This sounds great I have always loved the magic items and seals in Thaumcraft while mainly just shoving the vis production system into my BC3/IC2 factories. I would love to see a mana/runes system implemented.
Fleshing out my ideas on plant research (this could get long-ish):
Initial plant research requires a simple terrarium, crafted of 3 dirt, 3 glass pane, and 2 wood arranged in a hollow square.
WGW
G_G
DDD
The Terrarium interface is simple, only three slots: Two inputs and an output. You put plant matter (leaves, tallgrass, cactus, vines, flowers, melons, etc) in one slot, a mutagen (vis crystals, distilled essences, other plant material) in the second slot, and the terrarium converts local light and/or aura into relatively slow progress. Plants don't normally grow instantaneously, after all. You'll want to fire up an experiment, and go do something else for a few minutes while it cooks.
Not every combination will result in something useful, sometimes the entropic effects are too much and you get decayed mush back. Sometimes, however, you get a mutated plant, or a crossbreed plant, back. For example, watering a pumpkin with Essence of Light might give you seeds that will grow Jack o Lanterns. Crossing a cactus and a red flower might give you an orange flower (sandrose) which grows only on sand. You can continue to experiment on first generation mutations, such as exposing the sandrose to Essence of Fire to obtain cinderpearl seed.
Once you've exhausted basic mutation theory, you can construct an Arcane Arboretum. I picture this as a relatively large structure, probably 9x9x9 or 13x9x13- Either a player-constructed building, or a pre-fabricated kit which assembles itself when deployed. The greenhouse isolates the area inside from the local aura (reducing environmental variables) and has an interface block which can accept certain items, which modify growing conditions. For example; a Thaumic Lens which concentrates the local aura, creating very high atmospheric vis; an Entropic Inverter, which causes the Taint in the greenhouse to skyrocket; or growth/harvest/replanting Seals which could set the greenhouse up as a very efficient self-contained farm. Certain combinations of plants and growing conditions could result in new plant breeds, such as a concentrated-vis atmosphere + one tree of each type causing a Silverleaf sapling to appear.
Not all combinations are necessarily beneficial - High light levels + yellow flowers + Fiery Crystal presence could cause Sunflowers to grow. Sunflowers target all moving creatures in the area, and emit a damage 'ray' based on local light levels: 'Full daylight' results in a blistering beam of heat similar to the Fire/Air/Air seal effect, and multiple Sunflowers can focus on a single target to really brighten its day. However, a savvy Herbologist can crossbreed basic Sunflowers with 'smarter' plants to develop hybrids, which can discern between players/enemies. This opens up the option of planting a lovely mixed garden of Sunflowers and Cinderpearls, which can then defend your home (Cinderpearls provide light, and trained Sunflowers focus it on aggressive mobs but not the homeowner).
Thaumically mutated plants could provide a number of effects similar to Seals, but do it in a manner which is significantly less damaging to the local aura. It'll simply take a great deal of research and tinkering to get there.
The idea of thaumically mutating plants is awesome, and the whole Arcane Arboretum would fit it perfectly with all the construction-for-thaumic-effects ideas that have been pouring in
Love the idea of Stonehenge-like structures that affect/magnify/direct the aura (Now that ring of Stone Brick pillars I built will finally have a use!)
All the Pylons and other ideas (Like the dreamscape) are amazing! If Azanor doesn't make these into a mod, I'd pay for someone else to!
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Angels are bright, though the brightest fell. Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace; Still grace must look so.
And by the way; Who is John Galt?
@Azanor Are you already coding something, or are you still collecting ideas? The main point is that those big ideas we are giving must be tested in-game, and at the same time, seeing them in action can bring new ideas too.
Also, I want to be teased.
Just collecting ideas - I haven't had time to do any coding recently (including for tc2)
Long time fan of your work, Azanor, and I'm hoping I can add some input as to what should be in ArcanaCraft
Now, the name itself, is one large reference to Tarot reading. How about some sort of system that revolves around drawing a few cards?
