Airship Guide

[Jxnibbles]

Our Fc airship is currently rank 30 and we are trying to unlock secotr 7, 8,9,10
Enteprise Hull, Forecastle, aftcastle
invicible Propllers
We really want our second airship.
Should I just be using our airship to go to sector 2 and then 5 and hope 7 is unlocked?
Does the sector order in which your airships go even matter could we send ours to sector 5 and then 11?

[ZeroBoss]

Sector 21! It looks its unlocked from Sector 20 (a guy posted it on Reddit).

[Aeyis]

Sector 21! It looks its unlocked from Sector 20 (a guy posted it on Reddit).

Great. So I've now moved up to being a whole 9 sectors (and 2 AS) behind. Woot :P

Our Fc airship is currently rank 30 and we are trying to unlock secotr 7, 8,9,10
Enteprise Hull, Forecastle, aftcastle
invicible Propllers
We really want our second airship.
Should I just be using our airship to go to sector 2 and then 5 and hope 7 is unlocked?
Does the sector order in which your airships go even matter could we send ours to sector 5 and then 11?

Sector sequence is not a straight up requirement. It might be possible that it affects it, but such is as of yet unknown. The only constant (and factor) we have been able to identify is that each sector requires a trip to a specific other sector, which unlocks it (if your lucky).

The OP has the sectors listed that are required for unlocking.

[Nyalia]

Spreadsheet updates:

First, please keep ship names work-safe. I do sometimes access the spreadsheet at work, and there are likely others who do too. Thank you.


I was totally wrong with the idea that Survey affects survey time. I misread some data I had. Sorry! I still have no idea what Survey does. It might determine if you find a second item, or it might just be a stat that does nothing until rank 50, and then it has to be a specific value to visit endgame sectors? If you think about it, Favor and Survey are linked and clearly have less of an effect together than every other stat. When you upgrade one, you get the other for free, and with no penalty unlike all other stats (all of which come with some penalty to another stat). So, it wouldn't surprise me if Survey and Favor did very little relative to the rest. Favor appears to be directly correlated with higher exp bonuses. Survey is definitely required for later sectors. When we have more data, I'll do a second item comparison and see if there's any correlation there.


If anyone cares, here's the actual formula for how long a trip takes:

TotalTime = TravelTime + SurveyTime

TravelTime (in hours) = (21/speed)*TotalDistance
SurveyTime (in hours) = (21/speed)*10*TotalCeruleumBarrels

TotalDistance is the sum of the distances for each leg of the trip. It does not include the "Survey Distance" of 13 per hop.

The SurveyTime is clear when using a ship with a speed of 70 - the sectors that cost 1 fuel all take 3 hours exactly to survey, ones that take 2 fuel all take 6 hours exactly to survey, and so on. If you select a location that's exactly 10 from home (SC05), the travel and survey times are VERY close (except not exact because the distance isn't actually exactly 10).

Keep in mind when using this formula that the distance between two points on the map is NOT an integer! The value shown is rounded, but the actual value the game uses is definitely a decimal. So, it may show like, "10" and actually mean "9.78" or whatnot. So, the above formula will give an approximation if you use the rounded values, not an exact one. At some point, I'll do the math and replace all the distances in my chart on the spreadsheet with the actual precise values, just because I'm obsessive like that xD


I've added to the spreadsheet a tab where you can mark one or two sectors that you want to travel to, and it'll tell you how much time it would cost to add another, not to the end, but to the optimal point in the trip. It'll also show you the optimal order in which you should visit the sectors. Currently, it only works with up to 3 sectors. If you select three, it won't show the costs of adding a fourth, and if you select four or five, the optimal order functionality breaks.

Still working on a concise, variableless formula to determine the shortest path between four points. (Three was easy - the best middle point is the one that minimizes the formula (distance from PointX to PointA + distance from PointX to PointB + minimum(distance from Home to PointA, distance from Home to PointB)), and the best first point was the remaining one with the lower distance from Home to that point. The complexity goes up when you include a fourth point, and I'm having issues making the formula work without variables. But, that's the fun of functional programming!)


The sheet still doesn't have a spot to travel 5-point journeys. I'll add that soon, but in the meantime, just put your 5th leg on a new line with an indication that that's what it is. Given how rarely people hit four points, I don't think that there will be very many anyway.

[Mandoska-Beauregard]

Hello explorer's !

