Agents (Guide)
|
Late PoSI Content and Onwards |
| Agents Summary | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Locked Limited-Length Activity | |||||||||||
| Setup | Progress | End | |||||||||
| 0 A | 80-560+ A | 0 A | |||||||||
| Progress
Details |
progresses through actions you spend in other activities | ||||||||||
| Raw EPA | up to 0.4 EPA for Exceptional Friends / 0.28 otherwise | ||||||||||
For the profession, see 
Agent (Profession).
Agents can be managed in their own game tab. You can loan your equipment to agents, and let them run plots on your behalf.
Directing the agents and reaping the rewards does not cost actions; you advance the plots by spending regular actions in-game, and an in-game pop-up notifies you when one is finished.
Once you have unlocked the feature, a new tab shows up (between "Possessions" and "Bazaar" on desktop, and as a new sub-entry next to "Possessions" on mobile).
Unlock[edit]
You need to be a tier 2 Person of Some Importance,that is, garnish your 
A Person of Some Importance quality with one of the specialisations available for having 200 in 
one 
of the 
base 
stats.
There are several types of agents: Nautical, Intelligencier (spies), and Silvered. You can unlock them in any order.
To get your first nautical agent 
The Luckless Captain, play A Zailor Down on his Luck in 
The Blind Helmsman, and later 
Venturing into the Shipping Business in Wolfstack Docks.
Items required to unlock your first nautical agent:
5 x Rostygold
1 x Night on the Town
1 x Blackmail Material
1 x Moves in the Great Game
1 x Comprehensive Bribe
1 x Legal Document- 1 x Bazaar Permit
1 x Puzzling Map
1 x Magnificent Diamond
1 x Strong-Backed Labour
To get your first spy agent 
The Mild-Mannered Mondaine, play the branch For yourself with at least 
Dramatic Tension 1 in 
Playing the Game at Wilmot's End, go through the carousel, and play A Spy in Silks.
Items/qualities required to unlock your first spy agent:
To get your first silvered agent 
The Nectared Proprietor, play A Golden Opportunity in 
The Singing Mandrake.
Items/qualities required to unlock your first silvered agent:
Access to a Parabolan Base-Camp- 2,500 x Rostygold
- 1 x Comprehensive Bribe
25 x Secluded Address
3 x Favours: Constables
3,000 x Drop of Prisoner's Honey
50 x Memory of Light- 6 x Strong-Backed Labour
Summary of the requirements for additional agents:
- Nautical:
The Clay Breaker can be hired via the Visit the Offices of (Company) storylet after three successful Nautical Ventures.
The Wily Bathyphile can be hired via the Visit the Offices of (Company) storylet after five successful Nautical Ventures.
- Spy:
The Unilluminated Mole can be obtained by completing the A Fresh-Faced New Employee plot after ten spy plots.
- Silvered:
The Silent Partner can be obtained by collecting 
3 x Parabolan Breadcrumb, completing An Expedition to the Shadow of a (Lodgings), then seeking them out in your 
Parabolan Base-Camp.
In addition to the above perennially available Agents, HALLOWMAS 2025 introduced two new Agents available only during the event. See Hallowmas (Guide) for detailed information.
- The
Perforated Zubmariner Nautical Agent could be obtained by upgrading the 
Perforated Diver companion, freely available during the event, using Confessions.
The Ragged Recusant Spy Agent could also be obtained by spending Confessions. Additional requirements include 
Associating with Radical Academics 75 and completion of the initial spy plot, Reawakening a Network, in addition to Confessions.
It is unknown whether these Agents will be available in the future after Hallowmas; if so, they will likely cost FATE.
Plotting[edit]
Plots progress based on your actions spent in other activities, but do not cost actions in and of themselves. These can be pursued by Agents supplied with Equipment to improve their own Qualities.
Plotting is independent of your in-game location.
Equipment[edit]
At the end of a plot, your agent has to pass challenges, for which they can use their own attributes, but also equipment you loan them. Loaned-out equipment is unavailable to you while their plot is in progress. However, actions that require owning an item rather than having it equipped (for example, Compel the Ghillie to extend your visit) are still available to you.
Equipping items to agents does not prevent you from losing the item, if a story would cost it.
Agents[edit]
Plots[edit]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 The challenge type ( Dangerous or Watchful) appears to be chosen randomly when you receive the agent's report.
- ↑ A Barren Rock branch while failing both checks.
- ↑ One or two checks failed.
- ↑ Only the second check failed.
An Accomplished Plotter didn't increase.
- ↑ Completing this plot sets
A Network Under Scrutiny to 4. Completing any other plot lowers it by one.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Persuasive difficulty starts at 45 (75 for 100%) and increases for subsequent cycles. The formula is currently unknown.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 When an agent completes this plot, you can choose either the Persuasive challenge to repeat the plot with greater rewards and increased difficulty, or the Shadowy challenge to recall the agent and collect all accumulated rewards.
