Weekly Questions, Beginning 18/7/2016

Fallen London
41

First question: Why are you getting the brass embassy guest room? if you don’t want the rare-but-currently-useless scrap items, the brass embassy is only good for an expensive &quotrare-stuff-to-MW&quot. You don’t need all three, and you have a 4-card lodging already. if you can’t answer that, maybe consider not getting it? you can always get a lodging later- but removing lodgings is impossible without progressing seriously far into seeking and maiming your character. it’s also frequent draw, so it’ll show up twice as often as most.

look at the options on the wiki: http://fallenlondon.wikia.com/wiki/The_Western_Tower:_a_Guest_Room_at_the_Brass_Embassy

is it worth having to forever deal with it, and paying 625 echoes for the privledge? most players seem to think, or have thought, the answer is yes- but if you can’t explain why, don’t get it, or wait until you can. go buy yourself some nice gear in the meanwhil. Ideally, stuff you can dispose of when you tire of its useless card, or stuff without a card in the first place.

Don’t fall for POSI materialism. I did, and i’ve still got some of the stupider cards clogging my deck. Just because you can get it doesn’t mean you must. Anyways: You know why you’re adding this card to your deck? good. I don’t care what your answer is, but you need to have one.

Any plain souls you have should be mass-upconverted if you can.

You can get 25 brilliant souls every ~10 [9.88888] actions spent on casing from a gang of hoodlums, if you can pass the shadowy-checks, which is the best grind for souls, i believe. {the other casing options give one every ~12 actions [11.66666]} however, for getting souls, this means the if you have 50 any of the conversion carosel that you don’t need, side converting is worth doing, sorted by priority:

[all the up/side-conversion carosel saves time on actually getting the card, assuming you have the requisite 50 of X, but it does it by sending you to work at 0.5 epa, as opposed to the casing’s 1.26 epa. You decide if it’s worth it, i don’t know how echo deprived you are. mid-teir upgrades are always worth doing if they won’t use up supplies of stuff you need.]
edited by Grenem on 7/22/2016

42

I already have a Gang of Hoodlums, so this sounds like the best option for me. I was crunching the numbers for converting souls to Amanita Sherry to Brilliant Souls and… yeah. That came out to a LOT of souls.

43

As for why, well, getting the properties was a goal of mine from the beginning. How profitable it is, is irrelevant. Thank you for your concern, though.

44

Well, the point stands. Do I really need ring fighters renting out a gymnasium in my house? Do I really need both a sedan chair and a landeu? Am I actually going to benefit from a library? usually the answer actually is yes, but stop and ask that before going questing for a new item.

45

Grenem, some of us are collectors. If we need it doesn’t matter, it’s there. It doesn’t matter if you agree, we’re all different here. I play differently, and value things differently.

46

I was finally able to get Soul Trade and become a great Shepherd, but the certain card cures my nightmares as well. As I want to draw The Interpreter of Dreams card, I was wondering what actions increase nightmares on success, but also provide a decent benefit.
I’m Seeking Curious in the FQ, but are there any other options?
Besides a Public Lecture, what other profitable menace actions exist out there? Regarding cards, besides the City Vice nightmare and, from what I read, the Velocipede Squad card.

47

Can I reset my Advancing the Liberation of Night at present?

48

If you buy lost in reflections and make the right choice at the end.

49

That would be excessive. Alas. Thanks for the answer!

50

I know- but sometimes people fall into the habit of collecting without actually stopping to think if they want to be, like i did. I don’t know if it’s the case now, but a lot of the old guides assume you want to get one-of-everything, with-or-without it being beneficial. If you’re getting one-of-each because you want one-of-each, that’s fine.

if you’re getting it because you have a vague notion it’ll be useful or a mostly accurate guide, written by someone who valued scrap items, from three years ago, told you to? less so.

