Quote Originally Posted by BonzaiFerroni View Post
Introduction
What does each stat influence? Speed and range seem simple enough, but what about retrieval, surveillance, and favor?
I believe that I have an idea of what Retrieval and Surveillance do, how they differ. By looking at the Voyage Log after a journey, going from top to bottom, it seems as though the surveillance skill is used first. After the log considers the skill, it finds something. Following that, the retrieval skill is used and a yield of the item that was found is gathered.

So, in conclusion, I think surveillance decides what item your airship will find and retrieval decides how much you will yield.