The convenience-loving side of me loves the transfusers, but coming up with proper tube builds makes for a fun puzzle (especially after the buffer suction options were added). Maybe there'd be a role for both if transducers were the expensive/late-game option (with one side using a pearl)?
Right now, we have diferent tiers of Smelteries that reduce essentia loss and flux creation, while increasing speed of operation. Those also have the ability to be improved in 3 ways: Fuel efficency, processing speed and enviromental protection.
Transfusers more or less single handedly destroy the second upgrade, make additional alembic useless, and tubes redundant, while allowing greater control over essentia than everything else AND interacting with mirrors for very long range distribution.
I'm confused--how do transducers help the processing speed? I thought the speed at which slurry was converted into essentia in alembics was controlled only by the furnace type and the use of Alumentum. It bottlenecks if you can't get the essentia out of the alembic fast enough, which is where additional alembics come in, but I've never noticed tubes having a problem keeping up with a furnace's distillation rate, so I don't see how the transducer makes a difference here. I suppose I didn't do much mass distilling in a thaumium furnace with alumentum fuel, but if the alembic+tube bottleneck isn't reachable until you've maxed out the speed-increasing options, wouldn't that already negate the idea that transducers supercede speed upgrades?
Now, to fix this: Reduce the speed of operation of tranfusers by a lot. Make them generate a (little) amount of flux every x operations but balance it with mirror flux generation, such as sending jars / phials via item mirror is not really much more efficient.
Ugh--I still consider anything that reads "generates flux" as shorthand for "never use this unless there is no other option". "Spam a million pure nodes" as the one and only way to solve flux is much worse than "spam a million candles" as the best way to solve instability.
2. instead of not enough, too much aura generates flux
3. a way to store flux into a kind of a block or multiblock, but can't be moved without releasing said taint (maybe)
But, but ... crystal farms Seriously tho. This would likely mean that every normal node can be seen as a tainted one since it slowly fills up the aura until a taint storm happens. There are also crystals, but according to my experience they take a while to notice that the aura is full (so it floods all nearby chunks as well - not that that is a problem in any way atm).
This is not a question, or an answer, just an experience which might be helpful to others starting out in TH5.
Wow, what a story/journey I've had with my second run through TH5. First run, I was dissatisfied with the location of my spawn chunks, so I sort of let it go. My second load wasnt' too much better, but I started playing with Rogue Dungeon's and so I stuck with it. I did however, move a 1000 blocks from spawn, so that my stuff wouldn't run all the time, only when loaded. Took the early advice from some to set up my crucible lab in the nether and I went to town making tainted crystal growths (surprisingly hard even when trying to do it)..
Everything seemed fine, but I started to read how the updates had changed things.. that flux in the nether would effect things.. but still, I saw no effect on the nether no matter how much flux I generated. I poured netherack into the crucible.. I tossed every bit of cobble I had into my furnace, along with massive amounts of wood. The cobble became carved stone for ordo.. the wood became coal etc etc etc. The point is, I was trying to produce Flux / taint. I A) wanted to see what taint would do in the nether.. and I obviously was trying to produce a decent supply of taint essence for future crafting. The only effect I ever saw way, when I would come back through my nether portal, I would see rain, and hear lightning/thunder before the world swam into focus; when I would go outside, it was sunny and clear.
Eventually I saw a tiny patch of taint goo around 300 blocks east of my base. I got rid of it by destroying the blocks.. which amazingly worked. I wasn't trying to get rid of it mind you, but I was worried as I was still many researches away from getting a bloom together.. and I had no great taint essence quantities to produce one it I wanted to. Long story short.. it's gone and has not returned in 12 days. I have no explanation for that.
So, three days ago, I decided to go back to spawn. It was a small beach island with an underwater temple within sight.. so my thoughts were.. grab those lamps..(I LOVE the sea lanterns) It was after all my first chance to go up against elder guardians with full thaumcraft gear. (spoiler.. it was so simple as to be laughable) So spawn chunks are running all the time... and this is where it gets interesting, and confusing as to how Azanor has worked out this latest mod version. The spawn (mostly ocean) was a MASS of taint and a flux storm was basically constantly going on. I did find a tainted node out in the ocean in the center of this.. so I'm still pretty sure that my work in the nether had nothing to do with this.
