Airships allow a Free Company (FC) to send out a vessel into various sectors of The Sea of Clouds in search of valuable crafting materials, mounts, and other rare items. While FC airships are no longer being updated, they can still provide great crafting experience for new crafters, boost a FC’s level, or prepare your FC for the newer Submersible expeditions. Ceruleum tanks are needed to send out an airship on a voyage, and the airship parts themselves can be crafted in the FC workshop.
There are four components to an airship – the hull, rigging, forecastle, and aftcastle – all of which provide different stat boosts and banes. The airship’s hull boosts the range stat, allowing you to visit more sectors within a journey but lowers favor. Rigging, on the other hand, provides speed which cuts back the airships journey time while also lowering both range and retrieval stats slightly. The forecastle boosts surveillance and favor stats, which affect the probability of gathering more than one item a sector or discovering a new sector. The forecastle has no bane on stats. Lastly, the aftcastle controls the retrieval stat, which provides a higher probability of rarer rewards, but negatively affects the speed and surveillance stats. Overall, the airship part you’ll want to equip depends on what items you need, so this quick guide lists five different airship builds for your FC’s needs.
5) Max Speed, High Survey, Low Retrieval, and Min Range
An airship with a Bronco style hull
This airship build consists of a Bronco type Hull, Viltgance Aetherwings for the Rigging, Odyssey type Forecastle, and Invincible type Aftcastle. This build is meant to be able to explore sector 24 as quickly as possible in order to farm Iron Voyage Spoils like Zu mounts. While a low retrieval might spawn a few other rewards, if you already have the mounts and are looking for a lot of spoils at once, try the next build.
What's good about this build:
- Good for farming for Zu mounts and other Iron Voyage Spoils in sector 2
- Cuts down on time needed to explore sector 24
- Slight boost in retrieval stats allow for more items when the voyage doesn’t result in Iron Voyage Spoils
4) Max Retrieval, High Survey and Range, Min Speed
This build consists of an Enterprise type Hull, a Bronco sail, Odyssey type Forecastle, and Tatanora type aftcastle. With a high retrieval, survey, and range, this build is meant to reward as many high quality spoils as possible as long as you don’t mind longer expedition times. These higher quality and rarer items are great for FC funding and this airship’s range will allow it to explore more sectors at once.
What’s good about this build:
- Great for funding your FC with a rare and high quality items
- Can explore up to three sectors in one expedition
3) Max Speed, Low Range and Retrieval
If you have little use for the rewards in current sectors and you wish to unlock as many new sectors as quickly as possible then this is the best build for the job. Consisting of an Enterprise type Hull, Forecastle, and Aftcastle, and Tatanora propellers, this airship maximizes how quickly you can explore a sector and unlock neighboring ones. However, this comes at the price of fewer spoils.
What’s good about this build:
- Made to unlock other sectors within quick expedition times
- Can explore up to two sectors in one expedition
2) High Range, High Speed
This build is similar to the previous one with its high speed stat, but its boost in range allows the airship to visit up to four sectors in a relatively quick expedition. Components for this airship include an Odyssey type Hull, Invincible-II propellers, and an Enterprise type Forecastle and Aftcastle. This airship has a higher chance of bringing back rarer items as it explores many different sectors at once, but of course, the one downside is that it will bring back less spoils overall.
What’s good about this build:
- Can quickly explore up to four sectors on fast expedition times
- Can boost chance of finding rare items
- A good method if you’re looking for only a couple of items from each sector
1) All Average Stats
With an Invincible-II type Hull, Forecastle, and Aftcastle, and an Enterprise bladder for Rigging, this airship build has all around average stats great for various farming goals. All stats except for Speed are over 100 so you’ll have enough range to easily explore three sectors at a decent speed and will pick up a fair amount of items.
What’s good about this build:
- An average stats build good for various purposes
- Can explore up to three sectors
- Good speed while also having a fair spoils return
