Airship Guide

[TechnoTechie]

So, I was looking into the ratings, and I do have to say that the last sector's rating strongly correlates with the overall rating. If your final sector's rating is Abysmal, you'll usually get a C. If your last sector is Substandard, you'll usually get a B. Satisfactory usually gets you an A, Decent usually an S, and I assume Outstanding would usually get you an SS, but we have none of those in the log.

There are 135 log entries where the final sector is Abysmal, and the rating was a C.
There are only 3 C ratings where the last sector was anything else (2 substandards, 1 satisfactory).

There are 173 log entries where the final sector is Substandard and the rating was a B, and only 2 log entries that were Bs but had Satisfactory or better ratings (both Satisfactory).
But, there are 105 entires where the final sector is Abysmal and the rating was a B. Still, the majority of Bs are Substandard for the final sector, and the majority of cases where the final sector is Substandard, the rating is a B.

For As, there are 196 As ending in Satisfactories, and 0 with final sector ratings above that level.
But, there are 24 with final sector ratings below that level, 22 of which are Substandard (and 2 of which are Abysmal).

For Ss, there are 31 where the last sector is Decent, and 0 where the last sector is Outstanding.
However, for S ratings, there are also 16 final sector Satisfactories, and 1 Substandard (0 Abysmal).

We have no SS entries logged.


The 1s and 2s can be dropped due to logging errors, and issues with the earliest version of the spreadsheet (which lacked S and SS, but had the rating as a required field). The rest tells me that your overall rating has a good chance chance of being equal to final sector rating (translated from words to grades), and a small chance of being one step higher than your final sector rating. Only Abysmal finals are likely to upgrade to Bs (44% chance), Substandards only have an 11% chance to upgrade to As, and Satisfactories have a 7.5% chance to upgrade to Ss.

Of course, this is all looking at correlation, which does not always mean causation. It could just be that both sector rating and final score are determined off the same stat (I still think its Favor), and the difficulty rating of the final sector is the only one used. This would explain the strong correlation.

For reference, here's my chart:

(final sectors)	C	B	A	S	SS
Abysmal		134	105	2	0	0
Substandard	2	173	22	1	0
Satisfactory	1	2	195	16	0
Decent		0	0	0	31	0
Outstanding	0	0	0	0	0

Could you also check to see of those voyages if the final sector in each is the highest numbered (or at least highest difficulty)?
I don't know about others, but the final sector for most of my voyages tends to be the most difficult, highest numbered, or furthest away, as that decreases the travel time significantly (or allows for that 1 extra trip to a sector) so I was wondering if that (as far as sector difficulty being the final sector, and thus determining the letter grade) might have something to do with it as well.

[Nyalia]

Could you also check to see of those voyages if the final sector in each is the highest numbered (or at least highest difficulty)?
I don't know about others, but the final sector for most of my voyages tends to be the most difficult, highest numbered, or furthest away, as that decreases the travel time significantly (or allows for that 1 extra trip to a sector) so I was wondering if that (as far as sector difficulty being the final sector, and thus determining the letter grade) might have something to do with it as well.

I looked at those too - far, far weaker correlations.

Here's the chart for highest rating:

		C	B	A	S	SS
Abysmal		35	38	1	0	0
Substandard	38	135	19	0	0
Satisfactory	59	97	192	14	0
Decent		5	9	7	33	0
Outstanding	0	1	0	1	0

As you can see, there's practically no correlation for C ratings, weaker correlation for B, and about the same for A and S.

I didn't code the analysis for highest rated sector, but a spot check shows low correlation. Of course there'll be some, since the last sector is often the highest rated, but in the cases where the last sector wasn't the highest rated, the ratings are all over the place for a given grade. Looking at just the B grade runs where the highest numbered sector was not the final sector, the ratings for that sector vary from Abysmal to Satisfactory, with Abysmal being the most common, and Substandard and Satisfactory being pretty close.

