Lab Revamp

Fallen London
41

[quote=Scona]So, first impressions:

  • on the plus side, I like the new cards & icons, and also the atmosphere (although this might wear off quickly

  • what I dislike are a few mechanical aspects:

  • having to switch outfits too often
  • even for an endgame player the projects seem to take significantly longer. Considering that the labs were already nerfed before to a ~4EpA range, this makes the lab grinds rather unattractive for grinding items/echos
    edited by Scona on 10/22/2021[/quote]

I don’t think lab grinds are as viable as before now, they’re just done to raise certain traits e.g. Kataleptic Toxicology and upgrade your Laboratory along the way. For that amount of actions I’d rather go for an expedition.

42

[quote=Frenzgyn]You are getting the issue totally wrong.

Correspondent profession can only be unlocked with 10 SotC, so pumping to 10 is not the issue.

The HUGE nerf is that before, after becoming a Correspondent, you got a one-time per lab experiment card that gave you a very nice bonus (for my alt was 34 at the time) if it was the first card played, now you get a non-discardable card that at the same level give 6 research, LESS than pretty all the other card in the lab.

Basically where there was a sweet bonus card now there is a malus, with a very undesiderable card unless equipment is fully upgraded and/or SotC pumped.

Not that I am not planning on upgrade labs and so on, BUT meanwhile, I am forced to stick with a malus.

If this is not a huge nerf, I can’t say what’s a nerf.[/quote]I at least had no misunderstanding about any of that. I was speaking of increasing scholar from 10 to 21. I continue to maintain that it’s not a very big deal, a job for a handful of weeks max if you want to do it ASAP, and that’s if you’re not very efficient. You can follow my advice on that score or disregard it, it’s all the same to me. Upgrading lab equipment to max ASAP is also just good sense.

And when you finish all that, you get one of the most powerful lab cards available.

43

Well, on the whole I’d say I like it, probably? The variety of cards and roundabout ways to progress makes this a lot more interesting, and it’s a relief to not have to constantly discard cards, not to mention I’m thrilled to have gotten an unexpected new KT item. But otoh, it is a lot of outfit-switching, enough that it gets to feel like kind of a pain when you’re doing a long experiment, and I don’t know whether it actually is the case if you do the math, but I feel like I’m making much slower progress than I used to (on a maxed-stat char with fate-upgraded lab). But I think the good outweighs the bad in that this feels more like fun now.
edited by enail on 10/22/2021

44

I don’t have a whole lot of experience to back this up, but my guess is that projects around 500ish research fall into a &quotbitter spot&quot with the new mechanics. Small projects below 200 research have a different deck, and they can just push through the project in a few actions and complete it. Some variation in action cost based on draws and resources, but the cards make an enjoyable mini-game.

Large projects get a bunch of extra one-shot and set-up cards, which are worth the overhead for longer (1000+) projects. But kind of a drag on shorter projects. When I’m doing these new Old City projects (2700 research), I feel like I have around 400 research by the time I’m done setting up, which doesn’t bode well for a 450-research project like Attar. And there’s a lot of resource juggling with Unlikely Connections and stockpiling Unwise Ideas. I think the resource juggling is fun, but it’s only efficient if you can amortize it over a large stockpile, and be confident that you’ll likely draw the right card in the last 10-20% of your project. It’s a lot easier to do both of those when the project is 6x as long.

45

Yeah, that’s very much in line with the observations I made earlier in the thread, which were based on doing attar. The randomness and setup requirements of the mechanics are wildly disruptive with that project length.

46

I play Fallen London for the story, but I like the little areas like Flash Lays, Heists, the new Zee System or the Expeditions that make you stratagize. The Lab has become that rather than an annoying series of discards until I get the card I want. So I am very pleased. I hated long research jobs, but at least at the moment I am enjoying banking and prepping to try to get the right combinations of traits. I expect this will have me enjoying the lab a lot more, not less. Short jobs seem about the same time just a bit more fun. Preparations seem more valuable to lower stat characters than higher, but that means hopefully making it less frustrating for more players. Overall I am pleased.

47

I think the lab is more fun now. I hope they’ve balanced it so that it’s also decently profitable; I can’t tell yet. I’d enjoy it if it was, though.

48

I believe I’ve seen someone mentioning that the Fate-locked space expansion now provides a new nice card. Can anyone share details on that?..

49

If you have a full lab, you get a juicy card that gives quite a lot of research and refreshes your supplies. It’s also quite funny.

50

I miss my Correspondent bonus booster. I love my new lab coat.

51

Thanks.

The lab coat is great. It also provides a hefty remuneration, as one can immediately sell the hundred-pocket garb.

52

Question about how this is supposed to work, or how it’s working for other people. In generally I really love all the work that went into the new laboratory mechanics, and I don’t aggressively min-max this game, so this is probably on me, but: I’m researching a &quotpreserved false-snake.&quot This is the first time I’ve encountered a scenario like this (though I think this is also what PSGarak is describing?)

