After my wedding i actually find myself with no "huge" objective (yes, yes, there’s the goat. But Edlaine and hell are not so nice one to the other).[li]
So, i decided to grind the stuff needed in order to get a Parabola - Base - Camp.
I need the following stuff:
Impossible theorem:
You need Searing Enigmas for this fellow. I would exclude the machine in the university (which has a really horrible echo / action output) and i would concentrate myself on:
Success at hunter’s Keep
Some Enigma from the Nadir
The Fidgeting’s Writer.
Dreams "Is someone there"?
For these ones, Nephrite lenses are a must, plus taking every possible dream card. Is there any other option?
Direful Reflections:
In the nadir, but you should sacrifice "Is someone there?". THis is not good.
It seems like you can go in Rubberyland and take them from a certain Rubberpuppy (exchangin’ Extraordinary implications.)
I’ll try tomorrow. (Plus, you can make money with the rubberpuppy)
The real dilemma, at least for me, are…
Memories of Light:
You need a good amount of these ones.
Grinding beewax in unfinished business and converting it up only gives you less than 1 echo of memories / actions, with no side effect (as far as i know). SUBPAR
On the other side, taking compromising documents with the box gives you: 1.25 echo documents / action, plus 6 plaques per grind (14 actions). Every 25 echoes of documents, you need one action to convert them 50:51 into memories of light.
This means : each 20+1 actions you gain 25.5 echoes of memories - plus something like 4.3 echo of plaques.
The third option i see is to grind cryptic clues and horror stories in Hunter’s Keep. It may seem less remunerative than above, but it has the following advantages:
The exceptional success at the end of the queue may give an Enigma.
Extraordinary implications are given at the end of the queue (which you can use to take Reflections)
If you hoard the Tales of terror and convert them all in the same time, you will gain a sizeable amount of Making Waves.
If you’re a little bit insane, you can make extra - Seal money each time you go to sea. It’s dangerous, but i think that with the actual prizes it is worthful to try.
On the other side,
- You need to go to sea, and come back once every (around) two weeks to keep your notability (if one is concerned with such things). I have a Zee clipper, but it is usually 20-30 actions each travel.
- No cards! (London's Card are pretty nice)
- Conversion from Cryptic Clues to Tales of Terrors gives you 0.85 echo / actions (it is a little bit less that 6 actions for 105 tales). Plus, you need two actions at 0.50 each to convert Tales to Memories.
I am actually a little bit undecided whether the best approach is the Box or the Sisters.
I’d start grinding for the Base Camp myself if there wasn’t this uncertainty about when it might become available and, when it does, if the requirements would still be the same. Is Someone There 99 sounds like a joke to me, but…what’s the highest dream quality anyone’s reached, anyway?
My suspicion? A decision near the conclusion of Is Someone There? will raise the quality to 99, as a flag. You will be unable to raise it that high normally.
[quote=Andrea Serafini]Memories of Light:
[li]
You need a good amount of these ones.
Grinding beewax in unfinished business and converting it up only gives you less than 1 echo of memories / actions, with no side effect (as far as i know). SUBPAR
On the other side, taking compromising documents with the box gives you: 1.25 echo documents / action, plus 6 plaques per grind (14 actions). Every 25 echoes of documents, you need one action to convert them 50:51 into memories of light.
This means : each 20+1 actions you gain 25.5 echoes of memories - plus something like 4.3 echo of plaques.
The third option i see is to grind cryptic clues and horror stories in Hunter’s Keep. It may seem less remunerative than above, but it has the following advantages:
The exceptional success at the end of the queue may give an Enigma.
Extraordinary implications are given at the end of the queue (which you can use to take Reflections)
If you hoard the Tales of terror and convert them all in the same time, you will gain a sizeable amount of Making Waves.
If you’re a little bit insane, you can make extra - Seal money each time you go to sea. It’s dangerous, but i think that with the actual prizes it is worthful to try.
On the other side,
- You need to go to sea, and come back once every (around) two weeks to keep your notability (if one is concerned with such things). I have a Zee clipper, but it is usually 20-30 actions each travel.
- No cards! (London's Card are pretty nice)
- Conversion from Cryptic Clues to Tales of Terrors gives you 0.85 echo / actions (it is a little bit less that 6 actions for 105 tales). Plus, you need two actions at 0.50 each to convert Tales to Memories.[/quote]
[/li][li]1001 Memories of Light aren’t all that much. If you compare them to rest of the requirements, they’re actually by far the easiest one. So putting that much thought into it and worrying about Echoes per Action seems somewhat unnecessary to me. Even if you just grind Beeswax and convert upward you’d be done in less than a week (But if you happen to be worried about Advancing the Liberation this option might not appeal to you either way).[/li][li]I’d say the best option is probably the Affair of the Box. At Hunter’s Keep you could tackle multiple objectives, but you’d be finished with this grind pretty quickly and the Enigma droprate isn’t that good anymore.[/li]
I have seen several folks now discussing this Basecamp, but it’s not something I have come across. Where might one find details of such things, gentlefolk?
Setting up a Parabolan Base-Camp is something you can only see, and probably eventually do, if you are a Glassman. The option appears in the Honey Dens in Veilgarden.
When I first saw the prerequisites I thought they were some kind of placeholder, like an extra Impossible! and not the actual/eventual ones. 99 dream levels is like 4950 CP.
I managed to get 1001 Memories of Light very quickly through the Affair of the Box, which was pretty painless (and I also hate the idea of advancing the Liberation of Night!). Although I have used a few Nephrite Lenses, I agree that the 99 is probably a placeholder - it wouldn’t make for a very satisfying dream narrative if we just had to keep grinding lenses.
Direful Reflections and the Impossible Equation are both difficult, especially since they rely on luck. It might have been ineffecient, but I just stole Tales of Terror!! and Journals of Infamy from the Flit and converted them upwards (with a bit of making waves to boot!).
But for me, the most interesting question is not “How?” but “Why?”. Why should we bring honey dreamers with us into Parabola? Is it for an (ill-advised) expedition against its inhabitants? An allegiance? (A sacrifice?) Or just to explore? It would be wonderful to bring my old Circle of Acolytes across the mirrors!
[quote=empirimancer]99 dream levels is like 4950 CP.[/quote]Pish-posh! It’s only 3725 CPs. No trouble at all! ;)
An interesting idea that those 99 levels might change or be reached through other means than grinding. Because grinding seems to be what a lot of the content is about. But I suppose that 3700 CPs, even with Nephrite Lenses, might be pushing it. edited by Gillsing on 3/19/2014
I wouldn’t count on it. The writer responsible for the dream storylines appears to have left Failbetter, and they’ve been pretty inert for a while. This could be a sign they’re reviving the dreams or taking them in a different direction though, who knows?
I’d really love a conclusion to some of those dream storylines. Even a non-conclusion that’s at least some sort of pinnacle. I suppose Mind of a Dead God could be considered something of that.