Thaumic gear and enchantments

[zyrax2301]

From watching Etho's FTB series on youtube I was led to believe that you could stack up a large number of enchantments on Thaumcraft tools and weapons, but it seems that I'm mistaken or missing something...when I try to add enchantments to my Sword of the Zephyr using books and an anvil, I eventually reach a limit and can't add any more. Either it shows as "Too Expensive!", or it just doesn't add the enchantment. Is there a special sort of enchantment table or anvil which gets around this? I would like to eventually get ALL of the available sword enchantments onto a Sword of the Zephyr if possible, but these are my priorities.

Sharpness V
Repair II
Looting III

I've also found that I can no longer repair my bow after maxing out the enchantments on it...originally it cost 32-36 levels (can't remember exactly) to repair when it had Power 5, Infinity I and Punch II, but after adding Flame I it is too expensive to repair it with a basic bow. I've looked into Uncrafting Tables to solve that problem, so once I get the items required for that I'll build it and be able to repair it again...unless there is a better way to do that too?

And finally, a basic question about armour...is it possibel to have more than one type of ...Protection enchant on a piece of armour? E.g. my boots of the traveller currently have Fire Protection IV, Haste III Repair II and Feather Falling IV on them. Could I theoretically add Projectile, Blast and Protection to them as well?

 

[brujon]

Yes, you can add more than one protection type to the same armor piece, but there is a cap on how much Protection you can have. http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Armor#Armor_enchantment_effect_calculation

Plan accordingly. Do note that normal Protection adds much less value than any other type of protection, but that it reduces ALL damage, even Fire and Fall Damage. But you only have 4 armor pieces, so that the max EPF for normal Protection is 20, and the cap is 25. However, there's a workaround for that. The protection enchantments are additive, so for instance, consider that you have Protection IV on all 4 pieces.

That's an EPF of 20.
But if you add Feather Falling I to your boots, your effective EPF is 25 for fall damagae
Then you add Fire Protection III to your helmet. EPF = 26 for fire
Then you add Blast Protection II to your boots. EPF = 25 for explosions
Then add Projectle Protection II to your chest EPF = 25 for Projectiles

There's still room to add Unbreaking to all your armor, with various levels, before it says that it's too expensive. With Diamond Armor + That, you'll be taking only half a heart of damage from nearly anything.

Also, higher enchantability only means you have a better than normal chance to get good enchants The formula is described here: http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Enchantment_Mechanics

The too expensive message? There's a formula for that. http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Anvil_Mechanics --> Basically, you CAN'T use any function of the anvil on an item if it would cost more than 30 levels to do so. Also, every time you do something to an Item on an Anvil, it costs more to add more to it, so... Be careful This also includes repairing the item!

So, uber tools eventually break and cannot be repaired anymore. If you leave a little bit of wiggle room and use the renaming function to "reset" the Prior Work count, you can have a not-so-enchanted item, but that you can continue to keep adding to it. Another option is adding the "Repair" enchant, but takes enchantment levels that could have been used to add other enchantments. You can't have all enchants on the same item, you have to pick and choose.

So you can't have a Sharpness V, Repair II, Looting III, Knockback II, Fire Aspect II Sword of the Zephyr, at least not using vanilla enchantmment mechanics.

 

[zyrax2301]

Ok, so there must be some way to go outside of the limitations set by vanilla enchanting...4:30, look at his sword! That's what I want

 

[Phantom27]

Yes, you can add more than one protection type to the same armor piece, but there is a cap on how much Protection you can have. http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Armor#Armor_enchantment_effect_calculation

Plan accordingly. Do note that normal Protection adds much less value than any other type of protection, but that it reduces ALL damage, even Fire and Fall Damage. But you only have 4 armor pieces, so that the max EPF for normal Protection is 20, and the cap is 25. However, there's a workaround for that. The protection enchantments are additive, so for instance, consider that you have Protection IV on all 4 pieces.

That's an EPF of 20.
But if you add Feather Falling I to your boots, your effective EPF is 25 for fall damagae
Then you add Fire Protection III to your helmet. EPF = 26 for fire
Then you add Blast Protection II to your boots. EPF = 25 for explosions
Then add Projectle Protection II to your chest EPF = 25 for Projectiles

There's still room to add Unbreaking to all your armor, with various levels, before it says that it's too expensive. With Diamond Armor + That, you'll be taking only half a heart of damage from nearly anything.

Also, higher enchantability only means you have a better than normal chance to get good enchants The formula is described here: http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Enchantment_Mechanics

The too expensive message? There's a formula for that. http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Anvil_Mechanics --> Basically, you CAN'T use any function of the anvil on an item if it would cost more than 30 levels to do so. Also, every time you do something to an Item on an Anvil, it costs more to add more to it, so... Be careful This also includes repairing the item!

