NOTE: This guide is for ars magica 1 and some parts of this guide may no longer be true or is just incorrect. However most of this guide will still be true.
If you need some help that isn't included in this guide then please PM me.
A few people needed some help with raw essence recently so I just thought of making a short tutorial with essence:
Essence is made by 3 types of nexus: Light nexus, Neutral nexus (A.K.A Blue nexus, Essence nexus or Item Nexus) and a Dark nexus.
Essence also comes in three different forms:
Light essence
Neutral essence
Dark essence
The word essence in ars magica also refers to reagents which i will not be talking about in this topic. I'm simply talking about the magical energy found in ars magica.Nexus
[/spoiler]So what is a nexus, how do you make it and how do you use it?A nexus is an essence making machine that either converts things to essence or just simply pulls essence out from thin air.So how do you make a nexus?
There are three types of nexus in ars magica like I mentioned before and they are all made differently.The most basic nexus is the light nexus. It can hold up to 30,000 essence and is made with 8 quartz blocks and 4 glass blocks. To make it you first need to place a 2 block high quartz block in every 5x5 corner then you need to put 1 glass block on top of each of these 4 pillars. Then you right click in the centre of this 5x5 area with a white chalk and it should look like this:[spoiler][/spoiler]The light nexus gathers essence from the atmosphere over time at the rate of around 5 essence per second. Gold or diamond blocks can be placed on top of each pillar instead of glass to allow more essence to be gathered per second. Gold can make up to 25 essence per second and diamond 50 essence per second.
Note: Any block can be used underneath the nexus. You do not need stone slabs underneath a nexus.If you are using minecraft 1.4.7 or under use snow blocks instead of quartz blocks.
The next type of nexus that you can make is a neutral nexus. It can hold up to 650,000 essence. It is made the same way as a light nexus but with a few differences. This time you use stone bricks in each corner of a 5x5 area, you put chiselled stone bricks on top of it then you use blue chalk in the center of the nexus. If you did it correctly the chalk in the center should turn dark blue and start spinning like this:[spoiler][/spoiler]To use a neutral nexus throw items into it so that it can be turned into essence.WARNING: This is not true for ars magica 2. If you have ars magica 2 then place liquid essence underneath the nexus instead of throwing stuff into it.[spoiler][/spoiler]Ways you could use a neutral nexus:
Way 1: A way to turn monster loot into essence after killing a monster in a dungeon.
Way 2: Recycling junk (unwanted things such as near broken tools, dirt, gravel, cobblestone etc.)
Lastly, there is one more type of nexus that exists. The dark nexus. To make it place 2 nether-brick in each corner of a 5x5 area, put obsidian on top of each pillar then use red chalk in the center. If you are using ars magica 2 then you can aslo use sunstone blocks or chimerite blocks. If you set up the nexus correctly the chalk should turn red and start spinning like this:[spoiler][/spoiler]A creeper being pulled in by a dark nexus.[spoiler][/spoiler]Note* While something is being pulled towards a dark nexus it completely ignores gravity and seems to float towards the nexusThe same creeper with its life essence being sucked out by the dark nexus:[spoiler][/spoiler]Ways you could use dark nexus:
Way 1: Gathering essence at night by scattering them across your world (Just imagine this at night. The mobs would spawn and would get destroyed by the dark nexus when they get too close to it.)
Placing them in a dungeon to get an infinite source of dark essence
Using them as a defence against mobs
Putting them somewhere to negate a mobs fall damage(You could have a zombie fall 1000 blocks high and push but it wont receive any fall damage. Instead the dark nexus would stop the fall when it is close enough to it then it would pull it towards the center of the nexus then the nexus would kill it. Anyways how are you supposed to get a zombie 1000 blocks high?)
