Help in a Pastamancer Bad Moon run

[theblackcat]

I'm about to start on my Pastamancer Bad Moon run, in conjuction with PoF's ascension contest. Since it's been a while since I've ascended, I was wondering whether any of the more experienced people have some tips in order to reduce day/turncount. The fastest BM runs in the database are around 10 or so days, and I would really like to at least complete a 10-dayer.

Since I will most likely be logging the run, I can parse it and post it up for any future clannies to read after the run, too..

Maybe a few questions to get the discussion started.
- When would be the best time to start the run? Presumably I'd want to make use of the holiday Dependence Day and the stat days (which is pretty awkwardly spaced out)
- Since it has to be a Pastamancer run, lo meins shouldn't be too much of a problem to obtain. How should I fill up the rest of my fullness/drunkeness?
- what's the best way to utilize the unique Bad Moon adventures? I can currently think of Brraains for nuns and maybe bodyguard bats, the meat adventures to buy skills, .etc

[Zagadka]

Hmm, I wasn't aware of this contest. So it looks like you have 15 days (16?) to complete the run (April 25-May 10). Since your fastest was a 16d disco bandit run, I would definitely start on the 25th, otherwise you may be cutting it close.

I think you usually want to hit a stat day when you're moving from 9(10)-11. I'd guess that is around day 9 or 10 for you in BM? Looking again at the calendar, the stat day will be on day 5 (29th), and due to contest constraints, you can't really do much about this. :-/

I can't really comment on the other two questions as I haven't completed a BM run.

[Foxy Boxy]

Bad Moon Food

It's been a loooong time since I did my last BM run and haven't looked back. So my info is out of date. In general, as a BM PM I ate my max of 3 noodle dishes per day. If I could make 3x lo meins (thanks to spices) great. Otherwise, delicious noodles (since herbs are easy to get from the hippy store). Getting the spice ghost is a HUGE help to fueling your spice needs.

Check out this link for a Bad Moon specific list of food quality. Also, farming the bugbear outfit to access the bugbear bakery for wads of dough, pie tins, and casserole dishes.

Outside of noodles, you really should be eating fortune cookies to find your semi-rares, and then eating tasty tarts and knob pasties (alternating your semi-rares appropriately).

Very early, I ate food from the haunted kitchen since I was farming the spice ghost anyway. Brains casserole was decent. Also it's no shame to be eating your mainstat food from Hell's Kitchen when you've got no other options very early. Fruit pies made decent early food as well, until level 5 and pastamastery. Even after pastamastery and noodles, it was still decent filler.

Key lime pies are very good food, since you'll need to farm the daily dungeon keys anyway. Unfortunately, limes are hard to come by. Late in the game, making the level 11 casseroles (fishy fish, long pork, gnatloaf) are very good options and a lot of the random food drops themselves (e.g. dessicated apricots, hot dates, centipede eggs) are not awful in their own right. Level 12, you're cruising because you can make all sorts of good food from the FGFs and MPEs.

But in general, check the "best foods in bad moon" link I posted above for a very good idea of what's good and what's garbage. Though very early on, your options are limited.

Bad Moon Adventures

I used the BM adventures that give +20 main stat, -5 other stats to unlock my guild quests very early. In fact, IIRC I'd do that right off the bat. Unlock the guild to get a) Barrel access for ready-made booze, and b) the spleen items to autosell. I wanted to get Pride (+4 main stat/turn) and Envy (+item find) very early and getting meat ASAP is key. Plus the guild is, y'know, where you train and get your class skills which are key to BM as well.

Speaking of which, I hit all the meat adventures as soon as I could get to them. You're so strapped for meat in a BM run, for skills (your guild skills as well as BM skills), for MP (MMJ since we're talking PM), as well as for the usual needful things like the 6k for getting your wand, the 500 meat for terrariums and oven / cocktailcrafting kits, the 1.5k for getting things from Barrrtleby's, the "5k" needed to haggle in the desert, and so on.

