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Sunless SeaBlind Bruiser question(9 posts)solved(9 posts)solved
(9 posts)solved
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This is my favourite topic
Posted March 25, 2015
*Spoiler Alert! Spoiler Alert!*


I'm on my third captain and have finally been able to complete the first BB delivery (souls to Mt. Palmerston---it's about as far out from London as it can be on this captain's map). I limped in scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of food & fuel (& wouldn't have made it at all except for Frosthaven's freebies). I turned in my Admiralty reports and got a few Echoes for those (less than 200), but I'm debating whether I should accept payment from BB or just tell him to pack sand and not do any more runs for him.

If I say no, what would be the next best source of Echo flow (besides Admiralty turn-ins)? I lost my first two captains to food/fuel issues. I've got nowhere near enough money to get better lodgings or a Will, so suiciding this captain in hopes of a better map isn't a beneficial strategy right now. This is the first captain that's made it this far, and I'd be happy just to get her far enough along to manage the Will.

Is doing a couple more runs for BB with this captain my best bet to build up a bit of capital (enough to get a Will)?

One other question: I have ferried the first tomb-colonist to Venderbight, but not completed the follow-on quest. Do I have to finish that before I can find more tomb-colonists to deliver? They don't seem to be around in any of the ports I've found yet.
This question / problem has been solved by Starmakerimage
Posted March 25, 2015
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Luned: but I'm debating whether I should accept payment from BB or just tell him to pack sand and not do any more runs for him.
DON"T TALK TO HIM AT ALL OR YOU"LL RUIN YOUS BEST SOURCE OF INCOME. JUST LEAVE THE STORY HANGING.
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Luned: If I say no, what would be the next best source of Echo flow (besides Admiralty turn-ins)?
Don't say anything at all.

The biggest obstacle to a newbie is those scary success rate indicators. Some actions look like terrible options until you raise your stats to the sky, but the consequences of failure turn out to be minuscule or nonexistent. Other actions look fairly benign ("explore the island") but turn sour really fast (shadowy predator -- very hard Veils or Iron check or your zailors get eaten -- your zailors get eaten, because of course they do -- few crew -- stuck in zee sans fuel -- the end).

HOWEVER: I tried playing the game super fair, but with a lot of knowledge collected over several unsuccessful playthroughs. The playthrough was financially sustainable, in that I wasn't running out of money, but I was running out of things to do: my quests required me to procude rare items by killing extremely tough sea life. I needed a sturdy ship with two headcannons, and it wasn't happening.

THE GOOD NEWS IS: there's a place you can farm for money infinitely given a set of very specific circumstances. I raked in 140k. It took a long time, but I was pretty pissed about the price tag on the NPC I planned to screw.

Don't bother with a will, WILLS ARE DUMB SHIT With a will, you don't inherit the money directly, you inherit the lodgings and discrete deposits of $1000. The easiest powerup for all your future captains right now is the current one raising a kid: you'll have two picks from the legacies table, forever, unless you reset the lineage. But raising a kid locks you out of the cheesy moneymaking option. So it's your choice.


REGARDLESS
Your current moneymaking options are:

- lucky first-timer boost! if you don't yet have it. This is a one-per-captain event. If you don't yet have it, head to Avid Horizon. If you're really lucky. you can find two items for a pretty epic quest (one of the first quests your captain gets, do tell if you need a more specific hint) and hand them in in exchange for $2000+. Oh, and the chapel is usually nearby, where you might be able to get a third item, but it's nasty business so I can see why you might not want to mess with it (there's a less nasty aternative but it requires a good ship).

- salt deliveries from the Salt Lions. Find the Salt Lions, go there with enough space in the hold (20) and $200, go to London and don't forget to hand in the cargo at the London!!! event. Rinse, repeat. There's a limit to how many times you can do it.

- scintillack and related quests. Find Port Cecil in the coral reefs, gather scintillack, and play chess with whoever agrees to play with you until you rack up enough horror so that you have to return to London. Yes, the chance of success looks bad, but there are almost no consequences for failure. Rinse, repeat. Eventually, you'll get a quest there. Do as much of the quest as you can, sell the scintillack.

