University Laboratory (Guide)

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

What needs work: Check the card tables and add experimental objects; recent updates about cost of upgrade equipment, parabola access and railway-related content

Mid PoSI Content and Onwards

Researching in your Laboratory Summary
Limited-Length Activity
Setup				Progress				End
1 A				1+ A				1 A
Progress Details			Raise Laboratory Research to target. Occasionally requires other research like Parabolan Research.
Items Inputs/Outputs Start-up None 5 x Hinterland Scrip 1 x Focused Albatross 1 x Remains of a Pinewood Shark 1 x Scarlet Egg, Untreated 1 x Pelagic Egg, Untreated 1 x Aged Egg, Untreated 1 x Thorned Ribcage 1 x Human Ribcage 1 x Warbler Skeleton 1000 x Nevercold Brass Sliver 1 x Human Ribcage 1 x Human Arm 100 x Nodule of Deep Amber 1 x Unidentified Thigh Bone 1 x Ambiguous Eolith 1 x Percipient Egg, Untreated 1 x Justificande Coin 1 x Forged Justificande Coin 10 x Trace of the First City 10 x Relic of the Second City 10 x Relic of the Third City 10 x Relic of the Fourth City 1 x Captured Ushabti 1 x A Vial of Queenly Attar 1 x Betrayer of Measures 1 x Preserved False-Snake Inputs Expertise of the Fourth City Expertise of the Second City Expertise of the Third City Expertise of the Fourth City Solacefruit Sausage About Which No One Complains Boosting Connected: The Widow 5 The Robe of Mr Cards Moray Heels A Kitten-Sized Diamond, Liberated from the Mountain A Vast Network of Connections Wherever the Bazaar's Influence can be Found A Palatial Holiday Home in the Arctic Circle Fraught Research Assistant Element of Dawn Blueprint for a Seal of Red Science Impossible Theorem Fluke-Core Rubbery Dragon Nodule of Pulsating Amber Your Perpetually Festive Rubbery Friend Vial of Cantigaster Venom A Notched Bone Harpoon A Pot of Violant Ink Secret College The Long-Dead Priests of the Red Bird Drop of Prisoner's Honey Incisive Observation Searing Enigma Zee Legs Outputs Ancient Hunting Rifle Infernal Sharpshooter's Rifle Femur of a Jurassic Beast Cartographer's Hoard Glass Gazette Conceptual Breakthrough in Currency Design Infernal Machine Devilish Probability Distributor Direful Reflection Albatross Wing Incisive Observation Fin Bones, Collected Bone Fragments Unearthly Fossil Memory of Distant Shores Nodule of Trembling Amber Antique Mystery Uncanny Incunabulum Searing Enigma Mammoth Ribcage Skeleton with Seven Necks Knotted Humerus Thorned Ribcage Withered Tentacle Femur of a Jurassic Beast Femur of a Surface Deer Holy Relic of the Thigh of Saint Fiacre Perfumed Gunpowder Unprovenanced Artefact Bloodstained Eolith Survey of the Neath's Bones Parabolan Orange-apple Night-Whisper Impossible Theorem Mirthless Compendium of Statistical Observations Hinterland Scrip Edicts of the First City Ray-Drenched Cinder Dreadful Surmise Cartographer's Hoard Primaeval Hint Tale of Terror!!
Raw EPA			???			Raw SPA			???

The University Laboratory is a Laboratory of your own which offers a host of engaging experiments and many new opportunities to players, and is most useful for those with high Watchful.

The cheat sheets can also be found separately at the following pages:

• Tables
• Cards
• Calculators

Perhaps you are ready for your own Laboratory. There are many studies you can do best with equipment. And obedient students.

Obtaining a Laboratory

Once you're A Person of Some Importance -, (and not Unwelcome at the University -) you can get Your Own Lab! You'll have to convince the Dean first, however.