So good news... I got blooms going, and started recovering the spawn area of taint just enough to work there. I was farming tainted wisps and it was going well, but I found a couple of things of note.
Tainted soil / tainted rock - I've got an efficiency IV pick, and an efficiency V axe. The Axe is slightly faster than the pick on either of these substances.. but they are both slow as dirt. Mining tainted stuff in TC5 is harder than in TC4. Tainted wood has been given an upgrade and seems easiest to mine, but it degrades quickly.
Tainted area being effected by an Etherial Bloom now turns to "taint dust" A substance similar to the flowing taint goo, but silvery and sand like. It is not possible to pick up as far as I've found, but looks really cool. I'm hoping Azanor gives us a use for it, and a way of collecting it.
That's my story. I really wish I had taken some screen shots of the tainted area, as with the current version taint will form on the bottom of the ocean and water has zero effect upon it's location, formation, movement. I wasn't thinking.. but it would have been nice to have that to show as it was IMPRESSIVE.
So, anyway, last thing is a question. My tainted node, for no reason what so ever that I can discern, is now an astral node. There are no silverwood trees within range of it. There are no eitheral blooms in range of it, and it's not unstable as far as I can tell so far. Has anyone else encountered a node changing from one type to another without it being unstable? Just curious.. I'm going to try some more experimenting on it. It was producing tainted wisps en Mass so I really kind of want it back.
Personally, I think tubes are a pain- in their current state. I'd much rather see the system overhauled than discarded all together. I really do think the distillation system is in need of some simplification.
Also, could someone post a picture/video of the new "essentia fx" from the update yesterday? I'm stranded without a computer for the whole week and I'm dying to see it.
I have yet to try out essentia transfusers. Could someone explain exactly how they work so I can form a somewhat decent opinion on the current subject?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Due to my snarky and sarcastic personality I can easily be seen as a jerk. If I've offended you in any way it was likely unintended.
Not because they suck. But because they are already gone. Almost(tm) every use I used to have for tubes will be replaced with the essentia requester / supplier things.
Personally I dislike the TC tubes, because they can only distribute one type of essentia, which makes them almost unusable for your main essentia distillation system. On the other hand, you have golems for this. The only thing I would use essentia tubes for is the distribution of one type of essentia over a vast distance/to multiple sources, like the lamp of growth, for instance. In a modpack, that leaves you with yet another "pipe" that can collide with item pipes, energy pipes, liguid pipes, etc. Something I would like for the essentia tube is EnderIO integration.
Are you aware of Thaumic Energistics?
I agree, the essentia tubes as they now exist have very limited uses without brain-hurtingly complex assemblages of buffers and valves and ... And I get that part of this is that we're "supposed to" use golems instead now. And certainly golems have their uses. There are certain jobs they do extremely well. But dear gods, I hate trying to manage essentia with golems. They seem to take an almost malicious delight in finding ways to screw up the job or get stuck, often in some unlikely place where they shouldn't have even been in the first place. In fact, it's hard to say which is the more frustrating: trying to manage essentia distillation with golems, or with post-nerf essentia tubes.
I LOVE transfusion, but I think tubes still can be useful for fine-tuning systems.
About late-game essentia automation, I thinke there should be two ooptions : Green and Beijing.
Green: you automate in a way that produce minimal flux, and spread it enough that produced taint can sagely dissipate.
Beijing: you go full on, dump tons of flux and wall yourself out of Taint effects. Maybe even harvest taint flora and fauna somehow.
For that to work, I suggest two changes in existing blocks.
For Green option: Totem of dispersal with Balanced shard kills taint. It's just a more technological and reliable alternative or replacement of Silverwood sapling spam.
