[quote=fortluna]Yes to everything about how well the sphinxstone story worked. off topic- London not being the greatest power on the zee gives captains lots of choices to take their service (and use London to their own advantage) with the rest of the Neath, but while you[color=rgb(194, 194, 194)] [/color][color=rgb(194, 194, 194)]can export raw material (souls to the devils) and import better finished goods (romantic books from the khanate), you can also[/color][color=rgb(194, 194, 194)] send luxury textiles, food (solacefruit), and industrial components (devilbone dice) to London markets. (I have no idea what scintillack counts as.) [/color]
[color=rgb(194, 194, 194)]I guess London isn’t strong enough to force most other locations on the maps into its orbit - even though it’s trying to repeat its pre-fall strategy by dealing drugs to the khanate it’s not spread wide enough to work at present. It produces for its own needs - [/color][color=rgb(194, 194, 194)]cloth is spun in Spite, fuel comes through Mr Fires (and hell), and it [/color][color=rgb(194, 194, 194)]kinda just seems that you don’t get much chance to cut in on transporting London’s food supply? There’s no option at the Iron Funging station, Carnelian is too far away to provide, and that other thread suggests that most food is collected from around London itself (all that wine).[/color][color=rgb(194, 194, 194)] [/color]
[color=rgb(194, 194, 194)]It’s been mentioned that the captains are meant to be more Han Solo than cargo shuttler, so each captain getting wealthy thanks to singular story quests in the rich array provided out at zee - not just stable and able to explore, but ‘retire to life of luxury in a mansion’ rich - makes sense to me, which is…pretty much what you said, but so less eloquently. (anyway for new captains I just go meet the curator for captivating treasures, which is the first quest every captain initiates)[/color][/quote]
I’d call Scintillack a raw good, considering that it can be harvested from the Principles of Coral, and they make jewellery and expensive tea out of it apparently.
Port Carnelian is London’s primary source of Sapphires I think, though they aren’t for sale in London, but perhaps they’re traded to Polythreme as a deal with The King with a Hundred Hearts, since that’s one of the few ports which actually buys Sapphires. The Clay men are needed to run the Bazaar, and as the Admiral reminds: "What’s best for the Bazaar is best for London." and I doubt The King just gives his subjects away for free when the Masters and London are almost half a zee away with no real position to enforce their demands (at least for London, I don’t know about the Masters).
The Iron and Misery Co. Funging Station is weird, IMO. Because from what we can tell, Iron and Misery Co. specializes in Engine manufacture and other odd goods associated with ships, why’d they be in the food production business? Maybe they contract out to London as a food producer? Or maybe they’ve switched over from making ship parts as a primary business to more fungal labour, given the business with the Irrepressible Cannoner’s questline, and how secretive they are about stuff they originally made.
Yeah, as for me I always do the First Curator’s quests as a way to make fast money, same with Sphinxstone deliveries and shipping Mushroom wine to Godfall. Illegally, shipping souls and Red Honey is risky business, but profitable if you can sneak it in (even better when I realised at the end of my play through for wealth that you can buy hidden compartment space in Gaider’s Mourn, which helps somewhat.
But yeah, Mushroom Wine, and Solacefruit became my main imports and exports by the end of the game, in conjunction to delivering clay men, gathering reports, and vital intelligence from networks in Carnelian and Khan’s Heart, you can easily ground out a neat profit each run. Also helps to try and plan out your runs each time, figure out roughly how much fuel and food it’ll take to get to place to place, and find a route to make it profitable (I based each of my routes around wherever the Admiral sent me, mostly)
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