GH Vault voyage - did I do it right?

The puzzle is a big key here, as it grants access to the special Chest in the vault that is worth the most. You basically always want to get this of you're doing a Vault.

The other factors you noted are also applicable, but that Chest would have helped a good bit. I forget the exact value offhand.

@redeyesith Yeah, fair enough. I'll have to prioritise that puzzle chest.

If I'd done the same voyage but NOT in the Devil's Roar - I wouldn't have got ashen chests, is that right? They are just a devil's roar thing. Does that mean the non-ashen chests would have made more gold at the GHs (because they only pay a small price for locked ashen chests)?

And also, if I had happened to have an ashen key on me, could I have opened all the ashen chests and made a lot more money?

Cheers!

@mcmechanism
When you dig up the map fragments, the skeletons that spawn can drop trinkets. I would at least pick these up to raise my flag even if I didn't take them with me.

The ancient chest is the only thing I would take from vaults sometimes. Most of the time though, I would take the key to the vault in a treasure chest, then use that treasure chest to haul trinkets back and forth from the vault. I would only take top tier trinkets though.

The puzzle itself can be quickly done if you know how it works. I never even use the medallions. There is a video that can explain it much better than I can but essentially the image on the fourth column is a combination of the first three columns. It has the four possible solutions on its four facings. You just need to find out which one of those four facings is showing you the solution by matching the other three columns to the image on the fourth column.

While these voyages are fun and unique, I feel like the merchant shipwreck voyages are more gold, at least when you consider time. You spend less time at each stop. Digging up map fragments usually takes longer than harpooning stuff from floating barrels. Hauling chests out of a vault is terrible compared to floating crates to the surface and harpooning them aboard. Most importantly, turning in the crates can be insanely fast. One time I stood in one spot and picked up all my crates from my bowsprit and sold them to the merchant without taking a step.

The advantage of doing vaults over the merchant voyage is you can collect the GH emissary voyage each time you hit grade 5, and dig up captain's chests while you do more vault voyages. With the merchant, I never even collect the emissary voyages, and I get mad at myself when I accidentally claim them and start cluttering up my voyage wheel.

@mcmechanism
You might be confusing Ashen chests with the Ashen variants of Castaways, Seafarers, Marauders and Captain's chests.

The former need a key and contain trinkets and books that go to Larinna (or the Reapers), the latter cannot be opened and can be sold to Gold Hoarders (and Reapers).

The latter you'll find in the vaults, I don't think I ever had a chest that needed a key in a vault, though they are useful for getting trinkets from the vault to your ship.

@lem0n-curry That makes perfect sense thank you. I wasn't aware of the distinction.

@testakleze Thanks - lots of useful info there.