I’ve been in the neath over a year now and have finally decided it’s time to take up that most lofty of London past times. Goat farming. But the goats are expensive and the bits of change I gather are but small drops in a very big pool. Some searching has indicated that the using the Fidgeting Writer story line to turn Tales of Terror into Coruscating Souls is the most efficient (if frustrating) way to do this but a lot of that information seems to be rather old. Is this still considered the best approach or is there a more efficient way to do this that I’m missing?
How efficient the Fidgeting Writer is depends largely on how easy it is for you to accumulate the resources you need to go through with it. If you have already gathered enough of those resources, or if you have highly efficient ways of doing so, then yes, it is probably the most efficient option for you.
Well, to be honest, I got my goat by selling everything I owned. You can get a decent yield of echoes by doing heists in the Flit. If you are an Exceptional friend, it’s very easy indeed. The Bazaar renders up its treasures quite nicely. 40 echoes a pop if you succeed (I recommend Casing of about 18. It’s easiest if you have a Gang of Hoodlums).
Another decent way is to make and sell Bifurcated Owls, but those are a bit more lengthy. I recommend going slowly rather than rushing to get your goat so you can avoid driving yourself mad, or, like me, becoming penniless!
Another option is to get every other high-value item in the game first. The Owl does require Fate because you need to pay for the Empyrean Redolence storylet for Breeding Beasts in the Labyrinth.
If you are not yet a PoSI, it may be wise to hold off until you are–it’s much easier to grind echoes after attaining that designation!
Also, feel free to add me in game. :) http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Michelle~Patricia~Browne
It is all simply a matter of picking the best way to gather Echoes. Working for the Veloceped Squad in Ladybones is profitable and fun for a Dangerous guy, and the Affairs of the Box repeatable chain in Spite is also a great source of cash (echoes to action ratio wise). Personally, I believe you should hoard resources gathered from these runs rather than sell them outright in the event that you need them later.
edited by Owen Wulf on 11/5/2014
Try to pick something fun, or at least something that also helps another goal of yours. Want to cap your Advancing the Liberation of Night quality? No reason not to collect Mourning Candles to convert from the Affair of the Box. Get all three newspaper qualities to 10, just for the heck of it. Publish a ridiculous amount of Epic Poems. Pick something fun that you wouldn’t mind repeating for months, and if you happen to get bored move onto another fun thing.
You are spending something like 48 actions to get that 40 echoes. Even spamming unfinished business is faster. Or get casing with hoodlums (fast) and spend in on some thefts of particular character.
With a 5-card lodging, high shadowy and decently dreadful outfit, I find I can get superb profits from the other kind of Flit heist. I have been keeping track for a few weeks (I think I logged about a hundred attempts, including several completely bombed out ones) and it was still up around 200 ppa, thanks to the occasional searing enigma. (yes, that’s counting the cost of spent ablution solution, and actions wasted on being caught by the constables)
Thanks for the feedback. I already have a fair sized pile of the resources needed do the Fidgeting Writer from other grindy endeavors so it’s a good place to start at least (even if I currently have a 1 in 30 success rate, hence the wondering if this is still a good idea). I’m also closer than I thought. I’ve got about 2500 echoes worth of equipment I’d rather keep but if I sell the rest I’ll get to around 8000 and I’m still hoarding the location of the Nadir if I get desperate.
I’m an Extraordinary Mind with all my stats around or over 150 and the game explored fairly completely by now so there isn’t much that’s barred to me. In the past 1 echo per action stuff has been enough to get me through just about everything (including building my zubmarine the hard way) but with this one I figured I’d better look for a more efficient approach. Any suggestions on which routes are echo per action efficient are greatly appreciated as having backup plans for when one route gets boring is really useful.
Agreed. This has been my creed throughout the game. You never know when you might suddenly need a lot of something (or a little of something that your a lot of something can be turned into).
You’re profile link doesn’t seem to be working but feel free to add me from the profile link in my signature. I actually recently returned from a hiatus largely because I wanted to check out the games social features so the more contacts and acquaintances the better.
Judging from your comments, I believe that you are not keen on burning fate for profit, but in case you are a) Rich in fate and b) grind tolerant, you can get a very acceptable return from Expeditions to the Gallery of Serpents (averaged out over a fair number of expeditions, that is; and being happy to progress the Revolutionary cause would improve the potential profit a touch).
What kind of heist would this be that includes enigmas?
Baseborn & Fowlingpiece. It’s a rare success with the Touching Love Stories option.
I found some statistics and ran some numbers on the Fidgeting Writer because it’s annoying me and I got some interesting results so I figured I’d share them. When you take into account the probability of actually completing the story line the average PPA is actually only 163 (1.63 echoes). Probability will make it swing pretty wildly on both sides though. You should be able to see the math in this spread sheet (let me know if you want me to run through the equations). This is of course, assuming you already have the materials. If your material gathering requires a lot of lower PPA actions that number drops pretty quickly.
I also checked the Savage Cobbles quest line and that maxes at a lower but more consistent 132 PPA assuming you can reliably pass the checks and always attend a funeral at the end. A Boxful of Intrigue is almost identical except that it can climb to 153 PPA if you send your report to certain bandaged gentlemen. Unfortunately, heists in the flit have too many variables for me to easily generate average PPA numbers for them.
edited by An Individual on 11/6/2014
Fighting a War of Assassins is nice for when you’re getting close to maxing out. They’re some of the highest level stat challenges in the game, plus you can use it to farm Collections of Curiosities which you can trade through the Tomb Colonists card for 5 Puzzling Maps. The payout can take a while, but it shouldn’t matter in the long run if you’re saving up to buy an Overgoat.
