We recently finished our first ship and have had the chance to start exploring the vast Astral. What a great time we have had. The sector local to Kania is the easiest sector to explore, it's hubs (maps) have easier demons roaming around. We did attempt to explore another sector but got destroyed by a demon on the other side of the hub, maybe Noblehector can provide screen-shots if he wants.

A typical Astral trip consists of jumping from hub to hub looking for allods to explore and plunder. It seems the local sector has three types of allods which seem to get randomly picked when you enter the hub. Two of these are fairly simple, about the level of difficulty of a heroic minus the last boss. With more room to move around then a heroic dungeon you can skip a number of the trash mobs and head straight for the bosses most of the time.

This first image is taken at the helm controls of the ship which consists of the Motor, Helm and Turbine. The Motor controls the speed of the ship and has the controls for making jumps and exiting the hangar. The Helm has the left and right turning controls. Finally the Turbine moves the ship up and down, which we don't really understand the need for, and it also has the controls for exiting an allod.

This next image shows the map that everyone sees while on the ship in the Astral. The little ship icon updates in real-time, so we use this map for our intra-hub navigational purposes. Demons will show up on the map when close enough but their type is not indicated on the map so the Visor station has to let everyone know which type is it and whether we should avoid it or not. The blue fan icon is a wormhole which is used to go to another sector, it seems they take you to a random hub in the sector so getting back can be a challenge.

After having successfully navigated to an allod, avoiding deadly demons in the Astral, you get to run the specific instance. This next image is us on the Smuggler's Den allod making our way to the only boss there we kill. This allod is by far the quickest and easiest to complete if you just go for the one boss, the other one seems crazy hard in comparison.

And this next image is us fighting the Smuggler's Den boss. He is not much of a challenge and is way easier than any of the lesser bosses I have come across in heroic dungeons. Like every Astral boss, he has a chance to drop an epic loot bag as well as a rare treasure chest.

The treasure chests are collected in the hold of the ship and can only be opened once safely back home in Kania. Chests labeled Rare will have epic items inside, the other ones seem to only have ship upgrade crystals. I am guessing we need to visit a harder sector before we find any legendary items.

All-in-all the Astral has been great fun thus far. I am really looking forward to us having more ships and getting more members out in the Astral adventuring with us!