Cosmic Exploration Guide and Rewards in FFXIV

Cosmic Exploration is new Lifestyle content released in Patch 7.2 of Dawntrail. Functioning similarly overall to Ishgard Restoration compared to Island Sanctuary, players work together to progress and upgrade new areas while gaining rewards.

Cosmic Exploration also counts as leveling content where players at level 10 or above gain experience points and can use this as a way to progress to 100. The relic tool, called Cosmic Tools also starts at level 10 and is upgraded as you also level.

Cosmic Exploration is still being uncovered and progression being made on all servers. Aspects of this guide may continue to change regularly as more understanding is made and players learn more about the content.

Cosmic Exploration is unlocked in Old Sharlayan (12.6, 13.6) using the quest "A Cosmic Homecoming". The only requirement is that you must have completed the Main Scenario Quest "Endwalker" as well as be a crafting or gathering class at level 10.

You can return to Sinus Ardorum at any time by speaking to Drivingway in Mare Lamentorum (21.9, 13.2).

The basic gameplay loop for Cosmic Exploration is to complete Missions (leves), Mech Ops (FATEs/CE's) and Red Alerts (rare FATEs) while working as a server to complete the development of your area. Most importantly, your stats matter and contribute to your success!

Developing the zone as your server grants access to more unlocks in the area such as more mobility options, further areas and new buildings in the central "hub".

Cosmic Exploration is also where you unlock and upgrade your Cosmic Tool, the relic tool for level 100. This tool starts at level 10 allowing new players to work on upgrading this tool as they level while endgame players simply need to upgrade the tool to endgame ilv's to be able to use it practically.

While Cosmic Exploration is it's own content, there are some changes to base gameplay mechanics worth being aware of. These include:

• No Mounts - Mounts are not permitted within the exploration zone. Instead, there are other changes to help mobility.
• New Sprint - Stellar Sprint instead is a faster, permanent version of sprint giving 50% increased movement speed.
• Duty Actions - Cosmic Exploration has duty actions. The main one is Stellar Return which allows you to teleport back to base, certain missions grant your DoH and DoL classes with a new action too.
• Spiritbonding Changes - Spiritbond rate is drastically different inside of Cosmic Exploration, and not for the better.
• Revisit cannot proc in Cosmic Exploration.

The Exotablet is your "menu" in Cosmic Exploration allowing you access to various features and mechanics inside of the area. This is what allows you to see the current progress being made, your score, your credits as well as activate Stellar Missions.

Option	How it Works
Stellar Missions	Allows you to view and access stellar Missions, essentially leves, to gain rewards and progress inside of the area. You can also view your completed missions to keep track.
Mech Ops	Allows you to apply as a Pilot to participate in an active Mech Ops operation.
Stellar Successes	Shows you "Daily Quests" as well as Standard objectives that are always available.
Infrastructure Index	Shows you how your server is currently doing in terms of Development and allows you to view videos of prior upgrades for those who missed them.
Cosmic Research	Shows your current progress in the Cosmic Tools as well as any current bonuses available for having multiple tools upgraded.
Cosmic Class Tracker	Shows your total score created. (Does not include score generated by being a Mech in Mech Ops)
Exploration Guide	Showcases a brief guide to Cosmic Exploration.

Cosmocredits and Lunar Credits are the 2 main currencies used in Cosmic Exploration. Cosmocredits are simply used to buy glam, minions, dyes and so on as well as a helpful source of grade 11/12 DoH/DoL materia.
Lunar Credits on the other hand are used for 2 things, either spend 1,000 on Cosmic Fortunes or 1,000 on Mech Ops. Completion of Mech Ops always grants you with a bunch of credits as well as a Big Bang Ticket for a better version of Cosmic Fortunes. So either way, you gain a chance at roulette, Mech Ops just also gives you more rewards and better rewards.

