Yearning, Burning Removal

Sunless Sea
1

There should be other ways to remove “Yearning, Burning” than simply spamming Lodgings rest. It is tedious and pulls you out of the game, but there is literally no alternative as it stands. I know that the main point of the Menace is to prevent people from filling their cargo hold with Mirrorcatch Boxes and breaking the game, but wouldn’t that also be accomplished if sleeping at Lodgings removed, say, 20 points of Yearning, Burning instead of THREE‽[li]

There is an incredibly satisfying set of mechanics around smuggling Sunlight: you need Concealed Compartments, Secure Compartments, and quite possibly a few favours in tight spots. However, it seems that the current state of the game requires you to either only smuggle once or twice or play in a way that doesn’t feel intended. I’d gladly take an option to pay 1000 Echoes in London for complete removal of the menace, or even just a sizeable drop. It’s not the cost that bothers me, but the act.

In lieu of an update to the game, could someone write a quick mod on Steam to adjust the reduction rates of resting? It shouldn’t be too difficult, unless I am missing something about how the game is built. It wouldn’t make smuggling Sunlight significantly more lucrative, but it would make it far more enjoyable.[/li][li]
edited by Saklad5 on 6/7/2016

2

I went ahead and made the mod myself: http://bit.ly/SSYBR2.

Simply click the link, decompress the ZIP file, and move the resulting folder to the “addons” folder of Sunless Sea.

These are the changed reduction values for resting at your Lodgings:

  • Blind Helmsman: (1 to 20) + 10[/li][li]Handsome Townhouse: (1 to 30) + 10[/li][li]Zeeside Mansion: (1 to 40) + 10

edited by Saklad5 on 6/11/2016

3

So odd, I’m actually trying to raise my &quotYearning, Burning&quot but without much avail. Might I ask how did you find yourself in such trouble? Do you just hoard mirrorcatch boxes?
edited by Zero on 6/8/2016

4

The only reliable way to raise YB is to smuggle a lot of sunlight. Maybe others can provide the exact numbers. But you either need a big ship, or do a lot of surface runs.

5

I do a run in a corvette that includes Khan’s Shadow > Aestival > Polythreme > Hunter’s Keep. I start the run with six empty mirrorcatch boxes, at Aestival I fill as many as I can with sunlight. At Hunter’s Keep I turn the remaining empty boxes into traps, then fill them with angry snakes. Then in London I sell the full boxes, fill the empties with snakes on my way back out and then sell the snakes to Khan’s Shadow which starts it all again.

If you do even fairly small smuggling runs like this you will still hit YB 200 fairly quickly. I can only do the run every few times I put to zee now, I need the time in between to recover.

6

I keep five Mirrorcatch Boxes around, and my standard voyage hits every single locale in the game (excluding Wisdom, the Salt-Lions, and Avid Horizon). As such, I accrue 20-35 points of Yearning, Burning every single trip. Having to rest at my Lodgings seven freaking times per trip, at minimum, is incredibly tedious.

Since the Zeeside Mansion requires you to have Terror to rest at it, I have to rest, undock, switch officers to raise Terror, dock, rest, and repeat 6-17 more times.[li]
edited by Saklad5 on 6/9/2016

7

(As a fallen london player, I was actually pretty surprised that reversing this was possible at all in sunless sea’s london. The problem is that you’re not just breaking the law of London, but also the fundamental laws of the universe - I believe that the very slight removal is more of a signifier of Neathy lore than something meant to actually cure this menace.)[li]

8

Both lore and gameplay-wise, it’s pretty definitely not intended to be a source of money sustainable in the long-term. There are only a few possible grinds with such high profitability - sunlight, coffee, and red honey. Sunlight means quickly building up Yearning, Burning; coffee is limited by the shop eventually burning down; each shipment of Red Honey raises suspicion. Like with the Salt-Lions these seem designed to allow some rapid profit but not infinite money gain forever.

Also, &quotIt wouldn’t make smuggling Sunlight significantly more lucrative&quot seems very inaccurate. If I’m correctly interpreting the changed values you’ve listed, it becomes a sustainable grind and keeps the profit without being forced into keeping a Room Above the Blind Helmsman. Filling boxes with sunlight has an average gain of 5.5 YB, therefore resting yields:

  • For a Room Above the Blind Helmsman, -20.5 YB for 10 Echoes and a potential further 1490 E gain[/li][li]For an Elegant Townhouse, -35.5 YB for 100 Echoes and a potential further 2580 E gain[/li][li]For a Zeeside Mansion, -50.5 YB for 200 Echoes and a potential further 3670 E gain
9

[quote=Optimatum]Both lore and gameplay-wise, it’s pretty definitely not intended to be a source of money sustainable in the long-term. There are only a few possible grinds with such high profitability - sunlight, coffee, and red honey. Sunlight means quickly building up Yearning, Burning; coffee is limited by the shop eventually burning down; each shipment of Red Honey raises suspicion. Like with the Salt-Lions these seem designed to allow some rapid profit but not infinite money gain forever.

