 in TC 4.2 (7,9 and 11 are the diameters for Enlarge I, II and III - which are available at Focus level I, III and V

Somewhat lessening the utility of the arcane bore is the fact that the crosssection bored is circular, so you can't simply place a bore every 11m to completely bore out a larger area.

The only practical tool to use in an arcane bore is the Void Pickaxe - which can be enchanted with silk touch or fortune (which means you can (should) use alternative enchantments on the focus). Enchanted with unbreaking III the pickaxe's native repair rate can mostly keep up with the bore.

TC 4.1 would repair pickaxes with the Repair enchant if supplied with Ordo and Terra, I presume - if you can move an energized node close enough - that you could use a Pickaxe of the Core with Repair II indefinately at max speed.
 
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Pyure

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Drilling diameters are 5,7,9,11 in TC 4.2 (7,9 and 11 are the diameters for Enlarge I, II and III - which are available at Focus level I, III and V

Somewhat lessening the utility of the arcane bore is the fact that the crosssection bored is circular, so you can't simply place a bore every 11m to completely bore out a larger area.

The only practical tool to use in an arcane bore is the Void Pickaxe - which can be enchanted with silk touch or fortune (which means you can (should) use alternative enchantments on the focus). Enchanted with unbreaking III the pickaxe's native repair rate can mostly keep up with the bore.

TC 4.1 would repair pickaxes with the Repair enchant if supplied with Ordo and Terra, I presume - if you can move an energized node close enough - that you could use a Pickaxe of the Core with Repair II indefinately at max speed.
Bearing in mind that in some modpacks...such as infitech2...nobody cares about silk touch or fortune. I'd like to try the void pickaxe again since its apparently been updated; dark steel enchanted and upgraded so far is awesome though.

iirc, you can send centivis to your arcane bores through some type of mirror or other btw, using one of our various TC addons perhaps.

The circular-hole thing definitely sucks. You need to place the borers close to each other if you don't want to tidy up edges, but taking advantage of the 7-tall hole is very, very nice. It just means using more borers.
 

GreenZombie

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Bearing in mind that in some modpacks...such as infitech2...nobody cares about silk touch or fortune. I'd like to try the void pickaxe again since its apparently been updated; dark steel enchanted and upgraded so far is awesome though.

iirc, you can send centivis to your arcane bores through some type of mirror or other btw, using one of our various TC addons perhaps.

The circular-hole thing definitely sucks. You need to place the borers close to each other if you don't want to tidy up edges, but taking advantage of the 7-tall hole is very, very nice. It just means using more borers.

I am pretty sure that, Since TC 4.2 introduced cv/t, The essentia mirror is useful ONLY for the arcane matrix / infusion crafting process. All other consumers of essentia do so via pipes, or draw cv/t.

Why do people not care about silk touch/fortune? I always want to maximize my yield no matter how much excess I might have available.

And what has been updated about the void pickaxe? afaik it is the only pickaxe that will effectively self repair in an arcane bore without piped essentia or cv/t.
 

Pyure

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I am pretty sure that, Since TC 4.2 introduced cv/t, The essentia mirror is useful ONLY for the arcane matrix / infusion crafting process. All other consumers of essentia do so via pipes, or draw cv/t.
Nethermine too.

Maybe the video I'm thinking preceeds centivis. I don't recall any of the Thaumic Tinkerer mirrors allowing you to send it in any event, although I seem to remember there's a way to fill a jar on the other end of a new mirror. I'll have to look that up.

Why do people not care about silk touch/fortune? I always want to maximize my yield no matter how much excess I might have available.
Because GT always mines ore blocks a la silk touch, with a few minor exceptions.

And what has been updated about the void pickaxe? afaik it is the only pickaxe that will effectively self repair in an arcane bore without piped essentia or cv/t.
That's a nice bonus if it can self-repair, but I usually care most about pure mining speed. Assuming you're using multiple bores, you're never going to finish an entire pick on a vein anyway regardless of its repairing ability.
 

VapourDrive

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Technically TiC tools should work as they use the forge tool definition hooks, and mods "should" use them. But it's a hard thing to try to get someone to do, it's now a robust but backwards system (imho).
 

SpitefulFox

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>.>

<.<

Chameleon Pickaxe from FM with the Voidtouched/Eternal enchant will never run out in the arcane bore.
 

GreenZombie

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Because GT always mines ore blocks a la silk touch, with a few minor exceptions.
--
That's a nice bonus if it can self-repair, but I usually care most about pure mining speed. Assuming you're using multiple bores, you're never going to finish an entire pick on a vein anyway regardless of its repairing ability.

Wait - what? All ores, no matter how mined (stone pick, BC quarry, Arcane Bore), mine using silk touch semantics? In terms of encouraging the use of machines to process the ores that's actually brilliant.

--
So a potency III, enlarge II focus.. I mean Potency V would be faster, but moving the Bore would be a constant annoyance. A unenlarged bore can only mine up 1344 blocks, but an Enlarged II Bore will scoop up 4416 blocks.

Once you have supplied perdito however, does the mining speed of the tool used make an actual difference?
 

Pyure

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Wait - what? All ores, no matter how mined (stone pick, BC quarry, Arcane Bore), mine using silk touch semantics? In terms of encouraging the use of machines to process the ores that's actually brilliant.

--
So a potency III, enlarge II focus.. I mean Potency V would be faster, but moving the Bore would be a constant annoyance. A unenlarged bore can only mine up 1344 blocks, but an Enlarged II Bore will scoop up 4416 blocks.

Once you have supplied perdito however, does the mining speed of the tool used make an actual difference?
Yeah, most ores, like 95% of ores are GT versions in, say, Infitech2. It depends on whether Greg explicitly covered it: GT ore gen uses his versions of ores instead of the original. There's some exceptions, like thaumcraft shards and whatnot, in which case you're still better off using Fortune etc. But redstone, coal, some other stuff you'd expect to drop items instead drop ores.
I believe the mining speed differs but don't quote me on it. GT tools just straight-up don't work in it too.
 

Zandorum

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I have no idea if there is compat for it but if there is, Rotarycraft's Bedrock Pickaxe ;3