Airship Guide

[Aeyis]

I've had the converse happen; I always repair my airships when they get to about 60% or lower, and I still get large amount of Bs and Cs, with occasional As and Ss and a rare SS or two. I think it has more to do with your stats than your repair condition? I seem to notice more SS/S/A when I upgrade our airship's stats, and less as the airships get to higher sectors.

My current theory on that is that each item has a required retrieval to get ''between this or that level of retrieval results'', a requirement which is higher dependant on 'level' of the item.


By that I mean to say:
[low retrieval stats]
= you only got ''low'', sometimes up to ''normal'' retrieval.
[moderate retrieval stats]
= you get ''normal'' most of the time. Might get down to low, or up to optimal.
[high retrieval stats]
= you get ''optimal'' most of the time. Might get down to normal.

With the stats in the brackets being different per individual item.
IE crystals will have lower required retrieval to hit ''high'' then raw celestine.
Dusk leather might have a really high value for ''high''
(random numbers for illustration: crystals 80 for high, celestine 100 for high, dusk leather 120 for high)

In other words the ''retrieval levels'' are directly related to your retrieval stats compared to the item you are collecting. And as we already confirmed the grade of a voyage is based on retrieval levels.

I'm not certain, but evidence suggests Favor affects per-sector ratings. Higher favor correlates with higher ratings. I wonder if that stat also affects ratings for the whole run? It's hard to tell, but ships with higher stats certainly seem to get better ratings when exploring only earlier sectors.

We already confirmed some time ago that rating depends on your retrieval. Indirectly however.

Something like this if I remember it correctly:
retrieval levels -> bonus exp -> rating. Basically, the most bonus exp the higher your overall rating. And bonus exp is earned from retrieval levels.

I strongly doubt that the airship condition message has anything to do with the repair level of the airship, but I have no evidence to back this up. But, nothing else in the game works like that - combat gear doesn't do less damage or give less defense when near to breaking. [/quote]
It would be bad to just assume something ''must work this way because nothing else works differently''. That said, airship condition message indeed has nothing to do with repair level. Way back at the start people already confirmed it still gave the message even at fully repaired (before starting the voyage)

Also, plenty of weirdly worded messages pepper airship logs. Like, the no wind message mentions surveillance, but the surveillance stat doesn't correlate with better weather. Heck, I don't even see a correlation between retrieval level and retrieval rating despite it having retrieval in the name... That one needs more data, but it's almost like the higher your retrieval, the more items you get, independent of the rating shown.

I had a random thought about that some time ago. What if the order you have them listed in is wrong? What if its more like ''no wind = penalty, high wind = buff, turbulent = big penalty''. Those are just example, but what I mean to say is that high wind might actually be a positive effect.
In ship sailing having high wind is considered a good thing, is it not? Whereas with no wind you cant use sails, and with turbulent weather you have to do a lot more work.
For that matter, not all engine parts are sails. While a sail would benefit from high winds, would a propeller?
I'm not sure where you don't see the relation between retrieval and rating tho, hadnt we already established that long ago? Or is there new/conflicting data on that?

As for how finding a second item works, I like the theory of "airship HP" mentioned earlier. The idea being that the airship starts each sector with a set amount of HP (likely based on some stat), and wind reduces this HP, as does the first retrieval. The "damage" from retrieval is likely based on the sector's rating. The "damage" from the second item's wind+retrieval is compared to the ship's remaining "HP" and, if the damage is higher, you fail to get a second item. If your ship will be above 0 after the "damage," you get a second item. The HP then resets for the next sector. If that theory is correct, the "airship condition" message makes total sense.

Of course, I have no idea how to prove or disprove that theory.

That is a very interesting theory indeed. Altho (I might be biased ) I still prefer my theory that you have to ''work for progression in a sector'' to eventually be able to get the second item. Atleast I did notice ''airship condition is insufficient'' happened a lot more at new sectors.


Edit: I just thought of a metaphor for my theory. The first item is easy to find as you spot it when you enter the sector, but the second sector requires exploring. Imagine if you have to map each sector. And your surv adds to a % of the map explored with each visit. The more surv you have the faster you can map the entire area and spot that second deposit.