Making Waves (Guide)

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What is Making Waves?[edit]

"...there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about."
—Lord Henry, in The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (1891)

The quality Making Waves tracks how much you're being talked about in Fallen London. As the in-game text says, "It is merely a distraction until you’ve achieved Person of Some Importance status."

Once you are a PoSI, Making Waves is how you increase your Notability. Using the Slowcake's Amanuensis card and an Entry in Slowcake's Exceptionals, you can spend Making Waves to increase your Notability. How many levels of Making Waves you need to raise Notability is determined by the formula [20 - ( B+ D+ R) + 4 * N], in which B+D+R is the total of your Bizarre, Dreaded, and Respectable levels, and N is your current Notability. (For more on Notability and what it is used for, consult the Notability sections of the PoSI guide.)

There are a variety of actions that raise Making Waves, and actions that lower it. Every week, it is halved by Time, the Healer.

Why increase Notability?[edit]

Notability is needed to obtain various professions and unlock certain actions:

Notability Is needed to...
1 Use your influence to invite Slowcake's Amanuensis for a visit.
Meet The Amanuensis amongst your Wedding guests.
Offer your good name to Mr Sacks on day 2.
2 Await an Unsigned Letter.
Obtain the Tutor or Undermanager professions.
Obtain a Tier 2 profession.
3 Obtain the Doctor or Notary professions.
5 Obtain a Tier 3 profession.
Perform some Professional Activities.
Say Nothing to Slowcake's Amanuensis to gain +3 CP Making Waves.
Choose You yourself as the face of an advertising campaign.
Become the Director who secretly owns half the company for the Railway.
7 Become the director they boast about for the Railway.
9 100% chance to get A Surprise Package when choosing A gift? from An Unsigned Message card.
10 Commission a portrait at The Temple Club.

Note that Notability has a hard cap of 15.

Notability may also be spent on various actions, including:

On the path to becoming a Paramount Presence, you must acquire all four of London's Innards. Each of these requires you to have 12 Notability, and on obtaining any one of them your Notability is reset to 1.

I need some Making Waves![edit]

There are a number of different ways of getting Making Waves, and the best method depends on your resources, the amount of time you have, and the amount of Making Waves you need.

  • Grinds: If you prefer to not spend too many resources on Making Waves, and have a full week ahead of you, there are several reliable grinds.
    • The first is the cross-conversion carousel. This averages 1.6 CP MW (and E 0.50) per action and is indefinitely cycleable, requiring only that players have at least 50 of one type of 50-pence item to start. You can use extra actions before Time, the Healer comes through to line up as many 50p items as possible at Making Waves conversions (e.g., converting them all to Visions of the Surface) in order to maximize the efficiency of the carousel.
    • The second is at Helicon House, where the Mirrored Salon (once unlocked) provides a grind that gives 4 CP MW per action. This may be done four times per visit to the House before the player must leave. By simply exiting the house immediately, this provides 3.2 CP MW per action and no profit; by instead staying in the house to collect a final reward before leaving, players may accrue 2.7 CP MW and around E 1.7 per action, with payout depending on choice of companion.

A more advanced version allows 2.6 EPA if a player has Train Luxuries 4, in order to use the solacefruit option and purchase Tinned Ham to sell to the Bazaar. It requires players to have a Railway, to have unlocked Helicon House, to have Glasswork 8, and to have an Oneiric Key or an Underground Organ to avoid repeatedly paying the House's entry fee. Once all of these conditions are met, however, it is the fastest way to repeatedly and indefinitely grind Making Waves. Assuming 120 actions per day, at 2.7 CP MW per action, one might go from zero to 66 levels of MW in a week; at 3.2 CP MW per action, that increases to 72 levels of MW. Assuming no other interaction with the game.