For 3 days now, my FC try to discovery the gold sector 16 with explorating the sector 12 without succes.
I have looking the first page so i need to explorating the sector 12 for discovery the sector 16 right ?

[Aeyis]

Hello explorer's !

For 3 days now, my FC try to discovery the gold sector 16 with explorating the sector 12 without succes.
I have looking the first page so i need to explorating the sector 12 for discovery the sector 16 right ?

If its in the OP it should be correct.

Consider yourself lucky tho. I've only found 1 sector in 4 weeks, despite visiting the right sectors.
3 Days is nothing!

[Nyalia]

Hello explorer's !

For 3 days now, my FC try to discovery the gold sector 16 with explorating the sector 12 without succes.
I have looking the first page so i need to explorating the sector 12 for discovery the sector 16 right ?

It took some of us over a week to find sector 8 despite sending our ships to sector 7 every day. So, yeah, SC12 is right for finding SC16, but we have not yet determined if there's anything to help you find the sector easier. It seems like pure RNG to us so far.

[Aeyis]

I was thinking of the housing system and its prices being based on amounts set on each specific server. I don't know. Just trying to figure out how its possible that some people discover them back to back, when others can go weeks without seeing a new sector.


If it's truly just RNG that really goes to show just how big the SD of their system is..way too big.

[BonzaiFerroni]

If anyone cares, here's the actual formula for how long a trip takes...

So interesting, thank you for exploring that question in depth! \o/ I've added a link to your excellent write-up in the OP.

Hey, in relation to FC crafting, has anyone else noticed that when you finish phase 1 or phase 2, the quality shown drops from whatever it was out of 100 to 0/100 when the advance option is given?

I'm about 5 pages behind in the thread (I want to read every post ;D) so maybe this has already been addressed, but I've always interpreted that 0/100 as being the progress on the next phase (the one you will advance to), rather than the one you are currently on. I've always found it a tad annoying because you don't get to see the currently quality status before advancing if the hand-in window has already been closed XD

Is this true about the HQ items? I thought that they had a chance to give a higher quality increase but could still give normal or no quality increase. Is it really just tied to item level?

It's quite true, HQ will not influence your gains! We spent some time turning in both HQ and NQ and found that the average gains were nearly identical. In addition, item level does nothing to influence your score. You have the same chance to increase quality turning in iron ingots as you do garlond steel

The actual gains are influenced by the number of hand-ins possible for a given phase. For example, if you get Outstanding or Excellent progress, your gains during that phase will actually be higher to compensate for the fewer amount of hand-ins available. You'll also notice this difference during phases that require 5-6 items rather than 4, you'll see smaller gains to compensate for the increased number of chances.

There seem to be four different possibilities, none, low, medium, and high. On a typical phase (4 items, 3 handins per item, 12 total chances to increase quality), they have the following values:

none: 0 points
low: 6 points
med: 12 points
high: 18 points

I really love this guide! Thanks for all the hard work putting it together. I don't know if its been reported yet but I got Far Eastern Coins from sector 16

Much appreciated! \o/ And i've added your report to the table!

i also go ta Far Eastern Coin from sector 3

That empty cell in the table has been bugging me for a long time, thank you for the update!

Also, so far, only one sector has dropped more than 2 types of Materia (SC07 with all three Grade 3 crafting materia). All the other sectors only drop two different types (though any that drop a IV can drop the III of that type as well). Each sector also has only 2 types of crystals, with some one-off outliers that might be typos (wind and water crystals are easy to mix up due to Google Doc's autocorrect, and Ice and Water share an icon).

I appreciate that analysis very much. Let me know if you come to any conclusions about inaccuracies in the table in the OP, I can adjust. I've tried to share those google drawings docs with you in case you felt like making edits yourself but I don't have your email address.

Oh thank you Aeyis, it was exactly that. i didn't saw the message on the log but i was able to register the 3rd airship

Oh good to hear! It actually seems like unlocking airships is not like unlocking sectors, and that there is a 100% chance upon visiting the sector the first time. Let me know if anyone observes differently.

See? I knew Nyalia would have some form of solution planned

Yep, she's amazing XD We are lucky to have her managing our data!

[Aeyis]

My current thesis is that its linked to the amount of people discovering/having discovered sectors on your server. Or its population. Or something.
Probably something. Maybe.


Nyalia, is there any correlation between sectors being discovered and the amount of sectors visited in the total trip? Unfortunately we can't check range yet.