I wish the game had a bit more clarification for "lightning".. (SOLVED)

[[PMC] Portable Merc Collector]

I just bought the game a couple days ago and it's been great fun! I absolutely love the art style, the 2.5D aesthetic, the gameplay is smooth. Controls are nice and the tutorials are to the point and fairly easy to understand with the little help videos showing you exactly what does what.

But, am I just dumb or does it seem like lightning is never explained much? Like, I'm guessing it's the mana lanterns or lamps that give staff lightning charges..? I've been trying to research things and it needs these charges in order to function. But I can't seem to find any information about lightning for them.

I plan on building a mana lantern/lamp and seeing if that is what I needed, it requires a mana stone to do so though, so I'll be wary of that.

Anyone else have trouble understanding the lightning requirement for some research and other actions ingame

(Edit) So it turns out I was getting the element of lightning as a wand user confused with requirements needed for research. Thank you for everyone who posted though! I learned a bunch of things from you all, sorry I didn't word my post that well.

[Precious]

I'm not understanding what you mean by lighting requirement for research. There are only two requirements for research and those are scrolls. If your talking about making sure the room is lite there is a button that you can hit, it kinda resembles the sun and you can see how bright the room is. If you click on the lighting tab in your build mode you can see different types of lights there. Hover over one and you can see how much light it puts out.

[Zaelle]

The mana lanterns do the same thing the big mana stone thing you start with does. Gives mages mana back. It's completely separate from lighting. You just need lanterns, etc. for that. If the lighting in rooms is too low, it will spawn mushrooms that sap nearby characters and give them a debuff. That said, you can also harvest the mushrooms and use them for various things. One thing I suggest is having a room dedicated to spawning the mushrooms with no light and just lock the door for anyone except your founder ghost. They can go in and harvest when applicable with no risk of debuff, 'cuz ghost, and no one else will ever enter.

[[PMC] Portable Merc Collector]

Ahh alright, so maybe I was reading the tabs information wrong? Well, shoot now I feel like an idiot. Regardless though thanks so much for your responses! I know about the mushrooms and try to make sure my rooms are well lit. Guess I just have to keep then lit better.

The help is appreciated, thank you again!

[[PMC] Portable Merc Collector]

Originally posted by Zaelle:

The mana lanterns do the same thing the big mana stone thing you start with does. Gives mages mana back. It's completely separate from lighting. You just need lanterns, etc. for that. If the lighting in rooms is too low, it will spawn mushrooms that sap nearby characters and give them a debuff. That said, you can also harvest the mushrooms and use them for various things. One thing I suggest is having a room dedicated to spawning the mushrooms with no light and just lock the door for anyone except your founder ghost. They can go in and harvest when applicable with no risk of debuff, 'cuz ghost, and no one else will ever enter.

Interesting.. I hadn't thought of making a shrooms only growing room, thanks for the tip! I'll definitely keep that in mind as I play.

[swiftdoll]

You probably just mixed the words lightNing (mage elemental skill) with light-ing (room lamps&windows) from the tutorial tips and that caused confusion :)

you want your researching mages to have high lightning skill to progress faster.
Lighting just repels those void shrooms but also helps indoor garden plants to grow.

Mana lanterns give moonlight (needed by some plants to grow) on top of acting as convenient charge stations for your mages, so they are not completely separate from lighting. They do count towards the room total light level

[n3mes1s]

Each station performs better depending on the magic user. For research, lightning skill is the one. For making wands, nature. For cooking, fire. For making potions, water. Etc. And there is a tooltip that shows if you hover the description when you click on each station that tells you. I didnt understand what you meant anyways.

[Smudgius]

If you hit F2 you get the lighting overlay - which shows how much lighting each room currently has / over how much it needs. You only need a room to be 50% lit to prevent mushrooms. The overlay will also tell you IF a voidshroom will spawn, and how long until it does. Same for clutter gremlins and oozes with F3 and F4.

[n3mes1s]

Oh the op is talking about light...

[[PMC] Portable Merc Collector]

Originally posted by n3mes1s:

Each station performs better depending on the magic user. For research, lightning skill is the one. For making wands, nature. For cooking, fire. For making potions, water. Etc. And there is a tooltip that shows if you hover the description when you click on each station that tells you. I didnt understand what you meant anyways.

AH THAT MAKES SENSE! That was my problem! I kept seeing "lightning" appearing on my research tabs and got confused as to if it was a requirement or not! So that's what it means when jobs have elemental tips like that..

Thank you! This fixes it perfectly!

[Cloudyeller]

This thread isn't exactly what you are asking:

Each recipe and ritual in the game requires a magic input. The school of magic that prefers that input is shown in the task. For example, lighting is the preferred school for Research and so the recipe shows a little lightning symbol next to the power requirement (don't ask me what that number means, someone else probably knows).

If you go to the Gruel Pot, you will see fire next to each recipe. If you look at assemble stuff, it has air, etc.

[PaloG]

Originally posted by CitSci:

don't ask me what that number means, someone else probably knows

It's the total progress needed to complete the task. Each time a mage "casts" for that task they add their respective elemental level to the progress till it reaches that number at which point it completes.
For Gruel Pot for example if you're making a recipe and you see the Fire symbol and next to it the number 8 that means that a mage with a lvl 3 Fire skill will need 3 casts to make that dish(3+3+3=9) while a mage with lvl 4 Fire will need 2(4+4=8).
There are exceptions like tending but those are always full sentences specifying the tasks needs a specific minimum level in full writing.

[n3mes1s]

Originally posted by CitSci:

This thread isn't exactly what you are asking:

Already told him exactly what you did. You are very late. But i guess most people dont even bother to read other people's messages. Classic.