[quote=aardvarkpepper]basically don’t have a whole lot of idea what I’m doing so stuff piled up. have a pretty big inventory, figure I can maybe sell some but before I sell something I might need I figured I’d ask what I would need.
-snip-[/quote]
This ended up being far longer than I expected, so under a spoiler tag it goes.
[spoiler]
[ul][li]Don’t sell anything until you’re ready to buy whatever items with the profits. When you are ready to sell, don’t sell anything you aren’t sure you can get back fairly simply.[/li]
[li]As Siankan says, if you aren’t in a hurry, you would be far far far better off waiting for Christmas to get the five-card lodgings. The Bazaar upgrade costs 9 Putting the Pieces Together: the Taste of Lacre and 3 Notability, while the Royal Beth costs 7 PtPT: ToL and 3 Notability. The Brass Embassy upgrade costs 8 PtPT: ToL and 3 Notability but also requires that you be soulless. No monetary costs whatsoever, unless you need to purchase extra lacre of course.[/li]
[li]SMEN is a terrible idea outside of one edge case - if you really want to get rid of extraneous lodgings (ie to trim your opp. deck), it’s the only way to ditch them. Of course, this is SMEN, so you have to get rid of EVERY lodging you own at once. Including five-card upgrades and remote addresses…[/li]
[li]As mentioned, you can do things in the University to raise C: Benthic. You can also use the Endowment of a University Fellowship, but that’s only available from the Bazaar for a hefty price and it consumes quite a lot of Abominable Salts. (It also only works up to level 20.) Also as mentioned, for the Theorem you’ll need lots of Enigmas - plenty of sources for those, iirc the Fidgeting Writer* is better - then high Watchful and lots of Sudden Insights to not fail the challenge.[/li]
[li]If you weren’t aware, you can actually use Second Chances to fail most challenges without punishment! Just use the Second Chances on the challenge and hit "Perhaps not" instead of trying again, then rinse and repeat until you succeed. Of course, the amount of Second Chances consumed for that specific challenge will double each time you back out, until you fail or succeed, which will reset the Second Chances back to one per attempt.[/li]
[li]For the Vial of MB, Blue Heaven expeditions make a reasonable supplement, but you’re unlikely to have much success using that as your primary method. It’s only a 22.2% chance of getting Airag from Blue Heaven expeditions, even if you ignore the chance of getting an Eyeless Skull instead of getting an Unpredictable Treasure at all. The other rewards are decently profitable, especially if you can manage to 100% the buccaneering approach option. (If you can’t at least 100% the bold approach option it’s probably not worth bothering with expeditions at all.) Author payments are also good when going for MB, though Correspondents get more sheer echo value when you’re not looking for specific items from payments.[/li]
[li]I’m pretty sure the best way to grind Wines directly is the Affair of the Box in Spite, assuming you have good Shadowy, as Boxfuls of Intrigue can be cashed in for Strangling Willow and upconverted from there. There’s also the Velocipede Squad, which needs Dangerous instead, and you can cash in for Broken Giant. With high enough stats for 100% on challenges, the Affair of the Box is very slightly faster at grinding wine, plus it also gives a trickle of Correspondence Plaques if you’re willing to side with the Revolutionaries. However the Velocipede Squad has slightly easier stat challenges. If you can’t get 100% success rates for either of them, you’re likely best off using whichever method gives you higher chances.[/li]
[li]There are a few other possible sources of scraps besides Lodgings and a Sulky Bat. You can cash in Urchins Favours three at a time on a card in the Flit for 25 scraps each time. You can have the Relickers recertify your scraps - 10 at a time is least risky but is airs-dependent for certain Relickers, 20 is second-best, and you’ll only gain one scrap per action on average in the long run. There’s also some Fate-locked sources of scraps - one ending of A Trade in Faces and one ending of The Blemmigan Affair unlock options on certain cards that give 1-4 scraps, plus things. There is also one hidden lodgings, of a sort - the Half-Abandoned Mansion was available through Knife & Candle and may be again someday. (Its card did have an option for scraps, though it was by far the worse of the two.)[/li]
[li]The only way I know of to get a Reported Location outside scrap and selling the location of the Nadir is a one-time option, late in the Heart’s Desire ambition, which lets you get one for a couple hundred echoes of materials. Doing that would require Fate to reset your ambition (unless you have HD in which case you’d need the Location to continue) plus grinding through the entire ambition up to that point, aka far too much time and effort.[/li]
[li]Of course, amassing all the lodgings to get scraps for a five-card lodgings is almost counterproductive. Most lodgings have fairly useless cards, so getting them to hasten getting a five-card lodging means that extra card slot will be occupied by some card with a useless option to gain a single scrap. Hence why people might want to go Seeking the Name just to ditch their lodgings. I did that myself in fact, though I tragically lost my Half-Abandoned Mansion to do so.[/li]
[li]As others have said, the best way to get supplies for Expeditions is Docks Favours, which you can get from the Docks faction card, the Taciturn Mynah’s card (the faction pet), and the Mayor’s card among places. The Whispered Hints supply option is the other good one as it averages 1.5 Supplies for 2 Echoes; you can exchange Rostygold, Jade, or Amber with the Tiger Keeper for more Hints.[/li][/ul][/spoiler]