The wiki mentions that you can grind up The Hunt is On in the labyrinth of tiger (there’s an option that gives something like 1.08 EPA) then go to the Flit and capture a goat-demon a live (which gives a boatload of primordial shrieks). The wiki claims that this has a 1.99 EPA - better than the opportunity-card based Tomb Colonies puzzling map grind, better than heists, better than Polythreme, better than getting lucky in the Fidgeting Writer (unless you really get insanely lucky), and much better than AotB. You can easily get locked out of it, but for whoever hasn’t yet, it appears to be an absolutely amazing grind.
However, the wiki is also wrong and/or outdated in some parts, e.g. it still shows the incorrect, lucky value for the FW grind. The goat-demon’s 1.99EPA is not cited at all. Hence I’d like to sanity check this: does anyone have, or can anyone produce, any calculations backing up this EPA figure? And what is the optimal strategy: I assume that’s getting the minimum THiO (11) and failing the capture multiple times (because it has a ridiculous rate like 20% or whatever at that low level of Hunt) - but could someone confirm?
My last check was ~1.83 EPA when using social actions to reduce wounds. It’s more random than most (even more so than the fidgeting writer) so you’ll often get lucky goat demon captures in 1 attempt and get really high EPA, and also often get long streaks of failures with low EPA.
The optimal strategy is to try to capture it as soon as possible (30%). Failures cost you less than you might expect, since you still get the 1.08 EPA from the hunt is on grind; only around 40% of your profit comes from the primordial shrieks.
Another side note is it’s a very profitable way to gain rostygold and especially shrieks, which are otherwise hard to come by profitably.
EDIT: Here’s the latest version of my script to calculate it. It just does a bunch of trials and gives you averages. It’s also in python.
Other trivia:
It takes roughly 35 actions on average to complete a cycle.
It takes roughly 3.3333… attempts to get a successful capture.
51% of the time you will successfully capture it within 2 attempts
~3% of the time it will take 10 attempts or more. These long streaks skew the average toward 3.3333…
You get roughly 65.23 echos per cycle. edited by Kaijyuu on 9/30/2016
Ah nice, thanks. Sounds like a good grind indeed (especially since I really need to raise my abysmal dangerous), even if not quite 2EPA. Still basically on par with the Tomb-Colonists Curiosities grind and doesn’t rely on opportunity cards.
I don’t think I have python installed on the shitty windows machine I’m on and I cba to sort it out, but that script is actually a great idea and I might come back to it or similar things if I have similar questions in the future. edited by Dudebro Pyro on 9/30/2016
Is this grind still possible? People mention getting THIO up to 11 in the third coil, but I’ve noticed the third coil becomes locked at THIO 8. I would have to get the next 3 points at the docks for no rosty gold. Was locking the third coil at THIO a change put in place that means this grind can no longer be done?
Searing enigma success on heists also got lowered. Why are all of the good echo grinds getting cancelled? How does the marsh wolf grind work? You get THIO up to 7 and then kill them? Would taking them alive with THIO 8 give more? I’m also wondering what the EPA for heists are now.
Just did some math and it’s ever so slightly worse than killing them. (difference is literally half a pence per action)
Killing is better in terms of both money and less randomness/bumming wounds reductions off of friends.
Me too. I recently bought some intricate kifers in case I ever need to do heists again.
Here’s hoping we can find another London grind out there with >= 1.80 EPA that isn’t stealing souls and/or fate locked. edited by Kaijyuu on 2/19/2017
[quote=Kaijyuu]
Here’s hoping we can find another London grind out there with >= 1.80 EPA that isn’t stealing souls and/or fate locked. edited by Kaijyuu on 2/19/2017[/quote]
That would be heists with 5 card, 10 Dread, small boost if you have an alliance with a certain Big rat, convert TLS and convert CC.
I do rather a lot of heists and log all of them and I’ve made 1.8 EPA in my last 100 attempts, even with 5 card, 10 dread, conversions, and Big Rat.
Of course, if you manage your cards right prior to entry and exit (5 going in, 3 going out), you potentially get a few extra opportunity card draws. In fact, on a typical heist I end up with 2 extra draws post-heist than I would have had otherwise. So that raises the actual EPA just a smidge higher by raising the chance of being able to do a better-than-average-EPA action immediately following the heist. Between that and the perk of maintaining your MW easily if you do several heists a week, it’s still my preferred grind even if it’s not a total barnburner.
Hrm, the Big Rat’s thing doesn’t look that much more efficient (2.4 E per turnin… ouch) and is so unethical! I like the rats too much to murder them like that.
I can’t imagine the gang being that much less efficient (maybe 80 pence or so per 18 casing by my calculations), so maybe I should try these heists sometime and do my own math.
You’re essentially trading 4.8E for 3 saved actions. Presuming 1.8 EPA for each of those actions, it’s worth 5.4E-4.8E=.6E per heist cycle to use the Big Rat instead of hoodlums. Not critical, but it adds up.
Well at least heists are still decent. I don’t see why it was necessary to nerf the good grinds and make us grind longer. 1.9 or 2 EPA is very good but it wasn’t ridiculous. You also needed very high dangerous for the goat grind and lots of different things such as lodgings, dreaded and kifers for the heist grind. Not to mention the risk of prison. I wonder if we could ask failbetter to bring them back to the way they were.
Buy casing with it and, as Wiwo mentioned, it adds up a bit. But in the long run those bits make up for a nice EPA.
In my last 28 recorded heists with 4 cards and no Rat I got to 1.81 after conversions. Thing is that the number begin to shape better after more runs. You may get a stroke of luck in your first heists and on your first conversions, but you may also be unlucky! Patience is the key and, of course, attention to which cards you play! :D
Didn’t have time to do many heists after getting the 5C lodging, but before I was just purchasing one inside information, always used the Document card if possible, kifers, planning my cards, there’s an annoying card which is best played with the inside information and tried to have multiple empty card slots when reaching progress 5 (so I won’t need to play another card for nothing), but this last run was a lucky one as well!
Oh, I was using Gang, Topsy king option for 3 more casing and one to buy insider information so only 2 extra AP, but with 4 C it was more than I needed. Worst case I used the Talkative cat (secrets) card, but other than that, you just need to study your possible progress when you draw the first 4/5 cards.
For example, if you get the kifers card, go for it first! If you succeed you just need a regular 1 progress card and one to use your inside information and heist done! If you fail, just play another card to redo your possible plan. Patience and my advice is to do many heists with the wiki page opened; you may never be to safe! edited by Skinnyman on 2/20/2017