FTB Monster: seems some mods are misconfigured or mods are blocking each other

[EricBuist]

Hi,
Each and every mod now requires hard to find entry-point items. In Thaumcraft, I spend three hours trying to get Silverwood logs and saplings, needed for the basic alchemical furnace. I cannot see any aura node, even with the Taumononicon. I now have to guess-right click with my wand everywhere I can think of and sometimes, this drains an invisible aura node! I found Silverwood trees, and used my wand nearby so got some Vis out of their internal aura nodes, but choping the tree with a regular ax destroys the aura node. With TinkerConstruct big ax, I can chop the tree at once, but it never drops any sappling. Instead of Silverwood trees, I am most of the times getting dyed trees or regular trees. After all this hunting, I found out that the vis filter requires Ordo aspects while the alchemical furnace needs Ignis aspects, and I don't have these, so I have to walk around and guess-right click during hours and hours and hours in the hope to find that. Note that I went far enough to cause terrain generation; I am not running into circles around my base.
This is the same with Forestry bees I gave up on a while ago. I searched, searched, and searched, could find many bee hives but absolutely no tropical bees. Seems that other bee mode are affecting the probably that a
With hive with tropical bees spawns.

This makes the game unplayed, because I would need to spend all my times searching for items and finding items from other mods that are useless to me. Do I really have to migrate to another, lighter mod pack, or make my custom mod pack with just the mods I need? Why is there mod packs if they are unusable at the end except for mods not relying on ore gens or vanilla stuff? Yes, BuildCraft works very well, no problem finding items for it. IC2 and TC, no problem, as soon as I could run a quarry and get all types of underground ores. But anything relying on plants like Taucraft and Forestry, seems I have to forget about it.

I spent a crazy amount of time migrating from FTB Unleashed to FTB Monster to find that Taumcraft 4 will just be too tough for me to even enter in. All I can do is create the Taumononicon, do some research, and then no crafting at all except very basic items like nithor, alumentum, etc. This is very disappointing.

 

[ljfa]

I cannot see any aura node, even with the Taumononicon

You mean the Thaumometer, right? Have you tried making Goggles of Revealing? A good advice would be to create waypoints at the nodes' locations so you don't have to search for them over and over again.
Btw the nodes aren't be completely invisible - you can see a node without Thaumometer or goggles if you look closely.
Silverwood leaves have only a low chance of dropping a sapling, you might not get any from a tree, especially if it's a small one.
Tropical hives are somewhat hard to find, right. Don't know what's up with that, maybe it's because you can't see very far in an overgrown jungle.

 

[EricBuist]

Exactly, I tried with the Thaumometer. I cannot craft the goggles of revealing, because I don't have the necessary research and I expect them to require other items or aspects I don't have. And getting the items will require hunting again, getting the aspects as well. Right clicking on an aura node with a wand has no apparent effect. It makes no change in the top-left corner showing the quantity of aspects in the wand visually. I have to into inventory mode, highlight the wand and it then shows how many vis there are for each aspect. I just cannot do that on every step in case there is an aura node, so I cannot accurately track their positions and put waypoints.
I chopped a couple of Silverwood trees in a magical forest, maybe 4 or 5, enough to get a stack of logs. No sapplings.

 

[Narc]

[...]In Thaumcraft, I spend three hours trying to get Silverwood logs and saplings, needed for the basic alchemical furnace.

And saplings? I do see the recipe for the Vis filter needing a silverwood log (and two gold ingots), but saplings I don't see anywhere. I admit it's been a fair while since I've played with Thaumcraft, though.

I cannot see any aura node, even with the Taumononicon.

No, a book won't let you see aura nodes. You need a thaumometer (unless that's what you meant?). The Goggles of Revealing may help, too, after you research them.

[...]With TinkerConstruct big ax, I can chop the tree at once, but it never drops any sappling.

Silverwoods have always had an extremely low sapling drop rate. Nevertheless, I can safely state they do occasionally drop.

Instead of Silverwood trees, I am most of the times getting dyed trees or regular trees.

As in, you're chopping down silverwoods and getting dye tree saplings from them, or you can only seem to find dye trees? Personally, I find it more annoying than anything that dye trees can have any kind of logs forming them, as well as being more than a little irritated with how common they seem to be. If I ever revisit my configs, I may choose to force them to stick to their Rainbow Forest biomes. And be more plain.

Otherwise, well, silverwoods have always been rare, but they do tend to show up in greater numbers in the Magical Forest biome (if you can find one; these aren't the Mystic Groves from Biomes O'Plenty, either -- don't bother with those). Sadly, ATG seems to have made those biomes fairly rare in my world, so I don't have one handy to test chopping silverwoods.

