Thaumcraft 4 what to do if you run out of aspects

[PixelSupreme]

After a bit more digging, here's another tip:

Spoiler

You can't hoard research points by passive regeneration. No matter what you place next to the table. If the aspect sparkles, use it up.

I gues that's the biggest source of confusion based on what people heard on ForgeCraft streams/vids.

 

[Fro]

Do you know what it means when an aspect sparkles?

 

[Eunomiac]

Do you know what it means when an aspect sparkles?

The clear answers are definitely lacking in this thread, and I suspect it's because people are being good, and hesitating to reveal secrets gleaned from viewing the code.

To the best of my understanding, the answer to your question is this: If a sparkling white star appears next to an Aspect in the Research Table GUI, it means some object nearby---a Crystal Cluster, Bookshelf, etc.---is "supporting" that Aspect. The benefit is that, if you ever completely run out of a starred Aspect, it will spontaneously regenerate a single research point for you. As far as I've gathered from reading this thread and watching Direwolf20, this only occurs when you have 0 points remaining in that Aspect, and it only ever recharges a single point. (Put another way, you can count on your starred Aspects to always have at least one research point available, whereas your non-starred Aspects can run out entirely.)

This may not sound like much, but considering it only takes a single point to flip runes on and off and thereby progress through a research project, a single point can have a big impact.

Anyone able to correct or expand on the above?

 

[Fro]

Ok, that exactly confirms my assumptions (see page 1 for my previous post ^^).
Thanks.

 

[PixelSupreme]

Ok, after some more poking around in the code, here's what I've learned.

First: What does the sparkle in the research tables GUI mean?

Spoiler

- When an aspect has the sparkle effect, that means you have gained a bonus research point for that aspect.
- You can only gain one bonus point per aspect at any given time (per table, see spoiler below).
- The bonus point is always used up last.
- You do NOT need to exhaust all your regular research points before you can gain a bonus point.
- You can easily identify the bonus point: If you see the aspects icon in the table GUI but it has no number in its bottom right corner, you have no regular points left for that aspect, just the bonus point.

What causes aspects to get sparkly:

Spoiler

There is a rather small list of blocks that, when placed close to a research table, can cause this.
- Infused stones, crystal clusters, gras, fire, water source blocks, lava, placed redstone dust and repeaters, brain in a jar, bookshelf
Y-level and light level are considered too.

Every 600 ticks the table scans its surroundings, 8 blocks in every direction. When it finds a block that is on the list, there is a random chance that a bonus point is generated. Different blocks have a different chance for adding bonus points (Crystal clusters have a higher chance than infused stones). Most blocks only work for one primal aspect but brain in a jar and bookshelves can add bonus points for any aspect, chosen randomly once per block per scan. Since bookshelves have a very low chance to add a bonus point and scans only happen every 30 seconds, it can take a long time until a given aspect gains a bonus point.

Interesting sidenote: Regular research points (from scaning, decconstruction, combining) are stored per player (and shared by any table, no matter who placed it), bonus points are stored per table. Multiple tables can have bonus points for the same aspect that can be used individually.

All in all, don't rely on bonus points too much. Unless you have a cheat sheet or extreme luck with research you will want a couple deconstruction tables.

 

[huldu]

After playing with TC4 for a while now I prefer the old ways. It's just too much rng involved in TC4 which ruins the fun of it. I can't put my finger on what I dislike the most, but the mini-game research could have been left out, it's just tedious. If you're new to the mod you can easily be scared away with the research system. It's great on paper but it just doesn't translate very well into the game. Sure you can sit there and throw away aspects doing the little research game or trying to figure out combinations but it'll cost you dearly if you don't have any idea what you're doing.

