Spy Glass vs. Dice vs. Golden Dice

I've been asked many times which bonus to use to improve the chances of a drop. Here's my opinion on the matter:
Spy Glass

"This bonus increases the chance of quest item drop (both common and collectible) by 150% for 6 hours."
Quests are the icons that occasionally appear on the left side of the screen. Sometimes they are main quests, like the recent "The Great Game" and "Santa's Bad Day" quests. At times, there are subquests that appear that walk you step by step through the main quest. Using a Spy Glass bonus increases the chance of drops from flights that are part of these quests.​

Dice

"This bonus doubles the chance of item drop from a flight (excluding quest and collectible items) for 6 hours."
If you fly to an Excavations destination trying to get a Map Chest drop, a Dice bonus will help. Or, if you fly to Iceland trying to get a Deicer drop, a Dice bonus will help.​

Golden Dice

"Increases the chance of a collectible item drop from a flight (excluding quest items) by 150% for 6 hours."
Collectibles are items that appear in the Collections tab. I recently flew Giants to the five Tale of Bygone Years destinations -- Kyiv, Novgorod, Murom, Smolensk and Chernihiv -- to earn a Winter Palace. I used Golden Dice to increase my chances of drops of the items necessary to complete that collection. The bottom line was that when I used Golden Dice, I got an average of twice the drops that I got when I did not use Golden Dice.​

If you have the patience and the time, you will get the drops eventually. Yes, it is totally random. Or you can spend a few greenies and get them sooner.
If anyone has any alternate theories/experiences, please post them!
Cheers,
Tom

 

[eat007]

Golden dice are great when visiting neighbors. You can visit yr neighbors twice with one golden dice session, if you time it right. Indeed double the normal droprate.

 

[Jay J]

Golden dice are great when visiting neighbors. You can visit yr neighbors twice with one golden dice session, if you time it right. Indeed double the normal droprate.

What a great idea! If I wait toward the end of the reset cycle, I can visit the neighbors twice while Golden Dice is active... Big thanks @eat007

 

[eat007]

Exactly . And maybe you can fly some QL planes also...

 

[greensmith]

I've heard that using the Sky Captain bonus also increases the drop rate from neighbor visits. Does it work?
Also, is it better/worse/the same as a Golden Dice?
Opinions, please!
Cheers,
Tom

 

[M22]

I use golden dice daily/every other day and quite often use a sky captain but haven't noticed increased drop rates with it. Golden dice all the way for that and time your map destinations around it.

 

[Juvenal]

In my experience or feeling.
Using sky captain during visiting neighbour is the opposite of useful.
I feel that it diminishes the drops from neighbours (or maybe I'm not lucky).

 

[Tecmage]

Does Sky Captain really improve drop rates in general?

 

[greensmith]

Does Sky Captain really improve drop rates in general?

@Tecmage
The description of Sky Captain in the store says "also increases the chance of item drop." I never found that to be true for flights but I did try it out for drops while visiting neighbors and found it to help a little.
Cheers,
Tom

 

[Robby Kusuma]

@Tecmage
The description of Sky Captain in the store says "also increases the chance of item drop." I never found that to be true for flights but I did try it out for drops while visiting neighbors and found it to help a little.
Cheers,
Tom

No Use Tom. Golden dice is the best. But sky captain increase your drop rate in planes. But not visiting.

 

[Robby Kusuma]

Tom, if you really want to calculate, let me try for you. Give me some quests. I will do it for you and give you the results. Any destinations, any smiley. Just name it and tell me how I do it. I will use my fuel to fly and back. So the results should be fast enough.

 

[lfcawc]

I tried Golden dice with all planes that landed this morning and saw little difference...thought I would have lots of exciting items drop!

 

[Gt city]

What a great idea! If I wait toward the end of the reset cycle, I can visit the neighbors twice while Golden Dice is active... Big thanks @eat007

I am doing this, but also including with Sky Captain bonus. It helps a lot. Without any bonus(es), when i am visiting neighbors, it is hard to get 10 different collections (or up to 10), with Sky Captain bonus up to 20. With Golden Dice & Sky Captain bonuses i am geting between 45-70 collections/12 neighbors. If i am doing two visits in 6 hours (12+12), i am getting 90-125 collections. That also means up to 125 new boxes with (Launch) Fuel on every second day. Not bad!

 

[Mario's Dad]

Not a completely scientific experiment, nor anywhere near enough flights to make a real conclusion ... but since the last quest finished I have been flying to the excavations destinations such as Mesoamerica, Ancient Rome, Stonehenge, Ancient World etc.....

From 64 flights without a Dice - 9 chests dropped (14%)
From 25 flights with a Dice - 6 chests dropped (24%)

So not quite double the rate, but not far out.

 

[SFOPhD]

OK, I'm having trouble figuring out which bonus to use for the first Aztec temple collection. I still have the "Aztec Code" quest that says to "Assemble the Aztec Legacy collection by flying to the ancient cities." I once used Spyglass and did not notice a large improvement. Golden Dice, however, seemed to really help. Why is that? I thought the Golden Dice wouldn't work because it explicitly says "excluding quest items."

 

[eat007]

OK, I'm having trouble figuring out which bonus to use for the first Aztec temple collection. I still have the "Aztec Code" quest that says to "Assemble the Aztec Legacy collection by flying to the ancient cities." I once used Spyglass and did not notice a large improvement. Golden Dice, however, seemed to really help. Why is that? I thought the Golden Dice wouldn't work because it explicitly says "excluding quest items."

It's a long story, but basically G! gets confused by their own words. Golden dice is indeed the choice for the ancient cities. Spy glass is good for the events that once in a while pop up. Like the football event or the American thing we recently had.

 

[belledohna]

It's a long story, but basically G! gets confused by their own words. Golden dice is indeed the choice for the ancient cities. Spy glass is good for the events that once in a while pop up. Like the football event or the American thing we recently had.

And they are incredibly adept at spreading this confusion.
Why have they never thought to add "You can only 'send in return" what is in your inventory" ?

 

[belledohna]

Not a completely scientific experiment, nor anywhere near enough flights to make a real conclusion ... but since the last quest finished I have been flying to the excavations destinations such as Mesoamerica, Ancient Rome, Stonehenge, Ancient World etc.....

From 64 flights without a Dice - 9 chests dropped (14%)
From 25 flights with a Dice - 6 chests dropped (24%)

So not quite double the rate, but not far out.

Hi, Mario's Dad!

I've been eyeing these missions for awhile, and I'm curious to hear what you're finding out (esp., golden dice EVERY time? Seems, at this point, not your recommended strategy.)

And thanks @Bali Hi I am glad I have at least one fast hangar for my high-level planes.

 

[Mario's Dad]

Hi, Mario's Dad!

I've been eyeing these missions for awhile, and I'm curious to hear what you're finding out (esp., golden dice EVERY time? Seems, at this point, not your recommended strategy.)

And thanks @Bali Hi I am glad I have at least one fast hangar for my high-level planes.

Hi @belledohna
I have to admit that I am probably not the best person to talk about a strategy; I don't really have much experience of using Dice, Golden Dice etc. apart from this little experiment that I did at the time.

All I can say is that I did carry on for a short while and ended up with the following:

From 110 flights without any kind of dice - 14 drops (~ 13%)
From 96 flights with a dice - 26 drops (~ 27%)

At that point I started flying to other destinations to get some stars. I also ran out of dice.

Hope it helps but I think there are more experienced flyers who have useful information about the different dice.
MD

 

[BAR SOLE]

No