So you're a rational fellow, right ?

Oh, you are ? You know what, that's great! Good for you!

Even better for me that we've met, because to be honest and lay it all out in the open, I might be rich, but I'm not actually all that good with the thinker, if you know what I mean. It's just never been my forte ⁱ, and I've recently encountered a situation where a fine rational fellow such as yourself might help me a great deal. So let me lay it all out clearly and despacio as they say, and then we'll figure out what we can do for each other.

As you know Eulora is a game and all that. It sports rather complex craft trees, and a very peculiar sort of mechanic, to wit that all items have a quality, which is currently set entirely by the skill level of the producer, be he a miner, crafter, anything else. Basically in Eulora you can make a silk purse out of sow's ear, just as long as you're the sort of fellow that makes silk purses. On the other hand, if you're the sort of fellow that makes sow's ear aspic, all the silk in the world won't help you any, it's still aspic that comes out of your hands.

The game also has base values for all items, which is to say what the publisher would buy them back for. These get adjusted for quality, and so a chunk of Slag for instance sells back for 677 ECu at quality 100, or for 839 ECu at q 124 and so forth.

Finally, it has a very entrenched principle that nothing is created out of thin air or vanishes into thin air - and by way of consequence nothing disappears into thin air either. So then, a rational fellow might inquire, what would happen if someone takes very high quality Silk's Ear, say q 200, and makes very low quality Purse Aspic, say q 50 ? Well, experience might answer, this is what's known in Eulora as overcraft, and it results in random loot. Sometimes not much at all, sometimes a great deal, but such is life in the dismal world.

Fine, the rational fellow may respond, it results in random loot. But what is it ? It can't just be "random loot" as a meta concept, it has to have a physical, or at any rate, game-ical representations, right ? Right! And here's the rub. Originally, crafters overcrafting would loot blueprintsⁱⁱ but after a recent change, they started looting a new category of items - Numina.

Without going into too much detail, the fact remains that blueprints are no longer produced currently in Eulora, making all the remaining stocks extremely difficult to value. It is widely suspected that recent items won at auction work to somehow produce blueprints, perhaps by using some amount of those Numina items, but the exact details aren't known, and as a matter of fact not a single blueprint has yet been produced through this process to date - although it's been twelve days.

This change has made its winners and losers, like all passage of time ever does. Tools that used to sell for maybe 130% are now offered for 260% and it's not even clear they're overpriced. I sold a large batch (bout 10 mn ECu worth or so) of Chetty Sticks at 160% because the auction price seemed to me irrational. Turns out I'm really not very good with this whole rational business and I should have held out for 300%. For a long time it was accepted knowlege, on no basis other than consensus, that being a mid-range crafter is not worth the hassle. Large packages were constantly offeredⁱⁱⁱ for middling crafters, and while they generally went, there wasn't ever much competition to underwrite the production. If only we'd have done more of that!

But so it goes, and here we are - our only hope to come out of this hole is to get the blueprint making cycle going. This is complicated, because it requires as follows :

How about that!

I have a hundred of these. They cost me fifty million ECu, that's exactly half a Bitcoin. Would you pay half a Bitcoin for a hundred of that ? Rationally speaking, I mean, that's what you're here for, after all. Isn't it ? Your reason ? So when's the last time you spent half a Bitcoin on anything ? But rationally, mind!

Moving on : due to an epochal deal^iv last week where Daniel agreed to supply me with Black of Desspayr recipes, I am in a good position^v with regards to that ingredient. I still haven't reached any sort of deal when it comes to the Inconsequential Sacrifice Tokens, relatively rare items that are only produced at great expense and difficulty through Sacrifice. I do have a few Doubtful Tomes, but they take Giant's Rotten Canine of which I have precious few and Shed Snakeskin, which blessfuly has been found but isn't exactly abundant.

This is how far my wealth has carried us - millions upon millions worth of virtual and imaginary items (as all wealth ever is) and we're not quite there yet. Let's see if your ration & reason shall be able to bridge the gap so we may cross into the happy land of abundant blueprints once more.