Credits are most easily obtained via the Stellar Successes "Dailies" however they are relatively farmable by ranking gold on Missions with high rewards from them. Red Alerts especially are great for farming Lunar Credits.

The Infrastructure Index showcases both your current server progression inside of Cosmic Exploration as well as a Video Log of developments that have occurred.

Development occurs naturally over time as players gain Score/Contribution from completion of Missions and FATEs. While Red Alerts are great for helping development occur, they do not directly push the bar forward themselves. But as a result of Critical Missions being very efficient as well as players generally being more active during a Red Alert.

The Crafting and Gathering relics for Dawntrail are the Cosmic Tools. These special tools begin at level 10 and are upgraded along the way until they become an endgame i720 tool with unique effects too! These tools will also be upgraded over time with future patches and content updates to be some of the best tools for your Crafting and Gathering classes.

Completing Cosmic Tools even grants a bonus to the data acquisition of later tools.

Read our specific Cosmic Tools guide to understand how to best farm these tools and the requirements for them.

Stellar Missions are your main gameplay loop in Cosmic Exploration, if you like leves your going to love these. Stellar Missions act very similarly to leves in which you craft required items or gather at nodes in specific locations when initiated. They grant Credits, exp, relic data and also contribution on ranking days. Crafting classes are given the materials required when you initiate their missions while fishers are given 999 bait. All items exist in their own inventory not your normal inventory!

There are many "tiers" of missions. Starting with Class D, C and B then finally onto Class A which has A-1, A-2 and A-3 missions. Generally speaking, missions will increase in difficulty through each class with some Class A gathering Missions being tight on timing and some class A crafts being Expert Crafts.

On top of this, there are missions which have specific conditions such as Critical Missions, Sequential Missions, Time-restricted Missions and Weather-restricted missions. Not all missions are available either until server-wide progress has been made during the zone's development.

Missions inside of Cosmic Exploration are notably different compared to other crafting and gathering content, new ways of using existing mechanics have been added to these missions. For example a gathering mission that requires boon chains, or crafts with only 20 durability.

When you complete a mission it will be given either a tick or medal with a medal being for hitting a gold rating and tick for silver/bronze on this mission. Gold rating provides a 5x buff to the rewards while silver provides a 4x increase. You can check your current progress on getting all gold missions in the Stellar Missions menu by pressing "Mission Selection".

This does not apply to any Critical Missions during a Red Alert which are always gold but do not have a 5x increase to rewards. The reward also applies differently to experience points while leveling, instead providing an XP bonus as a percentage of your current level based on if you bronze/silver/gold.

Gold on certain missions also unlocks further missions with Sequential Missions requiring a gold and even specific weather missions requiring a gold on later Sequential Missions.

Stellar Mission Actions are extra skills given to your classes during a select few missions which are incredibly useful. These are:

• Material Miracle (DoH) - Lasts for 45 seconds, Guarantees a Good, Sturdy, Centered, Pliant, Primed, or Malleable material condition each step. Basically, craft fast!
• Collector's Stellar Standard (MIN/BTN) - Makes your next Brazen be max instead of random and increases chance that Meticulous will not decrease integrity by 40%.
• Stellar Hookset (FSH) - Removes the Inefficient Hooking status and increases rating for fish.

These have limited uses so make sure to use them wisely!

The Mission in Progress menu firstly allows you to report a mission to obtain the rewards. But more importantly grants you access to both the Cosmic Crafting Log to begin crafting and also Stellar Reduction. Which is Aetherial Reduction but specifically for use during select missions.

The Mission in Progress menu also tells you the requirements for Gold (5x bonus) and silver (4x bonus).

While Abandon is primarily meant to be to simply quit out due to bad luck or if you do not want to continue, you can also use it to "reroll" your available missions making it a great tool.

As mentioned, there are rarer types of Stellar Missions. These are collectively called "Provisional Missions" and "Critical Missions". Provisional missions include Sequential Missions, Time-restricted Missions and Weeather-restricted Missions.

