Getting Started (Thaumcraft 4)

What is this mod about?
Thaumcraft 4 is mod created by Azanor and successor to Thaumcraft 3 also by the same author. It is a mod that allowed players to collect magical energy in form of vis and aspects and use them to create magical items and machinery. This mode will allow you to construct new powerful tools, weapons, armour and various machines as well as autonomous golems to act like your servants. As a result player will be able to automate most of ordinary tasks like farming, chopping trees, item transportation and ore processing as well as create his own little army to protect his household from hostile mobs.

Who is this mod for?
Thaumcraft is massive mod that provides alternative for more technology oriented mods. If you enjoy magic, steam-punk, weird science stories and amazing special effects, then this mod is for you.

What mods are compatible?
Thaumcraft is compatible with most of the mods that can be found in popular FTB mod pack, creating some interesting combos with few of them in particular.

New resources, bios and dimensions, mobs
Thaumcraft adds 3 new bios into the game: Magical Forest, Eerie and Tainted Land in addition it adds in game mechanics for a player to alert existing bios to convert them into one of above. In addition Thaumatic Tinkerer add on to the Thaumcraft adds new bedrock dimension that is heavy on resources but really difficult to get into.

It adds new ores that can be found in overworld. Air Infused Stone, Fire Infused Stone, Water Infused Stone, Earth Infused Stone, Entropy Infused Stone and Order Infused Stone which after mining produce Air Shards, Fire Shards etc. respectively. It also adds amber bearing stone and cinbar ore as well as 5 new plants: Greatwood tree, Silverwood Tree, Cinderbloom, and Shimmerleaf, and Mana beans.

Thaumcraft also adds several hostile mobs and new neutral mob The Pech.

Basic Necessities
In order to start adventure with this mod player will need to create his first magic wand. It is created by combining two Iron Caps and stick in the crafting table. Iron caps are created from 5 iron nuggets placed in the shape of a helmet.

Next player will need bookshelf and by right clicking it with magic wand, the bookshelf will be transformed into Thaumonomicon, an interactive guide through the mod teaching and allowing player to slowly discover more knowledge about the Thaumacraft world. Last step is for a player to create Thaumometer by combining any 2 shards, 2 gold ingots and a glass in a crafting table.

Basic mechanics
In Thaumcraft every item apart of being created from ordinary matter is also composed from invisible to the naked eye magical aspects. There is 6 basic (primal) aspects in a world Aer (air), Terra (earth), Ignis (fire), Aqua (water), Ordo (order), and Perditio (entropy). While placing Thaumometer in hot bar and selecting it player will be able to scan, by right clicking on items he is currently looking at, surrounding world and learn about the aspect that compose it. In the scanning process player will discover combinations of aspect and learn that primal aspect can combine together to create more complex aspect, which in turn can combine creating even more complex aspect. As a result there is 51 aspects in Thaumcraft. The player will slowly scan environment and collect aspect which he will use later for magical research. After players unlocks enough complex aspects, he is ready to start researching. In order to do so player will need the following: Thaumonomicon, paper and Scribing Tools. After right clicking Thaumonomicon player will be able to select one of many research topics begin discovering. As long as player has paper and Scribing Tools in his inventory left clicking research will consume one paper and produce a Research Note. (It is worth noting that not all the research is available to the player immediately, and some advance topics have to be unlocked by doing more basic research). Next player will have to create research table. This is done by putting 2 Tables next to each other and placing Scribing Tools on one of them. The tables will then join into one Research Table. After right clicking research table player will have access to it's GUI. The research table allows player to combine aspect into complex aspects as well as use notes for research. By placing research note in the table player will start mini-game. Solving it will produce research and update Thaumonomicom allowing player to access new discovered knowledge.

Research Minigame
The research minigame, although it may seem difficult, is quite simple. Your goal is to connect all of the given aspects to one another through the use of the aspects you have discovered. The way to do this is by combining aspects to create compound one such as combining Aer and Aqua you will create one Motus aspect. This Motus aspect can then be placed either next to an Aer or Aqua. From there you keep moving up and down the tiers of aspects until they are all connected which will resort in the creating of a research scroll which can be activated adding that research to your Thaumonomicon