Journeyman

Goals:

1. Catch a Ninja mouse from the Mountain holding Burroughs Laboratory Map Piece
2. Catch a Cyclops mouse from the Calm Clearing holding Gnarled Tree Map Piece
3. Obtain the ingredients for the Dehydration Base
   
4. Optional: Hunt for a Mole Mouse
5. Optional: Craft the Dehydration Base

First Stop: The Mountain

What do Journeyman do? They journey. And your first journey as a Journeyman will be to the Mountains of Gnawnia. To prepare for the trip, you should stock up on as much Swiss cheese (yes, it's time to use Swiss and only Swiss) as you can afford and arm your new Swiss Army Trap with the Explosive base. Once you're situated, travel to the mountain and set up shop. Your first (and really only) goal here is to catch a Ninja mouse and collect the Burroughs Laboratory Map Piece as loot. Once you've accomplished this, feel free to move on to the Calm Clearing. However, if you're a collector, stick around a little longer and try to catch a Frosty Snow mouse, Frozen mouse, and Abominable Snow mouse. These mice are only found on the Mountain, but keep in mind also that you can always come back.

As a final point, if you're fortunate you might land a Bionic mouse that drops a Brie Alchemy potion. This item will be slotted into the "Potions" section of your inventory. You can use the Brie Alchemy potion for transforming Cheddar, Marble, or Swiss into Brie cheese. For now, you can save the potion for later. Potions will play an increasingly more important role in your quest as time goes on.

The Calm Clearing

After catching the Ninja mouse, your next objective is to land a Cyclops mouse holding the Gnarled Tree Map Piece in the Calm Clearing. You'll soon come to the realization that this is not an easy task. Cyclops mice are the most powerful mice you have encountered thus far, and you'll find that much more escape your trap than are caught. Be patient. The good news is that this is your final objective as a Journeyman, and you can't find a better place to farm gold and points right now than the Calm Clearing. Furthermore, there are tons of new mice here to catch and add to your collection.

The Dehydration Base: To Craft or Not to Craft?

You'll find as you hunt as a Journeyman that Dwarf (Mountains) and Treant (Calm Clearing) mice sometimes drop Splintered Wood. This item is used to craft several important things in MouseHunt. It's immediate use for you is as an ingredient of the Dehydration Base. The base is pretty cheap (22,756 gold) and will cut down significantly the stale rate of your cheese (and, in turn, will boost your point and gold haul per cheese) when compared to the Explosive base. You will need 4 Splintered Wood along with 213 Salt and 1 Dehydration Base Blueprints, both purchased from the Harbour General Store.

So what is the controversy? Well you may have already noticed that, as a Journeyman, crafting together the three ingredients necessary for the Dehydration Base will involve the dreaded red slot. As a result, there is a chance you will fail and lose all of the ingredients you paid hard earned cash to obtain. So what to do? It really is up to you. If you're in a gambling mood, by all means try your hand at crafting the Dehydration Base. Should you succeed, you'll reap the benefits in the form of more efficient cash and point gains. Should you fail, it's not the end of the world. You'll make the cash up soon enough for another go at it. If you're more the conservative type that's fine too. Just collect all the supplies you need and, the second you are promoted to the Master rank, craft your Dehydration Base with no chance of failure.

Optional Quest: The Mole Hunt

One thing you can craft as a Jouneyman using your two safe slots is White Cheddar cheese (1 Curds & Whey and 1 Salt). The Mole mouse is an exceedingly rare breed of mouse. If you're a collector, the best way to catch the Mole is to arm White Cheddar with the Wooden Base with Target and your strongest trap and sit in the Meadow. The pungent smell of White Cheddar drives away White, Brown, and Grey mice, giving you a higher probability of encountering the elusive Mole. This could be a nice diversion from the monotony of the Calm Clearing after you've completed the other tasks as a Journeyman.

What About a Trap Upgrade?

Since you first set foot in Gnawnia many moons ago, you've no doubt had your eye on the Mouse Deathbot trap and the NVMRC Forcefield trap. These are obviously the most powerful traps available to you at this point in the game. However, these traps come at quite a price. At this point in the game (and with an eye on a couple pricey purchases in your near future), it is a valid question as to whether or not the additional power of these traps is worth their high cost. There is significant debate as to the answer to this question throughout the MouseHunt community. Here at BBMT, we are going to recommend skipping these traps all together. Here are the reasons why:

• Your next stop (as a Master) is the Laboratory. Here, you're primary targets will be Steel, Granite, and Bionic mice. You've had significant success with these mice already with the Swiss Army Trap in Gnawnia. No need to beat a dead horse. Especially for 256,400 gold.
• You will soon be entering new locations where specific traps are needed to catch the mice in these areas. These new traps cost money as well. Saving that huge chunk of change for these traps will cut down on time you'll have to spend farming for gold in the future.
  

For your edification, here are the catch rate estimates for each trap when paired with the Dehydration Base, Swiss cheese, and the Lucky Shield in the Laboratory:

Swiss Army Trap:
Estimated Overall Attraction Rate: 76.75%
Estimated Overall Catch Rate: 61.09%

Mouse Deathbot:
Estimated Overall Attraction Rate: 78.75%
Estimated Overall Catch Rate: 66.27%

NVMRC Forcefield:
Estimated Overall Attraction Rate: 78.75%
Estimated Overall Catch Rate*: 69.23%

In the end, it is up to you if that 5-8% is worth all that cash. We say it isn't. For a more in depth discussion check out this blog post.

*Note: As mentioned previously, the catch rate estimates we use are generated using Pooflinger's Catch Rate Estimator tool. By their own admission, this tool is currently inaccurate for high luck traps. This could account for why the NVMRC Forcefield (a high luck trap) is has a higher estimated catch rate than the Deathbot. These two traps are generally considered to be basically equal.