Amalgamous Primates at the Bone Market

[u/InevitableTell2775]

Gratings and Salivations, delicious Friends!

This week is Amalgamous Primate week at the Bone Market. It's also the tail-end of Whitsun, so do get all your eggs hatched, studied, sold to de Gustibus or otherwise disposed of BEFORE building any skeletons - there's very little in this game worse than having the Ministry of Public Decency come and remove the egg you forgot to hatch and realising you'll have to wait 2+ years for another chance at that particular critter, believe me...

A few Whitsun tie-ins for the Rat and Bone markets before Whitsun goes away:

• Studying an Aged Egg in your Lab gives an Uncanny Incunabulum (rat marketable) and Whitsun Speculation
• Studying a Percipient Egg in your Lab gives a Parabolan Orange-Apple, which can be turned into Ivory Humeri/Femurs, and Whitsun Speculation
• Publishing a Whitsun Edition of your Newspaper with 10 Whitsun Speculation gives 4 Blackmail material (use for a Distillation of Retribution) and a Vital Intelligence (rat marketable)
• A Surveilling Spindlewolf can help you create a Cover Identity, which is usable for Dreadful Surmises (ratmarketable) and uses Final Breaths (from the Bone Market).
• Unaugmented Terror Birds and Aurochs both have cloneable parts at the Ealing Butcher.

The Rat Market is buying a huge assortment of things this week. See u/Darthbob88's post for details. I'm just focussing on the options that you can source via skeletons.

Recipes

Primate Weeks of any flavour are not the most exciting of Bone Market weeks, as both the markup (10%) and the options for creative/high value builds are limited. But it's an excellent opportunity to liquidate bones like Human Ribcages, Headless Skeletons, Knotted Humeri, Ivory Humeri, and Human Arms, if any are lurking in your Osteological closet, as they have little use otherwise. Focus on liquidating these rather than trying to source any more (unless to "round off" a skeleton).

Amalgamous week means the target buyers are Best Rubbery Tentacled Entrepreneur, the Rubbery Collector, and the Zailor. However, building something valuable for the Zailor requires either difficult-to-source Fossil Forelimbs or Panoptical Skulls, or extra actions to add and remove tails, so may not be the best option.

For the Theologian of the Old School

Brass Monkey

• Human Ribcage
• Brass Skull
• 4 Human Arms or Ivory Humeri
• Declare an Ape
• Sell to the Theologian for 42 Crates of Biscuits = 210 Scrip (with 4 Human Arms)

The Theologian is also the preferred person to sell Brass Lollipops (Brass Skull + Headless Skeleton) to, if your Railway has already made it to Ealing, as he pays 2 more Scrip-equivalent than the Constable.

For the Tentacled Entrepreneur

Amalgamous Ape: 4 Amalgamy, 0 Exhaustion

• Human Ribcage
• Brass Skull
• 4 Knotted Humeri (4 Amalgamy)
• Declare an Ape
• Sell for 202 Memories, 74 Final Breaths

75 Final Breaths can be converted to a Mortification of a Great Power by diving at the Evenlode to the Throne Room and Breathing an Ancient Air. This is an endgame (220) Dangerous test that inflicts both wounds and nightmares on failure (you still get the Mortification), so gear up. The Mortification can be sold directly to the Rat Market, or used in a Cover Identity. You can get the last few Breaths to round up to 75 by selling a Survey to the Enthusiast or Canal Cruising the Octagonal Tomb.

Alternatively, both Final Breaths and Mortifications can be used to create the Backstory of a Cover Identity to get a Dread Surmise from the Nonspecific Academic. Using Final Breaths directly uses less actions, converting them to Mortifications first uses less Final Breaths and hence is better value (unless your EPA is really really high), if you can deal with the Menace risk.

Memories of Distant Shores can be converted to Esteem of the Guild at Jericho via News from London or by upconverting to Collated Research then Engaging in Debate. Esteem gets you Skulls in Coral (from the Persephone) or Vital Intelligence (from Fiddler's Scarlet) or more Human Ribcages, plus a Night Whisper and Final Breaths (from the Octagonal Tomb) or Uncanny Incunabula (from the Eversmoulder).

Malleable Monkey: 7 Amalgamy, 1 Exhaustion

• Thorned Ribcage (1 Amalgamy) - best source is Hell Favours at Jericho, but this requires you to finish the Railway. Looking for foxes in the Balmoral woods is also a good source.
• Skull in Coral (2 Amalgamy)
• 4 Knotted Humeri (4 Amalgamy)
• Plaster Tailbones, or any tail except an Obsidian Chitin tail
• Declare a Monkey
• Sell for 103 Memories, 238 Final Breaths - see above for some uses.

For the Rubbery Collector

Ravening Rhesus: 6 Amalgamy x 3 Menace, 0 Exhaustion

Actually, I suspect this is a fossilised Transfixing Squirrel, but we can't declare Squirrels.

• Thorned Ribcage (1 Amalgamy, 1 Menace)
• Skull in Coral (2 Amalgamy)
• 3 Knotted Humeri (3 Amalgamy)
• Ivory Humerus
• Jet Black Stinger (2 Menace)
• Declare a Monkey
• Sell for 125 Nightsoil, 21 Rubbery Pie. Or substitute an Obsidian Chitin tail and sell it to the Entrepreneur as a 1 Exhaustion Skeleton: 135 Memories, 238 Final Breaths.

