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This tutorial will show you how to set up an automatic, hands-off machine for generating a large number of ThaumCraft Research fragments. It will produce many fragments of Lost Knowledge as well as a small number of fragments of Forbidden Knowledge, Eldritch Knowledge, and Tainted Knowledge. It uses items from the Redpower mod as well as Logistics Pipes. The Quaesitums in the generator will constantly use cobblestone, and uses a piece of paper whenever it succeeds, so to fully automate it, we need a cobblestone generator and an automatic sugarcane farm. While I recommend certain designs for the cobblestone generator and the sugarcane farm, any that are fully automated should do fine.
Cobblestone Generator[]
Build this Cobblestone Generator: Automation 2: Cobblestone Generator
When you are finished, it should look something like this:
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Automatic Sugarcane Farm[]
I took this great design from the video here. It was designed by Generikb, and it is pretty genius if you ask me. I made some modifications, such as extending the back, and slightly altering the wiring with Redpower wires. The design uses a BUD(Block Update Detector) switch, so when the sugarcane at the very back grows to a height of 3, the pistons will automatically fire and the sugarcane will be harvested. This makes the setup totally automatic with no interference required by the player.
Step 1 - Laying the Foundations:[]
Dig 2 trenches, 8 blocks long, 5 blocks apart. Dig a third trench, 4 long.
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Add stone around the trenches, and add dirt and stone strips as shown.
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Dump buckets of water at the ends of all 4 trenches.
Plant sugarcane along the dirt strips.
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Place another layer of stone around the back.
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Dump another bucket of water at the back between the sugarcane.
Place 2 rows of pistons above each water canal beside the sugarcane.
Step 2 - The BUD Switch:[]
Place a sticky piston at the back, on the same level as the highest piston, but facing upwards.
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Place blocks (I chose wood to differentiate from the foundation) as shown.
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Build a roof, to house the wiring.
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Place a redstone torch and dust as shown.
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Place a redstone repeater (Note: you must use the VANILLA repeater for this to work. In-game, it is called the 'redstone repeater'). Place the repeater from the angle shown in the picture. Then place the redstone dust.
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Place 3 redstone repeaters with blocks in between.
Right-click the 3 repeaters you just placed, 3 times each. This will delay the signal so the pistons stay extended longer. After you click, they should look like this:
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Place 2 more repeaters on the other side of the blocks on the open side of the roof. Do NOT right-click these.
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Place Red Alloy Wire along the roof as shown.
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Lay the wire along the backside of the pistons as shown. You only need to wire one of the pistons in each column, as the power is automatically transferred to the other.
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Step 3 - The Finishing Touches:[]
Replace some of the roof tiles (it doesn't have to be all of them) with glowstone or open them to sunlight, to give the sugarcane some light to grow.
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Place glass panes above the middle water canal, 2 blocks high. These make sure that more of the sugarcane lands in the water canal when being harvested.
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Place a Transposer at the end of the middle canal and use the Screwdriver to align the input face with the canal. The circular opening faces opposite the input.
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Connect the circular opening of the Transposer to a chest with Pneumatic Tubes.
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And finally, the automatic sugarcane farm is finished!
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If you want to expand the farm, you can make as many installations as you want and simply connect them with Pneumatic Tubes.
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Automatic Quaesitum[]
To supply the Quaesitum with all the different materials and extract the finished product, they must be input and output on different sides. The cobblestone must be input to the bottom, the paper to the top, and the research fragments must be extracted from the sides.
Place a number of Quaesitums in a row. (When I first built this, I used 3, and this time I tried 5 as an experiment. I am unsure of how many you could stack without the need for another farm or generator, but I do know that the cobblestone generator produces more than enough for 5 Quaesitums. You may need to add some sugarcane to the system to get it started, as it can take a little while to build up the paper to fully stock the system. On the plus side, the paper doesn't get used too quickly, so once fully stocked, it is likely to stay that way.
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Place Supplier Logistics Pipes underneath the Quaesitums and right-click on them with the Wrench. The GUI will open up, and place 3 stacks of cobblestone in each inventory.
Attach a Provider Logistics Pipe to the depository chest of the cobblestone generator, and set it up through the GUI accordingly with a cobblestone.
Once you connect the pipes together with Stone Transport Pipes, the cobblestone should start piping from the chest to the Quaesitums.
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Attach a provider pipe to the depository chest for the sugarcane farm, and set the interface with the wrench. (NOTE: whenever you make an intersection in your network, make sure the intersection pipe is a Basic Logistics Pipe or any other kind of Logistics Pipe. This way, the items will always know where to go and will get there as fast as possible)
Place an Automatic Crafting Table and connect it to the network via a Crafting Logistics Pipe. The interface of the automatic crafting table must be set in this way, and then you have to open the interface of the crafting pipe and click the 'Import' button. This will set the interface correctly.
Build a small 2 block pillar, then proceed to place Supplier Logistics Pipes above each Quaesitum. Set their inventories as shown and connect them to the network, then break the pillar. (NOTE: Remember to replace the intersecting pipes with logistics pipes)
Attach a Logistics Chassis Mk1 to the side of each Quaesitum and open their interfaces with the Wrench. Put an Extractor Module in the slot.
Now we have to set up a destination chest for the research fragments. Simply attach a chest to the network and place a Basic Logistics Pipe directly beside the chest. Open the interface and set it as the 'Default Route'. This means that any items in the system not required anywhere else will route here.
You might have found that occasionally, paper gets ejected out of the system as there is no room for it, if we had not set the default route. Now any paper that is not used immediately will be sent to the destination chest. But it is very annoying having to manually put the paper back in the system, so we'll set up a Provider Logistics Pipe that takes paper out of the chest when it is asked for.
And there you have it! Your completed automatic research facility!
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Further Research[]
So, after this legendary build, you can finally sit back, relax, and just wait for the fragments to accumulate. I recommend setting up an entirely different facility surrounded by bookshelves (and eventually Brains-in-jars) to do your actual research. Research the fragments supported by 2 stacks of books. Once you have discovered all of the Lost Knowledge, when you research the lost fragments, you will discover other types of fragments, so this system can make researching a breeze.
The great thing about Logistics Pipes is that they allow any part of this design to attach to any other part of the piping network, as long as every intersection is a logistics pipe. This allows for great flexibility when building this into an existing base. Of course this setup could be beautified much more, with the generators, farms, and piping hidden away. I encourage others to build upon and improve this design as much as possible. I hope you have as much fun building this system as I did designing it.
-Fleetyfox