• If you're a Correspondent by profession, you can simply rely on your professional standing.
• Alternately, you can bribe the man, which requires 1 x Cellar of Wine, 1 x Primaeval Hint, and 1 x Justificande Coin.
  • (If you are tier 2 PoSI, the Justificande Coin can most easily be obtained with Accept a share of the coffer of Admiralty coinage from Brawling in the Blind Helmsman. If not, a heist to The Home of an Admiral's Widow might be the most accessible. There are a few other sources for Justificande Coins, but they are generally less accessible and less efficient.)

After either threatening the man or bribing him, you'll get your own Lab and are redirected to A First Commission.

The first few steps (mandatory)

Before you can do your own research you'll need to do a few things for the Dean:

• A First Commission is an introduction to how the Lab works. It gives you an Ambiguous Eolith which you'll need to investigate. Before you can do so you'll need to Improve Your Equipment. After having improved your Equipment to at least the first level, you can start researching. Once you reach 5 x Laboratory Research, you can finish the project with the Assess your Progress regarding the Ambiguous Eolith storylet (the project name in the storylet title will change according to your current experiment). Don't worry about failing the Kataleptic Toxicology check, as both Success and Failure will advance the story.
• The Dean Again: It turns out that one of the Masters of The Bazaar, Mr Stones, wants a certain coin studied. After accepting the commission you'll be redirected to Adjust the Staffing of your Lab, which will explain how staffing works. After hiring the Numismatrix, you can proceed to study the coin. You'll want to pay attention to her card, which gives Numismatic Research needed to complete this project. Render a report on the coin (under Assess your Progress regarding the Identification of a Seven-Sided Coin) and the Laboratory will finally be yours to use.

Storylets

• Begin a Scientific Investigation / Assess your Progress regarding the (Project Name). These two let you respectively start investigations and complete them. Begin a Scientific Investigation also includes the Petition the Dean for experimental materials option which allows you to gain either Ambiguous Eoliths (on failure) or Unidentified Thigh Bones (on success). This option requires The Prestige of your Laboratory 5.
• Improve Your Equipment. This lets you increase your Equipment for Scientific Experimentation level; this is incredibly important as a Laboratory with high level equipment can provide significantly more Laboratory Research per action. The maximum level of equipment that is possible without using Fate is 7, with FATE it can be raised to 9.
• Manufacture Supplies. After completing Research the Formula for Perfumed Gunpowder, you can use this storylet to manufacture certain supplies you'll need elsewhere in the game.
• Adjust the Staffing of your Lab. This allows you to hire experts such as the Numismatrix. Experts all have an area of expertise in which they give lots of Laboratory Research and two options to give some research for investigations they aren't good in (for further details, check the tables in Experimental Object). You can have a maximum of three Worktables (after having done either Expand your workshop or Expand your workshop via persuasion, both of which are also found under this storylet). With FATE you can gain a fourth slot. You can never have more people working in your Lab than the number of work spaces; you yourself do not take up a work slot. The number of people currently working in your Lab greatly influences the Opportunity Deck, and as such, many Research options. Here you can also Offer a sinecure to a certain artist, which gives you the quite profitable option to send said artist out for 125 x Drop of Prisoner's Honey as a storylet, or for 150 x Drop of Prisoner's Honey as an opportunity card during research.
• Manage the Students in your Laboratory. After a certain investigation you can also accept students. Students have their own Opportunity Cards and storylets, and can be graduated to increase the Teaching Reputation of Your Laboratory and to earn some items. High Reputation will give access to better students. Each student also occupies a Worktable like the experts.
• Leave your Lab (without Base-Camp) / Leave your Lab (with Base-Camp). This allows you to leave your Lab either to London or to your Reflection of your Laboratory if you have done the relevant investigation.
• All the variants of "Dismiss (expert name)" allow you to dismiss experts you have previously hired to free up space in the Lab. This may be desired in order to hire more relevant experts, or simply to remove their cards from the Opportunity Deck.

Doing and completing Research

All research projects function on the same principle:

1. choose what your project is and get your Experimental Object
2. get the required Research from cards in your Opportunity Deck and
3. trade it in on Assess your Progress regarding the (Project Name) to complete a project.

If you are one to optimise, some research formulas can be quite involved to calculate in your head. There are some calculators to make your work easier for you.

