Weekly Fallen London Questions, 28/06/2021

Here’s this week’s thread for quick Fallen London questions!

Confused about Connected to and Closest to:

I seem to have lost any connection. I thought I had connected to the Docks, but it’s gone. Maybe my forgetfulness? I could have sworn I did it but maybe I just meant to?

I also used to have the university but I think I lost that by getting closer to the Duchess. (Connected to level is higher than either Benthic or Summerset now, and the aristocratic academic no longer speaks to me in the Forgotten Quarter)

Are these separate qualities? Can I be closest to both the university,duchess or widow AND a faction like the docks?

[quote=Bluestocking]Confused about Connected to and Closest to:

I seem to have lost any connection. I thought I had connected to the Docks, but it’s gone. Maybe my forgetfulness? I could have sworn I did it but maybe I just meant to?

I also used to have the university but I think I lost that by getting closer to the Duchess. (Connected to level is higher than either Benthic or Summerset now, and the aristocratic academic no longer speaks to me in the Forgotten Quarter)

Are these separate qualities? Can I be closest to both the university,duchess or widow AND a faction like the docks?[/quote]

Connected is a general quality that measures how recognized and liked you are by a specific faction. Fallen London has mostly moved away from it in favor of Renown (permanent faction recognition) and Favors (can be spent for resources or to increase Renown). So, your Connected: The Docks was automatically exchanged for some amount of Renown: The Docks and Favors: The Docks years ago. Some uses of Connected remain, such as for the Duchess, the Widow, Masters of the Bazaar, Benthic and Summerset (University is not used as a separate faction).

Closest to is a separate quality and you can only be Closest to one faction at a time. It is basically completely separate from either Connected or Renown. That said, I believe that it is currently impossible to be Closest to: University, Duchess, or the Widow, so you are most likely Closest to a different faction. You can check that, as well as your Connected and Renown levels, in your Myself tab.

Now that the Railway plotline is over, is there an estimate on how much railway steel and gunpowder one is expected to craft over the whole thing?

You could look at the wiki page for The Next Stretch of Track and add up the requirements for every stretch

Ok, I think I found the right page. I’d like a quick calculations check from anyone who went through this, please, at least a quick glance to the final number just to be sure it’s in the right ballpark.

From what I understand after a skim, every station from Ealing to Moulin requires a certain amount of Track Laid, which is 3+3+4+4+3+3+3=23. The tracklaying seems to be an automatic success.

A Track Laid requires 10 to 15 Steel each depending on the type of land, meaning that I’m extremely unlikely to need LESS than 230 Steel total, with a more likely estimate being 270 (the 15 Steel options look linked to the 4-tracks stations, so 5 extra steel x4 tracks x2 stations=40) with probably some more Steel needed for unforeseen events.
For the Gunpowder, a track can consume 0 to 10 according to the zone and the appeasement of explosion-minded tracklayers. Again, the longer tracks require gunpowder, so 4x10x2=80 gunpowder for them alone, plus the Open City tracks and who knows what else. Looks like I won’t get away with less than 100 gunpowder. It also looks like it wouldn’t be amiss to grind 20-something Hillmovers, as each of the central tracks require 2 or 3 or them.

So bottom line: 270 steel, 100 gunpowder and 20 hillmovers should get me pretty close to the end without needing to resupply those specific components. Does it sound like a likely estimate?

Ok, I think I found the right page. I’d like a quick calculations check from anyone who went through this, please, at least a quick glance to the final number just to be sure it’s in the right ballpark.

From what I understand after a skim, every station from Ealing to Moulin requires a certain amount of Track Laid, which is 3+3+4+4+3+3+3=23. The tracklaying seems to be an automatic success.

A Track Laid requires 10 to 15 Steel each depending on the type of land, meaning that I’m extremely unlikely to need LESS than 230 Steel total, with a more likely estimate being 270 (the 15 Steel options look linked to the 4-tracks stations, so 5 extra steel x4 tracks x2 stations=40) with probably some more Steel needed for unforeseen events.
For the Gunpowder, a track can consume 0 to 10 according to the zone and the appeasement of explosion-minded tracklayers. Again, the longer tracks require gunpowder, so 4x10x2=80 gunpowder for them alone, plus the Open City tracks and who knows what else. Looks like I won’t get away with less than 100 gunpowder. It also looks like it wouldn’t be amiss to grind 20-something Hillmovers, as each of the central tracks require 2 or 3 or them.

