I’m in the market for a ship. A very respectable ship.
I played a hand of Tiles and lost, despite passing both stat checks easily; passing the luck check looks to be potentially very expensive. I’m considering using Fate, but I don’t like to use Fate to bypass difficult tasks; I used it to get a Destiny I like and do occasionally spring for menace reduction or special storylets, but I’d rather win a card game on skill and perseverance.
I have 10 stakes; Favours in High Places come easily to me as a Midnighter, but my scarcest resource is Comprehensive Bribes. I tend to spend a lot of Romantic Notions on Mr Wines in order to keep my Hedonist quirk high, so I didn’t have a large reservoir of Romantic currency built up.
I should be set to play 5 hands, but am aware that the RNG could spit in my eye and cost me a lot. If you guys were setting out to beat that luck check, how many stakes would you come prepared to lose? I want to sit down at that table only one more time, if I can.
I think I brought enough stakes to gamble 10 times back when I did it. The RNG can still be especially awful, but that should generally be pretty safe.
I went in with enough to play five hands and won the second time. If you play five hands, you have a 77% chance of walking away with a yacht at some point, which felt safe enough to me. If you play 10 games, it’s more like a 91% chance.
(That’s based on the conservative estimate that the luck challenge is a 20% chance of success… it’s probably actually higher.)
I spent the Fate on it, myself. I didn’t like the idea of wiping out a day’s worth of Echoes when there were other stories to follow up on and grinds to begin.
Thank you, everybody. I agree with you, Jeremy, but I find myself doing many things that, while not purely profitable, make me happy. For example, my character covets First City Coins at a value far above their market price.
Likewise, he’s a career thief but explicitly an enemy of the Cheery Man, even though that closes certain options of interest, while opening little of interest other than an easier entry point into the Watcher’s career path. Finally, I don’t like to change my idea of his social caste, even though a remotely organized player’s net worth will tend to rise rapidly. He wouldn’t get a yacht through nepotism or delegation, but rather through shrewdness and grit. The hard road IS the road he would take.
Now, a Stiff Backed Young Lady cannot be met without Fate, so in such an instance I’m absolutely happy to pay up. But RP choices influence even my use of Fate.
Edit: I’ll get up to 15 stakes and hope for the best. edited by Gerald Edgerton on 10/15/2015 edited by Gerald Edgerton on 10/15/2015
[quote=Gerald Edgerton]Thank you, everybody. I agree with you, Jeremy, but I find myself doing many things that, while not purely profitable, make me happy. For example, my character covets First City Coins at a value far above their market price.
Likewise, he’s a career thief but explicitly an enemy of the Cheery Man, even though that closes certain options of interest, while opening little of interest other than an easier entry point into the Watcher’s career path. Finally, I don’t like to change my idea of his social caste, even though a remotely organized player’s net worth will tend to rise rapidly. He wouldn’t get a yacht through nepotism or delegation, but rather through shrewdness and grit. The hard road IS the road he would take.
Now, a Stiff Backed Young Lady cannot be met without Fate, so in such an instance I’m absolutely happy to pay up. But RP choices influence even my use of Fate.
Edit: I’ll get up to 15 stakes and hope for the best. edited by Gerald Edgerton on 10/15/2015 edited by Gerald Edgerton on 10/15/2015[/quote]
Quick calculation says that should give you a 96.5% chance of success, in case you didn’t know that already.
I found the Fidgetting Writer quite useful due to its on-the-side profitability, but in terms of comperhensive-bribes-per-action it’s probably a terrible idea
I found the Fidgetting Writer quite useful due to its on-the-side profitability, but in terms of comperhensive-bribes-per-action it’s probably a terrible idea[/quote]
I used "Unfinished Business in Veilgarden" to grind honey with the "Doing the decent thing." option. The honey can then be converted into the items necessary to purchase a Comprehensive Bribe in the Side-streets. This is a bit grindy but "Doing the decent thing" offers a rather high chance for a special success that gives Stolen Kisses, which is good since you will also need Favours in High Places for the Pleasure Yacht.
Also, what option isn’t grindy? =/
Alternatively, one could go to Polythreme, I suppose, but I am guessing that honey grinding is probably better in terms of actions. (Also since you have to pay quite a bit to go to Polythreme because you have no ship.)
Also, yes, sigh, the luck rolls tend to be horrid with this ship. It took me many weeks and about 5-7 failures, but when I finally got the yacht I found that it was, well, a very pleasurable experience. edited by Sestina Valdis on 10/18/2015 edited by Sestina Valdis on 10/18/2015
Sestina, I acquire Comprehensive Bribes precisely as you describe. Unfinished Business in Veilgarden is also helpful in locating the quantity of Amber I need for my stake. :)
Truthseeker, I acquire Favours in High Places precisely as you describe. It’s funny, my pay wasn’t that much lower as an Agent but having these Favours is a wonderful avoidance of a lot of grinding.
