Making Waves (Guide)

Mid-Game Content

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What is Making Waves?

"...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.

I need some Making Waves!

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 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 1.7 per action, with payout depending on choice of companion. The payout can increase to 2.62 EPA if a player has Train Luxuries 4, in order to use the solacefruit option and purchase Tinned Ham to sell to the Bazaar. This grind 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. At 2.7 CP MW per action, one may go from zero to 66 levels of MW in a week (assuming 120 actions per day); at 3.2 CP MW per action, that increases to 72 levels of MW.
• 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 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 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! However, they must choose to challenge you for you to get 6 CP of MW from it, otherwise you get none. 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

Grindable actions that increase Making Waves are:

• Helicon House: Astonish the company with an illusion in the Mirrored Salon. At Persuasive 209 and Glasswork 8, this provides 16 CP for 5 actions (3.2 CP/action) if you leave the house without gathering rewards at Time Remaining 1. If you do not have the Oneiric Key, repeated entry to the house may become costly.
• The University: Mixing in Summerset Society and A feather in Benthic's mortar board at Featuring in the Tales of the University 5 and Term Passing... below 11 (2 CP)
• The Empress' Court: Discussing anything in The life of the mind (1 CP)

• Veilgarden
  • Cycling between being Identified with a School: [1] [2] [3] at The Singing Mandrake gives 1 CP/action for going rogue and 1-10 for aligning to a school at the cost of 3 actions and different items/connections/gains. Also changes Quirks. (1.6 CP on average)
  • Supply wine in exchange for Prisoner's Honey at The Honey-Dens of Veilgarden (1 CP and 40 x Drop of Prisoner's Honey for 50 x Bottle of Greyfields 1879)

Cross-Conversion Carousel

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.

• The cross-conversion carousel will on average give 21 CP per 13 actions (1.62 CP per action).

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 2000.

Up-Conversions

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.

• T2 to T3
  • Romantic Notions into Visions of the Surface (2 or 3 (rare) CP)
  • Romantic Notions into Visions of the Surface (in bulk) (1-9 CP)
• T3 to T4
  • Tales of Terror into Extraordinary Implications (5, 10, or 30 (rare) CP depending on luck check)
  • Compromising Documents into Stolen Kisses (1-6, 1-4, or 1-11 (rare) CP depending on luck check)
  • Zee-Ztories into Partial Maps (1-8, 1-5, or 1-10 (rare) CP depending on luck check)
  • Visions of the Surface into Touching Love Stories (1-10, 1-4, or 1-20 (rare) CP depending on luck check)
  • Incendiary Gossip to Identities Uncovered (1-16, 2-16, or 4-43 (rare) CP depending on luck check)
  • Memories of Distant Shores into Collated Research (1-15 or 1-40 (rare) CP)
• T4 to T5
  • Extraordinary Implications into Uncanny Incunabula (2-30, 1-20, or 1-42 (rare) CP depending on luck check)
  • Stolen Kisses into Favours in High Places (1-45, 1-35, or 1-65 (rare) CP depending on luck check)

Social actions

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

• Meet someone for a Coffee at Caligula's has no cost and gives 1 CP MW, or 2 CP and 1 CP Scandal. The recipient also gets MW.
• Benefit from flattery at Dante's Grill, requires a non- PoSI A Person of Some Importance - friend, whose MW will be drained by this action. Also costs a Free Evening and 10. The guest loses up to 100 CP, and the host gets however many CP were drained.
• Share a pot of tea at Beatrice's Tea Shop only costs a Free Evening, both participants get a variable amount of MW CP (roughly 10-15), a -2 CP reduction to a menace of the recipient's choosing, and around 35 CP of Persuasive
• The Rewards of Correspondence can give you [30 + Bizarre + Dreaded + Respectable] MW CP, once you have 4 levels of Corresponding...; This would take 10 letters sent from Epistolary Matters unless you are a Correspondent or Midnighter who can Compile notes on the Correspondence and Encrypt a coded instruction, respectively.

Slights and assassins

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

• Writing newspapers
• Attending parties in Veilgarden
• Having Mr Slowcakes Amanuensis show up

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, but sending assassins after your friends gives on average 20 CP Making Waves.