- For instance, you could have a set of cards to draw from, and depending upon what you draw, maybe it causes some sort of effect on the world as a whole? But that in itself could get incredibly messy, since most Tarot cards have diverse meanings and interpretations.
And, for some reason, the system is screaming to have a set of spells in place. And I'm not talking about a simple fireball wand or lightning wand. I would really love to see a set of researchable spells that the player can unlock by various methods, like reading spell books from an ancient culture, researching spells they already have, etc.
- Personally this one, I think it would be interesting to have a system where the player has to balance the levels fire, air, water, earth, aura, and taint in a collection of crystals, perhaps on some strange staff, or something like that.
I tend to just throw out vague ideas at first. I'll probably flesh it out later. Maybe. Possibly....
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Look up. You see that big white ball? Yeah, that's me.
Long time fan of your work, Azanor, and I'm hoping I can add some input as to what should be in ArcanaCraft
Now, the name itself, is one large reference to Tarot reading. How about some sort of system that revolves around drawing a few cards?
- For instance, you could have a set of cards to draw from, and depending upon what you draw, maybe it causes some sort of effect on the world as a whole? But that in itself could get incredibly messy, since most Tarot cards have diverse meanings and interpretations.
And, for some reason, the system is screaming to have a set of spells in place. And I'm not talking about a simple fireball wand or lightning wand. I would really love to see a set of researchable spells that the player can unlock by various methods, like reading spell books from an ancient culture, researching spells they already have, etc.
- Personally this one, I think it would be interesting to have a system where the player has to balance the levels fire, air, water, earth, aura, and taint in a collection of crystals, perhaps on some strange staff, or something like that.
I tend to just throw out vague ideas at first. I'll probably flesh it out later. Maybe. Possibly....
If there's a spellcrafting system added to the mod, I might suggest using the meta-tag system that's already been suggested for the research.
You can research spell effects such as "Light," "Heat," "Disperse," and "Ranged." Once you know a specific effect, you can craft a glyph or somesuch, which you can then use in spell construction. So, for instance, if you only want a light, you'd put a glyph of "light" on a paper to make a spell card. Then when you want to use it, you aim at a block and use the spell card. *bamf* and you have a little ball of thaumic light attached to the block you were aiming at. Of course, it's not gonna last very long (you'd need to know "persistent" or "permanent" for that) and it's probably roughly equivalent to a redstone torch in terms of brightness (brightness 5). Now, if you put TWO Light glyphs on the card, you get a better light (brightness 10). Three glyphs would make it basically daylight. If you put a couple Lights and a Disperse on the card, you would have a short-range PBAOE effect that puts lights on say, the targetted block and the 4 cardinal blocks around it, but it disperses the effect.. so you start with 10 brightness, but it spreads over 5 blocks.. so each block gets 2 brightness. Back to the lab to make that.. a bit more useful.
Later on, you decide you're really tired of skeletons shooting you before you can close to swording range, and start to research a damage spell. You try Heat, Light, Direct, Range, and voila, a basic Magic Missile. Heat x3, Light, Disperse x2, Range ---.... FIREBALL! but ouch, the range is shorter than the dispersal, so it nails you too. Back to the lab.. after the corpse run.
And yes this magic system is blatantly stolen from some old RPG system, but I 'll be Nethered if I can remember which one it was..
Oh and fancy made-up word time; in my own head I refer to the meta-tag system as "Logosophy." (from the Greek "Logo-" for word and "-sophy" for science)
It's based on the belief that the world was spoken (or sung, if you're a filthy elf) into being, and that if you can learn the language then you could theoretically 'respeak' the world and change things.
it's a fairly literalist interpretation of John 1:1 -- "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
If there's a spellcrafting system added to the mod, I might suggest using the meta-tag system that's already been suggested for the research.
