Actions spent: 2248
Sell price of the materials spent: 2083.5
Number of Coruscating Souls obtained: 31
I have crafted a plan to capture and bind the creature known as the Overgoat. I plan on luring it into a vulnerable position by placing 36 Coruscating Souls into a circle inscribed with Correspondence Sigils. Once it is mine to command, I will force it to reveal the position of the murderer of my dear Elizabeth. They say none can escape the Overgoat’s gaze, and yet if I am to capture it, I must remains hidden from it…
OOC: The Fidgeting Writer storyline is the best grind spot right now, with an average of over 3 echoes per action, as long as you already have the materials. It fill also raise the Touched by Fingerwork and Seeing Through Eyes of Icarus qualities (and I’m not sure if it also raises the Faling Cities quality). Check my sig to see my progress! edited by Vyrlokar on 4/29/2012
I’m out, or nearly out, of lots of the required materials (ironically, mostly because I sold them to contribute to my Overgoat Fun*) - is it worth going through the Fidgeting Writer storyline anyway, or should I stick to stealing things from the Flit?
*I meant Fund, but what isn’t fun about an Overgoat? I’ve currently amassed E8635.48… so close! edited by SeanH on 4/24/2012
[quote=SeanH]I’m out, or nearly out, of lots of the required materials (ironically, mostly because I sold them to contribute to my Overgoat Fun*) - is it worth going through the Fidgeting Writer storyline anyway, or should I stick to stealing things from the Flit?
*I meant Fund, but what isn’t fun about an Overgoat? I’ve currently amassed E8635.48… so close! edited by SeanH on 4/24/2012[/quote]
The best solution for you would be to go to Polythreme and grind Romantic Notions (many of them, at least 2-3k) and Surface Silk Scraps (at least 1k), on top of getting Memories of Distant Shores via que Investigating and Fascinating storylines (if you have not done so already), and when you return, craft the 10p items into 50p items, and then convert them to the items to toe other required 50p items (Check the wikis for what steps you need for each thing). This is better than using “unfinished business” storylets to grind the tier items, because you get 120p per action while grinding, and since you get tier 1 items, you can convert them in bulk for a 250p benefit per conversion. Obtaining Strangling Willow Absinthe from A Presumptuous Little Opportunity card is also a good choice, since the card gives you 4 echoes of benefit per action, and you can easily get the required wine by trading Connected (Society) in the palace. Without taking into account the time spent at the sea, my calculations say that you can average over 2.3 echos per action, or more if you keep getting A Presumptuous Little Opportunity cards.
I’m going to disagree with the assertion that the Fidgeting Writer storyline is the best grind spot right now – it’s still a luck based challenge. Even with having all of the materials, and finally doing the method of converting everything in a very large bunch, and getting two Coruscating Souls in the end, I still ended up spending more Echoes than I received.
The grinding Romantic Notions and then converting them later, on the other hand, definitely worked. And I am currently finding that I’m having some luck with ambushing couriers as part of my unfinished business in Spite – picking up a Touching Love story every three to four actions or so, while giving me hope that someday, perhaps, I might find that extremely elusive Rubbery Object that is supposedly obtainable in Spite. Touching Love Stories, of course, can be further upped to Bazaar Permits, with a chance of earning something extra along the way.
[quote=MNess]I’m going to disagree with the assertion that the Fidgeting Writer storyline is the best grind spot right now – it’s still a luck based challenge. Even with having all of the materials, and finally doing the method of converting everything in a very large bunch, and getting two Coruscating Souls in the end, I still ended up spending more Echoes than I received.
The grinding Romantic Notions and then converting them later, on the other hand, definitely worked. And I am currently finding that I’m having some luck with ambushing couriers as part of my unfinished business in Spite – picking up a Touching Love story every three to four actions or so, while giving me hope that someday, perhaps, I might find that extremely elusive Rubbery Object that is supposedly obtainable in Spite. Touching Love Stories, of course, can be further upped to Bazaar Permits, with a chance of earning something extra along the way.[/quote]
It may be luck based, but luck averages in the long run. I’ve spent over 2k actions on the Fidgeting Writer storyline, and gotten 31 Corrupscating Souls. In fact, I usually start with 105 Journals of Infamy (I have an excess of Cryptic Clues, over 12k), convert them one after the other, and then convert all the items on one stage until I proceed to the next. If you try to convert one journal, get one sense of deja vu, convert that, etc etc, it’s extremely frustrating. If you take it as a grind, not so much.
I am still sticking to the Velocipede Squad, myself. Lady Luck does not favour me. I much prefer being certain of the outcome. Polythreme’s average echo/action isn’t much higher than the Velocipede Squad’s, and it is a bit of an action investment to get there in the first place. Plus, all the new content recently has come through opportunity cards, so I want to stay in London for the time being.
