So... I have been playing on Direwolf20's modpack...

[Tristian Brooks]

And I have been thinking. I have spent nearly 19 hours on Thaumcraft, but have NO automation, or even an AE system... Should I hang up my Thaumaturge's robes for a while? I have recently gotten my gorgeous Arcane bore.

 

[Brian Cherrick]

And I have been thinking. I have spent nearly 19 hours on Thaumcraft, but have NO automation, or even an AE system... Should I hang up my Thaumaturge's robes for a while? I have recently gotten my gorgeous Arcane bore.

Would definitely ditch magic for a while. I think things become easier for me anyways when I do tech first.

 

[Azzanine]

It's simple really;
Are you enjoying TC4 still?

If so keep going.

If not try something else.

To be frank tech is more effective then most magic mods. However the tech mods are boring as church.
For instance the regular BC quarry out performs the arcane bore, but it's a hell of a lot less cooler as it lacks neat magic powered lasers.

If you value efficiency ditch magic, but if you want to build neat however impractical things stick to magic.

Sent from my GT-I9100 using Tapatalk

 

[jazzadellic]

I find when I play kitchen sink modpacks that if you focus on certain mods, they make most of the other mods obsolete. For example, if you spend a few hours on tinker's, you have the best tools in the game and there is no point in even trying to get any of the tools from other modpacks. If you spend a couple days building up your tech, you make most of the magic mods obsolete, because anything you can do with the magic mods you can do better with a host of MFR machines and a couple of laser drills running off of some big reactors pumping out 30,000 rf a tick. If you have a jetpack, why would you want to bother botanias staff of air? Etc....etc...

So decide if you want to focus on tech or if you want to focus on magic mods, you can't really do both because of the reasons stated. I mean you can do both, but it seems kind of pointless to mess with botania and bloodmagic when you have reached a certain level of tech. I think my favorite thing about thaumcraft is just it looks so cool with the little golems carrying vis jars and guarding your base etc. and all the cool effects etc...I don't need any of the stuff it makes though...

I tried one of the magic mod only packs to try to learn the magic mods better but I just got bored of it real fast because I was spoiled from how easy the tech mods make it to get way more resources than you need and overpowered gear in no time at all.

 

[Dweia]

It depends on what you want. In my Direwolf20 world, I started with tech, just enough to have enough resources to do magic mods. For me, tech is just there to provide supplies. Everything else I do, I do with magic. Just ask yourself: Are you having fun with thaumcraft? If yes, keep it up, If no, try something new. Automation is not a must have, it's just a thing that makes your life a bit easier. Do what you find most fun.

Also, I don't agree with jazzadellic here; You CAN do both magic and tech mods, as long as you don't go the easiest route available. For example: No quarries, laser drills and such. Automate your ore generation with magic mods. It's harder to setup, but much more fun!

 

[SevenMass]

I find when I play kitchen sink modpacks that if you focus on certain mods, they make most of the other mods obsolete. For example, if you spend a few hours on tinker's, you have the best tools in the game and there is no point in even trying to get any of the tools from other modpacks. If you spend a couple days building up your tech, you make most of the magic mods obsolete, because anything you can do with the magic mods you can do better with a host of MFR machines and a couple of laser drills running off of some big reactors pumping out 30,000 rf a tick. If you have a jetpack, why would you want to bother botanias staff of air? Etc....etc...

This is true, but I disagree that the dividing line is between "magic mods" and "tech mods." Both "magic" and "tech" can have items or blocks that either slightly enhance vanilla play, or have one block that instantly automates everything after clicking the mouse button once.

So decide if you want to focus on tech or if you want to focus on magic mods, you can't really do both because of the reasons stated. I mean you can do both, but it seems kind of pointless to mess with botania and bloodmagic when you have reached a certain level of tech.

For example, the thaumcraft golems do not require any power, nor any piping and tubing. Just put one or two golems (depending on the crop) in a enclosed area and give them a chest and you have an automated farm. The produce can then be used to fuel some engine. Otherwise you'd have to make the engine power its own farm creating a a more complicated situation.

Botania, and thaumcraft have ways of magically duplicating or acquiring materials that you'd otherwise need to search for somewhere in the world, usually these are odd things you don't need a lot of, and can't be considered rare or expensive, but are nevertheless gating some more advanced items because you haven't found (enough of) them yet.

And late game Bloodmagic is crazy OP. There are few tech mods that can compare. The same for Thaumcraft "Kami" items, if you have them enabled.

 

[PierceSG]

I do Thaumcraft because of golems...

 

[rhn]

I would recommend spreading your efforts a little. Not force it, but try and have multiple projects open at the time. That way you don't burn yourself out on a single mod.
And most mods will benefit a lot from other mods.

 

[Inaeo]

I have a habit of having too many irons in the fire to keep track of easily (thank God for the BiblioCraft Clipboard). This helps ease any frustration I might encounter by being able to take a break and do something else productive. As stated above, usually the next project or two will either solve my issue or give me time to cool down and insight into how to fix it.

That said, I've been in your place before; balls deep in TC with almost no other mods touched. I have to say, TC has an answer for almost everything, so once you get last the drag of scanning a the things and bottling your first node or two, you don't actually need much outside help. If you're still interested and having fun, that's the goal, so keep up the good work. If you feel like it's becoming a chore, go fiddle with something else for a bit.

If automation is your goal, you can work on some basic tech mods for pipes and the like, or you can use what you have available to automate the world. Golems are a bit deeply, but usually easy enough to use to get by - in fact for some tasks, they are my preferred method of automation (oh, how I love you, Lumberjack Golem). Azanor included many ways to automate the needs of his mod, so if you decide not to hang up the robes, you can still get things going without you touching literally each component every time you need something.

If the tech side feels too far behind at this point to bother with, delve into Botania a bit, as the two mods have a nice compliment to one another. It's definitely different, bit parts of it help your TC, so it's still pushing you forward in your current theme. It also has a flower that acts as a searchable storage management system, although I've never actually set one up, personally. This could stand in for AE2 if all you were using it for was storage.

Blood Magic, too, has integration with TC, and feels completely different from either of those. Automating BM Slate production using Golem minions just feels right somehow.

Options. The blessing that is modded MC. Have fun.

 

[KingTriaxx]

That said, a lot of machines from Thermal Expansion and Railcraft have aspects on them. Machina and Potentia in particular, both of which can be hard to come by in other ways.