Thaumcraft Automation

[netmc]

Has anyone come up with some good automation strategies using thaumcraft and thaumcraft addons? I'm running a custom mod pack (Thaumcraft, automagy, thaumic tinkerer, botania, forbidden magic, thaumic explorer), and having some difficulties thinking of ways to automate "farms" without having tons of golems and alchemical constructs everywhere for each specific thing I want to do.

I have found that fabrico from crafting tables (tree farm) will break down into many of the aspects needs for a thaumaturgists day-to-day needs. Instrumentum can be used to fuel the thaumic restorer to repair various items. Humanis (needed for golems) when broken down leads to bestia and cognito. Bestia will lead to motus (used to make golems) and cognito will break down to spiritus (also needed for golems). Doing this normally will take at least 4 centrifuge setups if not more depending on how far it needs to be broken down. Is there a way to do this with just one centrifuge (without having to micro-manage it)?

 

[jordsta95]

How about this (assuming you are using MC 1.7.10)
Add applied energistics and Thaumic energistics... Store ALL your essentia in there, and then you can automate a fair few things in that you can use to automate stuff, and it will give you a nice storage place for all your wood.

 

[Mysticmage11]

What do you mean by automation? A while ago I thought of automating the infusion altar for multiplayer purposes (shops and such), but I'm only now beginning to look more into it.

 

[jordsta95]

What do you mean by automation? A while ago I thought of automating the infusion altar for multiplayer purposes (shops and such), but I'm only now beginning to look more into it.

The infusion altar would be sorta hard to automate, if you mean the pedestals. But you are able to use Thaumic Energistics to put essentia from your AE system into warded jars for the crafting. You'd just have to set it up right

I am terrible with the new AE, but I am sure someone would know a way to use ME Export Busses to "automate" the infusion altar

 

[netmc]

What do you mean by automation? A while ago I thought of automating the infusion altar for multiplayer purposes (shops and such), but I'm only now beginning to look more into it.

I've been formulating a way of possibly automating my setup using only 1 centrifuge. There is the new essentia tank that can hold multiple types of essentia at the same time. If you have that as the output of the centrifuge, it can store whatever the essentia is broken down into. You should be able to attach a golem to it and pull the essentia out and place into normal warded jars (labeled) and void jars (labeled). The normal warded jars would be filled first, and only once all normal jars are filled would the void jar be filled. This would let you keep however much essentia you wanted on hand in jars for use in alchemy and infusion. On the void jars, you place another alchemical golem and have them fill the jar feeding the centrifuge. It will only fill the jar when empty, so the first golem to reach it will win, but it should allow you to run the system in batches. 2 centrifuges configured in this fashion should be able to keep up just fine and allow the system to run continually.

The standard labeled jars would be placed wherever you would need the essentia. The final void jar is your overflow and the feeder for the next round of centrifuging.

Feeding a essentia system from a tree farm would create

From crafting tables:

Fabrico
Intrumentum
Humanus
Ordo
Bestia
Motus
Aer
Cognito
Spiritus
Victus
Mortuus
Perdito
Aqua
Terra

From Charcoal:

Potentia
Ignis
Ordo

I'll play with this and see if I can get some screen shots.

Edit: Apparently the new essentia resevoir cannot be emptied by golems.

 

[netmc]

I've implemented semi-automation for my essentia generation. I still have to manually add in the items I want to distill or centrifuge, but I don't have to move any jars around to get things done. Golems take care of all the busy work.

As golems prioritize labeled jars first, labeled void jars second, and unlabeled jars last, I can use this to my advantage.

There are times you don't want to automatically break down extra essentia as some of the essentia types are a bit harder to come by (i.e.: alienis, aurum). With the advent of the crystalizer, you no longer need to store all your essentia in jars. To that end, I have split my line into two lines. The first line simply distills any items into essentia. The golem fills up all the storage jars as well as various nearby jars for use with automated alchemy. These jars are all labeled. Next, once all the labeled jars are filled, the rest of the essentia is placed in unlabled jars attached to crystalizers. The essentia crystals are collected and then sorted into their respective barrels for later use.

The second line is almost exactly the same, but instead of having the crystalizer as a final output, it uses a pair of centrifuges instead. The output jars on the centrifuges both have their own golem on it, and the golems target all the labeled jars, and finally the crystalizer bank.

To make generation of a few common items easier, I have set up a few automated alchemy stations and attached the proper jars to the setup. These get refilled automatically from the distillation and centrifuging processes. I have an automated alchemy station set up for ore purification (metallum, ordo), alumentum and nitor (potentia, ignis, lux, perdito), balanced shards (all 6 pimals), golems (motus, spiritus, humanus) and thaumium and magic tallow (precantatio). I also have a manual automated alchemy station set up near the essentia jar storage, so I can manually place any jars I need for the one-off items and such.

