Many people don't truly understand the mod that is Thaumcraft. It's beautifully written, and probably one of the most quality mods Minecraft has to offer. However, with quality comes complexity, and I'm here to help some of you break it down, chapter by chapter, step by step. Chapter 1: Stuff and Thangs 1) First make yourself an Iron Capped Wooden Wand. This requires two Iron Caps and a Stick. I'm not going to explain crafting recipes for the most part, purely because the links give you the recipes you need. 2) Get a Thauminomicon. This is a book that will pretty much guide your development through the mod. To make one, craft a bookshelf and place it down in the world. Then simply right-click it with your wand, and boom! It plays a cool animation and gives you the magical and mystic book. 3) Opening it up, there's a lot of stuff in it. You can navigate through each tab by dragging across the screen, giving it a look more like the achievement tab in your options. You'll have to deal with this later. 4) Now, you need a Arcane Workbench and Research Table. The Arcane Workbench is basically a magic Crafting Table, which will help you craft things to advance through the mod, while the Research Table helps with learning about those items you must craft. Complicated? Good. To make these, you'll need 3 Tables (Specifically the Thaumcraft Tables, duh), and Scribing Tools. Put one of the tables down and right=click it with your wand, like you did with the bookshelf. This will make the Arcane Workbench. Next, you need to place two of the tables down next to each other. Right-click it with the Scribing Tools to make a Research Table. 5) Finally, you'll need to get a Thaumometer. This can be made with Vis Shards, Gold, and one piece of Glass. Vis Shards can be found while mining, and they have 6 different forms, as seen below. From left to right, there are Air, Fire, Water, Earth, Order, and Entropy Shards. After the Thaumometer is obtained, you have gotten all the materials to start out. Next chapter is dedicated to research. Chapter 2: The Know-How and the How-to-Know 1) First, let me explain a lot of terms I'll be using in this chapter. Vis is magic in its purity. It explains how much magic you will need to use in order to preform an action, or the use of that magic in general. A much more detailed look at Vis shows aspects. Aspects are basically, the elements of magic. There are 6 Primal Aspects, or the most basic Aspects, which are Aer (Air), Ignis (Fire), Aqua (Water), Terra (Earth), Ordo (Order), and Entropy (Chaos). However, Vis has a dark side. Flux is impure magic essence, and occurs when you have unneeded or too much Vis than what is originally needed. If you leave Flux alone, it will worsen the environment until bad things start happening. Basically, avoid it. Now that we have that preface done, let's continue. 2) One huge part of this mod is research. This involves learning more about the magical aspects of what is around you and such. To start, use your Thaumometer to start scanning basic items. It can scan entities (mobs, players, and dropped items), along with blocks placed in the world. You will immediately see that most things are too complicated to be understood at first, but the more you develop your research, the more you will learn. However, if you find this time-consuming and boring, you can zip by it by using the knowledge I will present below. 3) If you see the phrase "Research", this means you must go into the Research Table to make this Aspect by combining the Aspects instructed, usually due to the difficulty of finding it in the world. With that, scan these items in their exact order listed: Research: (Aqua + Terra) --> Victus Torch --> Lux Coal --> Potentia Grass Block --> Herba Chest / Bowl --> Vacuos, Arbor Trapdoor --> Motus Amber --> Vinculum, Vitreus Research: (Victus + Perditio) --> Mortuus Any Vis Shard, Mossy Cobble, Chiseled Sandstone --> Praecantatio Chicken --> Volatus & Bestia Research: (Victus + Mortuus) --> Spiritus Book (or paper) --> Cognito Block of Flesh / Rotten Flesh --> Humanus & Corpus Wheat, Bread, Apple, Carrot, Potato --> Fames & Messis Flint --> Instrumentum Obsidian, Mushroom Block --> Tenebrae Gold Block / Emerald Block and Iron Block. --> Lucrum & Metallum 4) And then you can scan the rest (no particular order necessary). Note that getting Lucrum and Metallum above allows scanning diamond and metal items for the next section, but some enchantments may complicate that. Of course, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. Research: (Aer + Aqua) --> Tempestas Any dye or one block tall vanilla Flower --> Sensus Wool --> Fabrico & Pannus Spider Eye --> Venenum, Sensus Snow Block, Ice--> Gelum Milk Bucket --> Sano Best available Hoe --> Meto Best available Pickaxe --> Perfodio Best available Sword (or arrow) --> Telum Best available Armor or Leather --> Tutamen Quicksilver, Cinnabar Ore --> Permutatio, Venenum Fence Gate --> Machina, Iter Zombie, Skeleton --> Exanimis Ender Pearl, Obsidian Totem --> Alienis, Iter Slimeball --> Limus Tainted Goo --> Vitium, Limus Ethereal Essence (any Aspect) --> Auram 5) With that, all Aspects should be in your capable hands. If you haven't already, also research Bedrock and other players, for they can give you a lot of extra Aspects. However, you