Airship Guide

[LauphinFaux]

After wayyyy more work than I expected it to be, I've finalized the Time calculation! The prior-posted calculation works fairly well for close zones, but it starts to break down at multiple legs and at higher distances.

Total Time (minutes) = (1150*(sum-of-Distances) + 540*total#Legs + 12600*(sum-of-Barrels)) / Speed + 720 {the initial 12-hour entry}

It will give you exactly the correct value, if you round each individual component down.

*Note: the # of barrels for SC19+ is listed as 6, but it's calculated as if it were 8. Those sectors take forever!

However! You'll need the exact distances, which are not the ones in-game (which can lead you off by up to 10 minutes per leg). I'm still working on those and will hand them to Neri when completed for completion of the very promising Trip Planner. The only way to avoid having to gather data of multiple Speeds for every possible combination is a large endeavor on its own, so it'll take a bit.

Please look forward to it!

[Nyalia]

Spreadsheet updated with the new time formula. Thanks! I've made it clearer which log entries I was deliberately not moving over to the master log due to errors or incompleteness.


Still trying to find a formula that works in Google Sheets for optimizing a path to four destinations. Can't exactly use Dijkstra's Algorithm for this...

[BonzaiFerroni]

As for the best ship build, I think it really will depend on what you want to do. Just some examples of situations that might influence what parts you decide to use:

• You might have a ship that is dedicated to sector unlocks and is making quick trips to sectors with potential. In that case, the best we can recommend with the present knowledge is a great rigging to reduce time.
• Perhaps you are hunting for dusk leather, there are several sectors in the same area that give a chance to find it. You'll want to make sure you have an adequate hull for visiting as many of these as you can in one trip.
• If it turns out that retrieval does contribute to better retrieval levels and a better sector ratings, you will want to make sure you have the best aftcastle on your ships that are still gaining ranks.
• Maybe you are looking for some gathering/crafting materia. There are certain sectors with a gathering/crafting materia theme. If it turns out that surveillance/favor does contribute to your chances of finding a second item per sector, it might be smart to bring along a good forecastle for trips like this to improve your odds.

With the present content, once you've found all the sectors and leveled up your ships, there doesn't seem to be any other reasons to send airships out besides item gathering, so I'm guessing that will influence players opinions about which parts to bring. Perhaps with future patches, stats will have additional effects! \o/

One thing I'm looking forward to is getting more data that isn't so uniform on stats. As Nyalia has mentioned before, most people have upgraded their ships with the latest parts that become available, which means that most of the stats are fairly similar (multicollinearity). Since the best airship parts go well beyond the capacity to equip all of them at once, we might get more people with varying levels of individual stats. This type of data is a lot more likely to help us answer questions about Surveillance, Favor, and Retrieval. So if you do your own experimenting with advanced parts, be sure to add your data to the spreadsheet! \o/

[Molic]

snip

was gonna post an end-game ship type guide lol

Heres what i thought of for end-game ships if this helps anyone:

(going off of what we think the stats currently effect)

All rank 50:

The Explorer: (Sur 140/ Ret 50/ speed 140/ rng 64 / favor 136)

Hull: Invincible
Rig: Tatanora
Fore: Tatanora
Aft: Branco


The Retriever: (Sur 120/ ret 140 / speed 50 / rng 84 / favor 136)


Hull: Invincible
Rig: Branco
Fore: Tatanora
Aft: Tatanora

The Multi-Target ( surv 50 / ret 136 / speed 64 / rng 136 / favor 50)

Hull: Tatanora
Rig: Invincible
Fore: branco
Aft: Tatanora

Speedster ( sur 50 / ret 120 / speed 120 / rng 64 / favor 66)

Hull: Branco
Rig: Tatanora
Fore: Invicible
Aft: Tatanora



These were the most useful builds i thought of for endgame voyages, if people have other stuff or want to change these go ahead!

[Aeyis]

snip

Those last 2 builds arent viable for the higher sectors as those require 90 surv. Otherwise I agree with the general builds.

[LauphinFaux]

I generally avoided Bronco in my planning and designed a set that just utilized every part I'd already built, while maximizing the ship's total possible capacity. It provided a good variety of ships, and then your mileage can vary, depending on what you've built. No sense in having a bunch of useless parts left over.

[marewa]

Nice thread and guide team.

So i unlocked Invincible type parts, Would me upgrading all the Bronco type parts to Invincible be a no-no or?

Also, how do i use the Trip Planner?

[Arcticharm]

Nice thread and guide team.

So i unlocked Invincible type parts, Would me upgrading all the Bronco type parts to Invincible be a no-no or?

Also, how do i use the Trip Planner?

You will definitely want to upgrade ship parts whenever your rank/capacity allows (as well as your ability to buy or create the parts) Be aware that you don't lose any of your previous components, you just switch them out; so the old bronco parts can be used for your next airship when the time comes. As for the trip planner, it's still a work in progress but getting better all the time. I think there are instructions on the sheet for doing up to 3 sectors.

[Nyalia]

Nice thread and guide team.

So i unlocked Invincible type parts, Would me upgrading all the Bronco type parts to Invincible be a no-no or?

Also, how do i use the Trip Planner?

Remember that each Invincible part costs 6 airframe capacity, and you only have (ship rank)+11 capacity to work with. Bronco parts use 3 airframe capacity, so an all Bronco rank 1 ship is at 12 out of 12 capacity. You can't use Invincible parts at all until your ship is rank 5, even though you have enough capacity at rank 4. If your ship is rank 13, you can have an all-Invincible ship.

Invincible parts are nice, and you can't use Enterprise parts until rank 15. They're a good upgrade from 5-15, and even then, at 15, the best you can do is Bronco, Invincblex2, Enterprise. You won't be able to run a second Enterprise part until 17, and that's with dropping down to double Bronco for the other two bits. So, yeah - Invincible isn't a bad choice. I find it helpful to have at least one of each part so you can fine tune your ship later.



Spreadsheet update: To speed up access, reduce load, and provide a place people can enter logs when the main sheet is down, I've split the sheet into three sheets. The main one will not have any analysis running on it, and it will not have features in transitory stages anymore. There are two new sheets:

FFXIV Airship Logs - Quick Reference
The Quick Reference sheet is supposed to be easy to read and easy to use. It does not have a copy of the voyage logs and contains no dynamic data. It has a static version of the sector list which incorporates extrapolated data and data reported elsewhere to make a solid table of item drops. The distances were moved to the end for that sheet. It has the ship builder and trip planner. At the end is a backup public logs tab for when the main sheet is down. I will not be checking this tab nearly as often as the other, but I will still check it and update the master list from it.

FFXIV Airship Logs - Analysis
This sheet will be used by myself, Bonzai, and anyone else who wants to do calculations on the data. When someone wants to do a fresh calc, we'll update the sheet with a current copy of the master voyage log. Honestly, this sheet isn't terribly interesting unless you're doing calculations with it as we'll report any findings here. If you want edit access, please ask in a way that tells me your google account name and I'll give it to you.

[BonzaiFerroni]

Awesome! I've updated the links in the OP to reflect those changes! \o|