My automation needs in this pack are a bit light as I am only playing with thaumcraft and botania (and add-ons), so I don't require the fully automatic setups I would need in a more tech-centric pack. I may eventually fully automate some specific essentia generation that I need constantly (like herba for lamps of growth), but for now this should suffice.

(I'm at work at the moment, but will add some pictures when I get home.)

 

[MigukNamja]

I don't have a huge need for Thaumcraft essentia automation beyond the fairly straightforward/standard setup of:

• Charcoal auto-fed into bottom of multiple Alchemcal Furnaces with Alembics stacked on top
  Another barrel/chest auto-fed into side/back so I can feed in bulk
  
  
• 1 Distillation Golem for each furnace stack
  3 stacks and 3 golems total is a good number for me
  
  
• Plenty of jars, with a mix of labeled, labeled voided, and non-labeled
  These are arranged as you have described, @netmc

There's only between 10 and 15 common Essentia that I try and keep topped-off and for those, I've memorized the best items to break down. For the other, less common essentia, I fill those as needed for the recipe.

As for the Crucible, I have a piston with a Block Update Detector (BUD) setup to instantly squash the purple goo. Then, for things I need in quantities the Thaumium, I setup the automated alchemy thingy.

As for farms, I use just a tree farm, a wheat/seed farm, and a netherwart farm. Cobblestone is usually not a problem, either. It's amazing how much essentia can come from cobblestone plus those farms' outputs.

 

[MigukNamja]

Rather, the tedious/long part with Thaumcraft is with the nodes. Gathering nodes takes a while, as does node bullying. The charged nodes are amazing, though. If you can get all 6 Primals into a single node and turn that into a charged node, those are the 'best' wand chargers, IMHO.

 

[netmc]

Rather, the tedious/long part with Thaumcraft is with the nodes. Gathering nodes takes a while, as does node bullying. The charged nodes are amazing, though. If you can get all 6 Primals into a single node and turn that into a charged node, those are the 'best' wand chargers, IMHO.

I have found and died (several times in fact) to a hungry node. on my last trip there, I succeeded in getting it surrounded with obsidian and capped with planks to try and jar it. Unfortunately, I ended up with some stray obsidian trying to surround it, and the jaring failed as it had extra glass. I didn't have the needed glass to try jaring a second time however. The node is about 1800 blocks from my base, so it takes a bit to get there. I have found horses extremely efficient at overland travel although the larger hitbox is a bit annoying in forests. I haven't traveled back there with more glass yet although I aim to do so this evening. A hungry node along with some standard node bullying is bound to either make an awesome charged node, or destroy my base in the process. Either way, fun times will be had.

 

[MigukNamja]

I have found and died (several times in fact) to a hungry node. on my last trip there, I succeeded in getting it surrounded with obsidian and capped with planks to try and jar it. Unfortunately, I ended up with some stray obsidian trying to surround it, and the jaring failed as it had extra glass. I didn't have the needed glass to try jaring a second time however. The node is about 1800 blocks from my base, so it takes a bit to get there. I have found horses extremely efficient at overland travel although the larger hitbox is a bit annoying in forests. I haven't traveled back there with more glass yet although I aim to do so this evening. A hungry node along with some standard node bullying is bound to either make an awesome charged node, or destroy my base in the process. Either way, fun times will be had.

LOL. This is a great story and why I like modded MC so much

I'm not as brave as you, my friend. I tried to bully a huge corrupted node into an even larger, shielded pure node, but the corrupted node would have none of that. The lightning effects would fire and it seemed the bullying was working, but the corrupted node remained the same size and the pure never grew. I got tired of beating back the taint, so I broke the corrupted node. Sad.

 

[netmc]

LOL. This is a great story and why I like modded MC so much

I'm not as brave as you, my friend. I tried to bully a huge corrupted node into an even larger, shielded pure node, but the corrupted node would have none of that. The lightning effects would fire and it seemed the bullying was working, but the corrupted node remained the same size and the pure never grew. I got tired of beating back the taint, so I broke the corrupted node. Sad.

I have done a bit of research on node bullying. Basically, the node bullying chances of shrinking the bullied node and growth of the bully are completely independent of each other. The larger node is considered by the total number of aspects. A 7x7x7 cube with nodes in the corners and the node to grow exactly in the middle of the cube will let you bully slowly but steadily, and will never exhaust the nodes in the corners. Each time the center node bullies one of the others, it is randomly chosen. This allows to corner nodes to recharge their aspects and prevents them from becoming depleted. with 5 empty spaces between the nodes in the corners, they can't bully each other as they are too far away. The center node however can bully each and every other one.

