Rework beta builds are published here along with in the discord server now.

Below is the WIP description after the rework release:

Use Taoist Cultivation to become more powerful. Ascend into a higher form!
Cultivate and use techniques to become unstoppable! Begin your journey to immortality.

Stuff

----Cultivation: Use Taoist Cultivation to become more powerful. Includes many mechanics inspired by ACS.


[img]https://i.imgur.com/5VPc4he.png[/img]
Qi:
To become a cultivator you must consume a source of Qi. Anything with the Golden Pill stat will give Qi. Qi is used in the progression of essence realms, Inner Cauldron/Anima Conversion, and in some techniques/abilities.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/KzprkoP.png[/img]
Realms:
Progressing in realms gives the cultivator increasing bonuses. When you first become a cultivator you start at Body Realms and do exercise to increase progression.

After the last body realm are the Essence Realms which is when realms start giving bonuses to qi recovery and max qi. To increase progression on essence realms you Refine Qi, converting the Qi used into progress. The last two Essence Realms are "Immortal"(always biologically 21).

Most Technique Arts have a minimum realm requirement. The most notable is Heavenly Qi Arts which requires the very last cultivation realm to learn. This is because the technique/ability Soul Mend creates auto-resurrection charges that act instantly, so it would only make sense for Profound Immortals to be able to use it.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/mMBGXN8.png[/img]
Breakthroughs:
Breakthroughs are how you progress to the next realm after reaching 100%. Breakthroughs have a chance to succeed determined by Breakthrough Chance, this excludes Golden Core Breakthroughs.

Golden Core Breakthroughs cannot fail, but the resulting golden core scores are permanent. The breakthrough itself drains the cultivators Qi until they can no longer afford it, then ends resulting in a Golden Core Score equal to the amount of Qi spent on the breakthrough. High golden core scores will drastically increase a cultivators max Qi in the long term, making them essential for certain techniques/abilities.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/6RH3onp.png[/img]
Elements:
All cultivators have a specific element. A tiles element is only effected by objects with Element Emit. Each element has unique relationships with others as can be seen in Element Factors in the cultivation tab. The green arrows mean that element increases the one its pointing at, the red arrows mean decreases. These elemental relations only effect other elements directly, so something like increasing water to decrease fire wont decrease earth. A better way to put it is a water cultivator only has to care about these elements on a tile: water, metal, earth.


[img]https://i.imgur.com/ERCztrQ.png[/img]
Gather Qi & Element Emit:
Gather Qi and Element Emit are object properties that change qi and element values on nearby tiles. Display for either can be toggled in the settings. The amount of Gather Qi and Element at the cultivators location influences most cultivation related stats like cultivation speed, qi recovery, and breakthrough chance. The amount of Qi at the cultivators location also determines the amount gained by Qi Gathering.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/b74e3EI.png[/img]
Automation:
Cultivators will do cultivation jobs on their own during assigned cultivation times. Placing down Cultivation Spots or Qi Cushions will make them try to cultivate at these locations. You can also change the desired realm, element, or priority. This lets you make Cultivation Rooms that best fit specific Cultivators, like one with allot of earth and fire element for earth cultivators. Or one with a focus on element instead of gather qi for body realm cultivators. Auto-cultivation type, start, and end times can be changed in the cultivator tab within the pawns Dao tab.


-----Techniques: Learn Technique Arts from scrolls, each Art has its own set of abilities.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/ATtYGW5.png[/img]
Basic Qi Arts:
Comes with Qi Heal and Qi Bullet. Qi Heal is self-explanitory, while Qi Bullet is a low damage, slow moving projectile that is cheap to cast and very accurate.

Advanced Qi Arts:
Comes with Qi Resurrect and Qi Feed. Qi Resurrect does what you think it does, but costs an absurd amount of Qi. Qi Feed toggles a Qi Feed hediff that converts Qi into food or water when needed, essentially auto-feeding a cultivator.

Heavenly Qi Arts:
Gives Soul Mend. Soul Mend is the costliest of all techniques, it grants charges when used that can stack indefinitely. One charge is consumed when the pawn dies, instantly resurrecting said pawn. This can happen over and over again until out of charges, essentially making a pawn immortal. Can only be learned by Profound Immortals(the last essence realm).

Basic Qi Sword Arts:
Requires fusion with a Spirit Sword to use. Has three high-damage spirit sword abilities.


New Technique Arts scrolls and abilities can be added with just XML, making add-on mods very easy.

-----Many Pills: Make various pills to aid your cultivators, or kill them if used unwisely.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/ahPAqvw.png[/img]
Spirit Cauldron:
This is where you make everything from this mod, but most importantly pills. The amount of Gather Qi on tiles that the cauldron occupies determines the maximum quality of pills produced by it. Keep in mind some pills do not have quality.

Golden Pills:
Golden Pills are one of the fastest ways to get Qi, and also the cheapest way to make someone into a cultivator. Don't consume pills that grant more Qi than your max, or you will explode. The explosion isn't guaranteed to kill you, unlike the spirit pill.

Artificial Cultivation Pills:
Pills that instantly do cultivation jobs. This includes the following: Breakthroughs, Exercise, and Qi Refinement. You can progress cultivation very fast using only pills if you are rich enough.

Spirit Pill:
Increases Max Qi and Qi Recovery permanently when consumed. If a cultivator has less qi than a spirit pills listed Qi Cost, they will explode and die and not get the mentioned stat increases.

Getting started----

If your still confused on how to get started or progress
To begin cultivation, eat either a spirit stone or golden pill.
After becoming a cultivator a tab named Dao will show up when selected. This is where you order cultivation jobs and see general info about the cultivator. All cultivation jobs duration is effected by cultivation speed. All cultivation jobs and breakthroughs can be done instantly through various pills. This excludes golden core breakthroughs.
Cultivation starts with Body Realms, using Exercise to progress and breakthroughs to advance to the next realm. Every breakthrough excluding Golden Core has a chance to succeed which is determined by breakthrough chance as seen in the dao tab. During body realms: gather qi does not effect cultivation speed nor breakthrough chance.
After body realms are Essence realms, which uses Qi Refining to progress and breakthroughs to advance to the next realm. The third Essence realm is Golden Core, which has a special breakthrough leading to it called Golden Core breakthrough. This breakthrough converts the qi used in it to your new golden core score, ending when there isn't enough qi to continue. Golden core scores are permanent and are considered one of the if not THE most important stat for a cultivator. They also cannot fail, leading to a fairly weak cultivator if done improperly.
Late into Essence realms a cultivator will achieve some form of immortality. Progress at this point will be more focused on (training techniques if/once technique rework is done)and anima conversion.