I’m still only at 11 Bribes (total, not in excess of the 5 required to sit down in Wolfstack Docks). I took a couple days off to eavesdrop in Spite, since for RP purposes I try to keep Shadowy above the rest of my stats, and acquiring huge quantities of wine (in order not to let the Portly Sommelier get away) as well as honey (for all these Bribes!) has drifted me rapidly in the direction of Persuasive/Watchfulness. Shadowy pays very well as a stat, but a lot of personal advancement options definitely lean more towards Persuasive. On the bright side, Glim and Secrets are nice to have on hand for serious expeditioners.
Glad to hear that my suggestions were helpful for the both of you! (Or at least affirmed what you were already up to, heh.)
Also, Gerard, if you’d like to keep Shadowy your highest for RP (I understand; my char has Persuasive highest for the same reason), there’s a Shadowy option in Mahogany Hall that pays a pretty good amount of Amber (I think 112 per action). "Work for Jasper and Frank"–> "Fire Raising."
All the best for the yacht! edited by Sestina Valdis on 10/18/2015
What I was asking Sestina Valdis and others was a surplus range suggested since this is my first Yacht attempt.
For instance, I have-at the time of this reply with my expenditure of about 40 turns this cycle of Exceptional Friendship-created two Comprehensive Bribes. I plan to stockpile enough components for about five attempts (and therefore create five CB at least.) Is that a good range? if not, how many (on average, since this is an odds are strongly against you luck check) times should I build to stockpile? What range of other non-CB components (Cellars of wine, Amber, etc.) should I sit down with if I don’t want to immediately grind for another attempt?
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Assuming the odds are 1 in 5, then the chance of failing is given by (0.8)^n, where n is the number of attempts, plug that into a calculator for several values of n until you like the look of you odds, and stockpile enough for that.
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Very hard to give a specific number as it is a luck check - for me it was third time lucky but I have heard of people winning on their first attempt and there was a recent post on the Commiseration: Our most painful failures thread where someone had lost at least 10 times.
So it is up to you how many attempts you prepare for and if you think it is worth spending fate rather than having another failure.
Lady Ciel is right. In light of the luck-based nature of the whole endeavour, I was living my yacht routine week by week. This was also because I didn’t grind wine, but obtained it weekly as part of the Author’s payment. So I basically used the time between professional payments each week to grind the other items (Favours in High Places, Amber and Comprehensive Bribes) to replace the one’s I’d lost. It took me about 6-7 weeks total to get the yacht, but as Ciel says, it’s completely probability-based. So perhaps that statistical model is really the only way of predicting things.
When I got the yacht, I suddenly felt as if my life lacked purpose and the comfortable order of a routine… =/ edited by Sestina Valdis on 10/20/2015 edited by Sestina Valdis on 10/20/2015
If your life lacks purpose after finishing the Yacht or Zubmarine grind, just go plug away at the Affair of the Box! It’s a good source of some higher-tier items and one of the most profitable endeavors in the game. And with the Hesperidian Cider and Heptagoat out there, I can promise you’ll be occupied for quite a while :P
That’s a good suggestion! I’m currently training my other stats now-- Dangerous in particular-- and I will get to Affair (again) after I am able to breed beasts. My life did lose purpose, but I found it again very quickly… I did not know Affair was so profitable, but I will take note. I was planning to get my Shadowy up after my Persuasive is maxed for PoSI spec.
Indeed, I am going after the goat… Hopefully this sundry author does not regret tampering with caprine authority.
I believe that the Affair is about 1.66 Echoes Per Action when getting Mourning Candles as the reward. The Fidgeting Writer is also highly profitable but much more luck-based (and in my opinion harder, since it needs so many more storylets and items). The Fate-locked expeditions are possibly the most profitable repeatable actions in the game but of course cost Fate each time. (For example I did the Gallery of Serpents several times and all but one time got two Elemental Secrets, aka 625 echoes for definitely under 100 actions, not counting the Uncanny Incanabula if you keep them.)
The most profitable non-exploitive, yes. Otherwise, if you don’t mind burning through fate like grass, the ray-drenched cinder through fate is the best way to earn money, though that’s only availibe partway through the nadir quest.
I already gained Nadir access, so that’s out of the question. But thanks! That’s good because my Empire’s Kingmaker quality is high enough for candles with Affair. Nice.