For Beijing option: Pure Blossom prevents taint explosions and rains in big area (16m radius). They still happen, but "pushed" out or up of radius.
Also, I think machines that produce taint should work worse (slower, more produce loss) in high taint.
I still have things that I like to use my tubes for that are still only possible with tubes and not transfusers, and I also think that the largeness of tube systems really brings out a fun feeling. So much of my enjoyment is gotten through just being able to look at the thing I've built chug along and work.
adding to that, I think things that would make tubes more pleasant to use, especially for those who haven't used them before would be a way of placing tubes that doesn't connect them to neighbors immediately, only to the tube it was right clicked on. Make laying parallel lines less fussy. Maybe a change to suction where when essentia is sitting in a tube, it carries suction of its own type back to its jar? It would solve a lot of those annoying "essentia stuck in the tube" problems. Additionally, some edge case cleanup with one way tubes' behavior would be nice.
Other than that, I just think more gizmos to dump essentia into would be nice.
Personally, I think tubes are a pain- in their current state. I'd much rather see the system overhauled than discarded all together. I really do think the distillation system is in need of some simplification.
Also, could someone post a picture/video of the new "essentia fx" from the update yesterday? I'm stranded without a computer for the whole week and I'm dying to see it.
This is why pipes are good, since I started in tc4, it's been possible to make an essentia sorter using buffers and filtered pipes. the design has since been refined many times without the diffusers (latest iteration in tc5.1.6) uses a centrifuge, and has a comparitor on one of the buffers for a circuit to restrict the flow if too much essentia dumped in the system at once)
I voted indifferent, I really never liked using tubes so I never used them and with aerial essentia I can use them less. I really don't like tubes because they are sorta a pain to manage with the one essentia per tube thing, I really think that needs to change.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I play only with the top notch mods only, which instantly excludes orespawn and lucky blocks.
A few more polls might be coming over the next few weeks or months leading up to the eventual 1.9 release. I am contemplating "cleaning" up Thaumcraft a lot by removing unnecessary system and simplifying overly complex ones. Suggestions for what you consider as either of those (and why) are welcome.
I would miss the use of tubes. As is, they are almost completely inferior to transfusers, but I enjoy the complexity of designing a system with them. The crystallizers have it even worse as they seemed to be included for people who didn't want to mess with tubes, but are inferior in every way to transfusers.
Saying you want to simplify overly complex systems kind of worries me. Thaumcraft has been one of my preferred mods because it is more complex. Going back to where you said you wanted to apply the research minigame to infusion crafting, could you apply that type of thinking to more areas of Thaumcraft? Have a simple, default, less effective early method that can be used by beginners and people looking for a few thaumcraft items in a larger modpack, but then include methods to improve efficiency, effectiveness, and options. Make the transfusers lossy, cheap and early in the thaumonomicon, but provide tubes later on to those who don't want loss, and maybe offer an infusion recipe to improve the transfusers. Maybe allow researches to switch recipes between infusion, enchantment crafting, and alchemy.
May I say that your poll is extremely biassed? The poll will only get answered by people who have are active in the Thaumcraft thread, which means that they are most likely people that have been using Thaumcraft for a while. Thaumcraft has had the tubes in it for several versions now, so I think that the players not liking the tubes have slowly stopped using Thaumcraft/left this thread.
Personally I dislike the TC tubes, because they can only distribute one type of essentia, which makes them almost unusable for your main essentia distillation system. On the other hand, you have golems for this. The only thing I would use essentia tubes for is the distribution of one type of essentia over a vast distance/to multiple sources, like the lamp of growth, for instance. In a modpack, that leaves you with yet another "pipe" that can collide with item pipes, energy pipes, liguid pipes, etc. Something I would like for the essentia tube is EnderIO integration.
Biased response here, but tubes can distribute multiple types of essentia, you need to use a sequence of buffers.
