Fastest ways to get Fidgeting Writer items?

What are the fastest ways to get the items for the various Fidgeting Writer stages? To my knowledge it’s usually Thefts of a Particular Character and side/up-conversions, but I can’t figure out for Identities Uncovered! and we might as well collect the information for everything in one place.

Pulling Out All The Stops when you are breeding a Tomb Lion is a pretty reliable source for Identity Unvovered, even though you need to go to the Tomb Colonies to replace him each time.
edited by th8827 on 5/31/2016

Given the number of actions taken for breeding or tomb-colony visits, I’d say that’s not likely anywhere near fastest and in fact strikes me as very out of the way if not visiting the tomb-colonies for something else.

Kind of slow as it depends on luck, but drawing cards in the Flit and asking Revolutionaries for favours. Considering you’ll convert them using max ratio, each card will get you ~12.7 identities.

Start here in the existing thread. The answer for Identities Uncovered is use Jade to buy Scraps of Incendiary Gossip in the Labryinth and then convert up.

Ah, I missed that there were discussions of item gain in that thread as well as calculations for the main part of the grind! Rather silly of me in hindsight. Thank you!

Fidgeting writer is quite a gamble, though. The most I’ve ever gotten was 25 echoes.

Statistically, it’s not a gamble at all, and over a long period of time, the results reflect this. the average epa is ~1.58 if you’re grinding for the items, and substantially better if you aren’t. Sure, in the short term it’s a terrible means to grind- don’t do this if you need a measly 400 echoes and want them fast- sometimes, the rng can mess you up really bad with this- but in the long run, it’s got the good epa, so it’s a good grind for most people who want overgoat or hesperian cider or ubergoat or heptagoat, and want to get it sooner by grinding, rather than later by going around doing whatever you feel like.

If the perception of randomness is stopping you from doing it for your major grind, do a batch of 1000+ at once. at least one success is certain, and failures and successes feel less crushing when you have to go through 1000 at the first step, and half of that with each iteration. (note that the odds are you’d get ~12 souls this way, i believe.)

EDIT: corrected the numbers.
edited by Grenem on 5/31/2016

[quote=Grenem]the average epa is >2.00 if you’re grinding for the items, and substantially better if you aren’t. [/quote]How are you calculating these numbers? I make it 1.58 EPA if you’re grinding (estimated, but pretty close, because the estimate is about only one step of the grind) and 2.75 EPA if you aren’t. There may be better sources for some of those for non-end-game players, but not so much that it would raise the EPA that high, I would think–but maybe I’m wrong or overlooked something, please do share your calculations!
edited by an_ocelot on 5/31/2016

My calculations were ~1.80 EPA assuming one could get the ingredients perfectly efficiently. I only do the storyline if I specifically need one of the turn ins from the Room Number or up. It’s a fast way to get, say, Antique Mysteries and a profitable way to get Bribes.

The calculation spreadsheet did have a slightly low expected return at some point from not using exact multiples of 10%.

Kaijyuu, I would love to see those calculations! I’ve checked my spreadsheet extensively but I am absolutely aware I could’ve missed something.

And yeah, there are some targeted things FW is good for–it’s better than the University for Searing Engimas unless you are incredibly, incredibly lucky at the University–but as a general money-maker, I am unsure.

[quote=Optimatum]The calculation spreadsheet did have a slightly low expected return at some point from not using exact multiples of 10%.[/quote]Whose–mine? I’ve always used multiples of 10.

No, the huge google doc spreadsheet of all sorts of things.

[quote=an_ocelot][quote=Grenem]the average epa is >2.00 if you’re grinding for the items, and substantially better if you aren’t. [/quote]How are you calculating these numbers? I make it 1.58 EPA if you’re grinding (estimated, but pretty close, because the estimate is about only one step of the grind) and 2.75 EPA if you aren’t. There may be better sources for some of those for non-end-game players, but not so much that it would raise the EPA that high, I would think–but maybe I’m wrong or overlooked something, please do share your calculations!
edited by an_ocelot on 5/31/2016[/quote]
Nevermind, then. I’ve heard the 2.0x number thrown around somewhere- probably a missremembering of 1.99 from http://fallenlondon.wikia.com/wiki/Money-Making

The 2.0x number- apparently a myth, i guess?- got thrown around a lot on the forums a year or so ago.
edited by Grenem on 6/1/2016

Ah, got it. Thanks!

I was far too lazy to actually look up statistical formulas, so I just wrote a script that did 200,000 trials and gave me averages. Here’s an example output:

[quote]Number of tales used: 200000. Cost: 10000000
Number of visions used: 139359. Cost: 6967950
Number of plaques used: 195086. Cost: 9754300
Number of souls used: 136554. Cost: 6827700
Number of identities used: 40688. Cost: 2034400
Number of extra used: 20375. Cost: 1018750
Number of candles used: 10158. Cost: 507900
Number of successes: 5057. Profit: 106676050
PPA: 185
Total actions: 576400
Initial Investment Requirement: 51355200 [/quote]
(all money numbers are in pence, not echos, and PPA is rounded down)

My success rates for each step are: 70%, 70%, 70%, 60%, 50%, 50%, 50%. Don’t know if those are perfectly accurate.

Don’t know if you can run python scripts, but if you can, here it is: http://pastebin.com/8TeSFW5k

EDIT: Very notably, my script does NOT take into account the wounds/nightmares increase from the second to last step!
edited by Kaijyuu on 5/31/2016

Okay, let me see if I understand this properly. So your script effectively said, imagine I have all these materials already. I will then lose what I could’ve sold them for at the Bazaar, and gain the value of Coruscating Souls or whatnot. That net profit is what I’ll calculate my EPA on.

That’s interesting. I should definitely add &quotminus the cost of raw materials&quot into the spreadsheet for the &quotEPA based on carousel only,&quot to quantify that. Not tonight, though, I have other things I need to be doing. Thanks!
edited by an_ocelot on 6/1/2016

No problem~

(I make it 1.92 EPA for Coruscating Souls if you have the supplies on hand, subtracting the cost of the supplies.)