Resources

In order to gain research, there are several resources to help you.

• Research Preparations reduce the Watchful challenges to get research and other things. This is important for longer research projects, as they will allow you to succeed more often.
• Unlikely Connections allow you to use your experts' special options when researching outside their expertise, as well as using advanced skills to get more research. Spending them gives Unexpected Results. They are very useful when not researching your expert's expertise.
• Unexpected Results can be spent on several different cards for roughly 10 research each.
• Unavoidable Epiphany can be spent to provide (3 per level of equipment)+18 research, giving a substantial boost.
• Unwise Ideas can sometimes be gained as well. These can be spent for both research and menaces. Each idea is typically worth 20 research. These are especially useful for longer projects.
• Deck refreshes help you avoid the cards you don't want to play.

Unspent resources will be converted to Volume of Collated Research once your research is done (see Put everything back where you found it for the formula), note that excess normal research, Parabolan research, and Expertise do not factor into this, so try to avoid getting excess amounts of those before cashing in.

Parabolan Research and other types of research

Apart from "ordinary" research there are also some other, specialised types of research. Parabolan Research is by far the most commonly used of these. It is used in almost all experiments connected to Parabola in some way and can unlock extra options when doing some experiments. To gain Parabolan Research, you need to first unlock Reflection of your Laboratory. To do so, you need to Find a Route to Parabola. Once this two-stage experiment is completed, you can enter Parabola whenever you want via your Lab or your Lodgings at the cost of 100 x Drop of Prisoner's Honey per visit (or 50 x Drops for Silverers). Having access to the Reflection of your Laboratory, you can employ your regular staff there to produce Parabolan Research. You may also use a card in your lab for smaller amounts of research, provided your Glasswork level cap is at least 6. This is only efficient when needing a low amount of Research, however. Finding the Route to Parabola will also unlock the Parabolan Base-Camp and a large amount of new content accesses from there.

For more details on access to Parabola, see Parabola (Guide).

Besides Parabolan Research, there are other types of specialised research including Expertise of the Third City, Numismatic Research, etc. These are only used rarely in very specific experiments. The game will mention this when starting an experiment. To gain these special types of research, you need to either hire experts (such as the Numismatrix to get Numismatic Research) or the game will add special cards to your deck that give this research (such as the Terraria-card to gain Amphibian Research).

Cards

There are several factors that affect the cards you get while in your laboratory.

• Some cards are dependent on the length of your study. Many of these can be toggled off by playing a branch on their card.
• Some cards are dependent on the Number of Workers in your Laboratory. In general, the cards with 2 or less workers are bad and the FATE-locked one with 4 workers is good.
• Some cards are dependent on the focuses of your study, such as Toxicological Focus. See Experimental Object for a list of the focuses on every available study.
• Some cards are dependent on some items that you have/get, such as Unwise Idea. These are without exception good, at least if you have sufficient stats to benefit from them.
• Correspondents get an additional card which provides research scaling with your A Scholar of the Correspondence or Artisan of the Red Science.
• You also get some bad cards from having Wounds, Scandal or Nightmares at 5+.
• Your experts and students also bring their own card into your deck.

See University Laboratory (Guide)/Cards for a breakdown of all cards.

Upgrading Equipment

Storylet: Improve Your Equipment when in the Lab.

Levels 0 to 3 require supplies which you can get at various other locations around London. Notably, scintillack can be cheaply acquired soon after unlocking the lab by graduating shifty students.

Level 4 requires a Voluminous Library, a Home Comfort which you can either compile yourself by getting a bunch of research in the Southern Archipelago and Gather all your work into a library, or grind items for 5 Legal Documents for Pursuing a Case of Books 1.

After this it gets a bit more complicated as you have to generate items through research as well as Parabola for levels 5 and 6. Hillmovers can be obtained by hunting Seven-Throated Warblers in Parabola and searching the nest. See Parabolan Hunting (Guide) and Parabola (Guide) for more details.