I have a TC4 issue: My golems seem to stop working when I get too far away even when I have chunk loaders. They start working as soon as I get into range. Is there something I'm missing that is shutting off their AI?
an idea I had, since we're talking about essentia, would be some sort of late-game combination essentia mixer and garbage incinerator that has a chance of outputting 1 higher tier essentia made of two lower tier essentia that are thrown into the machine. Since essentia crystals contain 1 essentia point each, this would be a good incentive to create them. Would probably be something that uses an advanced alchemical construct.
I really do enjoy the tube systems but I can see where people are coming from with their complains, but at the same time I feel like the game would be so hollow without them.
Maybe more gizmos that consume essentia. Some sort of area buff thing. Maybe a thaumcraft version of the beacon that you can pipe essentia in to get bonuses? Large area warding forcefield? Some sort of system to replace infusion enchantment that requires periodic recharging of your items?
I have yet to try out essentia transfusers. Could someone explain exactly how they work so I can form a somewhat decent opinion on the current subject?
There's two kinds, one that spews essentia out and one that draws essentia in. IIRC they both target jars within something like 16 blocks of the direction they're facing. So as far as I can tell (though I haven't had much time to play in a while and therefore haven't made that much use of it), you put one output transfuser on your alembic, point it at a wall of jars, put an input transfuser on your thaumatorium pointing at the same wall of jars, ideally have your wall of jars within range of your infusion altar (or use a mirror), and cover almost anything you'd want to do with essentia without needing any tubes.
The convenience-loving side of me loves the transfusers, but coming up with proper tube builds makes for a fun puzzle (especially after the buffer suction options were added). Maybe there'd be a role for both if transducers were the expensive/late-game option (with one side using a pearl)?
I'm confused--how do transducers help the processing speed? I thought the speed at which slurry was converted into essentia in alembics was controlled only by the furnace type and the use of Alumentum. It bottlenecks if you can't get the essentia out of the alembic fast enough, which is where additional alembics come in, but I've never noticed tubes having a problem keeping up with a furnace's distillation rate, so I don't see how the transducer makes a difference here. I suppose I didn't do much mass distilling in a thaumium furnace with alumentum fuel, but if the alembic+tube bottleneck isn't reachable until you've maxed out the speed-increasing options, wouldn't that already negate the idea that transducers supercede speed upgrades?
Ugh--I still consider anything that reads "generates flux" as shorthand for "never use this unless there is no other option". "Spam a million pure nodes" as the one and only way to solve flux is much worse than "spam a million candles" as the best way to solve instability.
My suggstion would be:
1. a way to infuse vis into the aura
2. instead of not enough, too much aura generates flux
3. a way to store flux into a kind of a block or multiblock, but can't be moved without releasing said taint (maybe)
But, but ... crystal farms
This is not a question, or an answer, just an experience which might be helpful to others starting out in TH5.
Wow, what a story/journey I've had with my second run through TH5. First run, I was dissatisfied with the location of my spawn chunks, so I sort of let it go. My second load wasnt' too much better, but I started playing with Rogue Dungeon's and so I stuck with it. I did however, move a 1000 blocks from spawn, so that my stuff wouldn't run all the time, only when loaded. Took the early advice from some to set up my crucible lab in the nether and I went to town making tainted crystal growths (surprisingly hard even when trying to do it)..
Everything seemed fine, but I started to read how the updates had changed things.. that flux in the nether would effect things.. but still, I saw no effect on the nether no matter how much flux I generated. I poured netherack into the crucible.. I tossed every bit of cobble I had into my furnace, along with massive amounts of wood. The cobble became carved stone for ordo.. the wood became coal etc etc etc. The point is, I was trying to produce Flux / taint. I A) wanted to see what taint would do in the nether.. and
I obviously was trying to produce a decent supply of taint essence for future crafting. The only effect I ever saw way, when I would come back through my nether portal, I would see rain, and hear lightning/thunder before the world swam into focus; when I would go outside, it was sunny and clear.
Eventually I saw a tiny patch of taint goo around 300 blocks east of my base. I got rid of it by destroying the blocks.. which amazingly worked. I wasn't trying to get rid of it mind you, but I was worried as I was still many researches away from getting a bloom together.. and I had no great taint essence quantities to produce one it I wanted to. Long story short.. it's gone and has not returned in 12 days. I have no explanation for that.
