Ghost Ship: Get Rich Quick

Hokay. The ghost ship. What do we know about it?

  • Best source of reliable credits in the game by a LONG SHOT.
  • A very tough place to explore. You have to fight a lot of the Spectral Sailor and Twisted Hound, not easy enemies.
  • There's a very nice quest you can do there, but that's totally irrelevant to credit farming.
  • You must be Etheric the whole time you are there (or on Slags Poisoning).
  • If you can handle all of the above, you will be goddamn rich.

Now, the "farming credits guide" mentions a few things about the Ghost Ship, but this is the big big big enchilada of guides that will let you earn at least 12k a day. 18k at the absolute most. I shit you not. This is pure gold, literally and figuratively. As long as you know what you are doing.

You basically have four concerns aboard the ghost ship: Combat, Etheric, Efficiency, and Multi-Tasking.
Let's start with the most basic.

Combat

Obviously you're going to want to be able to fight decently on the ghost ship. Those Specters hit hard and can soak up a lot of damage.

IMPORTANT UPDATE: Somewhere along the line, the specter got coded as having a sword weapon which improves Swordplay. His parry + swordplay combo no longer deals 12 Base Power, it now is 14.

Defenses

Minimum suggested defenses: 7 Melee Defense, 13 Etheric Defense

  • This is going off the fact that hounds, specters have most of their melee attacks only up to 8 total power (8-16 damage), and the Spectral Sailors' un-augmented Frost Touch has up to 17 total power (17+ damage).

Ideal defenses: 13 Melee Defense, 16 Etheric Defense

  • This will ensure you only take minimal damage from every Ghost-Ship-native attack ever.

*This is more or less a necessity if you have some Sparkling Blood

First Aid: First Aid can be a good idea. I STRONGLY recommend having Trauma Tech and Kingly Favor for the healing properties.

Offenses

Now, for the offensive side of things.

The way I see it, there are three fighting styles for dealing with the Ghost Ship.

Melee- Equip a palace spear or shark hide baton and maybe a Gold TZR, use clashing blow and whatever other melee techniques you like. I have a mini-guide for ideal techniques to use here. (do NOT use a twisting silver blade or anything silver- you do NOT want to trigger the masked shaman. Explained later). The Melee method is the safest method to use since your weapon of choice should give absurd Melee Defense, and Clashing blow absorbs a lot of damage, but doesn't really have any advantages beyond that. Oh, and don't bring a chain weapon unless you enjoy giving the Spectral Sailor even MORE melee damage against you.

Ranged/Fire- Equip a Zaibatsu Mister or Spider Leg Rifle or Holosight rifle or whatever works for you. (I would go with Zaibatsu Mister for the fire power or spider leg rifle for the melee defense) Use the Techniques Rain of Bullets, frag-grenades and NitroX and whatever chain 5 or 9 works for you for the fourth technique (leaping dodge maybe?) . This approach is a tad weaker on defense than Melee, but has the advantage of exercising Perception, leading to high drop rates (and thus better $$$), and makes Twisted Hound x3 fights way shorter (although still just as painful). Strongly

Etheric- You could also use "free" Etheric techniques that don't consume energy of Etheric (watch winding, spinal sight, tome of binding techs, etc), seeing as how both hounds and Specters fall easily to Etheric attacks. But aside from exercising Will instead of Strength and Reflexes, there really isn't any big advantage to use this over Melee or Ranged.

Equipment Lists

A small list of suggested skills and equipment. If you can't get it, consider buying it on omnimall, even if it is expensive… it's not like you'll be short on cred after a few days of even suboptimal farming.

Do what works, as long as you have enough MD/ED to get through the day.

Efficiency/Etheric

Efficiency is simple. It's sacrificing defense for extra. How? Well, perception increases ancient money pouch drop rates, which allows you to open more treasure chests. And Chance of Choice encounters effectively reduces the incidence of those useless 3x Hound encounters. So max the hell out of these two as much as you can without losing too much combat ability.

And you want to stay Etheric as much as possible. There are two ways to go about this: Straight-up using Eclipse Syringes for your Etheric (Stolen Artistry and Eclipse Conduit can ease the pain somewhat) and Slags Poisoning, in which you basically bank 40 Hunger, craft a bunch of toxic bandages and get 1000+ Energy of Slags poisoning in a day. The latter takes a lot of commitment and investment, but is way more efficient, since you can spend Body on Cut Nova or Stimulant Dust.

Other Things:

Other Things of Importance

  • Do NOT ever fight with a silver weapon or use Silver Bullets. You will be treated to more or less useless The Helm or Grasping Hand encounters, which will burn up useful Energy once you do so.
  • Fishing is a good way to get silver ingots and get good at Fishing(skill). However, it's gives less credits per energy than going out and purely fighting, plus the fishing rod is a really weak weapon to be fighting with, so beware.
  • Remember to salvage sailor charms, inlaid sabers, and gold spectacles for sellable gold foil. Paper mache can come in handy too.

Multi-Tasking

There are other things you can do while Etheric, to spice things up and get something else done while you are getting absurdly rich. Most involve unearthly items and will require some adjustment so that your combat ability remains at decent levels.

  • If you have a feathered cloak, you can grab some feathers while you're here.
  • HKgames helmet? The pain gremlin and maw can be killed quite easily with your high MD/ED Ghost Ship setup.
  • Crystalline flame or crystal spine need recharging?
  • Red Lensed Goggles need sciency combat techniques?
  • Need to get certain techniques during combat?
  • etc.

Examples of good outfits.

My usual setup:
Investigator's Hat or Dashing Hat
Palace Spear
Shield of Scales
Cloak of Feathers (Choice encounters = free feathers! :) )
Containment Suit Pants
Gold TZR w/ Ad Spider or Strange Watch
Drug- Stimulant Dust
Food- Ika Sashimi/ Pike Sashimi

This is how I, in particular get around 15k a day (I have gotten 17k a day if I used the Slags Poisoning strategy above and I estimate I could get 18k if my perception eventually got high enough while doing so)
- Stimulant dust for extra energy, plus high overall defenses to keep said dust from backfiring on me.
- Urban Lore. Organ transport boxes rule. Panacea pills are good in case you get The Jitters from stimulant dust.
- I have lots of sushi stocked up. Or just buy it on omnimall.
- High HP and Kingly Favor to get me through the day.

Alternative, non-unearthly setup:
Investigator's Hat
Spider Leg Rifle
Crystallized Octopus Eye
Scaled Gang Jacket
Containment Suit Pants
Gold TZR w/ Ad Spider or Strange Watch
Drug- Cut Nova
Food- Pike Sashimi
Still good. A little less optimal, but more than capable of exceeding 12k a day.

ENJOY!

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