Best trading routes to earn some echoes?

[Chrona the Leshy]

What are your favorite trading routes in sunless sea? I honestly just started with the zubmariner dlc, so I don't know those ports really at all.

Oh, and to clarify, I'm just talking about shops or easily repeatable events (in particular ones that don't need "something awaits you."

The best repeatable one I've found is buying darkdrop coffee in either of the southern ports (38 echoes spent), selling them in irem for parabola linen, and selling it in london (for 60 echoes), or, again, one of the southern ports (66 echoes) depending on the trip I'm wanting to take.

[Richard02]

My favorite is hunting for trophies, bringing them to Khan's shadow, trading it for four watchful curios, going to Polythreme, getting claymens and switching all watchful into Wakefull.

Echoes earned : 520, add 400 for each SAY you wait at Khan's shadow.

[Pixel Peeper]

It looks like there are a lot of possible ones. I haven't explored them much yet; I've made most of my money doing things like the Curator questline (rewards 13 Captivating Treasures total).

The only "trading route" I've used so far was selling Coffee to the surface for 80 per bag, getting 3,200 Echoes' worth of free sunlight while I was there as well as buying about 70 Supplies for 5 Echoes each and reselling them for 25 each down below.

Of course, because of the limit on Coffee and the menace of Yearning, Burning, I only did this two or three times. But it paid around 8,000 Echoes each time so it's not like I needed to do it again after that.

There are deals that look promising. Here's one that I noticed earlier:

A Firkin of Prisoner's Honey costs 25 in London.
You can trade them for Carboys of Primordial Shrieks in The Gant Pole.
You can trade the Carboys for Mutersalt in Scrimshander.
You can trade the Mutersalt for Scintillack in Anthe.
You can trade the Scintillack for Sapphires in Wrack (if Wrack is prosperous).

Now here's where you get an interesting choice:

You can sell Sapphires for 99 in the Chelonate. Bought for 25, sold for 99.
or
You can trade Sapphires for 2xMutersalt in Hideaway.

This last one is kind of insane. You turned a Mutersalt into a Sapphire and the Sapphire into 2xMutersalts, which means... you can turn a Sapphire into 2 Sapphires.

You can turn 20 Sapphires into 40 Sapphires, turn 40 Sapphires into 80 Sapphires... and then sell 40 Sapphires and turn your remaining 40 into 80 Sapphires again.

Potentially, you can turn a single Firkin of Prisoner's Honey into infinite Echoes.

Crazy.

[bridgeofblues]

Originally posted by Tripoteur Ventripotent:

It looks like there are a lot of possible ones. I haven't explored them much yet; I've made most of my money doing things like the Curator questline (rewards 13 Captivating Treasures total).

The only "trading route" I've used so far was selling Coffee to the surface for 80 per bag, getting 3,200 Echoes' worth of free sunlight while I was there as well as buying about 70 Supplies for 5 Echoes each and reselling them for 25 each down below.

Of course, because of the limit on Coffee and the menace of Yearning, Burning, I only did this two or three times. But it paid around 8,000 Echoes each time so it's not like I needed to do it again after that.

There are deals that look promising. Here's one that I noticed earlier:

A Firkin of Prisoner's Honey costs 25 in London.
You can trade them for Carboys of Primordial Shrieks in The Gant Pole.
You can trade the Carboys for Mutersalt in Scrimshander.
You can trade the Mutersalt for Scintillack in Anthe.
You can trade the Scintillack for Sapphires in Wrack (if Wrack is prosperous).

Now here's where you get an interesting choice:

You can sell Sapphires for 99 in the Chelonate. Bought for 25, sold for 99.
or
You can trade Sapphires for 2xMutersalt in Hideaway.

This last one is kind of insane. You turned a Mutersalt into a Sapphire and the Sapphire into 2xMutersalts, which means... you can turn a Sapphire into 2 Sapphires.

You can turn 20 Sapphires into 40 Sapphires, turn 40 Sapphires into 80 Sapphires... and then sell 40 Sapphires and turn your remaining 40 into 80 Sapphires again.

