Reposting this here for visibility and reference:
~FAVORED RESOURCES:~
Favored Resources work as a quantity multiplier. (Possibly also rarity. Still testing.) [ -- EDIT: Ruthless Enjoyer ChadOrOpposite confirmed it affects rarity as well. Says it changes returns from pretty much all magic to all rare] You receive a multiplier for shipping that resource (up to the amount specified). Completing all favored resources gives you a new favored resource list (on your next shipment)
with higher multiplier amounts. It also increased the number items which will receive this multiplier. This means that repeatedly sending shipments to the same port (while completing the favored resource lists) will slowly increase the Favor (unofficial term) you have with that port, increasing the total rewards available.
Your early focus should be completing the favored resources requirements to continuously up those amounts/multipliers. THIS is the primary way to get more rewards from the mechanic.
People keep sending 1 million shipment value from mixed goods to places with very low favor (and therefore very low favored resource multipliers) and complain about getting no returns.
Don’t do that. Focus on advancing your favor with a port for a while before sending higher Shipment Values.
Side Note, to send the exact amount of a required resource, you can click in the box to the right of the resource and type the amount. (scrollbars suck.) Also, if you’re sending bars, they count as 5 ore each (more on this later), so you only have to send 1/5 the amount of bars to meet the ore requirement.
Edit: Should also have mentioned that completing a Favored Resources "ticket" guarantees a random Unique.
~SHIPMENT VALUES:~
In fact, sending non-favored resources might end up being somewhat of a waste, as it appears that
Total Shipment values do not work as a multiplier on your returns. Still testing, but I’m pretty confident in this. I’ve sent 500 bars of crimson ore on a 10k shipment and got roughly the same amount of armor with roughly the same socket/link quantity as I did sending 1000 bars of crimson on a 500k shipment (both shipments had the same amount of dust as a control).
The Total Shipment Value is a calculator for risk. That appears to be it.
Individual Item Shipment Value appears to be a semi-useful tool for determining the relative returns of each type of food. More on this later.
~DUST:~
I sent 500 crimson bars and 100 dust at a shipment value of 17,167. I then sent (to the same port) 500 crimson bars and 2000 dust at a shipment value of 22,055. And again 500 at 20,000 dust at a value of 25,175. You can see that the shipment value increases fall off quickly even as you 10-20x the amount of dust.
The first shipment had five 4 links, one 5 link, and no uniques. The second shipment had four 4 links, two 5 links, and one unique. It also seemed to have slightly higher tier rolls (though I eye-balled this.) The third shipment had one 6l, two 5l, three 4 links and 2 uniques. It DEFINITELY had higher tier rolls.
Translation: Dust is likely a rarity multiplier. More dust is more rarity.
It’s hard to tell how much this is scaling exactly. It’s obvious that dust increases have a significantly diminishing impact on the shipment values. But again, shipment value isn’t reward value. My feeling (I need way more testing to be 100% sure here), is that there are probably small diminishing returns on dust’s value as you send more dust. But it definitely doesn’t fall off as much as it’s shipment value impact does.
~RISK PERCENTAGE:~
Purely based on Shipment Value vs. Level of Crew. (There were talks that favored resources reduced risk or didn't have a rusk value. This has been tested and is untrue.) [Edit: For clarity, Shipment Value definitely increases your risk meter. I don't know all the factors that go into lowering it again, but the amount of crew and their level definitely play a role. There may be additional factors I'm not aware of]
FOOD:
Food gives currency as a return.
I’ve sent every kind of food by itself to the same port. I adjusted the quantity of each type so the shipment value was the same. (E.G. I sent more wheat than corn, more corn than pumpkin, etc., but sent specific amounts so the shipment values were very close to equal.
I received nearly identical currency from each shipment. This likely means that, in the absence of favored resource multipliers, higher tier foods will net you more currency per item. I know the higher tier foods are produced at a slower rate, however. I haven’t done enough testing to tell yet if there is goldilocks food that has the best returns per time investment. I hope to update the guide soon with that info. But you’re probably always better off focusing on foods that are Favored Resources.