Machines that use essence(Sorry guys the rest of the tutorial isn't ready yet. Some images and a continuation of this topic will be added in the future. If you want to view what is in this section then click on the spoiler button. For now please just ask me what you need help with. Thx –DragonAce4314)[spoiler]The following machines require essence in order to work:(From left to right)Essence conduit, Caster, Magic fabricator, Calefactor, Keystone receptacle and spell research tableWhat do the machines do?Essence conduit: The essence conduit is basically a relay for essence. It is what is mostly used by players to move essence over long distances. It is highly recommended to use mana and charge foci in the conduit or deficit will build up and your conduit will explode.Caster: A caster casts spells by using essence instead of mana to power the spells. To set up a caster you first need a spell and a spell focus (lesser focus, focus or a greater focus). Place the spell you want the caster to cast in the middle of the GUI then place a spell focus on one of the 3 outer slots like this:(image?)These machines run differently according to what type of essence is given to them. The essences also give the machines positive and negative effects. Here are just the base effects:Dark essence: Deficit builds up 25% faster than usual.Light essence: Deficit builds up 25% slower than usualNeutral essence: The base essence. Neutral essence has no effects on defecit.So from reading that you would probably want to stick with light essence right? Well you are both right and wrong at the same time. Although light essence is the most stable essence it also has some side effects depending on what machine you use it on. Here is a list of what it actually does to different machines:Calefactor- Good things- When smelting an item you have a 5% chance of getting double of what the item is worth once smelted (e.g When you smelt an iron ore in a calefactory you have a 5% chance of the ore turning into 2 iron ingots instead of 1 ingot). Deficit builds up 25% slower than usual. Bad things- It takes 25% more time (I think) to smelt an item.Astral barrier- Good things- When someone tries to teleport into an area protected by an astral barrier then they get the blindness effect. Bad things- Nothing bad really.Essence conduit- Good things- As I said it takes up 25% more time for deficit to build up which makes an essence conduit good for transferring large amounts of essence from one place to another Bad things- Nothing.[/spoiler]
Nice but is this for Ars Magica 1 or 2? If it is for Ars Magica 2 the the crafting alter levels and type and what this differences are is a good bit to add to the Tutorial it is confusing at first took me a little while to figure it out
I haven't been updating this page because of the lack of views but I will add it in the future seeing that theres two comments here. I was thinking though if i should pretty much make an online version of the arcane copendium with extra stuff in in like a full tutorial on essence, a full tutorial on how to use the mod and how to get started (<-- i'll just quote Mith's tutorial on how to get started on the AM2 page).
If you have any suggestions for future tutorials or you need help with essence or anything to do with the mod then just leave a question here.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"BEWARE the man who has nothing to lose, for he has only to gain."
Essence is made by 3 types of nexus: Light nexus, Neutral nexus (A.K.A Blue nexus, Essence nexus or Item Nexus) and a Dark nexus.
Essence also comes in three different forms:
Light essence
Neutral essence
Dark essence
The word essence in ars magica also refers to reagents which i will not be talking about in this topic. I'm simply talking about the magical energy found in ars magica.Nexus
[/spoiler]So what is a nexus, how do you make it and how do you use it?A nexus is an essence making machine that either converts things to essence or just simply pulls essence out from thin air.So how do you make a nexus?
There are three types of nexus in ars magica like I mentioned before and they are all made differently.The most basic nexus is the light nexus. It can hold up to 30,000 essence and is made with 8 quartz blocks and 4 glass blocks. To make it you first need to place a 2 block high quartz block in every 5x5 corner then you need to put 1 glass block on top of each of these 4 pillars. Then you right click in the centre of this 5x5 area with a white chalk and it should look like this:[spoiler][/spoiler]The light nexus gathers essence from the atmosphere over time at the rate of around 5 essence per second. Gold or diamond blocks can be placed on top of each pillar instead of glass to allow more essence to be gathered per second. Gold can make up to 25 essence per second and diamond 50 essence per second.
Note: Any block can be used underneath the nexus.
You do not need stone slabs underneath a nexus.If you are using minecraft 1.4.7 or under use snow blocks instead of quartz blocks.
The next type of nexus that you can make is a neutral nexus. It can hold up to 650,000 essence. It is made the same way as a light nexus but with a few differences. This time you use stone bricks in each corner of a 5x5 area, you put chiselled stone bricks on top of it then you use blue chalk in the center of the nexus. If you did it correctly the chalk in the center should turn dark blue and start spinning like this:[spoiler][/spoiler]To use a neutral nexus throw items into it so that it can be turned into essence.WARNING: This is not true for ars magica 2. If you have ars magica 2 then place liquid essence underneath the nexus instead of throwing stuff into it.[spoiler][/spoiler]Ways you could use a neutral nexus:
Way 1: A way to turn monster loot into essence after killing a monster in a dungeon.
