So lets talk recurring nightmares

So I bought this on steam and asked about the problem on steam to no avail unfortunately so I thought I would ask you guys since you have had more time with it have you guys found anyway to stop recurring nightmares Every time I’ve died in this game its because of the damn nightmares and I have no idea how to stop them I have tried resting in fact i wasted 300 echos resting and nothing happened the dreams kept happening so what did you do dear captains to deal with them
edited by seious on 7/5/2014

I guess you mean high terror - if you are a reasonably new player kill bats around Venderbight, that will take one or two terror points, and there are a lot of bats.

Take tea with the factor at Demeaux for another point off.

Share recent news at lightships for another 2 points off.

When in London carouse on Wolfstack Docks - unlucky - 3, lucky - 5 and, once you get a sweetheart an extra - 2 on the lucky result. You need to set sail and keep the memento to activate that.

When you are a bit further into the game you will start killing things that give hunting trophies if you give those to the nuns you get up to - 8 terror.

But the best thing to do is to prevent getting high terror in the first place. So keep an eye on your ship - if you are in a terror zone green lights come on, reverse back until they go off and check your route.

There is also a gauge in the top left - amber is danger and green is safe. No lights mean that you are neither gaining or preventing a terror point. You get one terror point for every time the amber lights go all the way around the dial. So it is best if you get amber lights to get into and stay in an area that gives green light until the green ones go out. As if you leave before they reset that terror point they turn amber and you don’t have as much time to get into the next safe zone.

Edit: it appears Lady Ciel was faster, and said it better anyway :p

Gaining the &quotrestful sleep&quot quality should remove the nightmare quality? You get that by resting at your lodgings. If that isn’t working then maybe you’ve run into a bug? :)

Of course the best way to avoid dying from terror-related things is to avoid getting high terror in the first place. A little terror is unavoidable, but it can be managed. It took me a while to really get the hang of it. Stick close to shorelines, stay in the light as much as you can, plan your routes to avoid large dark patches of water, try and go around the little islands and rocks instead (it uses more fuel to do big loops like that, but fuel is cheaper than terror reduction) and try and avoid coming back to London with terror over 50, since that’s when you get the nightmare quality that’s giving you problems. :)

Keep an eye on the terror gauge up in the top left corner, the little orange &quotpips&quot that start to appear around the circle show that you’re gaining terror. Each full circle is another point. If you can get back into the light/close to shore before the pips get all the way around you don’t get that point. The lights on the sides of your ship also get brighter to warn you when you’re gaining terror.

When you get back to London spend some money carousing and reduce terror before you leave port again. It’s expensive, but it’s better than being dead. :)

Sorry if this is all stuff you knew already, I wasn’t sure if you were completely new to the game or not :)
edited by Inky Petrel on 7/5/2014

I forgot to say that if you stock up on a lot of fuel and some supplies you can take a trip to the surface at the Cumaean Canal - that will give a large terror reduction.

Unfortunately I have never let my terror get completely out of hand to the point of nightmares, which I think are triggered by going back to London with above 50 terror. I’m sure other people might have a better idea on how to deal with them once you get to that point.

I suffer from this too, a Nightmare’s strenght of about 56 which all but nullifies the restfull night’s my townhouse gives me. Plus somehow it seems to be disconnected from the terror scale, since my last sanity-slippage happened with mere 22 terror and made me gain solid 88 terrorpoints and cut down half my crew.

So two London actions to the wishlist:

-a nice old fashioned therapy at Shlomo’s to have long cleansing talks about nightmares over steaming tea.
or
-LAUDANUM! aka &quotPass me the brain bleach, please.&quot

My best suggestion when you get nightmares up is if it’s above 5-6 or you gain it regularly, increase your hearts as much as you can and always try to confront the nightmare. Make sure irons is high enough to defeat a mutiny, too. If not, increase your hearts anyway and try to reduce the quality, since it’s slightly less punishing.

Ok, I’m not sure anyone else is answering your precise question so I’ll give it a go.

The best way to fight recurring nightmares is, as others have said, to keep your terror from going over 50 in the first place, so that when you get back to London you don’t get a Nightmares increase that you then have to work off later. Because the Recurring Nightmares event triggers so rarely, if you’re not careful it’s easy to get a Nightmares value of crazy high such that you’re basically guaranteed to fail the check and have a near-instant mutiny.

So the rea question is &quothow do I deal with the inevitable mutinies, and slowly work my Nightmares value down.&quot

  1. Get your Iron value up to 100 or better so you can reliably slaughter the mutineers. This actually isn’t that hard with Caminus Yards guns, investing in Mutton Island as per the guide I put on Steam, and good officers. Once your Iron is ~100 mutinies will be a Straightforward challenge and you can just slaughter them, drop your terror back down, and limp home with your skeleton crew.

  2. Keep your Terror sub-50 at all times possible, both to prevent instant mutinies from Nightmares and to prevent earning more Nightmare’s Strength when you get back to town.

  3. Get the best Lodgings you can so that you have as many Restful Nights as possible. It does help (a little bit!)

Thank you very much, that’s exactly my problem my chances to any option on the card are around 1% and it gives me always 90+ terror, cutting my crew down is no problem wit 109 iron just merely annoying since it almost always happens somewhere out east.

Any numbers how much nightmares a restfull night eliminates? If it’s in a reasonable relation I’ll just binge-sleep in my residence and be done with it.

On an other topic, just found out what the having &quotinsert god&quot’s attention quality is for, Gaiders Mourn has a pray to-option which gives you a neat +3 of the god’s skill for free.

Yo bro, or sister. Having trouble sleeping? Do nightmares keep you awake at night? Have a recurring nightmare.

I’m not entirely sure, but it seems like the difficulty of the check for the recurring nightmare is dependant on two things: your hearts score and your current terror. Maybe your nightmare’s strength affects the difficulty as well, but since I’ve never had it at more than 2, so I can’t confirm or deny this.

Your first lodgings gives you some terror reduction and 1 restful night
Your first upgrade gives you some terror reduction and 2 restful night

Restful night do not stack!

I don’t really know how restful nights work. They might help you automatically beat one recurring nightmare, or they might only give a bonus.
edited by lord1box on 7/14/2014

Just try to avoid lot’s of terror, build up heart, have ALWAYS at least one resteless night and go for the easy option (usually, if the nightmare strenght is >= 5 , it’s better to flee and weaken it…)

[quote=MatthewtheMagnificent]Thank you very much, that’s exactly my problem my chances to any option on the card are around 1% and it gives me always 90+ terror, cutting my crew down is no problem wit 109 iron just merely annoying since it almost always happens somewhere out east.

Any numbers how much nightmares a restfull night eliminates? If it’s in a reasonable relation I’ll just binge-sleep in my residence and be done with it.

On an other topic, just found out what the having &quotinsert god&quot’s attention quality is for, Gaiders Mourn has a pray to-option which gives you a neat +3 of the god’s skill for free.[/quote]

Unfortunately you can’t stack Restful Nights so it’s not much help. The other option would be to work on raising your Hearts.

If your Nightmare’s Strength quality is about 50, I’d just write a will, convert all my cash in the form of Heirlooms and start over: I spent an incredible amount of time just getting my Nightmare’s Strength down from 9.

By the way, you can use the nightmare to gain secrets if you high enough hearts. This kills your terror though, and you can’t savescum