So, three days ago, I decided to go back to spawn. It was a small beach island with an underwater temple within sight.. so my thoughts were.. grab those lamps..(I LOVE the sea lanterns) It was after all my first chance to go up against elder guardians with full thaumcraft gear. (spoiler.. it was so simple as to be laughable) So spawn chunks are running all the time... and this is where it gets interesting, and confusing as to how Azanor has worked out this latest mod version. The spawn (mostly ocean) was a MASS of taint and a flux storm was basically constantly going on. I did find a tainted node out in the ocean in the center of this.. so I'm still pretty sure that my work in the nether had nothing to do with this.
So good news... I got blooms going, and started recovering the spawn area of taint just enough to work there. I was farming tainted wisps and it was going well, but I found a couple of things of note.
Tainted soil / tainted rock - I've got an efficiency IV pick, and an efficiency V axe. The Axe is slightly faster than the pick on either of these substances.. but they are both slow as dirt. Mining tainted stuff in TC5 is harder than in TC4. Tainted wood has been given an upgrade and seems easiest to mine, but it degrades quickly.
Tainted area being effected by an Etherial Bloom now turns to "taint dust" A substance similar to the flowing taint goo, but silvery and sand like. It is not possible to pick up as far as I've found, but looks really cool. I'm hoping Azanor gives us a use for it, and a way of collecting it.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That's my story. I really wish I had taken some screen shots of the tainted area, as with the current version taint will form on the bottom of the ocean and water has zero effect upon it's location, formation, movement. I wasn't thinking.. but it would have been nice to have that to show as it was IMPRESSIVE.
So, anyway, last thing is a question. My tainted node, for no reason what so ever that I can discern, is now an astral node. There are no silverwood trees within range of it. There are no eitheral blooms in range of it, and it's not unstable as far as I can tell so far. Has anyone else encountered a node changing from one type to another without it being unstable? Just curious.. I'm going to try some more experimenting on it. It was producing tainted wisps en Mass so I really kind of want it back.
No such thing.
This is Thaumcraft~
I made a D flip-flop!
Personally, I think tubes are a pain- in their current state. I'd much rather see the system overhauled than discarded all together. I really do think the distillation system is in need of some simplification.
Also, could someone post a picture/video of the new "essentia fx" from the update yesterday? I'm stranded without a computer for the whole week and I'm dying to see it.
I have yet to try out essentia transfusers. Could someone explain exactly how they work so I can form a somewhat decent opinion on the current subject?
I am changing my vote to Tubes suck.
Not because they suck. But because they are already gone. Almost(tm) every use I used to have for tubes will be replaced with the essentia requester / supplier things.
Are you aware of Thaumic Energistics?
I agree, the essentia tubes as they now exist have very limited uses without brain-hurtingly complex assemblages of buffers and valves and ... And I get that part of this is that we're "supposed to" use golems instead now. And certainly golems have their uses. There are certain jobs they do extremely well. But dear gods, I hate trying to manage essentia with golems. They seem to take an almost malicious delight in finding ways to screw up the job or get stuck, often in some unlikely place where they shouldn't have even been in the first place. In fact, it's hard to say which is the more frustrating: trying to manage essentia distillation with golems, or with post-nerf essentia tubes.
I LOVE transfusion, but I think tubes still can be useful for fine-tuning systems.
About late-game essentia automation, I thinke there should be two ooptions : Green and Beijing.
Green: you automate in a way that produce minimal flux, and spread it enough that produced taint can sagely dissipate.
Beijing: you go full on, dump tons of flux and wall yourself out of Taint effects. Maybe even harvest taint flora and fauna somehow.
For that to work, I suggest two changes in existing blocks.
For Green option: Totem of dispersal with Balanced shard kills taint. It's just a more technological and reliable alternative or replacement of Silverwood sapling spam.
