Thaumcraft. The best and worst mod in existence.

[Azzanine]

It's not for everyone, I just like the aesthetic and I actually like the minigame. I never get frustrated with it.
I don't play with it for its benefits, I just generally like making arcane themed builds. Plus the multitude of addons made for it add so much for me to do.
I was actually thinking of making a pack with just Thaumcraft 4 and all the stable addons I can find. Just to see how it plays. Maybe a liberal helping of decoration mods.
A lot of the modern tech mods seem to just be means to ends affairs. I seldom enjoy or get exited about any of them. The most recent tech mods that have wowed me have been Immersive Engineering (for it's esthetics) and before that RotaryCraft (it's the first mod in a while that's made me feel clever, of course before that I thought it was trash). Nothing else has really wowed me.
Don't get me wrong I like your AE's, EIO's and TE's but to me they are just handy tools. Means to make ends easier.

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[Vaeliorin]

I've only ever been really deep into Thaumcraft once, but I always at least get started on it. I really like the wands and caps, the armor is neat without being overpowered (I still want Fortress boots, though) and aesthetically it's hard to beat outside of mods that are specifically aesthetic. I don't think I'd drop it from my personal pack at any point.

I did prefer the mini-game that everyone else hated, though, where you had to move the runes around. That one was, I thought, a fun puzzle, while I find the current one to basically be about memorizing the makeup of every aspect, which just isn't something I find fun. It's not particularly onerous, though. I tend to set up a research table on my blood altar, and automate slates while I do the research.

 

[Psychicash]

First thaumcraft addon to add Nerd Golems, which take items from an inventory and scan them then put them back, all while wearing a little labcoat and a thaumometer monocle, will get a donation from me.

I'll chip in for that. Who's the tc mod person?

 

[rouge_bare]

Is there a more effective mining tool than the primal crusher?
What other mods offer the ranged AOE damage of a Primal Staff with Wand Focus: Lightning enhanced with Chain Lightning I?
I'm sure there are Tech armors that offer more self-repairing protection than Void Robes with Runic protection but its pretty damn nice.
And then there are the boots of the traveller - which I prefer not the enchant with haste lest I go too damn fast.

It also offers one of the most balanced (imo) forms of flight there is. Thaumcraft (and it's addons) certainly get their niches (I just discovered how to make Rainbow sheep on Agrarian Skies and I can't wait to actually make one or a few.)

And, once you've fully automated ore doubling in thaumcraft you can realize how lame putting two boxes next to each other is.

Or with witching gadgets get ore tripling for a very similar setup.

 

[malicious_bloke]

I'll chip in for that. Who's the tc mod person?

Azanor, but I don't think the addons are his doing.

 

[epidemia78]

Ive always played with research turned off. Sure, Im missing out on some content but I dont play MC for adventure. Some of the TC mechanics are too unforgiving like node bottling and bullying so I added a mod with an item that can pick up anything including nodes and another with a torch that speeds up time, then I modtweaked their recipes so they are crafted with thaumcraft.

 

[SpitefulFox]

I seem to remember someone talking about an addon for TC4 that has an autoscanner. Now if only I could remember which one it was...

Magia Naturalis has a device that lets you automate the deconstruction table.

 

[Tyrindor]

Is there a more effective mining tool than the primal crusher?
What other mods offer the ranged AOE damage of a Primal Staff with Wand Focus: Lightning enhanced with Chain Lightning I?
I'm sure there are Tech armors that offer more self-repairing protection than Void Robes with Runic protection but its pretty damn nice.
And then there are the boots of the traveller - which I prefer not the enchant with haste lest I go too damn fast.
--
And, once you've fully automated ore doubling in thaumcraft you can realize how lame putting two boxes next to each other is.

Draconic Evolution has a melee weapon called a "staff" with like a ~36x36 attack radius and it's armor easily beats the best armor in TC4 in my opinion. You can modify it on the go with ease, and can swap enchants anytime you want. Honestly, it feels a bit cheaty in comparison to anything TC offers.

