Airship Guide

[Imagerror]

Is it just me or is sending ships to 1 sector now result in a rather... slim result?
Have tested it and at least since 3.1 the results we got back from our Materia [6-13-16] Route have been rather dull.
(90xCrystals at best, 6xLogs and worse)



Sector 22-23-24 however seem to bring back Silk and Node without change?

[Hailvery]

After 3 try got one ! Sending my fleet to find more ...

[Nyalia]

From what I've been able to tell, for every item and retrieval score, there's a range of values you can get as far as the number of items obtained. This is modified by the sector number as well - the later sectors drop more than the earlier sectors for the same item and retrieval score. I'm not sure if it's the sector number, the number of stars for the sector, or the number of ceruleum barrels that matters for that part (it could be any of those three). This does not mean that a score of "Normal" will always give less than a score of "High" - the ranges overlap, so you can get like 10 of an item from a Normal yield, but only 9 from a High yield. On average, higher scores mean more items.

From what I've seen, Iron Voyage Spoils from SC24 have the following yield ranges:
Low: 1 (is this Disappointing, or is Disappointing even lower than Low?)
Sub-normal: 1
Normal: 1
High: 1
Optimal: 1-2


The letter score is, theoretically, a general evaluation of how well your ship did on the last sector visited. My datamining way earlier in this thread proves that. Because only the last sector is used, I tend to think that each sector gets a letter grade, but the game only shows you the last one due to a last-minute design change to the screen (or the UI folks didn't talk to the mechanics programmers). Regardless, in practice, the letter grade really has little to do with how well your ship did. Instead, the grade is based almost entirely on your Favor stat and has nothing to do with how many items you obtained or whatnot. If you look carefully at a bunch of logs, you'll notice that your letter grade is always either equal to or one higher than the exp bonus rating for the last sector the ship visited. So, if it says your last sector was "abysmal," you will only ever get a C or B grade. If it was "substandard," you'll either get a B or A grade. "satisfactory" means A or S, "decent" means S or SS, and "outstanding" always gives SS. Your rating was "outstanding" and it was the last sector you visited, so you got an SS grade. If you look at the screenshot just above this post, they reported an "abysmal" rating in their last sector and were given a B grade.

In other words, the letters are totally meaningless and misleading. Ignore them.

[Nyalia]

There is no correlation that I've ever seen between Retrieval stats or scores and the rarity of items obtained. Combined with what I posted above about the drop rates of Iron Voyage Spoils, I feel that the best ship for farming the Iron Voyage Spoils is one with the highest speed and lowest Retrieval. Surveillance isn't bad either, which increases the chance of getting two items. Sure, you could aim for Optimal scores, which give you a chance at getting 2 at once, but wouldn't you rather have a ship that can do two trips in the time it takes the other ship to do one? More trips means more chances of getting the drop you want. But, there's no real reason to hit any other sectors if all you want are the mounts, so you don't need much hull. So, I'd go with one of these two ships for farming spoils:

The Monster Hunter - Maximum Speed, high Survey, low Hull, minimum Retrieval

This ship is designed specifically for hitting SC24 as often as possible, maximizing the chance of getting Iron Voyage Spoils (ie: Zu Mounts). Drop rates for these items are 1-2 for Optimal yields, and 1 for all other yields, so getting a "disappointing" yield is only slightly worse than an "optimal" yield. This makes the Retrieval stat nearly useless for obtaining them. Hitting just SC24 should take about 26 hours and 23 minutes. This version of the ship has a little more Range, allowing it to also hit one other sector from this list if desired: SC01 (adds 1h35), SC02 (adds 1h58), SC05 (adds 2h43), SC06 (adds 2h57), SC07 (adds 3h12), SC08 (adds 4h12), SC09 (adds 4h05).

• Hull: Invincible
• Rigging: Viltgance
• Forecastle: Odyssey
• Aftcastle: Bronco

• Survey: 126
• Retrieve: 46
• Speed: 154
• Range: 60
• Favor: 122

The Monster Trainer - Near maximum Speed, high Survey, low Retrieval, minimum Hull

This ship is designed specifically for hitting SC24 as often as possible, maximizing the chance of getting Iron Voyage Spoils (ie: Zu Mounts). Drop rates for these items are 1-2 for Optimal yields, and 1 for all other yields, so getting a "disappointing" yield is only slightly worse than an "optimal" yield. This makes the Retrieval stat nearly useless for obtaining them. Hitting just SC24 should take about 26 hours and 46 minutes. This version of the ship has a little more Retrieval, allowing it to obtain more items on average when you fail to get Iron Voyage Spoils. It also has very slightly less Speed and Surveillance.

• Hull: Bronco
• Rigging: Viltgance
• Forecastle: Odyssey
• Aftcastle: Invincible

• Survey: 122
• Retrieve: 60
• Speed: 150
• Range: 46
• Favor: 126

These have been added to the third post.

Hopefully sometime soon, we'll get a bit more Rank, allowing for a Tatanora or Viltgance piece to be used alongside another Viltgance piece. Right now, using a single Viltgance limits all other pieces to Odyssey or lower.

[Suirieko]

[alimdia]

Just today I was considering ditching all materia sectors since it seems like a huge waste of time for the 2-3 days it takes, and focus 100% on mounts.

If I end up going with this plan I'll probably pick your Monster Hunter build for all airships.

