Aircraft Proficiency

This Page contains new and unconfirmed information, use the information herein with caution.

The Aircraft Proficiency System (tentative name) is a system introduced in the August 10th 2015 update along with the Summer 2015 Event which enables planes to acquire experience in sorties. This system applies to all aircraft in the game with the exception of autogyros and Liason Aircraft.

By acquiring experience from repeated sorties, pilots eventually gain ranks. As planes reach higher ranks, they acquire hidden stat bonuses that increase their overall effectiveness during battle.

Planes may lose their accumulated experience when they are shot down, which would downgrade their proficiency rank, or worse, strip them of their ranking emblems entirely. It is thus of imperative importance to send out your planes under the most favorable aerial situations whenever possible.

Abyssal Planes do not have aircraft proficiency, however your opponent fleet in PvP do have aircraft proficiency

Ranks
As the plane gains experience, the plane may acquire a ranking insignia at the right side of the plane slot.
 * The ranks progress as follows: [[File:Aircraft Proficiency Blue Line 1.png]] -> [[File:Aircraft Proficiency Blue Line 2.png]] -> [[File:Aircraft Proficiency Blue Line 3.png]] -> [[File:Aircraft Proficiency Gold Line 1.png]] -> [[File:Aircraft Proficiency Gold Line 2.png]] -> [[File:Aircraft Proficiency Gold Line 3.png]] -> [[File:Aircraft Proficiency Gold Chevron.png]]
 * The rank after triple yellow stripes are the double chevron insignia, which are the highest known attainable rank.
 * Planes without any symbols have the default stats as stated on the status page.
 * It have been speculated that these ranks are just generalization of planes' actual proficiency, thus not all double chevrons are created equal.

Acquiring Experience
Planes gain experience in regular sorties and PvP, and up to 24 aircraft (4 slots x 6 ships) may be trained by aircraft carriers or aviation cruiser/battleships at a time.


 * Viable maps for planes leveling:
 * Method 1: Concentrates on training 4/3 bomber planes repetitively in quick succession. Training in 1-1-A cycling Shouhou and Zuihou or Chitose and Chiyoda can be done almost non-stop, low exp but uses less resources and requires less micro-management.
 * It is possible to bring along two more light carriers to level up reconnaissance and fighter planes while retaining the ease of micromanagement, though the latter two would be subjected to fatigue.
 * Method 2: Concentrate on ranking up lots of planes simultaneously. A red fatigue setup in 3-2-A with 3-4 CV/CVL and 1 BBV plus a submarine to tank can be used to yield good ship exp and pilot experience gains.
 * Method 3: Utilizes ASW capabilities of light aircraft carriers. Training in 1-5 allow one to rank up both seaplane bombers and carrier planes simultaneously in a full run of the map but may require buckets.
 * Method 4: 2-3 with 6 CV full planes.


 * Planes levelling speed:
 * Type 96 Fighters, Type 3 Command Liaison Aircraft (ASW)s, and Ka-type Observation Autogyros do not receive ranks. Some suspect Type 0 Reconnaissance Seaplane do not gain rank too, however online images showing these planes with rank exist, albeit these images' credibility can't be proven.
 * According to data used to support, for Type 0 Fighter Model 21, Type 97 Torpedo Bomber, Type 99 Dive Bomber, Zuiun, Type 0 Observation Seaplane, and Type 2 Reconnaissance Aircraft, if there are zero plane lost after every sortie, it would take 10 sorties for the plane to reach rank 1, 25 to reach rank 2, 40 for rank 3, 55 for rank 4, 70 for rank 5, 85 for rank 6 and 100 for rank 7. Planes with higher stats like Reppuu might level at a faster speed.
 * In 3-2-A, it take around 60 battles on average for Type 97 Torpedo Bomber (Tomonaga Squadron) without experience to reach double chevron. Note that 3-2-A is a map featuring enemy with Anti-Air stats that can shot down a few planes so data here are only for reference.
 * Plane slot sizes does not directly affect the speed planes acquire ranks. However due to factors like being shot down during fighter combat stage (which can happen even if there are no Anti-Air capability in abyssal fleet) or when experiencing Anti-Air fire from enemy fleet (which basically all enemy ships except submarine have certain AA capability).
 * Leveling speed would not be affected factors like winning or losing the whole battle, morale or fatigue, slot size, equipment order.



