User:Jimbly/AutomaticThistles

Below is the process I would recommend for starting to make thistles:

Determine voids

If someone else has already determined the voids for this week, you can simply jump ahead and enter the voids into the config file. Generally those who determine the thistle voids place the information in their info text. Try /info Jimbly or /info Ephemere to see if we have the voids for this week.

When you are watching your recipe run, compare the results happening in-game with the results you see in ThistleSim. If you don't have two computers side-by-side, you may want to save screenshots every 8 ticks or so. If there is a tick in which the results differ, you need to determine which rule, when voided, would cause that result. The way I do this is to go down the list of rules, and try turning each one off and then back on. Generally, one of 3 things will happen:

1. Nothing will change, or only later ticks will change - we gain no information about this rule
2. One of the earlier ticks will change - we now know this rule must be active, flag it (I just put a comment in the column to the right of the rule), and you know you don't need to test it later
3. The tick which differed will change to be what you see in-game - we now know this rule must be voided.

It's possible that no single rule will get the result you saw in-game, in which case it might be a pair of 2 rules voided, both active on the same tick, causing the result. By looking at what actual vitamins differ, and what rules cause/create them, you should be able to logic out what pair of rules it is, but this is less common.

Profit

(but not too much, let Jimbly profit first, please)