Probably the first guilded questline, you are tasked with figuring out why there's been repeated delays on Quartz shipments.
Talk to whoever is in charge of logistics, who lets you know that the delays have been happening with the Cliff Drillers Inc contract.
Talk to them and you learn that they employ a lot of Preguilded people -- it's cheaper and allows them to compete with Mons Miners United, who would otherwise crowd them out. The Preguilded are also conveniently located in the same cochlea. However, the issue with the Preguilded is they don't have any kind of Guild loyalty, so in this case they've been going on strikes and/or have been stealing some of the material, causing these delays.
One way to complete the quest is to bring this information back to the Shinemen, who just import more Quartz from Mons Miners United instead. This will decrease Cliff Drillers Inc power, increase Mons Miners United power (as though they needed it) and will give you some Honor but not a whole lot since the Guild has to do work on their end as a result of your suggestion. END
If you instead want to explore further, you can:
Talk to the workers, who want standard things like more scales and less time spent in the mines. You can choose to either negotiate on their behalf (which advances the questline) or just bring the information to Cliff Drillers Inc. If you bring it back, then you'll complete the questline with the contract intact, so you'll get a bit more of a bonus. There will probably be delays moving forwards but at least there's a solution now. END
If you negotiate on their behalf, your honor with Cliff Drillers Inc will go down, however when you bring the news back you'll get to meet with a union rep.
Nothing of note happens from this meeting (other than maybe you feeling good about your decisions), but if you explore their quarters a bit you can find evidence of Mons Miners United being involved. The union rep will deny it, but if you bring this up to Cliff Drillers Inc, you'll more than recover your Honor bonus with them and will also be able to complete the questline with the Cliff Drillers Inc contract intact, which provides more Honor. This solution also provides the highest amount of Honor, since there's no more delays moving forwards. As a bonus you also get Honor with Cliff Drillers Inc and conveniently don't have to lose Honor with Mons Miners United (which tends to happen with that Guild's questlines) END
The amount of charged crystal Shinetown is putting out is lower than expected. This is very problematic, as Shinetown is the Guild's biggest investment and really the only thing keeping them from being outcompeted by charged crystal imports.
You're told that the director over there keeps giving bullshit technical answers whenever the Guild send reps, so maybe someone independent can uncover something.
So the first thing you do is speak to the director there. You have to convince him that you're just interested in the processes of Shinetown. He doesn't believe you, so you'll have to do some actual work there to prove yourself (making some scales in the process). If you explicitly tell him that you're working with the Shinemen he'll get angry, permanently kick you out of his residence and the quest will end, with you losing some Honor in the process. End -1. Discretion is better.
Once you're in his good graces, he'll tell you that the reason the output is low is because the weather here mess with the mana concentration of the sky mana entities, transmuting them to myraqua. He says that to fix the issues there needs to be more Sapphire involved, maybe even just powdered Sapphire to conduct away any myraqua entities to prevent delays, or ideally full Sapphire shipments so that the myraqua can also be harvested.
You can recommend either of these solutions to Shinemen, or you can investigate his residence more thoroughly -- if you do, you'll turn up evidence that he's looking to sell the Sapphire crystals he earns off this venture somewhere if someone is stupid enough to listen to his demands. In the meantime he's been poaching quartz to keep the supply down and make a bit of scale on the side. If you confront him with this, he'll get scared for his Guild place and promises to not do that anymore and will get things back to be operational again. End +4. This ending gives the highest amount of Honor (this kind of thing will be denoted by numbers moving forwards)
If you bring this evidence to the Shinemen, they'll fire him. You'll definitely get Honor from this, but as they have to replace him, it's more work for them, so End +3.
If you recommend powdered Sapphire, this will work to restore the shipments so you'll get a normal Honor gain. End +1
If you recommend full Sapphire, not only does this cause a lot of work for the Guild, but the sapphire shipments conviently get "poached" because of what's really going on, with more bullshit excuses. This actually ends up being a net negative. End -1.
The Shinemen would like to expand their crystal charging operation. This questline is distinguished from other ones by the fact that you have choices to make at the outset.