After all this hunting, I found out that the vis filter requires Ordo aspects while the alchemical furnace needs Ignis aspects, and I don't have these, so I have to walk around and guess-right click during hours and hours and hours in the hope to find that.

Again, having to guess where aura nodes are isn't normal. When looking through a Thaumometer (or wearing Goggles of Revealing), aura nodes are bright and (fairly) clearly visible in the world.

This is the same with Forestry bees I gave up on a while ago. I searched, searched, and searched, could find many bee hives but absolutely no tropical bees.

Yeah, those have also always been hard to find. Jungle trees are tall and the hives tend to be way high in their foliage. Flight sometimes helps, but for the most part, they're just annoying little things.

This makes the game unplayed [Ed: unplayable?], because I would need to spend all my times searching for items and finding items from other mods that are useless to me. Do I really have to migrate to another, lighter mod pack, or make my custom mod pack with just the mods I need? Why is there mod packs if they are unusable at the end except for mods not relying on ore gens or vanilla stuff? Yes, BuildCraft works very well, no problem finding items for it. IC2 and TC, no problem, as soon as I could run a quarry and get all types of underground ores. But anything relying on plants like Taucraft and Forestry, seems I have to forget about it.

Well, as far as I can tell, you've run into a couple of stumbling blocks keeping you from enjoying a couple of mods, and you're now convinced that this is a fault of the mod pack. I'm sorry to say, it's really a function of the mods themselves.

For myself, I've mostly given up on Thaumcraft research (but that's what the cheat sheet is for), but have otherwise found it feasible to play with. Forestry bees I've yet to look at again, but I suspect the Gendustry equipment will help immensely there -- it may even help get tropical bees without needing to scour jungles.

I'd also recommend looking into the other interesting mods in Monster: Engineer's Toolbox is a highly underrated but fun toy; you've said nothing about Thermal Expansion (though maybe that's just a typo where you mentioned TC in the quote above?) and I don't think Railcraft was one of the things I added to my version, so there's that, too. RotaryCraft comes with its own fairly steep learning curve, but the rewards are well worth it, and the power system is something special; ReactorCraft, I'm told, is even more so.

I spent a crazy amount of time migrating from FTB Unleashed to FTB Monster to find that Taumcraft 4 will just be too tough for me to even enter in. All I can do is create the Taumononicon, do some research, and then no crafting at all except very basic items like nithor, alumentum, etc. This is very disappointing.

The only limitation is how much time you're willing and able to put into both (re)learning the mods and exploring the world; taking myself as an example again, I don't have time for either Thaumcraft or bees, so I just play without them, and I don't really feel like I'm missing very much. For that matter, I'm also completely ignoring IC2, but that's another story. That said, I'm currently on the down-swing of my periodic Minecraft addiction, so your mileage may vary.[DOUBLEPOST=1403719053][/DOUBLEPOST]

Exactly, I tried with the Thaumometer.

And you can't see the aura nodes highlighted through it? That could be a bug, or poor graphics hardware. Can you also not scan the nodes to see what's inside them?

I chopped a couple of Silverwood trees in a magical forest, maybe 4 or 5, enough to get a stack of logs. No sapplings.

Sounds fairly normal to me. It's just Thaumcraft. Nothing wrong with the pack.

 

[EricBuist]

Hi,

My suspicion was about mods interacting between each other and affecting the rate items spawn. If, for example, there is a choice between a vanilla tree and a Silverwwod one at some point, and some other mods add other types of trees, depending on how random numbers are generated, that may reduce probability of getting a Silverwood tree.

But as I am more and more noticing, Taumcraft is in the way. Just researching the Goggles of Revealing fails. All the combinations I can think to go from Aura to Pracantus or Sensus to Pracantus with three intermediate aspects fail. I thought the mod was workable from videos I saw about it (mainly from Direwolf20) but seems that requires help from mod author and/or reconfiguration of the mod. This is quite annoying, as any change of configuration on my SMP server needs to be reflected on the clients (mine and my friend's).

I just cannot see the aura nodes, even from the thaumometer. Trying to scan it does nothing. I am using a NVIDIA GeForce GTX graphic card, so maybe yet another update to the graphic driver to be done, but it is endlessly long to, each time I get a single bug with a game, to try getting the new driver and installing that, often to no avail.

Thanks for your help. From what I am reading, Taumcraft won't work for me unless I start a new map or I cheat quite a bit (to bypass research and give myself some items).

By the way, I didn't need Silverwood saplings absolutely. I wanted one to plant a Silverwood tree around my base and get an aura node nearby. If I find one sappling and manage to duplicate it (anybody tried with the UU-Matter scanner/replicator?), I could plant a couple of these trees and get probably the aura nodes I need to start.