If you think Boots of the Traveller with haste result in going too fast, you should try the draconic evolution armor. First time I got it I couldn't get into my house, then I realized there's an in-game throttle and set it to .3x it's original speed. Botania's ring requires less work than Boots of the Traveller, which is usually my early game source of fast movement.

It comes down to another case of "people will take the easiest path available". TC doesn't really offer much anymore that other mods don't exceed, and the research/scanning aspect of TC keeps many people from enjoying the best things. I mean you can spend 50 hours researching to make some awesome wand but an AOE sword is just as good, if not better, when you have fast flight.

I'm hoping TC5 addresses some of this. He already said he is getting rid of scanning. I'd like to see easy mode research become baseline and more balanced too.

 

[GreenZombie]

Draconic Evolution ...

... I'm hoping TC5 addresses some of this. He already said he is getting rid of scanning. I'd like to see easy mode research become baseline and more balanced too.

I'm hoping he doesn't.

Draconic Evolution seems like a mod where the author just decided to make everything better than any other mod. ExU, DartCraft, DE, EE3 are all mods that - interesting mechanics notwithstanding - are not worth bringing up in any discussion related to comparative mod balance. You just can't win a race to the bottom.

 

[RedBoss]

Meh, if I played this game for balance, I'd still be using only vanilla.

 

[Veggetossj]

I basicly only use thaumcraft to get to the top tier wand/staff/sceptre and then get all the fun wand foci, escpecially with the new wand foci enchant system, u can have some cool foci.

As for DE, I only use its Advanced Charm of Dislocation (our server doesnt have /home commands), nothing more. I find that mod way to unbalanced.

 

[Psychicash]

Now that I've heard several time it changed, I might think about considering giving a look at the mod.
So, from what I've said above, can someone, preferably with a similar idea, tell me if the actual TC could fit my "requirement" ?
(that is, no random-based mechanic, no world grief, proper documentation*, no ridiculously OP things)
*: That is, not in a RP way that basically says "just do it and see what's happen" or "maybe something that look like that have a chance of succeeding"

As a last word, even if I don't like the mod, I still think the mod is awesome in the way it adds a lot of content, mechanic, fancy stuff and more.

Currently, it still has research. The only in game documentation is the thaumanomicon. Unfortunately you have to research things to know what they are or do. Even then their uses are not very intuitive so you end up looking up YouTube videos. What's worse is the taint that you get from messing with forbidden research. It means a few things. No more afk because the taint can randomly generate mods even if spawn requirements aren't met for normal mobs. You randomly get blind, sick, fatigued etc. On top of that is required to get to end game stuff. There's still world grief in the form of the trained lands and infested great wood trees. These trees have cave spawned under them. Because if smaller and faster spiders weren't scary enough let's give them poison that drops you to a half a heart. Yes poison the most ridiculous form of damage next to the wither mechanic.

As for OP well between the armor and the focus upgrade it can get ridiculous. Not draconic evo ridiculous but close.

Then there is the node bullying which is very random as is the infusion crafting. Granted the infusion can be managed to not random at all but it takes some materials. The node bullying is completely random and time consuming.

So no I don't think it fits your requirements. I enjoy it but there's things that are a pain.

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[GreenZombie]

OP (note: this can be interpreted both as original post and overpowered) sums up pretty well my opinion about the mod.
At least, when it was completely based on randomness and resource hungry (spending them on crafting is ok, loosing them for "research" is not).
In fact, the only pack I've played that had TC was my first and only contact with the mod. And it got even worse, when I realized all the dirty mess, dark biome and general ugly things ruining the beauty of the world was TC's fault.
That plus the bucketload of addons, especially the 9000% OP god kami armor...

Spoiler: My reason why it's so OP

Two players on a server. Both plays the exact same amount of time, and have good knowledge of the mods they are playing with.
One went the Magic road, the other one the Tech road.
It took 3 weeks to get the Quantum+ armor (with Gravichestplate and UHSHelmet)
But only 4 days to get the full kami armor.
With that, I guess it's pretty clear what's wrong there.

