User blog:Hayashi H/Advanced Mechanics Guide

Damage Processing

 * While the full detail is on the Combat page, what is particularly important to note is post-cap processing - the earlier equipment setups optimise your pre-cap damage levels while ensuring you can use the post-cap bonuses at their full strength. Post-cap, day DA, day CI, day APCI, Airplane Contact, and Critical damage are the main effects - and all of these occur BEFORE armour reduction.
 * Carriers have additional critical damage multipliers which scale up with Aircraft Proficiency. >> rank bomber squadrons will trigger +20% in the first slot and +10% for all other aircraft slots.
 * The highest damage a carrier may perform on a critical hit with 4 >> bomber squadrons equipped is 150%(Crit)*150%(Proficiency)*150 damage = 337 damage before armour reduction.
 * The highest damage a battleship may perform on a critical hit is 110%(AP)*130%(Cut-in)*150%(Crit)*150 damage = 321 damage with an AP shell cut-in, or 110%(AP)*120%(DA)*150%(Crit)*150 damage = 297 damage, twice, before armour reduction.
 * The only other attack type that routinely hits daytime cap is a CLT's torpedo strike, which does 150%(Crit)*150 damage = 225 damage before armour reduction.
 * Night battle post-cap damage is only contributed by critical hits, so the largest damage value possible is 150%(Crit)*300 damage = 450 damage, twice, before armour reduction.
 * The base armour stat of an attack's target is multiplied against a RNG value that varies between 2/3 and 4/3. This value is deducted off the damage values from earlier.
 * The damage from here is then multiplied by the ammo modifier as detailed later.
 * Should the damage be zero but a hit is inflicted, the target will have its health reduced by ~10% of its current value. This is also known as scratch damage, and is the reason why battleships may take more damage from destroyers than other destroyers do.
 * Should the damage by greater than the target's full health, but the target is a friendly ship which has more than red-face morale, the damage taken will be rolled as a minimum of 50% current HP, and will not exceed 80% current HP.

Damage Processing - Example
Combining all these factors into a concrete example, let us consider the Summer 2015 'Kitanda' Air Defense Princess's scenario, assuming the 'armor debuffing/critical buffing' mechanism was NOT used:
 * is faced at a 2 ammo tick situation, and possesses 333 armor at maximum. She always has 255 HP.
 * The largest damage she may take is when her armor is multiplied by 2/3, or 222.
 * Therefore, an aircraft carrier with maximum damage will deal 115 damage, which will be reduced to 46 damage in the day per turn.
 * The largest damage a battleship may do to her is 75 twice, which is reduced to a total of 60 damage in the day per turn.
 * A double scratch attack will deal approximately 19% of her current HP, which is 48 damage from full health.
 * A CLT's torpedo strike would have dealt no more than 2 damage under optimal conditions.
 * In night battle, the maximum damage that can be dealt at damage cap if it crits twice with minimum armour roll is 228, reduced by ammo to 91 damage, twice.
 * So if the special mechanism was not used, in order to sink at Hard level if she entered Night Battle with full health, she would need to be hit by up to 3 perfect attacks in order to be sunk.

Formations

 * Line Ahead: Use for all normal surface combat. Leads to the greatest amount of standard damage and highest torpedo accuracy but lowest ASW damage. A 4-slot Pure ASW CL is capable of one-shotting any Elite submarine or lower as well. If the submarine isn't even an elite, a night DA + ASW hybrid build is already capable of killing it in this formation.
 * Double Line: Use for cases where your 4-slot Pure ASW CL is incapable of killing a submarine in the boss node in Line Ahead. Normally this submarine tends to be a flagship rank or higher. Also used in the event you sortie multiple ships with 188 day firepower (Yamato-classes and aircraft carriers), as they will still be at firepower cap nonethless. Higher shelling accuracy than Line ahead but lower torpedo accuracy.
 * Diamond: Use for aerial nodes, as air strikes ignore all formation bonuses and engagement form bonuses, but Anti-Air and AACI trigger rates are highest in this form. Also used for flagship protection if you're sortieing a weak flagship required for branching. Also used if your 4-slot Pure ASW CL that's supposed to kill a flagship submarine is in chuuha state. Lower accuracy and lower shelling and torpedo damage from all ships.
 * Echelon: Highest anti-torpedo evasion in normal nodes and highest evasion in yasen nodes, and lowest enemy cut-in rate in yasen nodes. Shelling accuracy is similar to line ahead in yasen nodes, but lower in normal nodes. Used primarily for surviving the initial torpedo strikes of submarine nodes in Line Ahead or similar formations, and as the default option in yasen nodes as one-hitting ships is still easily possible, but this reduces the chances your fleet has any taihas.
 * Line Abreast: Used for cases where guaranteeing submarine kills is more important than evading their initial torpedo strikes. Highest evasion in normal nodes against shelling attacks (in the case your ships are unlikely to kill the largest threats, particularly 3-2 BB node), but horrendous shelling damage and very poor torpedo accuracy. Shelling accuracy is similar to line ahead.
 * Antisub Formation 1: Combined Fleet only. Used for pure submarine nodes.
 * Forward Formation 2: Combined Fleet only. Used for mixed surface-submarine nodes.
 * Ring Formation 3: Combined Fleet only. Used for aerial nodes.
 * Battle Formation 4: Combined Fleet only. Used for pure surface nodes.
 * Note that all of the above have no effect on carriers' initial airstrikes.

