Airship Guide

[Malus_Odius]

Gath Guile IV's from sector 22

[Eldeniel]

Little question here. So we've reached rank 50 with our aircraft and we have built the Odyssee Part so far (Aircraft V), but apparently we cannot put more than on piece of these new parts. This is so boring...

Can someone confirm me that ?

[Katlyna]

So one thing I don't see an analysis on is airship Repairs. What are peoples observations on this? For instance there is the message: "Additional anomalies detected. However, airship condition found insufficient for further exploration." Does this message occur more often when the airship repair condition is say "50% or less.

Personally I've been testing this with our airship and I am starting to suspect something along the lines of every X% of airship part condition missing (on average or maybe even per part) increases the chances of this state occurring. I've only begun to test this theory. Up until recently I was repairing all airships near 50% condition and this seemed to net more SS, S and A rank runs. And less occurrences of "Additional anomalies detected. However, airship condition found insufficient for further exploration."

Now I've started letting my airships reach 0% condition and this seems to net more B and C runs once airship condition is at/below 50%.

---

With the above said I have not gone to the level of seeing if this is an observation or if its scientific (recording everything down exactly).

Do any others have any thoughts on airship repairs and when you choose to do them?

[TechnoTechie]

So one thing I don't see an analysis on is airship Repairs. What are peoples observations on this?

Up until recently I was repairing all airships near 50% condition and this seemed to net more SS, S and A rank runs. And less occurrences of "Additional anomalies detected. However, airship condition found insufficient for further exploration."

Now I've started letting my airships reach 0% condition and this seems to net more B and C runs once airship condition is at/below 50%.

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.

[Katlyna]

I seem to notice more SS/S/A when I upgrade our airship's stats, and less as the airships get to higher sectors.

See that's the other part of the issue As the airship goes to higher sectors factors are changing too (in theory). I may dedicate one of our airships to this theory when our third airship hits 50 I think.

[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.

[BonzaiFerroni]

Personally I've been testing this with our airship and I am starting to suspect something along the lines of every X% of airship part condition missing (on average or maybe even per part) increases the chances of this state occurring. I've only begun to test this theory. Up until recently I was repairing all airships near 50% condition and this seemed to net more SS, S and A rank runs. And less occurrences of "Additional anomalies detected. However, airship condition found insufficient for further exploration."

I think in-depth analysis of this question would be a great thing! I think the progression that most of us take is that we start out repairing our airship fully even when it has about 60% durability left. Then as you get to the higher level parts you start to run out of materials, and since it takes the same amount of materials at 0% as it does at 80%, you start to be more conservative. You also notice that you are still getting high ratings sometimes and discovering sectors, which feels convincing enough to rule out repair condition for yourself.

Still, I will always prefer a systematic analysis to anecdotal first-hand experience. If you explore this question, let us know what you find.

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.

Let me run an idea by you and see if it might hold some water. I wonder if the game determines the quantity of items first (using a base number, RNG, and retrieval as factors) and then assigns a rating based on that quantity (using cutoffs). Sometimes the difference between Invincible and Enterprise parts would be enough to push it past the cutoff and then sometimes it would merely just be higher but within the same cutoff. If that were the case, we would need to see a higher magnitude of difference between parts to really notice consistent differences in ratings. Hopefully as people get more creative with their endgame parts we might see this!

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

It is far from confirmed, at least as far as I am aware. It was originally asserted in the guide, but I also gave my rationale, which boils down to this: The three voyages after I upgraded aftcastle got A ratings, where I was mostly getting C before. The language in the voyage log seemed to support the idea that the retrieval stat boosts retrieval ratings, and retrieval ratings directly influence sector and voyage ratings. I wrote the guide just a couple weeks after the expansion, so we hadn't had time to gather much data. Thanks to Nyalia's spreadsheet, we have tons of data now \o/ We can really put these claims to the test.

Another issue, it now seems really likely that higher level sectors have more "difficulty" when it comes to retrieval, so even if you stay current with the latest parts, you will still see lower ratings as you visit more difficult sectors. So a correlation may not be obvious until that factor becomes more constant.

I've done it mister, but there is no indications about the airframe capacity after the lvl 50, no mentions of the last parts of the airship at all.

It is a really good point, I should definitely add something about this! (Edit: done!)

[Katlyna]

Also has anyone else had SS runs? I didn't see any in the spreadsheet? And is there a way to copy the text of voyage logs?

[Nyalia]

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.

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. Damaged crafting gear doesn't decrease the number of Goods you get or anything. It's all all-or-nothing. 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.

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.

[Shadowsun]

High retrieval stat got me 9 dusk leather in one go O: yay tabards