Provisional Missions can be found on the "clock" icon on the Stellar Missions menu while the "alarm" icon is for Critical Missions. There is no in-game notification to inform you that Provisional Missions are available so keep an eye on the weather/time and if you complete any starting sequential missions!

Many Missions are not yet available and will be unlocked/discovered as we keep progressing in the exploration.

Weather-restricted Missions are as you may have guessed, based on the weather. There are 2 weathers that can rotate in aside from fair, that being Umbral Wind and Moon Dust. There is no skywatcher inside the area however plenty of skywatching websites are available. Each of the 2 weathers has a 15% uptime meaning 30% of the time you can do Weather-restricted Missions.

Weather-restricted Missions Table:

Class	Moon Dust	Umbral Wind
CRP	A-3: High-quality Crafting Tools A-3: Lunar Tools (BTN)	A-2: Work Support Equipment A-3: Elevating Platforms
BSM	A-2: Work Support Equipment A-3: Impact-resistant Material Processing	A-3: High-durability Material Processing A-3: Automaton Digging (MIN)
ARM	A-3: Impact-resistant Material Processing	A-2: Workspace Lighting A-3: High-durability Material Processing A-3: High Burn Furnace (BTN)
GSM	A-2: Work Support Mechanical Arms A-3: Impact-resistant Material Processing	A-3: High-durability Material Processing A-3: Crystallic Gems (FSH)
LTW	A-3: Safety Shoes A-3: Lunar Leather (MIN)	A-2: Familiar Furnishings A-3: Gatherer's Overalls
WVR	A-2: Familiar Furnishings A-3: Cold-weather Work Hats	A-3: Crafter's Overalls A-3: High-quality Floor Tiling (MIN)
ALC	A-3: Stable Medicine A-3: Mushroom-borne Comfort (BTN)	A-2: Artisan's Mixtures A-3: Rust Repellent
CUL	A-2: Portable Nutrients A-3: Cured Meat A-3: Eel Rations (FSH)	A-3: Cured Seafood
MIN	A-2: Precise Lunar Nadir Survey A-3: Supplemental Processing Materials A-3: Lunar Leather (LTW)	A-3: Rare Material Extraction A-3: Automaton Digging (BSM) A-3: High-quality Floor Tiling (WVR)
BTN	A-3: Rare Material Extraction A-3: Lunar Tools (CRP) A-3: Mushroom-borne Comfort (ALC)	A-2: Precise Lunar Nadir Survey A-3: Supplemental Processing Materials A-3: High Burn Furnace (ARM)
FSH	A-2: Foodstuff Emergency A-3: Large Aquatic Specimens A-3: Eel Rations (CUL)	A-3: Palus Arsenici Ecological Survey A-3: Crystallic Gems (GSM)

Time-restricted Missions only appear for 2 hours each day, but the window changes depending on the class. This allows you to rotate through each class to gain score and contribution when there are no critical/weather missions available. There are 2 different Time-restricted Missions per class with one being an A-1 and the other being A-3 difficulty:

Time-restricted Missions Table:

Time	A-1 Mission	A-3
00:00 - 02:00	CRP / ALC	GSM
02:00 - 04:00	MIN	-
04:00 - 06:00	BSM / CUL	LTW
06:00 - 08:00	FSH	WVR
08:00 - 10:00	ARM	-
10:00 - 12:00	BTN	-
12:00 - 14:00	GSM	CRP / ALC
14:00 - 16:00	-	MIN
16:00 - 18:00	LTW	BSM / CUL
18:00 - 20:00	-	FSH
20:00 - 22:00	WVR	ARM
22:00 - 00:00	-	BTN

Sequential missions are missions that only appear after the first mission in the "sequence" has been completed. For example the A-Class Mission A-1: Hub Vicinity Gathering I unlocks access to A-2: Hub Vicinity Gathering II. Sequential missions are normally (but not always) indicated by having numbers after them.