You can research spell effects such as "Light," "Heat," "Disperse," and "Ranged." Once you know a specific effect, you can craft a glyph or somesuch, which you can then use in spell construction. So, for instance, if you only want a light, you'd put a glyph of "light" on a paper to make a spell card. Then when you want to use it, you aim at a block and use the spell card. *bamf* and you have a little ball of thaumic light attached to the block you were aiming at. Of course, it's not gonna last very long (you'd need to know "persistent" or "permanent" for that) and it's probably roughly equivalent to a redstone torch in terms of brightness (brightness 5). Now, if you put TWO Light glyphs on the card, you get a better light (brightness 10). Three glyphs would make it basically daylight. If you put a couple Lights and a Disperse on the card, you would have a short-range PBAOE effect that puts lights on say, the targetted block and the 4 cardinal blocks around it, but it disperses the effect.. so you start with 10 brightness, but it spreads over 5 blocks.. so each block gets 2 brightness. Back to the lab to make that.. a bit more useful.
Later on, you decide you're really tired of skeletons shooting you before you can close to swording range, and start to research a damage spell. You try Heat, Light, Direct, Range, and voila, a basic Magic Missile. Heat x3, Light, Disperse x2, Range ---.... FIREBALL! but ouch, the range is shorter than the dispersal, so it nails you too. Back to the lab.. after the corpse run.
And yes this magic system is blatantly stolen from some old RPG system, but I 'll be Nethered if I can remember which one it was..
This is a good idea.
A Meta-tag systems with speel crafting would be almost solid awesome.
There should be a limit in how many glyphs of a given type can be placed on a card.. maybe 5 ish?
The really fun and funky effects start happening when you learn words like "intensify" and "invert." 5 Heat + 5 Intensity = literal nuke that evaporates standing water, vaporizes dirt & sand, and turns stone into lava... Of course, since you're pulling the power for these spells out of the local aura, a massive nuke like that would be... counterproductive.
First Stage:
Research Source + Book + Time = "Word" Tome
The "In-A-Jars" could be used in the construction of new Research Sources, such as the Vault of Whispers - maybe even with "Smart Plants" such as Treants allowing you to construct a glade which feeds knowledge into a book giving rise to a "Construct and Return" cycle through all fields of Magic.
Arcane Thinker Tank + "Word" Tome + Time = Potential for New Word in Tank
Once these words are in the Tank, you place them into slots along the right hand side and click "Theorize" - If the combination is correct then you receive the Discovery for a new block/item. Either way, you lose the words you used in the combination making research a code-breaker affair.
well, this should be nice as long we can keep the brain in-a-jar as it its now. i like to place them around in my house to make it cooler.
brains could be used to boost researtch related stuff like: stargazing,alchemy and basic researtch or forbidden researtch.
i cant wait for taintspores on-a-jar if they will be added(azanor mentioned a taintspore on a jar)
imagine a brain next to a cool alchemy lab set.
i hope azanor uses the thaumcraft code as the arcanacraft base so the new mod evolves faster.
thaumcraft already have the auracode,mobs,artifacts,researtch items and more stuff that azanor simply can move over to arcanacraft.
ideas for plants:
taintspore (from tc2)
the taintspore can be breeded with otherplants to create intresting results.
taintspore + cinderpearl plant = firespore
taintspore + shimmerleaf = visspore(very hard to make and requires a lot of researtch.)
Yes, I agree that the vis/taint in tanks and flowing through pipes is basically "just another power system" although the taint element is a slight twist. Also, vis has no real purpose aside from enchanting and duplicating.
In my opinion, making the tech element of thaumcraft (or arcanacraft now) unique by adding special mechanics is the most important goal, since other mods have already included automation of farming, item collection, etc. For example, instead of planting saplings, waiting for it to grow, chopping the tree down, and replanting saplings, you could make a machine that cuts off a "branch" of the tree, and another that "regenerates" that branch.
Finally, the player should be given meaningful choices with consequences and rewards for spreading/destroying vis and taint. Don't make is so that the player can get every cool magical gadget in the mod, even though some are "tainted" and others are not.
I would like to point out that if you make things too random or non-stable (not being able to have all the recipes in TC2 is a novelty, but kinda annoying) then people may not want to rely on it at all.
Using some of the great ideas posted so far this is what I'm thinking of doing. NOTE, I haven't done any coding yet and probably won't for a while.