I have used this setup before with only 6 of the 8 corner nodes placed, and I had no issues with the nodes being drained completely and consumed. You also don't need any stabilizers except for when you finally decide to switch over to an energized node. As the output of the energized node is the square root original vis values, it's a bit difficult to grow a node beyond a value of 5 (125). To reach a energized node value of 6, it would require 216 of the aspect. Besides making sure you have the 6 primal aspects, compound ones that break down into lots of primals are ideal as they get incorporated into the final count. Fabrico, Instrumentum, precantatio, Aurum, Sensus, Potentia... These are all good aspects to get into your node if possible as they can break down into lots and lots of primals.

 

[GreenZombie]

I have done a bit of research on node bullying. Basically, the node bullying chances of shrinking the bullied node and growth of the bully are completely independent of each other. The larger node is considered by the total number of aspects. A 7x7x7 cube with nodes in the corners and the node to grow exactly in the middle of the cube will let you bully slowly but steadily, and will never exhaust the nodes in the corners. Each time the center node bullies one of the others, it is randomly chosen. This allows to corner nodes to recharge their aspects and prevents them from becoming depleted. with 5 empty spaces between the nodes in the corners, they can't bully each other as they are too far away. The center node however can bully each and every other one.

I have used this setup before with only 6 of the 8 corner nodes placed, and I had no issues with the nodes being drained completely and consumed. You also don't need any stabilizers except for when you finally decide to switch over to an energized node. As the output of the energized node is the square root original vis values, it's a bit difficult to grow a node beyond a value of 5 (125). To reach a energized node value of 6, it would require 216 of the aspect. Besides making sure you have the 6 primal aspects, compound ones that break down into lots of primals are ideal as they get incorporated into the final count. Fabrico, Instrumentum, precantatio, Aurum, Sensus, Potentia... These are all good aspects to get into your node if possible as they can break down into lots and lots of primals.

I do personally love building mega nodes this way:

Given sufficient time, the corner nodes will eventually be exhausted as a bully event does have a chance to lower a point of vis cap (Rather than just drain a point).

The 7x7x7 setup seems to work with as few as 3 feeder nodes placed.

The square root of 125 is 11 - it is "easy" to hit the low teens in terms of CV/t out. The center node being bright seems to apply a bonus of about 20% to the initial vis values before performing the square root so it is very worthwhile making sure the center node is bright.

Compound aspects in a mega node are generally not useful as it is difficult to find multiple nodes with the same compound in order to grow it... As such you can generally grow the primal aspects higher, and it is only the largest source of a primal that counts: 3 different sources of ignis do not add up to make a larger ignis cv/t.

 

[netmc]

I do personally love building mega nodes this way:

Given sufficient time, the corner nodes will eventually be exhausted as a bully event does have a chance to lower a point of vis cap (Rather than just drain a point).

The 7x7x7 setup seems to work with as few as 3 feeder nodes placed.

The square root of 125 is 11 - it is "easy" to hit the low teens in terms of CV/t out. The center node being bright seems to apply a bonus of about 20% to the initial vis values before performing the square root so it is very worthwhile making sure the center node is bright.

Compound aspects in a mega node are generally not useful as it is difficult to find multiple nodes with the same compound in order to grow it... As such you can generally grow the primal aspects higher, and it is only the largest source of a primal that counts: 3 different sources of ignis do not add up to make a larger ignis cv/t.

I don't know what I was thinking with my math today.. I know it's a square root, but I was doing the math for cube root.. go figure. Ahh.. I did not know that only the largest amount that counts.

I did get my hungry node jarred, but as it turns out, it's not all that great of a node other than the fact I can feed items into it to bring up the lower aspects. On top of that, It was damaged in the jarring process and has become a pale node. I have found a few bright nodes around. I think I've even found a few with some decent aspect counts. The bright nodes aren't quite as large of a starting node as I wanted, but I have quite a few tiny nodes from silverwood trees I can use to get the aspect count up. Since the hungry node didn't work out quite as well as I wanted, I will go for a bright node instead. I just have to remember to not release the hungry node from its jar...


Here is the other pic I promised. Nothing real special yet, as I haven't decorated, but it is functional.