But the worse part is the "No docs because spoiler" thing. That's seriously the worst thing ever. My solution to that was pretty simple. When I have to go through 1049 mods to decide which one to use, it's as simple as "no docs? not in my pack"
The result of all of that is that now, I don't play a pack with TC or remove it.
And, since it was my first magic mod, I now have a very bad image of that kind of mod...

Now that I've heard several time it changed, I might think about considering giving a look at the mod.
So, from what I've said above, can someone, preferably with a similar idea, tell me if the actual TC could fit my "requirement" ?
(that is, no random-based mechanic, no world grief, proper documentation*, no ridiculously OP things)
*: That is, not in a RP way that basically says "just do it and see what's happen" or "maybe something that look like that have a chance of succeeding"

As a last word, even if I don't like the mod, I still think the mod is awesome in the way it adds a lot of content, mechanic, fancy stuff and more.

youve convinced me. Pleast DON'T play Thaumcraft.

However.
Kami is not Thaumcraft. As such:
* All mods have random mechanics. Even if its just down to the random placement and rarity of the ores you need.
* TC adds biomes and wold gen. None of which infringes on any base you don't build right in it. So no world grief.
* Which mods have "proper" documentation? Very few mods have manuals - the vast majority rely on external wikis. Which TC has in addition to the thaumanomicon. IC2? TE? EnderIO? AE2? TC has better in game documentation than all these.
* TC mechanics are also the lest OP. Creative mode flight requires fuel. Ore doubling requires a lot of set up and a deep investment in TC. Runic protected void armor is great, but not so good you wouldn't consider Quantum armor instead. Golems are a bit more costly than ducts. The arcane bore - costs more than the few diamonds of a BC quarry and requires a bit more care in setting up, but is perfectly servicable.

If you want a well documented mod that gives you end-game tools but makes you actually work for them (is not OP), is not fickle and does not effect players who are disinterested in it - look no further than TC.

 

[Type1Ninja]

- Yes, all mod have random mechanic.
But between ore distribution (which can be much less random with COG) and "click the button, you have 1% chance of getting something, and 75% chance of loosing that item. Repeat that 345678987654345678 times." there is quite a difference.
- World grief, in my definition, include world generation. I mean, a dark-purple/black chunk in a bright green landscape is nothing but ugly.
Also, taint or whatever spread and can actually do damage afaik. So, it may not destroy what I built, but it destroy where I could have built. (and so does mods that adds poorly implemented structure generation)
- By "proper" documentation, I mean... look at the MCF thread of TC or any addon. Then look at the MCF thread of any other mod. See? That's what I call "proper" documentation. I mean, I can't even know the content of the mod without having to install it, and go through a long game of trial and guessing what things do. And, I know TC have a wiki or something like that. But having to check that on top of the normal MCF page take time. Maybe a few minutes. Maybe. Now, if I had to do that for every single mod, it would take me (1126*2)/60 ~= 37.5 hours. And two min per mods is not even close to reality.
- In case it wasn't obvious, I haven't played much with the mod. So I don't know the details of how "costly" they are. What I know is that as hard/tedious as it may sounds, it's just a different difficulty that I don't get. I prefer machine that takes me 50 hours to craft, require 1million steel plate, needs a constant 8192EU/tick and explode as a nuke and cause chain-explosion if I place it wrongly or takes fire/rain. My tech mods reference is Hardcoremode++ GregTech. Not TE/EIO/BC/other-cheap-tech-mod.

My point with TC is that it's so complicated to have a simple overview of the mod that I can't nerf it the way I want without spending an excessive amount of time doing so.

Also, "very few mod have manuals", but I still got a hotbar full of books on new worlds.....