So, uber tools eventually break and cannot be repaired anymore. If you leave a little bit of wiggle room and use the renaming function to "reset" the Prior Work count, you can have a not-so-enchanted item, but that you can continue to keep adding to it. Another option is adding the "Repair" enchant, but takes enchantment levels that could have been used to add other enchantments. You can't have all enchants on the same item, you have to pick and choose.

So you can't have a Sharpness V, Repair II, Looting III, Knockback II, Fire Aspect II Sword of the Zephyr, at least not using vanilla enchantmment mechanics.

While your reply was very detailed and informative, there are some inaccuracies.

First off, no, you cannot have more than one type of protection on the same armour piece. You have to choose between Protection, Blast Protection, Projectile Protection, and Fire Protection. You may only have one, no more. I actually just tested this in my 1.4.7 world, just to make sure that it wasn't changed at some point and I never realised, and yes, this is still the case.
Similarly, you can only have one out of Sharpness, Smite, Bane of Arthropods and Disjunction on a sword.

Second, it is indeed possible to have several enchantments on a sword.
My Sword of the Zephyr has:
Sharpness V
Repair II
Unbreaking III
Looting III
Vorpal III
Fire Aspect II
and I could also add Knockback II if I wanted.

Now this would be too expensive to repair if it were any other sword, but I have Repair II on it, so it's no problem.

The trick to having both Repair and Unbreaking is to first put Repair, then Unbreaking. If you put Unbreaking first, it won't let you add Repair.

I should note that I'm not using Enchanting+ or any other Enchanting mod, just the standard mods that come with the DW20 pack.

You are pretty much correct about everything else.

 

[zyrax2301]

Ah, so the problem is I'm trying to apply more than one vanilla damage enchantment to the sword. That will be it! You could also have Disjunction on that sword then, right?

Is there a good reason to combine Repair and Unbreaking? Apparently it uses less aura to repair the item but it doesn't seem like I'm using much to begin with. Especially with a sword that will one-shot practically anything. Then again, I have tons of Unbreaking III books so I guess it wouldn't hurt

 

[Phantom27]

Ah, so the problem is I'm trying to apply more than one vanilla damage enchantment to the sword. That will be it! You could also have Disjunction on that sword then, right?

Is there a good reason to combine Repair and Unbreaking? Apparently it uses less aura to repair the item but it doesn't seem like I'm using much to begin with. Especially with a sword that will one-shot practically anything. Then again, I have tons of Unbreaking III books so I guess it wouldn't hurt

You are right, you can indeed have both Sharpness and Disjunction. Until now I thought this wasn't possible because it wouldn't let me add it to the sword I posted above, but it seems that if you add Disjunction first, then it will let you add Sharpness also.

No other reason for both Repair and Unbreaking aside from what you mentioned. I have a ton of books, so I figured I might as well add everything I can.

I no longer use my Boots of the Traveller, but since you mentioned them, mine have:
Fire Protection IV
Feather Falling IV
Haste III
Repair II
Unbreaking III
Thorns III

Also, my Goggles of Revealing:
Protection IV
Aqua Affinity I
Respiration III
Repair II
Unbreaking III
Thorns III

I love just looking at them, so pretty.

 

[zyrax2301]

Nice, I need to get a Respiration book for my goggles too. I'm not really all that interested in Thorns but I guess I'll use it if/when I get it. I love enchanting in FTB. Tier 5 blaze shards are awesome.

Another question - what is a good pair of pants? I've just been using Iron Leggings since I started, and my armour level is pretty pitiful considering I'm using a jetpack, goggles and boots of the traveller.

 

[Phantom27]

If you have set up some IC2 infrastructure, I would recommend the Nano Leggings. That's the first set of leggings I made in my current world. Before I made those, I was using some steel leggings I found in a chest. If you are in a 1.4.7 world, you are able to enchant them as well, so you could add Protection, or Fire Protection, or whatever.

I would also recommend the MPS leggings, but
1. modules for MPS might be a bit expensive, depending on what modpack and version you are using, and
2. if you get these you might as well get rid of your boots of the traveller, since they offer modules for faster movement, higher jump and stepping up 1 block high ledges, in addition to higher protection

Personally I didn't see the point of making the thaumic leggings, as unlike the boots and the goggles, they don't offer anything special.

 

[zyrax2301]

Yeah, I made a set of the Thaumic leggings and threw them back in the Crucible lol

 

[ThemsAllTook]

Naming your items prevents their repair cost from increasing each time you put them into an anvil, and will in fact reset the cost increase to 1. If you're in a situation where a tool is no longer repairable, naming it might resolve that (and naming can never be too expensive as I recall). However, stack up enough enchants and repair will still be impossible.

