Aetherships

Versalean

Hello! 

Lemme start by saying how hard I love Lusty and wish I'd discovered it ten years ago when I had no kids and lots of money!

So, one of the things that excited me about Lusty was aether ships. I wanted to throw out a few questions because I didn't realise how expensive they were, so want to be sure it's something I want to spec towards before going down that route. Just a note: I know that much of this may be in the help files, and I have read them, but I'm honestly a little overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information. 

1) am I correct in thinking that aether is largely designed as the 'endgame' component of lusty? 

2a) is there pvp in aether space. I guess what I'm actually asking here is whether there are players that would/could blow up my aether ship and completely nix my characters investment just because I'm in an enemy org)

2b) is it possible for your ship to be permanently destroyed? 

3) do you have to have a crew to use your aether ship or can you do stuff solo? I'm asking because of my time zone there are LONG periods of time when I'm one of about four people awake in my commune

4) how many lessons do you need to trade in aether space?

Yehn

Hm... I wouldn't really call it endgame... there's ways to participate at pretty much all experience levels. Aetherflares can lead to ship-to-ship fighting but... I haven't seen/heard of ship warfare happening outside of that (but I also haven't been playing very long..)

But theoretically, someone could come along and try to blow you up and empaths can scry for ship locations... and ships return to the aetherways when they implode. Everyone aboard dies but the ship can be used again...

you can explore at least a little bit solo... 

Yehn

Um... also if you're thinking about trying to put together a crew for aetherspace adventures... I would very much be on board! (as empath) I'd kind of like to see what's out there a bit but my city has no active crews...

Lerad

2a) You'll actually find that your ship gets blown up very often, and more by mobs than by players. It's simply too much of a pain to try and hunt down someone else's ship in the huge world of aetherspace - and because it's easy to escape as well, if you know what you're doing, again because of the huge world of aetherspace. The only PVP in aetherships only take place in controlled conflict situations, like aetherflares, where everyone is trying to win control over an unmoving object (aetherbubbles), and therefore everyone knows where everyone else will be headed toward. Outside of aetherflares, ships are basically a purely PVE affair.

2b) I don't think so. When blown up, your ship simply loses a chunk of power, and gets sent back to the aetherplex. You need to inject it with some power (either from a nexus or from your reserves), then you can launch it again. No other lasting, permanent damage.

3) Unfortunately, doing anything but exploring on a ship will require a crew. Especially the PVE aspect - you need a minimum of 4 people to attempt an aetherhunt. I say minimum, but this is at a level where your hunt is going so slowly (because you only have 1 out of 3 turrets firing) that it's better to spend your time doing something else. For a proper hunt, the minimum is really 6 people. One pilot, one empath (healer), 3 turrets (damage dealers) and 1 siphoner (enemy summoner).

You can skip the siphoner if you just fly around and shoot at the random encounters (yes, enemy creatures spawn spontaneously when you fly around too) but again, that is less efficient, since if you are unlucky, you may go for long stretches without the RNG summoning anything. Even with a siphoner, the RNG may spite you like that, but at least it's a little more reliable.

Exploring is an activity that can take up a huge amount of time, though, so if you really have no one else to crew with, you can fly to other bubbles and have fun, and then fly back. Again, though, if you're solo flying, you risk getting blown up (no healer).

4) The trade ability is at capable 50%, which is a handful of lessons (less than 100, iirc). However, flying efficiently will need higher aethercraft - and operations that require optimization (specifically damage dealing, ie. turrets) will require trans to be at max effectiveness. Pilot and empath can sometimes scrap by as long as they know the one or two basic ability that is absolutely required.

Twytch

It should be relatively safe to explore around in a small ship that contains just a command chair and a shield module. Raise the force field on the shield so that you won't get hit by the ranged attacks of the aether mobs, and make sure to stay away from them to avoid running into their "close quarters" attacks. This small ship is fast enough, I believe, to outrun everything.

