Airship Guide

[Nyalia]

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

Have you looked through our collected logs to see if that surveillance idea checks out and/or is supported by the data? We do have quite a lot of data at this point - over a thousand voyages's worth.

I feel that the obfuscating factor with the surveillance and retrieval numbers is that later sectors require more to have the same effect. Like, maybe a Survey or Retrieval of 70 in sector SC01 is the same as a Survey/Retrieval of 80 in SC05. Since each airship tier can be seen as +10 to a stat (I know it's +14, but the -4 to another stat averages the gains to +10), and there are 6 tiers of barrel cost (that's what's used for determining survey times, not the star rating, so I generally use it in calcs instead of the star rating), what if each barrel tier corresponds to a survey/retrieval value? So, adjusted survey/retrieval score = survey/retireval - (barrels*10). So, in sector SC22, a Survey of 90 would be the same as having a Survey of 40 in SC01. With a Survey of 120 in SC22, that would be like having a 70 in SC01.

I don't know if I like those numbers. Even if the basic idea is on the right track, it feels like 10 per barrel is too high. I'll have to run some numbers later...


I can definitely say though that a higher Retrieval rating increases the chance to get higher Retrieval scores, and a higher Survey rating at least correlates with getting a second item more often. I haven't seen any evidence that higher survey means "rarer" items, only second items.

[BonzaiFerroni]

Hey guys! \o/ Just wanted to check in! I know the discussion has started to lessen now that we seem to have discovered all the current content (short of actually knowing what stats do!), although I'm sure there will be plenty more to discuss when new content is released.

Both Nyalia and I might find ourselves having less free time in the near future, although I intend to keep updating the guide as much as possible as more information comes up.

It might be a good idea to move some of the more concrete information in the guide to a wiki, so people would always have an up-to-date source of information as a backup. It seems like the http://ffxiv.consolegameswiki.com/ wiki currently has a more complete article than http://ffxiv.gamerescape.com/. It also has less intrusive ads, which is a big plus. I'll start moving some things there, feel free to help out!

When I started out, a lot of the information I posted came from my own notes, but over time it has changed drastically and I became more of a curator while the main source of information was the community. I'm going to continue to fill that role here, but a direct source like a wiki would be great to have in addition.

Also, if anyone is interested in making their own guide, feel free to use any/all of the information in my guide! (You might want to check with Nyalia to use hers) Just share a link with us so I can put it in my community resources section. As far as I am concerned, the more good sources of information we have out there, the better! \o/

And of course this will always be a great place to come and discuss airships and share your discoveries. I'm looking forward to the next round of airship content, it is going to be amazing :D