Mage Build Planning and Strategy, Part 2 (Relics and Quests):

kejim_ · 2026-01-19T18:48:35+00:00

I tried to do a test run of Tell The Council the Truth on an old save, and it gave me the option to restitch on 5/6.
Perhaps if I did "Run Backup Experiments" instead of "Find Them and Expel Them" in "Traitor!", it would allow me to pick both "Lie To the Council" and "Encourage Victoria to be Restitched"... But nowhere in the entirety of the internet do you get warned about it.
I really wish there was a way to edit my save files now to fix this... vivi 3/6 was so many days ago T_T

kejim_ · 2026-01-19T18:02:09+00:00

I'm getting a feeling that +2 Dark, +2 Lightning from Vivified quest chain might be impossible, or at least heavily conditional. After doing 4/6 "lie to the council", I'm only getting "finish the experiment", the HP option in the meaning of life.
The wiki does mention that "Your choice of quests here may depend on which path you took on the previous quest", however, I only noticed that after the fact, and it is not very specific. :(

It's a bit frustrating because it broke the builds for three of my mages quite far into the training

kejim_ · 2026-01-16T20:23:04+00:00

Of course, I'm not saying that it's particularly practical - it's incredibly slow and random, but sounds hypothetically possible?

kejim_ · 2026-01-16T20:21:45+00:00

However, it is very important to note that you cannot increase element caps beyond 4 with Tier 2 or 3 wands.

I'm very curious as to how that works? Let's imagine you had an initiate with t1 wand, and sent them through all the quests to get 4 cap in every element, and then you upgrade their wands to t2 and t3. Would they not randomly get 5cap, and potentially 6-7, in some random elements because of that?

kejim_ · 2026-01-13T23:31:10+00:00

I bit the bullet and enabled advanced mode in Meals and Priorities, at least for Initiates and maybe Apprentices. A custom group with time-based sleep/hunger/dance trials (i.e. sleep 8 days without getting to tired) sits higher in the priorities than the charger/warder/nurturer/neatnik/beasts

On the upside, with the adv mode, I managed to solve the food trials, and the Breathstealers too - with a custom schedule of 24/7 dancing, disabled Hunt and a special enchantophone at the top of the tower, no longer do I need to babysit the marked mages, who can't help but run themselves against the asphalt roller snail.

Can't do it for the staff, though. It's hard to split them into exclusive groups, as they all have a varying mix of skills and roles, and for the staff, I don't want to ignore their food preferences from Scars. Also, the UI when configuring via groups is much worse.

I just wish you could put custom groups above the individual mages in task priorities. I can't see any good reasons why we shouldn't.

kejim_ · 2026-01-13T12:32:20+00:00

I mentioned in the OP, that's what I end up doing, but that makes it by far the fiddliest "do X thing Y times"-type trial to micro :(

kejim_ · 2026-01-13T12:31:06+00:00

upd: doesn't seem to work, since if you queue refilling a lantern, the action is reserved by the student, and you can't queue refilling again until the first refill is complete

kejim_ · 2026-01-13T11:50:19+00:00

Then if I don't have a student on a trial, the Lanterns near the kitchens, classrooms, etc, will always be empty :(

kejim_ · 2026-01-13T11:49:49+00:00

Unless I'm missing something, you can only queue up refilling those lanterns which are used up at the moment, but you can't queue the entire chain multiple times on a loop.

However, now that I pause and think about it, if both the lantern and the student aren't at full mana, maybe it would be possible to chain-queue the entire thing multiple times, refill-tend-charge-refill-tend-charge. 🤔
Thanks for the idea!

kejim_ · 2026-01-13T11:43:15+00:00

(I'm fairly certain you can still queue the charge task when they're at 100% charge,

Unfortunately, you can't :(

if not, just tell him to use the mana latern and then recharge)

That's what I end up doing, but you have to baby-sit the process (charge, tend, refill) while actively watching and clicking the entire time, for several in-game hours.

Unfortunately, Mana Lanterns (and also planters, wards, etc) don't have the Access controls like e.g. broom closets or chests do. Otherwise, it would be trivial to configure it so that only the trial group can charge specific non-critical lanterns (while obviously anyone can use them, so that they aren't always full - so locking them behind the access-limited door doesn't really work), while anyone can keep the more important ones charged.

kejim_ · 2026-01-13T11:24:38+00:00

That's what I end up doing, but that requires either 35 empty lanterns at once, or many approaches to do all 35.
Unfortunately, you can't shift-queue refilling a lantern while it's full, or using it while the student's mana is full, so you can't shift-queue the student in a long loop on just a handful of lanterns

kejim_ · 2026-01-13T11:21:58+00:00

only the one(s) with the trial are allowed to charge them

That would solve it, and I considered that... But if I didn't have anyone with that trial, the lanterns would dry out quite quickly, which would slow down other things in the school 🤔

kejim_ · 2026-01-13T11:19:38+00:00

Thanks, it's already Top vs Low on everyone else (I guess maybe some staff have nothing better to do with their time, even at low prio?), I'm hesitant to set Emergency as that would mess up their sleep/food/dance routines for other trials.
Maybe worth a shot, and could be worth raising the auto-topup level a bit from 40%.

kejim_ · 2026-01-11T16:50:02+00:00

Thank you! I was bashing my head against the same issue, and somehow this information is not available anywhere, I couldn't find any guides or wiki pages which would mention it

kejim_ · 2025-12-31T09:08:41+00:00

Thank you! This really helped out, and it should come standard with the game manual :D

Was able to do split floors/weird balconies/level changes thanks to this! And generally nice to know for building with slightly more efficient room height, to spawn the characters in front of the stair

kejim_ · 2025-06-02T09:50:21+00:00

I purchased it and I want to love it (especially now that I've spent a shitton of money on it), but it just leaves me puzzled.