Here are a few with non-terminal highest rated sectors, taken arbitrarily from the middle of the list:

B	SC05	Decent		SC02	Satisfactory	SC04	Abysmal
B	SC06	Substandard	SC11	Satisfactory	SC09	Substandard
B	SC10	Abysmal		SC07	Substandard	SC08	Abysmal
B	SC11	Abysmal		SC06	Substandard		
B	SC07	Substandard	SC08	Abysmal		SC05	Substandard
B	SC08	Abysmal		SC07	Substandard	SC06	Substandard
B	SC12	Satisfactory	SC10	Satisfactory	SC08	Substandard
B	SC11	Satisfactory	SC13	Abysmal		SC09	Substandard
B	SC11	Substandard	SC13	Abysmal		SC09	Substandard		
B	SC14	Substandard	SC11	Abysmal		SC13	Satisfactory	SC09	Substandard

[Aeyis]

As far as the grade (were you refering to the individual sector rating or the letter grade?) being affected by the bonus exp, it seems kind of independent from the exp gain if the latest voyage from one of our ships is any indication.

Individual. Altho before it seemed that overall would simply be effected by the amount of bonus exp you got. IE: bonus exp near to base exp = S rank. No bonus exp = C rank. While overall it seems like it has ''some'' relation, theres these weird voyages where you get an A or B and have no bonus at all.


Hmm. Very low retrieval definately seems to effect (sector) rating badly, but it doesnt seem like very high retrieval gives any guarantee of high sector rating.

[Malus_Odius]

Sector 22 - Gatherer's Grasp III (also Deep-blue clusters from last voyage i never got a screenshot though.)

[Nyalia]

Yay! Only three holes left.

[BonzaiFerroni]

Thanks Nyalia, I did an overhaul of the materia column based on that table you posted! It really needed it, I even found a "Craftsman's Confidence" materia in there....

So, I was looking into the ratings, and I do have to say that the last sector's rating strongly correlates with the overall rating.

I've long considered the overall voyage rating to be like an "average" of the sector ratings. It doesn't always come out clean, there have been a few cases where a rating was lower or higher than I expected based on the individual sector ratings. I started to suppose that for each gathering attempt, you roll a retrieval score, and this influences whether you get "high", "optimal", etc. (it may also influence whether you get "Several High-quality"). This variable is continuous and the gathering level reported is ordinal, but the sector rating is based off the continuous variable, so that sometimes a roll on the higher end of "abysmal" might still result in a better sector rating. I'll be the first to admit that is 100% guesswork and 0% actual analysis.

I guess I have a hard time seeing the logic behind weighing the final sector higher in the voyage ratings, unless perhaps it was a trend that the final sector was a higher ranked sector which may pull more weight. I'd say a more plausible reason for the correlation is the average theory, since each sector (including the final sector) contributes to the average, it wouldn't be surprising that the rating on any sector was correlated. But if you are finding that the final sector rating has a much higher correlation with the voyage rating than the other sectors, that would be a surprise.

I just thought of one more reason why the final sector might have a strong correlation that fits with the "average ratings" theory, sometimes people send an airship out on a single mission, especially for sector unlocks. In that case, the final sector would be the *only* sector rating to influence the voyage rating. There would be a similar high weight on two-sector trips, with the weight only decreasing as more legs are added to the voyage.

I wonder, among voyages that have 3 or 4 legs, if the final sector's rating would correlate stronger than the other sectors included in the voyage.


Edit: And Wryx found another sector so we are never going to hear the end of it!

[Wryxian]

first one i get after being away for 6 days "the touch" strikes again

[Yeldir]

You guys and this thread and the wealth of information therein are all amazing.

[Arcticharm]

I guess I have a hard time seeing the logic behind weighing the final sector higher in the voyage ratings, unless perhaps it was a trend that the final sector was a higher ranked sector which may pull more weight. I'd say a more plausible reason for the correlation is the average theory, since each sector (including the final sector) contributes to the average, it wouldn't be surprising that the rating on any sector was correlated. But if you are finding that the final sector rating has a much higher correlation with the voyage rating than the other sectors, that would be a surprise.