Sequential Missions are available once you complete the required mission with a gold rating and will appear in the second tab of your mission list for 5 minutes. Sequential missions can also unlock further sequential missions.

Critical Missions are only available during a Red Alert which is easily identifiable by the pop-up at the top of your screen. You will have a set time window to complete as many Critical Missions as possible. These are quick missions that grant a lot of rewards, especially Lunar Credits on top of being great for score.

Missions are only available to specific classes during a Red Alert and require even crafter's to go to a specified area not just gathering classes.

Mech ops are special fate-like missions that occur regularly while participating in Cosmic Exploration. An announcement will appear with a countdown as to when a Mech ops will begin. Mech Ops can appear every 20 minutes unless a Red Alert or Development progress stage is made, then the current Mech Ops will be skipped.

Teleport back to base and speak to Alerot (Mech Ops) at (22.2, 20.5) to be taken directly to the Mech Ops mission.

You can also request a pilot application from Alerot. This costs 1,000 Lunar Credits and allows you to apply as a pilot to control a Mech in the next Mech ops. Completing a Mech ops grants you both Credits, Contribution towards ranking and a Big Bang ticket used in Cosmic Fortune, you even have a rare chance to drop the mount!

To learn more about Mech Ops including the rewards, when they spawn and contribution tiers. Check out our guide below.

Cosmic Fortune is a system added to Cosmic Exploration allowing you to take a chance at a selection of rare and valuable items. Spend 1,000 Lunar Credits to have 2 different wheels pop-up providing you with different items and odds and take your pick.

On occasion, rare wheels can also pop up guaranteeing you the "carrot" prize!

Stellar Opportunity if landed on, will reveal a new roulette wheel with a new set of special prizes giving you better odds.

Additionally, Big Bang fortunes are available using a ticket gained from Mech Ops. Mech Ops also costs 1,000 but Big Bang fortunes provide better items. This means you should always have a Mech Ops token stashed away in your pocket before spending Lunar Credits on Cosmic Fortunes.

To learn the full list of rewards and more information, check out the guide below:

Much like the Ishgardian Restoration, Cosmic Exploration also features a ranking season. Unlike the Ishgardian Restoration however, this new system has no time limits. The main differences with Cosmic's Ranking system are:

• Ranking Periods are 1 day instead of 10 days. With every other day being a ranking day.
• Only 1 person can rank during a ranking day.
• There are no real rewards for being top of your server.
• Ranking seasons will never end unlike Ishgard.
• How much you contribute towards ranking is incredibly vague and hidden. Using the hidden value "contribution" instead of the score system that exists.

Players with the highest Contribution(different to score) at the end of the day will be designated the Star Contributor which grants you the Astral Aura, a unique glow visible for 2 weeks inside of Cosmic Exploration zones as well as your character as a hologram in the main base for 2 weeks. You also cannot become Star Contributor again until after this period is up, but theres no titles or achievements for it.

Ranking is not based on score and is instead based on contribution which comes from:

• Generated by doing missions as a DoH or DoL
• Mech Ops
• Progressing Projects (server-wide fates to upgrade the region)

Contribution is a hidden value and unrelated to Score. Contribution is currently only a hidden value that the text box only provides information that is vague such as you creating a "Sizeable Contribution". The full list in order is:

• Modest
• Respectable
• Generous
• Sizeable
• Immeasurable

On days when there is no ranking period, you will be unable to gain contribution and you will have no notification in your chat log.

The only indication of your overall ranking contribution for the day is by speaking to Scanningway who will give you a rough approximation as a percentage. For example Scanning way will tell you that "you are in the top 20%" if between 10 and 20%. You can never see your exact contribution unfortunately. Furthermore anyone in the top 10% has a chance at being 1st in rankings! Scanningway will not give you any information more precise than "top 10%" which means you could currently be ranked 1st on your server and you wouldn’t even know.