 

[Omegatron]

You can use this for research help.

Aura nodes are quite rare, if you have flight of some form then flying around with the thaumometer out is helpful.

 

[Narc]

Hi,

My suspicion was about mods interacting between each other and affecting the rate items spawn. If, for example, there is a choice between a vanilla tree and a Silverwwod one at some point, and some other mods add other types of trees, depending on how random numbers are generated, that may reduce probability of getting a Silverwood tree.

To a great extent, yes, especially with things like additional biome mods that *will* crowd out desired ones (purely by there being more of them). Similar issues with finding the jungle hives -- not as many jungles, or not as large.

But as I am more and more noticing, Taumcraft is in the way. Just researching the Goggles of Revealing fails. All the combinations I can think to go from Aura to Pracantus or Sensus to Pracantus with three intermediate aspects fail.

This page suggests Auram -> Praecantatio -> Vacuos -> Praecantatio as an absolute minimum path for the first, and Sensus -> Aer -> Auram -> Praecantatio for the second. You don't have to use *only three* intermediate aspects, you can use more (as long as they all connect, obviously).

I thought the mod was workable[...]

I've yet to be convinced it isn't. It seems more like a misunderstanding of the mechanics so far.

I just cannot see the aura nodes, even from the thaumometer. Trying to scan it does nothing. I am using a NVIDIA GeForce GTX graphic card, so maybe yet another update to the graphic driver to be done, but it is endlessly long to, each time I get a single bug with a game, to try getting the new driver and installing that, often to no avail.

Okay, now that is definitely buggy. Now, "NVIDIA GeForce GTX" actually refers to a whole series of very many graphics cards, so you haven't actually stated what you *have*, but just about all of the cards so named should be working. For what it's worth, I've got a GTX 650 in this machine and I see this: before scanning and after scanning.

Also, I just remembered, you can also get aspects by killing mobs and having your wand in your hotbar -- the mobs drop some little aspect pellets that look kind of like XP balls, but fainter. They only live for a short time, but they do give you some vis.

By the way, I didn't need Silverwood saplings absolutely. I wanted one to plant a Silverwood tree around my base and get an aura node nearby. If I find one sappling and manage to duplicate it (anybody tried with the UU-Matter scanner/replicator?), I could plant a couple of these trees and get probably the aura nodes I need to start.

Gotcha. I think I recently read around here that the UUM stuff wouldn't work for replicating them, but on the bright side you shouldn't need many. Which is good, 'cause they really are hard to come by.

 

[belgabor]

I also had an exceptionally hard time finding silverwood on Monster. I finally found some in a Mystcraft age, still haven't found any in the Overworld. Make a thaumic grafter and put repair on it. Gives you guaranteed Silverwood saplings.
Tropic bees I also had trouble with, but not nearly as much as with Silverwood.
Both for hives and nodes, go hunting at night. Both emit light, also nodes are easier to see at night (once you get rid of whatever makes you unable to see them).

 

[EricBuist]

Hi,
Thanks for all this information.
UUM-based replication of Silverwood saplings was a risky no-go. Scanning the item (tried with a diamond to test) destroys it, so I didn't want the Scanner to destroy the only sapling I got and learn that I would need a large amount of UUM and EU to recreate it. I thus gave up on this route and planted the sapling. The tree grew, but no aura node in it. At least I cannot see it and right clicking my wand on it does not give me any aspect.
I was able to find some aura nodes near the Silverwood tree, because my wand now has all aspects except Ignis and Ordo. I got the research discovery for the Goggles of Revealing, but crafting them requires Ordo as well as other aspects!
I am using a GeForce GTX 650 Ti so that SHOULD not cause problem. Maybe, at this point, Windows 8 is the culprit.
I tried to find a way to get coordinates of aura nodes from configuration files in the world directory, or get them through MCEdit. No go as well.
So everything I try with this mod just fails, but I saw videos of people that used the mod successfully, e.g., the Direwolf20 Let's Play series.

Do particular mobs drop only some aspects or do any mob can drop any aspect? Do only hostile mobs drop aspects? It's possible that all the aspects that went in my wand come from mob drops in fact. I got attacked many times while searching for these nodes, until I placed a magnum torch near a small house I built there. I am planning on making a mob spawning system with cursed earth and safari net, so maybe that will help.

 

[YX33A]

Win 8 isn't the problem. That said, any mob can drop any primal aspect AFAIK, though I would wager that some are weighted towards some kinds(squid for aqua, chickens for aer, etc).