Carousels or projects

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

• The Writer's Desk (see Short Stories (Guide) for more explanation).
• Heists: After the Burglary, you receive MW equivalent to 1x to 4x the amount of Burglar's Progress accumulated (depending on the Target Security: quality). You can grind more Casing than needed to get Intriguing Keys, Inside Information, and Escape Routes before starting the heist, then keep drawing cards even after you've got enough Progress for the A Prize Achieved! (Thanks for this tip, to comment below from anonymous user dated 21 July 2019.) See the Casing guide and On a Heist guide for more help with heists.
  • If you have a guest room or a suite at the Royal Bethlehem Hotel, burgling The Circumspect Envoy's Townhouse and Take a series on the succession laws of Arbor is simultaneously a good way to get the Magnificent Diamond needed to make the Bejewelled Lens for the MW gain action on your Lodgings opportunity card.
• You can bank up a stash of Extraordinary Implications, and upconvert them to Uncanny Incannabula for 2-30CP of Making Waves per batch of 25 EIs. You can then sell the incunabula to the Rat Market during certain weeks, and then use the Rat Shillings obtained that way to buy Appalling Secrets. You can upconvert these secrets to Tale of Terror!! and those again into Extraordinary Implication, which again gives a Making Waves boost (10 CP per 50 Tales).
  • You can kickstart this cycle by publishing newspapers for Journal of Infamy and upconverting those
  • This cycle is self-reinforcing (you get more inputs for the cycle than you need to complete it)
  • You can only sell Uncanny Incunabulum to the Rat Market for 3 out of 12 weeks of the Rat Market cycle, which makes it somewhat of a medium- to long-term project
  • When you are done with grinding Making Waves, you can use the Rat Market to obtain other items from your initial investment

Opportunity cards

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

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

Handsome Townhouse

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 30	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 50	59.5	4 - 9 CP (Avg 6.5)	0.11
Admit your Winsome Orphan to the Orphanage	0-30	1 x Winsome Dispossessed Orphan 10	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) 40	40	3 - 14 CP (Avg 8.5)	0.21

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

• Graduation and Reuniting a Dispossessed Orphan give an average of 150 CP MW for 15 CP Scheme. (10 CP MW per Scheme)
• Invite a Correspondent acquaintance, with Airs 80-100, and Invite a Midnighter acquaintance, with Airs 0-20, both give 200 CP MW for 15 CP Scheme. (13.3 CP MW per Scheme)

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

Most other Lodgings cards have some method of accruing Making Waves, though none are as elaborate as the Townhouse.

Rooftop Shack:

• An Unorthodox Arrangement gives 1 to 30 CP MW (avg:15.5) for a Society Favour and a Favour in High Places.
  • Occasionally gives a Sudden Insight.

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:

• Hosting A Masque in the Marshes gives approximately 64 - 75 CP MW (or 82 - 108 CP on a rare success), in exchange for a Parabola-Linen Scrap.
  • You'll also need at least Renown: Bohemians 5 and 10, which will not be consumed; and at least Touched by Fingerwork 5, which will drop by 10 CP.

Rooms above a Gambling Den:

• Bring the celebration home for 11 to 70 CP MW (avg:40.5) in exchange for a Night on the Town, 2 x Strangling Willow Absinthe, 12 x Greyfields 1879, and no more than 30.
  • Requires 40, but may gain or lose you Echoes.
  • Grants a Bohemian Favour, a Confident Smile (up to 21), and a little Scandal.

Smoky Flophouse:

• Ambush Smugglers to trade a Strong-Backed Labour and 3 Docks Favours for 12 CP MW.
  • Also gives Greyfields 1879, as long as you succeed in a Dangerous challenge.
  • You'll need to be a PoSI, but if you're reading this guide, you probably are!

A guest room at the Brass Embassy:

• An Evening of Wine and Souls gives between 81 and 180 CP MW (average 126.5; a Luck challenge is involved) for a Portfolio of Souls, a Bottle of Fourth City Airag, 2 x Muscaria Brandy, and 2 x Amanita Sherry.
  • Note that 5 sherry is required though only two are consumed.
  • Renown: Hell 10 is also required.
  • Increases Heartless by 3 CP up to level 10, and has a chance to grant a Hell Favour.

Reservation at the Royal Bethlehem:

• Taking Dinner in your Room gives 51-90 CP MW (avg: 70.5) for a Bejewelled Lens.
  • Also gives 1 Appalling Secret, -1 CP Nightmares, and +1 CP Scandal.

Premises at the Bazaar:

• Host a Private Auction to get 95-140 CP MW (avg: 117.5) (and about 70 ) for a Personal Recommendation, a Collection of Curiosities, and 7 x Favours: Society.
  • Requires PoSI and Renown: Society 20.

Other opportunity cards

• City Vices: a Rather Decadent Evening gives up to +10 CP if you keep Scandal at 7; costs 1 Favours: Bohemians
• A Polite Invitation provides quite a bit of CP. For more info, see Attending a Party (Guide)