Ranking 1st on your server can be a difficult task and require a large amount of time. Listed below is some general advice on how you can aim to rank well. Further sections later in the guide go into more specific optimisations for DoH, DoL and Fishing to improve efficiency on specific mission types.

The general priority for rankings would be Critical Missions > Weather Missions > Time Missions > Class-A Missions

• High Stats make crafts easier: If your ranking, gear and stats are a must. The missions mention about i690 but neither your stats or the items are scaled to i690.
• Use Food and Pots: Food is common at endgame and using a CP potion on crafters or chugging cordials on gathering classes is important.
• Get in the Robot!: You gain a good amount of contribution from Mech Ops when inside the mech. Doing the fates on-foot is noteably less but unknown if good for contribution (not good for score but score is different to contribution)
• All classes contribute: To rank, don't just stick on a single class. Outside of weather and special events, there are time-based missions with only a few crafters having missions every 2 hours in-game. This means you want to keep rotating classes when there is no weather/critical missions.
• Crafting and Fishing are faster for missions: Outside of Red Alert (Critical Missions), Crafting and Fishers appear to be significantly better than MIN/BTN for Missions due to having less downtime.
• MIN/BTN is great for Critical Missions: Inside Critical Missions Miner and Botanist are amazing for missions. These are your go-to classes during a Red Alerts!.

Most Importantly - Understand that ranking and contributing is not required for anything specific! You do not need score for the relics, or to farm credits. You don't even need to the do the hardest missions for the Cosmic Tools!

Before Diving into specific advice for each class, here is some general advice you should be aware of to make missions easier and help you get gold rankings every time.

• Gear Matters! No! The i690 suggested min ilv isn’t a sync. There are rlv 740+ crafts and glv 730 gatherables that require current endgame gear to have reasonable success. That being said, a budget i720 set is still more than viable.
• The hardest missions are not required for relic. That's right, experts and any super difficult missions are optional for the relic. They are for scoring and points.
• Use food and pots. Food is important at endgame and Cosmic is no different. Either of the current endgame DoH foods is viable while good DoL food depends on breakpoints. Gathering classes should be chugging cordials.
• Reroll missions you do not like. You can accept and abandon missions to reroll your list, allowing you to find the best or easiest missions that you prefer.
• Silver is not far off from Gold. Gold grants a 5x buff while silver grants a 4x buff. If your struggling with gold, silver is still a really good bonus.

Generally speaking. The priority while scoring is: Critical > Weather > Time-Restricted > Class-A/Sequential Missions.

Gathering classes also need to consider the fact that GP takes time to replenish and therefore that you cannot always spam the same high-value missions and should instead choose some missions they can farm without GP during downtime.

Check out the specific spreadsheets for Crafting and Gathering which have calculated efficiencies for various mission types to learn more!

Crafting Macro Spreadsheet for High-Tier and Mid tier meldsets

Class A crafts come in 2 forms, Normal Crafts or Expert Crafts. But all of these crafts are relatively endgame-similar so make sure to use food such as Ceviche/ Rroneek Steak and a pot like Cunning Craftsman's Tisane can also be very useful. If needed, crafting on your Specialist can also be helpful due to the additional stats and specialist skills available, Crafter's Delineation's are thrown at you during Cosmic Fortune.

Many of the Class A crafts are expert crafts, these are much harder crafts with a wider range of conditions that require you to generally react manually instead of using a macro. While players with very high stats can macro most of these crafts, they cannot macro all of them so manual craft is a must. Check our expert crafting guide for more information. No Expert Crafts are required for the relic itself!

The Stellar Mission Action Material Miracle can be a great skill if used right. It lasts for 45 real seconds and grants a collection of conditions commonly available in expert crafts. Because of the 45s cooldown, the faster you react and craft, the bigger the benefit you gain.

