Current Timeline of Events from 2.0 On

dont forget our little deture with the evil demon kraken thingy. also we have to take into account how much the wood the ship is made of can handle so that would impact the speed to an extent.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Brightamethyst

IIRC, in one of those early SB quests were we told something along the lines of "it usually takes three months to get to Kugane, but with my secret magitek engine I can do it in one."

---

I was looking for that quote before when I was making an earlier post because I thought I remembered that too, but I can't find anything on it on the websites that have the actual quest dialogue and all I can find on the internet is other people referring to it as fact.

What I did find is that by the time they were at the Sirensong Sea, they did not fire up their hidden ceruleum engines yet and that Alisae somehow knew about them. That seems to be the first mention I can find of them. Does anyone remember where and when Carvallain himself brings it up as making it speedier? This is going to bug me now because I swear I remember something about the journey being faster and I wonder if it was another thing made up that spread around and everyone started believing.

Quote:

---

Alisaie: Well, why not fire up the ceruleum engines you have hidden below?
Carvallain: An excellent suggestion based on knowledge you should not have. Alas, our engines appear to be malfunctioning for reasons that escape my engineers at present...

---

Other than the 2 months voyage to Doma that is in the lore book, the only other things I can find on the length of the voyage are descriptions from multiple characters about getting provisions for a long voyage and the Sirensong Sea description that says "lengthy voyage to the Far East".

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vyrerus

To play devil's advocate about the boat trips, Carvallain has a ceruleum engine on his ship.

This, in essence, makes it similar to a modern day sailing ship in terms of travel time.

---

I don't think he'd have the fuel to use it for the whole time and the quest dialogue suggests he didn't even have them on for at least half the voyage.

Funny enough, I found that out from a post of yours when I was trying to find the Carvallain quote I was looking for:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vyrerus

Just wanna point out that it's explicitly stated that Carvallain's boat has a clandestine Ceruleum engine. He didn't use it until after the Sirensong Sea, at least to the knowledge of the player, but Alisaie sure as heck figured out it was there and questioned the fuck outta that dandy boy about it.

Realistically if you wanted to conserve fuel, but get where you're going quick, then you could use the Ceruleum engine when the wind was against you or wasn't with you. I have no idea if the sea around Thavnair has still winds except in/right after the monsoon season in India, but the Sirensong Sea was what, somewhat around that point but a bit southy south?

In the real world it took a European sailing ship about a full year to reach the Dutch East Indies, what with sailing around the horn of Africa and all, and then hitting the still winds in the Indian Ocean. We've no Africa analogue in FFXIV, so we can take out 6 months there, assume Ceruleum engine use for half the trip... and I'd say that gets the trip for our WoL down to about 2~3 months.

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

I was looking for that quote before when I was making an earlier post because I thought I remembered that too, but I can't find anything on it on the websites that have the actual quest dialogue and all I can find on the internet is other people referring to it as fact.

What I did find is that by the time they were at the Sirensong Sea, they did not fire up their hidden ceruleum engines yet and that Alisae somehow knew about them. That seems to be the first mention I can find of them. Does anyone remember where and when Carvallain himself brings it up as making it speedier? This is going to bug me now because I swear I remember something about the journey being faster and I wonder if it was another thing made up that spread around and everyone started believing.


Other than the 2 months voyage to Doma that is in the lore book, the only other things I can find on the length of the voyage are descriptions from multiple characters about getting provisions for a long voyage and the Sirensong Sea description that says "lengthy voyage to the Far East".




I don't think he'd have the fuel to use it for the whole time and the quest dialogue suggests he didn't even have them on for at least half the voyage.

Funny enough, I found that out from a post of yours when I was trying to find the Carvallain quote I was looking for:

---

Yeah, that's why I averaged the traveling speed down to 8 knots. If he could have it on the whole time, I'd have used 12 knots for the calc.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vyrerus

Yeah, that's why I averaged the traveling speed down to 8 knots. If he could have it on the whole time, I'd have used 12 knots for the calc.

---

I still feel like 12 is still very generous for an old-style tall sailing ship that's retrofitted for an onboard engine. We don't know what the output is of a ceruleum engine, but early steamships topped out at 10 knots and had an average speed of between 8 and 9 knots.

If we can find the quote of how long it was expected to take vs how long Carvallain said it would, that would give us our average speed.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

I still feel like 12 is still very generous for an old-style tall sailing ship that's retrofitted for an onboard engine. We don't know what the output is of a ceruleum engine, but early steamships topped out at 10 knots and had an average speed of between 8 and 9 knots.

If we can find the quote of how long it was expected to take vs how long Carvallain said it would, that would give us our average speed.