  • Lodgings cards: If you would like a lot of Making Waves quickly, and don't mind spending resources on them, many Lodgings cards offer MW actions that typically cost around E 1 per CP of Making Waves. These can be very useful for getting high levels of MW, as they generally give a lot at one time.
  • Salon: For very high levels of Making Waves, the Salon is the most effective option. It takes time and resources to set it up and to raise Scheme, but once high levels of Scheme are obtained it can give around 3 CP MW per E 1 of investment. For very high levels of Making Waves, the Salon and Orphanage can also be used to "bank" MW to allow more than a week's worth of grinding.
  • Social actions: If you want to get a last few points before the week ends, and only have a few actions to get them with, you may want to be flattered by a non-PoSI at Dante's Grill via Benefit from flattery at Dante's Grill or Share a pot of tea at Beatrice's Tea Shop; both are Social Actions and require both players to have free evenings. If you are a tier 2 PoSI, you may also become a Patron and teach them your chosen skill in Deal with matters of Patronage! Alternatively, Meet someone for a Coffee at Caligula's if you don't have any free evenings. If you don't want to or don't have time to interact with others, there are some universally available grindable Actions that reliably give small amounts of Making Waves. Actions that give 1 CP per action or less are usually not sustainable for getting higher levels of Notability, however.
  • A Trade in Reputations: If you are PoSI, you can semi-reliably grind MW with Trade in Reputations (available at Bazaar Side-streets). Choose You, Yourself at The face of the campaign (Note that this usually requires you to already have Notability 5), then play all the cards like A bizarre campaign (depending on your focus, it may be dreaded/respectful). Rare successes (about 40-50% chance) will give you 1 point of MW; campaign itself will give you decent(ish) EPA in resources. At average, this will net you 3-4 CP of MW per 15 Actions with 2.5-3.3 EPA (depending on chosen difficulty). Only decent use for this grind is when you don't have access to Railroad and Parabolan War. If you have both of those, unlock Helicon House and its Mirrored Salon and use that instead.

Grindable actions[edit]

Grindable actions that increase Making Waves are:

Cross-Conversion Carousel[edit]

Cross-category item conversions: Overview
All conversions are 50:51. Conversions marked as ≈ produce 1-10 CP of Making Waves.

Upgrading and converting certain items across categories gives ~1.61 CP on average; check the Items Guide for more information. This process is also known as the 50p item carousel.

Although the conversion carousel gives 1.6 CP per action on average, it can be made more efficient. In particular, the string of conversions between Strangling Willow Absinthe and Visions of the Surface, which all give 0 MW, may be done in advance of Time, The Healer's visit. This allows players to immediately begin getting Making Waves at the start of the week, offering more time to reach a MW goal.

As the carousel is very modestly profitable (each batch of 50 items results in 51 items of the next category), it is possible to "snowball" and become self-sustaining. It's up to you how many items you want to convert at one time; large batches of resources (thousands of 50p items or more) can be more easily optimized in the above manner, but also represent a significant action investment. The cross-conversion carousel is generally adequate on its own up to moderately high Notability goals, depending on BDR, and even at later levels is useful to complement Salons or Lodgings grinds.

The carousel can actually rival Helicon House for EPA and MW CP per Action, in the long-run, given that random values for cross-conversion and upgrading will eventually average out to the mean. This method is especially useful for mid-game players who are still pre-Railway. In order to do so, you need a newspaper in Doubt Street, Shadowy 217, Mithridacy 6 and Route: The Bone Market. You can get the Whirring Contraption needed to publish by following the Searching out a Missing Woman grind in Wilmot's End. By publishing An edition brimming with truth and wisdom, you will receive 118 x Journal of Infamy, which can be cross converted until you have Memory of Distant Shores, which can be upconverted into Collated Research. Selling the spoils of this upgrade, along with the 4 x An Identity Uncovered! from the newspaper, generates an EPA of ~2.48. In addition, you will receive 3.18 CP of MW per action, which beats out all Helicon House choices that turn a profit. As a drawback, this method is much less consistent than Helicon House, so while it technically is more efficient, the length of the full grind (33-34 actions) means you may get unlucky one week. However, assuming you use 120 actions a day, you can run this cycle around 25 times in a week, generating ~2600 CP MW, enough to raise you from zero to 71 levels of MW in a week, as well as providing E 2000.