Potentially, you can turn a single Firkin of Prisoner's Honey into infinite Echoes.

Crazy.

What ship did you use for that sunlight coffee combo?

[Richard02]

Originally posted by bridgeofblues:

What ship did you use for that sunlight coffee combo?

He's probably using the merchant ship, even if he isn't, it probably would be the best choice, coffee doesn't afford that much with others since you need to reserve at least 30 slots for fuel/supplies

[Pixel Peeper]

I used the Merchant Cruiser, yes. I honestly haven't owned that many ships.

I got the Merchant Cruiser on my first playthrough, which is when I did those surface runs. I also earned three Legacies, one of which required me to leave for another world, ending the run.

My second playthrough was purposefully short and I didn't even bother upgrading from the starting ship. I just carried Sphinxstone and visited Abysses to get two Legacies, one of which requires you to go into some sort of abyssal paradise, ending the run again.

My third playthrough I used the Cladery Heart and mostly just quested around. Made 35k on that run, then ended it by burning down London and flying into the East (for the last Legacy).

That's where I am now. It's my 4th Captain, I've got 37,600 Echoes and nice starting stats. I'm thinking of trying the Frigate this time. I won't have enough cargo space for trading, but the crew size isn't too bad and killing things is lucrative and reduces Terror.

I might try heavy trading again with my 5th Captain, or maybe I'll try the Dreadnaught and do half-trading half-killing.

[Chrona the Leshy]

Originally posted by Richard02:

My favorite is hunting for trophies, bringing them to Khan's shadow, trading it for four watchful curios, going to Polythreme, getting claymens and switching all watchful into Wakefull.

Echoes earned : 520, add 400 for each SAY you wait at Khan's shadow.

I know that one and I like it quite a bit, but I didn't mention it because it was "something awaits"

[Wlerin]

Well there's the other version of OP's linen route:

Buy Wine in London, trade it in the Empire of Hands for Coffee, trade that for Linen in Irem, Zail of the eastern edge and hope you end up in Kingeater Castle, take the option there to trade all your Zee Ztories (?) in order to return to London, sell the Linen, buy more Wine, repeat.

I like gathering Scintillack from either Pigmote (if you supported the wrong side), or Port Cecil (if you haven't finished that quest yet), or if neither of those are available, trading Mutersalt for it in Anthe; then taking it down to Varchas and (using SAY, but up to 4 exchanges per SAY) converting each piece into two Outlandish Artefacts. These then have numerous uses but the most profitable, if you still need Pages and have spare Secrets, is converting them into Monstrous Almanacs and selling those in Venderbight.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by Tripoteur Ventripotent:

It looks like there are a lot of possible ones. I haven't explored them much yet; I've made most of my money doing things like the Curator questline (rewards 13 Captivating Treasures total).

The only "trading route" I've used so far was selling Coffee to the surface for 80 per bag, getting 3,200 Echoes' worth of free sunlight while I was there as well as buying about 70 Supplies for 5 Echoes each and reselling them for 25 each down below.

Of course, because of the limit on Coffee and the menace of Yearning, Burning, I only did this two or three times. But it paid around 8,000 Echoes each time so it's not like I needed to do it again after that.

There are deals that look promising. Here's one that I noticed earlier:

A Firkin of Prisoner's Honey costs 25 in London.
You can trade them for Carboys of Primordial Shrieks in The Gant Pole.
You can trade the Carboys for Mutersalt in Scrimshander.
You can trade the Mutersalt for Scintillack in Anthe.
You can trade the Scintillack for Sapphires in Wrack (if Wrack is prosperous).

Now here's where you get an interesting choice:

You can sell Sapphires for 99 in the Chelonate. Bought for 25, sold for 99.
or
You can trade Sapphires for 2xMutersalt in Hideaway.

This last one is kind of insane. You turned a Mutersalt into a Sapphire and the Sapphire into 2xMutersalts, which means... you can turn a Sapphire into 2 Sapphires.

You can turn 20 Sapphires into 40 Sapphires, turn 40 Sapphires into 80 Sapphires... and then sell 40 Sapphires and turn your remaining 40 into 80 Sapphires again.

