Lunar Rift travel

The last 2 days I would jump into the rift at Owl Head and go to Solace Bridge without any problems and be able to return. Today after a few hours I jumped into the rift and found myself in Blood River. Jumping back took me to Isle of Storms. I realized on my last trip if I hovered the cursor over the rift it would tell me where it was headed.
What I don't know is how often the schedule changes or if there is a way to make it change?

 

The stones are marked with moon phases. There are three stones still standing at each rift.

 

I *think* this is the way it works...

TOWN - PHASE

Solace Bridge - Waxing Gibbous

Highvale - Third Quarter

Blood River - Waxing Crescent

It follows this schedule counter-clockwise. Each Moon Phase seems to last through two daily events, Such as Dusk and Evening, Late Night and Dawn. Entering any of the three primary rifts during the listed phase will take you to that destination.

I think now if you enter a Lunar Rift from the Destination at the Destination Phase you go to the Isle of Storms instead (and back respectively)



I would suspect as the new Episodes come in, the rifts will make use of the non-used "dead times" (New Moon, Full Moon, etc) to travel to other continents. Then again, perhaps some rifts won't go to every destination. Time will tell.

As it stands now, I think each NB day is two hours long, making each Moon Phase 15 minutes, with each "day event" (i.e. Dawn, Dusk) being about 7.5 minutes. Perhaps someone can confirm that.

I also hear of a legend where larger cities (like Brittany) *may* have a Lunar Rift that allows you to crank a mirror around to simulate a Moon Phase Destination, avoiding the wait time. For now, those are simply rumors.

NOTE: In my previous tests, You can no longer travel TO Owl's Head via a Lunar Rift and ONLY Solace Bridge is the destination FROM Owls head. I have not checked it lately.

Personally, I would not be surprised to see the OH rift removed entirely in a future release. I don't think its in the final plan, and currently only there because Cities are limited right now - but that is just a guess.

 

Thank you Aartemis this is great. I made a bookmark of it so I can reference back to it when I need it.

 

Aartemis does this mean our moon cycle in game goes in reverse compared to normal(that chart goes counterclockwise but you said follow clockwise)?

Anyway, I would say that this indicates just how ineffectual rift travel really is. Unless I am mistaken, being in the cycle before your destination means you can expect a 15 minute wait and being in the cycle after means a 105 minute wait.

Now I can probably walk from bloodriver to solace bridge(including passes) in 15 minutes. Given that, we either have a 1\8 chance of our destination being open, or a 1\7 chance of our wait time being capped at the walking time.I'm not seeing much justification to using rifts.

 

Maybe you're expected to time it so you go to your destination, conduct your business in a given time and then pop back in the gates by the time the cycle comes around again?

Thinking currently, they have random encounters and other events tuned down (or not in place) so the 15 minutes walk over might actually be a lot shorter than it might be. Maybe with everything else added in, waiting around for the gate might actually make sense - or maybe with other destinations on the gate later, it might not be a 105 minute wait. More like a 15 minute wait.

Or maybe they don't want rift to be too convenient a method for overland travel - why have horse and such if it's going to be faster with rift or walking? Why have control points and such if rift lets you by pass them?

 

I'm fine with rifts being not always the best travel method, but I'm not sure the 12.5% chance of beating walking even makes it worh spending the time to check rifts.

 

That image is actually how the moon orbits the earth. Its a stock image, not mine.
It has nothing to do with SOTA except to show the different phases.
I see how it my be confusing though, sorry.

 

That may be but a waxing moon leads to a full moon not a new moon - so if sota goes clockwise then it may be reversed.

 

I could very well have it reversed, I have not watched it in a while.

Edit: You are correct, Verified, counter-clockwise. I made changes to my OP to reflect the correct direction.

 

The Owl's Head rift has been strictly a one-way trip to Solace Bridge since R24 started. I haven't had it take me anywhere else. (Also note that its construction is different from the other rifts, there are no moon phase stones!)

The other three rifts only travel between each other now, depending on the moon phase. There are currently five unused phase slots. Since the first three are the start areas for Ep1, the others will probably be added with later episode content. They also always point to the same destination, which does mean that you can go into a rift and end up turned around to exactly where you started.

They are also not continuously open. I think there's a different moon that controls when they are open. But at least you can see from quite a distance away if they are open.

I'm sure that once things get figured out, someone will create a clock web page like this one for FFXI so that you can know how long until the rift is going your way.

 

Yes I was wrong about my using the rift to return to Owl's head. Just got confused with the first 2 days of playing trying to keep everything straight in my head.

 

Well until today I have always been able to pass from Solace Bridge to Owl's Head and back. Sometimes the rift would be closed on either side. But always able to pass through.
TODAY i go from Owl's to Solace no problem....but going back it was different. I ended up at Isle of Storms and when i reentered it took me to Highvale. Noting at Isle of Storms but boy was I surprised when i went to Highvale. Yikes. BTW.....i dont like those archers.....they are tough buggers. I took one down pretty good but was a bit apprehensive about heading down into the town. LOL. My little butt trucked back up the path and recalled out. I am not strong enough to fight too many archers at one time.

 

FYI, I verified this is still the way it works as of R32 and updated the SotA wiki page.

 

*casts resurrection spell on this thread*

I understand moon travel, what I am asking about is the quest that asks you to accomplish lunar travel to Highvale

after you do this is there an XP quest reward and who would I talk to to get it (or is this simply a "tutorial" type to-do by the game that doesn't reward anything) ?

 

and a tangent question, if a moon is pulverized, how can you tell if 'crescent' or 'gibbous'?

would seem 'jigsaw' to me lol

 

It actually ended up being a lot more complicated to predict then these charts so we created a tool to track it.

http://sacrifice-guild.enjin.com/lrchronometer

 

awesome stuff, thanks!

does anyone know if is a rewarded quest to go through the first time or just a tutorial where the "reward" is now knowing how to use them

 

I never actually saw this quest. Do you know who gives it out?

 

the oracle put it in my journal