I have started a google doc to consolidate some of the research that Alkarss and I have been doing:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1S5eh0joQiPiWNfp7QKNAlgEEcEBsxJkt2VChXgJWIqM/edit?usp=sharing

Feel free to add any of your results to the doc.

According to an interesting conversation I just had with Sluice Box, the end results depends not only on Ransom and Interactions with Others (As well as if Marian lives or dies) but also how many Outlaws you have remaining at the end.

Script 801 in the code determines the final values.

I have made a major breakthrough. I now understand -almost- all of how the endings are calculated. Thanks to Sluicebox, I know that the final ending depends on script 801.

Here is the relevant bit of code, straight from the script. After that, I will break it down piece by piece.

(if (proc0_5 62) (= global156 (+ global156 2000))) (if (proc0_5 49) (if (proc0_5 151) (= global156 (+ global156 500)) else (= global156 (- global156 500)) ) ) (if (proc0_5 113) (if (proc0_5 152) (= global156 (+ global156 500)) else (= global156 (- global156 500)) ) ) (if (proc0_5 174) (= global156 (+ global156 500)) else (= global156 (- global156 500)) ) (if (proc0_5 173) (= global156 (+ global156 500)) else (= global156 (- global156 500)) ) (= global156 (+ global156 (* 30 (- global138 9)))) (cond ( (and (u< global146 5000) (or (< global156 2500) (u< global146 1000) (< (+ global156 global146) 5000) ) ) (= global151 40) ) ( (or (< global156 3680) (and (u< global146 -14536) (proc0_5 65)) (and (u< global146 15300) (not (proc0_5 65))) ) (= global151 30) ) ((or (< global156 4250) (u< global146 -4536)) (if (proc0_5 62) (= global151 20) else (= global151 30) ) ) (else (= global151 10))

Global 146 = Ransom, and Global 156 is what we generally call the "Niceness Factor". I'll call it your "Score". Global 151 determines the final result. Starting at the top and working down, 40 is Death, 30 is Pardon, 20 is Forester, and 10 is Earl.

Score is a running total. You get 2000 for saving Marian, and + or - 500 for Poacher, Peasant, and Beggar. (Note: THE YEOMAN DOES NOT IMPACT THIS TOTAL).

Jeweler is the same, but it's possible to skip him all together and get neither. Finally, you get an outlaw bonus of 30 * (Outlaws - 9).

If you raise less than 1000 Ransom (i.e., nothing). You die. Nothing else matters. If you raise less than 5000 (i.e. ONLY doing the Yeoman side quest), then you must score at least 2500 to avoid death. This could be accomplished by saving Marian, and being nice to at least 3 of the 4. If you don't save Marian, this is not possible. Since you can only get 2000 other points, plus have a maximum of 30*(34 - 9) = 750 Outlaw points.

Here's the only bit of the code I am unsure of:

                           OR
                              ("Score" < 3680)
					(and (Ransom < 51000) (proc0_5 65))
					(and (Ransom < 15300) (not (proc0_5 65)))
				)
				PARDON

I don't know what proc0_5 65 is. It's only mentioned one other time, it triggers some text in the trial, but it's something that (As far as I know) always plays. Specifically it plays this bit: "And this he did, with every mark entrusted to the Knight who brought it to the Queen." To my knowledge, it's not possible to finish the game without giving the money to the knight.

Either way, this means for sure you can't get the forester with ransom less than 15300 (i.e. you need train OR BOTH Arrow and Merchant)

Finally, best ending: If your score is 4250 or less, or you raise less than 61000 , then you fall into the 2nd to last bucket. The ending you get depends on whether or not you saved marian. If you did, you get Forester, otherwise, you get a Pardon.

So the magic mark to trigger Earldom is Ransom >= 61000 AND Score at least 4250. The highest score can get (Being nice to all 4, saving marian, and having 34 outlaws) is actually 4750.

This means you should theoretically get the best ending if you skip the merchant, do the yeoman side quest AND have all 34 outlaws at the end. (2000 + 3500 + 30(24-9) = 4250 ). This would require doing the full day 6 and 9 quests. I haven't actually tested it yet, but if I understand the code, it should work.

Edit: I have tested it. You can Earl without meeting the Jewler, which is interesting to me.

The most outlaws you can get without doing the full quests for days 6 and 10 is accomplished by selecting Will both times, and then either Much (If you want to fail) will give you 28. And Tuck (If you want to succeed), will give you 27. So if you're going for best ending, we know we need the treasure, so the best you can do is 30*(27-9) = 540 Outlaw points. With saving Marian for 2000, that still leaves you short of the needed total by 1710, which requires interacting with and being nice to all 4.

Forester Ending Analysis:

In order to Forester you need money from two sources, and if you do not do the Train, the other cannot be the Yeoman. So the possibilities are: Train + Anything Arrow + Merchant

I have not timed it, but common sense tells me the Merchant/Yeoman quests are the slowest because of the long cutscenes. So Train + Arrow seems like the fastest way. (You would then skip merchant, and fail the puck quest as normal for Any%).

For score, you must reached 3680. With Marian, that leaves 1680 to go. There are 3 ways to accomplish this - All 4 nice factors and Outlaws is irrelevent (Can do as normal any%). But since we are skipping Merchant, this is not feasible. Any 3 nice factors (Peasant, Poacher, Beggar) and at least 15 outlaws. Since we know we want to succeed in the train, and we would ideally like to do the auto-fail for the Boys, this requires either Will or Allan for saving Marian. But this is possible, you just need to be careful. Technically, if you had only 1000 nice factor points, you could reach the total with at least 32 outlaws. But the problem is, it's not possible to get a 0 for Peasent, Poacher, Begger. All 3 are + or - 500. So if you fail one, you're left at 500 nice points, and that forces you to Merchant. So with this route, you would need to skip Peasent, be nice to Begger and Poacher, and then interact favorably with the merchant. I don't know if that's faster than the peasent, but the hard part is getting to 32 outlaws. The only way to get this high is doing BOTH Tuck and John's plans. This is obviously very slow.

So the optimal Forester path is as follows: Save the Peasant, Give money to the Beggar, Save the Poacher, Give money to Puck and Win the arrow, Skip meeting the Merchant and Fail the Puck quest, choose either Will or Allan to save Marian, and Tuck for the Treasure.

Just a question, the outlaws total that you got (28 and 27), what it through testing or by checking the script? I redid some of the tests and the most I could have (excluding doing the monastery rescue and Marian rescue via the maze) was 24 by doing Much plan on Day 11.

31 at the start, 27 after rescuing the three brothers (any% strat), 25 after Marian rescue (Will plan - 3 death and Marian rescued) and 24 after the coffer run (Much plan - 1) or 22 (Tuck plan - 2). Others plans resulted in more outlaws killed.

The strange part is that I got different results on a run with less outlaws on certain days (got it catalogued in my gdoc), so maybe it change depending on a rng factor or there is a bug in the script?

By testing.

Turns out you can get 0 from the beggar by going straight back to town. Similar to the yeoman, LJ will have the disguise for you, but you don't switch to it automatically.