Hunting the Beasts of the Zee (Guide)

Mid Zailing Content

Once you have Making Progress in the Labyrinth of Tigers 16 you may begin hunting the Beasts of the Zee. Many of these have Monstrous Anatomy requirements and rely on world qualities as well. As these destinations aren't docks, they will not reset Troubled Waters. Every completed hunt will increase your A Hunter of Zee-Beasts by 1. For more information on reaching the locations, see Zailing (Guide).

Zee Beasts

A cheat sheet for hunting quarries via Hunting the Beasts of the Zee:

Target	Zee Location	Requirements	+		Rewards	Value ( )
Plated Seals Capture the plated seal	Stormbones	No Plated Seals	110	Narrow 5	1 x  Plated Seal	N/A
Angler Crabs Strike down the Angler Crab	Shepherd's Wash	Estimated Angler Crab Population Base Monstrous Anatomy 1	111-209	8-13	2 x Crustacean Pincer 2 x Deep-zee Catch 208-1000 x Shard of Glim 278-800 x Moon-Pearl 1 x Headless Skeleton 1-6 x Fin Bones, Collected 1-3 x Knob of Scintillack Rarity/2 x Piece of Rostygold	19.39-53.91
Feral Crocodiles Finish off the crocodile	Home Waters	Monstrous Anatomy 5	175	11	100 x Relic of the Second City 700 x Shard of Glim 20 x Tale of Terror!!	32
Lifebergs Blast the Ravenous Lifeberg with all you've got (The Salt Steppes)	The Salt Steppes	Remaining Mass of the Ravenous Lifeberg Base Monstrous Anatomy 1	210?	?	1 x Emetic Revelation 5-20 x Khaganian Lightbulb 3-16 x Assortment of Khaganian Coinage 10-35 x Relic of the Fourth City 1 x Officially Recognised Valorous Deed	Up to 45
Lifebergs Blast the Ravenous Lifeberg with all you've got (The Sea of Voices)	The Sea of Voices	Remaining Mass of the Ravenous Lifeberg Base Monstrous Anatomy 1	220?	?	1 x Emetic Revelation 1 x Aeolian Scream 1-197 x Primordial Shriek 1-12 x Trace of the First City 1 x Officially Recognised Valorous Deed	Up to 45
Midnight Whale End your guidance of the Midnight Whale	The Salt Steppes	The Midnight Whale: Distance from the Gant Pole Base Monstrous Anatomy 1	220	11	22-60 x Appalling Secret 21-80 x Romantic Notion 1-9 x Memory of Distant Shores 2 x Unearthly Fossil 1-9 x Ambiguous Eolith 2 x Carved Ball of Stygian Ivory 1000-1200+ x Primordial Shriek	36.40 to 60.00

Hunting a Creature

Upon starting a hunt, the player needs to navigate to the requisite Zee region. Once you have reached your destination, the player will need to build their In Pursuit of a Zee-Beast to the required level before they may slay the beast and collect the reward.

Difficulty Calcuation

This guide is incomplete. You can help by expanding it.

What needs work: Please confirm lifeberg values.

Except for the plated seal, Zee-Beasts require a set amount of In Pursuit of a Zee-Beast as a threshold in order to finish the hunt. For the Angler Crab, this is equal to 8 + Elusiveness of your Quarry/20. This rounds down at 10, 30, 50, 70, etc.. In the case of the Plated Seal, there is instead a narrow difficulty challenge of In Pursuit of a Zee-Beast 5 that needs to be passed. Additionally, Elusiveness of your Quarry together with Zee Peril also affect the difficulty of skill checks to raise In Pursuit of a Zee-Beast on all hunts. This is represented in the table as a "challenge level", to give an impression of how difficult the different hunts are.

Target	Challenge Level ( + )	Pursuit needed
Plated Seals	110	Narrow 5
Angler Crabs	111-209	8-13
Feral Crocodiles	175	11
Lifebergs in The Salt Steppes	210?	8?
Lifebergs in The Sea of Voices	220?	11?
Midnight Whale	220	11

Angler Crab Scaling

This guide is incomplete. You can help by expanding it.

What needs work: Should include templates for tracking crab quantity, once they exist.

Angler crabs offer scaling rewards and elusiveness based on how many remain in their world quality.

The Logistic Scaling for Elusiveness and Rarity are similar, with both having a midpoint of Estimated Angler Crab Population of 25000 and a scaling factor of -1/5000. The difference is that Elusiveness scales to a maximum value of 100, while Rarity scales to a maximum value of 7000. Elusiveness E scales with crab popuation C with the following formula:

$E=100\times {\frac {1}{1+e^{\frac {C-25000}{5000}}}}$

Rarity R scales with crab popuation C with the following formula:

$R=7000\times {\frac {1}{1+e^{\frac {C-25000}{5000}}}}$

Values at select breakpoints:

Crabs Left	50000	35986	29236	25000	20764	14014	0
Elusiveness	1	10	30	50	70	90	99
Pursuit needed	8	9	10	11	12	13	13
Rarity	47	700	2100	3500	4900	6300	6953
Piece of Rostygold	24	350	1050	1750	2450	3150	3476