Nodes

 * Resource (green) nodes give you extra resources, the amount of which can be affected by the equipment your ships are carrying.
 * Maelstrom (purple) nodes take away resources directly from your pool, and also depletes resources from your ships of the same type. If one or more Radars is equipped on any ship in the fleet, all ships will have 30% of their supply (either ammo or fuel) removed. If not, the amount removed is 40%.
 * Battle (red) nodes use up 20% of both ammo and fuel (except for submarine nodes in Combined Fleet maps, which use up only fuel).
 * Choice nodes allow you to pick branching at will.
 * LOS-check nodes allow you to use a branching path if your Fleet eLOS exceeds a certain value. Otherwise, you will be sent to another node. In between guaranteed minima and maxima, your fleet has a chance of going to either node depending on eLOS.
 * Boss (horned) nodes are similar to battle nodes, but are always at the end of one of the possible paths on the map, is usually one of the hardest battles, and defeating the node is required for completion of quests and such.
 * Proceeding to night battle from day battle reduces your ammo ticks by 1, for a total of 2 fuel and 3 ammo ticks used.

Statistics and Special Attacks

 * The function of LOS, in addition to deciding branching of the compass, is to increase Artillery Spotting rates. Fleet LOS has been linked to greater Artillery Spotting rates across all ships. Artillery Spotting rates are also increased by having a seaplane with a greater Aircraft Proficiency, a Surface Radar specifically and having Air Supremacy instead of mere Air Superiority. The flagship also has higher Artillery Spotting rates than any other ship.
 * The trigger rate of Anti-Air Cut-ins is dependent only on the AACI API identity, the ship's own AA statistic and the fleet formation modifier. Fleet AA has no effect on this. Also, the AACI API number which is the largest will take priority, even though in some cases the larger API number leads to a weaker AACI type. The strength of AACI when it triggers is dependent ONLY on the API identity.
 * Luck increases accuracy by approximately 1% every 10 points in addition to its effects on Night Battle Cut-in attacks. This may be a reason to buff Luck on ships you use a lot after all the important night cut-in ships have already been maxed on Luck.
 * Sortieing one or more Slow ships reduces the entire fleet's speed to Slow, which reduces the evasion values of all ships by an unknown amount. Where possible avoid using Slow ships completely, and if you must use one for some branching-related reason, use more than one, since there's no further loss, and Slow ships generally have either lower resource consumption or higher battle potential than Fast ones. Slow ships are also very suitable for support expeditions where the speed of the fleet has no effect.
 * The first round of attacks proceeds in descending order of attack range on both your fleet and the enemy's, and the attack range of a ship is determined by either the ship's intrinsic range or the longest ranged weapon it equips, whichever is longer. However, attacks will always alternate between the two fleets. Therefore using a Long ranged weapon (like ) does not mean you get to launch more attacks before the enemy fleet does. It only means you have altered the turn order on your end. The main cases where understanding this mechanic is useful are firstly the use of to allow a high-damage carrier to launch early rather than risk being chuuhaed and disabled by an enemy attack, and secondly the use of exactly one medium-range gun on  when sparkling her in World 1-1 to ensure she fires before a lvl 1 destroyer does (and thus eliminate the chance of MVP being stolen by a critical hit on node 1).

Ship Status and Performance

 * Shouha damage reduces Artillery Spotting rates and increases night cut-in rates by 5%, but does not affect damage. It also prevents destroyers from being able to be used as escorts in the mechanic.
 * Chuuha damage reduces pre-cap outgoing damage to 70%, reduces Artillery Spotting rates, increases night cut-in rates by 20%, and prevents CV(L)s from launching; only may launch at this damage level. Closing torpedo attacks also cannot be made at this damage level, even though initial torpedo strikes from  may still proceed. Thus, one of the advantages of cut-in setups is that even though the damage potential drops, the cut-in rate increases, allowing the ship to still be a threat in yasen, whereas double attack setups are mostly effective only when the ship has taken shouha levels of damage or less. Finally Akashi is not capable of repairing ships at chuuha or taiha.
 * Taiha reduces outgoing damage further to 40%, prevents yasen participation and if the Admiral proceeds to the next node, the ship will now be able to sink if it is not protected by a Damage Control (Damecon) item like the, where the repairs to 20% HP and the  to full HP ( also restores fuel and ammo to full).
 * Sparkling increases accuracy and evasion above morale values of 53, and increases Great Success rates in expeditions by 16% per ship, but has no known effect on critical hits or Artillery Spotting rates.
 * Orange-face and worse fatigue levels progressively reduce accuracy and evasion, and the damage-reduction mechanism is disabled at red-face levels.
 * Repairing a ship resets its morale to 40 immediately if its morale is less than 40, even if the repair was done with a bucket.
 * Ships carry fuel and ammo with them which are depleted by different map nodes as elaborated above. The final damage dealt by your ships is multiplied by the number of remaining ticks out of 5 (so 180 damage on a 20% ammo situation causes 72 damage); 5 ticks and above deal full damage. Fuel affects the evasion of ships to an unknown level, but in general the lower the fuel, the lower your ships' evasion will be. For this reason always sortie with full resources unless you're using the resupply mechanic, which is detailed separately on her page.

