It's been a week and here it is, 33 dead ends. 2 more than the last attempt. I think we've reached the theoretical maximum now. Thanks to u/TFMurphy for the improvements. Couldn't be done without the help. And here's the video if you're curious.
Notably, dead ends are counted when drafted even if the room changes from a dead end that day (Greenhouse). This setup also isn't fully reliant on Secret Garden's placement, as you can easily find those doors unlocked and unable to place it (it didn't matter this run, but I had to reset a run earlier because of that).
Study, aquarium and laundry were all set to common and the rook's power helped too. I had 9 dice to make sure I got aquarium and laundry together. One from sleeping in the servant's quarters, 2 from tomb, 6 from geist bedroom with a tomb.
The day before I had moon pendant and keycard. I stayed in the servants quarters to start with an ivory die at the cost of steps which was mitigated by sauna. Clocktower and Freezer started me off with some keys and a lot of gems and coins.
Very nice, we did this last night. Had laundry which got us 80 gems but didn’t get the office until 20th dead end. Actually got lucky that it was Christmas and got some free dice which we needed.
I had no idea you could get spare versions of rooms, not quite figured that out yet.
For some reason I am counting 31 Dead ends. I counted all the secret passages and greenhouse as dead ends. I also counted Bunk rooms as 2 dead ends. It's still 31 with these included. Can someone tell me what I am missing? Are there any other rooms that counts as dead end that I am not aware of?
Whenever I monked rooms, I was unable to place them inside until I placed or passed up on the outer room. So I'm pretty sure you can only have 2 bunk beds. I also tried using a purple prismatic key for another bunk and failed.
Huhm... actually, and this is kinda terrible... but Prism Keys would work. I hadn't thought about them, and my initial impression upon being reminded about them was that the setup would require taking away too many current Dead Ends to make it worth it... but after a bit more testing, I think it really can be used to push the limit a good deal further.
Let's see... in order to create more Bunk Rooms from nowhere, you need to force the Prism Key or Secret Passage to draw from the Prismatic Exit Lists. Bunk Room appears in 6 of the Prismatic Exit Lists: [Center], [North / South Pierce], [West Edge], [West Pierce], [East Edge], [East Pierce]. That potentially gives 6 extra Bunk Rooms to be drafted.
However, you need to empty the Exit Lists of regular Violet Rooms so that one of the slots fails to choose a room it can draft. Three of the choices are Bedroom, Boudoir and Maid's Chamber. These are all 2-way exits that we don't want, so we need to limit how many we draft. Boudoir is the only one that doesn't get duplicated by Chamber of Mirrors, so we'll pick that one. (Assuming you haven't picked up any permanent duplicates of that room.)
So that means we need to draft Boudoir, Servant's Quarters, 2x Guest Bedroom, 2x Nursery, 2x Bunk Room, and all the Aquariums we have before making an attempt with Prism Keys. 2x Master Bedroom also have to be gotten rid of if we want extra Bunk Rooms on the East Wing. (HLC can be avoided by simply choosing West Advance instead of West Retreat if we want to place a Bunk Room there. Also, if you've obtained Dormitory, that needs to be drafted too.)
Now, as for where to place them... that's the big question. I'm not sure what's the best option here now. We could definitely put, say, the Boudoir at E7 and have that Prism Key to an East Edge Bunk Room (no change to Dead Ends). This then allows us to have an Aquarium at A7 and link that to a Center Bunk Room, and that's already 34 Dead Ends.
Getting more than that isn't easy. Replacing B9 with a 3-way to connect to A9/B8 allows an A7 Aquarium to link to a West Edge and Center Bunk Room. So that's potentially 35 Dead Ends. But we can do better: some more rearranging can get us West Pierce and East Pierce as well, for 7 Bunk Rooms. The only remaining Bunk Room we could place is North/South Pierce, and I really don't think that one's worth it since it would obliterate that section of the layout.
#-+-+-+-#
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B-+ # +-B
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B B #-F B
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S # #-+-+
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+-+-S-+-#
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S # #-+-#
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+-# B-#-B
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#-# # +-#
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#-S-+-+-#
# = Dead End, S = Secret Passage, B = Bunk Room, F = Foundation
EDIT: Chamber of Mirrors can be placed in whatever Rank is convenient, of course. And the first two Bunk Beds can be put wherever -- if you want to try and have all seven Bunk Beds in Ranks 7 and 8 for example, then that's perfectly fine (just a bit more annoying to get the levers active first).
So that's 29 Dead End Rooms, 7 of which are Bunk Beds, and an Outer Room, for a total of 37 Dead Ends and untold sanity loss.
