Thaumcraft is a nightmare

[MrTony]

Hi everyone,

I came here to ask you to do something about the thaumcraft mod. It gave me the worst experience I ever had with Minecraft, playing since the first year it came out.

I think thaumcraft is a great mod in general. I love the details around the aspects, where to find them, the books and the beautiful effects, items and graphics. However i feel it is a bit inefficient compared to many other mods in FTB (I play Monster), but thats just me.

However the taint ruined my whole game experience during the last days.
We played monster on a new server for a few days and hat a nice little village, some machines and so on. But then we discovered a tainted area near our town, so I started to engage in Thaumcraft to get rid of it.

I started research, but it was more than frustrating. Lots of wikis, boards, google research and then in the end you always get information which where outdated or just wrong and also most times information just lead to a ton of new questions.

But overall the problem was - taint spread like hell and creating etheral bloom to cleanse it is just a pain.
Most parts of the research are locked and you just cant figure out how to even gain the research page....
Then even if you manage to get it, you will need to collect tainted items, which either get destoryed when you try to collect it, or dissolve in your pockets if you manage to pick them up.
Then you need to gather tons and tons of other elements which require a whole farm of mana beans or another person who already has researched a high level of the alchemy in minecraft vanilla, since you will need lots of healing potions to gather enough vis of a special aspect.

Until you even figured out all of this, the taint already is all over the word or all over your town.
You could try to stop it from spreading, but you would need silverwood trees for it and they drop like 1 sapling for each 2 trees you cut down. so you cant grow or farm them. also you always have to pray that the taint wont get to the tree before it has grown, or it will just consume it.

And even if you somhow contained it and figured out how to get the etheral bloom AND you have mastered like 3 other mods to create enough materials to create your blooms, you will need like 2 stacks of them to clean the area. And then you notice it spread below ground, in mines where you have to search every last corner so you dont miss any of it....

I am sorry, but this was the most effort I ever had to put in any aspect of minecraft while at the same time not being rewarding at all. I like the game and happily collect, research, tinker craft and build stuff and always found it very rewarding, even if there was no super building or item at the end, sometimes it was just because i was curious.

But I never had any mod or aspect of the game where the research was so painfull, where you needed so much effort and resources and at the same time it felt not at all rewarding in the end (if there even is an end since you never know if the taint is in another dark coner of a mine somewhere).

By the way not even nukes seem to work since they only do very little damage in tainted areas....

I have to stress again, that I like Thaumcraft in general very much, but the Taint element was the most horrible experience I ever had in minecraft where I nearly lost all fun in the new server and I think it seriously needs to be changed.

 

[rouge_bare]

Firstly, at default configs, taint doesn't actually spread that fast. I've been tasked with cleaning up an area near a server spawn from taint. So I can tell you it is combatable. Ethereal blooms might be a bit of a pain to make, but ender chests or portable bags (such as the golden bag of holding) when holding taint goo or tainted tendrils prevent them from dissolving. They don't dissolve at all if you in tainted lands either. My favourite way to handle these was to send them directly to a waiting distillation facility, via ender pouch, melting them down then using an essentia crystalliser to crystalise them into the much more stable crystalised form. Which makes it so much easier to use in a cruicble.
Secondly, you can disable taint spread in the config file.
Thirdly, if research annoys you, you can also set the config to easy mode research, where all research becomes secondary or purchasable research, esqueing the need to play the minigame at all. (But i honestly prefer the minigame, it lets me choose what research points I use, rather than insisting I need all that aer and ignis based aspects, while hardly touching my huge stock of terra or perdito.

The research mini-game is pretty simple. If two aspects are next to each other, and one contains the other, then they will connect. The aim is to connect all the aspects together. For instance Victus (Life) will connect to Terra, since Terra + Aqua = Victus. But Victus will not connect to Telum, as Victus cannot be combined with another aspect to make Telum, nor is it made of Telum.

EDIT: Oh wait Monster? I think that might have an older research system... I don't really recall as i've moved on from it. Taint still doesn't spread that quickly by default though.

 

[skruis]

I believe the latest version of monster included a version of Thaumcraft that included the updated research system (w/ the minigame).