- supplemental income: Admiralty Commissions (distinct from port reports - these are things when you have to go to a specific far-off place the Admiralty chooses to get Strategic Info). Don't hand in singular Strategic Infos, though -- get two of them, right-click to combine into Vital Intelligence with 40 Mirrors and a ztory/memory, then hand that in to either the Admiral or the Diplomat. The Diplomat pays way better.

- spying. Go to Khan's Heart with a Diplomatic Agent and perhaps some Prisoner's Honey and try to drop off a spy, then grow your spy network via Fulfill your spies' needs. The requirements for growing the network are random: you might need $$ (can fail), Veils check (can fail), Salt's blessing, Visions of the Surface, or the aforementioned Honey (these three can't fail). If they demand crazy shit (Treasures, Vital Intelligence), expend your SAY to reroll. Once the network is good enough, you can farm Vital Intelligence. If your Suspicion is too high, go to Nuncio and farm Drowning-Pearls there (spend SAY to Rescue a dripping parcel) to subsequently bribe the Taimen in Khan's Glory.


GENERAL ADVICE I DIDN'T YET GIVE IN THE NEIGHBORING THREAD

- If you're thinking to buy new stuff for your starting ship, buy the best deck cannon (Hellthrasher) for $1500 and the cheapest headlight for a +1 to Mirrors ($100). Everything else is currently a waste of cash. If/when you get a better ship, get either the +10/-10 headlight and equip it whenever you need a Mirrors boost or the +6 projector to equip forever and forget. The stat mods from the headlight apply when it's equipped, they don't depend on your headlight being turned on.

- If you recruit either the Campaigner or the Magician, do their quests asap. These two have expiration dates, and getting them back costs A LOT.

- Don't sell your Burning Enigmas. They can be bought with money and farmed so you're not screwed if you did, but don't just sell them for cash unless you're really struggling. Ztories are also worth more to you than the Scholar pays for them. Snippets are safe to sell, I think, and while a couple of quests requires Relics, Artifacts, and Treasures, those can be procured on demand.

- Don't get Cursed, and try to sail around blessed if you can. The three sisters of Hunter's Isle provide a temporary source of blessings.

- Explore Nuncio. You can't mess up there (except die from high Terror), and it's awesome. There's hardly any money in there, though, except farming SAYs on the beach. But it's awesome, trust me.

- Side with the rats at Saints-Haven. You'll get free supplies and repairs (2 Fuel + 1 Supply OR 20 Hull per SAY). The guinea pigs will give you 5 Supplies instead of repairs, but you can't use repair with Supplies if you're banged up hard enough to want emergency repairs.


HOW TO RAISE A KID AND LEAVE A PROPER INHERITANCE

Carouse in the docks in London. Hook up and start dating. Don't dump them. Don't screw your officers, you only get one hookup in London per captain. Eventually, a kid appears.

Don't get Salt's Curse. If you do, don't dock in London with a SAY until you go to Whither to remove it. It's relatively easy to remove. Docking in London with the curse and a SAY removes your Scion quality or, if you don't have it, kills your partner and kid.

To start raising the kid, buy a house and feed them zee-ztories/memories until they run off (permit them to run off, obvs). Then you pick two legacy options the next time.

It happens that the two best skills are Veils and Pages. But you can't inherit Pages because it'll screw you over secret-wise, so you should pick Veils and Mirrors instead. And it happens that Mirrors and Veils let your Scion inherit ALL OF YOUR MONEY (each giving 50%, and IT STACKS). See why I said wills are dumb shit?

(Also, high Veils, Mirrors or Pages compared to Hearts or Iron are required to romance most romanceable Officers you can find in the game. The required pair of stats depends on the Officer.)

If your sweetheart dumps you after your kid becomes a Scion, you get to keep the Scion (probably, not sure but the wiki says so).
If your sweetheart dumps you before your kid becomes a Scion, the kid will leave with them (and you still can't sell the house, haha).
If your sweetheart dies or dumps you, you can't get another one.
If you get hit by Salt's Curse with a Scion, it removes the Scion. If you haven't yet raised a kid, you can still do so.
If you get hit by Salt's Curse without a Scion but with a sweetheart and/or kid, they are dead and you won't get the quality with this captain unless your Ambition is Your Father's Bones and your past is a Natural Philosopher.

