Tekter
commented
5 years ago My thoughts:
- Gauntlet tiers: Iron -> Brass -> Gold -> Thaumium -> Void Metal
- Vis Resonators tiers: Iron + Quartz -> Brass + Ender Pearl -> Gold + Emerald -> Thaumium + Diamond -> Void Metal + Primordial "thing"
- Instead of using the Arcane Workbench, could use the Infusion Altar
- Suggestion for crafting: 2 Vis resonators, 4 ingots and an amount of the 6 primal essentia
- Higher tiered Casters can use higher tiered foci and they would have an addition: they could use essentia
- By using essentia of a specific type, the power of a focus could be increased and the cooldown decreased. High tiered versions could store a higher amount of essentia and more types.
- Tier iron, no essentia; Tier brass, 1 type of essentia, x amount of each; Tier gold, 2 types, 2x amount of each; Tier thaumium, 3 types, 3x amount of each; Tier void metal, 4 types, 4x amount of each;
- The essentia could be stored in the form of essentia crystals, by infusing quartz with 6 vis crystals and an amount of essentia of that type and maybe some additional, like vitreus and auram.
- The essentia crystals could be switched with a new command or block. That's not for me to say.
- The essentia crystals would be recharged at a "Essentia Fuelling/Fueling Station" but only if equipped on the Gauntlet. https://github.com/Azanor/thaumcraft-suggestions/issues/461#issuecomment-445566726
Regarding any lack of upgrading capability of the Caster's Gauntlet, vis-a-vis the old wand system of TC4 (can't speak for 5, never played it but apparently it was still there?) it read to me like there was a plan for a tiered gauntlet system but that this hasn't been implemented yet? They could simply offer the vis discount for focus use instead of discount and capacity, given how the current mechanics of the game work. Might need tweaking to find balance between UP and OP for the discount but the lack of progression for your casting device is somewhat noticable. Didn't look like the old discounts were terribly OP but I'm sure others have more info on previous mod feedback.
Progression up the gauntlets could be denoted by different tiers of metal (Iron -> Gold -> Thaumium -> Void Metal); the current gauntlet requires 3 iron, this could be replaced with the requisite metal for the improved gauntlets; rather than another thaumometer you might need the previous tier gauntlet to craft it, or be required to infuse the previous gauntlet (or both; improve the iron gauntlet with gold, but have to infuse the rest from their previous iteration). It might also require the creation of better vis resonators, e.g. quartz + thaumium plate = thaumium vis resonator for more efficient vis conduction. iterate up or down the metal hierarchy as appropriate. These could then be used in the more complex vis-related Thaumic machinery, or even as a stepping stone to better vis batteries.
As an aside, I like how the new vis system works; it's a lot less busywork charging and recharging wands and once you get your head around how the interplay between flux and vis works I much prefer that to node management. I'm also a fan of how less threatening Taint is once you can safely destroy a Taint Seed, but this doesn't happen till end-game anyway when you can kinda risk it for the void-flavoured biscuit via the Void Siphon (or dump materials into Collapsers, if you're sensible).