Favorite means of capitalizing on Notability?

Fallen London
1

So I recently got a bit tired of grinding (I know, ha ha, I know nothing yet about grinding) and decided to change up my game a little bit before playing cards any more with Mr Apples. The stat checks were straightforward, but I’ve already sunk a decent pile of resources into losing that luck check. and don’t feel like getting 15 stakes only to win on the second try after spending weeks grinding rumours, wine, influence and amber. I may use Fate; the luck check takes the fun out of the storylet for me. I also may come back with a higher number of stakes and just crack the odds. While deciding, I’m finally exploring heists as a means of income.

Getting 25 Echoes worth of Bazaar Permits for 7 Burglar’s progress at the triple-bolted level has proved an OK source of income. My preference of coming thoroughly prepared makes it difficult to get a lot of echoes per turn, although entering without any keys, information or escape routes would be lucrative, indeed, if I were fine with depending on luck checks. What I’ve noticed, though, is that if I come in with 2-4 Inside Information, a key and an escape route, I usually amass 10-20 Burglar’s Progress before things get hairy. My Dreadful, Shadowy nature, my good standing among the Duchess and ratkind and other assets allow me to make a lot of &quotsure thing&quot investments in Burglar’s Progress, and if my cat-like tread is in good shape I can risk a point on a luck check, preferably with decent odds. Occasionally I’ll even restore a point of inside information or cat-like tread. I can escape, but my best escape is usually to simply take what I came for.

This utterly destroys my profit per turn in echoes, but I can get 20-40 CPs of Making Waves, with the better Inside Information uses gaining me 4 MWs/turn when I cash them in. I’ve found it pretty easy to achieve 10 levels of MW in a day, and even towards 20 MW I can gain a full level after a solid heist. With the BDR that can be achieved without tattoos, we’re still talking about achieving 5+ Notability or maintaining 10+ Notability without any real use of Salons or other emergency resources.

I haven’t studied properly yet for my Midnighter exam, but now my 5th point of Notability isn’t looking like as much of an obstacle. I’m loath to WASTE Waves by not cashing them in for Notability; what do you guys usually do when your Notability climbs the upper single digits but you’re not trying to hoard it for Tier 2 stat boosts? I’m involved in Wine, but I don’t know if summoning the Portly Sommelier is the best use of all those waves. Any suggestions?

2

Thank you for sharing that information.
That was most educating for me.

3

Using it for the Sommelier is certainly valid; it’s one of the few ways to burn Notability that’s actually worth it. Another choice is to hoard waxwail knives by turning Notability into prize tokens for K&C, but that isn’t exactly useful once you have more than a few. There also is the niche use of gaining lacre during Sacksmas with the Urchins card, but that’s about it.

4

You mentioned summoning the Sommelier, which is very expensive in Notability and probably not worth it, although I did bank Favourable Circumstances just in case I change my mind at some point in the future, because what else was I going to do with the Notability? Don’t forget that a certain transaction from the Sommelier itself will also cost you Notability.

5

Go for a record streak in throwing the Amanuensis out of your house on his oily little ear; seems like a very valid use of Notability.

6

Well, once your BDR is high enough 7 Notability isn’t THAT expensive. Plus, it’s like you said, there’s not much else once you have your profession. It’s more that the Sommelier is rare enough that Notability grinding significantly speeds up the conversions.

All that said, it’s not really for everybody. If you want to make use of Notability, it’s probably the most valuable way, but otherwise, may as well save it.
edited by Mimic on 9/2/2015

7

The Portly Sommelier actually costs you money on the higher tier options (437.5 echoes of Airag turns into a 312.5 echo Tear), so it’s not a very good plan if you want to turn extra Notability into cash.

Trading Notability for Prize Tokens and tokens for Brass Rings is to the best of my knowledge the most profitable thing you can do with it, but at 2.5 echoes per point of Notability it’s not really an amazing trade.

8

Yes, it seems rather like a fantastic return on the cheaper points of Notability; for example, 20+ BDR + heists for money, gaining 10-30 points of Waves per heist. Instead of 25 Echoes in Bazaar Permits, each heist can yield the same plus adequate Waves for a point of Notability; a true gain of 27.5, with an extra turn spent waiting for the Amanuensis.

My experience with the wine market is that the &quotbad deals&quot tend to subsidize the &quotgood deals,&quot and the best profits come when you can work around the less favorable parts of the supply chain.

For example, Mr Wines will give you 700 units of the cheap stuff for 80 drops of honey; a net loss of a few echoes per transaction. BUT, acquiring 5000 such units will allow for a profitable acquisition of two dozen units of the '44, and a reasonable profit - like 10 echoes. Now, 7ish bulk purchases from Mr Wines will STILL lose you more than the 10 echoes you gained that way, but those '44 bottles will gain you Cellars of Wine, which the Sommelier will profitably take back for Airag, quite profitably.

