Need Advice Getting 5-Card Lodgings

Fallen London
#1

Im finally in a position where I think I can get both five card lodgings. I have sufficient notability and pails/PtPT, but the issue is getting the actual four-card lodgings first. I am a PoSI with decently high stats, a Gang of Hoodlums, all that comes along with having been a PoSI for a few months now.

I assume gettings 50 Permits/50 Mysteries is easier than the respective 80k Whispered Secrets and 40k drops of Honey. Right now I have 36 permits and 9 Mysteries (and am a Correspondent, so I get an additional 4 every Monday when Time comes a’Healing). Ive been told that stealing things in the Flit is the best way to get both of these items, but my Shadowy is only high enough to get an 80% chance to succeed on the thieving action itself (getting the casing is straightforward), and failing that action costs a net 5-10 more actions than success would have. Is there a more efficient way of going about this? I think the Wicket closes in late January, so I have about 2.5/3 weeks. Any input/suggestions are appreciated. Thanks all :)

#2

Well, first question would be what sort of stock you have in convertable items, but I’m assuming that any excess has already been converted into what you need.

I wasn’t in a time crunch myself when I got both those 4-card, so I don’t think any alternatives from my own experience would be helpful. One source of Mysteries I took advantage of was using the Trade Secret option (which is painfully slow, true, but if you’ve already been building up Professional Perks, it’s a nice bonus that might help). As for the rest, I mostly got it through conversions and War of Assassins, which is not quite as efficient, unless your stats for the latter make for completely straightforward challenges.

#3

80% seems like quite good odds, in my opinion. In 2.5/3 weeks, 14 Permits hardly seems like impossible. I’m hardly close to your level, but I suppose if you want to be more efficient, you could use second chances to ensure success on the heist so that you don’t have to do more casing than necessary.

Some calculations, for estimation’s sake, assuming you already have enough casing to attempt, and only need to accumulate it after you use it:
18Casing/5Actions = 3.6 Casing/Action. At 32Casing/Permit on success, this is 8.88 Actions/Permit. No strings attached, unless you count the few actions, Making Waves, and Society Connections you might spend accumulating Hastily Scrawled Warning Notes to ensure a success.

Doesn’t get much better than that, in my opinion. Even if you only checked FallenLondon twice a day, that’d be 4 Permits each day, with energy to spare for Opp Deck cards. I’m probably messing up the calculations somewhere here, but I’m sure you can probably get the Permits pretty fast.

The Antique Mysteries might be a bit harder. Again, though, with the same Action/Item conversion as the Bazaar Permits, there’s no other reliable source that gives em to you that good. If you have a Trade Secret or are close to one, I guess you could trade in 10 Actions and the Secret for 5 Antique Mysteries, which offers a smooth 2/1 Action/Item conversion, but requires that you have the secret already. Hopefully you’re close on that front?

Either ways, when all is said and done, you need 41 Mysteries + 14 Permits = 45 Items*8.889 Actions/Item = about 400 Actions. Assuming you check FL twice a day without Exceptional Friend and get 40 actions a day overall, you could have it all neatly tied up in about two weeks, give or take Opp Cards and whatnot. With Exceptional Friend, halving this time is not unrealistic, and if you check more often than 3 or 6 hours at a time, during a day, this grows a little more efficient.

Sorry for the long ramble; I kind of like math sometimes, I guess.

TL;DR: You got the best way to obtain Permits and Mysteries is stealing them in the Flit, barring converting Trade Secrets. If you steal diligently and use Second Chances as needed, you’ll have it done with time to spare before the Wicket closes.

#4

Yeah, you’re pretty set. I went from 0 - 50 in five days with only a 90% chance at success, you should be able to get 14 easily.

#5

Five-finger discount is the way to go.

#6

I side-converted things into whichever resource I needed and then converted them up to Bazaar Permits and Antique Mysteries. It’s about as fast as Thefts of Particular Character, unless you already have the resources to convert, in which case it is a lot faster.

#7

You know there are three such lodgings, right?
Sanctum at the Embassy, Suite at the Beth, Spire at the Bazaar.

Of these, I prefer the Bazaar, as it has a fairly effortless money and scrap-making option-- possibly the best single turn for grinding straight cash and scraps in the game.