THE CATCH is that when you have a house and a kid (as in, your current captain has a kid, not you the player have a Scion legacy), you can't sell your house (though you can downgrade from a mansion to a house). Not even when they run off to zee. And that prevents you from using the fastest method of farming income.

HOW TO FARM MAD BUX
(upcoming)
Post edited March 25, 2015 by Starmaker
Posted March 25, 2015
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Luned: but I'm debating whether I should accept payment from BB or just tell him to pack sand and not do any more runs for him.
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Starmaker: DON"T TALK TO HIM AT ALL OR YOU"LL RUIN YOUS BEST SOURCE OF INCOME. JUST LEAVE THE STORY HANGING.

will edit in later
Well, that's a definite answer for sure, thanks. :) Once you fill in the details I'll mark this as a solution.
Posted March 25, 2015
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Starmaker: DON"T TALK TO HIM AT ALL OR YOU"LL RUIN YOUS BEST SOURCE OF INCOME. JUST LEAVE THE STORY HANGING.

will edit in later
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Luned: Well, that's a definite answer for sure, thanks. :) Once you fill in the details I'll mark this as a solution.
HOW TO FARM MAD BUX
(also edited in less cheesy advice above)









Requirements: took a soul to Palmerston and didn't contact the Bruiser afterwards, living in a Room.

Empty Mirrorcatch Boxes can be filled with Sunlight either at a certain island (this gives you a Wound, so don't, unless you need one for a quest) or at the Surface. You'll be smuggling Sunlight from the Surface.

WIth your starting ship, buy 10 Empty MIrrorcatch Boxes at Khan's Shadow (or Khan's Heart if you have it unlocked with coffee) for $2500 total. Clean up your hold, sell useless cargo. Buy about 24 Fuel in London (or Iron Republic I guess, but London is way more convenient and safer).
Get some Supplies, but not much. (You can restock at the Canal if you accidentally end up not having enough.)
Go to the Canal.
Collect rumors and a port report (why not) and ascend to the surface.
At the surface, notice that your Gazetteer doesn't work properly - you can't check the tabs. Sigh.
Fill all your boxes with Sunlight. Notice the quality "Menaces: Yearning, Burning" increasing. Watch it (but you can't yet, because the gazetteer is zomgbroken). You get about 5.5 ponts of M:YB per box on average. If the quality increases to 200, you're dead. You won't get that much filling up 10 boxes, however. (The words to watch out for are "You will rise to the Sun and be lost." If you get that, stop what you're doing and flee to the Unterzee and to your Lodgings in London. If you get more at the Unterzee, immediately drop all your remaining boxes overboard.)

Go to Naples. Buy about 5-6 (or 12-15 once you have a bigger ship and 25 boxes) Supplies (depending on your Crew) for $5 per box (an action, not a Shop, so you'll have to do it one by one). DON'T run cargo over the Mediterranean, it's not profitable and can kill your crew. Fuel costs $15 here. Don't buy fuel unless you're strapped.
If you want, go from Naples to Vienna ($10, return for free) to get moar plot and possibly get involved with the Anarchists. Or you can rat them out and make a friend and trade him Recent News for some handy minor goodies on each trip to the Surface. You can also sell coffee there, but not forever.

Note that spending time at the surface has removed all of your Terror. This is unexpectedly bad.

Go back to the Unterzee and sail with your lights off to a dark spot just below Mutton Island's port.
Park at the spot with your lights off and make sure you're accumulating 2 decimals of Terror per tick (red dots around the skull).
Wait until you have about 20 Terror if you're still sailing in your starting bathtub with 10 boxes or 50-60 if you upgraded to a Frigate and 25 boxes. This is why you need to stock up on Supplies at the Surface -- the crew has to eat while you're waiting to get properly scared.
Dock at Mutton Island and expend your SAY (attend a ceremony if you can, or go to the top of the hill - you can get a secret there).
Sail to the Lightship ASAP and dock there without getting a new SAY.
Sail to London ASAP and dock there without getting a new SAY.
This will ensure officials won't shake you up for that sweet smuggled Sunlight. (It's illegal, you can't pay a tax and bring it in -- you can bribe them or use Admiralty Favor, though. But best not to encounter those guys at all.) Officials only appear when you have a SAY. (You should also discard a SAY this way if you get Salt's Curse and don't want your family killed.)