The last non-FATE-locked level is very expensive as it requires 10 Working Rats ( 64.80 each), plus either an Albino Rat or 5 more Working Rats and a Rattus Faber Bandit-Chief ( 320). The total purchase cost of the latter approach is (15×64.80+320=) 1292.

The last level requires 10 FATE on the option Improve your equipment as much as possible and brings your equipment up to 9, with no additional cost.

A breakdown of the costs can be found in the table below:

Equipment Table:

Equipment level	Requirements	Echo value	Notes
1	500 x Drop of Prisoner's Honey 5 x Flask of Abominable Salts 5 x Bottled Oblivion 5 x Venom-Ruby 5 x Bottle of Strangling Willow Absinthe	17.50	Using buy price for bottled oblivion
2	1 x Bejewelled Lens 1 x Magnificent Diamond 100 x Nodule of Deep Amber OR: 1 x Patent Scrutinizer 2 x Knob of Scintillack 590 x Nodule of Deep Amber	71 (with lens) or 23.7	Using assembly price of lens and buy price of scrutinizer
3	100 x Memory of Light 200 x Phosphorescent Scarab	70	This flowchart shows the best ways of getting MoL
4	Voluminous Library	N/A	Provides option to remove opportunity card
5	100 x Foxfire Candle Stub 2000 x Nevercold Brass Sliver 1 x Mourning Candle 50 x Perfumed Gunpowder 3 x Hillmover	186	Valuing Hillmovers at 12.5 E and Gunpowder at 2.5 E
6	2 x Devilish Probability Distributor 5 x Mirthless Compendium of Statistical Observations	250	Several other options
7	10 x Working Rat One of the below: Albino Rat 1 x Rattus Faber Bandit-Chief + 5 x Working Rat	648 (or 1292)	Albino Rat option lets you remove opportunity card
9	10 FATE		No additional benefits

Experts and Students

When first setting up your university laboratory, you are the only one working there. As long as you don't have enough researchers, you will keep drawing some bad cards, which will make progress slower. The easy solution to this is to recruit people. At first you will only be able to recruit experts to help you, but eventually, with 5 Prestige, you will start unlocking students. Experts typically give options to research in their fields, as well as options to spend Unlikely Connections to play them at other points. Students, on the other hand, typically help you gain research directly, as well as spending Epiphanies in order to gain more research. A good lab will probably contain a mix of the two.

Experts

Experts are NPCs with expertise in specific fields where you might lack knowledge. They are (mostly) hired from Adjust the Staffing of your Lab. These experts give a lot of ordinary research in their fields, and some produce specialised forms of research as well. Experts also give unique textual insights into the current experiment, though they may not have much to say about experiments outside their field.

While experts can produce research on any topic, most have more powerful options available during experiments that match their expertise. Certain ranges of Experimental Object, the research project at hand, are associated with specific topics of research like chemistry, biology, history, and so on. Some projects will set additional Focus qualities like Red Science Focus or Monstrous Focus. Experts can have options unlocked with certain Experimental Object ranges, specific single experiments, or specific Focuses.

Some Experts also have options to work with a specific type of student, producing a larger amount of research than the Expert or student would alone. Some experts can tutor students to raise their skills, while others will only work with fully-trained students. Many of these options require specific research topics.

Expertise Table:

Expert	Experimental Object	Experimental Focus	Compatible Students/Experts
April	10 101-200 (Weapons)	Red Science Focus	Profound Student Lettice, the Mercy
Cora Bagley	1001-1200 (Mathematical)		Visionary Student
Esurient Smith	101-200 (Weapons) 301-400 (Engineering)		Profound Student Lettice, the Mercy
F.F. Gebrandt	901-1000 (Chemistry)		Profound Student
Hephaesta	201-300 (Cartography) 820	Nautical Focus	Visionary Student
Lettice, the Mercy	110-120 401-500 (Biological) 1320		Gifted Student April Esurient Smith
Numismatrix	30 250 980 1301-1600 (History)
Percipient Cricketer FATE		Correspondence Focus	Profound Student
Reformed Protester FATE	101-200 (Weapons)
Silk-Clad Expert FATE	401-500 (Biological)		Gifted Student
Stoic Classicist FATE	1301-1600 (History)
The Eldest Daughter FATE		Toxicological Focus

