I am struggling with why I should continue to feed diggers. If Hinterland Script is worth about half as much as Echoes and it takes 16 Crates of Incorruptible Biscuits at a cost of12 Script each, then each time I feed them it is costing me 96 Echoes in return for items worth 42.50 echoes to 62.50 echoes.
So… given I have spent all my Script, exhausted my supply of Biscuits and Baskets repeatedly, made skeletons to acquire more many times, then why should I continue to do this?
I am at a loss to understand the Return on Investment (ROI) for this event. Am I wrong? If I am misunderstanding this, I hope someone can help me see the light. At this point, I am just going to step back and watch this experiment.
[quote=Feldon Smithe]I am struggling with why I should continue to feed diggers. If Hinterland Script is worth about half as much as Echoes and it takes 16 Crates of Incorruptible Biscuits at a cost of12 Script each, then each time I feed them it is costing me 96 Echoes in return for items worth 42.50 echoes to 62.50 echoes.
So… given I have spent all my Script, exhausted my supply of Biscuits and Baskets repeatedly, made skeletons to acquire more many times, then why should I continue to do this?
I am at a loss to understand the Return on Investment (ROI) for this event. Am I wrong? If I am misunderstanding this, I hope someone can help me see the light. At this point, I am just going to step back and watch this experiment.[/quote]
If you’re buying Biscuits directly from the Upper River Exchange, then no, it’s not profitable. So don’t do that. A couple posts above yours someone has laid out the EPA on Feeding assuming you’re getting Biscuits from selling headless skeletons with brass skulls. If you don’t have a reliable source of Headless Skeletons, you can switch to Licentiate for the event to attach brass skulls even more efficiently. If you can’t or don’t want to do that, then there’s always brawling for biscuits at the docks. That will make you a steady, if not spectacular, profit, though it’s much much slower at accruing the necessary quantities of Biscuits to contribute to Feeding. If you don’t want to do any of the above options, then feel free not to. The event isn’t compulsory.
You’re valuing Biscuits based on their Buy price of 12 scrip, rather than their Sell price of 5 scrip/2.5 echoes. This puts the cost at 40 echoes instead of 96, making you turn a profit. Definitely don’t buy the biscuits outright; if you want to use up Scrip, buy Spam in the Upper River, sell it at the Bazaar and buy Brass Skulls, stick them on skeletons and sell to the Theologian. This will turn 125 scrip into 26 biscuits (vs 10.4 buying directly), plus or minus some pennies, brass, and actions.
As a middle game player doing this, I only have 50% chance to sell the skeleton to theologian and the suspicion is driving me crazy LoL. So I guess it is even less profitable to me. But I really want to contribute to the fuel , and do not care that much about EPA :)
[quote=elderfleur][quote=Tsar Koschei]Just out of curiosity, has anyone run the EPA numbers on digging and feeding?[/quote] Feeding Simulation Assumptions: [1] we accrue Fuelling at 3->60 (linear distribution of 3*[1->20] ), which seems to be a fair rate for a player with 200+ stats. [2] we have enough Nevercold Brass stockpiled that we don’t grind any here, specifically 200 per skeleton, and we only value it at its 1 pence sale rate. [3] we get 1 Headless Skeleton for 1 action and no other cost, amortizing a possible train trip to effectively 0 actions; we get the skeletons in bulk! [4] we sell any rewards which we can sell at the bazaar; everything else is thrown in a pile and counted separately. They have value, but usually take actions to extract. They’re shown "per act" if you want to ascribe your own value. [5] Nightmares are taken off at -4/act; if you want to ignore them, feel free to add on 0.03 EPA.
[li]357166.0 echoes earned in 137221 acts[/li][li]2.603 EPA plus:[/li][li]0.0439 flourishing ribcages per act [/li][li]0.0985 certifiable scraps per act [/li][li]0.0049 anticandles per act [/li][li]15207 Skeletons made with 3041400 Nevercold Brass to fund 3500 laps[/li][li]2262 acts spent reducing nightmares at -4/act[/li][/ul][ul]
150 Brawling for 16 Biscuits or 100 Brawling for 11 Biscuits? My Dangerous is 200+.
Each round of fueling/feeding requires 16 Biscuits.[/quote]
Not sure, given your stats. Mine is only around 150, and I deeply regret trying for the 150 option. Chance of success reduced to about 50% from 85%, and there’s no way to back out and change your mind. I would personally do better with 2 rounds of 100.