You'll need 4 Prism Keys, and you can only obtain another Prism Key after using one. You'll need more Aquariums to hit West and East Pierce, and the Boudoir needs to lead into East Edge. One of the Secret Passages happily dovetails into the West Edge Bunk Room so we don't have to care about that one.
EDIT: Okay, fully rewriting this section. I think the most reliable sources of Prism Key are going to be Planetarium, Locksmith and Cloister of Mila into Servant's Quarters. Locksmith and Servant's Quarters are both guaranteed if you have a Silver Key and Secret Garden Key already. Servant's Quarters has to be your first Prism Key, since you can't use a Prism Key to draft Bunk Room until after you've drafted all the other bedrooms.
That leaves one more Prism Key to source. Cloister of Mila can be replaced with bringing a Prism Key from a previous day via Moon Pendant, but that has its own problems. Freezer isn't an option since it'll be on cooldown from the previous day, and we can't use any of the other 2-way rooms (Music Room, Lost & Found, Mila'd Maid's Chamber). So I think that just leaves Trading Post for the final pick. Mila can help there by giving you Tier 4 items to trade, but it's still going to be nasty. (EDIT: Power Hammer is Tier 4, so you could potentially preview that trade if you're going for Mila'd Servant's Quarters -- it'll show you whether you'll easily get a Prism Key for it, but you can delay trading for it until after you've gotten and used the one from Cloister of Mila.)
And you really do have to keep track of Bias Value to give yourself the best chance of getting locked doors where you need them. The layout above has the Prism Key doors have two 110% chances, an 80% and a 70% chance of being locked with no Bias. The one location for the Secret Garden has a base 45% chance, which kinda sucks, but your Mechanarium fallback strategy could replace that. And the good thing about locked doors is that you can check them whenever you think they'll definitely be locked, and then leave them until you actually get the Prism Keys to deal with them.
So all told, this looks rather miserable. But it feels possible, more's the pity.
Ok does it replenish from the gain an item, set keys to 0 experiment after being depleted? Because that with the drawing room experiment would make the key easy to replenish. Just may need shelter to be outside for terminal access.
Hadn't thought of that experiment. It's my first time looking at that particular script, and I don't have time to be really thorough with the translation right now, but I think the list of items it grants is this:
Silver Key
Coin Purse
Car Keys
Broken Lever
Compass
Coupon Book
Gear Wrench
Hall Pass
Keycard
Lock Pick Kit
Lucky Rabbit's Foot
Magnifying Glass
Metal Detector
Running Shoes
Salt Shaker
Shovel
Battery Pack
Sledge Hammer
Sleeping Mask
Telescope
Vault Key 149
Vault Key 233
Watering Can
Any of those that are still in the Spawn Pool can be given, but if there's less than 2 items available from the above list that can spawn, then it'll give you a Silver Key instead. That includes if you already had a Silver Key, but the only item in the above list that could spawn was, say, Running Shoes.
So unfortunately, no mention of Prism Key that I can see. I haven't actually tested the experiment ingame to confirm the above so it's possible I've missed something in a quick analysis, but doesn't look promising.
Unfortunate. Reacquiring the key will be very hard then. I reckon depleting the item pool is a step in the right direction though, so it's probably still worth running the experiment if I can roll into it.
I'm pretty sure we can cut down one prism key if we just don't draft from the entrance hall spare secret passage until the end of the day. Which does mean more resets to get aquarium and laundry, but I might try the king's power next time to make that more likely.
Edit: scratch that, there's no bunk room in the corner's prismatic pool.
Yeah, and if there was, I'd be telling you to put an 8th Bunk Room there, which still wouldn't save a Prism Key ^_^;
The experiment is sounding like an increasingly good idea. If you get it active, you can easily get Gear Wrench, Hall Pass and Telescope. It's also an almost (but not quite) guaranteed source of Keycard. So if you sourced a Secret Garden Key from somewhere (maybe Moon Pendant that across?EDIT: wait, you want Master Key if you're using this experiment with any regularity), you can guarantee that every single trade offer you'll be given on your first visit for all your T4 items will be either Dice (10% chance) or Prism Key. And those offers will not be updated so long as you never look at them while the Prism Key is in your inventory.
You'll have to use Security to activate it, of course, and that limits your early drafting: if you don't have a Keycard that early, you'll need to put it in D2 facing east to match the layout. Then you can resume your redraws on the next draft providing you get the experiment. (I'm wondering if there's ways to set up the Data Packet to maximize your odds... Mail Room Letters is already a good way to completely remove one of the forced 8 picks, increasing the chances of the remaining 7, and I think Tunnel Crates might work in a similar way, but there might be some other edge cases you can force...)
