Talk:Experience and Rank/@comment-183.86.100.119-20150228211507/@comment-25238518-20150302123623

Many people put low-level ships in their first slots to spite other teitoku (I've encountered dozens of un-remodeled Nenohi...There was also a level 142 un-remodeled Nenohi once, who I appreciated) or will have Akashi (No functional use in leveling her past 35) or another low-level ship that they are currently leveling. The level of their ships is completely dependant on what they are doing/how they left their fleet; plenty of very high level teitoku will be using very low-level ships from time to time.

From my experience, you'll get one round of terrible practice battles (Fruitless victories or thugs with married Yamato-class and at least 3 standard carriers) and then 12 hours later you'll get 5 high-level sub fleets that you can casually destroy.

Sortie-ing specifically for ranking isn't very practical in the lower levels; I'm HQ 84 and I only unlocked world 5 recently (I was side-tracked by 2-5 and 3-5, which I finally cleared through much blood and many tears), and staying in a reward-rank is very demanding and requires some solid kanmusu for 5-4 farming.

If you mean farming HQ, then that'll come with time; rushing it in the lower levels isn't recommended due to Extra Operations getting harder, but you shouldn't encounter problems with that through normal playing, and it's better to face higher-tiered EO nodes with a juiced-up fleet than restricting your gameplay to clear them before they upgrade.