 

[Ako_the_Builder]

This needs clarifying but I think an uncrafting table (from twilight forest mod) will still repair items that are too expensive for an anvil to repair.

As to why unbreaking and repairing? repairing still costs aura, may as well make it cost less aura

 

[TangentialThreat]

Unbreaking and repairing won't actually work together. You can force both to be on the same item but you can't benefit from both. Sorry.

 

[OmegaJasam]

I've not seen anything that implys both don't work. Unbreaking works as normal, reducing the odds of durability loss while repair repairs.
For the sword of the zephyer this can be VERY useful, as doing things like slaughting large amounts of mobs does durability (and hunger loss) per mob hit.

Does anyone hvae a list of which enchantments are order dependent? I know even my best sword is short of 2-3.

Armour wise I tend to reccomend the MPS. The jump boost stacks with the boots. I tend to use that + the MPS glider module rather then the jetpack early on for better protection.

 

[ICountFrom0]

I'm going to say what nobody else has said...
Dire does indeed cheat, and it does indeed cause suport tickets and help requests just like this when he does.

He loves his ubertools, and he makes them in creative (you hit X in creative mode in NEI) and then claims they are made from natural enchantments and books, and then things like this happen.

I really wish he wouldn't, as it leads to no end of confusion.

Further you add in that there's 1.4.2 before bugfixes, 1.4.7 with it's own bugfixes, 1.4.7 post bugfixes and potentially 1.5.2 versions floating around, each with slightly different variations on how things can work, vs how the mod makers meant them to work.

 

[brujon]

Do Thaumic tools somehow break the enchanting limit? You have a max limit on the levels of enchant you can have on an armor, and if what Phantom said is true, it's only possible if this limit is broken...

 

[ICountFrom0]

I think part of it is, that once you are adding enchants to something already enchanted with repair, you need not keep it under the arbitrary (level 39 or you can't fix it) limit of repairing on an anvil.
Course you could get a little higher (45?) with a goblin tinkering bench, but that also does not matter if the tool fixes itself.
The key item I think you are thinking of is:

http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Anvil_mechanics

Down about three pages, "multiple enchantments" where adding that 5th enchantment has an additional cost of 15 for that 5 enchantment item. The 6th one would cost an additional 21, the 7th 28, as long as it is under 39 you can squeeze it in. Course you are also working against the "prior work penalty" though paying for a rename can negate that, if you are wise.

Anybody care to work out the most ligit enchants you can get onto something, and what it would cost?

 

[brujon]

Yes, every time you rename the item it bounces the Prior Work penalty back to 2. So you enchant it once, it goes to 5, then you rename, it goes to 2, You enchant again, it goes to 9, then you rename, goes to 2, rinse, repeat. What could also be happening with thaumic tools is that they have a high enough enchantability that they repeat the enchanting process higher than 4 enchants maximum?

 

[ThemsAllTook]

Yes, every time you rename the item it bounces the Prior Work penalty back to 2. So you enchant it once, it goes to 5, then you rename, it goes to 2, You enchant again, it goes to 9, then you rename, goes to 2, rinse, repeat. What could also be happening with thaumic tools is that they have a high enough enchantability that they repeat the enchanting process higher than 4 enchants maximum?

Really? Unless this changed recently, renaming the item permanently caps it at 2. You don't have to rename a second time after repairing/enchanting.

 

[tehBlobLord]

Also, nobody mentioned yet that you can't stack Smite, Bane or Sharpness together; you can only have one, so that's probably why some of your additions weren't showing up.

 

[zyrax2301]

Unbreaking and repairing won't actually work together. You can force both to be on the same item but you can't benefit from both. Sorry.

I don't think this is true. I've added both onto my sword, hit a few things, and it was still in perfect condition immediately after a couple of strikes - that is, the durability bar didn't appear. That's Unbreaking at work! And then when it did take damage (on the third attack or so) it repaired itself. Seems like they're both working to me.

I did manage to forge a good sword last night but I screwed it up a bit - I didn't have maxed out books for anything except Unbreaking, so I had to use the anvil twice for each enchantment. As a result, I don't have as many on it as I'd like and I can't add any more. I guess I'll try again when I have better books. Right now, it's a two-shot on most things and I'm ok with that. Here's what I ended up with on this one.

Sharpness IV
Vorpal III
Looting III
Repair II
Unbreaking III

I also discovered that I can repair my bow at an anvil if I use a couple of crappy, near-broken bows...I think 50% durability is the breakpoint. Pretty easy to get them from skeletons, so I'm on easy street now. I'm still planning to make an Uncrafting Table but for now I can at least keep my perfect bow in good working order.