I currently have 2679/1500 Laboratory Research, 72/50 Parabolan Research, and 18/150 Amphibian Research. Unless I’m missing something, the Amphibian Research comes only from a card, which allows me to grind up a Reprehensible Lizard into the knowledge of frogs™. It would technically allow me to study other animals, too, but I don’t have those and they mostly seem to be fate- or event-based items. The animals change based on the Airs of London (I can always sacrifice those poor lizards).

From a logical and thematic point of view, it seems kind of weird to me that, in conducting Amphibian Research, I would only rarely—and randomly—remember to look at an actual animal. It seems like this would be a logical place for &quotUnlikely Connections&quot to allow my researchers to conclude new and fascinating things about frogs. …I don’t even know what they’re doing on an amphibian research project if it isn’t Amphibian Research, come to think of it. I guess just heating things up in beakers to see if they make pretty colors.

From a gameplay point of view, this means drawing until I get the Search your Terraria card, then leaving my laboratory and playing other actions to change the Airs of London until they’re in the range where the Viric Lizard can be studied (which generates 25 points, and doesn’t sacrifice the lizard), then returning to the lab to study it.

So from a narrative point of view, I guess the story is I putter about in the lab, researching reptiles and amphibians, until the sudden thought occurs to me to look at my reptiles and/or amphibians. And then, having had that thought, I immediately leave to go take care of unfinished business on Ladybones Road until I’m struck by the realization that I shouldn’t just look at any old reptile, I should specifically study my viric lizard. And then I return to my lab to do so, before promptly getting distracted again, generating 20 volumes of collated, unrelated research by the time I’m done.

As someone with ADHD… okay, that tracks. But is this intended behavior?
edited by cmcleary on 10/23/2021

53

Oh yeah, that’s really quite a big issue that sounds like it must have been overlooked in the redesign. Many new cards in the deck plus no cards discardable anymore means big trouble for projects with a special requirement dependent on drawing one project-specific card. Clearly this needs to be compensated for somehow, eg by raising the card’s frequency, but based on the experience you describe it seems like they didn’t think to do that. Have you checked the frequency of the card?

54

Personally I enjoy how my SoTC quality is actually connected to me being a correspondent now, and with 21 SoTC the card is significantly more useful than the small bonus you’d get previously, I do see how it’d be a problem for newer players though, not from the perspective of expenses but the watchful requirement to raise SoTC to 21

55

[quote=Sandy ]So from a narrative point of view, I guess the story is I putter about in the lab, researching reptiles and amphibians, until the sudden thought occurs to me to look at my reptiles and/or amphibians. And then, having had that thought, I immediately leave to go take care of unfinished business on Ladybones Road until I’m struck by the realization that I shouldn’t just look at any old reptile, I should specifically study my viric lizard. And then I return to my lab to do so, before promptly getting distracted again, generating 20 volumes of collated, unrelated research by the time I’m done.

As someone with ADHD… okay, that tracks. But is this intended behavior?[/quote]

LOL, that was very funny. But also a problem I hope they fix. I have just completed Avian studies and hope to do all the animals when I can. (Not ready yet though.)

I would welcome the extra collated research, though: I do not have premises at the bazaar!

56

Yeah, that sounds like something to email support about. Seems like an overlooked situation.

57

I wonder why April supervising Profound Student generates an Epiphany in addition to research, while Cora supervising a Visionary only provides research. Looks like an omission, to be honest.

58

I didn’t check the frequency. Looking at it now, though, the Pinewood Shark dissection is the same way (beginning the extended research tells you that it requires Parabolan Research, but not &quotPiscine Research,&quot and 400 (!) of it at that. Piscine Research comes through a standard-frequency card (white-bordered) and turns a Cheerful Goldfish into something significantly less cheerful but also 2 (!!) Piscine Research. I gave that one up rather than turning my koi pond into chum.

(But if the consensus is this probably isn’t intended, yep, I’ll go ahead and email support!)

59

I missed my correspondent booster too even though I had SotC at 15. I didn’t lose that much and I knew I would gain overall during longer projects under the new system. But that initial bump was useful for shorter projects, when you can’t be sure of drawing a correspondent card.

I therefore took on board the point made above that Hallowmas was a good time to max SotC, since it’s so easy to get rid of wounds, and decided to go for it.

It took me about five days to get from 15 to 21, in line with the rough estimates given earlier. I was well resourced, though I had to do a lot of item conversion into plaques, implications and screams. I mention this because using up those actions during Hallowmas means you can’t build up as much spirit. I lowered my target to 1,500 spirit as a result, though I might still hit 2,000. I felt it was worth the trade-off to make use of the wounds reduction.

In terms of resource conversion, I did it mainly via journals of infamy as suggested above. It helped marginally that you can get 1-2 journals via the ‘gain entry to the galley’ option (with presbyterate passphrases) on St Elmo right now. But mainly I side-converted, and upgraded lots of hints and clues. If you have already stockpiled some emetic revelations as I had, they are a good source of clues, and fairly easy to replenish for a regular visitor to the Khanate like me.

Another consideration, if people with low SotC are pondering whether to grind it during Hallowmas, is that if you are developing a railway then 15 is needed in one of the challenges in the late stages. That’s why I’d got mine to 15 a while ago.

Hope some or any of that helps.