[quote=Right Eye]As a middle game player doing this, I only have 50% chance to sell the skeleton to theologian and the suspicion is driving me crazy LoL. So I guess it is even less profitable to me. But I really want to contribute to the fuel , and do not care that much about EPA :) [/quote] Oof, I should have made that assumption [6], really: 170+ Shadowy and 10+ Mithridacy. It’s a short loop so a failure takes a big bite out of EPA (2-3 actions to try again and also undo that suspicion), but if you don’t mind dealing with Suspicion it’s still fairly efficient at creating Biscuits. At a rough estimate, 30% failure drops EPA to 2.2; 50% drops EPA to 1.9, but that’s still all Biscuits!
If you’re buying Biscuits directly from the Upper River Exchange, then no, it’s not profitable. So don’t do that. A couple posts above yours someone has laid out the EPA on Feeding assuming you’re getting Biscuits from selling headless skeletons with brass skulls. [/quote]
Thank you. I can pick up Headless Skeletons easily in Marigold. I did not even think about that option.
I actually have decent shadowy (220 with equip), however I have been afk for quite a long time and dont have Mithridacy at all. I am probably going to check how to raise it quickly. Thanks for the estimation by the way!
I got that, too, and I was at the Bone Market. I’m guessing it’s because of some milestone for digging progress.[/quote]
Wilmot’s End, and a Hard-Earned Lesson.
Despite being an Investor (buying scrip with glim), I can’t click on the FATE options for buying more. Is it impossible to put FATE in the event now that all the digs are fully funded? It sounds like… very committed but kinda weird business practice on Failbetter’s end? Especially since that chance disappeared VERY quickly…
Also, does someone know what to do with the 10 scrips left after buying a 20-scrip item? I assume that we’ll get a way to spend scraps for odds and ends when the event ends, but I may be wrong.
You still can buy it, just from a different storylet, not from inside a dig. Go to Mr Chimes’ Grand Clearing-Out >> Purchase surplus Chthonic Scrip.
Answering your second question, yes, I believe Failbetter mentioned that there will be a way to spend the remaining Scrip, as this is a one-time event, and it will have no future use. edited by Wojciech on 7/24/2021
Ah, I understand the problem, I didn’t realize the Fate options weren’t a redirect on their own and as such they checked whether I had enough fate immediately lol. Ok, silly assumption, don’t mind me :D
[quote=lady ciel ]I know the cp per action is variable but how many biscuits or peppercaps are necessary to get to the end of a fuelling cycle.
So has anyone worked out the average number of resources needed to get to feeding 20?[/quote] If you’re operating on a 3->60 CP level (200+ stats), I simulated an average of 8 turn-ins, or 128 Biscuits. 7 average rolls would get you there (231 CP / 210 CP), so I’m not quite sure why the discrepancy, although I think it has something to do with excess CP being "wasted" and not carrying over to future rolls? I’ll double check the code later, but I think 8 is unintuitive rather than incorrect.
I very much like the apparent loyalty of most Londoners to their particular hole; each has different rates of progression, but none are dropping off calamitously as the dig goes on:
(shout out to the 2 miserable cases in 36,000 laps which took 16 turn-ins to reach level 20) [/spoiler]
[quote=elderfleur]I very much like the apparent loyalty of most Londoners to their particular hole; each has different rates of progression, but none are dropping off calamitously as the dig goes on:
(shout out to the 2 miserable cases in 36,000 laps which took 16 turn-ins to reach level 20) [/spoiler]
edited by elderfleur on 7/24/2021[/quote]
For what it’s worth, I am fully intending to save all my script to splurge on Brass Skulls+Headlass Skeletons=Biscuits once Moloch Street’s hole is dug and fed, to bring the University’s hole up to scratch.
