# Money-Making/Midgame

This section shows money-making options available from the midgame. This is defined from PoSI and Making Your Name 6+ to the start of the railway and increasing attribute caps. In order to prevent page bloat, there are some requirements to list a grind or weekly activity here:

• 2.5+ EPA
• Grind does not require the railway, nor renown higher than 25.
• Expect players to have max 5 in advanced skills, or lower, depending on the skill.
• Expect players to have modified attributes at 225[1] at most, usually closer to 150-200.
Note: grinds should specify which assumptions are made as requirements/recommendations for said grind. In many cases grinds will also work at lower levels, but at lower efficiency.

This list is not meant to be exhaustive, but should list the best grinds and weekly activities that are relevant in the midgame. See the source page for an exhaustive list of all grinds.

## Overview

Overview presented below. Values in parentheses are expected EPA.

### Overview - Rat market

Maybe you need an item only available in the rat market? If so, there are grinds for many of the relevant items.

• By the nature of Rat Market, any grind requires either operating only during the corresponding The Rat-Season: or stockpiling items to cash out all at once when the corresponding season starts. The table below shows when grind products are sellable and adjusted EPA.
• Selling tier 5 items in bulk (5 at a time) is only worth doing if your grind is higher than 3.75 EPA, since you’re saving 4 actions at the cost of losing 15 profit.

Some EPA values are approximate, based on at most level 225 in the relevant attribute. Also note that this table is skewed slightly compared to the table on the rat market guide.

The Rat-Season:
NK KC SS DD FaF LL CC WaW VV TaT WW RaR
• No good sources
Tier 7 items are typically both hard to get and have few if any good grinds in the mid-game

## Options in London

### Publishing Newspapers

Requirements

Expected EPA: 3.73 (~4 when combined with Rat market)

Extra recommendations

Basic cycle

1. Finish the 'The missing Woman' carousel in Wilmot's End to get 2 x Whirring Contraptions.
2. Use them in Doubt Street to publish any edition requiring 104 pages of copy (note that this requires not taking 'Employ a little theatrical accountancy' option).

Meritorous editions:

A full cycle is items worth 138 for 37 actions, a total of 3.73 EPA. Converting the Journals into Uncanny Incunabula and selling these on the rat market gives 177.84 over 48.14 actions, including actions and item costs to raise Connected: Benthic. In addition, ~5 can be expected from item conversions, not accounting for rare successes, which leaves 182.9 over 48.14 actions, or 3.80 EPA. Including rare successes, this will be a bit higher.

Salacious editions:

• Requires a friend who you may slight.
• A full cycle costs 5 in Scrap of Incendiary Gossip, but also allows you to slight another player twice.
• A full cycle is items worth 133.8 for 37 actions, increasing to 158.8 for 39 actions once you have dealt with relevant assassins, a total of 3.62 EPA without assassins or 4.07 EPA when including assassins and disregarding the cost of hiring them. Like the option above, this can be modified with the rat market, reaching slightly higher EPAs

Both of these strategies can be buffed by upconverting Journal of Infamy to Uncanny Incunabulum (or Storm-Threnody) and sold at the Rat Market. Connected: Benthic is assumed gained from using an Endowment of a University Fellowship and purchasing Flask of Abominable Salts from the Bazaar.

### Licentiate victim skeletons

• Expected EPA: 3.75

Requirements

The cycle

1. Supply a skeleton of your own
2. Cap this with a victim's skull
3. Declare it a humanoid
4. Sell to the Theologian or Grandmother for 15 worth of items, resulting in 3.75 EPA.

### A Trade in Reputations

The strength of this grind is that it has very low base requirements, but you can make it harder and more profitable if you want to.

Around modified levels at 200 should reach above 2.8 EPA, and you can modify the strategy based on your strengths.

## Options at Zee

### Winsome Dispossessed Orphan grind

• Buy 10 Winsome Dispossessed Orphans from the Bazaar for 648
• Exhange them for 250 Tribute in 10 actions
• Zail to the Court in 6 actions
• Turn 240 Tribute into 750 worth of items (1020 with Rat Market) in 48 actions
• Return in 8/7 actions
• Buy another 10 Winsome Dispossessed Orphans from the Bazaar for 648
• exchange them for 250 Tribute in 10 actions
• Zail to the Court in 6 actions
• Turn 260 Tribute into 812.5 worth of items (1105 with Rat Market) in 52 actions
• Return in 8/7 actions.

148/146 actions for 266.5 - 1.80/1.83 EPA (with Rat Market, 173/171 actions, 829 - 4.79/4.85 EPA)

### Mountain-sherd grind

Requirements

231/230 actions for 762.625 - 3.301/3.315 EPA.

### Favour grind (using cards)

Requirements

• Using opportunity cards, gain Favours with either the Docks, Bohemians, the Church, Society, or Criminals.
• Every time you have 7 favours of the same faction, exchange them for 23 Tribute. Assuming 1 action/card per Favour, you get 241-263 Tribute in 88 actions, depending on leftovers from previous trips.
• Zail to the Court in 6 actions.
• Turn 260 Tribute into 812.5/875 worth of items in 52/56 actions, depending on whether the tribute 260 or more.
• Return in 8/7 actions.

