Don’t see a thread for this already and it seemed like one worth having. What are people’s tips and tricks for advancing their ships and so forth?[li]
The obvious tactic is to take colonists to Venderbight but I feel like that by itself barely makes the cost of passage, just due to the fuel and supplies you consume en route. You can make the trip a little more profitable by carrying honey north and silk south, but you need investment capital for that.
Seems best to spend your first secret on the naturalist to unlock his salvage options. Somehow I got an "Egg of Judgment" on Mutton Island that I sold to him for 500 echoes, which got me some nice upgrades.
You can also get echoes from the Admiralty by collecting three "port reports" Hunter’s Keep and Venderbright are the two easiest, then Mutton Island slightly SE of London seems like the easiest third port to reach.
Anyway, that’s just what I figured out in a couple hours of play last night; I’m sure there are far better ways to profit off of the cavernous dark. Anyone have any other good tips they’d like to share?
I’v found a couple of ways of getting some extra provisions, and so lowering the cost of outfitting the ship before setting out.
On your first visit to Hunter’s Keep, you can get an extra provision for dining with a sister. You can do this multiple times (if you have a secret, I think) to build up a store of them).
If you get to Naturalist 3 at the University by giving them secrets, relics and curios, they will give you a gift worth two provisions every time you visit after docking.
For now anyway. Who knows how things will change in subsequent builds.
[color=#009900]One for you all: in case you missed it in the HELP ME slet, you can get an (expensive) speed boost from clicking the firebox on the fuel gauge. This is so obscure as to be practically an Easter egg right now. :-)[/color][li]
Don’t neglect to pick up Recent News when you’re back in London! The Tomb-Colonists eat it up. :D And make sure to explore; there’s a pretty lucrative storylet that’ll help with the starting capital for your silk/honey trading.
I have tried it by accident. Clicking the fuelbox, thinking it was doing something else and accidentally heating my engine to the temperature of the sun and using all my fuel. Poor Captain Swinburne. Not destined for greatness, I fear.
Is it worth grabbing officers whenever available? Also, multiple officers for the same slot - waste of Echos, or can I at least proceed through their plotlines even if I’m not using them?
Oh, does having a full crew have any positive effect?
Obviously various events related to terror and hunger whittle them down, and without a crew you’re stuck, but does having more crew make you faster or more efficient? Or are they just ‘lives’?
[quote=AlexWattsEsq]Oh, does having a full crew have any positive effect?
Obviously various events related to terror and hunger whittle them down, and without a crew you’re stuck, but does having more crew make you faster or more efficient? Or are they just ‘lives’?[/quote]
[color=#009900]Not yet: but they will affect both supplies consumption and speed.[/color][li]
[li]* Go due east from Venderbight to Port Cecil, and stock up on supplies. Ideally be low on terror. Play chess a lot. Obtain tons of secrets. Boost pages a lot. Use secrets to max your stats like woah. Gather scintillack (I can’t remember how it’s spelled). Sell it for a hundred echoes in london.
Kill all the crabs and butcher them for supplies. All of them.
If you’re looking for a way to get some Echoes beyond the endless ferrying of Tomb-Colonists, you might consider stocking up and making a trip father out. By a route of hitting Gaider’s Mourn and getting a port report, stopping at Port Cecil in the Principals of Coral and gather Scintillack, and then getting a port report from Mount Palmerston… the port reports are 50 Echoes each for those ports, and Scintillack is worth 100 each, and you can stop to gather both before and after Mount Palmerston, thus getting as many as six if you’re lucky. Though, uh, watch out for Lorn Flukes
I’d just got a quite profitable route going (London -> Venderbight -> Port Cecil -> Port Palmerston -> Port Cecil -> London) earning a tidy profit each time, though every two runs I had to go for R&R at Mutton Island to lower Terror and carousing in the tavern there can put a dent in the budget.
And now I can’t load any of my save games. :) I’ve already sent the bug report but unless a miracle happens and my saves can be rescued, I’m back to square one. At least I have a better idea what I’m doing this time around.
How much will content change between play-throughs?
Sorry if this was extensively covered in the KS and I missed it, but will it end up that there is just an optimal way to go about things? Not that I’d use such a guide as I’d want to discover everything myself, but just wondering how much RNG will be in place?