While attempts have been made to make the augment system easy to understand, the current crafting grid based approach is not very intuitive and some players find it confusing. Because of this, we are considering adding a dedicated workstation block for augmenting items. It will have its own GUI and slots for augments. More specifically, the current ideas are:

• Initially it will have 1 slot, which accepts augmentable items
• After an item is placed in it, additional augment slots will appear around it
• Slots can have background icons to hint at their purpose / restriction (like cosmetics for the elytra harness)
• Items can simply be placed in / removed from the slots to add / remove augments
• Probably will be an "augment drawer" addition, pretty much an integrated inventory that can store augments

This is an RFC, so feedback on this idea would be greatly appreciated. Namely:

• Do you have any issues / suggestions for the augmenting system? Note that this question is about the process of augmenting itself, not any individual augment.
• Do you prefer the crafting grid, this approach, or something else? Why?
• If this is added, should automation (pushing / pulling items from it with things like hoppers) be allowed? I'm personally leaning towards yes, but there might be some game-breaking combo I'm not thinking of.

So because I might actually work on this soon assuming no more bugs pop up (I have 2 that I want to fix before doing another bugfix update, but then I'm working on augments), here are a few points I thought of:

• Originally I wanted the workbench block to be able to directly apply augments in addition to making augment presets (I feel like that's a better name for kits), but since augments can be reused between presets I'm not sure how to handle that. I could always have a tab or something for the current augments on the item, and then other tabs for presets, but I'm not sure if that would be confusing.
• There would be no need for Xs across entire presets on the menu because you would be physically unable to apply incompatible augments into presets in the workbench. The only error case might be if you have a single of one augment but multiple gauntlets or other items that can use that augment - the augment might be in an item already and thus not be available. I think for this I would gray out the missing augment and put an X over it, to make it clear that is missing. Maybe play a sound or something too if someone tries to select it.
• The augment bag would be optional for general use but required for presets - so you can still remove augments and place them into your inventory like normal.

things might get finicky if someone tries to select a 3-augment kit for the Thaumium gauntlet

Both the Thaumium and Void gauntlets support 3 augments, but you raise a good point - should presets apply to only a specific item (like only Thaumium gauntlets), or be more general? I'm leaning towards the former but there might be something I'm not thinking of that might make that a bad idea.

This might seem a little bit random but have you checked the focal manipulator from older versions? I think it might give a few ideas on the interface of the workbench.

Personally I am amazed the crafting solution worked at all when the items were part of an Akashic Tome, but at no point did they break.

I am all for any system that makes the augmentation system easier to understand. While I had no trouble understanding the crafting elements, one of the things I saw trip people up in the Thaumcraft reddit was the fact that some of the augments aren't compatible with each other, and a rework of the system might be able to make this fact a lot more clear.

Edit: Actually, there is one thing I'd like to stick around- using the crafting recipes to strip augments in the field without the block.

I like this idea and i've had something like this in mind for some time. But it would remove the option of tinkering with the gauntlet on the go, or at least it makes it more cumbersome, with needing to carry a workstation with you when wanting to switch augments. I would suggest some kind of portable tool to help with changing the augments on the go.

It would be nice to have sound effects and visuals when you apply the gauntlet augments, it would really spice up the feel of the gauntlets. I also think it could be cool if there was a little minigame when applying the augments, to really give that feel that the thaumaturge is tuning and messing with the internals of the casting device. Also it would be nice to integrate the impetus system to this somehow due to its low usages right now. Maybe some augments need impetus in order to be applied or need impetus to bring out their true potential.

Sounds like a wonderful idea and would make augmenting feel abit more special and would def help relative any confusion that comes from the crafting grid method.

I see no problem with allowing automation since it means people could use redstone and golems to make contraptions that quickly switches augments with a press of a button and i dont see any harm with that.

Suggestions:
A button that quickly removes all augments on your gauntet in the augment table would be great since it would speed up changing out augments.

Having the stats of the item your currently augmenting shown would be a god send mostly for gauntlets as ive always found myself slightly confused on the specifics of what some augments actually do to stats so that kind of information being shown would make specializing your gauntlet to your taste 85% easier.

Some people have talked about missing the ability to augment on the fly so i have a suggestion to fix that: augment holders they would hold a set amount of augments and could be crafted with any augmentable device to swap the augments between them, for example:
if i have a thaumium gauntlet with a frenzy augment and a vis battery augment and a augment holder with a overworld dimension augment and a elemental augment then i crafted the thaumium gauntlet and augment holder together there contained augments would swap so the gauntlet would now have the overworld dimension augment and the elemental augment and the augment holder would have the frenzy augment and vis battery augment (hopefully that makes sense)
it would allow for quick adaption to what's going on around you even faster before, and if your feeling fancy instead of needing to be crafted together you could instead have a focus like menu to select the augment holder you want to swap with.

I really like the idea of making the augmentation system easier to understand via blocks or something like that. Maybe, as DoomRater suggest, it would be nice to be able to remove augments without the block it self, but that would remove every single one. One thing that may be cool is having the ability, with one extra research, to have a keybind that lets you remove certain augments. For example, one research for the block itself, and another that unloks a way to open a gui using the 'p' key that lets you select whci one of the augmentations you wanna remove. This special gui will only be able to remove augments, not apply them.