The 260 Tribute case occurs in 4/20 or 1/5 cases, so on average 147.8/148.8 actions for 825 - 5.54/5.58 EPA. Options which give more than 1 Favour per action and/or give additional profit (e.g. A Visit, More Larks with the Young Stags, The Calendrical Confusion of 1899, fate-locked Restoring souls from A Trade in Souls, The Tower of Eyes if you have Augmented Electrostatic Machine, professional payments, etc.) will increase the EPA further, while options that consume items and/or give menaces (faction cards, for example) will lower the EPA.

### The Maze-Garden

See The Maze-Garden (Guide) for full information on the carousel.

## Options in Parabola

### Waswood Shore

Requirements

Expected EPA: 3+

Repeatedly Reach towards the shore with Airs 50+. Note that Airs can be shuffled at no action cost by leaving and returning to the Waswood, so it is not necessary to take the less profitable option.

Specifically, this stated EPA depends on the probability of rare success getting the Airag. Then we can calculate the expectation, so let's do the math!

Firstly, we assume that the probability of the normal failure and alternative failure are equal (25% each, for an overall failure rate of 50%), and also thusly that the game's stated overall failure/success probability of 50% is in fact true. We will also assume no value for Expertise of the 2nd/4th city (the writer pulls the old "leaving that as an exercise to the reader" trick), but they do have some value in the lab. Now, since we don't know the true rate of rare success, we assign it the variable ${\displaystyle x}$, representing the percent chance of rare success (overall—NOT the probability that a given success will be rare [though that should in this case just be ${\displaystyle 2x}$]), which makes the probability of a normal success (0.5 - ${\displaystyle x}$).

Now, we consider the values of each outcome by their sell values:

• normal failure: 0.45 , with a probability of 0.25
• alt failure: 0.95 , with a probability of 0.25
• success: 5 , with a probability of (0.5 - ${\displaystyle x}$)
• rare success: 62.5 , with a probability of ${\displaystyle x}$

This gives us an expectation ${\displaystyle EPA_{reach2}=(0.25)(0.45E)+(0.25)(0.95E)+(0.5-x)(5E)+x(62.5E)}$

If only there was a way to visualize how our EPA changed with different values of ${\displaystyle x}$ numbers... Oh right, graphing! From this plot we can see the following results:

• Without any Airag at all, this generates an expected 2.765 EPA
• This hits 3 EPA at ~0.4% rare success rate.
• At 1% rare success, we get 3.34 EPA. At 2%, 3.915 EPA. 3%, 4.49 EPA! (These higher probabilities are likely not the case, however—more data is needed.)

It's important to note that it does cost an action to enter as well as 100/50 drops of honey, so when calculating your final EPA, you'll need to multiply by a factor of ${\textstyle {\frac {N}{N+1}}}$ where ${\displaystyle N}$ is your actions spent reaching, then subtract your personal honey cost. You also don't have access to any cards, which can be significant depending on your goals and playstyle.

Ultimately, we really need a large sample size to determine the small mystery probability and until that data is collected, it's hard to say just how profitable this should be. It's important to remember that even with an expectation of some EPA, it is just that—an expectation: while one can expect to approach that number if you try enough times, it can take a very long (technically infinitely long) to reach it. This is ultimately still an RNG grind, and some will be luckier than others. So while this analysis was prompted by my annoyance at the vagueness of the stated "3+" expected EPA, I now believe that it's possibly in fact the best way to succinctly present the results. Go figure.

Still, this has the potential to be a very simple, very profitable grind especially for those like me who have very middling stats (low 100s), unlocked parabola quickly before anything else, and are basically flat broke.

## Tied to the Rat Market

### Mr Chimes' Grand Clearing-Out Unveiled activities (Rat Market)

Expected EPA (mid-game): Up to 3.54 at midgame levels.

Most of the five activities has at least one reward that can be sold or converted into a sellable item.

### The Court of the Wakeful Eye (Rat Market)

You can grind Night-Whispers to sell during The Rat-Season: Dimmest-Dark, Freeze-and-Fall, Lying-Longing:

## Weekly Actions

### Professional rewards

With a tier one profession, over 8.125EPA. With a tier three profession, 15EPA.

Every four weeks, you can assemble four Professional Perks to get one Trade Secret and convert it to a Searing Enigma and Antique Mysteries, which yields 125 for 11 actions, for a total of 11.36EPA.

### Using up Bone Market Exhaustion

Using up Exhaustion is hard in the mid-game, but also profitable. Exhaustion in itself is around 200 per week. If you have A Custom-Engraved Skull from FEAST OF THE ROSE, you should use those most weeks, leading to a net gain of 160 for 2 skulls. The exception to the rule is when the Phantasist is around - then you may be able to spend all your exhaustion through other means.

### The Nadir (complex)

Highly random, but in the long-term, 5.7EPA.

Requirements

The Nadir can be entered once a week without spending Fate. Players are forcibly ejected from the cave when reaching 10 x Irrigo whereupon it is not possible to return until the next visit from Time, the Healer (unless they wish to pay 50 Fate). Optimal play yields approximately 5.7EPA — see Cave of the Nadir (Guide)#Analysis for details

1. 225 is used because it's in the late-end of the midgame, which is when players will do most money-making. This is equal to having attributes at 185 and +40 equipment. See Equipment Guide for suggested equipment