Most Profitable Common Good?

[NC31]

I've recently bought myself the merchant boat, am in awe at the cargo size, and am looking for the most profitable route of normal goods, at least in the Neath. I've seen a 3 echo gain on Parabola Linen from the Iron Republic to London, a 4 echo gain on Stygian Ivory from Chelonate to Polythreme, and a few others so marginal they escape me. I know the game's focused on making money through port reports, events, and quests, but there's gotta be something worth it apart from the coffee route and sunlight.

Edit: I've found a 6 echo gain from running souls from Khan's Shadow to Hell's Embassy in London. Better, and could probably wrack up a good profit of 60-70 echo without including port reports. Still feel like there's something better though.

[Shakajolt]

Short version: check the wiki + hope for a good map. Or get yourself a scion, then constantly sell ship->die->inherit all money over and over and over...15 echos per food if you go up to the surface and are willing to repeatedly click the menu to get one at a time... really slow/boring but 15echoes per supply if you sell them at the abbey... one at a time...
Others I've noticed are buying up sapphires down south and selling them to various places, I once had khan's shadow next to polythreme, but I didn't get the merchant ship before dieing to stupid things (too many trips around the mediterranian hoping to lose only one sailor *COUGH*), Stygian Ivory woudl be a 3 echo profit but the ports were *so close* :/

Really going to depend on the ports you've seen and how close they are to each other, imo. I think mushroom wine is about 10 echo a pop if you deliver to godfell, but that's only while the game timer (forget what it's called, but goes up on visiting london every so often) is under 199. Great if you don't need to get it from London, and it sells 5 at a time to the dialogue in Godfell (150 echoes for 5 units)

[NC31]

Originally posted by Axiom:

Short version: check the wiki + hope for a good map. Or get yourself a scion, then constantly sell ship->die->inherit all money over and over and over...15 echos per food if you go up to the surface and are willing to repeatedly click the menu to get one at a time... really slow/boring but 15echoes per supply if you sell them at the abbey... one at a time...
Others I've noticed are buying up sapphires down south and selling them to various places, I once had khan's shadow next to polythreme, but I didn't get the merchant ship before dieing to stupid things (too many trips around the mediterranian hoping to lose only one sailor *COUGH*), Stygian Ivory woudl be a 3 echo profit but the ports were *so close* :/

Really going to depend on the ports you've seen and how close they are to each other, imo. I think mushroom wine is about 10 echo a pop if you deliver to godfell, but that's only while the game timer (forget what it's called, but goes up on visiting london every so often) is under 199. Great if you don't need to get it from London, and it sells 5 at a time to the dialogue in Godfell (150 echoes for 5 units)

The Quality you mention is Time, the Healer. Also, it goes up quite slow if you don't return to London often, making the wine trade inconsistent.

I'm currently looking into the sapphire trade. Seems a reasonable profit.

All in all I'll probably just do the scion cheese once I'm done with the Merciless Mode achievement.

[Skinny Pete]

Both wine and honey are starters for series of transactions that end up as profitable as anything mundane and trading-related in the game.

For instance, take wine to Empire of Hands, trade for coffee, trade the coffee for Parabola-Linen at Irem, profit.

Honey has a more complicated route that needs the submarine.

I'll just paste it under this spoiler because it's fairly involved (but very profitable), and what makes it better than the wine/coffee/linen route is you can do it all at shops without endless clicking.

I've found at least one good one on par with the Wine (Fallen London) --> Coffee (Empire of Hands) --> Parabola-Linen (Irem) exchange routes, and this one has the advantage of occurring all in shops so no nonsense of clicking the same dialogue 50 times in a row.

Buy Prisoner's Honey at Fallen London for 25 Echoes at Wolfstack.

Exchange for Carboy of Primordial Shrieks at the Gant Pole. It can then be sold at the Gant Pole for 37 Echoes for a profit of 12 Echoes per unit.

However, go on and exchange it for Mutersalt at Scrimshander.

Now it can be sold for 56 Echoes in the Nephrite Quarter, for a profit of 31 Echoes per unit.

But wait, that's not all.

You can exchange Mutersalt for 2 Foxfire Candles at Aigul, which can then be sold for 33 Echoes at Venderbight, for a total of 41 Echoes profit per unit (although the doubling thing means your last leg needs more hold space).

I'd generally skip the last step, although it's effectively a way of getting Foxfire Candles for 12.5 Echoes a pop, which if you're doing Wisp-Ways farming, could be a way of doing something exceptionally profitable for practically free.

