Trade -early game

Sunless Sea
1

Ahoy, fellow zee captains.

I managed to discover a few ports close to Fallen London, but I’ve yet to find a profitable trade route; Vanderblight buys those 3 colonists for 45 echos and also memories, recent news and visions but sells nothing I could take back to London.

Thus, I end up picking up some reports and going after pirate pinnaces (I don’t attempt to board them, it feels too risky and I’ve gotten a couple of times linen and silk, which is much better considering I don’t take chances with my crew).

Thanks in advance for your time

2

Currently there is not much more outside there.
-You could sell wine for 23 echo (bought at 21 in London)at Venderbight or Gaiden Mourn

  • You could give win in cluster of 5 at Godfall, but it’s don via an event and it’s time limited (but pretty much time…)
  • You could sell prisoner’s honey at gaiden mourc for 26 (bought at 25)
  • You could buy demon’s dice at Mt.Palmerton for 19 and sell them at London fro 20 echos (also, you could buy fuel at 9 there)

Also in Whiter you could exchange Zeestory and terror story for fuel and food.
edited by Frenzgyn on 7/19/2014
edited by Frenzgyn on 7/19/2014
edited by Frenzgyn on 7/19/2014

3

Thank you for the reply :)

I managed to get to Mt. Palmerton (one scary ride, that was) and it’s a big risk for my lowly ship right now. I think that collecting reports is a better way of getting some echos right now.

Anyway, both the Admiralty and a smuggler I’m doing business with want me to get to Polytheme, somewhere SE of London, so I guess I’ll head out towards those parts of the map and see if there’s anything to trade there.

I found some Eolith in Mt. Palmerston, but I have to find a market for that, London won’t buy it. Up north in Wither there is salt, if memory serves, but they won’t sell it for echos -argh!

Oh, well, let’s hope I don’t run into too terrible beasties down south.
edited by Westerfeld on 7/19/2014

4

Unfortunately there is no trade in Polythreme at the moment, actually they want one thing that I haven’t found a source for … yet.

I hope your Zee-bat is working, they can be a bit unreliable. I was right on top of Polythreme and it told me that there were no undiscovered islands! If you have found Godfall the best thing to do is sail to the NE tip and then head in a generally Southerly direction with a slight drift to the west so you find the light-buoy then carry on south. watch out for pirates and you might run into some sharks.

The Alarming Scholar will buy Ambiguous Eolith - a bit of a gamble at either 1 or 70 echoes.

Whither’s shops are a bit unusual as they deal in tales of terror and zee stories.

5

You can also buy fuel at Mt. Palmerston for 9 E and sell them at Gaider’s Mourn(?) for 10 E, instead of the devilbone dice =)

6

Grinding in this game is a huge pain, but I managed to make it a bit easier by finding captivating treasures. They can be found as riddle events for about a 30% win rate even with 100 pages which I managed to get by abusing the chess at Port Cecil. If you fail, you can easily just back out into the main menu, and just do it over again. Its kinda cheating, but echo progression is far too slow. Other ways to make money are judgement eggs, port reports, and when you get a better ship capturing the corsair ships (60% luck) or going to naples.

7

I haven’t gotten as far as Naples; I got an admiralty mission to Chapel of Lights (which I’ve discovered in a previous run) and a smuggling mission to Khan’s Heart, which I think I know where it should be, roughly.

As it stands, I can’t see myself making serious money from trading; I’d love to get the Serpentine engine, but it’s locked, maybe the magician I recruited would know something about it.

The problem with fuel is that it leaves such a small profit, it feels it would take ages to get a decent amount of echos, with my 40 hold.

8

Don’t bother with the better engines, they aren’t worth it.

I forgot to mention, have you done the wine route to Godfall? I made alot of money(inventory 9 fuel, 3 supplies, 25 wine, 3 tomb colonists) early game taking tomb colonists to venderblight, selling them, getting the port report. Before I get there I capture a couple of the raider steamships. Then I go to Demeax island, Shepard Isles, Abbey Rock, then Godfall, back the way I came then to Mutton island(Judgement eggs chance) then back home to Fallen London.

9

The thing is that this game was never made for trading. IT was actually built so that most profits will have to come from exploring or hunting beasties and ships. Trading will never be hugely profitable in this game.

10

I know the developers meant this when they made Sunless Sea, however this game right now requires a lot of grinding to be profitable. After the Godfall monks were sick of wine I just farmed for captivating treasures after abusing chess at port Cecil.