Hunting Actions

Option	Requirement	Challenge	Success	Failure
Make a daring approach	A Notched Bone Harpoon In Pursuit of a Zee-Beast Exactly 1		+24 CP
Pursue the (Zee-Beast)	N/A	Zee Peril +	+14 CP	+7 CP
Take a risk	In Pursuit of a Zee-Beast 2	Zee Peril + 75 +	+24 CP	-5 CP
Outflank the (Zee-Beast)	In Pursuit of a Zee-Beast 2	Formula	+14 CP	+7 CP
Predict its movements	A Notched Bone Harpoon In Pursuit of a Zee-Beast Exactly 1	Formula	+14 CP	+7 CP
Chum the waters	Deep-zee Catch	4	-7 x  -1 x	-3 x  -1 x
Dive below the waves	Zubmersibility	Zee Peril +30	-5 x	-2 x

Elusiveness	0–17	18–28	29–34	35–39	40–42	43–45	46–48	49–51	52–54	55–57	58–60	61–65	66–71	72–82	≥83
Difficulty	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18

Target	Plated Seal	Angler Crabs	Feral Crocodiles	Lifebergs ( The Salt Steppe	Lifebergs ( The Sea of Voices	Midnight Whale
Challenge Level	110	11-209	175	210	220	220

Turning in Valourous Deeds

When hunting lifeburgs, the player will accumulate Officially Recognised Valorous Deeds Officially Recognised Valorous Deed, each of which is equivalent to 20 . These can be turned in for the following rewards:

Action	Cost	Rewards
Claim a crate of clinking souls	1	1000 x Soul
Claim an armful of discarded steel	2	80 x Bessemer Steel Ingot
Claim a box marked "FAULTY ORDNANCE: DO NOT USE".	3	2 x Unlawful Device 2 x Hillmover 4 x Extraordinary Implication
Claim a pile of waterlogged papers	4	1 x Fragment of the Tragedy Procedures 1 x Legal Document 2 x Sworn Statement
Claim a strongbox, illuminated from within	4	1 x Element of Dawn 35 x Memory of Light
Claim a pallet of mouldering rations	5	40 x Basket of Rubbery Pies
Claim a suitcase, stamped with a horse's head	10	1 x Salt Steppe Atlas 1 x Bottle of Fourth City Airag: Year of the Tortoise 1 x Crackling Device 1 x Vital Intelligence
Claim a consignment of confiscated silks	16	1 x Scrap of Ivory Organza 3 x Thirsty Bombazine Scrap

Strategy

Strategy consists of three matters - building In Pursuit of a Zee-Beast as fast as possible, but also minimising Troubled Waters so that you can avoid docking for a while, and for clippers when hunting Angler Crabs: reducing the amount of actions taken while zailing.

For the first matter, Monster-Hunters have a very useful opening gambit with Make a daring approach that will instantly boost the player's In Pursuit of a Zee-Beast to level 6. Otherwise, the player will have to open up with Pursue the (Zee-Beast). Use the calculator below in order to find the optimal action on average, but bear in mind that there's no point in overpreparing, and if sufficient gain can be gained with Pursuing the Zee-Beast, that should be a priority. Pursuing is equivalent to outflanking and predicting so use whichever has the highest success probability.

For Angler Crabs, if the crab's Elusiveness is less than 7 above a rounding point, (eg. 10, 30, 50, 70, etc..) it may be worth chumming the waters if the player is having difficulty making the checks, as this will also lower the required Pursuit by 1 level. Similarly, the zubmersible option works if you're less than 5 above a rounding point.

For reducing Troubled Waters gain, it is adviced not to play risky challenges, because opportunities to lower TW are few and will usually sacrifice Zee-EPA or zailing progress. Zubmarine owners and The Cladery Heart owners should usually use their options to reduce TW, as these are also often profitable. A False-Star of your Own options and the A Faceted Decanter of Drownie Effluvia should also be used when necessary, as these are very effective. Other options to lower/minimise TW should also be considered. Piracy is a good idea, as long as your skills are high enough that the options are at least very modest (80%). Even so you will have to dock more than someone not using piracy options. It is recommended to dock around TW 6, as the menace cards at TW 7 are hard to use efficiently. Dream cards are a decent alternative to piracy cards when balancing profit, progress and speed, as long as you have a decent way of dealing with the resulting Nightmares in London.

For Clipper owners hunting Angler Crabs, the A Giant Angler Crab card is especially useful, as it provides more than 80 Zailing... in a single action, thereby saving an action.

Calculating echoes per action is difficult given the high variability in reaching particular zee regions, the ability to deal with zee menaces, and reward variability. Lifeberg Hunting is likely profitable when available, but the data has to be confirmed to be sure. Angler Crabs become profitable once their numbers are lower (about 3.3 EPA from the get-go, towards 5-6 EPA at the end). Crocodiles approaches 4-5 EPA for extremely dangerous Monster-Hunter pirates. Whales have a potential max EPA around 6.5 EPA, but 5-5.5 EPA is more realistic.

Calculator

This guide is incomplete. You can help by expanding it.

What needs work: Calculator needs to be restored.