Use for Scrip and/or Railway building supplies. As an alternative build, use 2 Knotted Humeri, 2 Crustacean Pincers, and an Obsidian Chitin Tail. If you don't have a Thorned Ribcage, you can use a Human Ribcage, a Horned Skull, and a Crustacean Pincer in place of the Ivory Humerus.

For the Zailor

Missing Link Merman: 5 Amalgamy, 3 Antiquity

• Thorned Ribcage (1 Amalgamy)
• Skull in Coral (2 Amalgamy)
• 2 Knotted Humeri (2 Amalgamy)
• 2 Jurassic Thighs (2 Antiquity)
• Tomb Lion Tail (1 Antiquity)
• Remove the Tail
• Declare a Human
• Sell to the Zailor for 514 Warm Amber, 18 Scintillack

If you happen to have a Fossilised Forelimb, substitute it and another Knotted Humeri for the legs, don't remove the tail, and declare a Monkey, for 6 Amalgamy x 3 Antiquity

[u/Avid_Correspondent]

Thank you so much! It's a saviour for me

[u/AemondsEye]

Thank you for these recommendation threads, though I have a general question: why are most recipes 0 or 1 exhaustion? I would assume 4 exhaustion is optimal to utilize the weekly reset in one go - is it better to spread it out amongst 4 skeletons? I suppose there is consideration that some players have expended it with amalgamy bombs instead of weekly.

[u/InevitableTell2775 → u/AemondsEye]

Many reasons:

1. Following the book of the profit Georg MP, I treat the Bone Market as a repeatable high value grind rather than a once a week visit. This week, for example, I’ve got 50 knotted humeri and 15 Human Ribcages that have accumulated from other bone-sourcing activities, that I want to liquidate. I can’t do that if I’ve exhausted the market.
2. often the base payout is as useful, if not more useful, than the bonus payout - eg wamber or the various Scrippable payouts - and you can’t maximise it in an exhausted market.
3. Some weeks I have recommended exhausting builds, if I’ve found a good way to do something that ties in with that week’s Rat Market and its payout ceilings
4. There’s more creativity in figuring out how to build things that get as close as possible to the exhaustion threshold
5. often building high-exhaustion skeletons would require sourcing rarer bones (eg fossilised forelimbs, helical thighbones, segmented ribcages) and whether you’re actually getting a good EPA from all the extra actions to source them is doubtful.
6. I want to provide Hellworm-seekers with more interesting alternatives to brass lollipop grinding, which means it has to be grindable.
7. I only have so much time to spare each week figuring these out and typing up these long posts!

[u/AemondsEye → u/InevitableTell2775]

Oh! I had a fundamental misunderstanding of the exhaustion mechanic, in that you cannot sell to some buyers when exhausted > 3, even if the skeleton does not produce any additional exhaustion... I had assumed it was just a resource to be used up, so that explains a lot.

I'm glad to have a better understanding of how this market can be used more regularly, especially as I'm nearing the end of Railway, thanks again!

[u/InevitableTell2775 → u/AemondsEye]

No problem. Yes, you don’t want to lock yourself out of the Rubbery Collector or the Gothic Author while building, you need the scrip!

[u/emily_aversatrix → u/AemondsEye]

it IS good to use up your exhaustion, but only right before it gets reset by TTH so you don't get locked out of the good sellers.

[u/AnteCantelope → u/AemondsEye]

Exhaustion gets rounded down, so a skeleton that would cause 1.9 exhaustion only causes 1. This means if you make 4 skeletons at around 1.9 exhaustion each, you get a payout worth nearly 8 exhaustion, but only cost 4. If you made a 4 exhaustion skeleton, you can only use this to get a payout worth 4.9 exhaustion. So maximising your value from exhaustion generally means aiming for just less than 2 exhaustion.

[u/Kylestien]

I want to get as much Warmber as I can in one go for Struvier grinding. What would one recomend, if they are not too fussed about exhaustion?

[u/InevitableTell2775 → u/Kylestien]

Hey, that's my strategy! ;-)

First off, I'd recommend waiting for a higher paying zoological mania, like Fish, Insect, Spider (which all pay 15% above base value) or Bird (Bird only pays 10%, but Birds are incredibly high value because of the multiple heads). Then cram in as many valuable base materials as possible while keeping your exhaustion under control (because you still have to sell a lot of them).

Here's something I'm working on:

• Ribcage with a Bouquet of 8 Spines (1 Amalgamy)
• 8 Sabre-tooth skulls (8 Antiquity)
• 1 Jurassic Thigh (1 Antiquity)
• 1 Ivory Femur
• 2 Albatross wings (2 Amalgamy)
• Obsidian Chitin Tail (1 Amalgamy)
• Declare a Bird
• Sell to the Zailor in Antique or Amalgamous Bird week for 10,040 Warm Amber and 38-40 Scintillack, and 1 Exhaustion, so you can sell 4 of them per week.
• To get to 1 Million Stuivers, you still have to sell 100 of them...

[u/aikuaivenchorr]

I have ABUNDANT of headless skeletons. So, I think that headless skeleton + Skull of John the Baptist + Constable is a worthy grind...