Infusion (Thaumcraft 4)

This article is about the concept from Thaumcraft 4. You may be looking for Infusion from Thaumcraft 3.

Infusion is a process of creating magical items on Infusion Altar by imbuing the catalyst with other items and liquid Essentia, available in Thaumcraft 4 mod. This article is only about the process of creation of such items. For information about the altar setup and stabilization, visit Infusion Altar page.

The process of Infusion is shown on the recipe of Awakened Ichorium Pickaxe from Thaumic Tinkerer 2 addon. The Infusion Altar is set on 12 ingredients and stabilized with 125 Fire Crystal Clusters. Essentia is provided in Warded Jars.

Recipe

Infusion Altar

Instability:

Output:

Dangerous

Stages

Ingredient Placement

For the recipe the player needs to put the catalyst (in this example - Ichorium Pickaxe) on the central pedestal and other 12 ingredient on other 12 pedestals in random order. The order the ingredients are placed on the pedestals does not matter at all. The player should also supply Essentia in any storage blocks in the amount slightly more than needed, just to be safe.

The recipe is ready to be activated.

Activation

To activate the recipe, the player should right-click the Runic Matrix with any wand. No Vis is used during this operation, so even completely empty wand will work as an activator. Right after the recipe is activated, the Runic Matrix will "open" and start glowing and will take Essentia from containers and move it to itself and the down to the catalyst. The aspect of the essentia currently drained can be viewed by looking on Runic Matrix with Goggles of Revealing. In the recipes provided in the Wiki, the aspects are arranged left to right in the order of they being drained during the Infusion. In this example,

Essentia is drained first.

The Altar right after activation, draining Ignis Essenta.

Draining Essentia

The altar will scan all its active area for any container with the Essentia of the appropriate aspect. Then it will start draining the Essentia, and will scan the area again after the container is emptied. If the Altar cannot find any Essntia in its active zone, it will add several points to each essentia needed once in several seconds, and will scan for new essentia needed. So the essentia required for this recipe will increase, and if no backup essentia is stored in the area, this will make things even worse.

The Altar has just finished draining Ignis and started draining Perfodio.

Draining Ingredients

Once all essentia is drained, the altar will begin to drain ingredients. It will scan all nearby Arcane Pedestals for the required ingredient and will consume it, creating a beam of particles flying from it towards the catalyst. If no required ingredient found, the altar will add several points to each essentia needed once in several seconds, and will scan for new essentia needed. After it has fulfilled all its essentia needs, it will continue searching for ingredients.

Altar draining Wand Focus: Excavation.

Successful ending

Once all ingredients and essentia is collected, the altar will change the catalyst to the resulting item. If the result is several items (f.e. Ichor), it will still be displayed as one, but will give the player actual output amount when the player right-clicks on the pedestal to collect the item.

The catalyst changed to Awakened Ichorium Pickaxe.

Instability Problems

During the Infusion, certain instability events may happen; these events are never good. The overall instability of the altar (modified by the instability of the recipe being used) is calculated into a "score" that determines the frequency/likelihood of events. Each tick, the altar generates a random number between 0 and 500. If this number is less than the instability score, an instability event will occur.

Here is a list of possible instability events:

• (12/21 chance) An ingredient is knocked from its pedestal, dropping nearby. Beware of golems or other effects that might automatically collect it, as well as blocks such as Fire, Lava or Cactus that might destroy it. The ingredient knocked off its pedestal is chosen randomly: 4/12 chance for first ingredient to be knocked out, 2/12 each for the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th ingredients, and 1/12 for either of the 4th and 5th ingredients. If there is no ingredient for the chosen number (for example, the sixth ingredient of a recipe with only three ingredients), the targeted item is modified based on the total number of ingredients.
• (3/21 chance) A random ingredient melts into one block of Flux Goo and one block of Flux Gas. These will spawn on top of the pedestal, in place of the item in question.
• (4/21 chance) Lightning hits the player. The player will take 4-6 damage.
• (1/21 chance) There will be a small explosion near the altar. This will not damage blocks, but it can knock items off their pedestals and/or damage the player.
• (1/21 chance) The player will get Warp.

Managing Instability

Information on decreasing the instability score of the altar itself can be found at Infusion Altar. To mitigate the problems associated with instability, however, consider the following tactics:

• The most common instability event (more than 50% of all events) is for an item to be knocked off its pedestal. Watch the infusion and be quick to replace anything that gets knocked off.
• Infusion reagents can also be destroyed entirely (replaced with Flux). Create extras of each ingredient in the infusion recipe, and keep them on-hand in case one of them is destroyed. (Or in case one of them is knocked off its pedestal and you can't find it.)
• Long-running infusions (especially infusions that are long-running because of instability events) can cause the essentia requirements to increase. Have a buffer of additional essentia for each required type, and keep it where the altar can access it. If you have Thaumic Energistics, consider using an Infusion Provider.
• Each arcane pedestal is coded as a container that holds a single item. Consider using mechanisms that can insert items into inventories (like hoppers) to immediately replace any ingredients that are removed from their pedestals.
• The lightning and explosion events cannot hurt players unless they are near the altar. Keep your distance from the infusion as it's happening. Only return to the altar if the infusion needs your attention or if the infusion is complete. (The warping event may or may not require proximity to affect players.)
• If an ingredient melts, this will produce flux. Build your infusion altar in an open area so that the flux can flow away from the altar. Flux Gas will harmlessly dissipate when it reaches y=255, meaning that outdoor infusions are a great way to deal with flux gas.
• Sometimes, an infusion just goes horribly, horribly wrong. Maybe you cut it too close and the altar demands more of a rare essentia you can't provide it. Maybe one of the infusion ingredients is only obtained by infusion, then it got zapped into flux and you don't have a spare. Whatever the case, you may decide that the infusion simply can't work out. To cut your losses and cancel an infusion, simply remove the catalyst from the center pedestal: this immediately ends the infusion. The altar will not consume any further essentia or items, and it will not trigger any further instability events; however, any consumed resources are gone forever, and you will have to start over entirely if you want to try infusing this recipe again.