Quote Originally Posted by Super_Bee_Brian View Post
What do I do with a workshop that'll net me millions of gil?
The end goal is to use the workshop to create items to then sell on the marketboard to people who either don't have a workshop/can't make themselves or simply don't want to because of the effort involved. You're also going to need at least one level ~70 omnicrafter in your FC to be able to actually make all the parts going into the machine, although they may not be happy doing it solo as it is a lot of work. Not all items require 70, but it will limit what you can/can't make so what I'm describing is basically worst case scenario.

However, even with the workshop unlocked and an omnicrafter ready, I'm afraid it's not quite that simple as you have to unlock the blueprints (crafting recipies) to be able to even start making the items. To do this you have to build airship/submersibles (I'll just refer to them both as vehicles) and and send them out on missions to get them to bring back items used to unlock the blueprints which will also include better designs of vehicles. The blueprint board in the workshop will show you what you need to unlock each recipe so you can prioritise the unlocking as you see fit. They essentially are like retainer ventures in that you send them out on specific missions, but with all things XIV there is certain amount of RNG as to what they actually bring you back.

The basic vehicle designs are already unlocked so you can build one of each and as you progress you can have up to four of each, although you can only use a maximum of four at a time so there's not really much point in building the full eight unless you intend to swap them around a lot. As others have mentioned you have to have a party of 4 crafters to actually use the workshop, but 3 of them can be level 1. The person handing things in though must be the correct crafting level for the items in question. For airships that's going to be ~60 omnicrafter and submersibles they'll need to be ~70. You can buy premade vehicle parts on the marketboard, but if you're doing that then you're probably not going to be crafting the items to actually sell them in the end.

Here are some helpful threads on airships and submersibles so you can see what you can get in each zone as well as useful information/how they work (there's a lot to read!)

Airships: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-Airship-Guide
Submersibles: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...rmation-Thread

It's also possible to get "rare" items from vehicles that can be sold on the marketboard, although personally I've found that these are nothing like as profitable as they used to be, probably because they're not so rare any more and a lot of people have vehicles up and running.

Example of items you can make/sell:

Carbuncle [Cottage/House/Mansion] Walls
[Small/Medium/Large] Shirogane Castle Walls

You can also use the workshop to generate company actions via an Aetherial Wheel (although you can buy grade 2 actions with FC points, grade 3 actions can only be made in the workshop). This may/may not be of interest to you, but if you want to save FC points (which you'll need for fuel for the vehicles...) then this is an option.

I can't stress enough though that they're not simple/quick to make and unless you have a team of crafters/gatherers, they're more like short term projects due to amount of parts required (especially the larges...)

Sorry if I've not made a lot of sense, I'm not the best at explaining things. But I definitely think you should look at unlocking the workshop when possible, if only as a long term project. If you ever move house it will also move with you, including all airships and submersibles that you've created (it didn't use to so any information you see about losing this is now out of date).