For Beijing option: Pure Blossom prevents taint explosions and rains in big area (16m radius). They still happen, but "pushed" out or up of radius.
Also, I think machines that produce taint should work worse (slower, more produce loss) in high taint.
I still have things that I like to use my tubes for that are still only possible with tubes and not transfusers, and I also think that the largeness of tube systems really brings out a fun feeling. So much of my enjoyment is gotten through just being able to look at the thing I've built chug along and work.
adding to that, I think things that would make tubes more pleasant to use, especially for those who haven't used them before would be a way of placing tubes that doesn't connect them to neighbors immediately, only to the tube it was right clicked on. Make laying parallel lines less fussy. Maybe a change to suction where when essentia is sitting in a tube, it carries suction of its own type back to its jar? It would solve a lot of those annoying "essentia stuck in the tube" problems. Additionally, some edge case cleanup with one way tubes' behavior would be nice.
Other than that, I just think more gizmos to dump essentia into would be nice.
video? here you go:
Put your spoiler here.
This is why pipes are good, since I started in tc4, it's been possible to make an essentia sorter using buffers and filtered pipes. the design has since been refined many times without the diffusers (latest iteration in tc5.1.6) uses a centrifuge, and has a comparitor on one of the buffers for a circuit to restrict the flow if too much essentia dumped in the system at once)
I voted indifferent, I really never liked using tubes so I never used them and with aerial essentia I can use them less. I really don't like tubes because they are sorta a pain to manage with the one essentia per tube thing, I really think that needs to change.
I play only with the top notch mods only, which instantly excludes orespawn and lucky blocks.
Your ammo are bullets-Admiral Bahroo 2016
I would miss the use of tubes. As is, they are almost completely inferior to transfusers, but I enjoy the complexity of designing a system with them. The crystallizers have it even worse as they seemed to be included for people who didn't want to mess with tubes, but are inferior in every way to transfusers.
Saying you want to simplify overly complex systems kind of worries me. Thaumcraft has been one of my preferred mods because it is more complex. Going back to where you said you wanted to apply the research minigame to infusion crafting, could you apply that type of thinking to more areas of Thaumcraft? Have a simple, default, less effective early method that can be used by beginners and people looking for a few thaumcraft items in a larger modpack, but then include methods to improve efficiency, effectiveness, and options. Make the transfusers lossy, cheap and early in the thaumonomicon, but provide tubes later on to those who don't want loss, and maybe offer an infusion recipe to improve the transfusers. Maybe allow researches to switch recipes between infusion, enchantment crafting, and alchemy.
Biased response here, but tubes can distribute multiple types of essentia, you need to use a sequence of buffers.
I have a TC4 issue: My golems seem to stop working when I get too far away even when I have chunk loaders. They start working as soon as I get into range. Is there something I'm missing that is shutting off their AI?
an idea I had, since we're talking about essentia, would be some sort of late-game combination essentia mixer and garbage incinerator that has a chance of outputting 1 higher tier essentia made of two lower tier essentia that are thrown into the machine. Since essentia crystals contain 1 essentia point each, this would be a good incentive to create them. Would probably be something that uses an advanced alchemical construct.
I really do enjoy the tube systems but I can see where people are coming from with their complains, but at the same time I feel like the game would be so hollow without them.
Maybe more gizmos that consume essentia. Some sort of area buff thing. Maybe a thaumcraft version of the beacon that you can pipe essentia in to get bonuses? Large area warding forcefield? Some sort of system to replace infusion enchantment that requires periodic recharging of your items?
why not i have the nine hells in the thaumonomicon?
There's two kinds, one that spews essentia out and one that draws essentia in. IIRC they both target jars within something like 16 blocks of the direction they're facing. So as far as I can tell (though I haven't had much time to play in a while and therefore haven't made that much use of it), you put one output transfuser on your alembic, point it at a wall of jars, put an input transfuser on your thaumatorium pointing at the same wall of jars, ideally have your wall of jars within range of your infusion altar (or use a mirror), and cover almost anything you'd want to do with essentia without needing any tubes.