You can disable the taint. Seriously, check the configs before complaining about how horrible x feature is, or that y is totally unbalanced. -.-
I'm not sure which mods you're looking at, but the ones I research have some pretty good info on them almost every time. This issue is really on a per-mod basis, but I have barely experienced it at all.
You know, I liked the first TC4 research minigame. If you sit down and enjoy it, it's not that bad... As for material cost, between research time and reward, it's actually really balanced, more balanced than most mods currently in existence. Everything is balanced by a material cost and a time cost - the material cost is the stuff used, and the time cost is the actual time it takes to build whatever crafting method, get the materials to craft, and actually research the thing you want. It sounds like a lot, but I really like how it works.

As for very few have manuals - listen, let's say you have a hotbar full of books on a modpack with - I don't know - 150 mods. The hotbar is 9 spaces. Then maybe one or two of those books are duplicates from the same mod, or aren't actually guides but something like the food log. So let's lower it to 7 books. 7/150 = 4.7%. I would define "4.7%" as "few."

 

[Ieldra]

youve convinced me. Pleast DON'T play Thaumcraft.
If you want a well documented mod that gives you end-game tools but makes you actually work for them (is not OP), is not fickle and does not effect players who are disinterested in it - look no further than TC.

This. I agree very much.

The only really annoying mechanic that costs me intense frustration is the degradation when moving an aura node, which is completely random (I guess it's about a 2 in 3 chance), and Automagy has a balanced way around that.

As for the research and the scanning: I don't understand the frustration, really. I can do it fast and almost in my sleep. Compared to the time you spend moving around recharging your wands from often non-chunkloaded nodes research time is almost negligible. Just yesterday I moved from zero to having researched every vanilla TC item that requires the minigame and is available without scanning items you made in TC itself, within two or three hours. As for research points, I scan everything, make a lot of stuff and scan that as well, and that's usually enough, but if you want an easier time I recommend installing ChromatiCraft. Those crystals and pylons give you a ton of research points.

Edit:
I don't like taint spread either and always disable it in the config.

 

[Psychicash]

You can disable the taint. Seriously, check the configs before complaining about how horrible x feature is, or that y is totally unbalanced. -.-
I'm not sure which mods you're looking at, but the ones I research have some pretty good info on them almost every time. This issue is really on a per-mod basis, but I have barely experienced it at all.
You know, I liked the first TC4 research minigame. If you sit down and enjoy it, it's not that bad... As for material cost, between research time and reward, it's actually really balanced, more balanced than most mods currently in existence. Everything is balanced by a material cost and a time cost - the material cost is the stuff used, and the time cost is the actual time it takes to build whatever crafting method, get the materials to craft, and actually research the thing you want. It sounds like a lot, but I really like how it works.

As for very few have manuals - listen, let's say you have a hotbar full of books on a modpack with - I don't know - 150 mods. The hotbar is 9 spaces. Then maybe one or two of those books are duplicates from the same mod, or aren't actually guides but something like the food log. So let's lower it to 7 books. 7/150 = 4.7%. I would define "4.7%" as "few."

You can disable taint... But... You're losing out on a resource necessary to get certain things in the research.

As far as in game documentation..
Ok let's look at a few mods that did it correctly.

Botania -by far the best in game documentation I've seen. Hands down. The book is week written, connects to the wiki, has in book recipes that link.

Flax beards steam works - haven't played much with the mods but from what I've played not watching a video I was fine with the in game book.

Tinker s construct- I love tinker s and the in game documentation is well done and even separated into books by topic.

Rf tools-great documentation. Presentation is eh but the information is well done.

Honestly the book has the beginning of good information but it doesn't go further to understanding. Plus like I said having to scan plus research everything before you even know what it does... Eh

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[malicious_bloke]

*reflexively scans Psychicash for cognitio*

 

[Psychicash]

Don't forget Reika's awesome mods,
And Essential craft III,
And Open Block,
And GT do have manuals,
And mods that have another way of documentation, for example, Extra Utilities and MPS.

I ran out of steam and didn't want to make a wall of text...oops lol but you're absolutely right.

