Board Thread:Fleet's Prepared-ness/@comment-33667919-20180120001844/@comment-32647310-20180120160336

Okay, this an attempted re-post. I spent a stupid amount of time writing one up for you that got eaten (no, I am not happy about this still). This will be a very long post (so strap yourself in…but don’t feel obligated to go through it all at once!)

Overall, I would say that you are not in as bad as a position as you think you are. This being said, I will try to break down on different areas and try to offer my advice. General Fleet It looks to me that you have a decent spread of ships and types. By and large, you should be okay to complete this on easy with few problems. However, there are some things you can do to help yourself either in preparation for this event as well as just preparation in general: Abukuma – Why is she not at K2? She really should be. Her gimmick is that she can equip a Midget Submarine, effectively making her a CLT, which can be VERY useful in compositions (for routing or whatever) that do not allow CLTs.

Kitakami/Ooi – As CLTs, these ships are very useful as a general thing. You may want to consider giving them some love.

Destroyers – You have a handful of powerful/useful destroyers, such as Kasumi and Ayanami that you should really get to K2 as soon as possible. Ayanami is one of the most powerful DDs in the game right now. There are others, but going through the whole list would be exhaustive.

Hiei – While not outright necessary for the event, getting Hiei to K2 will, through a quest, get you a Prototype 35.6cm Triple Gun.

Event Ships The status of your event ships is…pretty lopsided. Some of these are very high level, while others appear to have gotten only token attention. The fact that you are going Easy Mode mitigates a lot of any potential complications, as requirements for routing will be easier. Despite this, you may want to focus on the historicals (especially Kurita, Suzuki and Ozawa members) because these ships will most likely receive a significant damage bonus.

Equipment Your equipment looks to be pretty firmly in the realm of ‘good enough’. My biggest negative critique is that you have an awful lot of space devoted to crap.

Small Guns – In general, these are okay. However, you have a LOT more 12.7cms than what you reasonably need…and you really should just get rid of the 12 cm guns you have; they are worthless. I would also advise against putting too much effort and resources into upgrading the 12.7cms unless you intend on upgrading them to the 12.7cm MB K2…but even then, that’s not necessarily viable as a number of DDs have that as stock equipment when they reach K2.

Medium Guns – Nothing really to say here other than scrap those 14cm Singles; they’re worthless. Later on down the road, you may want to give some love to the 20.3cm (no.2 &3) guns, you don’t need much and certainly not now…but giving them some upgrades from Akashi would be worthwhile.

Large Guns – You may want to consider upgrading some of those 35.6 Duals into Prototype 35.6 Triples. This is a long-term deal and certainly not something you want to do now…and you don’t really need a whole lot of them either (a total of 6 should be sufficient)

Secondary Guns – Nothing really to say here other than get rid of those 15.2cm Singles. Those are wasting space.

Torpedoes – I would not put too much effort into upgrading these; they’re expensive and the returns are ‘meh’. But that is my personal opinion. Other than that, scrap the 61 Quad and Triples (the non-oxygen type), they are taking up space.

Carrier Aircraft – I want to devote an entire section to this later, as you are (in my opinion) really lacking here.

AP Shells – The only thing I would suggest is putting upgrades into the T91 AP shells. At +1, the T91 is on par with the T1 shell, at +6 it’s objectively superior in all regards. Fortunately, upgrading a T91 from +1-+6 costs 1 screw making it effectively free when done as part of the daily upgrade. 2 or 3 of these should be enough.

AA Guns – Please don’t put any resources into these. Upgrading them does not provide much of a benefit at all and is a waste of screws. I understand you just got Akashi, so are still experimenting, but there are better things you can put your efforts towards upgrading.

Seaplanes – Only thing you’re really lacking are Seaplane Fighters, but I know that is a thing that takes time to work on, especially since you just got Akashi. This said, you shouldn’t really need more than 4 regardless of what difficulty you want to tackle. Obviously more is better, but if you can squeeze out at least 1 more before the event, you should be okay for Easy.

LBAA – It is my personal view that one would want 8 of these. I am aware that some folks would argue with me on this, or hold a different view, but that’s just my opinion. On a somewhat related note, Quest F39 is a quarterly repeatable that lets you upgrade a T96 to a T1. This is something you may want to consider doing if possible…even if not right now, then certainly in the future.

Combat Rations – I am bringing these up because this is a (small) pile of free screws. With Naganami (or Agano on the weekends) as the assistant, Combat Rations can be upgraded up to +6 for 0 screws, so when done as part of the daily Akashi Upgrade quest gives you 1 screw. This is ONLY useful as part of the daily quest line however…so don’t go spamming this.

Carrier Aircraft There are a lot of shortcomings here, such that I think that it deserves its entire section. As a point of clarity, much of what I am going to point is my personal view on things and there may be little you can do about this right now, but is certainly something you can prepare for in the future.

Red Planes – You have far too many T99 Dive Bombers and nowhere near enough Suisei Model 12A’s. My advice; scrap those T99’s and build yourself some Suisei Model 12A’s. Reason: While the general usefulness of Red Planes is up in the air in regards to normal use (it really is up to personal preference, personally, I like the CVCI’s which need Red Planes to trigger), they ARE useful as part of Support Expeditions, as they provide shelling bonuses when you use CVs as part of that action.

Blue Planes – You have far too many T97 Torpedo Bombers and nowhere near enough Ryuusei Kais. My advice; scrap those T97’s and build yourself some Ryuusei Kais. Reason: While the usefulness of Red Planes is based mostly on personal preference, Torpedo Bombers are the objectively the better strike aircraft, and the Ryuusei Kai is the most powerful of these that you can build. In addition to their firepower, they have a very good range, making them ideal for filling in if you find you don’t have enough LBAS Planes.