Way 2: Recycling junk (unwanted things such as near broken tools, dirt, gravel, cobblestone etc.)
Lastly, there is one more type of nexus that exists. The dark nexus. To make it place 2 nether-brick in each corner of a 5x5 area, put obsidian on top of each pillar then use red chalk in the center. If you are using ars magica 2 then you can aslo use sunstone blocks or chimerite blocks. If you set up the nexus correctly the chalk should turn red and start spinning like this:[spoiler][/spoiler]A creeper being pulled in by a dark nexus.[spoiler][/spoiler]Note* While something is being pulled towards a dark nexus it completely ignores gravity and seems to float towards the nexusThe same creeper with its life essence being sucked out by the dark nexus:[spoiler][/spoiler]Ways you could use dark nexus:
Way 1: Gathering essence at night by scattering them across your world (Just imagine this at night. The mobs would spawn and would get destroyed by the dark nexus when they get too close to it.)
Placing them in a dungeon to get an infinite source of dark essence
Using them as a defence against mobs
Putting them somewhere to negate a mobs fall damage(You could have a zombie fall 1000 blocks high and push but it wont receive any fall damage. Instead the dark nexus would stop the fall when it is close enough to it then it would pull it towards the center of the nexus then the nexus would kill it. Anyways how are you supposed to get a zombie 1000 blocks high?)
Machines that use essence(Sorry guys the rest of the tutorial isn't ready yet. Some images and a continuation of this topic will be added in the future. If you want to view what is in this section then click on the spoiler button. For now please just ask me what you need help with. Thx –DragonAce4314)[spoiler]The following machines require essence in order to work:(From left to right)Essence conduit, Caster, Magic fabricator, Calefactor, Keystone receptacle and spell research tableWhat do the machines do?Essence conduit: The essence conduit is basically a relay for essence. It is what is mostly used by players to move essence over long distances. It is highly recommended to use mana and charge foci in the conduit or deficit will build up and your conduit will explode.Caster: A caster casts spells by using essence instead of mana to power the spells. To set up a caster you first need a spell and a spell focus (lesser focus, focus or a greater focus). Place the spell you want the caster to cast in the middle of the GUI then place a spell focus on one of the 3 outer slots like this:(image?)These machines run differently according to what type of essence is given to them. The essences also give the machines positive and negative effects. Here are just the base effects:Dark essence: Deficit builds up 25% faster than usual.Light essence: Deficit builds up 25% slower than usualNeutral essence: The base essence. Neutral essence has no effects on defecit.So from reading that you would probably want to stick with light essence right? Well you are both right and wrong at the same time. Although light essence is the most stable essence it also has some side effects depending on what machine you use it on. Here is a list of what it actually does to different machines:Calefactor- Good things- When smelting an item you have a 5% chance of getting double of what the item is worth once smelted (e.g When you smelt an iron ore in a calefactory you have a 5% chance of the ore turning into 2 iron ingots instead of 1 ingot). Deficit builds up 25% slower than usual. Bad things- It takes 25% more time (I think) to smelt an item.Astral barrier- Good things- When someone tries to teleport into an area protected by an astral barrier then they get the blindness effect. Bad things- Nothing bad really.Essence conduit- Good things- As I said it takes up 25% more time for deficit to build up which makes an essence conduit good for transferring large amounts of essence from one place to another Bad things- Nothing.[/spoiler]
"BEWARE the man who has nothing to lose, for he has only to gain."
This is for AM1.
I haven't been updating this page because of the lack of views but I will add it in the future seeing that theres two comments here. I was thinking though if i should pretty much make an online version of the arcane copendium with extra stuff in in like a full tutorial on essence, a full tutorial on how to use the mod and how to get started (<-- i'll just quote Mith's tutorial on how to get started on the AM2 page).
If you have any suggestions for future tutorials or you need help with essence or anything to do with the mod then just leave a question here.
"BEWARE the man who has nothing to lose, for he has only to gain."