You get to pick whether the construction happens at the Research Cochlea, the Commercial cochlea or an unused peak in the area. You don't have to make this decision blind -- you're encouraged to talk to other people within the R&D department of the Shinemen, who are variously idealistic or realistic, the latter ones telling you what a terrible idea it is to build anything on unused peaks. The commercial cochlea is probably the smartest idea economically speaking as the exports can go straight into the industry there, however the Research Cochlea makes a certain amount of sense since they're the biggest consumer of charged quartz. Using unused peaks makes long-term sense however it's still very stupid and definitely negatively impacts your game. I guess it's an okay choice if you see the long-term potential however, so it depends on how you're roleplaying.
Research Cochlea option
You have to decide whether to build the stations at the top or around the cochlea. The top option will definitely lead to more profit and Honor but it's a much harder sell.
In any case, you have to convince all the Guilds that operate in that location that it's in their best interests. If you already have some Honor with them, this is an easy sell -- otherwise you have to persuade them that it's for their mutual benefit and you only get one shot at it per Guild.
Failing to get a majority of Guilds on board (and then reporting this failure) will give you END -1. You could however just do questlines for the guilds and go through the easier option and not report on your progress until later.
Success will give you END +1 for convincing a majority along the cochlea, END +2 for convincing all of them, END +2 for convincing a majority at the top, and END +3 for convincing all of them.
Commercial Cochlea option
Once again, you get to choose whether to put it at the top or along the cochlea.
This quest goes about the same as the above one with the same set of rewards. The difference is that you're appealing to economic concerns and you have several chances to convince each economic sector since iirc there aren't any guilds operating here (if there are it would instead fit the above schematic of success).
Unused peak
This is definitely the dumbest idea. In this questline you get to scout out various locations, looking for a balance of low distance, surface space, height and beneficial resources to encourage other industry. The actual locations are procgen but one of them will definitely stand out, and you'll need to do research to figure out the best spread and what's going to be the most viable.
If you get the best one, you get END +1, since it's useful long-term but terrible over the short term for the reasons mentioned. The top 25% of locations will instead net you END -1 and the worst locations will give you END -2.
If there are other beneficial resources, you can try to convince Mons Miners United and/or Cliff Drillers Inc to join in on the enterprise. The convincing game works similar to the research cochlea option. Each Guild you convince will add +1, so the max you can get from this option is theoretically +3, though it requires sourcing everything well and tends to be harder. More than likely you're coming out of this option with negative honor.
The last primary questline for this Guild involves them trying to reclaim the abandoned charging stations in Garden Valley. As a result of the expansion project, they're looking to transport the resources to their new locations, not to use them as is -- however that is one possible ending.
The Shinemen have a fortified outpost within Garden Valley territory, so your first step is going there. If you try to go there outside of this quest, you'll be denied entry and called a "crystal poacher" or worse names.
The outpost's job has largely been to reclaim crystal charging stations that have been poached for one reason or another, however they're stretched pretty thin. An additional problem is that they have to get their supplies couriered in because local farms refuse to sell to them for some reason outside of the Good Roots Group which takes advantage of this to offer a steep markup.
You've been tasked to deliver additional manpower here, however the supplies issue is definitely problematic, and just gets worse with more people. So you'll need to solve this problem. You can either inquire at the local farms wtf their deal is, or try to convince the good roots group to lower their rates. You can't do both though -- it has to be an explicit choice.
The local farms have to really be pressed into it with group coercion tactics, but they'll eventually admit that the order is coming from Agrirabbits Inc. You can just report this back and end the questline here if you want. END +1
Unless you have a pretty high Honor with the Good Roots group, you're not going to be able to convince them to lower their rates as this is one of their main revenue streams, particularly with the potential they see in Shinemen expansion. So you can either do quests for them to get up to the (unreasonably high) honor cutoff, or report your failure. Getting them to lower their rates through some mechanism is a END +1, while failing and reporting it is END -1. Unfortunately, getting the Good Roots Group to lower their rates causes you to have a REP -1 with them.
If you follow up with the Agrirabbits lead, you learn that they are the ones actually poaching the crystals and are basically energy self-sufficient because of this. You also learn a bit more about them if you don't already know it. They have way too much of an economic interest in their continued poaching to be convinced out of it, and they're also primarly duty-based so that approach really isn't going to work. Your two options are either bringing the hammer down on them or working with them.