Up-Conversions[edit]

While these conversions do not form a continuous loop like the the T3 cross-conversions do, many of them give higher amounts of MW per conversion, so they can be a useful method to acquire mid-scale amounts of MW. Sources for these items vary; see the respective grinding guides for the starting items for details.

Social actions[edit]

These depend on the recipient accepting, so don't splurge before checking that your invitation is likely to be accepted.

If you have a willing non-PoSI friend, using up both your 5x Free Evenings doing 4x Share a pot of tea at Beatrice's Tea Shop and then 1x Benefit from flattery at Dante's Grill will make 80-120 MW CP (16-24 MW CP per action) once per week.

Slights and assassins[edit]

In addition to the actions above, there are opportunities to slight your acquaintances on a few occasions. Specifically when:

Your friend may reciprocate a slight by sending an assassin after you, or by forgiving you. Forgiving gives an increase in Scandal and isn't very exciting or profitable, but sending assassins after your friends gives on average 20 CP Making Waves. Being the one who is forgiven on the other hand gives 1-6CP MW and a randomized loss of Scandal.

Assassin table
Location / Cost to recruit Option Challenge Success Failure
The Minacious Marksman - A Crack of Gunfire!
Climb up to the Flit and face him head-on Dangerous
Fortunately, you have made arrangements A Player of Chess 8 1 x Favour in High Places
Stand and dare him to take the shot
The Gloomy Guttersnipe - A Sudden Shadow!
Fight him off Dangerous
Shift your organs out of the way Shapeling Arts 8 1 x Ivory Humerus
Allow yourself to be stabbed
The Polite Poisoner - A Curious Taste
Pretend to drink Shadowy 1 x Magnificent Diamond
Drink up. Metabolize the poison. Kataleptic Toxicology 8 1 x Blackmail Material
Drink up. Try to enjoy it.
Johnny Croak - A Warning Croak
FATE Shadowy
FATE Kataleptic Toxicology 8 1 x Antique Mystery
FATE

Carousels or projects[edit]

Things that take longer and cost more but can give substantial boosts

Opportunity cards[edit]

Opportunity card actions that increase Making Waves. While most of the grindable options are free and/or mildly profitable unless otherwise noted, these cost resources. However, they are more time-efficient than the grindable methods.

Lodgings cards[edit]

Some major MW gains are found on the opportunity cards specific to Lodgings you own.

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Handsome Townhouse[edit]

For a more detailed guide, see Handsome Townhouse: Schemes (Guide).

The Tower of Eyes: Behind Closed Doors at a Handsome Townhouse is one of the most efficient ways of generating large amounts of MW, either through a Salon or an Orphanage. Both options require raising Scheme, which may be cashed in for Making Waves. The Salon raises Scheme through Bohemians and Society favours, as well as Stolen Kisses and Favours in High Places. The Orphanage primarily requires Echoes and items that may be bought from the Bazaar. Although this does in theory make the Orphanage more flexible to grind for, both Bohemian and Society favours are relatively abundant, and it costs only half as much to raise Scheme with the Salon compared to the Orphanage. Once you've unlocked Tribute the opportunity cost of using your favours will make the options about equally efficient, and you will want to look for other ways to increase MW instead.

For a Salon, you build up Engaged in a Scheme: a Salon.

Option Requirements Echo cost Scheme Scheme/Echo Ratio
Encourage the great and the good to attend your Salon 3 x Favours: Society
1 x Favour in High Places
55.1 E (counting each tribute favour at 10 E) 5 - 7 CP
(Avg. 6)
0.24
Encourage the wise and the wicked to attend your Salon 3 x Favours: Bohemians
4 x Stolen Kiss
52.6 E (counting each tribute favour at 10 E) 2 - 11 CP
(Avg 6.5)
0.29

Salon CP can be cashed out by inviting various people to your Salon, at a range of costs and rewards. The list of possible invitees depends on The Airs of London, which may be shuffled through a variety of actions.