Aspects
All items will have aspects (or tags as they have been called so far). I'm not sure how they will be assigned yet - I might assign them individually, or they might inherit them from the items they are crafted from. The aspects will also have a strength rating on how much of that aspect the item/block contains.
A stone block might have a [rock 1] tag. Cobblestone will have [rock 1] and something like [volatile 1]. Redstone will have [powder 1] and [energy 2]. A piston will thus have [wood 3], [metal 1], [rock 4], [volatile 4], [energy 2], [powder 1], and [mechanism 1]. These are all just examples btw.
Aspects are used in several places: research, crafting, [censored] and [censored].
Lets take Nitor as an example. To craft nitor you may need [energy 2], [light 2] and [fire 2]. It needs to be crafted in the Magic Couldron (the replacement for the crucible - name is WIP). The exact mechanics still needs to be worked out, but you can chuck in anything that has those aspects to gain nitor. You could use (for instance) redstone and torches, or redstone, coal and glowstone.
Of course, this means some other aspects will also get thrown into the mix. You can load up the couldron with stacks of redstone and torches with the hope of getting a bigger yield, but other aspects also start making their presence felt - like [wood] in the case of torches or [powder] from redstone. You want the ratio of aspects to be vastly in favor of the item you wish to create, otherwise you might get the wrong thing or maybe some kind of accident happens. Even if nothing bad happens unused aspects form a magical residue that is unusable and polluting... taint. It might just go into the aura, or maybe I will add some mechanic requiring you to clean the couldron if too much of it builds up.
The couldron will also have a limited capacity to limit yields or cause fun accidents like the TC1 crucible. Upgrades might exist.
The couldron will only be used to craft certain raw materials or "alchemy" type stuff. There will be other crafting systems to make more complex items that will probably use the aspect system as well.
On to research...
Research will need to be done a lot sooner than in TC2 - apart from the most basic raw materials everything will require research.
However (assuming it is technically possible) you could theoretically get lucky during crafting... at least with the Couldron. You could just randomly chuck in items and get something out of it, but your success chance will be low until you do the actual research. Knowing the ingredients is not the same as knowing the ratios required for said ingredients.
Research will not be done via stacks of cobble or bookcases. For example, to research nitor you will need to research items with the aspects required for nitor. Once again, I haven't nailed down the mechanics yet, but you will start out by combining items in the Q-block.
For example: You place a torch in the q-block.
This grants the [light], [fire] and [wood] aspects. You also gain a % success chance based on the number of aspects and the value of the research fodder. If succesful you will gain a theory that matches your aspects (or as many of them as possible).
Initially the theory will have almost no information - possibly not even a name. You know you have discovered something, but not what it is. The theory will have its own interface showing you what you have discovered about it thusfar. For this example it will be the theory for Nitor.
A good first step is to continue researching the theory using torches. This will be a manual process and cannot be automated (at least not easily by piping in cobble and paper like the current system).
A few successes and failures later you know know that the theory is for Nitor and that what you are researching has 3 aspects - but you don't know what they are yet. You research two more torches and suddenly you see one of the aspects of nitor is [light]. The second aspect has also gained some progress, but it is still unknown. The final aspect shows no progress.
The next success finally reveals the [fire] aspect but the third shows no progress or what aspect it is.
You keep researching torches since they are cheap (but the progress is minimal), but you start combining it with other odds and ends. After using redstone the third aspect finally shows some progress. Aha!
By this time you are almost complete with the [fire] and [light] part of the research - a few pieces of redstone later you now know the third aspect is [energy]. You quickly finish that using some more redstone and are rewarded with the discovery for Nitor.
Once again, nothing is final, but this is the direction I'm considering taking things. There might be some technical limitations that prevent this, but so far I think it (or something similar) would be doable.
have the same use as before? or will they boost something else?
i really like those jars
i recommend that the CoS gets an overhaul so it acts like a soulsucker and soulcage where you can keep your souls stored.(they fly around inside the CoS)
souls could be the new fuel for dark infusing,rituals and other dark stuff
The brain in a jar will still be there - it might not work 100% as before (spamming a bunch of them around a enchanter or research block is lame), but i have no plans on removing it
The brain in a jar will still be there - it might not work 100% as before (spamming a bunch of them around a enchanter or research block is lame), but i have no plans on removing it
good!
i usualy dont spam them around my enchanter or q-block....