~ORE:~
Bars are worth 5 ore. If a port has 1000 amber as the favored resource, you can complete this with only 200 bars. It’s hard to test exactly but it also appears to give 5x the rewards. Also, ore is made into bars at a 1 to 1 rate. In short, never ship ore if you can help it. Always convert it to bars first.
Each ore correlates to a different type of reward:
Crimson Iron = Armor
Orichalcum = Weapons
Petrified Amber = Jewelry
Bismoth = Gems / flasks / jewels / ward armor
Verisium = scarabs / stacked decks / Fossils & rogue markers / Unique Items / Splinters
~PORTS:~
[Edit: data from the ports comes from Poewiki.net. Some of this is wrong. ]
[Edit 2: you definitely get ward armor from Kalgur for Crimson.]
Kalguri Ports give Runes and Karui Ports give Tattoos [edit: moved this here for more visibility as it's been asked a few times]
[EDIT: it's worth noting that str, int and dex ports also have hybrids of those attributes. For example, Ngakanu will offer pure STR gear as well as STR hybrid gear where the STR attribute is higher or equal to the other hybrid attribute.]
- Riben Fel (confirmed)
- Crimson - Random Armor
- Orichalcum - Random Weapons
- Petrified Amber - Rings
- Bismuth - Quality/Vaal Skill Gems
- Verisium - Scarabs
- Ngakanu (confirmed)
- Crimson - Str Armor
- Orichalcum - Str Weapons
- Petrified Amber - Belts
- Bismuth - Quality Support Gems
- Verisium - Stacked Decks
- Pondium (confirmed most -- still need to test verisium)
- Crimson - Int Armor
- Orichalcum - Int Weapons
- Petrified Amber - Amulets
- Bismuth - Flasks
- Verisium - Fossils / Rogue markers
- Te Onui (confirmed most -- still need to test verisium)
- Crimson - Dex Armor
- Orichalcum - Dex Weapons
- Petrified Amber - Jewelry (with Quality)
- Bismuth - Jewels (can be double corrupted)
- Verisium - Unique Items
- Kalguur (Crimson only is confirmed.)
- Crimson - Ward Armor
- Orichalcum - Random Weapons
- Petrified Amber - Rings / Belts
- Bismuth - Ward Armor
- Verisium - Splinters (breach, timeless, simulacrum, ritual)
(Random untested thought: I haven't shipped to Kalguur yet as I'm focusing on the shorter shipments. The "random" rewards seem weak for the 4 hour turn time. I wonder if there's enchants on the armor or quality on the belts/rings to make it worth something? Could be total copium.)
I haven’t been able to identify a big difference with distance yet. It does not seem to be a multiplier of rewards (I could be wrong about this, but it just doesn’t seem like it so far). I’m guessing when they said you got more rewards for longer distance, they meant the sub-rewards like double-corrupted jewels and splinters were more desirable then stacked decks and fossils. But then Riben Fell gives scarabs, so idk man.
Kalguri Ports give Runes and Karui Ports give Tattoos. I can’t tell yet how the quantity/type of runes/tattoos scale. Could be with total amount of goods sent, could be multiplied by the favored resources mechanic, could be affected by dust. I just don’t have enough data yet to be sure, as I wasn’t tracking this until recently.
I don’t see a rune preference from any particular port yet. I’ve gotten nearly every rune from Riben Fell already. But it’s possible the very high end runes might have a limited port location. I haven’t gotten my favor really up with every port to tell just yet.
~TLDR/Early strategy:~
Total Shipment Value is not the same as reward value. It more directly ties to risk than rewards.
To start out, only ship the goods they’re asking for, and only the exact amounts requested (again, you can click on the number to the right of each good to enter an exact quantity, because sliders suck). We do this to raise favor with the port (which increases both the rewards multiplier and the quantity of rewards being multiplied). Getting the favor up is the main way we scale rewards over time.
Pick just 2 ports to start, so you can raise favor more quickly. Don’t send both boats to the same port at the same time as only one will get the favor multiplier if it caps out the requested amount. When shipping metals, only ship bars, not ore.