I believe that using Airag to purchase Tears is actually the beginning of another cycle; the next layer of &quotpaying your dues,&quot if you will. Once you finally acquire a vial of M****** B****, it can be traded, in a certain place at a special time, for something equally but differently coveted.

By simply bringing that thing back to the Bazaar, you can sell it for a massive quantity of Touching Love Stories; you’ll break even on the transaction, but the Masters will pay dearly for those stories. Roughly 4 echoes of &quotprofit&quot in secrets per batch, with the exact value of the stories replaced exactly in Bazaar Permits. 25 batches will yield 100 Echoes; a handsome turnaround on 25 turns’ work, made possible painstakingly. Finally, a rare success will actually yield a whole Airag, and 25 attempts may yield multiple such successes. It won’t take a powerful player a year to acquire a vial of M****** B****, but having one ready as the month approaches does appear to allow for a massive windfall annually. When that item is in hand, it seems to make more sense to deal in mid-grade wines, hoarding Cellars and Airags profitably. Airags can be sold profitably to the Bazaar, but to sell a Tear in such a way is to eat a significant loss and not be reimbursed for it.

I finally achieved a Tier 4 profession, so Favors in High Places should become plentiful in the weeks to come. I will be seeking to acquire Bazaar Permits, with a mind towards acquiring a more Notable address.

Edit: I forgot to include: Mr Wines is a fine source of Greyfields 1879 for low-Persuasion players who are trying to break into the market. If you manage 8 such bargains (or 7, and acquire 100 units of 1879 some other way), then you can start dealing profitably with the Sommelier at a lower level. Once you become highly persuasive, Veilgarden outclasses Mr Wines as a source of 1879 - but only after a certain persuasive check stops presenting a problem for you. Beyond that point, I have continued acquiring First Sporing and Absinthe from Mr Wines for RP purposes (my character’s salons are pretty epic), and would still acquire honeyed laudanum from him if you expect to need it and don’t mind paying Fate. Better to have it and not need it, no?
edited by Gerald Edgerton on 9/3/2015

9

None of the highest tier items are profitable to acquire. The Wines item, and the other item available in February, both cost more significantly than their sale value to get. If you want one (or more) of these items merely for the sake of having it then using your notability on the Sommelier is fine, but there is no way to make the trade profitable.

Let’s work this through. The final step in the plan is to upconvert Touching Love Stories at ~5 echoes per conversion action ignoring Bohemian cp (mostly from the rare success, which I’m guesstimating at 5%). This is 25 actions for 1687.5 echoes in Permits, Clues, and Airag minus the cost to acquire a certain item.

That item costs a single action and a vial of M_____'s B___d to acquire. Said vial costs you 7 points of notability, another action (assumed free, since the point is to cash in any excess), and 5 Tears of the Bazaar. We’re up to 28 actions and 5 Tears for our 1687.5 profit.

A Tear of the Bazaar, acquired via the Portly Sommelier, costs 7 bottles of Airag (and three actions) to acquire. Since we need 5 Tears we need a total of 35 Airags, and here’s the problem. 35 Airags already sell for 2187.5 echoes! You’re far better off cashing out at this step than you are spending an extra 49 actions and waiting for an annual event to go through the rest of the procedure.

So since you don’t need to spend any notability to convert cellars into Airag, and playing the higher end options aren’t profitable, the Sommelier is not a means of cashing out your notability (unless maybe you managed to acquire five Tears from the Nadir, but that’s too glacially slow to serve as an outlet for excess MW or notability). The rest of the actions on the Sommelier’s card are all okay but Airag to Tears specifically, and therefore anything that requires you to play the Airag to Tears conversion, is a net loss that you should only play if you want to have and keep one of the later items.

10

It looks like my critical mistake was not fully working out the degree of the loss acquiring those tears. Noticing the Airag as a profitable &quotstopping point&quot was correct, but I thought the 100+ Echo profit on Cryptic Clues alone would offset the loss, with the Airags giving real teeth to the profit. Rather, it appears a miraculous string of rare successes would be necessary in order to even marginalize the loss.

It looks like the true cost of upgrading a Bazaar residence is pretty dear, indeed. Moving back to my original topic, then, how would you recommend making productive use of Notability? I might abuse the Amanuensis once, eventually, out of curiosity, but he’s always been kind to me and in any case the lack of subtlety would be abhorrent to my character. I’m aware of Tier 2 stat upgrades as a sink for quite a lot of points, but my current BDR mostly makes the realm of 4-6 Notability most viable, and I’m nowhere near 200s yet. I’ll still be dealing with the Sommelier in furtherance of a certain lodging, but is there anything, for example, you would ideally want to do with Favorable Circumstances?
edited by Gerald Edgerton on 9/4/2015

11

An Unsigned Letter.

Alternatively, you can help by filling in the rest of these actions!

12

Aha! There is a way to grind Favours!