FC Airship dilemma, thoughts?

Trying to decide which will be the better option for my FC based on the information out there on exploratory missions. We currently have 2 groups running Alex savage that we'd like to bring into the new mode. And we are aware of the 20 min cooldown on using the airship.

The dilemma is we only have 1 lvl 31 airship currently. Is it better/more important to get to sector 8 and get a 2nd airship up and running or try and push for the 1 airship to get to lvl 50 first so we can do hard mode of these missions? Will the hard mode missions requirement more than just an 8 man party to kill the creatures there (I know this could be speculation but some of this may have been answered during the live letter and I overlooked it)?

By my understanding there will be fights in hard mode (and indeed, in lower difficulties) which require more than a single full party to beat - however, your group won't be the only people in your exploration instance. So the idea is that you go in as a group then everyone in the instanced airship zone collaborates for the biggest enemies, coordinating in shout if necessary.

It takes less time to level up the airship than it seems (actually, we hit 50 without discovering several sectors despite our best efforts) so if you push at it you should be able to launch the second ship quite soon and be on your way to 50 before the patch. Upgrading the parts really seems to help a lot.

Edit: So maybe the short term solution is to send your groups out in two waves; they'll probably end up in separate instances but they can start learning the system with randoms. Then once you have the second ship levelled up you can do full FC outings with two ships in hard mode. Otherwise, maybe look for a small friendly FC with a full fleet of airships who want more people for their crews.

Why not both? You dont have to do the airship unlocks in order. Unlocked the "3rd" airship from discovering and visitin sector 14, long before we did the "2nd" one at sector 8. This happened in 2 separate fcs. If you visit sectors in a relative straight line from the home node you minimize flight time needed to balance exploration and xp.

I would definitely keep pursuing the airship unlocks while you are working on ranking it up. Doing so I was able to have my 2nd airships at rank 25-30 by the time the first one hit 50. In the end you will not regret doing it.

In regards to rank up speed: Currently I have 32 airships and have been outputting historical rank data / dates for the past 3 months. Here is a link to a visualization showing 3 months of airship rank progression.

Hopefully this will give you a good idea of what to expect in an average 1-50 scenario. I was sometimes slow upgrading components so it is possible do cut the 1-50 time down if you are on the ball.

It's more optimal to unlock airships first.

We unlocked sector 8 as we leveled our first ship and sector 14 the same way. It worked out great as we can launch new ships immediately after they become available.

I would honestly unlock more ships, since you can reuse components and go in larger groups for harder content which your raiders may like.

I looked ahead on a few sites and thread dedicated to airships that popped up not long after they came out and planned accordingly just in case they ranked slowly, but they actually rank up quite fast if you keep on top of them.

Thanks for all the great feedback, looks like we'll push for the 2nd airship.

OP if I were you or your FC leadership, the best thing would be to push for another Airship. 16 player party is much more efficient and helpful than an 8 player party. Unless you have several connections with other FC's or friends in FC's who have lvl 50 airships.