[Vulpen]

I never really had a trouble making money in this game, I always end up with more than I know what to do with. Here are a few ways you can make easy money:

-The First Curator and Pulse of the Principles quests give you a ton of money if you sell the treasures and scintillack you get. Sell the spare blue scintillack at Varchas for bigger profit (you can also sell normal scintillack there for 2 outlandish relics worth 200 echoes, but you can only sell 5 per stay, so you will be farming SAYs if you wanna do it)

-Wait to do the Salt Lions quest for when you have a bigger cargo capacity. Ideally, do it with the merchant cruiser and get 5 loads at a time (100 cargo), because the turn-ins you do are limited, but the size of the turn-ins doesn't matter. Especially effective with the last shipment, because they give 50 echoes per piece of stone instead of the usual 25.

-Trade sunlight and coffee. Just turn almost all your admiralty favors into fuel, get 5-10 mirrorcatch boxes (don't worry about the cost, you can sell them for 200 after you're done with the trading, losing only 50 echoes per box) and repeatedly go to the surface to fill them. Make sure to also trade coffee with the surface for an insane profit margin (more than doubling your money if you get it from the elder continent for 38echoes a piece, you get 80 each at the surface). This option becomes unavailable after a while, but make use of it while you can. Also pick up recent news from london to trade at the surface and make sure to use your SAY at the cumaean canal before AND after going to the surface for some Moves in the great game, which can be turned into an admiralty favor for a bonus 3 fuel. The way I avoid the ministry men is a little cheaty: Install a supressor in your aft slot and after using your SAY at the cumaean canal, rush towards mutton island. Get a report, make sure you don't have a SAY (docking resets its cooldown). Then rush for london and dock without having a SAY, this way the ministry men can't appear at all. Also keep an eye on your menaces: Yearning, Burning, don't let it go above 170. Get as close to 170 as you can, then let the Cladery Heir perform a surgery on you, which will reduce it back to 0. You can only do the surgery once though.
Also, while on the surface you might want to buy supplies, which cost only 5 echoes each, the best price in the game. It might be a pain to buy a lot of them, since you must click for each one, but there is a mod which allows you to buy 10 at a time (I think it was called Surface quality of life improvements). If you have the warehouse mod, you can stash the excess supplies in london until you need them or sell them at various places for profit (Iron republic House of Milks - 25echoes, Gaider's Mourn -20echoes, Struggling Wrack -22echoes)

-Delve into the wisp-ways in the Mangrove College. Buy a bunch of candles for cheap at Adam's Way (30 each, there may be other places with similar price). Buy as many as you can carry and head to Mangrove College. Having good stats will prevent you from losing crew, but if you have enough crew it's fine, just don't fall below half. Repeatedly delve into the wisp-ways as long as you have atleast 4-5 candles. The reward will cover the cost of your candles 90% of the time. If you run out of supplies, you can spend your SAY at the college to gather more. Repeatable forever and extremely profitable.

-Kill bosses when you can. They usually give some valuable stuff if you can take them on. I recommend having both a forward and deck cannons with good stats and a piece of blue scintillack before attempting them though. If they detect you, it's better to burn your engine and run out of their range, then engage them sneakily again. Don't use your prow-light unless you intend to finish them off. (for the last 100-200 hp). Some zee monsters like Lorn-Flukes can also be worthwhile to kill, as you can get pretty good stuff if you're lucky.

-Get a spy network going. It might take some tough veils checks and SAYs farming, but once you get your network to 7, you can get a lot of Vital Information to turn in to The Voracious Diplomat for 500-600 echoes a piece. Mend your network after each success to maintain your 100% success rate to get information.

-There are a lot of ways to earn lesser profits that stack up over time, like turning in port reports or visiting Visage (250 echoes per visit if you choose "Collect some of the blood for yourself" 2 times and once "Take Notes" for 2 relics and 1 intriguing snippet at the Temple of Apis) or turning a hunting trophy into 4 watchful curios at Khan's Shadow, then turning them into Wakeful Idols at Polythreme, worth 100 echoes each to the Scholar), but I obviously can't mention all of them here. Explore away!

P.S. Damn, I just wrote a hugeass wall-of-text guide on making money. :D

[godamnsteemsux]

More important than avoiding the ministry/revenue men is avoiding getting another stupid fetch quest from the Blind Bruiser. If you ever refuse or disappoint him, he will never buy sunlight from you again. Stall him by keeping the crate of brilliant souls that you were supposed to smuggle from London to Mount Palmerston.

[Skinny Pete]

You can always end your relationship with the Bruiser upon completing a delivery.

If Sunlight is an issue, you can sell it slightly less profitably at the Isle of Cats.

[godamnsteemsux]

Selling sunlight at the Isle of Cats is less than half as profitable because it takes more than twice as long. Profit over time matters, not profit per trip.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by godamnsteemsux:

Selling sunlight at the Isle of Cats is less than half as profitable because it takes more than twice as long. Profit over time matters, not profit per trip.

So wait until after you're done with sunlight to blow off the Bruiser. It costs you to do the Bruiser missions instead of something more profitable anyway.