Very much enjoying Sunless Sea so far. A little rough around the edges perhaps, but this game definitely fits the kind I’ve been craving for a long time.
One quick question: is there a way to upgrade your Pages stat? Initially, I chose a Natural Philosopher origin and had the starting surgeon to help me along. After I promptly died, I went with the Veteran origin and made it quite far before I realized there’s no sure-fire way to improve your Pages the way you can improve every other stat using your crewmembers. I checked the wiki a bit and the only ways that seem to do this, so far, is the starting Surgeon from the Natural Philosopher origin or visiting the Iron Republic, which could go either way (as in, you could lose two pages).
Feel free to leave me in the dark if there’s a certain event, character, or location I missed (but a hint would be nice, if so).
Iron Republic can increase or decrease Pages by 1 or 2.
Sometimes it’s Hearts instead.
There is also Mount Palmerston salt event(repeatable) edited by Uruloki on 2/11/2015
You need the random story that lets you pray to the gods - choose salt and you get +2 to pages and mirrors. The story shows up on Mount Palmerstone and Gaider’s Mourn. It uses salts attention which takes a secrets and a zee story to regain at the House of the Question or, sometimes, picking up a new crew member from the SAY story will give Salt’s Attention
Various random events at Gaider’s Mourn or Mt. Palmerston can increase your pages if you think on your past and you were a poet as well (I think), as well as prayers to Salt.
Other than that, as already mentioned there is the Iron Republic which has the chance to increase it, and the Principles questline.
And that idea that only the Plausible surgeon boosts pages is BS. You can upgrade a couple officers whom you can upgrade to increase your pages quite significantly, even if they don’t start out with page boosts when you get them. And there are several who boost them without upgrades
The Urbane Magician, if The Genial Magician fails to trap the Serpent-King when you let him face it in the Forgotten Quarter can boost your pages by 3, as well as large boosts in hearts and veils.
The Bandaged Poissonier (Cook) from Venderbight can boost them slightly as well.
The Carnelian Exile, The Haunted Doctor, and the Lady in Lilac also boosts them in varying degrees.
As for mascots, there is the Keeper-Moth, and Guinea Page who do the job.[li] edited by Gideon Xanthous on 2/11/2015
I think what he meant was you can spend secrets with the Plausible Surgeon to increase Pages. [quote=Gideon Xanthous]Various random events at Gaider’s Mourn or Mt. Palmerston can increase your pages if you think on your past and you were a poet as well (I think), as well as prayers to Salt.
Other than that, as already mentioned there is the Iron Republic which has the chance to increase it, and the Principles questline.
And that idea that only the Plausible surgeon boosts pages is BS. You can upgrade a couple officers whom you can upgrade to increase your pages quite significantly, even if they don’t start out with page boosts when you get them. And there are several who boost them without upgrades
The Urbane Magician, if The Genial Magician fails to trap the Serpent-King when you let him face it in the Forgotten Quarter can boost your pages by 3, as well as large boosts in hearts and veils.
The Bandaged Poissonier (Cook) from Venderbight can boost them slightly as well.
The Carnelian Exile, The Haunted Doctor, and the Lady in Lilac also boosts them in varying degrees.
As for mascots, there is the Keeper-Moth, and Guinea Page who do the job.[li] edited by Gideon Xanthous on 2/11/2015[/quote]
Right, this is what I was referring to. Thanks for all the input, everyone. It seems there are a couple of events out there that can raise the stat permanently. Unfortunate there isn’t an officer that can do this, the zee is a harsh mistress.
Makes me wish the Plausible Surgeon could be found besides when starting a new game.
Having one stat not able to be raised by Secrets feels interesting in concept, but interacts in non-fun manners with character creation. Having Poet (or Natural Scholar without other Pages bonuses) and Horizon Codex effectively be worth more effort than 25 Secrets punishes picking other options for flavor, different early game focuses, etc, which is rather annoying really.
Especially with the game not warning you about any of this, another way to at least raise Pages to 50 via Secrets would be nice - maybe let officers with Pages as a secondary stat bonus raise Pages to 50? Doesn’t have to be an officer obviously, but the only other idea that immediately came to mind was letting one or more mascots raise Pages to 50 via secrets, and as far as I know the only mascots with a Pages bonus currently also have other options they’re mutually exclusive with, so that doesn’t seem especially elegant.
I don’t recommend this one but when your starting to starve from lack of food there’s sometimes an option that lets you fantasize about food which results in a +1 to pages, it’s random and you don’t always get it and you’ll likely starve most of the crew to death in the process.
There is one way to continuously get pages. 7 Outlandish artifacts and 7 secrets will create the Monstrous Almanac, which gives you a permanent +7 pages when crafted and can be equipped to your ship for an additional +7 pages. *Edit: Monstrous Almanac can be crafted at your study.
You can only have one at a time. You can sell the Monstrous Almanac for $1000 at Hollow Temple, then make another one to get another +7 permanent pages (max of 200). The only issue is that I have difficulty finding artifacts.
If you are just swimming in money, you can also "buy" pages with this trick. Secrets are sold at Irem for $999, and artifacts are sold at Khan’s shadow for $150 each. Buy 7 of each ($8043), craft a Monstrous Almanac, then sell the Monstrous Almanac. In the end, it would cost $7043 (8043-1000) plus travel expenses. edited by Justheretopost on 7/19/2015
I get most of my artefacts by trading Scintillack, regular or blue, at the Temple in Varchas. Hunting Lifebergs is fun too and you can do it in the starter ship by hiding in one of the channels - the Lifeberg can’t hit you and you can just keep firing until it is dead :)
Personally I don’t think this would be as much of a problem if you had an option to toggle off the chart when you take the Correspondence legacy. Of course adding another officer that isn’t reliant on a specific character class would help too. Anyway, with that legacy you do get to keep half your pages, but you subsequently lose a ton of potential fragments from exploration.
I like being able to keep my hard earned pages if I retire my captain but the chart is an unnecessary liability that in essence gimps my captain. It’s true that there are other ways of getting secrets but it is undoubtable that exploration is your primary way of acquiring them.