So I've heard two things on the fastest way up. Influencing, and aetherhunting. I'm playing a human pyromancer so influencing is rather slow and though I've been virt aethercraft for two weeks now and I've been asking around I've yet to get into an aethership. Tomorrow I'll be buying enough credits to trans either influence or aethercraft. Should I trans aethercraft and build my own ship in the hopes of putting together my own crew? Or Max influence and keep gaining xp at a slow but steady rate?

Secondary question: Does one's race matter once Demigod is attained?

I can answer the last part at least: Yes. Yes it does. Basically, once you hit Titan, you get +1 to each stat, and once you hit Demi, you can buy another +1 to each stat using essence and weight.

Influence is my suggestion. Alternatively, you can learn how to pilot an aethercraft and use that to organize your own hunts. If you pilot, you'll find your chances of getting in on an aetherhunt skyrocket.

Between putting lessons into influencing or aetherhunting, I would choose influencing. It's something you can do alone to make progress and can keep you occupied while you wait for a crew. Building your own ship that people would want to hunt on (with artifacts, etc.) is very expensive, and even then you're still limited by people being both available and willing to aetherhunt when and for how long you want.

Yeah, I'd second the Trans Influence reccomendation. CharismaticAura is a huge bonus for influencing, and trans aethercraft is really only useful if you're a gunner.

And, as said before, being a pilot's the way to go if you want to get to demi. Hardest part of finding a hunt is finding a pilot. Just swipe the Hearth or whatever the Gaudiguch Aethership is (Do they have one? I Know the older orgs all have a few org ships), set your keypad to 'pilot steer ', and practice flying until you can fly without getting killed.

You don't need trans aethercraft to pilot? How far in do you need, I'm at turretsiphon

Inept. (+ 33%)

Piloting is one of the very first thing you learn, so more or less anyone can pilot. Higher skill just gives you more things to do, most of which are generally unimportant when aetherbashing.

Gliding is pretty great, though.

Yeah. I really wouldn't recommend any pilot to fly without gliding. It cuts down the travel time drastically. However, once you are at the hunting location, all you need is the Pilot skill.

Right. Glide (and, to an extent, silentrun) is great for getting there, but once there... you basically only need to be able to pilot. Forcefield is nice in a jam, but you're not supposed to get into those

Silentrun and Farhorizon however can be turned on before you fly. You only need the skill to turn it on and off.

I used to get Daraius to fly us to the hunting spot, before I had transverse or glide.

I ain't doing it for Gaudis, though.

If you're hunting gargantuans (which is advisable for beginning pilots) you can also keep your ship docked at Faethorn. You'll need higher skills if you ever plan to trade dust or do anything beyond flying in circles while your gunners fire.

But I'm still going to throw my lot in with the folks advising a focus on Influencing first. You can also generate esteem that way, which tends to sell at about 6000 gold per fully imbued item (which, incidentally, tends to be the cost of a credit on the market). If you're in it for the long haul - and you will be, if you're shooting for demigod - you can pull in a lot of cash and credits to help fund your aetherspace dreams.

Thanks for all the advice folks

I could easily fly a ship somewhere (without dragons, I've had issues with dragons one shotting me instantly when they spawn before I can move away), but I'm really nervous about actually hunting. Am I just being neurotic?

Influence is also handy in more than just gathering experience, such that Aethercraft really doesn't compare. The only thing I would recommend is to get at least Siphon (it's like 16 lessons) so that you can lock a collector and possibly contribute if a hunt does happen.

So, simple question but I can't seem to find an answer in any of the help scrolls... how do I see the aetherspace map while I'm piloting?

CONFIG SHIPSIGHT 1

And CONFIG AETHERMAP ON, of course.

So having had a few successful aetherhunts and no deaths I'm casting out a line fishing for a consistent crew. Who's up for doing this aetherhuntin' stuff full time? From what I'm seeing you can do any spot decently with only virt so long as we have at least one gunner that can shockwave. Let's power to endgame!