- ↑ Not counting second chances.
- ↑ Assuming all second chances are cashed out via The end of battles in the Cave of the Nadir.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Assuming the item is cashed out via Crackling Trade.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Assuming Preparations are sourced from The Operation of (a Veilgarden Honey-Den) -> '...by taking every pain...'.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Valuing
Glass Gazette at 
2.5.
- ↑ If selling
Vital Intelligence at the Rat Market.
- ↑ If
Oneiromantic Revelations are upconverted to 
Parabolan Parables and sold at the Rat Market.
Multitasking[edit]
Initially, you can only run 1 plot at a time, or 2 concurrent plots if you are an Exceptional Friend.
To unlock an additional concurrent plot (the second one for free players or the third one for EFs), you first need to:
- Reach An Accomplished Plotter 10, and
- Hire at least three agents.
Once both conditions are met, you will see a purple storylet An Opportunity for Expansion, followed by the Expanding Your Operation storylet in the 
Bazaar Side-Streets. The latter lets you spend a lot of resources to unlock an extra plot.
There are 5 branches, each with their own shopping list of items worth a total of 100, but you only need 3 of them (and no, you can't do the same branch twice. For completionists, neither can you play more than 3 branches).
The branch costs are:
Equipping your agents[edit]
How best to equip agents for success? On one hand, perhaps it simply amuses you to send a minion out with a 
Pair of Lenguals, and that is a perfectly great way to approach the issue. For an enterprising sort, however, it is worth considering that the current maximum agent EPA achievable is only 0.28 EPA in general and 0.4 EPA for Exceptional Friends. The cost of acquiring equipment, therefore, can be rightfully thought of as an investment which will take a certain number of actions to pay itself off before accruing actual profit for you.
Dividing the cost of the acquisition by your agent EPA after updating your agent's equipment, it is quickly apparent that expensive pieces will take a long time to pay off. Purchasing a 
Smock of Four Thousand Three Hundred and Eight Pockets at its Bazaar price of 420 would require at best 1050 actions (420/0.4) to pay off. While the benefit to EPA that better equipment brings does last forever, considering the fact that current max EPA is low and top-of-the-line equipment typically has markedly worse stat boost per echo-cost when compared to mid-tier equipment, cheaper equipment should be favored by the budget-minded mastermind.
In other words, the same effect of Watchful +10 from the smock can also be achieved with a 
Pair of Luminous Neathglass Goggles and an 
Avid Glove, which combined only cost 25.3 and thus have a payback period only 6% as long as getting a smock.
At the extreme end, the payback period for an 
Übergoat is 58564 actions, meaning if you played every action available per day, it would take you nearly 581 days to start making a profit on your investment, 407 days if you are an EF -- and remember, all of these numbers assume that your success chance is otherwise 0%, which is not true in practice. The fact that you still get a reward upon failure and that you still have chances of success means that in practice the item will take significantly longer to pay itself off.
Other acronyms[edit]
Due to how the presence of agents changes how we must describe their EPA, introducing the idea of two independent uses of a single action, a variety of acronyms have been made to represent the concept of "Agent EPA", which may be seen in the comment sections or on other social areas. Listed below is a non-exhaustive list of some of them (feel free to add to this list)
- XPA - eXtra (echoes) Per Action
- XEPA - eXtra Echoes Per Action
- ExPA - Extra (Echoes) Per Action
- EEPA - Extra Echoes Per Action
- AEPA - Agent Echoes Per Action
- EPB - Echoes Per 🅱️ction
- HMMOSEtAUStIAiaOFDbHLOMWBCSI - How Much Money One Should Expect to Accrue Upon Selling the Items Acquired in an Optimal Fashion Divided by How Long One Must Wait Before Collecting Said Items
- EPUOTCOTMWAAIOWBG - Echoes Per Unit Of Time Consisting Of Ten Minutes Wherein An Action Is Or Would Be Gained
- ÆA - Agent's Echoes (per Normally Used) Action(, With Which Rewards of Varying Value May Be Acquired After a Certain Amount of Time In Which Actions are Efficiently Expended, Ranging from One to Several Days)
- TTAQoCWaSPYDbtTNoBoTMIoTNtYtAAoCWROtRaWWAAFtUoAiEotNEoA - The Total Accumulated Quantity of Currency Which a Single Plot Yields, Divided by the Total Number of Blocks of Ten Minute Increments of Time Necessary to Yield the Aforementioned Amount of Currency, Which Represents Overall the Rate at Which Wealth Accrues From the Use of Agents in Excess of the Normal Expenditure of Actions
- PEA: Parallel Echoes per Action
- THIS TOAST BY AN ACTOR: The Helpful Incarnate Stuff, Totally Often Accumulated over Some Time, By Your Agents (Not Always Currency, Too: Often Resources)
