The Rat Market

So what are good buys this weekend? I haven’t checked the selection yet, just prepping my parables for sale. Any rare pickups or deep discounts on there?

[quote=PSGarak]
Profiting is definitely possible. tl;dr you increase your net worth when you gain Rat-Shillings, and with care you can avoid losing net worth when you use those Rat-Shillings.

If you have spare items, liquidating them is generally a net-gain-money proposition. Gaining items from scratch, of course, depends on how efficiently you can do that. But the Parabolan Warfare is a good grind, so Parabolan Parables is pretty attractive.[/quote]

Also so is Hell’s Basement Embassy in Ladybones Road, since Oneiromantic Revelations upconvert into Parables.

It appears to be a bit less valuable than Parabolan wars, but a lot more straightforward.

Interesting…

Exchange a Fourth-City Echo for 200 Rat-Shillings
vs
Exchange five Fourth-City Echos for 700 Rat-Shillings

Sacrifice 300 Rat-Shillings to save four actions. Worth it?

This week’s specials:

The Coruscating Soul - 3125 Rs

Poison-Tipped Umbrella - 3200 Rs
Pair of Vakeskin Boots - 2800 Rs

Omitting the seasonal special and the Gant-Filled Mirrorcatch Box, which are recurring items.

Bloody hell, coruscating souls without fidgeting writers? Sign me up!

[quote=fishandchips]Sacrifice 300 Rat-Shillings to save four actions. Worth it?[/quote]Wouldn’t this value an action at 7.5 echoes? Pretty bad deal.

[quote=Toran][quote=PSGarak]
Profiting is definitely possible. tl;dr you increase your net worth when you gain Rat-Shillings, and with care you can avoid losing net worth when you use those Rat-Shillings.

If you have spare items, liquidating them is generally a net-gain-money proposition. Gaining items from scratch, of course, depends on how efficiently you can do that. But the Parabolan Warfare is a good grind, so Parabolan Parables is pretty attractive.[/quote]

Also so is Hell’s Basement Embassy in Ladybones Road, since Oneiromantic Revelations upconvert into Parables.

It appears to be a bit less valuable than Parabolan wars, but a lot more straightforward.[/quote]

I doubt it’s that efficient if you consider the amount of actions required.

By comparison:
26 (24+2) actions to get a Captivating Ballad (900 Rat-shillings)
19 (17+2) actions to get a Captivating Ballad (900 Rat-shillings), but uses up 17 Dubious Testimonies.
7 to 11 actions (possible failures, Shadowy at 245 has 82% chance success) to get two Fourth City Echoes (400 Rat-shillings)

[quote=fishandchips]I doubt it’s that efficient if you consider the amount of actions required.

By comparison:
26 (24+2) actions to get a Captivating Ballad (900 Rat-shillings)
19 (17+2) actions to get a Captivating Ballad (900 Rat-shillings), but uses up 17 Dubious Testimonies.

7 to 11 actions (possible failures, Shadowy at 245 has 82% chance success) to get two Fourth City Echoes (400 Rat-shillings)[/quote]18 actions to get one revelation, plus a few brass scraps.
Makes 90 actions for 5 revelations, plus 1 action for upconverting to a parable.
1 parable for 4000 shillings at 91 actions makes a little under 44 shillings per action.

900 over 26 a ballad comes to only 34.6 shillings per action.

Edit: uncanny incunabula selling for 25 shillings?

…I’m going to be in here a while.
edited by Tsar Koschei on 10/8/2021

Dang, I deeply regret selling off my incunabula earlier this week. I have… ten.

Welp. Guess I’ll stay in the Khanate checking out the new content.

What’s the deal with the Rat Market Bazaar tabs being added? Do we have an idea if they’re here to stay or not at this point?
I wonder if buying Royal-Blue Feathers/Solacefruit 8 Rat Shillings apiece may be a good way to grind Scrip for the Hellworm. Probably not, unless I’m making some mistakes in my rather basic calculations. I suppose I’ll just take advantage of the markup on Uncanny Incunabula and use the proceeds for Brass-Headed Zombie construction…

[quote=amalgamate][quote=Bluestocking]The loutside, LOL! Love it. That’s me, then.

I’m actually quite a bit puzzled by those people who calculate the whole thing out.[/quote]
It’s something to do after all the stories are done.

At this point I’ve played every single exceptional story, I’m up to date on all the content, collected basically everything - except for the super-expensive vanity items. …and if I’m collecting those, might as well do it efficiently, right?[/quote]

That makes sense! I have SO MUCH to do that the thought of spare actions is unimaginable. Also the comment on the puzzle aspect. To be clear, I have no problem or judgement with people playing the game differently from me. Sheer curiosity.

Now, while I’m here - these Parabolan Parables: are they accessible to someone who has just barely gained access to Parabola? Or is it more of a later stage thing? Is there any point in choosing one side in the war over the other? The fingerkings have been nice to me (glasswork), so should I support them in return, or does that mean that there is a cat bonus that I have yet to find?

