Incense versus Candles - by the numbers

[xenxander]

Okay so this has been bugging me for some time.
I wanted to know what was more economically viable, for an every-week buff to church beautification. Would it be incense, or candles?

First thing we have to know is, candles are limited by how many bodies you can get in a given week. You can always remove fat and bones from them, even if they are bodies you wish to bury, so let’s take a best-case scenario. I usually get around 2 bodies per week once in late-game. Let’s pretend I get up to 3 and I always get three.

What type of candles are we crafting?
Candle one – 2 fat, 2 honey comb, 1 rope
Candle two – 2 fat, 2 honey comb, 3 paint
Candle three – 4 honey comb, 1 rope, 3 paint.

Now, I religiously harvested my apiary and the two trees, every day. That 9 chances to get beeswax. I on par got 24 wax in one week. Let’s say that’s the average (yes all tech researched).

So three bodies – that’s 3 fat and 3 bones.

That’s 3 fat per week
That’s 6 white powder – 6 paint per week.

That’s x2 crafting of candle 2 or candle 3. Since we got 24 beeswax, we’ll have enough for that many craftings.
We can’t craft two of the level 1 candles, we don’t get 4 fat per week. I’m also assuming rope is not an issue at all – it really isn’t.

That will be 4 candles crafted. That’s only enough for 2 large holders. You can fit 8 of those, if you have no incense, and no confession booths. Now, you wouldn’t want to buy these candles from the Bishop. First off, he only sells 3 of the good candles per week, but enough level 2 candles. Yet the price would be over what you will make in offerings. So we cannot rule in buying your candles.

Conclusion – you can get two +6 bonuses out of candles, realistically, each week, crafting everything yourself.
+12 total.

Now let’s look at incense. It takes:
Seed Oil and Order solution to make one freshner.
One freshner makes x2 basic incense.
One incense rack when lit with basic incense, gives you +3. We currently cannot craft the better incense.
Order solution can be derived from bees, white flowers, and slime resin. White flowers are everywhere and if you’re obtaining beeswax or honey, bees are easy to get. You get 3 solution per bee, one per flow. Basically what I’m saying is, you can get order solution without worrying or grinding too much.
Seed oil? Cake walk. Practically infinite.

You could put x8 incense burners in your church if you have no candles, and no booths. Burning one will give you +3. That’s a +24 if all are burning.

Comparing the two:
The candlestick holders themselves give you a nice +2 bonus without any candles, but the incense burners give a +3 when lit and we have just seen you can light them every week.

If you make 4 of the good candles, then you can get +12 say up at your altar, then 6 x 3 = +18 around your parish. If you just had candlestick holders, that would only be a +12.

When the crappiest candles are burning, they give a +4. Sure you could craft 2 of those candles (You won’t have 4 fat to make 4 of those candles).

By the numbers (without incense):
2 candlestick holders up at your altar, a nice +12 (assuming the good candles)
1 candlestick holder, a simple +4 (lowest quality candles)
5 candlestick holders, a +10 (unlit)

By the numbers (with incense):
2 candlestick holders up at your altar, a nice +12.
1 candlestick holder, a simple +4
5 incense holders, +15 (lit).

Incense is economically viable.

[Bashie]

I'd love nothing more than to fill up my church hall with candles every week, but I just can't get enough beeswax for it, meanwhile I'm drowning in so much honey it's prettymuch all I eat.

[Regular Boar]

You say seed oil is practically infinite. But only if you buy it because otherwise it takes a lot of fat which you need to make candles (if you make anything less than lvl3) and making it from hemp is just not worth the bother.

I agree that is probably impossible to maintain your candlesupply because of the beeswax shortage. However I think this is by design so it is not too easy to get a great church rating.

My approach is usually the this one: Craft as much lvl3 candles as I have beeswax and use them only if I make sermons with my gold star combo prayer (loads of faith gain there) and don't put any candles in for other sermons (writing, prosperity, repose etc.) because you do them for the buff and wont get much faith anyway.
I do however craft a lot lvl2 incence. You only need hemp, y. flowers and alcohol which is imo even cheaper than incence lvl1. so you got mabe 4 braziers filled with incence which is another +16 rating.

but yeah as you said incence is more economical than candles. But if I need candles really bad I buy them.

[Agamemnon-Hellmapper]

I'll add, that with a cemetary rating above 100, the cardinal perk and a bronze combo prayer, you are breaking even when you buy 6 candles from the bishop. So, if you are short on faith and make your money another way, candles are a decent booster to your studying needs.

[Niniju]

Originally posted by Bashie:

I'd love nothing more than to fill up my church hall with candles every week, but I just can't get enough beeswax for it, meanwhile I'm drowning in so much honey it's prettymuch all I eat.

I've taken to regularly clearing out the beekeeper's stock of Beeswax every few days when I remember he exists.

[Niniju]

Isn't there a more renewable way to acquire the materials for paint? Seed oil can supplement oil, and limestone passively accumulates from mining to supplement white powder.

[Fargel_Linellar]

Originally posted by Niniju:

Isn't there a more renewable way to acquire the materials for paint?

Mining coal can provide a source of rock that can be made into white paint. Don't remember the name, but it's there :)

[Ani Blade]

Originally posted by Fargel_Linellar:

Originally posted by Niniju:

Isn't there a more renewable way to acquire the materials for paint?

Mining coal can provide a source of rock that can be made into white paint. Don't remember the name, but it's there :)

That's the limestone they mentioned.
I've not really looked into things myself since I play very passively. And if I really needed faith, I'd just exploit the BSS bug... but I've honestly never needed to. Early on you need a ton, but once you get into things it doesn't matter much.
I suppose if you're really into making stories/books it would matter more? All my faith goes into marble later on I think, but considering how long it can take to make perfect corpses, I don't tend to run into issues.

[xenxander]

We coudln't make paint the way we can, now. So yes now you can make paint without bones and it's infinite.
I also say oil is infinite because you can squeeze it from things you can grow. oil from one of the crops if my memory hasn't failed.

[DWS]

I use electric powder (from eels) and water for white paint, almost only. It is very easy to catch eels in the swamp without bait and with a simple fishing rod.

[xenxander]

Yep that's one of the easiest paint recepies. Eels are very easy to catch.
Eels weren't in the game either at the time of this thread and then when added, the electric powder had no use for a while. Took a few updates for things to get uses.

[xenxander]

In fact I think you can always get eels without using bait in the swamp.
so that makes eels essentially infinite.
The thread was to say if you did just incense it's viable for beautification.
Of course best candles/candelabras will yield better.
You have to give up your confessional booths.
side note - we need a 'church bell' to ring when someone is in the booth so we know to visit. Else we could miss them.