FINE ALUMEN and more Questions

[BelindaBrightwell]

First off, are Airship Voyages the only way to get fine alumen? If they are, then is there a decent strategy and/or airship build for obtaining them? Finally, is there any reason to use Viltgance parts? Ours have just been gathering dust in the FC chest for years. Guessing I'm not the only one with these questions. Hoping someone will take pity on me and share what they know. Thanks!

[Jojoya]

Occasionally Fine Alumen or some of the items made with it will be added to Quick Venture loot tables (Cashmere Hood and Slops appear to be rare drops on the loot table atm if you want to try getting it through desynthesis). Otherwise it's airship only.

I found a link to an old spreadsheet in the Sub Builders discord based on data collected by the JP community prior to submersibles being added. It shows Fine Alumen being part of the tier 2 and tier 3 loot tables for Sector 4, with very rare chance to drop from sectors 7 and 13 (ie not worth trying to farm those Sectors unless they're dropping other items you also want). Keep in mind that's old information. After submersibles were added, most of the airship theorycrafting stopped. The community is fairly certain there were some tweaks made to the loot tables.

For Sector 4, minimum recommended numbers I'm seeing are 54 Surveillance, 64 Retrieval, 46 Favor though higher is always better to increase loot yield.

Most posted builds for airships revolve around obtaining Iron Voyage Spoils, which may not be the best for farming Fine Alumen (not seeing any builds that mention it). I don't know if anyone else there has a better build for Fine Alumen to share.