Initial plant research requires a simple terrarium, crafted of 3 dirt, 3 glass pane, and 2 wood arranged in a hollow square.
WGW
G_G
DDD
The Terrarium interface is simple, only three slots: Two inputs and an output. You put plant matter (leaves, tallgrass, cactus, vines, flowers, melons, etc) in one slot, a mutagen (vis crystals, distilled essences, other plant material) in the second slot, and the terrarium converts local light and/or aura into relatively slow progress. Plants don't normally grow instantaneously, after all. You'll want to fire up an experiment, and go do something else for a few minutes while it cooks.
Not every combination will result in something useful, sometimes the entropic effects are too much and you get decayed mush back. Sometimes, however, you get a mutated plant, or a crossbreed plant, back. For example, watering a pumpkin with Essence of Light might give you seeds that will grow Jack o Lanterns. Crossing a cactus and a red flower might give you an orange flower (sandrose) which grows only on sand. You can continue to experiment on first generation mutations, such as exposing the sandrose to Essence of Fire to obtain cinderpearl seed.
Once you've exhausted basic mutation theory, you can construct an Arcane Arboretum. I picture this as a relatively large structure, probably 9x9x9 or 13x9x13- Either a player-constructed building, or a pre-fabricated kit which assembles itself when deployed. The greenhouse isolates the area inside from the local aura (reducing environmental variables) and has an interface block which can accept certain items, which modify growing conditions. For example; a Thaumic Lens which concentrates the local aura, creating very high atmospheric vis; an Entropic Inverter, which causes the Taint in the greenhouse to skyrocket; or growth/harvest/replanting Seals which could set the greenhouse up as a very efficient self-contained farm. Certain combinations of plants and growing conditions could result in new plant breeds, such as a concentrated-vis atmosphere + one tree of each type causing a Silverleaf sapling to appear.
Not all combinations are necessarily beneficial - High light levels + yellow flowers + Fiery Crystal presence could cause Sunflowers to grow. Sunflowers target all moving creatures in the area, and emit a damage 'ray' based on local light levels: 'Full daylight' results in a blistering beam of heat similar to the Fire/Air/Air seal effect, and multiple Sunflowers can focus on a single target to really brighten its day. However, a savvy Herbologist can crossbreed basic Sunflowers with 'smarter' plants to develop hybrids, which can discern between players/enemies. This opens up the option of planting a lovely mixed garden of Sunflowers and Cinderpearls, which can then defend your home (Cinderpearls provide light, and trained Sunflowers focus it on aggressive mobs but not the homeowner).
Thaumically mutated plants could provide a number of effects similar to Seals, but do it in a manner which is significantly less damaging to the local aura. It'll simply take a great deal of research and tinkering to get there.
Genius! Simply genius!
Also had an idea for the new name: Arcane Magic: Reality Manipulation.
Love the idea of Stonehenge-like structures that affect/magnify/direct the aura (Now that ring of Stone Brick pillars I built will finally have a use!)
All the Pylons and other ideas (Like the dreamscape) are amazing! If Azanor doesn't make these into a mod, I'd pay for someone else to!
Angels are bright, though the brightest fell. Though all things foul would wear the brows of grace; Still grace must look so.
And by the way; Who is John Galt?
You can always use Alblaka's mod shop :).
Just collecting ideas - I haven't had time to do any coding recently (including for tc2)
Now, the name itself, is one large reference to Tarot reading. How about some sort of system that revolves around drawing a few cards?
- For instance, you could have a set of cards to draw from, and depending upon what you draw, maybe it causes some sort of effect on the world as a whole? But that in itself could get incredibly messy, since most Tarot cards have diverse meanings and interpretations.
And, for some reason, the system is screaming to have a set of spells in place. And I'm not talking about a simple fireball wand or lightning wand. I would really love to see a set of researchable spells that the player can unlock by various methods, like reading spell books from an ancient culture, researching spells they already have, etc.