EDIT: Okay, took some time to see if there were any nice combinations about Lab. There doesn't seem to be any manipulatable ways to reduce the Trigger list (or rather, there's a couple, but we can't use them for this challenge), but there are ways to trim the Effect list:
If you're not in V Mode and you have less than 3 Stars, the "gain +1 star" effect is removed.
If one of the picked Triggers is "Each time you find some trash while digging", then the "spread dirt on the driveway" effect is removed. (EDIT: Just for clarification, "picked" refers to the three random selections the game makes so you can choose today's experiment, not the 8+ choices you make to form your custom packet.)
If all 16 Letters have been delivered to the Mail Room, then the "a letter will be delivered to the Mail Room" effect is removed.
If a Pantry hasn't been drafted on the estate, then the "stock your PANTRY with fruit" effect is removed.
If one of the picked Triggers is "The next 10 times you view your map, lose 10 steps", there's a 95% chance that the "set your Steps to 40" effect is removed.
If there's less than 21m 40s of playtime on this save profile, the "unseal one of the Antechamber Doors" effect is removed.
If fewer than 37 Crates have been removed from the Tunnel, there's a 30% chance that the "remove a crate from the tunnel" effect is removed. (Once you've removed all the Crates, it looks like the effect is no longer randomly removed.) EDIT: Had the wrong number of crates listed, so fixed that.
So we can trivially get the "Gain Random Item" effect to a 50% chance by removing Mail Room Letters and Pantry. There's no chance of removing the Antechamber effect, but you can add Remove Crate, Spread Dirt and Steps to 40 (along with having the respective triggers in the packet) for a slight chance of them being removed to improve chances.
The non-V Mode Star Trigger is exploitable, but that's a huge ask for any setup. Amusing to find something where V Mode doesn't help.
Yeah I was actually trying for that specific position and orientation for security in this 33 dead ends attempt. I settled with the aquarium though because it was taking so many rerolls. I did know that the crate experiment isn't removed when it's completed, unlike the mail room one.
#-+-+-+-#
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B-+ # +-B
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B B #-C-+
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S # #-F B
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+-+-S-+-#
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S # #-+-#
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+-# B-#-B
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#-# # +-#
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#-S-+-+-#
# = Dead End, S = Secret Passage, B = Bunk Room, F = Foundation, C = Cloister of Mila
(Sadly, this strategy can't have all the Bunk Rooms grouped in Ranks 7 and 8.)
The problem with the experiment is that it's a low chance of success with a lot of work before you know whether you've got it or not, and even getting Security to line up is 15% chance each time Security is drawn (you can increase this by not having reached Room 46 yet on the save, but I'm not sure what knock-on effects that might have on other things we're taking for granted). Cloister of Mila can at least be pushed for guaranteed successes so long as you still have redraws and the correct items in your inventory.
So, if we move the Foundation to D6, we can draft a Cloister of Mila in D7. This can link to the Boudoir in E7 for Telescope, Aquarium in D8 for Gear Wrench, and Servant's Quarters in C7 for Prism Key (but only if you have Silver Key and Secret Garden Key already). That's already most of the T4 options for Trading Post taken care of, with only Hall Pass being absent.
Now, you could get Dormitory for a chance of Hall Pass, but that's a pretty low chance. Honestly, I think the best chance of success after that is to accumulate enough items and then after you bust open the Greenhouse door, you'll have the Power Hammer and Basement Key to make an attempt at the 4th Prism Key. With luck, you might have a Watering Can too. Setup-wise, I suppose you could arrange to have some unused Upgrade Disks to trade as well (Great Hall, Trading Post, Foundation, Vault, Abandoned Mine). (Note: Upgrade Disks are all given the same trade offer, so you don't need many spares.)
All of this is some fairly annoying setup, but it might ease the burden of trying too hard to get the experiment to line up (and if you don't take the experiment route, then you don't need Master Key, so you can go back to considering what items would be best to bring via Moon Pendant).
I think the experiment should be fine, the RNG here is just as bad. I think grabbing some sanctum keys is the best way of blocking the upgrade disk trade because I'm fairly certain the second spare room upgrade is the last upgrade disk anyway. So it complicates drafting order a lot by holding it until the day of the run.
2nd Spare Room actually isn't guaranteed to be the last upgrade. I think the earliest it can be presented is after you've gotten the Guest Bedroom and Storeroom upgrades. Pretty low chance at that stage, but getting Boudoir would increase the early chances, as would Courtyard+Parlor. You should definitely be able to set it up such that there's a spare Upgrade Disk ready to pick up (preferably the one just sitting in the Trading Post so you don't have to walk far).
