do I overpurchase items for a quest?

[VerifiedHuman]

I'm a bit of a noob. but should I be spending over 5k on every quest? I noticed I only earn about 1k from each quest, What do you guys think?

[Duke Kaboom3601]

hell no, that is not recommend at all, you purchases items for the expedition depending on each regions

[RopeDrink]

Bear in mind that the below does not include a particular Hamlet event which reduces your overall provisions for that week. While most provisions have a beneficial effect, they are often bought for curio interactions. In short, you're spending money in the hopes of turning it into a bigger profit, so you need to learn provisions and their interactions. Some lose/gain value depending on the zone you're bringing them to -- such as Herbs in the Cove.

Alas, lugging a full inventory of provisions also means you have less space for the rewards, and it's never a good idea to pay money just to throw it away again. As such, it's a balancing act of variables with no one-track answer. You'll need to figure out your own comfortable baselines.

To me, Shovels (and food) are the bare necessities, followed by torches. You can sacrifice the Shovels if you have a super-sustain group, especially if you happen to walk into barricades with a fresh team (rather than a team on the verge of self-destruction), but I'd rather save that health/stress and turn-efficiency for killing enemies instead of undoing bad interactions.

If I'm super tight on money for a week, those are the two things I'll focus on buying first, followed by torches, then at least one key, then everything else -- starting with zone specifics, such as "Herbs" for the "Cove" (which would be a priority). Take time to learn which provisions are more valuable where, and get used to managing your inventory to wring as much profit from as little cost as possible.


Shovels:
Removes blockages - give or take some curio interactions. Personally, I take 2 for Short, 3 for Medium, and 4 for Long missions, but that's a personal preference.


Food:
Alas, food is hands-down the most variable resource.

Small, medium, and large dungeons begin with a set number of hunger checks -- which are invisible tiles. There will always be enough food on the provisions screen to cover the hunger checks, as well as the cost of camping. Alas, if you find yourself relying on food to heal the group as well, you'll need extra, and this doesn't account for hunger tiles that respawn during backtracking, or how much food you want to invest in camping overall. Keep in mind that it's entirely possible to complete a dungeon without walking into a single hunger check, if you're lucky.

The easy answer is to buyout all food if you're unsure. As you get familiar with the game, you will learn how many hunger checks there are (per dungeon-size) and know in advance when you need to hoard some food for them, or when you can go ham and eat it all willy-nilly. Just make sure to keep enough for hunger checks if you suspect there will be a LOT of backtracking.

Lastly, dungeons like the Weald and Warrens have curios which can reward (up to) multiple full stacks of food if you interact with them the right way. It is worth learning what those are.


Torches:
It is beneficial to keep the light at 75% or higher at all times if you are new to the game. It is literally the "difficulty slider" of Darkest Dungeon. On the flipside, you can drastically increase the difficulty (and chances of phatter drops) by snuffing the torch, which isn't advised. At bare minimum, try to keep the torch above 0 so you don't walk into a (spoiler).

I typically stretch out one single stack for short dungeons and grab a few extra for medium and large. It's not enough to keep the light above 75% at all times (unless you loot more), but that doesn't bother me much. Don't forget -- camping resets your torchlight to full.

There are a small number of interactions that require a torch.


Herbs:
Removes debuffs, including those applied via certain camping skills. Due to this - and their valuable interactions with things like, say, Coral Reef in the Cove, you would opt to take a few more of these than you might other provisions.


Bandages:
Removes bleeding. They have some curio interactivity, usually in very specific zones, but you wouldn't overbuy these unless you're wary of a very particular zone -- not including the Crimson Court DLC, which is where you would take as many as possible.


Antidode:
Same as Bandages, except they treat Blight. You wouldn't really buy too many of these outside of specific zones -- not including Endless Mode, where the basic trash throws blight like a child flicks boogers.


Holy Water:
Provides a resistance buff to the hero and has a few interactions. No reason to buy this out in casual content, but worth lugging one or two for specific zones, and a few more for particular boss fights so you can give your heroes a few rounds of defensive pep.


-----

So, if I was just farting about in a short dungeon, the bare essentials (for me) would be something along the lines of: most food, 2 Shovels, a key, a stack of torches -- give or take things like, say, Holy Water in the Ruins (1-2), or Herbs in the Cove (at least 2), maybe some bandages to deal with particular bleed enemies and/or Antidote for particular blight enemies, not to mention other variables.

[No One]

Buy all the food. At most you'll be 4 over.

