Airship Guide

[BonzaiFerroni]

It's not as simple as having a better forecastle helps. After our ships 5th orso trip to sector 07 we finally found sector 10, and we have had enterprise - invincible II forecastle for all trips.

Yeah, it is definitely not that simple. In fact, I don't think it is a simple as any one thing, it almost seems certain now that rng is involved. So many different theories have been tested, everything from what type of weather you get to what path you took to the unlocking sector. Although many people unlocked the sector after an adjustment of some type, it wasn't clear if any specific thing helped.

As for the forecastle, I think the main thing driving the theory is the theory itself XD Let's suppose that RNG is a factor. Some people have had trouble finding it, and so they get the recommendation to upgrade the forecastle. On the next trip, they find the sector \o/ this leads everyone to believe that the forecastle helped, when it isn't clear if it really had anything to do with it. The flipside is also true. Let's suppose that RNG and the forecastle are important, that the forecastle improves your odds but does not guarantee. Eventually you will find outliers who had an excellent forecastle and still really bad luck with finding a sector. This leads everyone to believe that the forecastle isn't important, when it actually does contribute.

If RNG adds a bit of "variance" to whether or not the forecastle (or anything) helps, we may not ever know how much without SE just telling us. The stats test that we would use is the chi-square test and we would need a ridiculously high sample size to test when there is this much variance. People can only discover a given sector once, so it isn't easy to gather data, and no matter what the results will be skewed (i'm actually thinking this fact would violate the assumptions of the chi-squared test, any stats experts out there care to comment?)

Either way, it may be a long time coming! I don't think it hurts to recommend the forecastle in the meantime, it gives people something to try. I just try to be sure in my guide that people know that we really don't know. XD

My experimental airship might help in this too. If I get all the way to the upper level sectors on just a bronco forecastle.... I think that would lend some support against the forecastle notion

Edit: if any part is guaranteed to help at least somewhat with sector discovery, it is actually the rigging! more trips in the same amount of time