I'm pretty sure Monster included BetterStorage. I love their backpacks and I think the default config let's you wear and open them without taking up an armor slot and/or putting them on the ground first which is real nice. The tainted items will only decay if they're in your own inventory so ... there are some workarounds to that specific issue. I'm not sure how you arrived at needing mana beans or alchemy. I'm pretty sure it's just the flowers (silverleaf?) and some other basic aspects apart from the taint. The taint ones are the hardest to get but if you chop up the fiberous taint on the ground and get a spot close enough to a monster spawner, you can collect (and then store) the taint goo/tentacles in your bag/backpack and you'll be ok. I think for the other aspects, I grew a lot of nether wart and used that for the plant and magical aspects. Once you have the right stuff, it's really not so bad but more to your point: I felt the same way about Thaumcraft when I first ran into the Taint issue. I had no idea what TC was or what taint was ... I just knew it looked bad and occasionally, weird things would attack me. I hated TC for Taint because it felt like nothing more than a gimmick that invaded your world and forced you into their mod but it would have been more appropriate to be frustrated with the Monster pack or the FTB team for including TC in the pack rather than TC itself because not all players might know how invasive Taint could be. Later, I came to see Taint as more of a TC presence in the world that made the mod, and the underlying mythology, more believable and involved ... as if the Minecraft world IS a world with it's own processes and life which is something I really like. Some people like building things. Others like to explore the world. Taint introduces aspects that appeal to one and not the other. In later versions, it looks like Taint is a biome vs something that can sporadically pop up and start spreading so it's easier to avoid if you don't want to deal with it.

Also, blooms work on a XZ system I believe. So, the taint spreads underground and stuff but plonking down a bloom on the Surface kills the taint, over time, from the bottom of the world to the top in an 8 block radius (I think it's 8). Additionally, it may look like it takes forever for the purpley hue to go away but if you leave the area, so the chunks unload from your client (go to the nether or something) and then come back, you'll notice a bigger difference more quickly than if you were to stay there and watch. For a really bad Taint spread, I can usually get away w/ 8 blooms. You kind of have to pick a good angle of attack and then 'herd' the taint until it's gone.

 

[MrTony]

On my server I seriously needed like more than a stack of etheral bloom and then realizes it already spread underground under the ocean. I havbe it on normal and it has grown like hell.

To make it clear: Its not the research minigame I hate, its the documentation, the wikis and the board discussions, where I had to look up all the stuff and most information where outdated or wrong.
I understand you can get tainded stuff in a backpack. But you still need lots of it and you need even more of magic, which is managable, but you also need tons of the sano aspect which you will only get from tons and tons of mana beans or from lots of healing potions.
So you see, to get like a stack full of ethereal bloom you will first have to build up a mana bean farm or you will have to reach a high tier on vanilla alchemy and a farm of melons and lots of glowstone to produce healing potions.
And i only know this from the wiki. I was never able to even unlock the research minigame for ethereal bloom in FTB since the research is just locked and I never found out what I was missing.

And again: the worst part is, you dont do all of this because you like thaumcraft and you are interested in it. You have to put up all this work just so your base wont get uninhabitable because of the taint spread. and after all the work its not like you made any progress in the overall research of ftb monster. There are guys running around with laser guns right now while i was busy just brewing up some magical flower....its just not rewarding at all for such a big effort.

 

[skruis]

Ah, yea, Sano! I forgot about that. I think another source is 'milk'. Now I remember why I had a ton of metal-ium? left over after making the blooms

I agree. The documentation is iffy in part I think because there were major changes to TC and nobody bothered to go back and update their info. I believe you're in TC4.x. As far as the Ocean biomes: that sucks.

With re: to the unlock, I think you need to scan taint and there's a bug in the research trigger in that version. I think you have to research ... I forgot what it's called, maybe arcane infusion? Arcane infusion is not related at all but like I said, it's a bug.

I found it as equally frustrating when I had to deal with it. Taint started to intrude on my base and I had to stop everything I was doing and deal with that problem. My friends and I read some janky information that said if you dig 2 blocks down all around it, it will contain the taint. Then we read something that said pour lava on it. We dug out an entire cavern under a taint infested mountain before I was like: Ok, we have to learn Thaumcraft and deal with this properly.

 

[GreenZombie]

FTB Monster is MC 1.6.4, so Thaumcraft 4.1.0g

Taint, even in this version, was not particularly virulent, and again - like in 4.2 - the taint biome required fibrous taint to spread. Even under the ocean biome the taint could only follow the underground passages.

Regarding needing tainted things - I guess the thaumcraft mechanisim to carry tainted stuff around would be to use a mirror, or travelling luggage. Both of which were iirc in 4.1. But actually you don't need samples of taint at all. I always personally collect many tanticles, but have yet to use any despite "completing" thaumcraft in multiple games.

Mana beans have aways been the best source of sano, the lack of bean breeding in 4.1 is a hindrance, but iirc you get far better yields, so just set up a bean farm with some golems and let it churn. Or automate the production of cake.

 

[MrTony]

Is there a way to remove taint as an admin? Or just get rid of taint or its spread without disabeling Thaumcraft in general?

I did read, that you could disable taint spread in the config file of thaumcraft, but i did not find the entry "biome_taint_spread" in the config.
Also it says that tainted animals will still spread the taint to other chunks and biomes even if you disable it. Seems I need to disable Thaumcraft completely :/

Can someone just provide an addon, which lets you combine an ethereal bloom and some rockets/bombs so you can make a biological anti taint weapon?

