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[Urist McScoopbeard]

Haha, this game is the dark souls of down-on-their-luck ship captains! I finally managed to secure the townhouse, a corvette with new weapons, and a scion!

The only problem now is i'm running low on funds. Trading seems to be the only reliable way to make money, but after the sphinxstone operations falls apart i'm left dead in the water. I'd try for the coffee-linen trade, but I don't have enough capital to get my nephrite ring. How do you guys do it?

[ThtblovesDF]

I love this game, but damm...

trying to find the Eater of Names  right now and trying to figure out how to start spy networks.

*Edit* Oh and my universtiry guy/gurl has left...

[nenjin]

As I've said before, other than Captivating Treasures, money is generally made by piling on as many admirality, blind bruiser, smuggling, and general questing profit into each run as possible. Since EA they've started to really whittle away at the easy money storylets I used to enjoy (Searing Enigmas at the Salt Lions, Judgement's Egg from Mutton Island.) The longer your trips are and the better you know the available storylets and options, the more money you can make. That said, I haven't started a new game for the full release yet (really need to get around to that) so the situation might be different than the last time I played.

I've heard people mentioning farming sunlight by going to the surface from the Cerulean Canal, but I've never screwed with that before.

As far as Spy Networks, you need the Voracious Diplomat to show up in London, which I think happens when you've collected all the Strategic Information requests at least once. His arrival is probably based on other things too.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

As a side note, from what i've seen the Voracious Diplomat actually shows up past a higher level of Supremacy: London.

[Tack]

Monster ram AI has been fixed in the latest patch which was an interesting thing to learn when I tried to take on a Lorn Fluke again.

Plus getting Supremacy, TDM gives the same scion unlocks as going fully completing the Wandering Merchant storyline.

[Majestic7]

The easiest ways to make money are 1) carrying coffee to Vienna on the surface, 2) selling sunlight to London or Isle of Cats, 3) combing the marshes in the Mangrove College for treasure, 4) looting stuff from the ruins of that-volcano-island-whose-name-i-forgot and 5) accomplishing storylines. Minor money can be gained from transporting claymen to London etc, but mainly if you can cover all the fuel with admiralty payments from port reports, not otherwise.   

[Tack]

Farming sunlight used to be CRAZY lucrative, but now it has a Menaces: with a game over if you hit 200. (You earn 4-8 per mirrorcatch filled)

It used to be you could buy boxes at the khanate, fill them at the surface, and then sell them at Isle of Cats (Pass, 400 echoes and keep box, fail, 500 echoes and lose box).
For major bankage. Get enough for a merchant cruiser easily, then get enough to buy a mansion and the dreadnought, no worries.

[motorbitch]

ok. im lost.
i have no idea how not to go broke, i cant even make enough money for fuel, let alone repari my ship.
there usually are like 2 or sometimes 3 ports close by, and if i visit them and bring back reports, i will be rewarded with 2 peanuts and a cag of fuel each, but that doesnt seem to cover the the costs.
i was inclined to say: fuck this shit, its broken.
but others seem to suceed.
so, is there a trick?

[ChairmanPoo]

I'm far from a pro, but I've improved a lot with practice. You can't go short on the initial port runs, otherwise you wont even break even. Instead, make your first runs crazy long, to the very limit of your starting fuel. Like, start off to hunter's keep and then venderbight, and then keep visiting every port along the coast. Use the Z-bat liberally to locate them.

I'd say try to make your first run something like Hunters-Venderbight-that port by the Censor ark-Glyph island(?)-Mount THomson (or however it's called), and then south to the abbey, and the salt lions. And whichever other nearby ports the rng throws around.

[Sonlirain]

so, is there a trick?

You can beg the admirality for fuel using favours. You get 1 favour per report and one favour gets you 2-3 fuel.

[nenjin]

ok. im lost.
i have no idea how not to go broke, i cant even make enough money for fuel, let alone repari my ship.
there usually are like 2 or sometimes 3 ports close by, and if i visit them and bring back reports, i will be rewarded with 2 peanuts and a cag of fuel each, but that doesnt seem to cover the the costs.
i was inclined to say: fuck this shit, its broken.
but others seem to suceed.
so, is there a trick?

Knowledge, truly. This is where SS acts like a roguelike even though I don't really think it fits the description. You gotta fail a few times to get a sense of what's worth attempting and what's not. Starting with a legacy can also give you a leg up at the start of the game.

Basically, you have to risk zailing out past where you've zailed before, so you can get NEW port reports. You learn roughly where you can expect islands to spawn, and what's worth attempting to find vs. not worth it. I know that's not much of an answer but, I've never had to hack my save file to make ends meet. A little save scumming maybe when a trip or a storylet didn't pan out, but that's it.

Really, what gets me going into the late game is that one big storylet reward you stumble upon. (The Curator in Venderblight wants some very specific items and some of the first ones are fairly? easy to find and in the early game the reward is massive.) Once you get some spending cash to cover short falls, you can explore a lot more boldly.

You cannot make money trying to dry hump the first couple islands you find and hope to make a profit (anymore), the game simply isn't set up that way. Until you have the knowledge, you just have to risk to get ahead. Specifically, Venderblight and Hunter's Keep are not money-makers. There is one storylet in Venderblight that I mentioned, but it's not a random event storylet so I don't really count it. Mutton Island used to be a gold mine for me until they changed it, but it still can, very rarely, get you a solid cash reward. Just not frequently enough that it's sane to farm it.

[ChairmanPoo]

Eh, you can break a profit by revisiting enough ports over and over. It's pretty grindy and the profit is fairly small, however.

[Tack]

The Salt Lions are a guaranteed source of income, albeit a small one, and I think there's a few things you can stock up on at the Carnelian coast and make a profit on.

Try to stay away from the Iron Republic early on- not because of the warships but because the market changes every time you gather a port report or spend time ashore, and the 1st-5th day markets are the only decent way to get a Dread Surmise.
That being said it and Mt Parmeston are the cheapest sources of fuel (yeah, all coal comes from hell), so that's a good place to buy anyway, just don't do any Story stuff if you are looking for your father's bones.

[motorbitch]

thanks for your help! i think the problem is the lamp. with low tier engines, it like triples fuel consumption.

anyway, im out of here. i would not say this is a bad game per se.
but for my tase, it combines the worst of rouge likes and text adventure games.

now, im not the biggest fan of either genre, hence i am proaby just not the target group.
however, combiningrng RNG difficulty+permadeath  with a written, story based backbone strikes me as a realy bad idea. 

[nenjin]

I won't lie, I've always thought it was an awkward combination too, but one I eventually manage to get over. (Mostly because there's no way in hell i'm playing this Permadeath just for the bragging rights.) It's ultimately the writing that sells this game, and the mechanics in them. All the mechanics not relating to stories (i.e. stuff they're trying for the first time) is all second-class by comparison. SS basically exists because Failbetter was able to parlay their Fallen London expertise into a non-web game. And so there are some design conceits that you either live with or that drive you away from the game.