Unfortunately, no. Writing short stories are outclassed by other options once you become a person of some importance. Early game however they are still a good method of getting cash for the necessities.
If anyone’s curious about the epa of random things (including grinds!) here’s a good starting point.
It doesn’t have the epa of any of the short stories, perhaps someone could add them!
[quote=Cecil Palmer]If anyone’s curious about the epa of random things (including grinds!) here’s a good starting point.
It doesn’t have the epa of any of the short stories, perhaps someone could add them![/quote]
Thanks for this advice! I’ll have a look.
No longer, but I did back when I was a Journalist and a bit after becoming an Author. I calculated mean epa varying from 0.85 (stopping at 50 potential) up to 1.28 (stopping at 100 potential). I didn’t do the math beyond that because I was interested in other activities, I assume succeeding at all checks, I assume already having relevant boost materials to spend (I cost them at their sale value), and remember this is the mean from a single luck check encompassing a lot of actions, so until you’ve been grinding through a lot of actions you will probably have a pretty high variance.
Should give you a sense of whether you’re still early enough in the game for it to be worthwhile, though. Revisiting this, 1.28 isn’t too bad; maybe I’ll see what the numbers look like for potentially celebrated and potentially classic works and do a full write-up sometime.
Actually, that would slightly detriment your epa, considering most items can be gotten at greater values than 1 echo per action. So, assuming your math is correct, you’d be looking at an epa higher than 1.28.
Actually, that would slightly detriment your epa, considering most items can be gotten at greater values than 1 echo per action. So, assuming your math is correct, you’d be looking at an epa higher than 1.28.[/quote]
That’s incorrect thinking. Counting your epa as if the only choice is between spending the supplies and selling them at the bazaar will almost always result in epa higher than anything sustainable
Well. Assuming that writing a story takes A actions, E worth of supplies, and has rewards worth R:
Calculating as if requiring supplies is equivalent to decreased reward: 1.28=(R-E)/A
Calculating with farming supplies at rate F (worth/action, so farming them takes E/F actions): epa=R/(A+E/F)
when is epa>1.28
epa=R/(A+E/F)>1.28=(R-E)/A
// multiply by A and A+E/F, both of which are positive
RA > (R-E)(A+E/F) // expand
RA > RA + RE/F-EE/F // rearrange additions and subtractions
EE/F > RE/F // divide by E/F, which is positive
E > R
so increasing epa is possible only if the original epa was negative.
Also, when considering the worth of spending supplies that I already have, a more balanced comparison is between “spend the supplies and A actions the get R reward” and “sell the supplies for E ‘reward’ and spend A actions doing my best repeatable grind at rate G”.
Compare R and E+AG.
I won’t spend the time to compare these now, but from what I remember, E was always so high that you should always just sell your supplies and go somewhere else.
Actually, that would slightly detriment your epa, considering most items can be gotten at greater values than 1 echo per action. So, assuming your math is correct, you’d be looking at an epa higher than 1.28.[/quote]
That’s incorrect thinking. Counting your epa as if the only choice is between spending the supplies and selling them at the bazaar will almost always result in epa higher than anything sustainable
Well. Assuming that writing a story takes A actions, E worth of supplies, and has rewards worth R:
Calculating as if requiring supplies is equivalent to decreased reward: 1.28=(R-E)/A
Calculating with farming supplies at rate F (worth/action, so farming them takes E/F actions): epa=R/(A+E/F)
when is epa>1.28
epa=R/(A+E/F)>1.28=(R-E)/A
// multiply by A and A+E/F, both of which are positive
RA > (R-E)(A+E/F) // expand
RA > RA + RE/F-EE/F // rearrange additions and subtractions
EE/F > RE/F // divide by E/F, which is positive
E > R
so increasing epa is possible only if the original epa was negative.
Also, when considering the worth of spending supplies that I already have, a more balanced comparison is between "spend the supplies and A actions the get R reward" and "sell the supplies for E ‘reward’ and spend A actions doing my best repeatable grind at rate G".
Compare R and E+AG.
I won’t spend the time to compare these now, but from what I remember, E was always so high that you should always just sell your supplies and go somewhere else.[/quote]
That made me feel stupid, logically illiterate and happy (that I am) at the same time. But mostly stupid. Though the final point I did manage to grasp.
[quote=xKiv]That’s incorrect thinking. Counting your epa as if the only choice is between spending the supplies and selling them at the bazaar will almost always result in epa higher than anything sustainable
Well. Assuming that writing a story takes A actions, E worth of supplies, and has rewards worth R:
Calculating as if requiring supplies is equivalent to decreased reward: 1.28=(R-E)/A
Calculating with farming supplies at rate F (worth/action, so farming them takes E/F actions): epa=R/(A+E/F)
when is epa>1.28
epa=R/(A+E/F)>1.28=(R-E)/A
// multiply by A and A+E/F, both of which are positive
RA > (R-E)(A+E/F) // expand
RA > RA + RE/F-EE/F // rearrange additions and subtractions
EE/F > RE/F // divide by E/F, which is positive
E > R
so increasing epa is possible only if the original epa was negative.