 

[Tristam Izumi]

After playing with TC4 for a while now I prefer the old ways. It's just too much rng involved in TC4 which ruins the fun of it. I can't put my finger on what I dislike the most, but the mini-game research could have been left out, it's just tedious. If you're new to the mod you can easily be scared away with the research system. It's great on paper but it just doesn't translate very well into the game. Sure you can sit there and throw away aspects doing the little research game or trying to figure out combinations but it'll cost you dearly if you don't have any idea what you're doing.

I feel exactly the opposite. The old way felt too much like "dump massive amount of random ingredients into research" for my taste. And I personally think the new research is impressively intuitive and almost downright easy. I can see how many runes I'll need to complete a research and after activating the aspect used to start the research, I can usually judge if it's worth continuing with that specific sheet or to try again. And for the most part, the aspects used in any given research make sense. I also guess I do more exploring (and scanning of nodes) than most people because even after doing all the TC, TT, and MB researches, I still have 200+ of all the primals.

 

[Catalyst787]

In one sitting I have just completed three quarters of Thuamcraft.
I was running out of aspects (After Thaumetering just about everything) and ended up here.

I can agree with those of you who say you can get pretty much all the aspects you need from running around and whacking everything and anything with a Thaumeter. However after a few mistakes or a few too many aspects wasted in frustration you can still easily run out. After reading PixelSupremes above post I did some poking around, surrounding my research table in just about everything. From 8x8x8 boxes of bookshelves to just random (Massive) assortments of rubbish I've tried it all. The only viable/easy way to generate aspects (that I have found) looks something like this: (See attatchment)

Edit-
About the mod itself, I don't like the new version, starting from scratch in a new world or server it would still take hours to get a basic set up and the starting major starting research done. The only real problems with this is that it takes a lot more effort to get anywhere in TC4 than it would in most other mods. In the amount of time it takes you to get a little into TC4 you could already have a moderate Forestry/Build-Craft Factory/Farm. I guess that doesn't really matter if you are using TC4 on its own, however I find that it just gets put in the too hard basket when put along side a lot of other mods. TC3's research system was a lot better in my opinion. (Edit2- I want to emphasize how much more awesome everything else is in TC4, just cuz it is.)

That all said. I am loving all of the new content! It is all pretty much all fantastic.

 

[Zexks]

I tried to start out with thaumcraft this time, as I thought it would be easier since I wouldn't have to dump massive amounts of items into the trash for it, but I'm coming to realize it's far more tedious now than it ever was. I've scanned every node in a 1-3 kilometer area around my base, every item I have, or have found while mining, flew around the nether and scanned everything I could find there, even ghasts and blazes (lost a few thaumometers there), and am still running out of or severely low (less than 20) on everything including primals. Sometimes the research is easy as can be and it doesn't take but a couple of rune moves and aspects to get it, other times I exhaust all my points and a few scribing tools getting close only to run out of aspects and have to leave it unfinished. What has me worried is that my save file is quickly growing in size, only for the need of research aspects, and I've barely scratched the surface. I'm worried I'm going to end up with a multigigabyte world save just to complete all the research. A massive world file that will by and large never get used.

 

[Tristam Izumi]

I tried to start out with thaumcraft this time, as I thought it would be easier since I wouldn't have to dump massive amounts of items into the trash for it, but I'm coming to realize it's far more tedious now than it ever was. I've scanned every node in a 1-3 kilometer area around my base, every item I have, or have found while mining, flew around the nether and scanned everything I could find there, even ghasts and blazes (lost a few thaumometers there), and am still running out of or severely low (less than 20) on everything including primals. Sometimes the research is easy as can be and it doesn't take but a couple of rune moves and aspects to get it, other times I exhaust all my points and a few scribing tools getting close only to run out of aspects and have to leave it unfinished. What has me worried is that my save file is quickly growing in size, only for the need of research aspects, and I've barely scratched the surface. I'm worried I'm going to end up with a multigigabyte world save just to complete all the research. A massive world file that will by and large never get used.