should have an understanding of everything in the world and all its Aspects. Now, let's put these aspect points to good use. 6) Go ahead and open your Thauminomicon. As you can see, there are a lot of blinking objects to choose from. I'm obviously not going to cover everything, but I can help with getting a feel on how to continue. The next chapter explains the basics of researching Recipes. Chapter 3: Research is Boring: 1) You'll need another set of Scribing Tools and Paper. Keep them in your inventory at nearly all times. Open up your Thauminomicon, and look under the Alchemy tab to the left of the frame. Now, choose the orange-fire-like item. This is Nitor. Though unnecessary, it makes for a decent example in researching items. As you can see, it gives you a Research Note. This should be put into the Research Table, where there's an empty slot next to the Scribing Tools up top in the GUI. Immediately after you put it in, you will see that a new interface will spawn on the right. This is the research interface, which effectively serves as a minigame. 2) There should be two Aspect already uncovered. One is Ignis, and one is Lux. Your goal is to link them, using aspects similar to those it connect to. This sounds complicated, but it really isn't. Let's break it down. 3) Lux is a compound Aspect, or one that is made out of other Aspects. Lux is made out of Aer and Ignis. So, by that logic, an Aer or Ignis should go next to it. Let's use Ignis. Now, we need to continue the chain. So, now, we need something that related to Ignis. Well, Potentia is made out of Ordo and Ignis. So, we can put a Potentia next to it, since there's a match. Now, you can put another Ignis. So, at this point, there should be one blank left, needing to bridge two Ignis together. Hmm... I know! Something that has Ignis in it! Putting Potentia, Lux, Gelum, Cognitio, etc. will finish the research, and the Research Note up top will turn into a Discovery. Simply right-clicking this Discovery with it in your hand will allow you to learn its secrets. 4) Going back into your Thauminomicon, there it is! The Nitor research should now be lit up, fully solid. Clicking on it will tell you how to make it. Hmm... a crucible? Chapter 4: Yes, A Crucible. 1) Crucibles are made using a cauldron, and a right-click of your wand. With this, you can make different things, including- you guessed it- Nitor. However, you first need to place a Lava Bucket underneath it for heat, and a bucket of water in it for... well, water. Once it starts bubbling, you know that it's ready to go. However, also carry some blocks in your hotbar for later. 2) So, now looking at the recipe for the blessed Nitor, you need 3 Ignis, 3 Lux, and 3 Potentia. From your research with the Thaumometer (AKA the step you probably sped through, knowing how lack-luster it can be), you will know (probably not) that coal gives 2 Ignis and 2 Potentia. Using this logic, 2 coal shoud fulfill both of those requirements. Now for Lux, why not the beautiful thing called a Torch? 3 Torches will satisfy that requirement. Now, that everything is done, throw in a piece of Glowstone Dust to get a piece of Nitor, in all of its glory. You can place it down as a torch, or use it as fuel. Neat. Now, shift-right-click to... what the hell is this purple crap?!? None other than the aforementioned Flux, which you should clean up with the aforementioned blocks. Just place blocks down to make it disappear. As you could probably tell, using a Crucible isn't that clean. So how do we fix that? Why, an Alchemical Furnace, of course! Using the Thauminomicon, research the Alchemical Furnace. There is four parts to it. The furnace itself, Arcane Alembics, Essentia Tubes, and Warded Jars. You will need separate research for the latter two. 3) Alchemical Furnaces break items that you put in it down into Essentia, or liquid Aspects. However, you need a Arcane Alembic, for distribution of the essentia and Essentia Tubes (basically fluiducts, for Essentia). Of course, they need to go somewhere, like into Warded Jars. This allows you to use the Aspects more readily, and only as much as you need. To use it, simply grab it out of Jars using Glass Phials. It grabs 8 at a time, which you can throw into a Crucible for 8 of that Aspect. Now that's great and all, but why the hell can't I craft the furnace?!?! Chapter 5: Why You Can't Craft the Furnace 1) A wand is only as good as the magic stored in it. And if nothing is stored in it, then it is worthless. However, you can change that. The wand you are using has an internal storage of Aspects, in Vis form, that can be refilled using Aura Nodes. These things are nearly-invisible spheres of light found throughout the world. Yes, nearly invisible. However, you can spot them using your Thaumometer, even through obstacles. Once you find one, you can refill your wand using it. It's a slow process, but you need Vis to continue on. You can store 20 of every Aspect, and Aura Nodes only come with certain ones. Be careful, though, to not drain a node completely, for there's a chance it will never replenish. Leave at one, and be done. Later, you can purchase the knowledge under "Advanced Node Tapping" to make it always leave the Node at 1 of each Aspect. Also, make sure to keep note of the coordinates of these Nodes, for they'll be your lifeline through this mod. 2) Now, going back, you can craft the furnace and its components by using Aspects from your wand. You can use these Aspects by placing it in the top-right corner of the Arcane Workbench's GUI. You can now craft the items you need! Yey! Chapter 6: Two Million Years Later... (AKA the time it takes for the Infinity modpack to load) 1) Later on, you'll probably find research for the mystical Runic Matrix. This will be useful in making the Infusion Altar, which is needed to make high-tier items. Hopefully by now, you have a better wand than the Iron-Capped Wooden Wand, for you will need at least 25 Vis of every Aspect to activate it. However, I digress. 