Thistle Guide

Using Automato to grow Thistles

These steps assume you have downloaded and know how to use Automato.

1. Get the current week's voids from https://atitd.sharpnetwork.net/calendar.asp
2. Click the 'Copy clipboard' button under the voids and paste into the config_thistle.txt file in the root directory of your automato ATITD10 install directory. Note: You should actually copy this file to one called config_thistle_local.txt, and make all edits to that, for reasons indicated in the file.
3. Enter your desired thistle recipe in the same file like this (e.g. for low Ascorbin, average Folin, high Pyroxidine, high Thiamine)

desired "label: YOURNAME"
desired A-F~P+T+

Note: if growing sheep thistles, you still need to specify four nutrients -- if you only list two, Automato will find no working recipes!

4. Open Automato, and run 'Thistle Mode'. This is a button on the right side of the tool, not a script

5. The Thistle Mode macro will run for a while and output whether your desired recipes are possible with the current set of voids. The output will look like this:

My1:
 Best for B-N+P-T+:1000/19 (D)
My2:
 Best for C-N-P~T+:20/15 (*)
My3:
 Best for A+C~N+T+:1000/1000 (-)

6. This output shows that one requirement can be met in the Day only (the My1 requirement), one requirement can be met in both day and night (as My2 has a * to denote there are both day and night recipes for it - though there will not generally be one single recipe that works in both conditions), and the last requirement cannot be met all with the current voids. 1000/1000 means 1000 actions at Day and Night, so impossible. 20/15 is 20 actions at night and 15 actions during the day (8:30am to 3:30pm - as in, 3:29pm is the last time to *start* batch and still finish with full sun).

7. Once Automato has created the recipes, they will be stored in a file called thistle_history.txt in the same directory as the config file. The recipes look like this:

A-B-C-F~N+P-T+
0,0,2,0,33,
0,0,0,0,33,
0,0,0,0,99,
0,0,1,0,99,
0,0,0,0,33,
0,0,0,0,99,
0,0,0,4,99,
0,0,2,0,99,
0,0,0,0,33,
0,0,1,0,33,
0,0,0,0,99,
0,0,0,0,99,
0,0,2,3,99,
0,0,0,0,33,
0,0,1,0,33,
0,0,0,0,33,
0,0,0,0,99,
0,0,1,0,99,
0,0,0,1,99,
0,0,0,0,33,
0,0,0,1,99,
0,0,2,2,99,
0,0,1,0,33, 
0,0,0,0,99,
0,0,1,1,99,
0,0,0,1,99,
0,0,0,0,33,
0,0,0,0,33,
0,0,0,1,99,
0,0,2,1,99,
0,0,0,0,99,
0,0,0,0,99,
0,0,0,1,99,
0,0,2,0,33,
0,0,0,1,33,
0,0,0,1,33,
0,0,0,1,33,
0,0,1,0,33,
0,0,1,0,33,
0,0,0,0,33,
0,0,0,0,33,
B-N+P-T+:20 actions

8. When you are attempting to meet a requirement that can be met with (*), that is, there are both Day and Night recipes, you will want to choose any of the recipes for that requirement with lines ending in ,0 when growing at night, and any of the recipes for that requirement with lines ending with ,33 and ,99 when growing during the day. Note that Night thistles can be grown only when the sun, with the shade in whatever position it is in, is *below* 20. In early evening, the sun has set too far to be useful for Day recipes, but not far enough for the sun to below 20 even with the shade down - and thus Night recipes cannot be grown yet, either. Simply wait a bit until the sun has actually dipped low enough for the Night recipes to be viable.

9. To actually grow the thistles you need, start the thistle.lua script in Automato. Click Add Silk Farm and give it a name, then click Edit Recipe, copy the recipe--just the lines with the numbers from your recipe (not the header or footer lines), and then press the Paste button. Click Save, Automato will check the recipe to see if it is in the right format

10. Click Load Farm, set up how many passes you want and how many gardens you have. Also set the current position of the canopy of your thistle farms, whether it is night or day and whether the canopy is currently open or closed. 11. Click Start, sit back and watch the thistles grow!