Material Miracle is available both on select normal crafts and expert crafts. With experts, this skill has several uses:

• At the start of a craft it can be great for an early boost or for better Progress building with Rapid Synthesis with both Centered and Malleable conditions.
• If you opened the craft with Muscle Memory, if the craft goes badly then Material Miracle can be great to give you a chance to recover before you go further into the craft.

But it is also important to know that it removes Good Omen from your current conditions. Good Omen is a great skill for setting up during a craft especially when your almost finished with building IQ.

While most experts can be handled in a traditional sense. Some of the crafts available only have 20 and 35 durability which can be quite limiting rotationally. The 35 durability craft cannot be macroed even just to silver.

Furthermore, you can be easily caught out by some gameplay mechanics that are often not a problem.

• Manipulation acts after a skill. So if you use Prudent Touch, you would lose 5 durability, game checks if you failed the craft, and then gain gain 5 after. This means that you can fail the craft with both Prudent and Preparatory Touch being common ways.
• Groundwork only does half it's effect when at 10 durability or below. This is half your durability on these crafts so be very careful with progress skills.

Aside from that, generally thes crafts have an increased focus on using Prudent Touch as it is durability efficient as well as Delicate Synthesis as it provides both progress and quality.

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Gathering Spreadsheet for Breakpoints and Score efficiency can be found here.

Listed below is advice on how to successfully complete each "type" of mission available. Remember that GP management is very important as well as ensuring you down a lot of cordials to maintain GP.

While waiting for GP to regen, try to complete some easier A-Class missions at silver or B-Class missions at gold. The missions that require both gathering and crafting are great for this!

These missions want you to gather nodes quickly and under quite a strict time limit. If your gathering stat is high enough to gain +2 on a Bountiful Yield/Harvest II then you should spam that skill.

Some of these missions do not have a strict time but instead have very high requirements so make sure to move quickly and have GP ready to spam.

Some missions want a "chain", that being smacking a node multiple times in a row. The longer the chain, the more score gained. Starting at 50 for your first chain and capping at 200, for example: 0, 50, 50, 50, 150, 200, 200, 200...

Use all of your GP on Solid Reason + Wise to the World procs on the node with a +integrity node bonus to make the most of it. The more 200's you can gain in a single node the better. This can require some luck with Wise procs.

Some missions simply want Gatherer's Boon and only boon either in the form of granting points towards the mission by triggering boon or by specifically hitting a chain of repeated boons.

In either mission, using Mountaineer's Gift I and Mountaineer's Gift II (or the BTN equivalents) is key to success in these missions.

Collectable missions come in 2 main forms, the first being collecting collectables and gaining points on their collectability while the second requires you to reduce the items down into sands. Many of these missions also give you access to your Stellar Mission Action, try to use this on node bonuses to get the most out of the limited uses it has. As a general piece of advice, collectable rotations tend to follow the following:

Scrutiny > Meticulous Prospector > Scrutiny > Meticulous Prospector > Whatever skill gets you to 1000 rating

With Cosmic, this can differ slightly due to node bonuses, aspects of various missions and the proc chance of Collector's High Standard being much higher.

For the gathering collectable missions, simply gather the collectable at T3 collectability rating. Anything above tier 3 gives a great amount of score however 1000 rating does give the most. It is never worth spending integrity to get to 1000 rating if you are already in tier 3.

The reduction ones however want you to aim for 1000 collectability whenever you use GP no matter what. This is because at 1000 rating you have a chance at a bonus, which gives you a large amount of sands and makes the missions much easier. With practice, you can gather enough 1000 rating collectables that you wouldn’t even need bonus sands.

Also: you can reduce while moving! Reduce while you travel between nodes dont just stand there!

Some gathering missions are more about crafting than gathering. These missions are great for letting your GP regen while you craft. There is not much advice that can be given here but whatever class you finish the mission on gets the score. So you can pick if your gathering class or crafting class gains the score.

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Fishing Spreadsheet with Hole Data

Specific Fishing advice to be added!