 

[ScottulusMaximus]

GTX 650TI here, windows 8, no problem seeing aura nodes... You know you have to look through the Thaumometer to get the nodes right? This seems VERY weird, I've never heard anyone complain about invisible aura nodes.

What pack are you using and have you adjusted anything in the configs?

As a side note, nodes are quite difficult to spot and a silverwood doesn't get a node in it everytime. Use a vanilla axe on the tree until you get an axe of the stream, not sure how TiC axes affect saplings drop.

To be blunt this seems like you haven't read something properly or have the wrong idea about how to find aura nodes from watching 2min of dire while your attention was elsewhere(I do that fairly often).

 

[Niels Henriksen]

if you want to recharge your wand then go and kill mobs. If you have your wand in your inventory then you will get vis from the killing.

 

[Beeze23]

Hi,
Thanks for all this information.
UUM-based replication of Silverwood saplings was a risky no-go. Scanning the item (tried with a diamond to test) destroys it, so I didn't want the Scanner to destroy the only sapling I got and learn that I would need a large amount of UUM and EU to recreate it. I thus gave up on this route and planted the sapling. The tree grew, but no aura node in it. At least I cannot see it and right clicking my wand on it does not give me any aspect.

Not every tree you grow will have a node in it.

If the tree has a node, it'll be in a log that has a black spot on it:

 

[Narc]

[...]This seems VERY weird, I've never heard anyone complain about invisible aura nodes.

A friend of mine had a crappy on-board video card that drew the aura nodes with no alpha blending, which made them always stand out -- so I can at least imagine the opposite might possibly happen... but not on a modern graphics card like OP's.

Otherwise, agreed.

 

[belgabor]

Win 8 isn't the problem. That said, any mob can drop any primal aspect AFAIK, though I would wager that some are weighted towards some kinds(squid for aqua, chickens for aer, etc).

I've been told that as well. At some stage I had a similar problem as the OP (not with the rendering, just finding enough nodes) and I killed a lot of different mobs, but I never got a certain primal. I'm not 100% sure any more, but I think it was ordo.

That rendering issue is indeed very strange, maybe ask over on the MCF TC thread if anyone has herad/seen about that? I have the very same card and no issues.

 

[Beeze23]

I have to into inventory mode, highlight the wand and it then shows how many vis there are for each aspect.

Sneak/Crouch (Shift) while holding the wand gives you numbers for the various amounts of Vis on the upper left display.

 

[McJty]

I created 10 nodes next to my base simply by cutting away far away silverwood trees (used my bedrock pickaxe to make that faster). I got 20 saplings and I planted those. When the tree didn't have a node I cut it down again. And I repeated that until I got the 10 nodes. Worked pretty well for me and now I don't have to move very far for at least a little bit of regen from the nodes.

 

[EricBuist]

Tried killing mobs, all sorts: pigs, cows, chickens, zombies, spiders, skeletons. No Ordo and no Ignis. Seems I will have to manage to kill a creeper before it blows up or even go to the Nether to be killed by Ghast all the times (this is my main problem here). I even tried, in a desperate attempt, to find a console command that would charge the wand, then I would try to craft the goggles of revealing and checking with that. No such command. Seems I would have to reverse engineer Thaumcraft's code, find how aura nodes are managed and patch/tweak my map to insert some nodes! This is just WAY TOO MUCH work!
Seems that EVERYTHING I am trying just fails with this mod, which is quite exasperating. I am starting to think this is something suspect in the map, because it migrated from FTB Unleashed to FTB Monster. This is always coming back at me and will eventually ruin my world. Lesson learned: I won't start exploring any other mod with extensive world gen, this is just a frustrating pain.

 

[Omegatron]

I think you can spawn nodes in from creative, at least with a certain addon. You could try that. You could also try spawning in goggles of revealing to see if they help you see nodes.

 

[Narc]

[...]Seems I would have to reverse engineer Thaumcraft's code, find how aura nodes are managed and patch/tweak my map to insert some nodes! This is just WAY TOO MUCH work!

My word, such drama! Bravo! Bravo!

...but, well, I totally missed the part where you said you'd migrated the world itself from Minecraft 1.5 to 1.6. Among other things, all the versions of Thaumcraft so far have had the ability to retro-gen their special features into an existing world. If you look at your Thaumcraft.cfg, you will find a section named "world_regeneration". Set all of the options to true, change the regen key to something other than DEFAULT, and you should have a much easier time finding aura nodes (and silverwood saplings, and possibly other stuff).

And, of course, there is the option to spawn aura nodes -- just give yourself a few, I'm pretty sure they're available in NEI in cheat mode, or perhaps they'll be in the Creative mode inventory, and plop them down into the world.