#8

i found that directly grinding for the high-end items is faster than conversions UNLESS you have thousands of the resources to mass convert. conversion is also more profitable, especially if you’re lucky with the rare successes.

btw, i find it weird that the devil’s lodging is potentially more expensive than the hotel suite and the bazaar lodging. the alternative way of buying the Brass Embassy Guest Room requires a very high connected to devils quality, and possibly many turn flipping card to get intimate with the devils. is living next door to devils really that prestigious or attractive?
edited by rebelanarch-82 on 1/9/2015

#9

Thanks for the replies everyone! It seems like I overestimated the difficulty of this task, a little. It turns out I forgot about some cross conversions (like Correspondence Plaques>Vision of the Surface).

@Rackenhammer and Marcus: I had COMPLETELY forgotten about Trade Secrets! I actually have four stashed away, just as a thing to hoard because I thought they might come in handy, and they did! Thanks for reminding me about them.

@Humblest: Yeah I knew about the Sanctum at the Embassy, but I never wanted that one, so I just ruled it out in my brain. Sorry that was super unclear.

I just now got the Bazaar Lease, so I can probably get both lodgings faster than I thought. The items guide on the wiki was also super helpful. Thanks again everyone :)

#10

So I’m a relatively new POSI, and I’ve been stealin’ my way to bazaar permits to get the four card lodging to upgrade. It took me a day or so to get my Hoodlums, and I can steal about 8-10 permits a day with my 75% chance on hoodlum business to case and 62% chance for theft. Not perfect, but not bad.

Here’s the thing: I still need a few points of Making Waves to get my third point of Notability. I know side conversions grant MW, and I have a metric ton of Cryptic Clues (which I know are very disposable) so would it be worth it to Cryptic Clues -> Appalling Secrets -> Journal of Infamy -> Correspondence Plaques -> Visions of the Surface -> Romantic Notions -> Bazaar Permits? It’s a LOT of extra steps, but it seems like it might be worth it for the MW.

#11

Personally I would mass convert Cryptic Clues to Tales of Terror and convert those to Extraordinary Implications. The results can be variable but I think the range of MW you can get is better than side conversions (edit partly because once you start converting Tales every action gives MW). You do need to have connected Summerset and Benthic and might get some nightmares so if either of those is a worry I would try other methods.
edited by reveurciel on 1/10/2015

#12

[quote=CulturalGeek]So I’m a relatively new POSI, and I’ve been stealin’ my way to bazaar permits to get the four card lodging to upgrade. It took me a day or so to get my Hoodlums, and I can steal about 8-10 permits a day with my 75% chance on hoodlum business to case and 62% chance for theft. Not perfect, but not bad.

Here’s the thing: I still need a few points of Making Waves to get my third point of Notability. I know side conversions grant MW, and I have a metric ton of Cryptic Clues (which I know are very disposable) so would it be worth it to Cryptic Clues -> Appalling Secrets -> Journal of Infamy -> Correspondence Plaques -> Visions of the Surface -> Romantic Notions -> Bazaar Permits? It’s a LOT of extra steps, but it seems like it might be worth it for the MW.[/quote]

you could search the topics for &quotA Humbly Incomplete Guide To Notability/Making Waves&quot.

my preferred method is something like this, saved in a text file…

[quote=] it’s worth converting Memories Of Distant Shores to Souls Then Tales… eventually ending up with Favours In High Places(the final conversion gives a fairly high amt. of MWs) like this:

1879 Wine -> Honey -> Notions -> Visions Of T.S. -> Mysteries Of E.C. -> Incendiary Gossip -> Memories Of D.S. -> Brilliant Souls->
Tale Of T. -> Compromising Docs -> Stolen Kisses -> Favours In H.P.

however i imagine some people might hesitate converting Tales Of Terror to Compromising Docs, since the Fidgeting Writer story can be very profitable, and also a decent source of Brass Rings and Collated Research. i still have access the university, so in the long run, i can still grind lots of Cryptic’s to convert to Tales.

Also the final conversion from Stolen Kisses to Favours uses up a fair amount of Connected:The Great Game (20 CPs), so you might want to think twice about it.[/quote]

note: the 1879’s to Honey part means buying honey with the wine in Veilgarden, which gives a small amount of MWs, but is an inefficient way to buy honey.

#13

Er, I did, and got nothing.

#14

I can’t link to it because I’m on my PS Vita, but if you search Humbly it wil turn up.

#15

This is it, I think

#16

Yep, that’s the one!