Parabola War is designed for 200+ base stats. I would not recommend diving into it with underleveled character. On topic of sides, play all campaigns at least once for lore, stick to your favorites after that, if your are not tired yet. For me Parawar is too tedious, boring and inconvenient, even if it’s top grind right now.
edited by Waterpls on 10/9/2021

I only have 200+ in watchful.

ANYWAY I have dicovered the greatest thing: I canbuy night soil of the bazaar and surface blooms at the extramurine trading company. My lab equipment is about to be upgraded!

I’m so glad the devs made this useful to lower level players.

Mind you, apart from the blooms those prices are baaaad. So I would prioritize other means when available.

New grind, fresh from the oven! 4.94 EPA (or 47.67 Rat Shilling per Act plus some bric-a-brac).

requirements: Jericho Station; Newspaper; Modified Stats at 214+; Not Unwelcome At the University; An Endowment; a Rat Market which purchases Incunabula for 250 Shillings. Note: I’ll be using fractions but rounding down to avoid needless precision, which will leave a little &quotextra&quot behind at some steps. This makes my calculated loop slightly less efficient than the actual long-term efficiency.

The Outlandish Newspaper Loop: no inputs, 5.5 acts to acquire your Whirring Contraption, 13 acts to make a 104 Outlandish newspaper for 118 Journals of Infamy and 4 Extraordinary Implications. (+18.5 Acts)

Every Newspaper provides enough for 2.36 Journal->Implication Conversions, yielding 23.6 Extra Implications (+2.36 Acts)

27.6 total Implications gives us 1.1 Implication->Incunabulum Conversions, yielding 5.5 Incunabula. (+1.1 Acts)

The above conversions costs us 33.8 Benthic Reputation, recovered with 7 Abominable Salts bought from the Bazaar (-1.4 Echoes) and 1.38 Acts. However, 60% successes on Journal conversion yields 1 Echo, or 25 Echoes on a rare; and for Implication conversions we get 2 Echoes, or 62.5 Echoes on a rare. Even a 0% chance of rares is enough to buy the salts back, statistically (2.716 Echoes per loop, leaving us 1.316 extra.) With a conservative (?) 5%, we net 5.03 Echoes after Salts.

We sell our 5.5 Incunabula one at a time for 1375 Rat Shillings. (+5.5 acts)

Final total: 28.84 Acts, +1375 Rat Shillings, +0.1 Extraordinary Implications, +0.1 Abominable Salts, +0.7 Benthic Reputation, and ~5.03 Echoes worth of Glim/Brass/Nodules/Threnodies if we’re lucky.

Edit: Forgot that University Reputation takes 3 actions, but also forgot to include Upconversion bonus items, so it sort of cancels out.
edited by elderfleur on 10/10/2021

Nice, this seems like a worthwhile grind to do inbetween the Antiquity weeks to make Fossilised Ape assembly the most efficient. You can then buy Brass Skulls with the proceeds and use these with Headless Skeletons from Marigold Station for Scrip generation (or Bone Fragment grinding for the Horned Skulls).
These world-quality based activities seem like a huge success, with the diversity of options they bring and shuffle around to keep us on our toes!

Hmm, now i know what to do with my 16k journals and 750 implications.

But it worked! For a few incunabula, my lab equipment is finally done. My shadowy is too low for me to do well in the Bone Market. Suspicion is a serious menace. Graduating gifted & profound students is slow. Are there other low-mid game sources? I have yet to get my first railway tracks laid, and I expect to need more explosives.

Bone market is absolutely the best and simplest way before you get upriver. Just make one good skeleton, sell it using second chances, and you’re set on nightsoil for the foreseeable future.

[quote=Waterpls]Hmm, now i know what to do with my 16k journals and 750 implications.[/quote]You sure kept your grinding speed over the years! Congratulations on it!

[quote=Skinnyman][quote=Waterpls]Hmm, now i know what to do with my 16k journals and 750 implications.[/quote]You sure kept your grinding speed over the years! Congratulations on it![/quote]Thanks, I am still enjoying the game a lot. And one modern year is like 3-4 old years in terms of EpA.

[quote=Waterpls][quote=Skinnyman][quote=Waterpls]Hmm, now i know what to do with my 16k journals and 750 implications.[/quote]You sure kept your grinding speed over the years! Congratulations on it![/quote]Thanks, I am still enjoying the game a lot. And one modern year is like 3-4 old years in terms of EpA.[/quote]Hehe, glad to hear you still enjoy it and didn’t burn out! :)



ONLY as a side note: old years were worth more (6.25 EPA), but I reported it since I found it and never used it. Heck, it was even on the Wiki and it wasn’t a bug! :D I will just leave this as a mystery of old days.
edited by Skinnyman on 10/10/2021