I liked having Torso Awaregness from the BM adventure, though it's only -really- useful as a TT from Armorcraftiness. Otherwise it's just another equipment slot and some of the normal shirt drops are okay.

Other than those, skimming through the BM adventures none of the others jumped out at me as "Oh yeah!". Many of them are helpful ... for example, saving the +50% mainstats for big bosses like Ed or The Man / Wisnewski, the elemental resistances if it lines up with a daily dungeon test, and so forth. Not critical, but occasionally useful.

[theblackcat]

My 16 day Disco Bandit run was my 100% Black Cat run. I missed 15 days by 2 adventures, and spent almost 1.5 days trying to kill the shadow. I also missed about 2 days of playtime due to RL, so the 16 days probably isn't too representative of how fast a Bad Moon ascension can go. As far as scheduling goes, I could start late and try to catch the Mysticality day on the 7th..

Looking at the link you provide, Foxy, I noticed that Knob Lo meins are generally better food than Jarlsberg's Key Lime pies, and the ingredient have a similar drop rate to limes in the Menagerie. Perhaps it will be a better idea to use Harold's Bell at the Kitchens and farm spices/noodles/mushrooms while trying to get the KGE semirare.

The stat boosting BM adventures are probably good for helping me complete areas ahead of my level (eg. finishing Bedroom early so I can set the Ballroom +NC song) The item drop adventures are probably the most useful in the Organic Produce quest and maybe the F'cle.

What about good uses for filthy lucre? As far as I can see the best use of them is probably Oreille Brandy for some relatively good booze. Sniffing a Blooper saves about 8 turns (assuming my math is correct) for the digital key, so that might be worthwhile as well.

[Foxy Boxy]

What about good uses for filthy lucre? As far as I can see the best use of them is probably Oreille Brandy for some relatively good booze. Sniffing a Blooper saves about 8 turns (assuming my math is correct) for the digital key, so that might be worthwhile as well.

The thing to remember, of course, is that it takes turns to do the actual lucre quest. So if there's a bounty on something that you're doing already that day (for example, you've just turned level 9 and are starting on the Roflmao quest and will be fighting some spam witches anyway, and today's lucre is sammich crusts) then go for it. If you happen to finish that area's activity, then it's a judgment call on whether you should stay there to finish up the quest, or move on and forget the bounty.

The punch line is, if olfacting something saves N turns, you need to make sure it doesn't take N or more turns to farm the lucre to get the odor extractor to do the olfaction in the first place, or it's a wash (or worse).

[theblackcat]

Ok, so here's the log of my first day in Pastamancer BM. My goals for today was for stats, mainly. In this order:

1. Buy Pride and Envy
2. Eat and Drink to Fullness
3. Get a Volleyball
4. Buy Ravioli and Noodles and set ML to 10-11

Annotated the log with some thoughts as I went along my run..

NEW Pastamancer ASCENSION STARTED 20100429
------------------------------

Code:

===Day 1===

[0] Ascension Start [0,0,0]
    -> Turn [0] none
[1-5] Haunted Pantry [0,0,2]
    +> [4] Got quasi-ethereal macaroni fragments

Opened Manor here.

[6-19] Outskirts of The Knob [4,0,6]
    +> [11] Got Knob Goblin encryption key
    %> [14] Badmoon: O Goblin, Where Art Thou?
    +> [17] Got chef's hat

Bought Pride, then adventured here a few more times, until I managed to get a chef's hat. Bounty today is barbeque teams

anyway.

Stupid RNG keeps giving me Muscle and Moxie substats for some reason. 20 adventures and I'm still level 1, 1 Myst substat

away from leveling. =(

[20-22] Sleazy Back Alley [0,2,0]

Bought Pride. Saving for Envy.

[23-24] Outskirts of The Knob [1,8,1]
    => Level 2 (Turn 24)! (3/5/3)

Finally!

