Weekly Questions, Beginning 20/05/2016

Ahoy, all! Here’s this week’s thread for questions and the answers to questions!

Hello folks. I’m deeply stuck in my quest for a Zubmarine. Spoilers ahead?

I have everything that I need except for 4 more Bejeweled Lenses, and lack the 4 Magnificent Diamonds needed to acquire those. I was encouraged to grind expeditions in the Forgotten Quarter to find them, but after many, many of those I have received none, and in the course of doing so used up all my Favours: Criminals to do the less time-consuming Thieves’ Cache expedition. To get a renewable source of Favours: Criminals, I was encouraged to form a gang, but at the last step of doing so I’m required to have 5 Favours: Criminals. Ha.

So, I’ve come to this: the Master Jewel Thief has been courting my attention for over a year. I’ve abused his interest and led him on so I could get a steady stream of Ostentatious Diamonds that he gives me when ignored, but I don’t want his love. I know that if I make a union with him, however, opportunities will arise to go on romantic heists with him - to get diamonds. Magnificent and otherwise. Should I begin a marriage of convenience with him that I have no desire for, knowing full well that I’ll spurn him later, for the good of the glorious Zubmarine? Or is there some other option I’m missing? Should I keep repeating the Shrine of Deep Blue Heaven expedition and hope to RNG for 4 diamonds to eventually drop?

Rattus Faber?

Oh, I feel sorry for you. At one point, I had about 12 Magnificent Diamonds, and I wasn’t even trying to get them on purpose. I decided to go for the zubmarine sort of casually for kicks, because I already had more than enough diamonds. For me, the hard part is not getting the diamonds, it’s getting the Contraptions. And also getting the 1000’s of moon pearls.
And a few days ago, I noticed I had a surplus of 2 more lenses than I need for the submarine.
Guess I must have just had a strange run of expeditions months ago.

[quote=Danopian]Hello folks. I’m deeply stuck in my quest for a Zubmarine. Spoilers ahead?

I have everything that I need except for 4 more Bejeweled Lenses, and lack the 4 Magnificent Diamonds needed to acquire those. I was encouraged to grind expeditions in the Forgotten Quarter to find them, but after many, many of those I have received none, and in the course of doing so used up all my Favours: Criminals to do the less time-consuming Thieves’ Cache expedition. To get a renewable source of Favours: Criminals, I was encouraged to form a gang, but at the last step of doing so I’m required to have 5 Favours: Criminals. Ha.

So, I’ve come to this: the Master Jewel Thief has been courting my attention for over a year. I’ve abused his interest and led him on so I could get a steady stream of Ostentatious Diamonds that he gives me when ignored, but I don’t want his love. I know that if I make a union with him, however, opportunities will arise to go on romantic heists with him - to get diamonds. Magnificent and otherwise. Should I begin a marriage of convenience with him that I have no desire for, knowing full well that I’ll spurn him later, for the good of the glorious Zubmarine? Or is there some other option I’m missing? Should I keep repeating the Shrine of Deep Blue Heaven expedition and hope to RNG for 4 diamonds to eventually drop?[/quote]
Buying bags of low quality diamonds at empire adornments generally gives 45 flawed diamonds- but rarely, though frequently enough people consider it a good use of cryptic clues, you recieve 44 and a magnificent diamond instead. Given that the odds of diamonds are one-in-four from expeditions, you’ve been spectacularly unlucky.

(if you want favors criminals, an effective but less-than-profitable source is either an alluring accomplice or a ruthless henchman. neither one’s card is common, but the ruthless henchman adds ~0.8 criminal favor cards, and the other adds ~0.5. Together they also add a conflict card at half frequency as well.)

[quote=Bertrand Leonidas Poole]Oh, I feel sorry for you. At one point, I had about 12 Magnificent Diamonds, and I wasn’t even trying to get them on purpose. I decided to go for the zubmarine sort of casually for kicks, because I already had more than enough diamonds. For me, the hard part is not getting the diamonds, it’s getting the Contraptions. And also getting the 1000’s of moon pearls.
And a few days ago, I noticed I had a surplus of 2 more lenses than I need for the submarine.
Guess I must have just had a strange run of expeditions months ago.[/quote]

Heh! Well, that’s luck for you.

I tackled the Contraptions problem over the last few months by spending a Significant Amount of Time in a certain hidden place. It was terribly dull and I ran away to Polythreme for a couple of weeks in the middle of it just to clear my head.

[quote=Grenem]Buying bags of low quality diamonds at empire adornments generally gives 45 flawed diamonds- but rarely, though frequently enough people consider it a good use of cryptic clues, you receive 44 and a magnificent diamond instead. Given that the odds of diamonds are one-in-four from expeditions, you’ve been spectacularly unlucky.