Potentially, you can turn a single Firkin of Prisoner's Honey into infinite Echoes.

Crazy.

I believe this is my favorite of the Zubmariner routes and I've posted it a couple times. It has the added advantage that all the ports in it are also important in advancing storylines and require repeat visits to do that.

And as you've noticed, it's an extremely flexible route where you can cash in a great profit at nearly any time, or pull tricks like the new one you added about the Sapphires, which I had never even considered.

Another quirk to this route is you can actually trade Mutersalt for Foxfire Candles at Aigul, too. The benefit to this is if you're into farming the Wisp-Ways for vast profits, you basically get to do endless Wisp-Ways for basically free and turn your already healthy profits into obscene profits.

This is enough to jump-start the trade of Searing Enigmas for Dread Surmises and dealing those back and forth between the Iron Republic and Irem, a route you should use at least once in any line if you want to become shockingly rich, to the point none of your descendants will ever want for money.

[Pixel Peeper]

Oh, I didn't know you could farm the Wisp-Ways. I only went in once and only had a few candles, I remember getting some sort of death parrot but not much else.

I've only had three Captains so far, I'm still discovering things. Part of the fun, really.

I heard about the Enigmas and Surmises, and I might even have the budget to get started on that on my next run now that my 3rd Captain has flown into the East. Got no more Legacies to unlock, I can focus on building up my wealth.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by Tripoteur Ventripotent:

Oh, I didn't know you could farm the Wisp-Ways. I only went in once and only had a few candles, I remember getting some sort of death parrot but not much else.

I've only had three Captains so far, I'm still discovering things. Part of the fun, really.

I heard about the Enigmas and Surmises, and I might even have the budget to get started on that on my next run now that my 3rd Captain has flown into the East. Got no more Legacies to unlock, I can focus on building up my wealth.

This is a late game farming strategy, at least if you're going to fill up an entire ship with candles and just do it over and over again. There are a lot of events that raise terror or cause wounds, or kill crew, and unless your stats are super high, many of these are unavoidable. You can easily end a game doing it carelessly.

It's still worth doing even early on, but you're not going to be able to farm it effectively until later. At the time it's first possible to start doing it, you can really use Searing Enigmas in particular.

[Chrona the Leshy]

I just had an interesting note. This is less profitable, but extremely useful for quests. Buy a strange catch in irem, etc, go to the uttershroom after 50 "time the healer," and turn it into a live specimen. Sell said specimen for 7 strange catch at the gant pole. Repeat as needed.

[Richard02]

Originally posted by Chrona Trigger:

I just had an interesting note. This is less profitable, but extremely useful for quests. Buy a strange catch in irem, etc, go to the uttershroom after 50 "time the healer," and turn it into a live specimen. Sell said specimen for 7 strange catch at the gant pole. Repeat as needed.

Specimens can then be sold at different places, not only in london IIRC.

[Chrona the Leshy]

Originally posted by Richard02:

Originally posted by Chrona Trigger:

I just had an interesting note. This is less profitable, but extremely useful for quests. Buy a strange catch in irem, etc, go to the uttershroom after 50 "time the healer," and turn it into a live specimen. Sell said specimen for 7 strange catch at the gant pole. Repeat as needed.

Specimens can then be sold at different places, not only in london IIRC.

I was just thinking for all the quests and other things that need strange catches and live specimens (the serene aquarium and whispering cabnet, to name some crafting, but also the bandeged chef, the cladery heir, plus a few other officers, among other, more random uses, such as the harlot-fry encounters)

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by Richard02:

Originally posted by Chrona Trigger:

I just had an interesting note. This is less profitable, but extremely useful for quests. Buy a strange catch in irem, etc, go to the uttershroom after 50 "time the healer," and turn it into a live specimen. Sell said specimen for 7 strange catch at the gant pole. Repeat as needed.

Specimens can then be sold at different places, not only in london IIRC.

Hold onto one, too. You can get a full hull repair at the Fathomking, which can be a life saver.