I'm not certain what I'm doing differently than you, but I was able to get through every research from TC, TT, and MB with hundreds of each of the primals left over and a good deal of a number of many compound aspects as well. Some I did run low/out of, but it wasn't hard to synthesize more from my primals. And that's with exploring about the same area as you have said you did, and I'm certain I missed some nodes (those pesky ones underground often escape my goggled perception, especially when I'm on elevated terrain).

Honestly, the hardest part for me starting off with Thaumcraft was making my thaumometer, but that was just because I play with TiC and disable vanilla tools, so I had to get a smeltery running before I could mine the gold I needed to make it.

Hm. A few questions for you and your research strategies:

How familiar were you with previous versions of Thaumcraft? I'm finding that past knowledge of research aspects made it easy to guess what current research aspects have been for most items.

Do you count up how many runes it will take to complete a research note, and toss it if it takes too many? I usually light up the aspect it was discovered with, see how many light up, then use my past knowledge to guess how many more aspects (and thus runes) I have to play with. If it doesn't look favorable, I toss it. I've gone through up to 10 notes before finding a favorable node layout on some research notes.

How often do you re-light runes? I generally take the time to light enough runes for me to finish the research, move all the junk runes out of the way, turn off one aspect, move them into place, turn those back on, and repeat for each additional aspect I have lit up. At worst that uses 4 of the aspect used to start the research and 3 of the remainder. Once I get Research Mastery (hint: work for this ASAP!), that reduces to 3 and 2, since after moving some runes, it turns them off without you having to spend another aspect.

 

[RedBoss]

Tristam speaks truth. I honestly just go grab a stack of the BoP orchids and use them to refill scribing tools. I then blow that ink on clearing the area so that my lit aspects are clear. It's a cake walk from there. Once the aspects I need are lit I only use 2 additional points. One to allow rune movement and the last for reactivation.

Prior knowledge helps a lot with guesses, but i also mine a lot and craft things I may not need just to have research points.
The

 

[Merendel]

Personaly my bigest gripe with TC4 falls purely to RNG. It took me 3 hours to build my first thaumometer. I had 5 of the needed shards withen about 15 minutes but it took 3 hours to find order shards on my world. I literaly had a stack or more of all the other types of shards by the time I finaly found an ore cluster of those. Even more anoying I found several more clusters right after I found the first one... stupid RNG. I'm still undecided on the mini game of research. I've run accross a few that were flat out unsolvable due to the distances involved. With all the aspects turned on it couldnt quite reach to the last node. Yes theres a bit of stratagy in knowing when to just cut your losses and start from scratch with an easier puzzle but I dont think any of them should ever be unsolvable.

 

[Yusunoha]

Personaly my bigest gripe with TC4 falls purely to RNG. It took me 3 hours to build my first thaumometer. I had 5 of the needed shards withen about 15 minutes but it took 3 hours to find order shards on my world. I literaly had a stack or more of all the other types of shards by the time I finaly found an ore cluster of those. Even more anoying I found several more clusters right after I found the first one... stupid RNG. I'm still undecided on the mini game of research. I've run accross a few that were flat out unsolvable due to the distances involved. With all the aspects turned on it couldnt quite reach to the last node. Yes theres a bit of stratagy in knowing when to just cut your losses and start from scratch with an easier puzzle but I dont think any of them should ever be unsolvable.

it'd be nice if Thaumcraft gave an option in the configuration to allow a started pack to be given to the player when a player starts a new world. in it you'd find things like the thaumometer, thaumonimicon and a basic wand.

 

[Zexks]

How familiar were you with previous versions of Thaumcraft?

I've played both 2 and 3. Never got all the research, but never really had any problems with it. Usually got to a point where I'd burned through everything with the aspects I needed and put it down for a while. Generally in the interim I'd change worlds before getting back to it, so I haven't completed either. TC 3 was a bit easier in guessing the aspects from the descriptions, but TC 4 only gives you a name. I had a real hard time finding the traveling aspect (Itis I think). Burned through about 100 primals trying to find it (not intensionally but for the paved traveling stones).