(if you want favors criminals, an effective but less-than-profitable source is either an alluring accomplice or a ruthless henchman. neither one’s card is common, but the ruthless henchman adds ~0.8 criminal favor cards, and the other adds ~0.5. Together they also add a conflict card at half frequency as well.)[/quote]

Thanks for these - I redeemed an alluring accomplice and look forward to hijinks, and I’ll give the empire adornments tactic a try if for no other reason than to work a different angle for awhile. Does anyone know the actual percentages at work there?

Rattus Faber?[/quote]
Clarification: best engineers for building large-scale stuff. Ships, cannons, railways, that sort of thing.[/quote]

Would that be the Great Downward Engineering Company? And to clarify, was this your own question or was it intended as a leading question in response to mine?

He’s trying to figure out how you could build a railroad in London/parabola I believe.
edited by suinicide on 5/20/2016

The Jewel thief also provides a criminal Favour, but his diamond option is an incredibly (300? 500?) hard shadowy check. So while I’ve used that before, I don’t think I can recommend it as a consistent source.

You can now acquire a Magnificent diamond through one of the other heists, but that also requires Favours 5 and isn’t a great return for them, just so you know.

At some cost, you can gain Criminal Favours by going to New Newgate and looking for bilge duty. [o]You’ll increase your criminal record by going to jail (unless you rob the brass embassy and take some stat damage for the card itself. But due to using a pirate hat you can artificially increase your time there to try to draw the card multiple times. [/o]
edited by Parelle on 5/20/2016

My account and character is now 8 days old. According to various beginner’s guides, I was supposed to receive my first Living Story via Message by now but I have not received anything. I did receive the weekly payout from my profession yesterday, but no living story so far. Something I’m missing here?

This might be a newbie question here, but right now it feels like it’s nearly impossible to gain resources at any speed – I have tens of things, when everything that can be done with them seems to require hundreds. Is there some obvious or non-obvious thing that I should be doing that would let me play more?

(Leaving aside getting a second candle, which … well, that’s proving to be a problem as Paypal and FB don’t seem to agree on whether I can register).

I’d love to get more out of this, but I get to play for 5 minutes every three hours, and that’s frankly not a lot of fun.

My main started her first living story almost in her first day (assuming you are talking about the benefactor story). My alt had to manually start it by going insane and talking with a nurse. I don’t know if we have been unlucky, or if something is amiss lately.

[quote=Chris ]This might be a newbie question here, but right now it feels like it’s nearly impossible to gain resources at any speed – I have tens of things, when everything that can be done with them seems to require hundreds. Is there some obvious or non-obvious thing that I should be doing that would let me play more?

(Leaving aside getting a second candle, which … well, that’s proving to be a problem as Paypal and FB don’t seem to agree on whether I can register).
I’d love to get more out of this, but I get to play for 5 minutes every three hours, and that’s frankly not a lot of fun.[/quote]

Grinding is, sadly, a frequent part of Fallen London. However, at the first levels, grinding is not too time consuming. Each of the four places have a souce of the primary materials (whispered hints, moon pearls, wines, rostygold, etc.), and you should have more than enough for the first tasks without much grinding. Have a look in all storylets you have at hand. The first time I had to stop gameplay for some days for grinding was lately, when I was conducting expeditions.

I guess the combination of grinding with the slow action refill just … chafes. And not in a fun way. I feel the game is explicitly drip feeding me for commerce purposes, which leaves a bad taste in my mouth about something that is otherwise very appealing.

It comforts me in a small way to know that others have been stricken with bouts of poor luck.

The Fidgeting Writer has generally been kind to me but my last seven Lenses have yielded nothing.

I guess the combination of grinding with the slow action refill just … chafes. And not in a fun way. I feel the game is explicitly drip feeding me for commerce purposes, which leaves a bad taste in my mouth about something that is otherwise very appealing.[/quote]
If by for comerce purposes you mean to make money in real life, it isn’t. the devs genuinely feel that the action refill is effective for modulating play so that it feels like you’re actually needing to work your way through a story and making money in-game feel actually viable. As a new player, i would advise you explore interesting stuff that doesn’t have a resource lock, and if it does, make a plan- (click the tassel, it’ll put that action under plans. this will make it possible to look at what stuff you wanted to do but needed resources for, and see how far you are from enough) - and move on. In particular, your ambition is supposed to be slow and spread out over the entirety of your career, and requires, at some point in the future, disproportionate resources accordingly.

CALLING IT: The next exceptional story is going to be about the neathy clock trade or clocks in some way.

I’m going to guess the dawn machine. Like I do for every exceptional story.

I’m more interested in knowing what possible story could require a business card, a piece of antler, and a unique soul.