One shovel for short, two for medium, three for long, with +1 if it's an explore mission and +1 if it's in the weald. You can usually (but not quite always) get away with -1 for the warrens.

I forget how many torches you need on not-stygian. 1, 1.5, 2? On stygian it's like 9, 15, 25. Torches are cheap so going over isn't a big deal.

Buy keys if you're into that, or likely to find a secret room.

Buy herbs and bandages for cove. (Though bandages are optional in apprentice.)

[Gilmoy]

Tersely:
(S) 2k - 3k
(M) 4k
(L) about 5k

Learn curio interactions. To simplify, keep the wiki page open in a browser.

You need food, torches, and shovels for obstacles. You want keys for chests. Tersely:
(S) 12 food, 8 torches, 2 shovels, 2 keys. You can splurge with +1 shovel and +1 key.
(M) 16 food, 10-12 torches, 3 shovels, 3 keys.
(L) means you're not a newbie any more. Do more of what got you this far.

For other supplies, I like to page-down through the wiki curio page for that region only.
Count (or skim) the histogram of how many curios mention which supplies.
Then bring 1-2 of the ones mentioned.

This means:
All regions: 2 herbs, 1-2 holy water. They all have curios that can use them.
All regions: +1 holy water, for Eldritch Altar.
Ruins: +1-2 keys for Locked Display Cabinet and Locked Sarcophagus.
Warrens: +1 herbs for food, +1 bandage for Rack of Blades.
Cove: +1-2 shovels for Giant Oyster and Barnacle Covered Chest.

Weald: +1 shovel for Shallow Grave.
+1-2 Bandage for Eerie Spiderweb and Mummified Remains.
+1 Antivenom for Old Tree. (Note: this is the only Antivenom in the 4 regions)

None of the regions need Laudanum.

~~~~~~~~

See my Zero Hero Challenge Run #2, in progress
You can see my actual spendings in the 'hamlet' tab, just before each week's quest.
I actually spent:

-11.7k on 5 (S)hort = -2.3k each
-43.6k on 11 (M)edium = -4.0k each

You can also see exactly which supplies I dropped, and what loot I kept to replace them.
In 22 weeks, I have never dropped an heirloom, I've brought out 100% of all heirlooms. (Once I start doing Long missions, I will litter the galaxy with dropped heirlooms)

[Xavi-Da-Imp]

Download the "Darkest Companion App" on your phone (its for free on Google Apps Store). It will show what you should pick for a dung.

[VerifiedHuman]

Originally posted by Xavi-Da-Imp:

Download the "Darkest Companion App" on your phone (its for free on Google Apps Store). It will show what you should pick for a dung.

thanks this was acctually a huge help, again... Thanks!

[Zorlond]

For me, food and torches are split by length. Short is 12 food, 8 torches, Medium is 20 and 10, Long is 32 and 12. Everything else is by region.

Ruins: 3 shovels, 3 herbs, 2 keys, 2 holy water
Barrows: 3 shovels, 4 herbs, 3 holy water, 2 keys, 2 bandages
Weald: 4 shovels, 4 herbs, 2 antidote, 2 bandages, 2 keys, 2 holy water, and an extra torch
Cove: 4 shovels, 4 herbs, 2 keys, 1 holy water, maybe 2 antidote

Those are for short runs. For medium, I tend to bring an extra of the 1-2 item stuff, and long I'd also bring an extra of the 3-4 item stuff. Antidotes get first pick for being tossed in favor of treasure, followed by bandages, herbs, holy water, keys, then shovels. I actually get real anxious once the keys are on the block for being tossed, since Secret Rooms pay off big if you bring a key, but it's a much easier call to make if I'd already found the Secret Room (always only one per run). And I'll consider tossing the torches or food if there's not much dungeon left to explore, or shovels if I don't see any blockages on the map.

Always try to 'use up' an item stack before you toss it. Cram as much food in the heros' mouths before tossing the scraps, light up to 100 Light before dropping the torches, etc. Also applies to stuff you can't pick up, you can eat that fish right now instead of carrying it.

[den0saur]

@RopeDrink thank you a lot for your thorough explanations, im new to the game too and figured few things out myself, but this was very useful as well

[Kamuizin]

Originally posted by VerifiedHuman:

I'm a bit of a noob. but should I be spending over 5k on every quest? I noticed I only earn about 1k from each quest, What do you guys think?

https://darkestdungeon.fandom.com/wiki/Expeditions_Guide