2) First, you need to make the basic altar. A 9x9 area will be plenty of enough space for it, so just keep that in mind when designing a room for it. In the very middle, there should be a 3x3 structure, like this: 4) The checkered blocks are Arcane Stone Bricks, the solid blocks are Arcane Stone, and the middle stand-type thing is an Arcane Pedestal. On the top should be your Runic Matrix, which you'll right-click your wand with to activate the structure. Next, you'll need 8 more Arcane Pedestals surrounding it, for a basic altar, making it look like this, for the end result: 5) Now for using it, that's a different story. Through your research, you will almost no-doubt come across a recipe that requires an infusion. Let's first break down what a recipe looks like below. 6) So, we see it involves a Raw Salmon, a Feather, 2 Air Shards, and 2 Enchanted Fabric. This means those materials will go around the Altar, on the Pedestals. In the middle pedestal, there should be a pair of Leather Boots. But what's this stuff down there? 25 Iter and 25 Volatus? How does that work? In order to make this infusion work, you need those aspects in Warded Jars, in an 4 block radius (or closer). The last part is the Instability. This means how common weird things will occur during the operation, like an ingredient falling off the altar or it being zapped into flux. This is why it is useful to carry more of the ingredients on hand. Quickly replace them in order to continue the operation, and you should be fine. 7) Even though it is manageable, the Instability is obviously annoying. However, there are ways to cut it down. In the spots between the pedestals, you can put Mob/Player Heads, Tallow Candles, and Crystal Clusters to help stabilize the Infusion Process. However, do keep in mind that it won't work unless you keep the stabilizers symmetrical. 8) You can make the altar bigger and bigger, adding more pedestals, as long as, again, they stay symmetrical. With that, of course, you can add more and more stabilizers! Chapter 7: Wait, There's Another Chapter?!?! If you made it through this tutorial, thank you for listening to me rant on about Thaumcraft. And though you might hate me, I have given you pretty much all the knowledge you need to rock out as a Thaumaturge. All information I have in my arsenal here can be further explored through the Thaumcraft 4 Wiki. However, if you find that I need to explain something better or that I got something wrong, please post a comment to help me fix it. Thanks!
This is a really good guide. I'll be sure to use it in my adventures into thaumcraft on Cruunde Craft
Thanks, guys. It means a lot. I was hoping to make the guide a little interesting, and not just a huge rant. However, it seems to be getting a good response, or at least so far.
Firstly the wooden wand stores 25 vis not 20, also your pedistal setup is quite bad, show examples of good stabilization techniques, as that is very very important and required to not have your infusion go completely haywire, also include the fact that you need the node preservation research and a greatwood-gold capped wand to be able to leave the node at 1 vis without worry, also, you will want to mention the fact that you can gain vis by killing mobs and having your wand in your hotbar, it's very usefull if you don't have any aura nodes nearby ~ Master of thaumcraft chugga
If you accept information from others here is one for a good stabilized altar that I learn from a friend If you have a 11x11 altar make a hole the same size and 3 blocks deep then fill the floor and walls with heads "i dont know if head type matters but I use creeper and zombie heads" dont put heads on the corners and finally fill the roof of the hole with the mixed crystal cluster. That set up allows me to make ichor or any other infusion with out any fails or errors
too lazy[DOUBLEPOST=1440346478,1440273965][/DOUBLEPOST]Also i would like to add by the time you make your infusion altar you must have a greatwood wand as you need to make the infusion matrix which requires 40 ordo to create
I'm not entirely sure. I deal mostly with Thaumcraft 4. I believe that was removed in 3.[DOUBLEPOST=1440714047][/DOUBLEPOST]Thanks guys. I appreciate the feedback. The newest edit will happen sometime next week, or whenever I'm free.
for the aspects part I would recommend you give credit to the original creator of the aspect guide(Thaumcraft 4 - A quick way to discover all aspects (updated for 4.2): | Feed the Beast)or make it look less like a copy paste job :/[DOUBLEPOST=1442283028][/DOUBLEPOST]yes I understand you did make some changes btw