 

[McJty]

Is there a way to remove taint as an admin? Or just get rid of taint or its spread without disabeling Thaumcraft in general?

I did read, that you could disable taint spread in the config file of thaumcraft, but i did not find the entry "biome_taint_spread" in the config.
Also it says that tainted animals will still spread the taint to other chunks and biomes even if you disable it. Seems I need to disable Thaumcraft completely :/

Can someone just provide an addon, which lets you combine an ethereal bloom and some rockets/bombs so you can make a biological anti taint weapon?

I never had any problem with taint. It is very easy to stop taint spreading by just planting silverwoord trees between your base and the tainted area (many of these trees will have pure nodes in them). Also remember that if a tainted area is not chunkloaded it will not grow.

 

[MrTony]

I never had any problem with taint. It is very easy to stop taint spreading by just planting silverwoord trees between your base and the tainted area (many of these trees will have pure nodes in them). Also remember that if a tainted area is not chunkloaded it will not grow.

I am sorry, but that just does not help.

I am happy for you if you never had problems with taint, but i know at least 10 people (on my server) who have massive problems with taint. Then if i add all those boards i visited to find out about taint i would add a lot of mire who just hate this stuff.

Also we already chopped down a lot of silverwood trees, but as i said we only got 1 sapling for like ever 3rd tree. Also if we placed it to close the taint just got the better of it. And no, none of the like 8 or 9 silverwood trees we planted had a pure node inside them.

 

[GreenZombie]

I am sorry, but that just does not help.

I am happy for you if you never had problems with taint, but i know at least 10 people (on my server) who have massive problems with taint. Then if i add all those boards i visited to find out about taint i would add a lot of mire who just hate this stuff.

I would love to see some screenshots of this out of control taint. As someone who has played a lot of TC, and built a base, in a TC 4.2 game, IN a taint biome, everything you claim is counter to my experience. The stuff is distressingly tame.

As a server OP, you could just give yourself a bunch of ethereal blooms, and blat them down every 15 blocks, to clear unwanted taint.

 

[skruis]

I would love to see some screenshots of this out of control taint. As someone who has played a lot of TC, and built a base, in a TC 4.2 game, IN a taint biome, everything you claim is counter to my experience. The stuff is distressingly tame.

As a server OP, you could just give yourself a bunch of ethereal blooms, and blat them down every 15 blocks, to clear unwanted taint.

Well, he's obviously new to TC so his categorization of out of control taint would be very different to someone who has intentionally built a base in a taint biome. From my last Monster play through, I setup a base in the tropics and across a river, there was a highlands area that started out with a small amount of taint but since I had a large view distance, and it was running on a server, the taint spread did become a problem fairly quickly. It was manageable, for me, because after already having dealt with Taint before, I knew what to do to fix it but for someone that isn't aware of it and is just starting out, it could be a big problem for them.

 

[MrTony]

I would love to see some screenshots of this out of control taint. As someone who has played a lot of TC, and built a base, in a TC 4.2 game, IN a taint biome, everything you claim is counter to my experience. The stuff is distressingly tame.

As a server OP, you could just give yourself a bunch of ethereal blooms, and blat them down every 15 blocks, to clear unwanted taint.

Yes, but I did not OP myself, because I dont want to get seduced to cheat my way out of problems all the time. Also after putting in so much effort in thaumcraft i would have felt very let down if I just cheated the items I need.
One way or another we created a new sever, because we just could not get enough silverwood and also never where able to unlock the Ethereal Bloom Research.
On the new server i disabled tainted biomes in the world generation file. hope it helps.
i just want ti build up my base and maybe create a little, magical thaumcraft house in the wood later, but i dont want to be forced to rush into this mod and its research because nothing else is working...

 

[EyeDeck]

Is there a way to remove taint as an admin? Or just get rid of taint or its spread without disabeling Thaumcraft in general?

I did read, that you could disable taint spread in the config file of thaumcraft, but i did not find the entry "biome_taint_spread" in the config.

I dug up an old Monster archive I had and found the lines in Thaumcraft.cfg

    # The chance per block update (1 in n) of the Taint biome spreading. Setting it to 0 prevents the spread of Taint biomes.
    I:biome_taint_spread=0

I always found it frustrating to have to deal with the taint spread mechanic essentially from the moment I started a world, so I always turned it off.

If you can be bothered to update Reika's mods to v25z, which in Monster should be CaveControl, DragonAPI, DyeTrees, EnderForest, ExpandedRedstone, GeoStrata, MeteorCraft, ReactorCraft and RotaryCraft, you could plant a few rainbow trees from DyeTrees around the taint. Those things will convert a roughly 2-chunk radius around them to Rainbow Forest, which I think also resists further taint spread.