Also, &quotIt wouldn’t make smuggling Sunlight significantly more lucrative&quot seems very inaccurate. If I’m correctly interpreting the changed values you’ve listed, it becomes a sustainable grind and keeps the profit without being forced into keeping a Room Above the Blind Helmsman. Filling boxes with sunlight has an average gain of 5.5 YB, therefore resting yields:

  • For a Room Above the Blind Helmsman, -20.5 YB for 10 Echoes and a potential further 1490 E gain[/li][li]For an Elegant Townhouse, -35.5 YB for 100 Echoes and a potential further 2580 E gain[/li][li]For a Zeeside Mansion, -50.5 YB for 200 Echoes and a potential further 3670 E gain

You’re probably right. I’m going to adjust the reduction values to be much less reliable.[li]

10

[quote=Jeremy Saklad]I keep five Mirrorcatch Boxes around, and my standard voyage hits every single locale in the game (excluding Wisdom, the Salt-Lions, and Avid Horizon). As such, I accrue 20-35 points of Yearning, Burning every single trip. Having to rest at my Lodgings seven freaking times per trip, at minimum, is incredibly tedious.

Since the Zeeside Mansion requires you to have Terror to rest at it, I have to rest, undock, switch officers to raise Terror, dock, rest, and repeat 6-17 more times.
edited by Saklad5 on 6/9/2016[/quote]
My latest captain had three, then four mirror catch boxes that she filled with Aestival sunlight whenever she sailed into the distant East. This was very profitable while it lasted, but I lost track of the Yearning Burning score, suffered some wounds, and realized she was in danger of dying if she opened one. So the boxes went over the side, an over one thousand Echo loss, and my captain moved onto less dangerous forms of commerce. Then when the sun’s influence weighed less heavily on her, she purchased a single mirror catch box for very irregular smuggling at London or the Isle of Cats (before the Isle of Cat’s unreliability was a deal breaker, but now as the smuggling is only semi-regular and involves just one box and there’s no searches, its the far better option).

I think you’re trying to have your cake and eat it to. Sunlight smuggling is extremely lucrative, but this is balanced out by the cost of growing attraction/addiction that can lead your captain to effectively commit suicide (rather karmically so, as you are smuggling an extremely dangerous drug for the Neath’s criminals). If your captain can no longer do large scale sunlight smuggling, then rather then do a lot of gamey little things to increase terror in order to decrease Yearning Burning, you should instead scale back your smuggling, depart from your standard voyage, and use the capital you earned to get into other forms of commerce. One of the more underappreciated features of the game is how it forces you to move on from things through a change in locals and conditions.

11

[quote=Anne Auclair][quote=Jeremy Saklad]I keep five Mirrorcatch Boxes around, and my standard voyage hits every single locale in the game (excluding Wisdom, the Salt-Lions, and Avid Horizon). As such, I accrue 20-35 points of Yearning, Burning every single trip. Having to rest at my Lodgings seven freaking times per trip, at minimum, is incredibly tedious.

Since the Zeeside Mansion requires you to have Terror to rest at it, I have to rest, undock, switch officers to raise Terror, dock, rest, and repeat 6-17 more times.
edited by Saklad5 on 6/9/2016[/quote]
My latest captain had three, then four mirror catch boxes that she filled with Aestival sunlight whenever she sailed into the distant East. This was very profitable while it lasted, but I lost track of the Yearning Burning score, suffered some wounds, and realized she was in danger of dying if she opened one. So the boxes went over the side, an over one thousand Echo loss, and my captain moved onto less dangerous forms of commerce. Then when the sun’s influence weighed less heavily on her, she purchased a single mirror catch box for very irregular smuggling at London or the Isle of Cats (before the Isle of Cat’s unreliability was a deal breaker, but now as the smuggling is only semi-regular and involves just one box and there’s no searches, its the far better option).

I think you’re trying to have your cake and eat it to. Sunlight smuggling is extremely lucrative, but this is balanced out by the cost of growing attraction/addiction that can lead your captain to effectively commit suicide (rather karmically so, as you are smuggling an extremely dangerous drug for the Neath’s criminals). If your captain can no longer do large scale sunlight smuggling, then rather then do a lot of gamey little things to increase terror in order to decrease Yearning Burning, you should instead scale back your smuggling, depart from your standard voyage, and use the capital you earned to get into other forms of commerce. One of the more under appreciated features of the game is how it forces you to move on from things through a change in locals and conditions.[/quote]
I suppose you’re right. I just like the way sunlight smuggling forces you to deal with a variety of challenges. A single run with my five boxes involves five difficult Veils challenges, two different Aft compartments, a constant risk of the boxes being opened, and an occasional sixth Veils challenge that gets increasingly punishing over time with practically no way to reverse the increase. It’s a bit more complicated than shipping Sphinxstone and Darkdrop Coffee, no?
[li]

Besides, look at the development history of this system. To my understanding the “Yearning, Burning” quality was only added because many people were filling their holds with Mirrorcatch Boxes without any corresponding increase in risk. To my mind, it seems like the intent of Failbetter was to limit the scale of smuggling rather than the repeatability of it. My little mod doesn’t conflict with that.
edited by Saklad5 on 6/13/2016

12

[quote=Jeremy Saklad]
Besides, look at the development history of this system. To my understanding the “Yearning, Burning” quality was only added because many people were filling their holds with Mirrorcatch Boxes without any corresponding increase in risk. To my mind, it seems like the intent of Failbetter was to limit the scale of smuggling rather than the repeatability of it. My little mod doesn’t conflict with that.
edited by Saklad5 on 6/13/2016[/quote]

It sort of does. A limit was set on intensity of the smuggling - you can only do so many boxes so many times before you start going sun crazy. It’s part of the challenge. You’re raising the scale because you find it inconveniently low. Yearning Burning slowly dissipates with time and you can help it along by scaling back your smuggling.