caster / caster rune

[shadoxxhd]

the compendium does not contain a crafting recipe, and i also can't find the blocks in NEI.

[ThatOneTraitor]

the caster was removed in version 008. If your looking for an item and its not in NEI, its most likely renamed or deleted

[shadoxxhd]

why was it removed?
and is there a stable 1.7.10 version that includes the casters?

[ThatOneTraitor]

there isnt a version for 1.7 that includes it. and i think it got replaced by runes or it was buggy. idk.

[jjtParadox]

It was either removed/replaced for balance reasons or for bugs and crashes. It possibly could be added in later, if @Mithion is ok with it.

[ThatOneTraitor]

It was a fun way to protect your base, now there are only summoners and the one that puts astral distortion on you.

[shadoxxhd]

i hope they will be added back, they could have crazy potential (even more so if the spell grammar would get a rework, but that's probably too much to ask for...)

[renadi]

I would also approve of re adding the caster block.

[irkedIsaac]

I think in order for casters to be reasonable, several things would have to happen. First, certain spells ought to be blocked from the caster; Things like making it daytime/nighttime/weather shouldn't be able to be automated if you ask me. Second, the caster would need to either have unique spell shapes applied to its spells or else be configurable in its UI (like target aggressive entities, etc.). Third, the ability to power the caster would need to be tweaked...somehow. Perhaps it needing a dedicated source of etherium (aka you can't connect the Black Aurem to the caster if it's connected to something else) or requiring some other kind of component.

[shadoxxhd]

have you ever crafted a time change spell? they need absurd amounts of mana (self - makeDay was >10k if i remember correctly). but i totally agree that you should have more control over how spells work - not just in casters.
it should feel like you have control over your magic - raising walls of fire at will, creating magical barriers deflecting certain kinds of spells (maybe involving complex magical shield harmonics ('deflector frequency patterns')?), unleashing waves of ice on your enemies freezing the ground before you, throwing daggers of pure arcane energy, ...
all this would be possible with relatively minor changes to spell grammar (maybe just changing the 1d shape list to a 2d flow chart, comparable to blood magic 'complex' spells (except that it has a grammar like now, instead of the certainly NOT complex system from blood magic))
anyway, i think the best balancing option would be to expand upon the etherium infrastructure. obelisks would be good for creating your first spells, but later you'd want some sort of caster-based 'mana reactor', draining energy from the environment/mobs/enslaved players and mage NPCs/some sort of rare fuel/'aura nodes'/... (it should be quite complex, not inherently stable, and involve some creative spell design instead of just rebuilding the best known layout right away (-> best layout depends on environmental factors, other mods installed, relations between some (maybe even world-seed random?) parameters/configs/...))

[TheIcyOne]

This is beginning to sound like a whole new mod. If changes on that scale were to occur, it would probably require a total overhaul of the system.

[shadoxxhd]

the etherium infrastructure would be just an expansion/rework of the existing system (mana batteries, repeaters, obelisks, ...). the new spell system could also be backwards compatible. current spells already work quite like these complex spells, though they are strictly linear and don't support defining the relation of following shapes (complex spells don't either afaik, but the system is still good to visualize how the code would work). just allowing branching (without ANY further changes) would allow for things like quarry spells which place a single row of light orbs in the middle of the area, or a spell that creates a damage+entangle zone at the impact location, and a rune in front of it that teleports you behind the zone when you step on it (so you can shoot the spell while moving in CQ w/o gibbing yourself (ok, for this to work well, you'd need a direction inversion shape (otherwise the rune would be at the impact point and the zone behind it))).
more complex, intertwined spell grammar would allow for MUCH more, eg. FoF spells (would be fun with a homing shape - eg. the beam part of the spell designates the target, and the homing projectile part carries the (nuclear) punch - if you see a group of enemies approaching your base, you designate them, the missiles launch vertically (slowly, so you have time to get your wards online before they know you saw them), and once the projectiles are around 50 blocks high they turn towards the group and hunt them down).
again, it's about relatively small changes with a huge impact. and the 'mana reactor' thingy could also just be a refined form of the old infinite mana spells, but working for casters.

[ThatOneTraitor]

Lets try to work on fixing the bugs ars magica already has before trying to completely overhaul one of the few stable things it has first ;p