Sunlight Trading For Starting Captains

Contains Spoilers.

With this guide, you will be able to safely trade Sunlight for up to 6400 Echos per trip in your starter ship with minimal setup. It can be done with a starter captain without a past or any ancestors. You can gain as many Echos as you like doing this.

Describes both the Setup Phase and the Sunlight Trading in details.

Setup

Summary: Buy as much fuel as you can. Visit Pigmote and Visage before traveling to Varchas. Sell Blue Scintillack and Scintillack. Afterwards, you can go to Khan's Shadow; sell Outlandish Artefacts/Captivating Treasures, and pickup ~16 Mirrorcatch Boxes to start your Sunlight Trading.

Details:

• Pigmote Isle: Side with Cavys (+Iron Challenge for Scintillack) or Rats (+Veil Challenge for Fuel); Don't broker peace; Assist the opposition for 100% Blue Scintillack.
  
  
• Visage: Pick Frog; 3x Bathe in the Flood Court; Trade with Moon-Moth; 2x Steal Blood and 1x Observe in Temple of Apis; Fall in Line and don't set off a flare. This will total 1 Captiviting Treasure, 2x Outlandish Artefact and 1 Intriguing Snippet. -10 Terror.
  
  
• Varchas
  There are many good options to pick there. Here are a few of my favorites:
  
  • The Fire-Keeper: Enables The Wine-Mazed Lamp-Lighter.
    
  • Sell Blue Scintillack and Scintillack in the Temple of Mihir
    
  • Listen to Mantras in Temple of Mihir if you need -5 Terror.
    
  • You can tell a fanciful tale to the Jewel-Turbaned Youth if you have good Veils. If not, save it for later.
    
  • Before sleeping, talk to The Wine-Mazed Lamp-Lighter for the 3x Outlandish Artefacts, and go to the Courtyard for more -Terror.
    
  • Sleep; Get in your Boat at Speed 0; after 1 minute, enter Varchas again. Get Mirror-Charm in Temple of Mihir. Can be traded in Venderbight for a Captiviting Treasure.
  
  
• Khan's Shadow: Last place you visit before returning to London to start Sunlight Trading.

Other Islands of varying interest:

• Venderbight: Your first quest gives you some starting money for fuel on the initial exploration.
  
• Port Cecil: Play Chess as long as you can afford the terror hit, even when the odds are terrible. If you get through it, you can get many secrets and an officer with Secrets -> Hearts. Useful to strengthen hearts for safer Full Power. This will speed up traveling. Dig for Scintillack as well.
  
• Polythreme: WE ARE CLAY Auxiliary item. Good Engine Power boost. Use this or Full Power. Using both on the starting ship is too risky.
  
• Mangrove College: Maybe's Daughter for +100 Engine Power at no cost. Gather Supplies. I wouldn't pick up the passanger, as you cannot dump them if necessary, but your map might allow it.
  
• Demeaux Island: Useful for increasing Terror in the Sunlight Trading Phase.
  
• Other Islands: Port Reports/avoid.

Sunlight Trading

The Route goes as follows::

• Cumaean Canal Staging Area: Fill Mirrorcatch Boxes.
  
• Increase Terror to ~40
  
• London: Sell Sunlight to the Blind Bruiser, reduce terror and "Yearning, Burning" by "Rest in a Room Above the Blind Helmsman" (resting in Elegant Townhouse will cost too much)
  
• Repeat

Details:
There are three dangers you must manage when trading:

• Yearning, Burning
  
• Revenue Men
  
• Blind Bruiser

"Yearning, Burning" can be reduced by resting, but you must have Terror in order to rest. I know of two easy way of increasing Terror on demand:

• "Gather Supplies" at Demeaux Island. If this island is close to London, this option is excellent. You get both 50 Terror and lots of Supplies.
  
• If Demeaux Island is not an option, get two officers of the same type. Swapping them out of port adds 1 Terror each time. Repeat as needed.

Revenue Man and tasks from the Blind Bruiser can be avoided by docking in London without "Something Awaits You"(SAY).
SAY activates 1 minute after you last left port. To avoid it, spend it somewhere close to London; then make sure you visit the Light-Ship outside of London to reset the SAY timer before docking in London. Use Full Power when necessary and restock Hull/Crew lost doing so. Never enter London with SAY while Sunlight Trading or the Blind Bruiser will send you on silly missions, so make sure you have the setup ready before accepting his ‘dispensation’.

[Søren]

I know 3 years have passed since the last message, but there is an answer :

"Bathe 3 times" means "do an action 3 times in the Flood Court". After 3 times, another action is available: the trade with Moon Moth.

[Stevepunk]

Yes I did. I found the right option which mentions pool but it's actually called something else.
I managed to complete it too, thanks.
After the setup I actually got a corvette and did some other stuff like explore the south. After a treacherous sail back repurchasing crew, 2 mutiny’s, scrounging fuel, supplies and managing terror I finally made it back to London and back to 2k, currently on the questline for the Cladery Heir which is sending me back down south again.. eventually I'll get a ship with enough cargo space to make a sunlight trip worthwhile.

[FinetalPies]

Did you pick the Frog mask?

[Stevepunk]

[quote]3x Bathe in the Flood Court[/quote]
There is no option for this in The Flood Court.

[FinetalPies]

I just wanted to add that your "yearning, burning" increases by 4-7 every time you fill a box and resting reduces it by 2-3. So factoring in the cost of sleeping means that the profit from each box is reduced by ~20-30 echoes. Which is not a big deal at all! But if you get yourself stuck with an elegant townhouse (from having a kid) that's going to reduce the profit from each box by 200-300. Yikes.

Also, the Cladery Heir can reset your "yearning, burning" to 0 exactly once. You should probably consider pushing yourself beyond 100 yb (which is when the risk of involuntarily opening boxes starts) before using this ability.

[Lemonhead]

Good points.

The sunlight trading suggested in the guide uses 16 mirrorcatch boxes @ 250 echos each, totalling 4000 echos. In addition to that, you will need enough supplies and fuel to get to Cumaean Canal and back to London.

One Cumaean Canal - London run costs 260 echos (to surface) + travel costs + cost for sleeping off Yearning, Burning. One filled mirrorcatch box yields 400 echos.

As you can see, this is very profitable, and does not require many boxes to start at all. Start small, and build up and you won't have to ruin any storyline by stealing blue scintillack.

Good luck!

[FinetalPies]

The tip on how to avoid the Revenue Men is really good, I was wondering how that worked.

And the point on selling the blue scintillathingy is probably a good point too, but it just feels too meta-gamey for me (How could I live with myself after stealing their precious treasure??). Not to mention if someone is coming into this guide after already playing for a while and accumulating a decent amount of cash.

That's why as a supplement to your "get money asap after starting a new game", I'd also like to know how much it costs to get started, in a number amount, so that I might reach that goal playing how I normally would.