Green Planes – This is a bit more of a complex issue. Unlike the Red and Blue planes, there is nothing you have ‘too many of’, but like those, there are planes you clearly don’t have enough of. In this case Reppuus and/or Shiden K2’s. Fortunately, these are craftable. I do want to address your Carrier Fighters, but I feel that this would deserve its own section, which will be below. My advice: craft more Reppuus and/or Shiden K2’s. Reason: These aircraft are the best fighters you can get outside of quests

The following recipe will work for getting all planes as long as you have a CV/L as a flagship (higher level seems to be better for getting better planes): 20/60/10/100

Given that you are trying to conserve resources, I would not go and spam this; just do it as part of your daily construction questline.

Resources and Buckets I think your resources are lacking, but that is because I’m paranoid about such things. My only suggestion is to look at low-time/high-gain expeditions and spam them.

The number of buckets you have is abysmal for an event. My suggestion is improve your income; take a good hard look at the Expeditions pages and the rewards. Consider using sparkled ships on those expeditions that have Buckets as a reward in the 2nd column, as those always come with a Great Success.

I would also say you really need to be more disciplined on your bucket usage. Unless you REALLY need a ship (for training or something) or the repair time is obscenely long, then let them repair over time in the docks overnight or while you’re at work. Ships that are Medium Damage (yellow) function at full capacity.

If you want some more nuanced advice on how to help in this regard, let me know. I will gladly throw out my processes for resource-gathering and bucket-hoarding. Otherwise, this page should be all you really need: http://kancolle.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Shinhwalee/Major_Event_Preparation_Guide_for_Admirals_(OUTDATED)#Recommended_expeditions_depending_on_the_Admirals.27_level

Note, the overall page is very much outdated, but the section on expeditions (which the link will bring you to) still has merit and is viable.

Carrier Fighter Improvement I want to predicate this section by making it clear that my play style and general preference is catered towards gaining air supremacy whenever possible. This means that I have devoted a stupid amount of time and energy into getting good aircraft, specifically, fighters. There are folks that may argue with this view…or, at least to the extent of the emphasis I put on it. This being said, here are my thoughts on how you may want to proceed in preparing for this event and future events: The most powerful fighter that can be acquired in-game right now is the M53 (Iwamoto Squadron) I think that there are more powerful Carrier Fighters, but these were rewards that were released before either of us got into this game and are no longer available. The only plane that even comes close is the Reppuu (601 Airgroup). Neither of these planes are readily available and can only be acquired from owning certain ships and completing quests.

However, there is a plane that, while part of a quest chain (or a LOT of effort via Akashi’s upgrade), that comes close, and the best part is that you can have more than one. That is the M52 (Skilled). This plane is available through a small (and repeatable) quest-chain: F22 -> F24/25. Before getting into the quest-chain itself, I want to make some things clear: - To make the most of this quest chain, you need to understand what upgrading fighters through Akashi. A max upgrade (+10) fighter, coupled with the Max Proficiency (>>) equates to a +2 to that particular fighter’s AA stat. For example, an M21 fighter has an AA stat of 5. A +10 M21 fighter has an AA stat of 5+2 for a total of 7. - This quest chain requires you to have Skilled Crewmembers…which can be a bit challenging to come by. - To make the most of this quest, you will need a fair number of screws and a lot of M21 fighters lying around (I would suggest building and stockpiling these!). Quest Chain: F22 takes a >> M21 and turns it into a M21 (Skilled). This is a repeatable monthly quest. Completing F22 will unlock F24. F24 takes an M21 (Skilled) and turns it into a M52 (Skilled). Completing F24 will unlock F25. F25 is identical to F24, except that the M21 must be at maximum proficiency and it is a repeatable monthly quest.

Now, the really neat thing about using aircraft that are upgradable through Akashi (such as the M21 Fighter or M52C (601 Air Group)), is that the bonuses that go into the base aircraft transfer to the reward/upgrade aircraft. So, if you use a +10 M21 for completing F22, the result will be a +10 M21 (Skilled).

This fact is *EXTREMELY* useful when talking about upgrading cerain aircraft. For example, once you get Zuikaku, you will be able to start working on the quest chain that rewards M53 (Iwamoto Squadron), which if you use a +10 Plane as the base for the quest, it will save you a LOT of time and resources down the road. Or, in the case of the quest to upgrade an M52C (601 Air Group) to a Reppuu (601 Air Group) this is needed because you cannot upgrade a Reppuu (601 Air Group) in Akashi, so if you want that plane to be +10, it has to be done BEFORE completing that quest.

Anyway, to make the absolute most of the F22 quest chain, you need to start with a >> +10 M21.Doing F22 will make that plane into a +10 M21 (Skilled), the follow-on quest will, in turn take that +10 M21 (Skilled) and turn it into a +10 M52 (Skilled), which is the strongest Carrier Fighter that you can readily have multiple duplicates of (the M52C (601 Air Group) is comparable, but is so hard to come by it’s not worth talking too much about).

My suggestion, and again, I have to be clear that these are more long-term goals, is to work on upgrading M21 Fighters though Akashi so they are +10…or at least keep a bunch of M21 Fighters on hand for the fodder.

…okay, I think that’s about it. I am aware that this is one huge wall of text, and there is a LOT to take in, so don’t feel like you have to do so all in one go. If you want me to explain something a little further, I am more than willing to do this.