Left to acquire - between 1 and 99 Assorted Library Mites. If it is in fact the case that this blueprint is the way to produce other blueprints, then I want to overcraft as much as possible, which means that I want 99 Mites, no question about it, and of a quality as high as possible, also. To do some math : the Doubtful Tome has a base value of 88`462 ECu. It's McGuyver for some reason, so I'd craft it at q 143. The Sacrifice Token is very low base value, 100 ECu if memory serves. The Black of Desspayr is 29`170 ECu at q 100, I expect to make it q 150. The Mites are 1`000 ECu base value, I have no idea what quality I'd be getting them at. As far as I can guess, my Bouquinist crafts should come out q 145ish or thereabouts. On the basis of the ingredient list we can calculate the base value of this thing as 88`462 + 2 * 29`170 + 100 + 1`000 = 147`902 ECu at q 100. A decent chunk of change, wouldn't you say ?

As far as overcraft is concerned, if I put in 88`462 * 1.43<sup>vi</sup> + 2 * 29`170 * 1.5^vii + 100^viii + 99 * 1`000 * x<sup>ix</sup> + 2`515^x + 339^xi worth of material and then take out say 147`902 * 1.45 worth of product, I'd be overcrafting worth 217964.66 + 99`000 * x - 214457.9 = 99`000 * x + 3506.76. In other words - I get bupkiss for just existing, and every point in X (ie, every 100 quality points) is worth almost a hundred grand in overcraft.

The mechanics of looting are not well understood, but it appears that one will practically never receive less than say a fifth or maybe a quarter of what he puts in - but occasionally may receive many times over. Let us not concern ourselves too much with the mechanics of odds and the proclivities of lady Luck, but instead look at the lower bound. Judging by that measure, overcraft of say 50`000 will produce whatever results at the lowest, whereas overcraft of say 150`000 will produce three times those same results. Since our very significant 200k cost is roughly speaking the equivalent of NRE^xii, it stands to reason we want as much of the 2nd part as possible. It's one thing to try and justify a 200k + 150k expenditure on the basis of 150k worth of desired results ; it's another to try and justify a 200k + 50k expenditure on the basis of merely 50k worth of desired results.

So therefore it is settled - I will want 99 Numina items, and I will want them as high quality as possible.

The obvious way to produce these would be through overcrafting Bouquinism, and the obvious way to do that would be through the Maculature line, whereby you can burn 1 to 99 of 16 different types of recipes for truly massive overcrafting - probably the largest available in game so far. Yet I won't be doing this, because I'm not quite that irrational. The entire exercise is predicated on trying to produce blueprints after all, not destroy the scant ones we still have.

Alternatively, one could produce Extremely Creaky Vellum, which works out as needing 1 Bird's Nest and Gin and 21-23 Worthless Putrid Leathers. This works much better for our purposes, because that extra 2 leather will allow some overcrafting. Ever helpful, upon hearing of the predicament Foxy offered to sell us a large batch of leather, which is good and welcome and all bought by now - 3k or so leather q 141. She also, and this is the catch, offered to sell us 26 Bird's Nest and Gin bottles, which she had kept in her old cellar ever since much better days last summer, when I was making it q 195, for a price of 903k.

Now, knowing that the loot we stand to make clicking on the Vellum is either Collected Library Dusts (bv 10 ECu, not useful here) or Assorted Library Mites (what we want here, but rarer loot!), what is the better of the following two alternatives :

• Pay Foxy 903k on the q 195 BNG, and then craft a run of 11`395<sup>xiii</sup> * 1.95 + 23 * 152 * 1.41 + 2`515^xiv + 339^xv = 30`003 ECu in with 14`587 * 1.45 = 21`151 ECu out for an overcraft of 8`852 each click for 26 clicks
• Or else not pay Foxy the 903k, and instead do a craft run of 11`395 * 1.5 + 23 * 152 * 1.41 + 2`515 + 339 = 24`875 ECu in with the same 14`587 * 1.45 = 21`151 ECu out for an overcraft of 3`724 ECu for however many clicks it takes to deliver the same results as above ?