---

I don't feel like it was generous at all. Carvallain refers to having, "engineers." It's also a world wherein magic exists, and Alisaie makes the claim when you run into the Sirensong Sea that, "It could be another "spice trader" employing magicks to stop our ship and steal our cargo."

If there's magic in our magical world strong enough to stop a ship, then there's magic enough to make a ship go even faster. Real world reference was hot channel conditions, in other words.

But as far as Carvallain mentioning any amount of time versus distance, I can find none. There's none in the lead up to getting on his ship, and none after getting off it. I did miss one optional talk without him before accepting the next MSQ quest from Alphinaud though, but I doubt it'd contain anything concrete either.

Part of the issue with discussing the time bubble is that they are always so very shy about mentioning time or distance.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vyrerus

I don't feel like it was generous at all. Carvallain refers to having, "engineers." It's also a world wherein magic exists, and Alisaie makes the claim when you run into the Sirensong Sea that, "It could be another "spice trader" employing magicks to stop our ship and steal our cargo."

If there's magic in our magical world strong enough to stop a ship, then there's magic enough to make a ship go even faster. Real world reference was hot channel conditions, in other words.

---

Every ship with an engine is going to have an engineer, but that doesn't magically make it go faster. Even if "magic that actively makes your ship faster" was more than something that you just made up, the fact remains that we are already given a time already of how long it takes to get from Limsa Lominsa to Doma for everyone else. We're not told of mages who are actively channeling spells to boost the ship and if it was a thing you'd think everyone would be doing it.

A magitek engine would help going against the wind or the current, but it won't necessarily boost a ship to lightning speeds (comparatively) if it wasn't designed for it to begin with.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vyrerus

Part of the issue with discussing the time bubble is that they are always so very shy about mentioning time or distance.

---

It's so that they can avoid discussions like the one we're having. GRR Martin even said the same thing:

Quote:

---

The reason I am never specific about dates and distances is precisely so that people won't sit down and do this sort of thing.

My suggestion would be to put away the ruler and the stopwatch, and just enjoy the story.

---

Ultimately we have no context for distances or hull speeds or currents or weather maps so taking "UK to Japan" distance from our world and applying A LOT of guesswork on when they are and aren't turning on an engine we never even see doesn't give us anything to go off of. All we have a reference for is one line from the EE.


For everything else, the writers have no need to correctly calculate time and have written the plot completely ignoring it. Like I said before, this could be a fun exercise, but you're looking into something with more care than the writers did so trying to be super serious about it won't lead to any satisfaction and no one's going to agree on the same things.

My memory wants to place the Carvallain mentioning it around the time Tataru is blackmailing him. When there's talk about how you're supposed to report everything you get from a ship you pirated to the Yellow Jackets, but on occasion when it comes to having pirated Garlean ships someone might not notice you not mentioning a whole engine. Speaking of wooden ships are we all assuming that they are all late 1700s if not mid 1800 wooden ships? As early wooden ship models would have needed to take longer.

At this point we're bound by two unavoidable realities:

1: Game content is still in the same bubble, we have very recent references to the Calamity still being five years ago.

2: Every player who attempts to make a timeline will do so based on what feels right to them, meaning that - while everyone agrees we've spent more than a year in the game - no one agrees on how much more.

That's where I stop thinking about it any deeper than that; it's not worth it. Every player gets a blank check and should confidently cash that in for whatever they want.

Personally, I also divide each patch's content into however long there is until the next patch. It feels natural to my brain and, more importantly, probably feels natural to the developers as well.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MikkoAkure

it won't lead to any satisfaction and no one's going to agree on the same things.

---

Putting more thought into the game, its story, and its world is what we do here. It's pretty much 9/10 fans.

Coming at me or anyone really with a, "You're taking it too seriously bro." Is more or less a reductive insult.

Especially since you're taking it entirely seriously(heck, you're more serious than me imo) in a different direction. Operating under the assumption that I wouldn't be satisfied with merely sharing the knowledge of what travel on a sailing ship is like, what the timespan for the real world locations and travels are like as well.

What satisfies you, Mikko? Whatever it is, it's certainly not what satisfies me.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vyrerus

Coming at me or anyone really with a, "You're taking it too seriously bro." Is more or less a reductive insult.

---

I’m not coming at you with anything nor was that directed at you and I think you misunderstood the text of my post.

It was a general “this is an exercise in futility”.


What I was trying to say was:

For everything else (as in the rest of the thread’s main topic and not just ships), you can dig as much as you want, but when it’s with something that the writers deliberately did not give us enough information on, you’re not going to find any satisfying answers and not everyone’s going to agree with it.