That spreadsheet has some misleading data.
I converted 15,053 Tales of Terror into 10,659 Senses of Deja Vu.
.7 is the number. Anything else is statistical variance. Do not take that spread sheet as gospel. It has some reporting bias.
some such a highcost item like the goat, i would avoid anything that relies on the RNG. i assume it’s far safer and more reliable to nearly max out one of your stats, and use anyone of the grindable ways for earning echos. more actions taken, more chances of failure. and the rewards in fidgeting writer aren’t high enough to justify the risk, if you’re doing it just to sell the items.
if you never got kicked out of the university, the uni/flit flip doesn’t require very high stats to be reliable. but still a chance you’ll fail the investigating challenge in flit, if you cash it out ASAP.
hunter’s keep needs higher watchful, and stops you from using some very profitable opportunity cards.
cycling through iron republic won’t rely much on the RNG, but you may need higher quirks for it to be more effecient, maybe. best look for a “map” of the iron republic storylets. also can’t play opportunity cards.
affair of the box is very reliable once you’ve almost maxed out your shadowy, and get “kingmaker” high enough.
That spreadsheet has some misleading data.
I converted 15,053 Tales of Terror into 10,659 Senses of Deja Vu.
.7 is the number. Anything else is statistical variance. Do not take that spread sheet as gospel. It has some reporting bias.[/quote]
If we wanted to get scientific about it what we would do is report the numbers as we calculated them and then calculate the standard deviation so the result would actually be a range of values instead of a single one. Just rounding to 0.7 would also be an error. While we’re pointing out flaws, the income lose from failure also isn’t being handled properly in the calculation. I should probably have put some warnings on that thing but I’d already spent more time on it that I would have liked. The goal was to get some rough numbers to see how it stacked up against more reliable methods and shuffling around some of the smaller numbers still gives a result not that far ahead of the more reliable methods.
I guess what I’m trying to say is I was more concerned about convincing myself that this wasn’t such a good idea than getting pure, scientifically accurate values. Sorry if it came across the other way around.
edited by An Individual on 11/6/2014
Playing the Fidgeting Writer when you aren’t feeling particularly keen on doing it is a terrible idea. This is one of those cases where numbers can be somewhat disregarded - no matter how you go about it this will take time. No need to suffer through a couple months, especially since you just recently came back from a hiatus. Efficiency is nice, but if Fallen London starts to feel like a chore you might end up leaving again.
Personally I would recommend the Affair of the Box along with the War of Assassins. Run through the War of Assassins until you build up a supply of Collections of Curiosities, and then switch over to the Affair of the Box. You’ll get the Mourning Candle option fairly quickly, and it mixes things up to help avoid tedium. You don’t want to just do the War of Assassins because then you’ll get into the position where you have enough Collections to get your goat but the Tomb-Colonies card just won’t show up. If it’s more of a happy bonus it won’t be such a big deal when the RNG decides to make that card elusive.
Boxful of intrigue is 164 PPA assuming your Shadowy is high enough for 100% on each challenge. 8 Mourning Candles plus the 6 Correspondence Plaques you get from boxes 8, 9 and 10 (when you choose to Intercept) gives 23 Echoes over 14 Actions (13 boxes plus one action for cashing in).
This is the best repeatable-on-demand grind for the majority of people. Selling Collections of Curiosities to the Tomb-Colonists is more profitable (again, assuming you have the stats to make the War of Assassins 100%), but depends on drawing their faction card, so is not as reliable. Also, I understand there’s a higher PPA available for doing something or other involving the Big Rat story, but a great many people have locked themselves out of that option already and I’m afraid I’m not clear on the details.
edited by A B Nile on 11/6/2014
Nice catch. I forgot that one of the options actually gave you something.
That spreadsheet has some misleading data.
I converted 15,053 Tales of Terror into 10,659 Senses of Deja Vu.
.7 is the number. Anything else is statistical variance. Do not take that spread sheet as gospel. It has some reporting bias.[/quote]
If we wanted to get scientific about it what we would do is report the numbers as we calculated them and then calculate the standard deviation so the result would actually be a range of values instead of a single one. Just rounding to 0.7 would also be an error. While we’re pointing out flaws, the income lose from failure also isn’t being handled properly in the calculation. I should probably have put some warnings on that thing but I’d already spent more time on it that I would have liked. The goal was to get some rough numbers to see how it stacked up against more reliable methods and shuffling around some of the smaller numbers still gives a result not that far ahead of the more reliable methods.
I guess what I’m trying to say is I was more concerned about convincing myself that this wasn’t such a good idea than getting pure, scientifically accurate values. Sorry if it came across the other way around.
edited by An Individual on 11/6/2014[/quote]
Using the probabilities you have there the PPA is actually quite a lot higher than what you report. The problem is that the number of actions taken on average when converting a single Tale of Terror is smaller than the number of actions taken when successful. With those probabilities, the actual PPA should be somewhere north of 200, although as Nigel wisely points out there may be significant statistical variance that is skewing the numbers.
There’s a lot more discussion on the ‘Fidgeting Writer: doing the math’ topic. At some point I’ll write up a script that does all of the calculation and statistics for you, but it’s kinda low on my to-do list.
I keep hearing about the intercept option with the Affair of the Box. Could someone enlighten me as to how you can do the intercept for the extra Correspondence Plaques?