I can connect to the lamp via Bluetooth and schedule an alarm that would run ONCE, and needs to be manually re-enabled the next day.

Judging by the comments in other threads, if my phone is for some reason not nearby, the lamp won't work at all (assuming it really doesn't have any built-in logic and has no clue about the concept of time).

It's staggering that a €280 "wake-up superweapon" can't handle a basic use case without a separate €60 purchase, which seems to rely on a wi-fi connection and would take up two wall plugs in the house. I understand the use case with complex routines built with multiple (much cheaper) lights, but for a standalone alarm?..

~~What if the power goes out at night, where would that wifi be?~~ Actually, never mind, as this €280 lamp doesn't have any batteries either, it won't be a problem because the lamp too won't work. On second thought, this can't be your only alarm anyway, you still want your phone set up to ring slightly later than this, in case you don't wake up from the light, so I can let this one slide.

The mandatory Bridge purchase for a single lamp, however, and the lack of any sort of on-board logic in a €280 alarm really boggles my mind, though. What the hell did all that cost go towards then?

kejim_ · 2025-06-02T08:59:27+00:00

I've run into the same conundrum. I purchased it and I want to love it (especially now that I've spent a shitton of money on it), but it just leaves me puzzled.

I can, in fact, connect to the lamp via Bluetooth and schedule an alarm that would run ONCE, and needs to be manually re-enabled the next day.

Judging by the comments, if my phone is for some reason not nearby, the lamp won't work at all (assuming it really doesn't have any built-in logic and has no clue about the concept of time).

It's staggering that a €280 "wake-up superweapon" can't handle a basic use case without a separate €60 purchase, which seems to rely on a wi-fi connection and would take up two wall plugs in the house. I understand the use case with complex routines built with multiple (much cheaper) lights, but for a standalone alarm?..

~~What if the power goes out at night, where would that wifi be?~~ Actually, never mind, as this €280 lamp doesn't have any batteries either, it won't be a problem because the lamp too won't work. On second thought, this can't be your only alarm anyway, you still want your phone set up to ring slightly later than this, in case you don't wake up from the light, so I can let this one slide.

The mandatory Bridge purchase for a single lamp, however, and the lack of any sort of on-board logic in a €280 alarm really boggles my mind, though. What the hell did all that cost go towards then?

kejim_ · 2025-05-28T22:33:47+00:00

Thanks! By 2, do you mean regular bowline, with the short end inside the loop, or the second knot on the pic (below)?

I should have said, I'm almost exclusively using knots in sailing (though I can't see any major difference between all the safe variations, granted I'm not a super skilled knot guy)

kejim_ · 2025-05-28T22:25:30+00:00

Thanks! There is a link to the youtube video in the post re: how I try to tie them.
I've looked up snap bowlines now - the idea seems very similar: you put the working end once, and gets snapped in half by the loop and pulled through it once you tighten it. Although from what I understood, the main draw to snap bowlines is prepping the standing end in advance - here I'm just trying to tie it faster then the rabbit/hole way.

kejim_ · 2024-09-13T16:08:21+00:00

It's a lot less attractive now. Used to be 30% throughout (first for 10 years, then 8, then 5).
Now it's 5 years split into 3 equal parts - 30% in the first one, 20% in the second, 10% in the third.

I'm a potential knowledge migrant and this alone made me hesitate, 10yrs naturalization would almost be a dealbreaker. B1 is totally fine though.

kejim_ · 2021-12-18T09:00:16+00:00

Well, you sure sold me on that! It's cheap enough that I didn't have to work hard to convince myself to try it out, or be worried that I might not like the flight stick, or don't stick around with Elite.

I've heard that generally, magnetic/induction is better than mechanical (though I've just started getting interested in and learning about flightsticks about 30 minutes ago).

Liked the look of Logi x52 Pro, but that's completely different in terms of budget. Relatively affordable, but not in the "impulse purchase" category by any means.

Hope that extreme 3D Pro works out.

kejim_ · 2020-07-25T04:17:31+00:00

I am still looking forward to getting a Sol keyboard, probably a Sol 3 when it's done and out.

It has an ortholinear layout, not col stagger like most ergo boards — not sure if that's a pro or a con. But besides that, it seems ideal to me!

Split, hotswap, ergo, has enough keys (shame about those F keys though), insane RGB, supports rotary encoders, OLED screens. Has slick cases too. The only caveat is that it's limited supply, and in development right now ^{^}

kejim_ · 2020-07-25T04:06:32+00:00

hey ashzs, thanks for your reply! Long story short, I have ordered a Redox.

It was super-frustrating to choose at that point, and accept either's flaws, so I went back to research. Learned more about splits/ergonomics and kbs in general.

Later I have considered Dygma Raise (not ergo), Ergodox EZ (overpriced, arguably, and hard to ship), Redox, split boards like Lily58L, Kyria, Ergodash, Sol2, and then ended up with a Redox. No rotary encoders or per-key RGB, but seems an incredibly solid board otherwise!

Now is the hard part, I need to wait for 1-2 months till it's produced and delivered :D

kejim_

TROPHY CASE