- Personally this one, I think it would be interesting to have a system where the player has to balance the levels fire, air, water, earth, aura, and taint in a collection of crystals, perhaps on some strange staff, or something like that.
I tend to just throw out vague ideas at first. I'll probably flesh it out later. Maybe. Possibly....
If there's a spellcrafting system added to the mod, I might suggest using the meta-tag system that's already been suggested for the research.
You can research spell effects such as "Light," "Heat," "Disperse," and "Ranged." Once you know a specific effect, you can craft a glyph or somesuch, which you can then use in spell construction. So, for instance, if you only want a light, you'd put a glyph of "light" on a paper to make a spell card. Then when you want to use it, you aim at a block and use the spell card. *bamf* and you have a little ball of thaumic light attached to the block you were aiming at. Of course, it's not gonna last very long (you'd need to know "persistent" or "permanent" for that) and it's probably roughly equivalent to a redstone torch in terms of brightness (brightness 5). Now, if you put TWO Light glyphs on the card, you get a better light (brightness 10). Three glyphs would make it basically daylight. If you put a couple Lights and a Disperse on the card, you would have a short-range PBAOE effect that puts lights on say, the targetted block and the 4 cardinal blocks around it, but it disperses the effect.. so you start with 10 brightness, but it spreads over 5 blocks.. so each block gets 2 brightness. Back to the lab to make that.. a bit more useful.
Later on, you decide you're really tired of skeletons shooting you before you can close to swording range, and start to research a damage spell. You try Heat, Light, Direct, Range, and voila, a basic Magic Missile. Heat x3, Light, Disperse x2, Range ---.... FIREBALL! but ouch, the range is shorter than the dispersal, so it nails you too. Back to the lab.. after the corpse run.
And yes this magic system is blatantly stolen from some old RPG system, but I 'll be Nethered if I can remember which one it was..
It's based on the belief that the world was spoken (or sung, if you're a filthy elf) into being, and that if you can learn the language then you could theoretically 'respeak' the world and change things.
it's a fairly literalist interpretation of John 1:1 -- "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
This is a good idea.
A Meta-tag systems with speel crafting would be almost solid awesome.
The really fun and funky effects start happening when you learn words like "intensify" and "invert." 5 Heat + 5 Intensity = literal nuke that evaporates standing water, vaporizes dirt & sand, and turns stone into lava... Of course, since you're pulling the power for these spells out of the local aura, a massive nuke like that would be... counterproductive.
well, this should be nice as long we can keep the brain in-a-jar as it its now. i like to place them around in my house to make it cooler.
brains could be used to boost researtch related stuff like: stargazing,alchemy and basic researtch or forbidden researtch.
i cant wait for taintspores on-a-jar if they will be added(azanor mentioned a taintspore on a jar)
imagine a brain next to a cool alchemy lab set.
i hope azanor uses the thaumcraft code as the arcanacraft base so the new mod evolves faster.
thaumcraft already have the auracode,mobs,artifacts,researtch items and more stuff that azanor simply can move over to arcanacraft.
ideas for plants:
taintspore (from tc2)
the taintspore can be breeded with otherplants to create intresting results.
taintspore + cinderpearl plant = firespore
taintspore + shimmerleaf = visspore(very hard to make and requires a lot of researtch.)
brain+pumkin plant + taint = living plant
i'll add more ideas later. im at school right now
In my opinion, making the tech element of thaumcraft (or arcanacraft now) unique by adding special mechanics is the most important goal, since other mods have already included automation of farming, item collection, etc. For example, instead of planting saplings, waiting for it to grow, chopping the tree down, and replanting saplings, you could make a machine that cuts off a "branch" of the tree, and another that "regenerates" that branch.
Finally, the player should be given meaningful choices with consequences and rewards for spreading/destroying vis and taint. Don't make is so that the player can get every cool magical gadget in the mod, even though some are "tainted" and others are not.
Using some of the great ideas posted so far this is what I'm thinking of doing. NOTE, I haven't done any coding yet and probably won't for a while.
