does anybody use writing short stories for echo grind? Is it worthwhile taking into account both the epa and the price of potential boosting materials?

marcmagus wrote:

I assume already having relevant boost materials to spend (I cost them at their sale value)

Actually, that would slightly detriment your epa, considering most items can be gotten at greater values than 1 echo per action. So, assuming your math is correct, you'd be looking at an epa higher than 1.28.

That's incorrect thinking. Counting your epa as if the only choice is between spending the supplies and selling them at the bazaar will almost always result in epa higher than anything sustainable


Well. Assuming that writing a story takes A actions, E worth of supplies, and has rewards worth R:
Calculating as if requiring supplies is equivalent to decreased reward: 1.28=(R-E)/A
Calculating with farming supplies at rate F (worth/action, so farming them takes E/F actions): epa=R/(A+E/F)
when is epa>1.28
epa=R/(A+E/F)>1.28=(R-E)/A
// multiply by A and A+E/F, both of which are positive
R*A > (R-E)*(A+E/F) // expand
R*A > R*A + RE/F-EE/F // rearrange additions and subtractions
EE/F > RE/F // divide by E/F, which is positive
E > R

so increasing epa is possible only if the original epa was negative.

Also, when considering the worth of spending supplies that I already have, a more balanced comparison is between "spend the supplies and A actions the get R reward" and "sell the supplies for E 'reward' and spend A actions doing my best repeatable grind at rate G".
Compare R and E+AG.
I won't spend the time to compare these now, but from what I remember, E was always so high that you should always just sell your supplies and go somewhere else.

I completely forgot you could use notes for supplies, thanks! The new zailing mechanics and the newish increased rewards for Collate your <whatever> research will boost this, too. (You could take some amount of the other notes instead, cash them in at your lodgings for collated research, then do another round of preparatory research to trade those back for all sorts including archaeological notes)

Plated seals aren't difficult to nab while you're out there, either, though I haven't yet figured out how many actions they're likely to cost.

so it changes my conclusion from "increasing epa this way is possible only when the original epa was negative" to "... only when the original epa was lower than the epa of acquiring the necessary supplies". In which case it's even more profitable to just keep farming the supplies instead.