A Whirring Contraption costs 44 actions. Three loops through the War of Assassins, Business in Wilmot’s End, or Seeking a Missing Woman carousels to raise Dramatic Tension, then one more Missing Woman loop to cash it in.
A Whirring Contraption costs 44 actions.
Using the Contraption in Doubt Street, running through the Hours Before the Deadline, and publishing a newspaper, costs 14 actions. For 140 Journals of Infamy, that’s £70 in 58 actions, for £1.21pa.
But why, oh why is running a newspaper 75% grinding for a Contraption and only 25% actually running a newspaper!?
[quote=Anchovies]
But why, oh why is running a newspaper 75% grinding for a Contraption and only 25% actually running a newspaper!?[/quote]
Exactly. I really enjoy the newspaper content, but outside elections I’ve published two editions. If Willmot’s gave 1-3 contraptions it would be much more reasonable.
A while ago the storylet that allowed you to claim a Whirring Contraption wouldn’t go away after you did so, only resetting if you used it to get a point of Dramatic Tension. So running a newspaper was roughly 1/3 of the whole process. Then the economy was rebalanced, and we ended up with the setup we have now. For a little while the newspaper was entirely unchanged, but thankfully they bumped up the rewards to basically match the epa it was beforehand.
I used to be involved in the day to day of a mess of small town newspapers.
I assure you, the percentage of my day that had to do with running a newspaper was far less than 25%
You could instead raise Dramatic Tension in the Cave of the Nadir in only three Actions, depending on luck with cards and prior Feast of the Exceptional Rose activities (or rare success). But Dramatic Tension 2 would still be worth a Collection of Curiosities, so if you deduct that from the 70 Echoes while lowering the amount of Actions by 30, the EPA goes down to about 0.27. I always viewed newspapers not as financially viable businesses, but as vanity publications.
As for grinding Beeswax, it seems slightly more profitable to follow a chandleress from the Depertment of Menace Eradication when the Airs of London are 96+, and collect a Docks favour and then spend as many Actions as possible to light a candle and wait, assuming Dangerous is high enough. A bit cumbersome though, I suppose, so I can see why people wouldn’t want to do that too often.
To be fair, it’s a newspaper. It’s not really supposed to be that profitable.
I actually find the Journals of Infamy quite useful, though, since it seems like one of the best sources of items at that tier. You can cross-convert those to a bunch of other things.
Am I the only one who regularly sponsors trading expeditions to the farthest reaches of the zee? For five actions, ten echoes and 2000 drops of Prisoners Honey you get either a contraption or enough scarabs to build one. I much prefer this to skulking around Wilmot’s End, stealing Bavarian devices.