[Proxie]

The Monster Trainer - Near maximum Speed, high Survey, low Retrieval, minimum Hull
Hitting just SC24 should take about 26 hours and 46 minutes.

As far as I remember it's 26 hours and 53 minutes =) Not that it really matters

[Waeksyn]

I'm not having very much luck opening the new sectors (23 and 24). 0/6 in sector 19 to open 23, 0/9 in sector 21 to open 24.

My 4 airships are:

Survey / Retrieve / Speed / Range / Favour

1: 120 / 140 / 050 / 084 / 136
2: 110 / 122 7 068 / 094 / 118
3: 100 / 104 / 086 / 104 / 100
4: 090 / 086 / 104 / 114 / 082

Any hints? I've been sending ships 2 and 4 to sector 21, ship 3 to 19. I have all other zones open BUT have not visited Sector 22 yet if that makes a difference.

FYI, Ship 1 is a beast at low level farming. I've been sending it to sector 3 to farm TIII crafting materia and it returns with between 20 and 40 materia or between 30 and 60 Moko grass each time. Single sector, once per day (about 23 hours).

My goal is to open the new zones, get myself a Zu mount then shift back to crafting materia farming. Since the update, I've had zero Tier IV crafting materia. Not sure if that was nerfed.

I can alter my ship configs but it takes some time to craft the airship parts as mine is a solo FC. Right now, I took the easy way out to minimize the amount of parts constructed as per the original post's suggestions for 4 ships that avoid duplication of parts.

[Jeykama]

I'm not having very much luck opening the new sectors (23 and 24). 0/6 in sector 19 to open 23, 0/9 in sector 21 to open 24.

My ships took a week or to unlock, but I set them to ~80 range (what you need to hit both 19 and 21) and the highest speed of what parts I had available. That way I'd be getting 2 hits every 3 days or so for each ship.

I too haven't really been getting much in the way of materia (Command III from S23 come on...) but maybe once we've gotten our fill of Zus I'll check out materia farming again.

[Imagerror]

I am a firm believer that they did change something within the system. Prior to 3.2 I was obtaining materia regularly from all of my airship builds but now I am only regularly obtaining materia from 1 of my 4 builds. The rest are usually just bringing me branches

Here are my 4 builds...

Build 1: Hull: Invincible-II, Rigging: Enterprise, Forecastle: Invincible-II, Aftcastle: Invincible-II


Build 2: Hull: Odyssey, Rigging: Invincible-II, Forecastle: Enterprise, Aftcastle: Enterprise


Build 3: Hull: Invincible, Rigging: Invincible, Forecastle: Tatanora, Aftcastle: Odyssey


Build 4: Hull: Enterprise, Rigging: Bronco, Forecastle: Odyssey, Aftcastle: Tatanora


I have 32 airships regularly running ventures -- 8 of them per build. Here is a summary of my experience since 3.2:

• The 8 airships I have running with Build 1 rarely ever bring in Materia. These airships will almost always just bring me branches and junk materials.
• The 8 airships I have running with Build 2 are no better off than the 8 running Build 1.
• The 8 airships I have running with Build 3 are beating out all the rest in loot. These airships almost always return with a V materia and often bring in 20+ IV materia just like the rest were prior to 3.2.
• The 8 airships I have running with Build 4 are the 'meh' airships. These occasionally bring back IV and V materia but it is still fairly rare. Ironically this was my best build prior to 3.2

The Build 3 airships have been doing so much better than my 1, 2, and 4 airships that I have actually begun the process of replicating the build across my entire fleet!

I am curious what others thoughts are

After looking over your build i noticed that ours are pretty much outdated,
guess once the workshop is operational again i will build newer ones.

Though Im suprised since the Airship3 - except for the Range - should make an S rank in Sector 24.
And comparing the STATS with your build, i dont see much of a difference in stats.
we decided to give our airships slow speed (3days around per turn) so I can farm enough mats for repairs and such.


Airship 1: S.S. Enterprise
She barely leaves the hanger these days,
we use her to go into diadem and thats basicly it.

bronco - invincible 2 - tatanora - bronco
Surveillance: 140
Retreival: 58
Speed: 112
Range: 58
Favor: 140


Airship2: The T.A.R.D.I.S.
We used her to scout ahead and maybe get 1 or 2 sectors
for - back then - high valued mats

inc2 - inc - inc2 - inc2
Surveillance: 100
Retreival: 108
Speed: 72
Range: 108
Favor: 100
(Brought us decent Tier4 Materia and high value mats all the time, now.. barely anything except crystals)



Airship 3: fAIRy FORCE ONE
just like our leader a bit slow and lazy sometimes,
but ambitious and motivated enough to get the job done

inc - bronco - tatanora - tatanora
Surveillance: 120
Retreival: 140
Speed: 50
Range: 84
Favor: 136
(Brought us decent Tier4 Materia and high value mats all the time, now.. barely T3 crafting mats)

A Rank last trip :
Fire Crystalx80
Empty Clusterx9
Savage Aim Materia IIIx21


Airship 4: S.S. SuperNova
like the two above, we mainly used her to farm materials andto build items in our FC Workshop,
to search for new sectors. We got also nice stacks of Tier4 Materia before 3.2 -- now shes solo sectoring around.

tatanora - bronco - inc - inc
Surveillance: 80
Retreival: 84
Speed: 66
Range: 140
Favor: 64