Effects of Aircraft Ranks
An aircraft may gain any of these benefits as long as they are capable of fulfilling any of the following roles:
 * According to the official Kancolle Twitter account, planes [with LoS stats ?] gain increased Line of Sight and contact rate. However the increase in contact rate remain unconfirmed.
 * Planes (mainly fighters) gain an increase in fighter power stat. Experiments shows that:
 * With double chevron, pure fighters can gain an additional 24.6-25.5 fighter power per slot (regardless of the type of fighter or the number of planes a slot has). However, additional experimentation shows that there exist some additional and currently unknown variable affecting exactly what bonus value those planes are getting within that narrow range.
 * Bombers give an extra 3-5 air power with double chevron regardless of whether they have anti-air stats or not.
 * Max Proficient Bombers give 3.443-3.519 extra air power value.
 * As such, for bombers without any built-in AA stats, the AA value they can get would be 3.00 because AA values are rounded down per slot.
 * Seaplane Bombers with double chevron most likely give an extra of 9 fighter power, but there are too many variables that are unknown to say whether or not this is actually the case.
 * Note that the final computed value is rounded down per slot after adding up the air power given by the plane itself with the conventional method.
 * Bombers (dive or torpedo or seaplane) gain increased damage when they score a critical hit. However normal hit damage are not affected by the system.
 * A double chevron bomber in one slot increases post-cap damage by 10%. Two of them increases the damage by 20%. Three increases the damage by 30%. Four increases it by 40%.
 * If the first slot is filled by a double chevron bomber, it gives an additional 10% increase in post-cap damage. So a carrier carrying bombers in all 4 slots will receive a 50% increase in post-cap damage.
 * This bonus applies to the opening airstrike and shelling phase as well as Shelling Support Expedition for carrier-based bombers. However it only affect the opening airstrike phase for seaplane bombers.
 * The bonus increases linearly according to rank.
 * A currently untested theory suggest that the first slot bomber gains twice the post-cap damage bonus compared to all subsequent slots, and hence the extra 10% with double chevron.
 * Current untested theory is that [[File:Aircraft Proficiency Blue Line 1.png]] give 2.5% extra firepower when it give out critical hit, 3-3.5% for [[File:Aircraft Proficiency Blue Line 2.png]], 4.5-5% for [[File:Aircraft Proficiency Blue Line 3.png]], no data for [[File:Aircraft Proficiency Gold Line 1.png]], 7.5-8% for [[File:Aircraft Proficiency Gold Line 2.png]], 8% for [[File:Aircraft Proficiency Gold Line 3.png]] and 10% for [[File:Aircraft Proficiency Gold Chevron.png]].
 * Proficient planes loaded onto empty slot does not provide any effects from aircraft proficiency.
 * Accuracy and critical hit rate for bombers increase for both the opening airstrike and the shelling phase. However the effect apparently does not stack.
 * It has been observed that seaplane bombers do increased damage on critical hits when performing anti-submarine attacks with double chevron planes and this seem to follow the same formula as carrier based bombers.
 * No sign of Saiun's Aircraft Proficiency system affecting engagement form, but still not clear enough.
 * Appears to increase Night Reconnaissance contact rate.

Fighter Planes' Air Power Bonus Test Result

 * See text above for brief description for other types of planes.
 * See for a theory on one of the potentially viable explanations to these numbers, especially the part about why plane with same rank giving different extra airpower value as this table imply.

Factors Affecting Aircraft Rank

 * Numbered air group planes such as Zuiun (634 Air Group), Suisei (601 Air Group) and Reppuu (601 Air Group) start with single blue stripes.
 * Famed and skilled air group planes such as Type 21 Zero Fighter (Skilled), Type 99 Dive Bomber (Egusa Squadron) and Type 97 Torpedo Bomber (Tomonaga Squadron) start with double blue stripes.
 * Converted plane models of famed air groups such as Suisei (Egusa Squadron) and Tenzan Model 12 (Tomonaga Squadron) will retain their original rank if it's higher than the default rank. The model conversion for Tenzan Model 12 (Murata Squadron) however, appears to either become downgraded by one rank or capped at triple gold stripes.
 * Capability of planes slots affect their speed to acquire proficiency, though the extent of its effect is currently not-well-tested, and occasionally plane on smaller slot can gain rank faster than that are in higher slot by chance.
 * Ranks can decrease slightly (1-2) if a large proportion are shot down.
 * Planes will have their rank reset if the entire squadron occupying a slot is shot down.
 * Planes will have their rank lowered/reset if you do not maintain Air Superiority. (Requires further testing.)
 * When a slot of planes is completely shot down, it still receive ranks for their performance prior to the event, and the ranks will be added after the rank reset. So in some cases, a wiped-out squadron can return to base with 1 or 2 stripes left, given that the squadron performed well before being wiped out.
 * Planes that are assigned to equipment slot with 0 planes will neither gain nor lose ranks.
 * Planes in escort fleet do not gain or lose ranks.
 * Planes that are used in aerial support do not lose their rank even if they are completely shot down.
 * Bombers are vulnerable to enemy AACI and are at risk of getting completely shot down in smaller plane slots, whereas fighters are not. It may be recommended to put fighters or reconnaissance planes instead of bombers in the smallest aircraft carrier slots.
 * Planes may gain experience in Exercises (PvP) runs and their ranks may be reduced when they are shot down in PvP, though the rank reduction is not shown until subsequent sorties.
 * What would happen to aircraft proficiency if you refresh the page (F5) before battle result screen appear is still unknown.

Trivia

 * In the official Fubuki 4koma webcomic, the Aircraft Proficiency system is described as a process that fairies gain attachment toward their plane. When they lose their planes, they get resupplied new ones and thus, they would need to rebuild their attachment over again.
 * When the system first implement on Aug 10, 2015, there was a bug causing your fleet Aircraft Proficiency to change even if you did nothing to your fleet. It was due to the program mistakenly counting in battle data when other players challenged player's fleet in PvP. This was fixed a day later.

External Link

 * The following Air Power calculators already (at least partially) supports the Aircraft Proficiency system. However, there might be differences between values given by these calculator and the actual value in system so use with caution.
 * http://kancolle-calc.net/aircrafts.html (Japanese)
 * http://aircalc.net (Japanese)
 * KanColle English AS Calculator (English)