Notice there's another Bruiser event. Choose it and sell all your boxes for $400 per box. You get to keep the boxes, which is awesome.
Go to Your Lodgings and rest there until Menaces: Yearning, Burning is gone or you run out of Terror (check your journal). Resting removes 2-3 points of M:YB per rest, and you can only rest when you have nonzero Terror. So if you can't rest in a room because you have acknowledged a kid, this method no longer works. (I haven't checked, but I think you can't even sell your house if your kid is dead. You definitely can't sell it if they ran off to zee. But if you do have a kid)
Buy enough fuel for a second trip, rinse, repeat.

Eventually, you'l have enough money for a Frigate and then some. Buy a Frigate. If you have a good engine that grants you stat bonuses, use that. If you don't, buy a 2000 power engine, Manticore No. 4 ($2000). Recruit extra crew. Stock up on Supplies. FUEL AND SUPPLY REQUIREMENTS CHANGE DEPENDING ON YOUR CREW AND ENGINE, don't get yourself stuck or eaten at zee because you're used to your bathtub's low demands.
Go to the Khanate and buy 15 more boxes.
Keep doing it until you have enough money.
(Don't buy more than 30 boxes, though, and don't buy a Cargo Ship for farming -- you can fill an average of 36 boxes per ascent before burning up at 200 M:YB, and high amounts of M:YB are dangerous by themselves).


WHAT NEXT?

If you accidentally ruined your mutually beneficial business relationship with the Bruiser (you told him to GTFO, or you screwed him over, or you did all his quests and he vanished), you can still hand in your boxes at the Isle of Cats. However, it might be far away (it is, in my current game), you can't sell boxes in bulk, and, what's worse, the Cats might take your box, too, depending on a Veils check (if you lose a box, you'll get an extra $100 as if you sold it, but you'll have to rebuy it at the Khanate, which is always far away).

If you want to retire from sunlight-smuggling and raise your damn kid, there's still at least one infinite farming option, but it's SLOOOOOOW. Specifically, you can buy 9 Burning Enigmas for $1665 each at Irem. Then convert them to a Dreadful Surmise at the Iron Republic (notice these two locations are literally a world apart), then sell the Surmise for 10 Enigmas at Irem, rinse, repeat. Enigmas can be sold to the Scholar for $1000 each (be careful to not accidentally sell a set of 7, though -- it'll give you a cheaper Surmise but will remove the Scholar permanently). Note that the next captain won't inherit your IP, so don't convert most of your money to Enigmas unless you're actively farming Enigmas and definitely not intending to die any time soon, and don't forget to cash out when you decide to win and end the game.

Also, you can smuggle red honey from the Isle of Cats after you do the quests there. It's slow, though, because you can only buy one per SAY ($600 to buy, $900 or a Treasure worth $1000 to sell). The usual considerations about docking with illegal cargo in London apply (lose the SAY or pay up).
Post edited March 25, 2015 by Starmaker
Posted March 25, 2015
Thanks, I marked your reply as a solution, although it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. I'd heard about the mirrorboxes, was just looking for the best option to collect the Echoes needed to buy said boxes and the fuel & supplies necessary to make the Surface run.

Looks like my best bet on my next trip is to explore southeast to find Mangrove College (after some Net-searching I found out that taking Natural Philosopher means I have to finish out that quest before being able to do regular tomb-colonist runs). Also look for Khan's Heart while I'm making that run, since it will play into making the Sunlight trade route.
Post edited March 25, 2015 by Luned
Posted March 26, 2015
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Luned: Thanks, I marked your reply as a solution, although it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. I'd heard about the mirrorboxes, was just looking for the best option to collect the Echoes needed to buy said boxes and the fuel & supplies necessary to make the Surface run.