Freely available Experts include:

• The Numismatrix is the first expert you'll hire into your Lab. She is the only source of Numismatic Research for your initial study of Justificande coins (Experimental Object 30), and provides regular research benefits for later coinage projects (Experimental Objects 250 & 980), and Historical projects (Experimental Object 1300-1500). The Numismatrix also provides lore on currencies you have in your possession. She can be hired for free if you are willing to purchase her services permanently for 3 x Amber Ha'penny.
• Lettice The Mercy produces Expertise of the Third City and ordinary research when your Equipment for Scientific Experimentation is level 5 or above. She is good with weapons and explosives (Experimental Objects 101-200), and gives Expertise of the Third City for Experiments 110-120 and 1320. She can be hired for free if you get Lettice, the Mercy as a companion during the Feast of the Exceptional Rose.
• F.F. Gebrandt is London's leading expert in chemistry (Experimental Object 901-1000). Despite the claim that "she also has interesting things to say about palaeontology", she has no particular talent in this area beyond enthusiasm. You can also create Superior Laudanum, Tincture of Vigour and Collated Research while working with her.

Two NPCs can staff your lab like Experts, but are much less useful to providing research.

• The Struggling Artist. Hiring him will remove his irritating card from your London deck and add a new option which gives 125 x Drop of Prisoner's Honey per action, making it really easy to enter Parabola. It is also an easy 2.5 EPA grind. It also adds a card to the Laboratory deck which gets you 150 x Drop of Prisoner's Honey - but clutters up the deck.
• The Grubby Urchin is good for Parabolan Research, but you'll need to be in Parabola to really benefit.

A number of experts only become available after finishing your ambition:

• Hephaesta is good at cartography (Experimental Objects 201-300) and projects with a Nautical Focus. She is unlocked after completing Ambition: Light Fingers! but first needs to be cared for in Parabola before she can cross-over to the regular Lab. She also produces an extraordinary amount of Parabolan Research per action.
• April is unlocked during the final stages of Ambition: Bag a Legend!. She is key to projects that are part of that Ambition. She is good with weapons (Experimental Objects 100-200) and projects with a Red Science Focus, and can help increase your Artisan of the Red Science skill.
• The Mother Superior can be temporarily hired during Ambition: Bag a Legend! (levels 155–210), but will not stay in your lab after her role in the Ambition's experiments is complete.
• The Esurient Smith can be hired after completing Ambition: Nemesis. He specialises in weapons research (Experimental Objects 101-200) and metals (Experimental Objects 301-400).
• Cora Bagley can be hired after completing Ambition: Heart's Desire!. She is good in experiments that concern mathematics (Experimental Objects 1001-1200).

There are also a few FATE-locked assistants you can hire:

• The Silk-Clad Expert has expertise in biology (Experimental Objects 401-500) and living things. She produces small amounts of Parabolan Research without entering Parabola or drawing the relevant card in the Lab. She can also work with the Gifted Student on biology projects. To hire her, you first need to meet her in the House of Chimes and advise her during the Learning from a Silk-Clad Expert story.
• The Percipient Cricketer is an expert in correspondence-related research. She works well with the Profound Student, able to both tutor and work with him regardless of research subject. She originally meddled with your afternoon during Cricket, Anyone?
• The Reformed Protester is an expert in weapons-related research. He originally conspired with you during Five Minutes to Midday.
• The Eldest Daughter is an expert in poisons and toxicology. She originally made your life harder during The Frequently Deceased.
• The Stoic Classicist is an expert in archaeology and history (Experimental Objects 1301-1500). As an experienced teacher, she is also able to advance the students in your Lab much faster than you can on your own. Her tutoring options are non-card alternatives that exchange 40 Research for two student levels without an item cost. She originally delved with you during Tauroktonos.

(Note: It is not necessary to play the Exceptional Stories where the Mr Chimes' Lost & Found experts originally appeared. Doing so may give insight as to the nature of their expertise, but will not affect the quality of their work.)

