Hello there, Headmistress Kela there with a special news and information bulletin: all about Airships.
For those who are unaware, Free Companies can build parts, create and fly Airships on complex retainer-venture like missions and earn rare and valuable rewards for our free company, including materias, minions, blueprints for housing skins, and components for level 3 Free Company Buffs. What they do is vital to the FC, but we don’t hear much about them. Because of this, I took some time to reach out to the Professor in charge of Airships, Silva Cataracta and asked her what her group has accomplished for us, so that they can have proper recognition of their efforts.
When I handed over the Airships project to Silva, we had two airships and only about half of their available sectors unlocked – only just enough to gain the materials to create our lovely Carbuncle Walls in-house, in fact! Since that time only a few months ago, we now have four airships! Silva has the details:
We have made 2 other airships on top of the 2 that were already made for a total max of 4 airships. The HMS Wanderers Maiden and Doinky McDonkface 2 were sent out on exploratory voyages to unlock the sectors that hadn’t be unlocked yet over and over again. We were able to get almost all of the sectors unlocked, we’re missing 1 more sector that we’ve been trying to unlock for a few months now but RNG hasn’t been so nice to us. Those airships are also at the max rank of 50 and can go visit many sectors at once to bring back all sorts of things like crystals, minions, materia, etc. The other 2 airships we built are currently being leveled up, but will only be used for Diadem trips when the maxed out airships have been sent out on missions. So fair, we have made 1 set of each of the airship prototypes in the fabrication station and will be working on making specific builds in the near future for each airship for certain needs. For example, one of the maxed out airships will be used to bring back deep-green and deep-red clusters to be used in crafting grade 3 aetherial wheels. We will be crafting some extra parts when we get to that point as well for those future builds.
Here’s a map of our available sectors:
Meanwhile, Submersibles: We are very proud of our First Submersible the Pearl of the Rhotano, and also the very aptly named second Submersible: the You don’t pay my Sub! Silva reports:
REALLY similar to airships but underwater. They also have sectors that need to be unlocked through subaquatic voyages and they gain their rank ups this way too. We currently have 3 submarines built and will be building the 4th one in the near future. The Pearl of Rhotano and You Don’t Pay My Sub are maxed out at rank 50 and will be getting specialized builds, just like the airships, while the 3rd and 4th submarine get sent out to rank up. Right now, we are currently gathering materials to make the 4th prototype parts, the Slydra-Class. Once those are built, we would have built one of each of the current submarine prototypes currently in the game and can begin our specialized builds.
And our map of accessible sectors for the Submarines:
Sometimes Airships and Submersibles will return from voyages will bring back Deep Red and Deep Green specialized clusters. These are critical and our Airship team is experimenting with builds to farm them from voyages. Why are these so important? This is something every member of our Free Company should know and appreciate: they are used to spin level 3 Free Company Buffs.
You should all be familiar with the buffs being a member of our FC gets you: everyone’s favorite is Heat of Battle, which increases experience gain. The highest level buff you can purchase with credits is level 2, which for example increases exp gain for battle classes and jobs by 10%. However, by using our Aetherial Wheel located in the FC house’s kitchen and these special clusters, our crafters can create Heat of Battle III, which increases gain from 10% to 15%! Did you know our crafters have already started stockpiling these buffs for Shadowbringers so that you can hit cap faster than members of other Free Companies? If you didn’t, you should! Here’s more information:
Making grade 3 aetherial wheels is something we only recently started doing. We’ve been making Heat of Battle III and Reduce Rates III for a little while now and activating them when needed, but we also plan on making Earth and Water III, Helping Hand III, and Meat and Mead III to be used when Shadowbringers comes out. It takes 3 days for a grade 3 aetherial wheel to be primed for use, so only 2 wheels can be primed in a week. So far, we’ve started on a small stockpile of non-primed wheels (stored in slot 1 of the chest) and will be making more in between the bigger projects.
What a huge contribution Silva has made, but while she is the leader and organizer, she hasn’t been alone! Communicating through the Discord’s #crafting_and_gathering channel, she gets the help she needs for collecting materials for airship and submersible components, and people to send the vehicles out on voyages or start priming buffs, so that we’re making progress around the clock.
“Jigo has been the BIGGEST help when it’s come to these projects and consider him to be my right hand man. He sends the airships and submarines out on their missions and helps with crafting/gathering mats for all the projects along side me. He also helps me make sure that the Teamcraft lists are as accurate as possible so we don’t gather/craft extra mats. If I didn’t have his help, progress in the Workshop would have been very slow. Nade, Jamie Porter, and Ricmorn have also helped out with gathering and crafting mats here and there when they have free time.”
Well, there you have it, everyone! The bottom line is this: if you didn’t know this was going on it’s largely because Silva, Jigo, Nade, Jamie and Ricmorn have been taking on this mostly thankless job in the background while the rest of us profit from their hard work. If you run into one of our crafters online, take a second to appreciate what they do that makes this Free Company such an awesome, beneficial place for all the players involved. We couldn’t achieve what we do, without them.
THANK YOU, CRAFTERS!
From the bottom of our hearts!
Headmistress Kela and the Royal Academy Leadership Team
