My main path is echo to scrip conversion. Licentiate skeletons + Brass skull, 4 actions for 155 scrip.
I’m not sure the echo to scrip path makes much sense for those of us without a load of echoes already saved up, though. I basically spent all my liquid wealth on cider at the end of last year, so now I’m trying to focus my income as directly into scrip as I can.
My strategy is exactly opposite. I am flipping my cards, playing every good one, visiting Tiger’s Court 1-2 times per week, trading in Rat and Bone markets if there is any profit, diving into Nadir, etc. Echo to scrip conversion is my default grind, throwing actions here only when nothing better is available. Before Hellworm I was at ~140k Echos. 340k scrip later I am with 94k Echos. I still have all resources in reasonable amount, all T7-8 and other rare things. Of course it’s not the fastest way, but it keeps me sane and entertained.
If you’re not interested in maximizing the bone market, one of the top-tier grinds is going on Moulin expeditions and using the resulting materials to create exceptional Monographs for the Diabolical Propagandist. All the payout from that is sellable for scrip, and if you want echoes rather than scrip it’s just a matter of buying ham.
I have loads of tribute and favors that built up during bird week that I have to process, but after that, and after I’ve been to the Hurlers to sell a bunch of diamonds, I believe I’ll have scrip to buy a Worm.
I underestimated my profits and am actually 5000 scrip short of buying a Worm, even after I spend a day or so just selling diamonds at the Hurlers. Once I have some actions to spare, after I do all my weekly things and build four 1.96-exhaustion menace skeletons, I’ll be making monographs for the Diabolical Propagandist.
My condolences, it’s frustrating to get so close to the finish line and find yourself still short. After I crashed the Bone Market for two years, I went on a fire sale and even sold my Misplaced Ring because I didn’t want to drag on the waiting.
Do you have a name picked out?
Hm, the Misplaced Ring is no longer Best in Slot for any stat, even among just items that I own. I could sacrifice that. And Tentacle Mitts wouldn’t be necessary if I finished the Watchful Gains storyline. (My Khanate outfit would need to make up the extra point of Bizarre by swapping Übergoat for the Winged Creature of Considerable Speed; it’s the only slot where I’m not already using my BiS bizarre item).
Well, this is a decision that can be postponed at least one more day. I have another load of Tribute to bring to the Tigers among other things to do tomorrow, and a whole lot of diamonds to be sold at the Hurlers besides.
I hadn’t thought of a name until your thread prompted me for one. I’m thinking Wurmcoil, to be upgraded to Wurmcoil Engine once I have a saddle.
Just to get some vague idea of relative efficiency, what do you guys figure your “scrip per action” at? The math is very rough and messy but I think my method of trading rat market diamonds for scrip probably clocks in at something around 8.5 SPA for completed conversions, give or take. And that’s from scratch, no conversion of existing resources or echoes, so if you’re doing that then I guess you’d have to add actions based on the EPA value you’re using to feed the process. How does this number stack up?
I’ve never seen the math, but Moulin Expeditions & Monographs together are supposedly in the 8-9 SPA range with high Mithridacy.
What’s your approach for acquiring Rat Market materials? If you’re targeting the top-shelf items, I feel like 8.5 SPA is a bit lower than I would expecting. Sounders take 77 actions in the Khanate, which should get you over 10 SPA. Parables via Parabolan Warfare is commonly believed to be around 90 (8.9 SP), although I suspect it’s actually closer to 65 (12+ SPA). My best estimate for Ivory Organza is 9.3 SPA, although it involves even more time in the Khanate.
I don’t think my personal scrip per action is a useful number, because such a large fraction of my scrip came from Bright Brass Skulls. A non-Licentiate could acquire a headless skeleton, put a skull on it, and sell it in 5 actions. Throw in another action for grinding one skull’s worth of brass in the Sunken Embassy. That’s 25 scrip per action if you don’t count the actions of acquiring the echoes to buy the skulls. Which I don’t, because those actions happened months before anyone had ever heard of a Miniature Hellworm.
I’ve significantly delayed my purchase of a Heptagoat, but really, who wants a Heptagoat?
[quote=PSGarak]What’s your approach for acquiring Rat Market materials? If you’re targeting the top-shelf items, I feel like 8.5 SPA is a bit lower than I would expecting. Sounders take 77 actions in the Khanate, which should get you over 10 SPA. Parables via Parabolan Warfare is commonly believed to be around 90 (8.9 SP), although I suspect it’s actually closer to 65 (12+ SPA). My best estimate for Ivory Organza is 9.3 SPA, although it involves even more time in the Khanate.[/quote]This seems to largely come down to what you include and how you value things. Of course each item has a different grind and some of them are pretty hard to figure, so I just took the simplest one as a benchmark, namely parables via embassy. That’s 91 actions to get a parable, 1 to sell it, then after buying a diamond for no action, 1 more action to finally sell that diamond, for a total of 93 actions, which at 800 scrip gives about 8.6 SPA.