 

[GreenZombie]

Creating a truely epic mega node is a long term project.
It is worth considering, while the meganode grows, capturing and energizing a few targeted aspect nodes. If you find a large ignis node, that could be energized and dedicated to your infernal furnaces - a perdito node could supply any arcane bores you decide to power this way (I dont know if perdito is sufficient to activate the repair enchant on any thaumium pickaxes in an arcane bore).

 

[MigukNamja]

Creating a truely epic mega node is a long term project.
It is worth considering, while the meganode grows, capturing and energizing a few targeted aspect nodes. If you find a large ignis node, that could be energized and dedicated to your infernal furnaces - a perdito node could supply any arcane bores you decide to power this way (I dont know if perdito is sufficient to activate the repair enchant on any thaumium pickaxes in an arcane bore).

Problem with this is getting the Perdito to the Arcane Bore. AFAIK, Charged Nodes can't be moved and maintain their status. I have experimented with turning off the charged node bubble and the results aren't good - the node loses a lot of its vis :-(

The Arcane Bore has a finite range. Even with a max. Potency III, it can only use about 3 or 4 jars of Perdito, depending upon the hardness of the material (ex. dirt vs. obsidian). As cool as the idea is, I'm not seeing much a benefit of a charged node powering an Arcane Bore for anything medium-to-long distance away from base. Jars of Perdito are super-easy to make.

Also, I have been unsuccessful at getting a charged node to charge the Lamp of Growth. The issue is probably with compound aspects. I tried and failed with the following nodes turned into charged nodes:

• Terra + Aqua
• Herba + others
• Terra + Aqua + Herba

I believe the issue is when the nodes is converted to a charged node, it reduces all aspects to Primals. However, the Lamp of Growth requires Herba straight-up, and not as a combination of Terra and Aqua. Bummer.

With that said, a charged node with all 6 primals makes for an Arcane Table wand chargers. A charged node with roughly 6+ in all primals charges about as a fast as a Wand Pedestal and of course the charged node has infinite charging capabilities. My Thaumcraft room so far has a couple of Arcane Tables off the same charged node. I'm building a super-big charged node nearby, but it turns out I really don't need it.

I guess if I was on server with a shared Thaumcraft enchanting setup, a super-huge charging node would be necessary, but for just my purposes, I don't enchant or mass-produce enough stuff to need it.

 

[GreenZombie]

With that said, a charged node with all 6 primals makes for an Arcane Table wand chargers. A charged node with roughly 6+ in all primals charges about as a fast as a Wand Pedestal and of course the charged node has infinite charging capabilities. My Thaumcraft room so far has a couple of Arcane Tables off the same charged node. I'm building a super-big charged node nearby, but it turns out I really don't need it.

I guess if I was on server with a shared Thaumcraft enchanting setup, a super-huge charging node would be necessary, but for just my purposes, I don't enchant or mass-produce enough stuff to need it.

Mega nodes are really (At the moment) an exercise in doing it for its own sake. And I am quite happy with that.

I am hoping that TC 4.next incorporates even more vis powered infrastructure that can actually validate making a >5cv node: there are only 3 blocks that I know of that use the vis energy network (arcane bore, arcane workbench, infernal furnace) at the moment - and the bore - as pointed out - is really useless as you will quickly need to relocate it further away than is practical to extend the vis network.

 

[MigukNamja]

...the bore - as pointed out - is really useless as you will quickly need to relocate it further away than is practical to extend the vis network.

Another upgrade with TC 4.x that would be appreciated is a remote way to transport Vis. A 'Vis Mirror' or some such would be very cool.

Another candidate for Vis upgrade is the Alchemical Furnace. It currently uses charcoal or coal. I'd like to see an upgraded (Tier 2 version) powered by Ignis or Ignis + Ordo.

 

[netmc]

Mega nodes are really (At the moment) an exercise in doing it for its own sake. And I am quite happy with that.

I am hoping that TC 4.next incorporates even more vis powered infrastructure that can actually validate making a >5cv node: there are only 3 blocks that I know of that use the vis energy network (arcane bore, arcane workbench, infernal furnace) at the moment - and the bore - as pointed out - is really useless as you will quickly need to relocate it further away than is practical to extend the vis network.

The crystalizers also use terra vis to speed up. There is no way to pipe it in, so it has to be delivered via vis relay. Hopefully, lamps of growth and lamps of fertility will take vis in a future update, and likely a good amount of it. It's one of the few devices that are created in some quantity. It would give a use for all those mega nodes!

 

[loboca]

Check out DW20s new forgecraft2 episode today (s5e12). They explore the new eldritch dimension (no idea if that's the real name, but its where the areas with mages and knights takes you.). Then they use the loot from the boss to make a new multi-block furnace thing that runs on cv/t.