  • Most invitees (Silas the Showman, the Presbyteriate Diplomat, The Mercies, The Repentant Forger, and the Sardonic Music-Hall Singer) cost between 15 and 30 CP of Scheme, and give, on average, 10 to 11 CP of MW per CP of Scheme. For some of these invitees, the range is larger than for others.
    • From least variance to most, they are: The Mercies, The Sardonic Music-Hall Singer, Silas the Showman, The Presbyterate Diplomat, The Repentant Forger.
    • The Mercies should not be attempted without Scheme 10 or higher, as a failure returns only 3.3/4.0 CP of MW per CP of Scheme. Silas the Showman can fail, returning no MW, but only expends 1 CP of Scheme; the Forger can also fail, but this just gives a smaller result with an equally good exchange rate; +10 MW CP, -1 CP of Scheme.
  • It is possible to invite other players: Authors give 150 CP Making Waves for 15 CP Scheme (10 CP MW per Scheme), with no Airs requirement; Crooked-Crosses give 200 CP Making Waves for 15 CP Scheme (13.3 CP MW per Scheme), and require Airs 80-100.
  • If you have the Lyrebird Educated in Three Schools from Whitsun, you can present it for 15 CP Scheme with Airs 25-50 for 150 CP Making Waves. (10.7 CP MW per Scheme)
  • Inviting the Duchess ( Airs 25-50) is an especially expensive option, costing a Midnight Matriarch and 65 CP Scheme, with a reward of 850 CP of Making Waves. (13 CP MW per Scheme)

At its most efficient (building Scheme via Wise and Wicked and cashing it in with Crooked-Cross visits), this will give a return of 3.8 CP MW per Echo invested.

For an Orphanage, you build up Engaged in a Scheme: an Orphanage.

Option Airs Requirements Echo cost Scheme Scheme/Echo Ratio
Offer some Urchins a place in your Orphanage 31-70 5 x Favours: Urchins
E 30
E 51 4 - 8 CP
(Avg 6)
0.12
Look after your Orphanage 71-100 5 x F.F. Gebrandt's Tincture of Vigour

5 x Sober Dress
5 x Set of Workman's Clothes
250 x Foxfire Candle Stub
E 50

E 59.5 4 - 9 CP
(Avg 6.5)
0.11
Admit your Winsome Orphan to the Orphanage 0-30 1 x Winsome Dispossessed Orphan
E 10
E 74.80 1 - 11 CP
(Avg 6)
0.08
Introduce your Warm-Hearted Amber Iguana as a Pet 0-30 1 x Warm-hearted Amber Iguana (not consumed)
E 40
E 40 3 - 14 CP
(Avg 8.5)
0.21

As with the Salon, there are a variety of cash-out options.

At its most efficient (building Scheme with an Iguana and inviting Midnighters or Correspondents), this gives a return of 2.8 CP MW per Echo. If the Iguana is not available, this becomes 1.6 CP MW per Echo via the 5 x Urchins Favours option.

Banking Actions: If you have a cooperative friend, or an alt, you can "bank" social invites from the Salon or Orphanage by sending the invites as the options become available, but asking them to not accept them immediately. Then, when you have enough in store to reach your Notability goal, ask them to accept all of the invites at once. This avoids the need to draw the Handsome Townhouse card many times in a single week. Note that this does not work with any of the NPC invites, which are automatically accepted as soon as they are sent.

Other Lodgings[edit]

Most other Lodgings cards have some method of accruing Making Waves, though none are as elaborate as the Townhouse. See Lodgings Cards (Guide) for more details.

Rooftop Shack:

Cottage by the Observatory:

  • Invite guests to trade a Searing Enigma for 65 CP MW.
    • Note that there is an SotC challenge associated with this - if you fail, you won't lose the Enigma, but you won't gain the MW either.

Lair in the Marshes:

Rooms above a Gambling Den:

Smoky Flophouse:

A guest room at the Brass Embassy:

Reservation at the Royal Bethlehem:

Premises at the Bazaar:

Other opportunity cards[edit]

Spending Making Waves[edit]

On occasion, you may have excess Making Waves that you would like to spend before purchasing your next rank of Notability, or perhaps you're simply content with your current amount of Notability or have already maxed it. Unfortunately, most of these actions are locked to either Hallowmas or the Feast of the Rose.

The following actions below spend varying amounts of Making Waves CP.