Also, when considering the worth of spending supplies that I already have, a more balanced comparison is between "spend the supplies and A actions the get R reward" and "sell the supplies for E ‘reward’ and spend A actions doing my best repeatable grind at rate G".
Compare R and E+AG.
I won’t spend the time to compare these now, but from what I remember, E was always so high that you should always just sell your supplies and go somewhere else.[/quote]
I. Uh. Couldn’t follow most of that. I do now see that I was wrong, and that epa would only be increase if you were gaining the source items at a higher epa. I’m not sure why that didn’t occur to me in the first place. Count me a little less ignorant I guess?
I think you are missing the "-E*A" term here. It doesn’t affect your ultimate point but if less mathematically inclined people were trying to follow they might miss an implied step where that term disappears.
Some day I’m finally going to get someone to pay attention to my Corpsecage Island/Shrine of the Deep Blue Heaven grind that in my data averaged ~1.35 epa ( http://community.failbettergames.com/topic4344-grinding-watchful-and-persuasive.aspx ). It does require largely forgoing cards and other London actions while at sea, and to make the epa effective requires being at sea for long stretches of time, but can be made even slightly more lucrative by nabbing a plated seal while out amongst the waves (this requires playing your cards right with troubled waters but is worth it IMO).
edited by Trodgmey on 7/29/2015
I completely forgot you could use notes for supplies, thanks! The new zailing mechanics and the newish increased rewards for Collate your <whatever> research will boost this, too. (You could take some amount of the other notes instead, cash them in at your lodgings for collated research, then do another round of preparatory research to trade those back for all sorts including archaeological notes)
Plated seals aren’t difficult to nab while you’re out there, either, though I haven’t yet figured out how many actions they’re likely to cost.
[quote=marcmagus]I completely forgot you could use notes for supplies, thanks! The new zailing mechanics and the newish increased rewards for Collate your <whatever> research will boost this, too. (You could take some amount of the other notes instead, cash them in at your lodgings for collated research, then do another round of preparatory research to trade those back for all sorts including archaeological notes)
Plated seals aren’t difficult to nab while you’re out there, either, though I haven’t yet figured out how many actions they’re likely to cost.[/quote]
I confess I’ve been a landlubber for a few months while doing some London-based grinding, so I haven’t had a chance to try it out with the new zailing mechanics (okay, fine, I’d forgotten there were new zailing mechanics in the first place).
I’ll probably head out to sea in a bit after I grind out some correspondence plaques, and I’ll try to keep some data.
[quote=genesis][quote=xKiv]
RA > (R-E)(A+E/F) // expand
RA > RA + RE/F-EE/F // rearrange additions and subtractions
[/quote]
I think you are missing the "-E*A" term here. It doesn’t affect your ultimate point but if less mathematically inclined people were trying to follow they might miss an implied step where that term disappears.[/quote]
Oh, huh.
RA > RA + RE/F-EE/F -AE // rearrange additions and subtractions
EE/F > RE/F -AE // *F/(AE)
E/A > R/A - F
F > (R-E)/A
…
so it changes my conclusion from “increasing epa this way is possible only when the original epa was negative” to “… only when the original epa was lower than the epa of acquiring the necessary supplies”. In which case it’s even more profitable to just keep farming the supplies instead.
yay! That’s what I said! I’m slightly more intelligent than I thought!
Continuing discussion from here: yes, I tend to Gawp when my Nightmares get high enough from the Cider cards to clear out non-discardable menace cards, but I almost never go all the way down to zero by Gawping, just down enough to clear my hand. Instead I go to the Nadir or I use one of the Doctor Schlomo cards (-3 CP Nightmares + 2.50E on rare success or -6 CP Nightmares).
And because I am a GIANT DORK, I just did the math on the Nadir and came out to 5.92 EPA (on average, of course! And you can tweak that in your favor by choosing when to bail)–here’s the spreadsheet–note that this is personal to me and your unlock qualities may vary, but I hope it gives people a starting point.
edited by an_ocelot on 11/12/2015
Thanks for sharing the spreadsheet, ocelot. Some good math in there. :)
Thanks! I hope people will let me know of any errors they happen to spot.
Looks good to me, and it’s good to see some numbers behind the received wisdom that the Nadir is a good place to visit weekly. Personally, though, I always play “Where did the Rosers Go?” and “Speak to the Urchins,” since even without guaranteed success, expected payout is high.
Oh, I did miss than you get 1E for failing the Rosers, but the wiki says you don’t get anything for failing talking to the Urchins . . . ?
I assume Kaigen means on average it’s profitable even without guaranteed success on individual attempts, somewhat like the Fidgeting Writer.