There’s a bit of extra action to account for with regard to having to sell more diamonds than you hand in parables and traveling to Hurlers, though that’s arguably offset by the loose change you pick up in brass, kisses and rumours. So anyway, lazy as I am I just pegged it at ~8.5 and called it a day there. I haven’t tracked averages on how long it takes me to get hoards from the lab, but I feel like it’s roughly in the same ballpark. I’m sure I could be doing more to streamline my process there, but I still haven’t quite gotten to grips with the new lab system, especially after they changed it again.
So looking at the numbers you give, eg the sounder action count doesn’t include the cost in cablegrams. And of course even with that factored in you can only get them that fast if you stay in the Khanate indefinitely, which has a large associated opportunity cost that’s hard to assign a value to. Same with grinding in parabola for war or casing for organza thefts. And if you don’t stay fixed there, then you need to include the cost of travel between locations. The numbers get very messy very fast, but at any rate I expect those SPA rates should probably be adjusted down a bit to account for all this. So in summation, given the relatively minor differences, my takeaway is that the numbers seem more or less in line as far as that goes.
[quote=PJ]I don’t think my personal scrip per action is a useful number, because such a large fraction of my scrip came from Bright Brass Skulls. A non-Licentiate could acquire a headless skeleton, put a skull on it, and sell it in 5 actions. Throw in another action for grinding one skull’s worth of brass in the Sunken Embassy. That’s 25 scrip per action if you don’t count the actions of acquiring the echoes to buy the skulls. Which I don’t, because those actions happened months before anyone had ever heard of a Miniature Hellworm.[/quote]Well, maybe for you it’s not a useful number. But the upshot is that your input on worm grinding isn’t really much use to anyone who isn’t converting a large stock of echoes/echo-sellables to scrip, because the conversion rate on its own is a meaningless figure then, and no good for any comparison between methods.
Cablegrams are a rounding error: 15 actions for 50 cablegrams (and items worth 75 scrip). But the travel overhead is substantial, and I also wouldn’t want to be away from London (or the Upper River) for as long as it would take to get that done. I swing by every week for my Agent, but despite liking the place I just can’t justify extending my stay and being away from London for too long.
If you get Backstory for Organza from the Sunken Embassy instead of the Khanate, then it’s also about 90 actions each, splitting your time about 5:2:1 between London, the Upper River, and Parabola, respectively. So very similar to what you’re doing already. I am told Hoards usually run around 85 actions, but I also haven’t tracked that diligently.
Parabolan Warfare may still be a big gain for you. Parabola is never more than 1.5 actions away (including Honey cost), and Warfare brings you back to London anyways once per cycle. An extra few actions to swing by and check your deck once or twice per campaign would still be a significant improvement over grinding via Embassy. Perhaps 70 actions per Parable, probably less. The key is that Airs actions are worth playing, even at the risk of accruing Ravages.
Hmm, thanks for the tip. I haven’t unfurled my banners in a while, but sounds like it might be worth investigating. So airs actions = good, anything else to know about the new campaign meta? Is it otherwise still just morale?
I don’t think even that is enough to justify the trip. I only bother making the journey if I can also sell the Diplomat a Brass bird, since each skull and the 7-neck frame itself are worth a Crackling Device of khan-coins. And I combine it with my trip to the Court of the Wakeful Eye, which saves a couple legs compared to going to the Court and the Khanate separately.
Yeah, I usually swing by the Khanate whenever I make a tribute delivery, hit the weekly bile report and grind out a sounder or two.
Have any other Worm-owners looked into the efficiency of grinding out Tasting Flights through Milkings? …That’s a sentence I never thought I’d write, but here we are. It’s doesn’t take long before you have enough Discriminating Aconite (through a single Distillation of Retribution), and Holy Ointment (through a few Salves of Righteousness).
By the time you have those, you can gain enough Emetic Revelations through weekly Khanate payouts (supplemented by other sources, if needed). That leaves Peppercaps which can be gained over time through the Disillusioned Fungiculturalist card that you’ll be drawing while looking for the Worm card, and the Venom-Rubies, which are the biggest action sink (absolute minimum of 100 actions using Factory VIII).
It’s only semi-long term, but you’ll end up with most of the supplies eventually anyway.
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edited by idyl on 1/22/2022
Why would you want to grind tasting-flights, though? I don’t really see why you’d get much more than one or two.
[quote=Tsar Koschei]Why would you want to grind tasting-flights, though?[/quote]They sell for 1562.5 Echoes, which if done optimally is something like 8 EPA.
Am I guessing right that the purpose of this is to find something to do with your Distillations & Salves, which otherwise cannot be sold?
I haven’t had the opportunity yet, I’ve had Rocinante less than a week at this point. But a Tasting Flight sells for Echoes, not Scrip. I’m guessing that TLUville will add some new facets to the Upper River economy. I’m hesitant to liquidate anything that currently seems under-utilized.