Brawling with dockers is the easiest way because it has no steps to it - brawl with dockers, payout in bessemer steel, no intermediates. You can optimize which actions exactly you take to get to the required number of brawl points - for me, flashing the dispensation twice and then the default brawl action once - but even if you don’t optimize that, the excess gets converted to rostygold so you don’t waste much. Simple, takes no preparation or optimization, no travel.
I suspect that from an EPA point of view the most efficient way is to take a detour from mammoth ranching to sell one skeleton to the enthusiast of an ancient world - probably one mammoth ribcage, four fossilized forelimbs, one sabre-toothed skull. If you get all the scrip and the ribcage via the mammoth ranching approach, this is probably the most action and echo-efficient way to convert actions/scrip to bessemer steel. It’s only convenient if you’re already doing the mammoth ranching carousel and so you have a lot of scrip and a mammoth ribcage and fossilized forelimbs ready anyway. (I have not mathed out whether this is actually the optimal path.)
Except that the bessemer steel doesn’t pay out rostygold, it pays out lumps of lamplighter beeswax. And upconverting that advances the liberation of night, which some people are not going to want. (It’s rostygold for the non-bone market and non-railway exchanges.)
Upconverting rostygold is literally impossible, so beeswax isn’t any worse than that.
I have more steel than I know what to do with from putting thigh bones of St Fiacre onto mammoth rib cages (and rarer frames) and then smuggling the surface blooms
I’ve a character who sits at 200+ Watchful and Persuasive, but in the 150s Shadowy and Dangerous. I’d like to increase those to 200 as well, but I’m really struggling to find good ways to do that. For Dangerous I’ve resorted to hunting animals in Parabola all the time (at least all those Warblers and Albatrosses are worth some Echoes), but I’d like some variation. Any suggestions, especially for Shadowy?
Another character I have (in the 180s-190s) needs lots of cash to buy things (Working Rats for upgrading the Lab; Rookery PWs for upgrading Basecamp Defence). They have already survived Knifegate, so they’re almost totally broke. What’s the best - and least boring - way for them to make lots of Echoes in relatively short time? Note that variety outweighs best EPA for me. (They’re a Doctor, so none of the special Licentiate or Crooked-Cross grinds work.)
Thanks for your suggestions! :) edited by phryne on 4/26/2021
For Shadowy, there are new options in the Dome of Scales that became available when the Parabolan Warfare content was released. Spend a (decent) amount of resources for a boatload of Shadowy. And by boatload I mean a Dreadnaught in Her Majesty’s Royal Navy.
Not sure what the best option is for Dangerous. Brawlin’ at the docks, perhaps? You’ll get some stuff that’s worth getting.
Parabolan Warfare is currently top-tier for grinds, although if you need Defense that’s not immediately accessible. Newspapers, and possibly Dockside Brawling, are probably the most accessible high-EPA grinds. Both of those have some variety.
Is there any downside in getting The Revolution’s Store in order to access the Nadir? Do you figure that paying off that favor would be nastier in the future, or that it will negate future and more lucrative options? (granted, grinding 5 skulls is horrible and 400E is still a sizeable load of cash)