Aspects
All items will have aspects (or tags as they have been called so far). I'm not sure how they will be assigned yet - I might assign them individually, or they might inherit them from the items they are crafted from. The aspects will also have a strength rating on how much of that aspect the item/block contains.
A stone block might have a [rock 1] tag. Cobblestone will have [rock 1] and something like [volatile 1]. Redstone will have [powder 1] and [energy 2]. A piston will thus have [wood 3], [metal 1], [rock 4], [volatile 4], [energy 2], [powder 1], and [mechanism 1]. These are all just examples btw.
Aspects are used in several places: research, crafting, [censored] and [censored].
Lets take Nitor as an example. To craft nitor you may need [energy 2], [light 2] and [fire 2]. It needs to be crafted in the Magic Couldron (the replacement for the crucible - name is WIP). The exact mechanics still needs to be worked out, but you can chuck in anything that has those aspects to gain nitor. You could use (for instance) redstone and torches, or redstone, coal and glowstone.
Of course, this means some other aspects will also get thrown into the mix. You can load up the couldron with stacks of redstone and torches with the hope of getting a bigger yield, but other aspects also start making their presence felt - like [wood] in the case of torches or [powder] from redstone. You want the ratio of aspects to be vastly in favor of the item you wish to create, otherwise you might get the wrong thing or maybe some kind of accident happens. Even if nothing bad happens unused aspects form a magical residue that is unusable and polluting... taint. It might just go into the aura, or maybe I will add some mechanic requiring you to clean the couldron if too much of it builds up.
The couldron will also have a limited capacity to limit yields or cause fun accidents like the TC1 crucible. Upgrades might exist.
The couldron will only be used to craft certain raw materials or "alchemy" type stuff. There will be other crafting systems to make more complex items that will probably use the aspect system as well.
On to research...
Research will need to be done a lot sooner than in TC2 - apart from the most basic raw materials everything will require research.
However (assuming it is technically possible) you could theoretically get lucky during crafting... at least with the Couldron. You could just randomly chuck in items and get something out of it, but your success chance will be low until you do the actual research. Knowing the ingredients is not the same as knowing the ratios required for said ingredients.
Research will not be done via stacks of cobble or bookcases. For example, to research nitor you will need to research items with the aspects required for nitor. Once again, I haven't nailed down the mechanics yet, but you will start out by combining items in the Q-block.
For example: You place a torch in the q-block.
This grants the [light], [fire] and [wood] aspects. You also gain a % success chance based on the number of aspects and the value of the research fodder. If succesful you will gain a theory that matches your aspects (or as many of them as possible).
Initially the theory will have almost no information - possibly not even a name. You know you have discovered something, but not what it is. The theory will have its own interface showing you what you have discovered about it thusfar. For this example it will be the theory for Nitor.
A good first step is to continue researching the theory using torches. This will be a manual process and cannot be automated (at least not easily by piping in cobble and paper like the current system).
A few successes and failures later you know know that the theory is for Nitor and that what you are researching has 3 aspects - but you don't know what they are yet. You research two more torches and suddenly you see one of the aspects of nitor is [light]. The second aspect has also gained some progress, but it is still unknown. The final aspect shows no progress.
The next success finally reveals the [fire] aspect but the third shows no progress or what aspect it is.
You keep researching torches since they are cheap (but the progress is minimal), but you start combining it with other odds and ends. After using redstone the third aspect finally shows some progress. Aha!
By this time you are almost complete with the [fire] and [light] part of the research - a few pieces of redstone later you now know the third aspect is [energy]. You quickly finish that using some more redstone and are rewarded with the discovery for Nitor.
Once again, nothing is final, but this is the direction I'm considering taking things. There might be some technical limitations that prevent this, but so far I think it (or something similar) would be doable.
will the "in-a-jartm "
have the same use as before? or will they boost something else?
i really like those jars
i recommend that the CoS gets an overhaul so it acts like a soulsucker and soulcage where you can keep your souls stored.(they fly around inside the CoS)
souls could be the new fuel for dark infusing,rituals and other dark stuff
good!
i usualy dont spam them around my enchanter or q-block....
... i spam them all over my house