Ship Positioning

 * The BB-triggered second shelling phase of the main fleet and the yasen battle order is dependent on the ship order in the fleet.
 * While carriers should normally be placed last if yasen is expected as they cannot fire in yasen, in Combined Fleet settings they should be placed first instead so they have higher chances of launching before receiving critical damage, since the main fleet in a Combined Fleet setting never enters yasen anyway.
 * Flagships have 25% greater night cut-in rate, a greater Artillery spotting rate, gain 50% more xp than any other ships, and is shielded by other ships at a given rate dependent on the formation chosen. The flagship of the main fleet in a Combined Fleet setting is also the only ship that may trigger the  mechanic, and is the only ship which will lead to the sortie ending by default if taihaed. The flagship of the escort fleet in a Combined Fleet setting has been unsinkable for the past few events, and is the only ship that cannot escort taiha ships away (if the flagship is a DD). The flagship of the first fleet is also the Secretary ship, and affects the results of some Construction attempts and all Development attempts. must be the flagship of a fleet in order to use her Repair function, and must be the Secretary ship to use Akashi's Improvement Arsenal.
 * From the earlier damage processing example on, it is advisable to order the ships in a fleet in ASCENDING order of yasen damage potential (with the exception of the -carrying flagship, so that even if the lower-damage attacks fail, they will still be likely to deal double scratch damage - and reserve the higher-damage attacks for finishing off a high-armour target.

Fleet Composition Quirks

 * The presence of at least one BB or equivalent (some hime, oni etc) on either your fleet or the enemy's fleet will trigger a second shelling phase, where the attack order is determined by fleet order.  If enemy ships on a map are mostly a threat because of their closing torpedo attacks it is advisable to bring at least one battleship to sink them before the closing torpedo phase can happen, BUT if pre-boss enemy ships are mostly a threat because of their shelling phase attacks (this applies mostly to carriers, ESPECIALLY ), it is advisable to ensure you bring NO BATTLESHIPS at all so they don't get to take double turns. 5-4 is one particular case of this where a zero-battleship setup receives far less damage in the zero-oni configuration of node 2 in the north path.

Timing

 * RNG Branching is decided by RNG rolls at the start of a sortie when the map loads. There are tools that at the very least used to be able to read these, though it may be arguable that this would be an exploit-level function and thus using them would be inadvisable.
 * When the formation is selected, the outcome of the battle is decided, damage taken by all your ships is deducted off their HP pools, and planes will be deducted off their slots (leading to bauxite and/or Aircraft Proficiency rank losses). Any enemy ship kills that count for quests are deducted off the quest list. If you lose connection at this point, you lose HP and planes, but do not gain anything in return except quest list reductions for kill-type quests.
 * When the experience screen appears, morale is added and/or deducted from ships, experience gained is accrued to ships, and fuel/ammo costs are deducted from the ships' supply stores. Quests that involve beating a particular boss node will have credit given at this point. Finally, any resource nodes where resources were gained since the previous battle will now add their resources to your HQ. Losing connection at this point will lead to almost all the same effects as retreating at this node, with the exception of zero drops.
 * Ship and special item drops are then calculated when the 'proceed' button is clicked.
 * Upon return to the HQ, 15 morale is deducted for returning from a sortie.

Special mechanics

 * The  is a special piece of equipment that comes stock with . Equipping it on the flagship of the First Fleet of a Combined Fleet allows for a healthy (shouha and greater damage disables the DD's ability to do this) DD in the Second Fleet to escort exactly one taiha ship out of battle per activation. It may activate only once per battle at the very end, so if 2 ships are taiha for instance, the other ship will be prone to sink if the Admiral proceeds and she is not protected by . This allows you to proceed on a sortie where a taiha occurs at the preboss node instead of starting over, but at the cost of both reducing Fuel of both ships to zero AND reducing Morale of both ships to 15. For a fast recovery of morale, one might then bucket-repair the taiha 15 morale ship and dock-repair the escorting DD - or if the escorting DD is at full health, to intentionally sortie it to World 1-2 to force it to take 1 or 2 points of damage at node 1, before proceeding to dock-repair the HP just lost to recover morale instantly. If you've understood everything up to the end, you should realise exactly why the should only ever be equipped in a 3-plane slot on an aircraft carrier, or the 1-plane slots of  or, and having that ship set as Combined Fleet Flagship.

Other Guides

 * User_blog:Hayashi_H/Max-efficiency_Map-clear_Formations
 * User_blog:Hayashi_H/Advanced_Equipment_Guide