And I don’t know you well enough to know if you want &quotone-of-each of everything possible&quot or &quotone of each of the lodgings.&quot In the latter case, the advice/warning is good to have heard once, and in the former it’s annoying. sorry if i’m pushing my views on you.
edited by Grenem on 7/22/2016

51

[quote=Skinnyman]I was finally able to get Soul Trade and become a great Shepherd, but the certain card cures my nightmares as well. As I want to draw The Interpreter of Dreams card, I was wondering what actions increase nightmares on success, but also provide a decent benefit.
I’m Seeking Curious in the FQ, but are there any other options?
Besides a Public Lecture, what other profitable menace actions exist out there? Regarding cards, besides the City Vice nightmare and, from what I read, the Velocipede Squad card.[/quote]

You’ve asked twice and no one’s answered you yet and I suspect it might be because aside from Curios in the Quarter it’s hard to think of profitable nightmarish storylets offhand.

Cardwise, if you haven’t already gotten rid of Jack but are an Annoyance to him, you get an option on the Clay Sedan that gives you nightmares in exchange for three tales of terror and three appalling secrets, and sometimes gives you a constable’s badge. After solving cases around London, the glim sculptor will sometimes give you gifts that increase wounds and nightmares in exchange for Scholar of the Correspondence and 50 glim. City Vices Decadent Evening gives Scandal, a nice payout in wine, a Confident Smile, and Making Waves equal to current Scandal - potentially 7 MW from a Standard-frequency card is pretty nice on its own even without the wine and Smile. Sometimes instead of the wine you get even more Smiles and a glove that goes for more than 6 echoes.

52

[quote=Chiltern][quote=Skinnyman]I was finally able to get Soul Trade and become a great Shepherd, but the certain card cures my nightmares as well. As I want to draw The Interpreter of Dreams card, I was wondering what actions increase nightmares on success, but also provide a decent benefit.
I’m Seeking Curious in the FQ, but are there any other options?
Besides a Public Lecture, what other profitable menace actions exist out there? Regarding cards, besides the City Vice nightmare and, from what I read, the Velocipede Squad card.[/quote]

You’ve asked twice and no one’s answered you yet and I suspect it might be because aside from Curios in the Quarter it’s hard to think of profitable nightmarish storylets offhand.

Cardwise, if you haven’t already gotten rid of Jack but are an Annoyance to him, you get an option on the Clay Sedan that gives you nightmares in exchange for three tales of terror and three appalling secrets, and sometimes gives you a constable’s badge. After solving cases around London, the glim sculptor will sometimes give you gifts that increase wounds and nightmares in exchange for Scholar of the Correspondence and 50 glim. City Vices Decadent Evening gives Scandal, a nice payout in wine, a Confident Smile, and Making Waves equal to current Scandal - potentially 7 MW from a Standard-frequency card is pretty nice on its own even without the wine and Smile. Sometimes instead of the wine you get even more Smiles and a glove that goes for more than 6 echoes.[/quote]
unfortunately, the first one listed does not, in fact, give nightmares reliably. it’s a 50-50 [or 60-40] luck check. so +1 nightmares on success, -1 on failure, average gain of 0. [or 0.2, if it’s 60% success, 40% failure.] The only reliable nightmares source is some of the dream cards, unless you’re inflicting it upon yourself in an unprofitable fashion, as far as I know.

Also, you don’t need to annoy jack, he just needs to still be around.
edited by Grenem on 7/22/2016

53

There was this old thread on raising menaces, but it’s oriented for action-efficiency not profit:

http://community.failbettergames.com/topic9427-raising-menaces.aspx

54

What’s a good way to get Compromising Documents if I’m not a POSI yet?

55

Well, one that’s nice, but not exactly grindable, is bundles of oddities. Other than that, I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.

56

With nightmares between 5 & 6, I sent out one request to a friend, whereupon the option blanked out. I’m pretty sure I’ve sent out more than one request at a time in the past, and there were 5 actions left. Is there a different kind of lock on the option of which I may be unaware?

57

Do you have a Sudden Insight?

58

Oh, well spotted, thank you! It’s been so long…

59

Is there anywhere to keep track of which Ambition is next to be updated? Or a vague list of the last time each one was updated?

60

The next one is light fingers, but I doubt theres a list.