Versalean

Twytch said:

It should be relatively safe to explore around in a small ship that contains just a command chair and a shield module. Raise the force field on the shield so that you won't get hit by the ranged attacks of the aether mobs, and make sure to stay away from them to avoid running into their "close quarters" attacks. This small ship is fast enough, I believe, to outrun everything.

Can you still do trades in a small ship? DAMN, this whole conversation has my StarWars addiction twitching.

Daraius

You'll need at least one aetherhold, but a small ship isn't going to be used in aetherhunting, so it won't be collecting any glaetherial dust to trade.

Versalean

Daraius said:

You'll need at least one aetherhold, but a small ship isn't going to be used in aetherhunting, so it won't be collecting any glaetherial dust to trade.

Oh. Back to the drawing board!

PS - what's 'Bubbles'?

Daraius

Those are the various destinations out in aetherspace. Frosticia, the Facility, Xion, Dramube, etc. Each one is a self-contained mini area with a dock (represented by a question mark on the aetherspace map), some mobs, lore, and usually a quest or two.

Tarkenton

Not quite true. With a small ship, you could set up ruptures and run mobs across them to kill them (think landmines that don't go away after being hit). You'd want probably three people for that (pilot, empath, siphoner) assuming one of you can create ruptures.

Qistrel

Bubbles are mostly very small areas, and each one has an honours quest. I think Bottledowns is the biggest?

Steingrim

Qistrel said:

Bubbles are mostly very small areas, and each one has an honours quest. I think Bottledowns is the biggest?

That or facility would be my guess.

Ssaliss

Bottledowns has 101 rooms, Facility has 87. Frosticia has 103 rooms. The winner is... Aquagoria, with 108 rooms! Unless I forgot a bubble.

Steingrim

Versalean said:

Hello! 

Lemme start by saying how hard I love Lusty and wish I'd discovered it ten years ago when I had no kids and lots of money!

So, one of the things that excited me about Lusty was aether ships. I wanted to throw out a few questions because I didn't realise how expensive they were, so want to be sure it's something I want to spec towards before going down that route. Just a note: I know that much of this may be in the help files, and I have read them, but I'm honestly a little overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information. 

1) am I correct in thinking that aether is largely designed as the 'endgame' component of lusty? 

2a) is there pvp in aether space. I guess what I'm actually asking here is whether there are players that would/could blow up my aether ship and completely nix my characters investment just because I'm in an enemy org)

2b) is it possible for your ship to be permanently destroyed? 

3) do you have to have a crew to use your aether ship or can you do stuff solo? I'm asking because of my time zone there are LONG periods of time when I'm one of about four people awake in my commune

4) how many lessons do you need to trade in aether space?

There is enough of an investment involved that you should seriously consider minimizing that if you can. You can borrow org ships and to start you only need to be able to sit in a siphoner's module (as sliveener) where you'll kill invading shipside critters. Do that for several runs to make sure it is something you want to invest in. Niether mag nor gaudi has a recent history of doing many aetherhunts.

Havastus

For the most part, aetherships are used for PvE encounters. The only exception being aetherflares, which are roughly equivalent to village revolts. Those require aetherships to bombard the aetherbubbles into submission. There's Ship v Ship combat during those times, but that's about it.

I'd say the minimum crew size you want is 7 people: 1 pilot, 1 empath, 3 combateers, 1 siphoner, and 1 slivvener. The slivvens are a bit annoying to deal with, thus no one really volunteers for that role. Finding people willing to do so can be tricky, but not impossible.

I try to have an aetherhunt at least once a RL day, as it's my absolute favourite thing to do in this game. Until I built my own ship, I just used one of Celest's. Most orgs have 1 or 2 that you can borrow (though always ask!). Ships are a HUGE investment, as you need a lot of rooms in order to increase the hull size enough to survive dragons. I'd say at MINIMUM you need 2050 hull strength (in order to survive deep rending attacks) though it's preferable to have closer to 3500. The first room adds 1000 hull strength to your ship, and each additional room adds 50; so you need a lot!