Looks like my best bet on my next trip is to explore southeast to find Mangrove College (after some Net-searching I found out that taking Natural Philosopher means I have to finish out that quest before being able to do regular tomb-colonist runs). Also look for Khan's Heart while I'm making that run, since it will play into making the Sunlight trade route.
I postponed the colonist runs until I had a bigger ship and a use for the quest item, I just couldn't afford to circumnavigate the zee in the bathtub with 12 fewer cargo slots, and the quest isn't that farmable -- it's slow, and you'll need a bunch of stories to restart it. Salt Lions deliveries -> chess and scintillack -> spying in Khan's Heart is the way to go. Get some Strategic Info via Admiralty Commissions to turn into Vital Intelligence, find 2-3 colors and you're set.

Mangrove College is worth seeking out for the guaranteed Officer, unless you already have them. The Officer's quest is fun and pays okay, but you shouldn't do it before you do a special Salt Lions run for a certain Londoner (and I mean Londoner, no weird people with shiny eyes and suspicious loyalties) or there's a chance of failure. Unfortunately, for an established Natural Philosopher, the destination of said run is one of the most dangerous places on the map (since I wanted to play one anyway, I started as a Stranger and picked a background after I was done with Salt Lions). You can pick up the Officer safely, though, this one doesn't have an expiration date.

Keep in mind you can still have a kid (just don't upgrade lodgings) if you're not too concerned about the possibility of getting cursed, or if you are, carouse in the docks for terror reduction with random people.
Post edited March 26, 2015 by Starmaker
Posted March 27, 2015
Overall useful advice, except for the following corrections:

- If you have a townhouse or mansion, you can still have a kid and rest. Resting is a different option to "spending time with your family". It does cost more though ($100 a pop), and terror recedes faster, so not only is it less profitable, you get less uses out of it per return trip.

- It only costs 5 points of Admiralty favour to avoid the Revenue men, and they only appear randomly, so it's not a big deal. Typically my Admiralty favour is maxed out from all the Vital Intelligence I sell, so it's never a problem.

- Sometimes the Public Decency guys search you instead of the Revenue men - but they only look for red honey, so you can bring boxes in without a problem when they search you!

- As long as you're currently on the Bruiser's good side, he will always appear whenever you have sunlight to trade. It's generally worth doing his missions for a bit of extra pocket money (and you can do other stuff on the way). But I would still wait until uncovering all the places he might send you, which are: Mt Palmerston, Khan's Heart, Polythreme and Gaider's Morn. He'll never send you anywhere else.

MANGROVE COLLEGE
- The Mangrove College is worth checking out for the swamp quests - which are infinitely repeatable!

-They're not that hard, so just buy 10 or so candles at either Khan's Heart or Apis Meet (30 echoes each), then go through the swamps until you run out.

-This can tends to net you at least an outrageous artifact and some solacefruit, going up to a captivating treasure and finally even blue scintillack (though that's rare, obviously!).

- Just watch your crew count and/or wounds!

- If you run out of food, just scavenge some from the area.

- avoid seeding blemmigans here unless you want to make this harder for yourself!

VARCHAS

- apart from being a fun place to explore, Scintillack sells here for 3 outrageous artifacts!

- Blue scintillack for even more (if you find enough to want to sell that is!)


ONE FINAL THING

- You don't actually NEED to "farm" anything to get enough money. I was able to retire as a "rich person" (with that objective chosen) on my third captain, who wasn't left much in the way of an inheritance, and I still had the second-largest ship (but only because I couldn't be bothered going up to the next one) and I still had some stories to finish (although admittedly, they were starting to thin out by then). If I had had an inheritence of considerable size, then this would have been even easier.
Post edited March 27, 2015 by squid830
Posted March 27, 2015
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squid830: - If you have a townhouse or mansion, you can still have a kid and rest. Resting is a different option to "spending time with your family". It does cost more though ($100 a pop), and terror recedes faster, so not only is it less profitable, you get less uses out of it per return trip.
The speed of reducing Menaces: Yearning, Burning doesn't change with the quality of lodgings. So the cash flow decreases to the point you'll be better off starting a new captain or editing the save. Even the optimal way of sunlight-smuggling is fairly mind-numbing, and a game should be fun.
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squid830: -They're not that hard, so just buy 10 or so candles at either Khan's Heart or Apis Meet (30 echoes each), then go through the swamps until you run out.
Candles are expensive, though, so it's more of a mid-game option, not something to do when you're on your second quest. Khan's Heart costs money to unlock, and Apis Meet has these blue birds which sank me twice.