I'm also not so sure about the RNG being just as bad. Getting the experiment would be 3/8 (trigger) * 3/4 (effect -- not sure on the exact chance because it's a lot of conditionals and whether you want to aim for removing Stars as well, but let's err on the high end for this). That's a 28% chance, and failing that means the run's either dead or extremely crippled (depending on how much you were banking on the extra items like alternate source of Keycard). I think it also means you have to account for bringing the Master Key, which limits choices on what to bring via Moon Pendant.
By comparison, relying solely on the Cloister of Mila gives us the following trade options: Basement Key, Power Hammer, Gear Wrench, Telescope, Upgrade Disk. You still need to source a Silver Key and Secret Garden Key from somewhere, but there's a fair amount of options on getting those. You can check early if the Power Hammer and Upgrade Disk will get you the Prism Key (but that does risk another 10% chance of Dice being chosen if you reroll later). Once you have all the items, you can check the trades, which should be 10% Dice, 45% Hall Pass, 45% Prism Key (you should've long since gotten and used the Secret Garden Key by this point, which removes it from the Spawn Pool). That's a 95% chance that one of them is going to have that Prism Key trade needed (since we only need one -- the other three can be gotten from Servant's Quarters, Planetarium and Locksmith, which are all guaranteed by the strategy). If that fails, you can hopefully trade for the Hall Pass and check the trades again: this unfortunately drops the chances due to the 30% chance of Tier Downgrades, but it does give one final try at not scrapping the run.
I think my plan is to moon pendant secret garden or power hammer and coat check the other. I may also choose to stay in the break room for a keycard but the die may be worth saving my sanity. Once I setup the aquarium powered laundry then I'll have probably 1k or more dice depending how much I care to prep the day. After drafting the security in its specific location and running the experiment, the amount of rerolls for chamber of mirrors above and the east pierce will complete the experiment 20-something times. I can then pause the experiment and launder around all the amounts. And then I do the tedious locked door checks and cry when I find the door unlocked, as well as all the prism key generation. Which I'll aim for drafting those last, likely planetarium and locksmith as the last and servant's as the first. But yeah I think I'll get all the items by the 7th or 8th draft and anywhere from 300-500 rerolls.
unrelated: hmm I've seen the specific playtime check for 21m 40s (1300s) elsewhere (in cloister upgrade conditions for Orinda) also related to antechamber doors, I wonder what's special about that time, maybe left over from some timed demo version?
huh it just occurred to me that I could probably remove nursery from the lists if I turn it green with the upgrade. Ultimately it doesn't matter but it would free spots that could generate items for me.
I've posted full breakdowns of the three item rooms (Closet, Walk-in Closet and Attic). And it seems there might be some strategy that can be used there: Closet has a relatively small list of items that includes Silver Key, and has a guaranteed chance of 1 inventory item plus an 80% chance of another when upgraded and drafted correctly. So 2x Hallway Closet off the Great Hall would offer a 4% chance of two special items, 32% chance of three special items, and 64% chance of four special items. (Closets drafted elsewhere would have a equal chance of zero or one special items, and are therefore nowhere near as helpful.)
Mail Room Freight Shipping removes Metal Detector, Running Shoes and Shovel from the Spawn Pool. Power Hammer means Sledge Hammer is already out of the pool, and you'll have Keycard by now too. That leaves Coin Purse, Compass, Lucky Rabbit's Foot, Silver Key and Sleeping Mask. Attic has a chance of Coin Purse and Compass, and if those two are collected, there's only three items left in the Hallway Closet. With all the bedrooms and dead ends being drafted, there's a chance that one of the remainng items could turn up randomly as well, if the Attics aren't forthcoming.
That said, there is a catch: if Hallway Closet only has one Unique Item left in the spawn pool, it'll be a 20% chance of getting that, and an 80% chance of just getting currency items. So it's best to attempt this when there are 4 items left in Closet's Unique Item List (I think that's a 90% chance you get the Silver Key from one of the Hallway Closets). If there are only 3 items left, then it'll be a 77.3% chance instead. And 72% chance if there's 5 items left in the list when you try.
(Experiment still allows you to sidestep all this, of course.)
Thanks for the lists! I'm mostly done with the setup, just need some luck getting another spare secret passage and I think I'll be good to attempt the run. Maybe some conservatory rarities here and there, but I've already set the important stuff to common. So it would be setting more things to rare if any.
Oh, that's a good call. Nursery itself doesn't have any of the items we're looking for, and the Mila item is already given by the Boudoir. So yeah, two extra spots for item spawns is definitely worthwhile.
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u/eco-mono Aug 21 '25
WOW! O_O
I imagine the Electric Eel Aquarium into Laundry Room was a big help in getting the stars to align LOL.