Intro to Beams4
crossroads:lens_array
Wait! This is a mid-game feature. By this point, you should have <em>at least/$ <link:rotary/millstone>ore doubling/$ (if not <link:rotary/stamp>tripling/$), <link:fluid/centrifuge>automated salt production/$, and probably a <link:fluid/fat_collector>stable food source/$. If you don't, <thing>beams/$ are going to be too expensive to run.
<thing>Beams/$ are a powerful way of creating various effects in the world. They can do things like summoning lightning, producing redstone, placing blocks, and more. They look like giant colorful laser beams.
Every <thing>beam/$ has two traits: <thing>power/$ and <thing>alignment/$. The <thing>power/$ controls the intensity of effects (capped at <thing>power/$=64), while the <thing>alignment/$ controls what the effect is. Effects are applied every 4 ticks (once per <thing>cycle/$) for a continuous beam.
Each beam is composed of four resources, each of which is a certain color: <thing>Energy/$- red, <thing>Potential/$- green, <thing>Stability/$- blue, and <thing><link:beam/void>Void/$- black. <thing>Void/$ is later game, and won't be used early on.
The <thing>power/$ of the beam is the total quantity of the four resources (<thing>energy/$ + <thing>potential/$ + <thing>stability/$ + <thing>void/$).
The <thing>alignment/$ is based on the color of the overall beam- the four (early game just three) resources in the beam combine their colors like on a color wheel. Certain <thing>alignments/$ require more specific colors than others- making them harder to make. The <item><link:beam/chart>color chart/$ will help you discover <thing>alignments/$ you're missing.
You also need to discover <thing>alignments/$- once you discover one, an entry will appear in this book. You can use an <item><link:intro/omnimeter>omnimeter/$ to measure <thing>beams/$, and discover the <thing>alignment/$ if you haven't discovered it yet.

Many <thing>beam alignments/$ will transmute blocks they hit in the world if they are high enough power.
<thing>Beams/$ are usually moved around with <item><link:beam/reflector>beam reflectors/$, and created with a <item><link:beam/extractor>Resonance Extractor/$. Every machine or block a <thing>beam/$ travels through adds a 4 tick (fifth second) delay (this is called 1 <thing>cycle/$), and beams have a 16 block range between machines for transmission. Beams have a <thing>power/$ cap of 64,000.