So bottom line: 270 steel, 100 gunpowder and 20 hillmovers should get me pretty close to the end without needing to resupply those specific components. Does it sound like a likely estimate?[/quote]There’s two more stations after Moulin, each of which will require another 30 Steel. Also, Station VIII requires 2 extra steel (the first piece of track costs 12 instead of 10), and Ealing requires a 4th stretch of track if you don’t have an Impossible Theorem. When all of this is taken into account, the minimum amount of railway steel required is 312, and it can go up to 342 at most (+10 if you don’t have a Theorem for Ealing, and +20 if you take the longer route to Evenlode).

Also you need to do board meetings at every step of the way, sometimes multiple times, so there’s really no point in trying to gather all the resources up front. It will be months between laying the first stretch of track towards Ealing and building the last station at Marigold.

Thank you! I assume there’s a point of taking the detour, but I’ll look into it later.

There is no clear advantage in doing so, sure, but since I’m currently juggling 3 characters having at least one involved in a simple grind it’s way more manageable - and having my top-stat gal raising caps more quickly than she can fill them via missives means she has actions to spare in London. I don’t aim to have all materials beforehand, just to make some grinding upfront so I can enjoy the story parts in a more continuous way.

I take it you’re aware that from a certain point onwards, the “one board meeting a week” rule is enforced, which stretches matters out.

If I recall, you get two meetings a week until you reach Marigold.

Oof, I wasn’t aware, no. Well, I’ll have some time to prance around in the new locations then; if I remember correctly, most stations have interesting things to do from unlocking Watchful, Dangerous and Shapeling caps to discover the Discordance and dig around for fun and profit.

The Diving in the Basement is fun!

On the last step of the Smuggler grind. What’s the fastest way to acquire Master’s Blood? Does the Khanate offer any new expediencies?

You can get airag in the khanate, but how efficiently depends on RNG and what else you’re interested in. It probably isn’t that great for airag only.

(There’s 10 possible people to recruit into your network, and which one you get to start depends on Airs. Each gives a 62.5-echo item at a rate of >4EPA, and one of them is airag. There’s ways to reroll airs. So if you’re grinding airag specifically, it’s probably inefficient because you’d on average need to reroll airs a bunch of times to start the intrigue you want. If you’re interested in a bunch of the new items, then you’ll get some airag in the mix and it’ll be pretty efficient).

[quote=Amalgamate]You can get airag in the khanate, but how efficiently depends on RNG and what else you’re interested in. It probably isn’t that great for airag only.

(There’s 10 possible people to recruit into your network, and which one you get to start depends on Airs. Each gives a 62.5-echo item at a rate of >4EPA, and one of them is airag. There’s ways to reroll airs. So if you’re grinding airag specifically, it’s probably inefficient because you’d on average need to reroll airs a bunch of times to start the intrigue you want. If you’re interested in a bunch of the new items, then you’ll get some airag in the mix and it’ll be pretty efficient).[/quote]
You can also pick up an Attentive Chambermaid from the docks and plant her as an agent in the Khanate. The result gives you Airag, and it’s what I’m doing to grind them right now. It appears you can probably get at least 3 bottles a day that way. Maybe 4.

To the best of my knowledge, yes to both.

[quote=Daniel Pessoa]
I would like to check something, just so it is clear to me: does the professional reward I receive with Time, the Healer (TtH) depend only on my profession at the moment it is triggered?

By the way, is TtH always triggered at the same time of the day?[/quote]

AFAIK, it depends on your profession at the moment the reward is collected. So you can work as enquirer, trigger TtH, then change to pickpocket, and then get pickpocket rewards.

And, unless something changed under the hood, time of TtH will slowly drift forward (later and later), every time something causes significant delays in the servers (mine has probably drifted several weeks in the years I have played).
edited by xKiv on 7/4/2021

[quote=Daniel Pessoa]Greetings, citizens,

I would like to check something, just so it is clear to me: does the professional reward I receive with Time, the Healer (TtH) depend only on my profession at the moment it is triggered? For instance, if I work as an enquirer for a whole week and change my profession to a pickpocket five minutes before TtH is triggered, will I receive the pickpocket’s reward?

By the way, is TtH always triggered at the same time of the day?[/quote]
The reward depends on your profession when you collect the reward. If you’re an Enquirer when TtH arrives, then you will see the option to claim an Enquirer’s payment. If, instead of claiming the payment, you switch professions to Pickpocket, you will then have the option to claim a pickpocket’s payment.

Time the Healer tries to arrive exactly 1 week after its most recent visit. On occasion it will be delayed by server hiccups; these delays are cumulative, and so your TtH will drift over time.

Is anybody else getting stuck at Counting the Days 14 for days without Spending and Secrets turning up? It block the Awful Temptation of Money card and has happened to me three or four times now.