11

Well, a profit between 11% and 4% (From Fuel to Prisoner’s Honey) it’s not gamebreaking, it just need more goods and trade route … as for know, with a cargo ship you could make about 100 to 140 with a full load, and it’s not bad… it just need a bit more vairety and it will probably get that…

12

[li]true, true - game is meant to be difficult. but basic trade ought to turn more coin than passing on the latest rumors and fishing reports from Outen NoWhare. and starting with a 40 hold packed with food and fuel … how much free cash and free space do you really have to invest in trade goods? those are serious limiting factors that restrict and cap your profit-per-run. especially if the trading mechanic is weighted to distance.

London goods are already cheap. distant islands should value them highly and, in return, offer special treasures that turn good coin back home. and inbetween the two lies an ocean of darkness and hungering death … jack up the danger of combat and the system effectively rebalances.

the danger with a system overly-dependent on grinding is that it gets repetitious (boring), sucks the life out of adventure, and vamps up the psychic ‘investment’ you have in the character you’re playing, which ultimately makes death &quotunacceptable.&quot (see Starflight 2, X-Com original, etc)

think about it - you just spent 50 hours grinding to become king of the hill and a bad luck roll drops you in the briny deep. ready to start from square one again? and again?

no. you save and protect your investment constantly, and that ruins the suspense - because you know you’ll always have another chance to win. you’re not really gambling anything, not playing the risk. (see numerous ‘Twilight Zone’ episodes re: hell.)

give incentive to explore, give options to improve, but cap the potential of that betterment so no one captain becomes an unstoppable living god of the zee.

13

[li]by the way - that eolith business with the university professor - does he buy multiple times or just once per item? before i got shut out of the game, i had a run from Mt. P to London with two eoliths in the hold. Prof. bought one for 70, left me hanging with the other.

didn’t get a chance to dwaddle about the Unterzee and return to see if a flip in SAY might trigger another buy on the same product.

14

No, he buys multiple times from what my trade of 30 eoliths tells me.

15

Yes, but just fyi, he will only buy an Eolith 50% of the time.

16

You mean the chance of getting either 70 echoes or 1? That is true.

17

in whither you can trade 5 Zee Stories for Mute Salt stuff it will sell in London for 50 at the same time Zee Stories sell for 10 a piece at the university

My biggest Profit comes from hunting Pirates near the Funging Station and those Lifebergs.

18

Actually you can just save scum the result. So you will never be unfortunate when trading on the surface.

19

I just heard of the game yesterday, after discovering Fallen London a couple of days back. I bought Sunless Sea immediately. It’s taken my interest from WildStar, but… my excitement is dying out.

I love the story, but I can’t relax and enjoy it, since I’m constantly running low or out of echoes. The game mechanics are getting in the way.

When I first set out from Fallen London, I figured trade would be the easiest way to at least break even, covering costs of fuel and supplies, if not make a profit. A quick check of the wiki, though, showed me that almost nothing was profitable – the percentage of profit was eaten by fuel cost. Tack on the cost of reducing terror, occasional hull repairs, and hiring replacements when a defeated pirate ship was lost at sea with two of my crew, and I’ve practically been running in the red.

London’s staples should be worth more, the farther one moves from port. Distant ports should pay a premium for those staples, and should offer in return exotic luxuries that are worth more than the cost of fuel and supplies in London. Maybe a dynamic system of supply and demand could keep things a little bit randomized, but not too much, considering the enormous penalty for running out of fuel and supplies in the middle of nowhere.

The way it’s set up now, with everything either trading at a loss or a minuscule profit, I feel like I have no choice but to grind. Granted, I haven’t been gaming the Something awaits you in port mechanics, mostly because I’d rather explore than spend them all on a handful of potentially profitable random number generators.

After I’d played for a couple of hours, I recommended the game to my entire guild. Now, though, I’m having second thoughts. None of us really enjoy grinding, and that’s what this is starting to feel like.

I understand that money is this game’s timesink. That’s fine. But a good timesink becomes invisible to the player, because enough other things have the player’s attention – the world, the encounters, the lore, whatever. If the timesink is at the forefront of the player’s mind, it no longer becomes fun. It becomes a second job.

20

Not enough content yet imo. Hope that get’s better with time. Though I agree they need to stop with the grind.