I'm not a modder so I don't know if this special keybind linked to a research can be done, but there's my suggestion :)

So from what I'm seeing it looks like having a workstation for adding augments is ok, but being able to remove them on the go is also good. So I see two options for that:

1. Crafting recipe / GUI for augment removal anywhere
2. Augment holder / kits that have a pre-configured layout of augments to switch between

The only concern I have with option 1 is that people might remove the wrong augment by accident and be unable to put it back. Not sure how much of an issue this would be in practice, but it is possible. Other than that, it would be really easy as it is already there. For option 2 I would probably want to have a foci-like keybind to easily switch augments (maybe switching disables the item for a second or two). I would probably also add an upgraded foci pouch that can store the augment kits as well as foci (or maybe have a few dedicated rows for each type? not sure yet). One thing I'm not sure about with this option is what happens to the augments that are swapped out - I guess I have to keep track of all the kits in the gauntlet or whatever so they can be taken back out. But what does that mean for augmenting without a kit then?

As for some of the other suggestions, I do plan to have the augments give more information about what they do when looking at them in the workbench (not sure if I want to expose hard numbers or not, but it will list out specifically what it does at least). I also know that Impetus has a somewhat low amount of usages at the moment (there was originally more stuff for it planned, but it got cut due to time). That will probably be remedied through other content rather than this augment rework.

What I meant with the kits was it just swaps the augments contained in the kit and the gauntlet wouldn't be put into the gauntlet like a foci or anything it would basically just be this:

A quick swap of their contained augments / trading their augment nbt whatever you wanna call it. And the "Augment Kit" would basically be considered an augmentable item itself it just can't DO anything with the augments it has except trade them with other augmentable items.

Using a focus like selecting gui would definitely work better than crafting them together only suggestion I have is to have the gui show the augments in the kits instead of the kit item instead so it's easier to know what augments your actually swapping with.

And an upgraded foci pouch with slots for kits also makes complete sense, id say maybe 9 slots for kits (doubt your need that many but it's better to have more than you need than not enough) maybe an increased number of foci slots aswell? maybe 45 foci slots instead of the normal 27.

Ooh hot swapping with kits sound great. Nothing like going between a fighting focus and a healing focus, or having profiles for each dimension on demand. I could see configuring them with the workbench and using the kit to select them like loadouts.

My concerns with that kit system you described are:

• Since augments will not be tied to kits, they will be unable to have consistent names like foci (which could make identifying kits that only differ in 1 augment take lots of looking)
• The other reason I wanted to have the kits be associated to an augmentable item is so that I can validate in the workbench if all augments added are valid for the item - as an example, it would make no sense for a kit with an elytra harness augment to be applied to a gauntlet (and the gauntlet will not accept that augment in the first place). In practice, I could handle this at runtime but if people put an incompatible augment in the kit by accident they might be confused when it doesn't appear as selectable. I also don't want to have specific kits for each item as I feel that would be not flexible at all and get annoying if you have 10 of one type of kit but can't use them for something else.

I'm not sure how big of a deal those 2 things are in practice, but they're what came to mind.

For the first concern like i said have the gui show the augments in the kits aswell so you can easily determine what your switching with like so:

Sorry for the bad mockup but i think it gets the point across, and you could also have the augments currently in your gauntlet/augmentable device shown (as seen in the image) so you can easily compare the augments.

and for the second concern having specific kits for each augmentable item COULD WORK if the kit type is changeable inside the augment table hopefully with some kind of selector button OR have it automatically lock to the first augment type you put it ie. at first it will accept any augment type but once one is put in its locked to that type so if you put a gauntlet augment as the first augment then you can only put more gauntlet augments in.

alternatively (i like this idea better) using the runtime method you suggested but instead of not showing kits with incompatible augments in the gui show them crossed out / clearly disabled like so:

as having it clearly disabled wont trick the player into thinking its not detecting the kit while also making it clear that it cant use it. and IF they try to select the crossed out augment kit have it say in chat "This augment kit is incompatible with your current augmentable device, please select a different kit" or something along those lines.

Definately a Vote forward for this.. Might look at Immersive Ingineering, and their Engineer's workbench as inpsiration, as it basically does just that, with the addition of being used to initially craft the tool. Interchangeable parts are great, but you definatly sortof need a specific workbench to manage it.

Plus it gives me more cool blocks for my workshop

Maybe instead of having a kit item, we cut the indirection and just have the bag store augments? Then in the workbench you can make configurations of augments that something will remember and just choose those in the popup wheel. That way, things can be validated and it also allows augment reuse between configuration.

Ya that sounds like a cleaner solution then kits while still keeping the main function.

I think individual augment switching is better than kits also because things might get finicky if someone tries to select a 3-augment kit for the Thaumium gauntlet. (I think that's what it's called, I don't remember.)
Since some items only have a few augments, like the Thaumostatic Harness, maybe viable augments should have a green aura around the item to make them stick out more against the red X's.
Making augments only removable and not applicable with a GUI would still be a hassle. Faster, but still a hassle. It might be even more steps now, as you would have to get the augments out of the augment bag.
I don't see why augments can't also be applied with the GUI.