Students

After a first few experiments, you will become able to let University students work in your Laboratory to gain some real-life experience. They require training in order to maximise their usefulness. Students are unlocked after completing a Palaeontological Task for the Dean. Accepting the task will give you your first student and unlock Manage the Students in your Laboratory, which allows you to hire more. Graduating a Student will increase the Teaching Reputation of Your Laboratory by 1-3 levels and give you a small reward, which depends on the type of student. High Reputation is required to hire better students.

The students available are:

• A Shifty Student. Shifty Students don't produce a lot of research, but can be graduated quickly to raise the Teaching Reputation of Your Laboratory. His associated card is Work with your Shifty Student. Graduating him gives only 1 reputation.
• A Meticulous Student. The Meticulous Student produces more research than the Shifty Student, but is also harder to level up. She is also required to create Mirthless Compendiums of Statistical Observations. Without her you'll find out that there are too many errors and you'll need to pass them off to a colleague as they're useless. Her associated card is Work with your Meticulous Student. Graduating her gives 3 reputation!
• A Gifted Student. A Gifted Student can level up really quickly without you needing to spend time on her. Her associated card is Work with your Gifted Student. Graduating her gives  1 x Favours: Society and a Slim Volume of Bazaarine Poetry. This is one of the few non-card-based ways to grind Favours, and the fastest of the available non-Fate options.
• A Profound Student. The Profound Student is better at research than the previous three but levels up slower than the Gifted Student. His associated card is Work with your Profound Student.
• A Visionary Student. Visionary Students are the pinnacle of Students, producing just as much research as the Profound Student, but leveling as quickly as the Gifted Student. Their associated card is Work with your Visionary Student. Graduating them provides 3 reputation, but at this point you won't have any use for reputation anymore.

The table below shows the amount of Research gained from working with each type of student. Note that while students may level from 1 to 5, for most purposes, there are functionally only three bands of skill--Levels 1 and 2, Levels 3 and 4, and Level 5 (however, some cards do calculate results from the total level of your experts and students). In some cases, Rare Successes, which will either level up a student below Level 5 or give a point of Disgruntlement for a student that is already Level 5, will give additional research. The bold numbers in parentheses indicate the amount of research that would be gained by a player with Equipment for Scientific Experimentation 7, the maximum that is possible to attain without Fate.

Student Table:

Student	Student Level	Watchful Challenge	Research on Success ( Equipment 7)	Rare Success Bonus Research	Research on Failure ( Equipment 7)
Shifty Student	1-2	215	Equipment; (7)		1; (1)
	3-4	210	(5/3) * Eq; (12)		Eq; (7)
	5	205	2 * Eq; (14)	+1	(4/3) * Eq; (10)
Meticulous Student	1-2	210	Eq + 2; (9)		Eq + 1; (8)
	3-4	225	(3/2) * Eq + 4; (15)		(3/2) * Eq + 3; (14)
	5	220	2 * Eq + 5; (19)	+1	2 * Eq + 4; (18)
Gifted Student	1-2	210	Eq + 2; (9)		Eq + 1; (8)
	3-4	215	Eq + 7; (14)		Eq + 6; (13)
	5	220	2 * Eq + 5; (19)	+5	(5/3) * Eq + 3; (15)
Profound Student & Visionary Student	1-2	210	Eq + 4; (11)		Eq + 3; (10)
	3-4	215	2 * Eq + 4; (18)	+1	2 * Eq + 3; (17)
	5	220	2 * Eq + 9; (23)	+1	2 * Eq + 4; (18)

The most efficient way to progress your teaching reputation seems to be to repeatedly take on the Shifty Student, and supervise his research. Rely on the rare/alternative success for him to level up, then graduate him as soon as possible. Repeat this until you can employ the Meticulous Student, and then repeatedly take on and graduate Meticulous Students. This will produce little research at the start, but you can get to the better students pretty quickly.

