Talk:Casing (Guide)/@comment-209.237.126.135-20190111210625/@comment-43804946-20200123203423

Fidgeting Writer can get 50 Antique Mysteries with 25 Reservations, which on average costs 121 Tales of Terror. This will also require, on average, 88 Visions of the Surface, 122 Plaques, and 86 Brilliant Souls. I'm pretty sure that Thefts are the most efficient way to get these 50p items in bulk, especially since the cross-conversion costs are pretty minor.

So, assuming each Theft takes 9.88 actions (8.88 actions to build up 32 CP casing and one to steal), right off the bat our 121 Tales of Terror will take 5 Thefts and cost ~50 actions (49.4, to be precise). This even gives you 4 extra Tales, which is thoughtful.

Then, we need the Visions and the Plaques. Because of item conversion batches, we'll need 100 Visions and 150 Plaques. This means stealing 250 Journals of Infamy (99 actions) and converting them (7 actions). We also get a profit of (on average) 23.5E from this step, from leftover items plus the ones we get in converting.

Finally, the Souls: 86 souls is 4 rounds of thefts, so 40 actions (39.5). We get 7E profit here.

We can now look at the action cost of converting things: 121 (Tales to Deja Vu) + 85 (to Glimpse) + 59 (to Deal) + 42 (to Room) + 25 (to Antique Mysteries) = 331 actions.

Adding the resource-gathering action expenditure (50+99+7+40 = 196), we get a total of 527 actions. This is 32 actions more than just stealing the Mysteries directly, but it comes with a profit of 32.5 E; 1 EPA isn't astounding but it's honestly only a little worse than usual for this point in the game. You can pretend you spent the time using Unfinished Business to reset Airs of London.

However, this does depend on you getting completely average luck at Fidgeting Writer. It'd be best to only grind for materials as you need them, obviously, but it's difficult to factor in how that changes the analysis.

In sum: They are basically identical action-wise, but Writer is much more chancy.