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[Type1Ninja]

I know that Taint can be disabled. Unfortunately, I knew it back when I couldn't do anything about it.
But it's not the case for hungry/whatever node afaik.
Mod documentation, I think that might have been the wrong word. I should maybe say "short mod overview".
A 20 minutes long video is nowhere near short, and screenshot of the in-game documentation don't help much. All of that "because it's a Thaumcraft addon"
For material cost, I mostly remember sitting there spam-clicking and watching stacks upon stacks upon stacks of item disappearing without anything happening. And sorry, but spam-clicking might take time, but that's not entertaining in any way.
Also, on 150 mods, remove every core/lib mods,
Then remove every HUD/minimap/don't add item or block mod,
Then remove every mod that don't add more than a few blocks,
Then remove every mod that are straightforward and don't need any explanation,
Then remove every mod that every non-first time user know about,
What's left? Major mods. And, it's true that many of them don't have any manual.
But, every tech mod are the same. Make power, make machine, connect them. The only change are name & texture, mostly.

I think the hungry node can have the worst behavior disabled. I might be wrong, though.
This line, though:

But, every tech mod are the same. Make power, make machine, connect them. The only change are name & texture, mostly.

That's bad. Real bad.
Let's take a look at a couple mods - the classic example, TE vs. IC2.
TE: Make a dynamo. Hook the dynamo up to an energy cell, power some machines. Make more dynamos if you need to. So far, you've got it.
IC2: Make a generator. Hook it up to a... Wait, the batboxes are useless (iirc). Alright, wire it directly into a machine. Great, we have power! You add another machine, and... You're out of power. So you build another generator. But you realize pretty quickly that you're going to need a lot of generators. You make 128 generators, and hook them all up, start them up, and everything explodes.
It gets even worse when you realize you need different power levels for different machines.

Just to avoid a huge discussion about whether TE is better than IC2 or the other way around:

Spoiler

Neither is better than the other (in theory; both are actively updated, so balance changes).
TE represents a more sandbox philosophy - what I build should run, if not work correctly. I shouldn't be limited by more realistic limitations on power; I'm here to play with energy, and that means a simplified vision of electricity as little units that equalize themselves like water throughout your grid. This allows large builds with delicately made assembly systems to be broken, but only by player input, not by explosions.

IC2 represents a hardcore challenge philosophy - I need to be careful of what I build to avoid real-world consequences. Explosions are a fun challenge that keeps me on my toes; getting something that works takes second priority after getting something that runs. I like to be challenged by energy, and this in particular stimulates me as a method of providing that. This means that smaller builds, especially in the early game, take more effort and thinking, while larger builds are much harder due to explosions.

 

[Psychicash]

I think the hungry node can have the worst behavior disabled. I might be wrong, though.
This line, though:

That's bad. Real bad.
Let's take a look at a couple mods - the classic example, TE vs. IC2.
TE: Make a dynamo. Hook the dynamo up to an energy cell, power some machines. Make more dynamos if you need to. So far, you've got it.
IC2: Make a generator. Hook it up to a... Wait, the batboxes are useless (iirc). Alright, wire it directly into a machine. Great, we have power! You add another machine, and... You're out of power. So you build another generator. But you realize pretty quickly that you're going to need a lot of generators. You make 128 generators, and hook them all up, start them up, and everything explodes.
It gets even worse when you realize you need different power levels for different machines.

Just to avoid a huge discussion about whether TE is better than IC2 or the other way around:

Spoiler

Neither is better than the other (in theory; both are actively updated, so balance changes).
TE represents a more sandbox philosophy - what I build should run, if not work correctly. I shouldn't be limited by more realistic limitations on power; I'm here to play with energy, and that means a simplified vision of electricity as little units that equalize themselves like water throughout your grid. This allows large builds with delicately made assembly systems to be broken, but only by player input, not by explosions.

IC2 represents a hardcore challenge philosophy - I need to be careful of what I build to avoid real-world consequences. Explosions are a fun challenge that keeps me on my toes; getting something that works takes second priority after getting something that runs. I like to be challenged by energy, and this in particular stimulates me as a method of providing that. This means that smaller builds, especially in the early game, take more effort and thinking, while larger builds are much harder due to explosions.

I see what you did there

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