I did finally get around to giving this another go. And then did something really stupid and lost basically all my legacy stuff as well so I’m more or less working back up from square one (now have Merciful mode on because this is getting silly). Right now I’m trying to boost my stats up. In particular, mirrors so I can do a thing. Any advice on efficient ways to raise your stats (or just efficient ways to collect secrets)?
Also, I used the merchant ship for my past ill fated runs. What are some other ships people like? Is there a particularly good ship to take as a first upgrade from your starting ship?
Well, if you’re up to the point of hunting Lorn-flukes, they’re three secrets a pop.
Admittedly they’re sorta dangerous for the starting ship.
Finishing the Principalities chain is worth … I think 21 secrets? It’s a big number, but it requires a lorn-fluke, too, come to think.
There’s a path through Visage, after your first visit there, that’s worth 100 fragments per click in the Moon Moth role. I think it tends to cap at 3-4 clicks before you’re done on Visage.
Don’t shut off Station III - if you take the last option on questions you can get 2 secrets.
Hunting Lorn Flukes gives 3 secrets when your Pages is high enough.
Visage can give 300+ fragments on each visit after the first time. Choose locust (10 fragments) and then trade to moon moth make notes on the bull twice (200 fragments) and then meditate at the face (100 fragments). That should give one secret a visit.
One offs - 7 secrets on the last option with the Jeweled youth at Varchas.
Giving over items on the Curators and Principles Quest can give secrets.
As for other methods of raising stats - succeeding at eating Tyrant Moth (SAY event at Whither and Gaider’s Mourn)
Using the God’s Attention on A Vista (SAY event at Gaider’s Mourn or Mount Palmerstone) gives 2 levels to 2 stats depending on which god you use and if you use the your past option on the same event you get 5 levels on the relevant stat.
A bit of a gamble but you can get stat boosts (hearts or pages) getting Port Reports in the Iron Republic but you can also lose stats.
I’m sure there are other things that give one off stat boosts - getting the qualities for the Pilgrimage at Varchas for example.
It actually doesn’t matter what you choose for the first mask, because fragments don’t carry over and it’s less than 300 fragments per secret unless you literally spammed all your Pages away at the Iron Republic or something. (Wiki says the IR option only has chances to raise or lower your Hearts and Pages, can anyone confirm?)
[li]Does anybody know how to raise pages reliably, or even semi-reliably?
[li]I love the pages stat, but even when I get the highest I can I find SO many challenges where it needs to be MUCH higher. Like the riddle-game – I’m playing a poet and have utilized every chess-match or Iron Republic boost that I can, and it’s STILL a challenge I fail more than half the time. Since the riddle-game is entirely stat-based, shouldn’t there be a way to raise it? At least in a way that makes these challenges feasible?
I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. There are some stat challenges that would require such massive high levels (I’m talking 300-500 here) they would not only be impossible to obtain, but also unlikely to ever have enough stat-up sources added to be made easier. I think some things are just supposed to be ridiculously hard – and as long as they are marginal things, and failure provides content of some kind (whether text or otherwise), I figure that’s all right. edited by Fretling on 1/31/2015
Linked to this, are there maximums or theoretical maximums to each stat? I see people talk about things like having a 150+ Hearts score but I can’t remotely figure out how you would get any stat much past 100.
You can get to 150 stats from certain officers. The Mechanic can train Veils to 150 for example. This does require a lot of secrets though. As far as I can tell, the maximum you can get in a stat is 150 plus any bonuses given by ships and officers, so around 170-200 depending on your officers.
You can reliably level up the pages stat to 50 from Plausible surgeon. He’s only accessible by choosing the Philosopher background. Once you have 51 pages, he becomes useless. You will get around 5-7ish pages from doing the chess in Port Cecil. In my opinion, the best hope you have for raising pages is to get the legacy pages item and choose to be a poet from the start. That’s 75 pages right at the beginning of the game. Then with the chess added to it and officers, you can easily get it to 100 which is a pretty good score for the rest of the game.
Ah, I didn’t realize some officers went over 100. I’ve gotten all the Legacies now and plotting things with my next Captain (or two, or three).
I thought I saw some comments somewhere about items that lower stats, so you could then pump them additionally – anyone able to point those out to me? Only one I can think of is the Keeper-Moth.
Let’s see… the Genial and Urbane Magician both lower Hearts; the Eyeless Skull lowers Mirrors; all glim-lamps not employing Obscure Energies lower Veils; the larger ships lower Veils while the smaller ones lower Iron.
I know that speaking to your officers is capped but the eating event in Whither or Gaider’s Mourn or the praying to the gods at Gaider’s or Mount Palmerstone don’t seem to be capped. They are both random SAY events - the first of these is a hearts challenge that raises three stats (hearts, mirrors and iron) and the second uses your gods attention to raise two stats, different gods raise differnt stats.
As far as I’m aware, the only officers that train to 150 are the Tireless Mechanic (Veils) and the Nacreous Outcast (Hearts). These also happen to be the stats with the largest available penalties (Dreadnought + Lamp for Veils, Milebreaker + certain officers/mascots for Hearts), so can both be trained up quite high.
For hearts I think the main reason you’d want to do this is to succeed at the above mentioned SAY challenge to raise mirrors and iron. For Veils there are quite a number of tests either locked by high veils requirements or chancy without high veils. Bringing a certain officer around comes to mind. edited by Olorin on 2/13/2015
If you can handle temporarily having 5 cargo space and buying your ship back, you can switch to the Steam Launch for -25 iron. ;) this is probably only useful if if you’re trying to get enough to Eat your Crew, but hey!
Remember to unequip all your officers and relevant equipment before trying to max a stat out, too!
Also, it’s rarely useful since it requires lots of money and can only boost iron/veils up to 50? but… rare successes at the Mutton Island pub give +1 Iron and +1 Veils, up to a max of 50. Getting up to 25 rare successes there is expensive, but can save you a ton of secrets if you have money but (one of) those stats are low.