About

The mission

Help new and old players understand what they're doing and make the most gil they can. This site only costs hosting, and it will not have ads, ever.

In-game: Secrets (main) Secret (alt) — Phoenix XI

Send errors & ideas to SECRETSOS on Discord

More servers are on the roadmap, but Phoenix XI is home — so it gets built first.

The source

The data comes from commit c2826b6a0b of the LandSandBoat project, an open-source FFXI server emulator. A build script (tools/build_db.py) parses the server's SQL, Lua, YAML, and C++ files into a SQLite database. A second set of scripts generates this site's pages from that database.

Nothing is hand-written. If a number appears on an item or zone page, it was read from a specific file in the server source, and that file path is shown alongside it.

What's parsed

Total: 41,851 source rows across 7,204 items and 4,443 recipes.

Where the files live

Each source row records the file it was parsed from. The main file types and what they contain:

• mobs.yaml — mob drops, steal tables, and crystal drops, from settings/default/maps/zones/*/mobs.yaml
• synth_recipes.sql — all crafting recipes (skills, ingredients, results, HQ tiers)
• guild_shops.lua — guild vendor inventories and prices
• shop.lua — NPC shop inventories per zone
• treasure.lua — chest and coffer loot tables
• casket_loot.lua — field casket drop tables
• data.lua — HELM gathering point tables (mining, logging, harvesting, excavation)
• fishing_catch.sql — fishing areas, catch tables, rod and bait data
• gardening_results.sql — gardening seed × crystal result tables
• mob_entity.cpp — mob crystal drop assignments (signet/sanction/sigil)
• *.lua (per-NPC) — individual vendor shop scripts
• *.lua (per-BCNM) — battlefield loot crate tables

How rates work

Drop rates

Mob drop rates are the server's configured percentage per kill. The server rolls each drop independently, so a mob with a 24% and a 15% drop gives you those exact chances per kill. Some servers apply a DROP_RATE_MULTIPLIER — the rates shown here are the base values before any multiplier.

Gathering rates

HELM (mining, logging, harvesting, excavation) rates are per-swing chances from the zone's data.lua. Each swing rolls against the full table; the percentages shown are the relative weights normalized to 100%.

Crafting math

Skill-up chances, success rates, and HQ odds are computed from the formulas in synthutils.cpp. The specific rules: 60% skill-up chance under skill 50, 25% at 50+. HQ rates: 1.56% (0–10 gap), 6.25% (11–30), 25% (31–50), 50% (51+), with 25% chance to upgrade each tier.

Era scope

This site targets era-75 private servers. Content included: base game, Rise of the Zilart, Chains of Promathia, Treasures of Aht Urhgan, and Wings of the Goddess (flagged). Excluded: Abyssea, Seekers of Adoulin, Rhapsodies of Vana'diel.

Content tagged as WotG is marked with a badge because not all era servers enable the same WotG content.

What's not here

Honest gaps in the data:

• Quest turn-ins (what you trade to a quest) aren't parsed, only rewards
• Mob aggro, link, and detection behaviour aren't in the parsed YAML — they live in Lua mob pool files
• Respawn timers, for the same reason
• Zone maps — these live in the game client, not the server source
• Crafting food effects — not in upstream item_mods
• About 7 crafting ingredients have no source in any parsed table

When data is missing, the site says so rather than guessing.

Phoenix-specific unknowns

Phoenix runs a private fork of LandSandBoat. These settings may differ from the upstream defaults shown here:

• DROP_RATE_MULTIPLIER — could scale all drop rates
• CRAFT_HQ_CHANCE_MULTIPLIER — could change HQ odds
• CRAFT_MODERN_SYSTEM — upstream defaults to true (retail rules); era servers typically set false
• CRAFT_COMMON_CAP — 600 (era) or 700 (retail)
• Which WotG content is enabled
• Conquest standings (affects Signet crystals and regional vendors)

Where any of these would change an answer, the site notes it rather than assuming Phoenix's value.

Verify it yourself

The full source is at github.com/LandSandBoat/server. Every item has its own page with sources, recipes, and prices. All data was parsed from commit c2826b6a0b.