Airship Guide

[Nyalia]

Bonzai - I edited my first post in this thread with some info. I'll add more later, like ship suggestions.

Also, I've noticed a minor correlation between Survey and second items, but also a minor correlation between sector number and second items, which makes sense. However, it also makes the data hard to gather because as your Survey gets higher, you tend to hit later sectors, flattening out the effects of either change. Also, the Survey requirement of 90 for the later sectors forces the range of values into a smaller band. Also, the all-or-nothing nature of this further obfuscates the data.

I guess we're going to have to, at some point, run a bunch of trips with a ship that has 50 survey and a ship that has 150 survey in some pre-17 sector.

[Dancetwist]

I'm trying to understand one of your tips:

For best efficiency, try to plan longer trips along straight line paths! Side visits only cost a survey range and the distance you move away from the centerline.

I might need the "for dummies" version of this advice!

Sure, you can include it! The most efficient travel routes we've found look something like the Green Route here:

As your Airship moves away from the direct travel 'centerline' shown in black, your overall travel efficiency drops and you end up taking more time / Range to complete the trip! This can be really important if you're trying to make a lot of stops, but usually isn't a big worry if you're just visiting 1-2

[Dancetwist]

How are you determining distances between two sectors? Are you using a table where you calculated every single pair's true distance, or are you using the coords that Lauphin Faux of Sargatanas derived (they're listed in the airship log spreadsheets) along with the distance formula? Are you using Lauphin's time formula?

We just scribbled down a bunch of details from the Flight Control Panel! Once you select a first Sector, highlighting any others will show the time and distance to go between the two based on your current Airship stats

After we piled all those notes together in one place, we named it our 'Captain's Log' since it has all the directions and tells us when we can't do silly trips!

[BonzaiFerroni]

Bonzai - I edited my first post in this thread with some info. I'll add more later, like ship suggestions.

I guess we're going to have to, at some point, run a bunch of trips with a ship that has 50 survey and a ship that has 150 survey in some pre-17 sector.

Looking forward to reading it! \o/ Sent you an email!

As your Airship moves away from the direct travel 'centerline' shown in black, your overall travel efficiency drops and you end up taking more time / Range to complete the trip! This can be really important if you're trying to make a lot of stops, but usually isn't a big worry if you're just visiting 1-2

Wow XD Thank you for the illustration, that really helps! I've added this to the "quick tips" section of the guide. And please share any other insights you and your team come across, it is really great stuff =)

[Molic]

Dunno if you guys are still trying to figure out how to get S ranks, but ive been getting a series of S with 128 surveillance / 58 retrieval in gold tier sectors

[Magistrella]

I guess we're going to have to, at some point, run a bunch of trips with a ship that has 50 survey and a ship that has 150 survey in some pre-17 sector.

Well, just look at the Odysseus Logs - up until 2 days ago she was floating 1-7 with all bronco (70 all). Then i replaced the Forecastle and she went to 98 Survey/Favor Rest 70.

Right after the Swap she got the two full 6 item 3-Sector trips. So Before: 14 Trips with never getting 2 items in all Sectors After: 2 Trips in succession with 6 items from 3 sectors.

I know, still not enough data to conclude anything - she's otw to another 3 SC trip as i type and if she comes back with 6 items again i might start theorizing again what Surveillance and Favor actually do ^^

[Aeyis]

Dunno if you guys are still trying to figure out how to get S ranks, but ive been getting a series of S with 128 surveillance / 58 retrieval in gold tier sectors

Hmm. 20 materias with sub-normal retrieval rates.

[Molic]

Hmm. 20 materias with sub-normal retrieval rates.

Yea, this has happenend a few times, im starting to believe that having high surveillance might increase the minimum and maximum amount of an item you can obtain.

[Loony_BoB]

So I'm starting to plan my "endgame" for my airships, with four different types of airship.

1. Speed - Targeted at getting mats back from any single sector ASAP, at the expense of quality/quantity. Good for basic materials we need quickly, or for repeat journeys to particular islands we want to farm for a rare drop. Quick Exploration venture.
2. Quality of Returns - Targeted at getting the best things at the expense of everything else. Would go to specific islands and we wouldn't care how much we get back or how long it takes - we just want it to be really good stuff, so anything that increases our chances sounds good to me. Field Exploration venture.
3. Quantity of Returns - Targeted at getting large returns back to us from any two sectors in decent time, but not incredibly fast. Good for things we're in no rush for, but need a lot of. Standard venture.
4. Balance - "Jack of all trades, master of none, though ofttimes better than master of one."

And here's what I'm thinking of going with... what do you think?

[MysticSpirit]

So today we obtained S rating from sector 17 and got 15 Toy Box Schema (optimal retrieval) and 7 HQ Red Cluster (several high level retrieval). I might think the retrieval level in logs (normal, sub-normal, high, optimal) have something to do with Rating and exp bonus. I have seen it clearly from our last 20 or so airship voyage.