Talk:Burly guards and porters/@comment-94.189.247.47-20161024211058/@comment-237385-20170928181858

Strong-Backed Labor is useful for other things, so if you have some (say, from the Rat-catcher's salary), then yes, you probably shouldn't spend it on this just to prepare for an expedition. It's better than selling it to the Bazaar, though.

However. It seems to me that there are a couple of reasons to want to be able to do a large number of expeditions in the minimum time: one, if you were trying to obtain all five skulls, and two, if you were trying to raise your Notability with the Making Waves from donating your finds to a college. These are not mutually exclusive, and maybe there's even some other Unpredictable Treasure you want while donating the rest. You can only bank about 5½ Shrine expeditions worth of supplies. You can't bank (more than 7) Docks favours. You can bank Whispered Hints (or purchase them), but they're actually not any less expensive than SBL in terms of the Echoes that would have to be expended to get them from the Bazaar (not to mention the Wilmot's End option), plus you have to expend many more actions (after you've started doing the expeditions) to convert them to supplies.

An advanced player willing to use SBL should be able to do Shrine expeditions indefinitely (until the Labor or capital runs out) for under 14 (unless I'm forgetting something) actions each (one to start, about seven or (often) fewer for the progress, one to complete, one to donate, fewer than four to replenish supplies). Since the average Scrapbook value of a Shrine treasure seems to 80, that's 45 CP of Making Waves (including one for completing the expedition), which is well over 3 CP/A (less treasures retained).