I did a bit of analysis today on Cost/Efficiency in making waves (on a path to paramount and got bored at work ;))
Cost and action Breakdowns below, assume averages for Tier 3 conversations and a cost of 1.64 Echo per action. For Favor’s creation (needed for Scheme) I assumed a 50%/50% split between using the Singer (which is amazing) or the specific Bohemian or Society card (which is somewhat expensive).
Item Conversions:
When looking at Item conversions a complete loop (13 actions) will net you about 21 MW or 1.62 MW/Action at a cost of 1.14 Echo per action in opportunity cost (1 action = 1.64 echo in value, conversions give 0.5 echo’s + 1.62 MW per action) – that translates to a cost of 0.71 Echo’s per MW.
With a High BDR, only 10+ Notability will be annoying (@ 26 BDR lvl 10 needs 420 MW and lvl 15 is 1170 MW after TTH), so you can spend some time while traversing levels 1-9 to convert your Tier 3 items into Visions. Visions to Memory’s of a Distant Shore is only 3 actions in which two of them pay out MW (1-10 or average of 5.5 MW), that gives an return of 3.67 MW per action and an opportunity cost of 0.31 Echo’s per MW.
This is good for a quick run at higher levels of Notability (5,000 Visions + 300 Actions = ~1,110 MW = about enough to move from 14 to 15 Notability at high levels of BDR); but it does put you out of position for the following week.
The Cycle from Memories of a distant Shore back to Visions is only a return of ~1 MW per action and a cost of 1.14 Echo’s per MW. Getting those same 5,000 Tier 3’s back to Visions will take 1,000 Actions so plan ahead when doing mass item conversions for higher tiers of Notability.
Salon’s
Salon’s are a bit trickery as you need to build up Scheme first (usually over multiple weeks) prior to using it. Due to the RNG of drawing the cards you need this is an opportunistic approach which takes planning to really pay off.
Scheme is earned through Bohemian or Society Favor + items. An easy and efficient way to earn favor in these is “Drop in for a Chat” on the Sardonic Music-Hall Singer Visit, earning 1 of each favor + Persuasive *1.5 in Whispered hints (I used a 200 Persuasive for calculations below).
The other method is the Faction Cards which only grant 1 Favor and Cost 0.5 Echo’s in items + the 1.64 Echo in opportunity cost to use the action. In calculations below I assumed an equal split between these two methods. This gives an average Favor gain of 0.02 echo’s per favor (Singer gets you 3 Echos in Hints but costs half an action per favor = 2.18 Echo gain|| Faction Card costs 0.5 Echo’s in stuff + 1.64 echo for the action = 2.14 Echo Loss)
Wise and Wicked = 11 Echo’s in materials + 0.06 Echo gain from Favors = 10.94 Echo Cost for an average of 6.5 Scheme or a cost of 1.68 echo’s per Scheme
Great and Good = 13.5 Echo’s in materials + 0.06 Echo gain from Favors = 13.44 Echo Cost for an average of 6 Scheme or a cost of 2.24 Echo’s per Scheme
For the Salon’s I assumed an equal split between Bohemian and Society Scheme for an average cost of 1.96 Echo’s per Scheme and 0.52 Actions per Scheme
Now for the fun Salon table (apologies for formatting, most forums hate tables). Note that for the Duchess I assumed that you would lose the matriarch 50% of the time (source is the wiki) and factored that in as such. Echo cost only includes the cost/gain of materials plus the 1.64 echo opportunity cost of the actions. The actions include the actions needed to build the scheme + in the duchess the cost of the matriarch at 1.64 echo per action.
Guest……Scheme Cost…Echo Cost……Avg MW……MW/Scheme…Echo/MW……Act.…….MW/Act
Duchess……65……………188.9………750……………11.54……….-0.42…………147.7………5.1
Diplomat….28……………0.14…………280.5…………10.02……….-0.20………….14.1……19.8
C. Cross……15…………1.64……………200……………13.33……….-0.16……………9.1…….21.9
Author…….15……………1.64…………150……………10……………-0.21……………9.1………16.4
Mercies….15……………1.64.…………160…………10.67…………-0.19……………8.6………18.5
Singer…….15……………0.64……………150.5………10.03…………-0.20……………8.1………18.5
Princess…100……………1.64+1 fate……2300………23……………-0.07……………51.6……44.5
I didn’t include Silas or the Forger as they are sub-optimal due to the 20% failure chance. The Mercies assumed that you have Lettice
Based on the chart, unless you have Echo’s to burn the Duchess is a waste, the Princess is most efficient, but it is a huge amount of overkill and since they fixed “Bring the Party Home” where it could be recycled there is really no need for that many Nights on the Town to store the excess.
The Diplomat, Singer, Mercies and Crooked Cross are your most effective actions depending on how much MW you are targeting and what the
Aires look like.
Court Grind:
This one is really not worth it unless your close, The echo per MW is great, but you will need hundreds to thousands of actions to hit the higher notability levels. The Politics option has a net cost of -0.8 Echo for 1 MW || Arts is -0.73 Echo per 1 MW || Philosophy is -0.665 per 1 MW
Conclusion:
The Salon is the most effective but you are restricted by the RNG of the cards. For Guarantee results Tier 3 trading give you a good return and the ability to spike for the higher levels of Notability. Use Court Grinding only when you are close or looking to maximize Echo cost per MW at lower levels.
edited by karsus on 8/25/2017