Do you count up how many runes it will take to complete a research note, and toss it if it takes too many?

Not really, I generally get an idea of how many I'll need and can guess when I'm missing things. Like when only 2 aspect runes light up but there are like 5 or 6 nodes to connect, I know there's something else. I've tossed 3 notes. One from completing a duplicate and 2 others cause I wasted every research point I had on them and it peeved me. So I got rid of them, explored some more and refilled by research points then tried again on something different.

How often do you re-light runes?

I try not to turn them on and off more than twice. A few I've had to do up to 6 or 8 times though. When I run out of research points in the middle and have to leave for more. Then don't get to come back to it for a couple of RL days/weeks. A lot of times I burn out my primals for the complex ones and have to leave for more. Then have to log off and can't get back till the next weekend, and have to essentially start over (cause I don't remember what symbols are what, or what aspect started the notes), but with fewer points.

 

[Saice]

For me I just hopped in a boat and scaned (also collected) every node more then 1k form my base. I have hunderds of the base aspects and good supply of esseance.

Though as a side note detecting a hungry node over water is really hard so just take the bare miniuims with you and use something like and ender pouch to off load all your essense loot as you go. Becuase a hungry node will more then likely kill you.

 

[Yusunoha]

For me I just hopped in a boat and scaned (also collected) every node more then 1k form my base. I have hunderds of the base aspects and good supply of esseance.

Though as a side note detecting a hungry node over water is really hard so just take the bare miniuims with you and use something like and ender pouch to off load all your essense loot as you go. Becuase a hungry node will more then likely kill you.

hungry node goes "nomnomnomnomnom"

 

[Timbob102]

The grinding is a bit harsh with TC4. Also has anyone ever found a node pres-canned before you get to it?

 

[Toerr]

I've been using screenshots and paint to complete research and so far have not used more than 1-2 aspects per(with research mastery). Just turn them all on, take SS, work it out in paint, and with them side by side move the runes into place easy-peasy. If you're lucky you don't even have to reactivate runes with Mastery at play. I also got the Crystal Wing mod to make it possible to escape hungry nodes, once was enough and it scared the crap out of me and I lost so much loot...
Hope this helps.

 

[Algester]

it'd be nice if Thaumcraft gave an option in the configuration to allow a started pack to be given to the player when a player starts a new world. in it you'd find things like the thaumometer, thaumonimicon and a basic wand.

I would also like to add this for Ars Magica as well finding essence pools... tends to be a hit or miss as well, I have been beggining to have a thought if they can be added into a config option just like tinker's books on spawn

 

[MigukNamja]

For me I just hopped in a boat and scaned (also collected) every node more then 1k form my base. I have hunderds of the base aspects and good supply of esseance.

Though as a side note detecting a hungry node over water is really hard so just take the bare miniuims with you and use something like and ender pouch to off load all your essense loot as you go. Becuase a hungry node will more then likely kill you.

My base has a hungry node just 100M away. It's pretty cool to look at and play with, though very dangerous. I've died many times messing around with it.

And, yeah, scanning nodes is a great way to not only get research points, but also:

1. Explore. Especially useful if you're looking for bees and/or other biome-specific stuff like Silverwoods, flowers, cacti, etc.,.
2. Find really good nodes to come back for later when you can capture them with Node in a Jar.

I love, love, love Node in a Jar. It's a big improvement over the node movement mechanics in TC3, IMHO. I have ~15 nodes in my wand recharging room - enough to keep a top-tier wand fully charged.[DOUBLEPOST=1386025083][/DOUBLEPOST]

The grinding is a bit harsh with TC4. Also has anyone ever found a node pres-canned before you get to it?

It's not too grindy *if* you take full advantage of all the mod has to offer. Was grindy the first time, but not grindy this time through after I figured a few things out. Helluva steep learning curve.

Please see the link in my signature for my experiences and recommendations based upon that.