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User:Numaris/Thistle Notes
This is a work in progress. It may or may not ever be completed. Thistles are a difficult subject to try to teach, and I am by no means the premier authority on them.
Introduction
Thistles seem to be a common point of frustration these days. They're complex to make, but difficult to buy, which makes Silk a major road block for certain projects. While there are a number of guides out there that describe the mechanics of the system quite well, there's very little practical information on how to actually go about making the thistle you need. I'd love to say that this guide will change all that, but unfortunately I can't make that promise. Since the rules change all the time, so do the strategies. The best I can do is provide some general pointers based on my experiences, which I will lay out below, along with my own description of the mechanics of the process.
A few things I'd like to get out of the way beforehand:
- I do not sell silk, thistles or thistle recipes. It can be a lot of work, and there's just too much else that I would rather be doing.
- Tips/hints/strategies listed below are from my own experience. I would be very happy to hear other folks' experiences, but please use the Discussion page for that, rather than creating long discussion threads on this page.
How Thistles Work
What are thistles?
Thistles are created by planting a Thistle Seed in a Thistle Garden and tending it for a few minutes while it grows. Once finished, you can harvest 5 debens of Thistle with seven specific attributes. These attributes represent the final values of the major nutrients in the thistle, and are what determines whether or not the thistle is appropriate for any given use.
More on Nutrients
Thistles are identified in your inventory or storage container by a string such as "A-B+C~F+N-P+T-". This represents the levels of the seven nutrients in the thistle. The nutrients are:
- Ascorbin
- Biotin
- Carotene
- Folin
- Niacin
- Pyroxidine
- Thiamine
During the growing process, each nutrient is represented by a value between 0 and 99. When the thistle matures, the nutrients' final values determine their level as displayed:
| Descriptor | Symbol | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Low | – | < 22 |
| Average | ~ | >= 22 and < 80 |
| High | + | >= 80 |
(FIXME: I still need to verify these values. I stole them from the T3 thistle guide.)