Disgruntlement among the Students

Gaining Disgruntlement

As students perform research, they will level up to increase their effectiveness. Once they reach level 5, they will begin to express a desire to graduate, and rare or alternate successes will begin to generate CP of Disgruntlement. When Disgruntlement reaches level 4, the non-discardable card Student Complaints will be added to the Opportunity Deck. At level 6, the card Student Fury will be added, and must be played immediately upon being drawn, costing 200 Research.

Several other cards involving students can also produce Disgruntlement.

Managing Disgruntlement

Disgruntlement is most easily decreased by graduating students. Graduating any student will remove at least 21 CP of Disgruntlement, enough to reset it from level 6 to 0. Because Disgruntlement is not tracked for individual students, it is possible to retain one student indefinitely, while training and graduating other students to lower Disgruntlement.

Note that this mechanic is very useful for maximising research output. Working with Visionary or Profound students, which is commonly the fastest way to get research outside of some special experiments, can be modified to keep the Visionary student indefinitely. Through academic cruelty and immediately graduating a Profound student when disgruntlement becomes dangerous, the fact that a fully upgraded Visionary student can tutor your other students can be exploited and the action cost of constantly having to graduate Profound students, which loses all of their levels, negated.

Alternately, the option to give the students a day off on the "Directing your Team" opportunity card reduces disgruntlement by 2 CP and provides a modest amount of research. As none of the options on this card are particularly competitive with high-level students or relevant experts, this also serves to get rid of the card.

Another alternative, if your only student is the Visionary Student, is to only use Leave your student to their own devices, which never gives disgruntlement. Non-student sources of disgruntlement only give disgruntlement if you already have some, allowing you to permanently keep disgruntlement at zero.

University Laboratory qualities

There are several qualities for the Laboratory: The Prestige of your Laboratory, Teaching Reputation of Your Laboratory, and Record of Successful Forgery.

• Prestige is a measure of how many experiments you have completed. It is raised by a single level for every completed experiment (or experiment stage if the experiment has more than one stage). It will unlock a few new experiments, cards and storylets when raised (notably the card to get a Protective Labcoat).
• Reputation is a measure of the amount of students you have graduated. As it increases, better and better students will join your Lab. A certain reputation is also required for an option while Publishing a Newspaper.
• Forgeries are tracked upon certain outcomes from projects, for example in passing off a thigh-bone as a holy relic or publishing inaccurate statistical tables.

Short To-Do List

If you still aren't sure what to actually do, check this to do list by Rahv7, which he made in a reply on the Fallen London subreddit and is used here with his permission:

Important projects to do as soon as possible are:

• "Find a Route to Parabola": This unlocks the Parabolan Base-Camp

• "Accept a Palaeontological Task from the Dean": This unlocks both the training of students as well as access to the Bone Market

• "Disambiguate an Eolith": This gives a Perfumed Gunpowder (if you already have one, skip this part!)

• "Research the Formula for Perfumed Gunpowder": this unlocks manufacturing supplies, specifically the bulk-production of Gunpowder

Now you roughly need to do the following:

Further Increasing Equipment

At this point you can technically continue improving your scientific equipment, but you don't have the resources yet.

• Go the Base-Camp and hunt the Seven-Throated Warbler. Searching its nest will gain a Hillmover. You need three. While hunting the Warbler, unlock the route to the Dome of Scales and get a Possessed Goldfish (you need to bring a regular one!) Note you only need to do the last part if you have Respectable above 0.

• In your lab, research two more bones (get them for free from A Pedagogically Inclined Grandmother at the Bone Market!) and make up the result to get two Holy Relic of the Thigh of Saint Fiacre
  • Alternatively, you could use Research on a Morbid Fad to Publish an Expose of Palaeontology in order to acquire the Relics.

To get resources to create Gunpowder, go to the Bone-Market.

• You'll need the Possessed Goldfish to be able to sell to the Sculptress if you have Respectable above 0, which will convert your 2 Relics into 12 Preserved Surface Blooms.
  • An alternative way of getting Blooms is to speak with A Teller of Terrors at the Bone Market and either Contribute your insight to a future project; a Monstrous Anatomy 5 Challenge which awards 1 Bloom on success; or to Sell her a Possessed Goldfish; a broad Shadowy 200 challenge which awards 2 Blooms per Goldfish. Failure at either gives 1 CP Suspicion, but selling goldfish still gives Blooms even on a failure.