If you decide to work with them, you get END +1 as well as REP +1 with Agrirabbits. You do have to actually convince them though. If you go through Honor, you don't have a net loss with Agrirabbits, whereas coercion will cause REP -1. Persuasion will actually give you REP +1.
If you bring the hammer down, you get END +3, as it fixes the poaching problem and the supplies problem. However this also cripples Agrirabbits, so you end up with REP -2 with them.
The way this Guild operates comes down to two things:
They have several extra stations where observation is done, known as Parallax Stations. These provide depth to storm readings.
At the main station as well as these stations, Heavenseers take Potions of Far Sight, focus on an incoming storm system and send notes back to the main station for compilation.
In any case, while the main station is operational and one of the parallax stations is, a third station's Wrung Node network has been compromised and so the Heavenseers can't transport personnel over to use it. They need someone (someone ideally fairly crazy) to climb up to the parallax station and fix whatever's wrong with it. This person also needs a Courier pouch to carry whatever potential tools they need, which can be considerable. Other Couriers won't take this task because of the danger + "they'd have to do actual work". Meanwhile, the maintenance people in the Guild can't do the work without an excessive amount of trips because they can't carry all the tools they'd need without a Cauldron.
So first thing, make sure your Cauldron is empty if it has something in it.
You'll need to communicate with both the maintenance tech and the Guild Cartographer, so you're given an Ears Stone (basically an Instrument that allows you to communicate over the distance required. You need to key it to both of them.
While you're near the maintenance tech, they will fill your Cauldron with the tools required, as well as give you a Retrieval Wand that allows you to pull out whatever you need.
There's a Wrung Node that allows you to access either the base of the peak or the summit of it (though obviously this doesn't work and this is the actual problem). So you go here and get to the base of the peak.
This part of the quest is a lot of climbing and/or jumping through a procgen rock climbing minigame type thing. The Cartographer helps guide you. If you fall horribly you can activate a Return Instrument, but this has a limited amount of charges. If you fail three times, you get End -1. The seed for the climb should be random from playthrough to playthrough so you can't just cheese it.
Once at the top you have to fix the Wrung Node, while guided by the maintenance tech. Some of the controls are timing sensitive and it's possible to destroy tools or burn out parts of the Wrung Node, leading to End -1.
If you're successful however, then the quest completes with End +1.
All observation stations make use of lens arrays that focus light onto the people taking far sight potions. This helps them see even better, as well as zoom in or out to get a better understanding of things. The problem here is that the lens arrays are more fragile than they should be. To avoid blinding the recipient they're constrained by Mortine magics and there are Mortisangual push/pull assemblies as well. Regardless though, something in the magic here is causing the lenses themselves to crack at a much faster rate than they should be according to the knowledge about lens arrays. So the Heavenseers just keep a stockpile of Lenses and continuously import more from Wind Machines Inc, but this obviously digs into their profits.
The first thing you do is go to one of the Wisemen who specializes in Lenses to find out the actual problem. You're given some large Cloned Microtome so they can pore over the full amount of data. This expert is in the Long Spear of Wisdom HQ. They do so and discover that the Lenses themselves are the problem -- they have Leyflaws that cause cracking when exposed to mana. Leyflaws are a common manufacturing error, but they're very correctable so it's strange the Wind Machines Inc isn't accounting for them.
You can just bring this information back to the questgiver and they'll maybe think about importing lenses from elsewhere at expense or just eating the cost, and you'll get END +1.
If you pursue it further however, you go to the Wind Machines Inc offices and ask them why their lens exports have leyflaws. This causes them to flatly deny it. You're told you can inspect the lens factory for yourself to see that there's no leyflaws in the product. Except not directly, you're like given a subtle hint towards this.
If you go there you see that Wind Machines Inc isn't actually manufacturing lenses but instead just pulling in old lenses from the Shinemen. Or at least the director of that department is the one being lazy. In any case they have leyflaws because they've been used repeatedly to charge crystals and have reached their natural EOL. You have a choice here to tell Wind Machines Inc or just report back to Heavenseers.
Telling Wind Machines Inc will give you END +1 and REP +1. Reporting to Heavenseers will instead give you END +2 and REP -1, as they no longer trust Wind Machines Inc for their lens needs.