[quote=]It may be luck based, but luck averages in the long run. I’ve spent over 2k actions on the Fidgeting Writer storyline, and gotten 31 Corrupscating Souls. In fact, I usually start with 105 Journals of Infamy (I have an excess of Cryptic Clues, over 12k), convert them one after the other, and then convert all the items on one stage until I proceed to the next. If you try to convert one journal, get one sense of deja vu, convert that, etc etc, it’s extremely frustrating. If you take it as a grind, not so much.[/quote]
I’m basing my statement on when I did take it as a grind. I ended up spending far more Echoes than I earned – more than 900 echoes for 2 Coruscating Souls, without considering the actions required. So for those of us with a little less luck – Romance may be the way to go :) That was quite lucrative, as were other islands out on the Zee.
Although it occurs to me, not for the first time, that this lack of luck is why I still don’t have a Rubbery Euphonium.
[quote=MNess]I’m basing my statement on when I did take it as a grind. I ended up spending far more Echoes than I earned – more than 900 echoes for 2 Coruscating Souls, without considering the actions required. So for those of us with a little less luck – Romance may be the way to go :) That was quite lucrative, as were other islands out on the Zee.
Although it occurs to me, not for the first time, that this lack of luck is why I still don’t have a Rubbery Euphonium.[/quote]
That’s some major bad luck! I’ve spent 2167 echos worth of stuff, and 2413 actions currently, and have 31 Coruscating Souls to o show for it (Also have 32 senses of Deja Vu, 33 glimpse of something larger, and 2 deals with a devil) (I’m waiting for the Someone is coming card to get more visions of the surface while I spend my correspondence plaques)
You need €3077.32. That’s 10 coruscating souls. My spreadsheet tells me that you will need (you might want some spares):
237.039304318 Tales of Terror
174.334956912 Visions of the Surface
248.567906308 Correspondence Plaques
181.935483871 Brilliant Souls
55.8064516129 Identities Uncovered
28.0645161290 Extraordinary Implications
17.0967741935 Mourning Candles
You may already own some of the materials listed here. If not, you may own other tier 3 items that you may want to convert. Tiert 2 items (such as Romantic Notions) should be converted in bulk, since each conversion earns you €2.50. Tier 3->Tier 3 conversion gives you 50p per conversion, so it’s a pretty bad deal, but if you can grind tier 2 items, it can still be worth it, as the Tier 1->Tier 2 conversion also only earns you 50p. Grinding Romantic Notions gives you €1.20 worth of them per action, so you can handle a lot of conversions before dropping down what you get with the “unfinished business” storylets. Check the wikis on what can be converted to what.
On Memories of the Distant Shores, you can use them to obtain Brilliant Souls, and from them, Tales of Terror. Tales of Terror can be converted to Memories of Light via an intermediate conversion to Compromising Documents. Again, it all depends. I ended up with more memories that I knew what to do about when pursuing the investigating and fascinating stories in Polithreme.
EDIT: number of coruscating souls needed as per your second post, might be outdated. The numbers per coruscating soul are 1/10 if what I listed for 10 coruscating souls, obviously. edited by Vyrlokar on 4/27/2012 edited by Vyrlokar on 4/28/2012
In the end I grew tired of grinding, and spend some extra stuff I had around to make up for it. Sold 33 Coruscating Souls though… I will grind some more, eventually, as I’m sure that Failbetter Games will add some more stuff for us to purchase.
Now, I must say that all this grinding has taken a toll on my health, and I find myself on a very slow boat…
I have my Overgoat in my profile, as my mantelpiece item, just in case you want to check. I’ll probably keep it there got a long time (probably until I get a bottle of a certain cider…).
I have my Overgoat in my profile, as my mantelpiece item, just in case you want to check. I’ll probably keep it there got a long time (probably until I get a bottle of a certain cider…).[/quote]
I always check. It’s a matter of principle.
Speaking of which, if you have an Overgoat or know someone who does and isn’t on the list, please let me know. I’m compiling the thing for posterity as well as bragging rights.
Vyrlokar, have you tried crunching the numbers for ‘cashing out’ at earlier levels of the Fidgeting Writer storyline? e.g. trading a Deal with a Devil for a Brass Ring, rather than continuing? It would be interesting to see whether persevering to the end is in fact the best ROI.
Edit: Ah, thanks. Link to prior discussion here. edited by Esterhazy on 5/1/2012
I did in a former thread. Going to the end is the best in terms of Echoes, but it’s still a very good source of any of the goods after Collated Research if you need those specific goods. (And Collated Research too, if you’re Unwelcome at the University)
Since I just got mine moments ago, yeah! Overgoated! WOOOooooooo…
I spent time in the Flit grinding for Brilliant Souls. When I ran the calcs a while back, I averaged 1.264 echoes per action which was slightly higher than any other deterministic grinds I’ve found. I too have ridiculously bad luck so after getting a single Coruscanting Soul, I called it quits. Anyhow… I’m not going for the Cider. Not unless we get much more lucrative echo yields of at least a magnitude higher. I’m going to rest my heavily battered body, and poke at all the nice storylines that have popped up while I was baiting the Overgoat with my stockpile of Brilliant Souls. Maybe I’ll complete my collection of pets…