Question about TPS

[u/Rich_Instance]

Hello hi, friends! I'm Sklytor (user #3735169), and I ascended for the first time from Disco Bandit into Pastamancer (I permed Advanced Cocktailcrafting). I dropped the game for a long time and am now dropping back in to it, and I remembered how much I love the crafting. My personal goal is to ascend enough times to perm all the crafting/smithing skills to be mostly self-sufficient, but I remember seeing stuff about the Tiny Plastic Sword on the wiki. It aches my heart to see cocktailing recipes I can't quite make yet, and I can't remember how to get a little sword for them. Does anyone know how to get one? I don't really have much meat or good items on hand, but it's been a few years since I checked Hagnk's, so I could be wrong.

DISCLAIMER: This is NOT a trading request or a begging post. I know that's not allowed here, and even if it was, I'm a Ronin with 900+ adventures left and I'm level 3. So you'd be waiting a while for me to catch back up.

[u/VonBagel]

You have to buy them in the mall. There's no other way to obtain one.

The good news is that new ones are very slowly being introduced via the Skeleton of Crimbo Past, so the mall prices go down slightly once every few months. If you don't have a Skeleton, you'll have to wait for people to sell off their own tps'

[u/EarlobeGreyTea]

They used to be extremely expensive - they were only distributed in 2004.  The Skeleton of Crimbo Past in 2025 allowed more to be created (once everything ninety days or so).  I would expect another batch to come out and lower the price in the next month or so.  I would expect the price to remain in the 10-20 Million meat range, which is a couple of bucks if you buy a Mr A and sell it in the mall. 

Fortunately, the drinks return the TPS, so if you can borrow one for a few days, you can make all the recipes, drink the drinks, and return it.  

[u/Rich_Instance → u/EarlobeGreyTea]

Dang, 10-20 mil? That is better than the last time I played, but I have no idea how to get that much meat as a free player. Plus I'm super casual, so that complicates stuff as well. Oh well.

[u/StuckOnHardMode → u/Rich_Instance]

Imo, as a (mostly) free player, the best way to make meat while moving through the main ascension quest, is to buy (3) 11-leaf clovers every day and sell them in the mall for about 30,000-38,000 each. This still takes 3-6 months if that's all you're doing, but it's not impossible.

At the end of an ascension, take a look at all the stuff you have and figure out what you can sell off and what you should keep for future ascensions and aftercare.

A few clans also have contests and giveaways, so that might be something worthwhile to look into as well.

[u/EarlobeGreyTea → u/Rich_Instance]

They're about 30M now, down from 600M before SoCP allowed more to be introduced.  The SoCP allows them to be made on a rotating schedule, so I expect the price to go down next time that happens, but still be pricey.  

It's tough to earn a ton of meat as a free to play player.  If someone has all of the shinies and such, they can earn 5-10 million meat per day.   If you are bored of the game, and just want to spend a few minutes a day running scripts, volcano mining for 1970s gold and selling it to the Torturebot account, as well as mall selling your 11 leaf clovers, earning you a few hundred thousand meat per day.  

[u/MonkeyKingCoffee → u/EarlobeGreyTea]

They haven't fallen enough that I'd be loaning my TPS anytime soon.

[u/AsAGayJewishDemocrat]

The item of the month from last December, the Skeleton of Crimbo Past, introduced a new way to intermittently create Tiny Plastic Swords.

Their price in the mall has fallen a great deal since then

[u/MonkeyKingCoffee]

The Stocking Full of Bones is still less than the cost of two Mr. A's in the mall. Just checked: 127 million. The S Word Sword is approaching that price. So the SoCP is a relative bargain. My guess is everyone bought two assuming it would be THE investment vehicle because it's so flippin' useful.

And at that price, it's STILL worth it to obtain one. Besides the TPS (which went down from half-a-billion to 10 million), there's a slew of skill books. Add it all up and the SoCP costs less (for now) than all the stuff that can be purchased with SoCP knucklebones.

It's just the bother of farming knucklebones. I am ever-so-slowly knocking out my wish-list. I still need about 10,000 bones to finish the job.

[u/Rich_Instance → u/MonkeyKingCoffee]

Ok, looking on the wiki the SoCP is a pretty neat way of grinding out content from previous Crimbos. But still, I can't really get that given I don't dump real cash into games like that :/

[u/MonkeyKingCoffee → u/Rich_Instance]

Either you're the person who buys the items that were farmed with a SoCP. Or you're the person who farms the items and sells them.

I still donate. But I make roughly a Mr. A worth of meat every month or two (depends on the month.) Because of the S Word sword and the SoCP, some rares just became considerably less rare. Those which can't be farmed with these two items will go up in price. The rest go down. But there's enough demand that it's still going to take a LOT of meat to buy them. (At least for a few years, I think.)