Another possible reason that the final sector rating may have a higher correlation might be if we consider the method of "diminishing ship resources" being used throughout the voyage to be true. If a ship has enough "resources" left over to do well on that last sector then it'd have a positive correlating effect on the overall rating.

[Nyalia]

I wonder, among voyages that have 3 or 4 legs, if the final sector's rating would correlate stronger than the other sectors included in the voyage.

Eh, it's about the same as other trips. Against the "average" theory we have all the trips that went satisfactory, satisfactory, satisfactory, abysmal and got a C, and the ones that went abysmal, abysmal, abysmal, decent and got an S.

Out of the trips that had 4 legs, 6 didn't match (overall to final sector) out of 56 such trips. 5 were B rated trips with Abysmal final sectors, and 1 was an S rated trip with a Satisfactory final sector. That S, by the way, was Satisfactory, Substandard, Abysmal, Satisfactory. That averages to a B+, and it got an S. Single voyage Abysmals get Bs fairly often. There are Satisfactory Satisfactory Abysmal trips that are Cs where Abysmal Abysmal Satisfactory trips are As.

Look at these three from the GSS Yoship One:

C	SC11	High		No	63	Ice Crystal	Normal									Abysmal
	SC09	Turbulent	Yes	23	Raw Celestine	High	Turbulent	Yes	59	Raw Celestine	Optimal		Satisfactory
	SC08	Turbulent	No	4	Balsa Wood Lumber	Normal	Turbulent	No	45	Wind Crystal	Normal	Abysmal

S	SC11	Turbulent	Yes	17	Chemically Treated Chimera Hide	Normal							Abysmal
	SC13	High	Yes	28	Chemically Treated Chimera Hide	Optimal	High	No	5	Craftsman's Competence Materia IV	High	Satisfactory
	SC09	No	No	17	Quickarm Materia III	High									Satisfactory

A	SC13	Turbulent	Yes	4	Chemically Treated Chimera Hide	Normal							Abysmal
	SC11	Turbulent	Yes	16	Chemically Treated Chimera Hide	Normal							Abysmal
	SC09	Turbulent	Yes	59	Raw Celestine	Optimal	Turbulent	No	3	Balsa Wood Lumber	Normal	Satisfactory

Abysmal, Satisfactory, Abysmal: C
Abysmal, Satisfactory, Satisfactory: S
Abysmal, Abysmal, Satisfactory: A

This trip from the SS Rubber Ducky:

S	SC07	Turbulent	Yes	2	Deep Blue Crystal	Normal						Abysmal
	SC08	High		No	6	Mind Materia III	Normal						Abysmal
	SC06	No		Yes	11	Deep Green Crystal	High						Decent

Abysmal, Abysmal, Decent: S


Look at these two from The Phoenix:

B	SC05	Turbulent	No	4	Empty Crystal	Normal	Turbulent	Yes	15	Birch Branch	Normal	Abysmal
	SC08	Turbulent	No	38	Wind Crystal	Normal								Abysmal
	SC10	High		No	4	Black Clay	Normal	Turbulent	No	4	Black Clay	Normal	Abysmal

C	SC05	High		No	6	Empty Crystal	High								Satisfactory
	SC08	Turbulent	No	42	Lightning Crystal	Normal							Abysmal
	SC10	Turbulent	Yes	20	Scarlet Sap	Normal								Abysmal

Abysmal, Abysmal, Abysmal: B
Satisfactory, Abysmal, Abysmal: C

Same sectors, only difference is that the first one found more items. That would appear to suggest that more items = better rating, but there are a ton of counter examples (where two second items out of three were found and the final rating upgraded by one from what I would expect, and ones where two second items out of three were found and the final rating did not upgrade)

I mean, look at this one from the Cross-Eyed Crafter:

B	SC09	High	No	60	Lightning Crystal						Abysmal
	SC08	High	No	52	Wind Crystal	Normal						Abysmal

No second items on either trip, both abysmal, and yet a B.


All in all, I still like my theory. The final sector determines the rating, but you have a chance of getting that rating upgraded by one level due to either an unknown factor, or just pure RNG. The final ratings still don't mean anything though.