VARCHAS
- apart from being a fun place to explore, Scintillack sells here for 3 outrageous artifacts!
I haven't found it yet, but I've read good things about it. Looking forward to it now, the place might turn out to be even awesomer than Nuncio.

- You don't actually NEED to "farm" anything to get enough money. I was able to retire as a "rich person" (with that objective chosen) on my third captain, who wasn't left much in the way of an inheritance, and I still had the second-largest ship (but only because I couldn't be bothered going up to the next one) and I still had some stories to finish (although admittedly, they were starting to thin out by then). If I had had an inheritence of considerable size, then this would have been even easier.
Well, you're a way better player than me. I went broke, got killed by the blue birds, exploded while fleeing from the blue birds, died of Terror at zee, got killed by one of those devil ships near the Iron Republic, and finally ended up with 7k in cash and at least three quests requiring fluke cores. So I went farming.
Posted April 02, 2015
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Starmaker: The speed of reducing Menaces: Yearning, Burning doesn't change with the quality of lodgings. So the cash flow decreases to the point you'll be better off starting a new captain or editing the save. Even the optimal way of sunlight-smuggling is fairly mind-numbing, and a game should be fun.
Totally agree - that's why I'm pretty much against "farming" since I don't consider the kind of repetition required to be fun, and why I suggest doing plot events instead.
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squid830: -They're not that hard, so just buy 10 or so candles at either Khan's Heart or Apis Meet (30 echoes each), then go through the swamps until you run out.
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Starmaker: Candles are expensive, though, so it's more of a mid-game option, not something to do when you're on your second quest. Khan's Heart costs money to unlock, and Apis Meet has these blue birds which sank me twice.
True, I wouldn't do it straight away. I assumed it would be after you'd explored a fair chunk of the map since I tend to not find these islands for a while anyway.

Khan's Heart takes generally takes me AGES to unlock because I'm a cheapskate so I do it purely with pearls, which generally either requires lucky pearl finds, or (more likely) lots of trips to Port Cecil to do the main quest there (which gets you tons of Scintillack for trading into tons of Pearls).

I may have been lucky, or it could be because I like to focus on upping my veils, but those birds tend to be easy enough to avoid. They're probably not worth attacking unless you're bored as even with a decent ship they can do significant damage, and the reward isn't worth it IMO. They're worth killing at least once though just for the descriptions (if they're the birds I'm thinking of - might be those smaller ones near Varchas).

Apis Meet is worth it because you can not only reduce terror reasonably well, you can easily rack up tons of fragments. Unfortunately it balances this with limited actions per visit and port entry requirements.

VARCHAS
- apart from being a fun place to explore, Scintillack sells here for 3 outrageous artifacts!
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Starmaker: I haven't found it yet, but I've read good things about it. Looking forward to it now, the place might turn out to be even awesomer than Nuncio.
I won't spoil it, but I'm not sure I'd say it's better - or even that it's worse. It takes longer though because it's one of the few places that limits your actions in Port before you have to leave (and then you need another SAY before you can enter again - like Apis Meet, but it doesn't have entry requirements).
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Starmaker: Well, you're a way better player than me. I went broke, got killed by the blue birds, exploded while fleeing from the blue birds, died of Terror at zee, got killed by one of those devil ships near the Iron Republic, and finally ended up with 7k in cash and at least three quests requiring fluke cores. So I went farming.
Nah, I died a hell of a lot at first, but once I figured out how to not die so quickly, I restarted from scratch for some reason (thereby resetting captains to 0, resetting skills etc.). Otherwise there would be at least another 5 deaths, and at least three of those would have died before even exploring.

Plus those first few times, I was really struggling for cash - no matter what I did I only ever seemed to break even. It wasn't until I realised that in some (many) cases, rewards take time to come. That is, sometimes you may need to visit a number of ports many times before you get lucky, or before the plot gives you a decent reward.

Although speaking of farming and fluke cores - it's actually perfectly viable to hunt lorn flukes as a source of cash and secrets! Personally I'd leave it to the mid (or even late) game though - although they don't run out.
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