If we believe that overcraft is fungible, to wit that 26 * 8`852 = 230`152 ECu worth of overcraft made through the first option is the same as 61.8 * 3`724 = 230`143.2 ECu worth of overcraft made through the second option, it then comes to compare the cost of paying Foxy 903k as well as to pay for 23 * 26 = 598 bits of Worthless Putrid Leather with the cost of buying 61.8 bottles of BNG as well as 23 * 61.8 = 1`421.4 WPL, ie an extra 823.4, plus the decay of tool and workbench involved in doing another 61.8 clicks. As it happens the leather goes at 130%, has a base value of 152 and a quality of 141, so we can readily know that the extra leather costs us 229`412 ECu. The tool and bench are a little iffier, but going by a rough 200% approximation we'd be spending a further (2515 + 339) * (61.8 - 26) * 2 = 204`346 ECu there. The question then becomes : is saving on 61.8 BNG worth an expenditure of 903`000 - 204`346 - 229`412 = 469`242 ECu, or 7`593 ECu per bottle ? As it happens that BNG bottles have a base value of 11`395 and considering the quality they'd be required at and what prices look like of late, it'd be a wonder if we could make them for less than 25k each.

If however we do not believe overcraft is fungible, such as for instance by believing that the second line is not even worth pursuing as the overcraft quite likely will not in general include any of the desired Numina items, as we make them at q 145 meaning they're worth 1`450 ECu each which is much more than what that sort of overcraft minimally returns, then it's not even worth doing the math.

Consequently, buying Foxy's Bird's Nest and Gin is a very reasonable, rational and economically sound move, and I shall proceed to do it forthwith. Thank you for your help in this matter!

1. Can't say as I regret it. We can't all be born with all the blessings, I'm rich, you're smart, we should get along just fine, right ? [↩]
2. You can't craft without one. Every item made eats up one. They're like looseleaf knowledge/item wrappers or something. [↩]
3. Some of the larger ones during the month of December : 30k IBS (about 12 mn ECu) and 4.5k Slag + 900 IO (about 15 mn ECu) on December 31st ; 4k Slag + 800 IO December 20th ; 10k Slag on December 8th, this last deal including the fateful words "you're getting 8.95mn for the slag guaranteed plus whatever the bps are worth". Turns out... BPs are actually worth quite a lot, nowadays. [↩]
4. Valued at something no less than 15 million. [↩]
5. I still need to take 6`800 Three-Pointed Thorns and 16`000 Rickety Reeds and make 400 Charcoal (which is 400 clicks on a Bandar Toolkit, which at current quality of production means a total of 10 Toolkits, which means 10 Deserted Crab Shells and 30 used tools and on and on -- plus, of course, the blueprints!), which I then need to add together with 3`400 Polished Small stones and make it into Ampoules (with the corresponding 200 clicks on a Turning Table which are extremely rare currently, we only have a few blueprints altogether, plus they take Unsteady Scaffolding to make which... o god).

   Which Ampoules in turn get mixed with 6`600 Elusive Purple Snails (which just about wiped my previously immense stocks of snails) and 3`600 Better Bitterbeans to make the ink in question. On Samovars, 200 clicks of which means again like 5 tools, which not only means 50 Shaped Slag (you know, the stuff that is used to make tools which we don't have, and also lack recipes for) but also take the unfound and irreplaceable Slithy Tove.

   Not a big deal, right ? All solved. [↩]

6. Quality adjustment. [↩]
7. Idem. [↩]
8. Whatever. [↩]
9. We don't know what quality the bits will be, do we ? [↩]
10. The decay of the workbench, in this case a Worn Old Screens [↩]
11. The decay of the tool, in this case a green pair of Penace Clogs. [↩]
12. Non recurring engineering cost, ie, whatever money you permanently blow independently of result whenever you try making something. [↩]
13. The BV of the BNG [↩]
14. The decay of the Worn Old Screens [↩]
15. The decay of the Penace Clogs. [↩]