• Unequip the Goldfish, change equipment to get to 3 Bizarre and seek the Tentacled Servant and trade 1 Nodule of Pulsating Amber for Nightsoil of the Bazaar. You can also trade Rubbery Skulls if you have access to Flute Street.
  • Alternatives: It is considerably more economical to create and Sell him your amalgamous skeleton than to trade amber, but amber is far less time-consuming. With the Rat Market, you can also purchase Nightsoil of the Bazaar directly. Most weeks have some saleable item or another that you can grind without other requirements.
    • Another alternative to this is to train up and graduate as many Profound Students as possible. Each graduation will give you 8 Nightsoil of the Bazaar. This method however, is slow going due to the difficulty and research expense required to level Profound Students quickly. Grinding this however can get you closer to unlocking Visionary Students, and Visonaries can tutor your other students when at max level, which can greatly increase the speed of this grind.

Now you have the Hillmovers and the Gunpowder and can continue upgrading your Lab up to 7 if you have the remaining resources (or 9 with Fate). Having your lab at level 7 makes some options almost double as efficient.

Also useful to know

The Urchin is a good way to get Parabolan Research, but he's not good for anything else. If you are willing to buy the Silk-Clad Expert for FATE, you don't need the Urchin. She also has good synergy with the Gifted Student. The Urchin is also outmoded by the various experts that are available to you from all of the ambitions, although those require you to obviously complete your ambition first and thus are going to be late game rewards.

Prestige Grinding For Watchful Gains and the Railway

To get the first increment of Watchful Gains and unlock Railway Steel, you must have Prestige of Your Laboratory 40. Very few projects grant more than one of this quality when finished, and the shortest project which grants more than 1 Prestige is 1600 Research, for 3 Prestige, in two stages; it is generally infeasible to reach this goal in merely 3x the time required for a short project. (It may, however, be overall more profitable.)

Many simple projects require 100 Laboratory Research, and grant 1 Prestige, and so you can grind much of the required prestige organically; in the course of improving your Equipment and Teaching Reputation, you'll most likely Create a Mirthless Compendium of Statistical Observations 5 times, for example. (You'll also likely do the slightly longer and more expensive process of Researching a Devilish Probability Distributor.) Various other projects you will probably do as one-offs to see what happens, like Studying the Focused Albatross. However, if you're in a hurry to get the rest of your prestige and move on, consider these:

• Disambiguate more Eoliths, 10 Research each: The rewards are minimal, but if you have access to the Bone Market and high Equipment, then you can acquire 1 Prestige in 4-5 actions total; 1 to acquire the Eolith at the Market, 2 to start and end the investigation, and 1-2 to acquire the needed Research.
• Identify thigh bones, 25 Research: If your Monstrous Anatomy is high enough to mostly get Femur of a Jurassic Beast instead of Femur of a Surface Deer, this can be considerably more profitable and only 1-2 actions slower. Requires using the Bone Market to extract the profit. Like the previous, the raw material can be acquired in one action at the Market.
• Preparing Glass Gazettes, 60 total ( Lab + Parabola). This requires a minimum of 10 Parabolan Research and 50 Laboratory Research by default, but extra research in Parabola reduces what's needed in the Is. Rewards are around 14, though redemption for cash at full price has to wait for Helicon House.

The first two can get their raw materials from Petitioning the Dean, which is an easier check though it costs an extra Bottle of Strangling Willow Absinthe and is unpredictable. The latter requires no inputs, but does need either a Parabolan Base-Camp or the FATE-locked Silk-Clad Expert for the research into Is-Not.

Strategy

In order to get the most out of your lab, it's essential to:

• Improve your instruments as much as you can
• Employ experts and students in order to fill up work benches and avoid some bad cards
• Have a decent balance between experts and compatible students, so that you can have them work together. Ideally, you want at least one of your experts to be able to use their expertise, but this can't always be guaranteed, especially not at the beginning of your lab career.