As I am sure many fallen Londoners do, I use four week’s worth of professional perks to get one trade secret per month. The secret sells for a good sixty echoes, but with ten actions, it can be used to obtain a searing enigma and five antique mysteries. Knowing the prices of those items, one can calculate the gain in echoes through using the trade secret:
Searing enigma: 62.50 x 1 = 62.50
Antique Mystery: 12.50 x 5 = 62.50
As shown above, 75 echoes are made with ten actions. After some quick division, it comes out to seven and a half echoes per action. Unless there is some amazing grind that I did not know of, there is no reason to sell trade secrets.
Edit: saw a typo to late. edited by GamerGallade on 1/27/2016
You are correct. In fact, there’s only one reason to do anything with a Trade Secret other than crack it open for the Mysteries and Enigma inside.
You will need to use (at least, depending on your fear of the RNG) two Trade Secrets for writing Classic Short Story.
Please note that the Classic Short Story opens no extra options, nor does it sell for enough to justify this expense for anything other than bragging rights or completionism.
I didn’t even know you could sell them at the Bazaar. I used my first Trade Secrets for stat increase a lot, because you don’t really need Antique Mysteries or Searing Enigmas in early game. The stat boosts are cool early on but they cease to be effective once you hit the 70s or so…
I may have spent a few years forgetting to investigate what Trade Secrets actually did. Last week I clicked my giant pile of them and finished the last 10 Watchful levels. So that was cool!
This is not an argument about game balance of the sort that people on the forums seem to be getting exercised about recently, but:
I have often wondered why the other options for using Trade Secrets besides selling them or converting them are so poor. Removing half of one of your menaces? I can’t imagine that anyone who has the faintest idea of what they are doing in the game would choose to do that.
I’m prtty sure you can choose a menace reduction OR a trade secret. Trade secrets cost 4 professional perks while menace reduction costs two. It might be helpful for a player who is not on the forum/connected to anyone to reduce menaces like nightmares. The main reduction for nightmares is social actions and for anyone who has just found themselves with the menaces rising for the first time and no friends to help reduce them might panic and do that.
Converting the Trade Secret gives you 125 echoes worth of items, with which you can buy 125 bottles of Laudanum. Much more effective against Nightmares than using the Professional Perks directly.
I agree with A B Niles - anyone who uses Professional Perks instead of getting a Trade Secret and/or sells Trade Secrets instead of converting them probably doesn’t know what they are doing.
To the OP: yes, if you’re truly dedicated to a grind that raw echoes won’t help with. for instance, if i had an alt that was already self-sustaining from natural EPA and profession payouts, or even the 60 echoes of a trade secret, you could do well to save an extra 10 actions to grinding whatever it is. for instance, 7.5 echoes in proscribed materials is roughly 3 action’s worth, so if you’re hoarding them, you don’t need or want echoes as part of your grind. if you’re truly obsessed. almost no one is that bad, but if you are, then turning it into trade secret is 59.48 proscribe material, above average, and so worth doing, but upgrading is only 7.4 proscribed material per action. edited by Grenem on 1/28/2016
Note: Using F.F. Gebrandt’s Superior Laudanum will cause your character to become addicted to the stuff (and increase Wounds slightly), and become less effective when your Indulging a Less than Laudable Laudanum Habit reaches 3, and again at 5, becoming ineffective at 8. When you have that ‘habit’, you’ll begin to draw a red-bordered Opportunity Card which reduces the Quality. (I tend to hold onto it until I run out of actions, and then use the thing afterwards.)
You can also purchase F.F. Gebrandt’s Tincture of Vigor, which will reduce Wounds. [spoiler] If you don’t have the means to reduce Wounds via social actions or spare action points to Spend a day in bed at your lodgings, the tincture of vigor is a solid alternative.
Finally, there is Nikolas & Sons Instant Ablution Absolution, which works on Suspicion (and to a lesser extent, Scandal.)
However, it becomes ineffective if your A Criminal Record Quality becomes too high.
(Your criminal record increases when your Suspicion reaches 8, unless you choose the option which requires Connected: The Masters of the Bazaar 5. Selecting that option consumes that amount of the connection, but resets your Suspicion rather than sending you to New Newgate Prison.)[/spoiler]
I mainly meant to start writing that to warn that Laudanum increases Wounds slightly, but decided to mention the other two items as well. (I may have gotten carried away. Sorry! :3 )
. edited by Kittenpox on 1/28/2016
You’ll only need to worry about the Laudanum habit after you’re a POSI, though, so for early players it’s a great item to tide you over until you unlock better methods of reducing Nightmares.
Ironically, as a new player I was unaware that only PoSI could get a laudanum addiction, so I avoided the stuff like the plague. There are a lot of other nightmare-reducing options, though, so I have rarely had to call on a friend to talk me down.
Well… Darn. I was really hoping that there was an over 7.5 epa grind out there. Oh well. And can’t you still take the non-PoSI option if you are a PoSI?
Well, technically there’s a 312.5 epa grind - buying Ray-Drenched Cinders before entering the Cave of the Nadir. But it means no Nadir access and 50 Fate each time, though with a bonus Home Comfort.
Well, technically there’s a 312.5 epa grind - buying Ray-Drenched Cinders before entering the Cave of the Nadir. But it means no Nadir access and 50 Fate each time, though with a bonus Home Comfort.[/quote]
Well, if you can get back a certain sellable item (for PoSI) without Fate, there is a way requiring a fate Locked story that pays hundreds of Echoes for one turn. But I don’t feel comfortable detailing specifics outside the fate-Locked thread currently.[/quote]
Still not a great grind though. Card-dependency and under 1.5 epa makes it okay but nothing special. Plus if the goal was gaining the highest value in an independent turn, repeatedly resetting ambition and progressing far enough in HD for a certain Location would be pretty dang good :P