[25-29] Spooky Forest [4,30,1]
    +> [26] Got stolen accordion
    +> [29] Got mosquito larva

Woohoo! My first adventure here and I get Hoom Hah, giving me a much needed Myst boost for my first 20 adventures. Running

out of adventures, so I decide to open Barrels and get a few drinks

[30] Guild Challenge [0,0,0]
[31-35] Barrel Full of Barrels [0,0,0]
    o> Drank 1 bloody mary (5 adventures gained) [2,1,1]

Found a jug-o-magicalness and ran away from 1 mimic. Now to get some food, buying Envy and heading to the Haunted Kitchen.

[36-48] Haunted Kitchen [13,28,10]
    +> [37] Got leftovers of indeterminate origin
    %> [40] Badmoon: If You Smell Something Burning, It's My Heart
    +> [42] Got scintillating powder
    +> [43] Got spices
    o> Drank 1 bottle of popskull (4 adventures gained) [0,0,0]
    o> Ate 1 dire fudgesicle (3 adventures gained) [0,10,0]
    o> Drank 1 rum and cola (5 adventures gained) [0,0,10]
    o> Drank 1 whiskey and cola (6 adventures gained) [0,5,6]
    => Level 3 (Turn 38)! (4/8/5)

Contemplated going somewhere to spend my BM buff, but decided against it. Used scintillating powder to get some spices for

when I manage to afford Pastamastery. Ran out of meat from healing, so back to the Forest to get my kidney stolen.

[49-52] Spooky Forest [3,5,2]
    %> [52] Badmoon: This Doesn't Look Like Candy Mountain
[53-61] Haunted Kitchen [14,25,7]
    o> Drank 1 accidental cider (6 adventures gained) [0,0,0]
    o> Ate 2 ancient frozen dinner (9 adventures gained) [0,19,0]
    o> Ate 1 dire fudgesicle (3 adventures gained) [0,9,0]
    o> Ate 1 stale baguette (5 adventures gained) [0,0,0]

Alright, now both my fullness and drunkeness are already maxed, noticed

[62-68] Unlucky Sewer [0,0,0]
    +> [64] Got spices
    +> [65] Got worthless gewgaw
    +> [68] Got worthless gewgaw

At this point i was talking to Foxy on clan chat, saying that the RNG was screwing me over with a ridiculously unlucky sewer,

but apparently that distracted me from noticing when I got my first trinket. Luckily (or rather, unluckily) this mistake

didn't actually cost me any stats...

[69] Heartbreaker's Hotel [0,0,0]

Set ML to 11, use snake, hoping that moxie boost will help me survive it until I can afford Entangling Noodles.

[70] Typical Tavern Quest [0,0,0]

Promptly get critted 3 times in a row by a tavern rat. Thanks. =( Sewer to get rid of Beaten Up

[71-74] Unlucky Sewer [0,0,0]
    +> [71] Got worthless knick-knack
    -> Turn [74] Blood-Faced Volleyball

Visited the Hermitage and realised that I have 3 trinkets now. =X

[75] Typical Tavern Quest [0,0,0]

Again! What's up with the tavern rats are they all equipped with haiku katana's or something? Tired of seeing the rat's

critical hit message, so go and see if I can pick up a Harold's bell instead.

[76-78] Sleazy Back Alley [0,0,5]
    %> [78] Badmoon: Sandwiched in the Club

Might as well go back and finish up as much of the rats as possible.

[79-86] Typical Tavern Quest [21,38,17]
    o> Drank 1 bottle of popskull (4 adventures gained) [0,0,0]
    => Level 4 (Turn 81)! (7/13/7)

Damn. Forgot to save a mixed drink for nightcap. This'll have to do, I guess

Turn rundown finished!

Managed to complete all my goals, beginning to think I should've started a little earlier on quests instead of mucking around in the Back Alley.. Being critted by those tavern rats really sucked though, although I didn't actually lose much in terms of adventuring, it did eat up a bit of much needed meat.

Going to log off now and consider my goals for tomorrow. =X

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