Land Base Aerial Support

'''This page covers a recently implemented game mechanic and thus may have unconfirmed information. Use the information herein with caution.'''

Introduction
The Land-Base Aerial Support (tentative name abbreviated as LBAS for now) is a system introduced in the May 2nd-3rd 2016 update along with the Spring 2016 Event, which enables seaplane, carrier-based, and land-based aircraft (but not Autogyro/Liaison Aircraft) to be launched from an air base and to assist you during the sortie in certain maps.

Prerequisite
In the Spring 2016 and Summer 2016 events, land bases were unlocked progressively one-by-one by clearing certain event maps, to a maximum of three bases.

How To Use
First introduced in Spring 2016 Event, after clearing the Map E3, you'll be able to establish an air base from which you can launch aircraft from. You can launch carrier-based aircraft and seaplanes, as well as land-based aircraft that is exclusive to this support system.

In certain maps where land-base aerial support is available, you can activate the support and assign aircraft to the airbase as shown here:

When the land-base aerial support is active for that map, a mark will be displayed below the sortie button.

At the start of the sortie, you can designate up to two target nodes per airfield where aerial support will be performed. You can also select a single node in order to concentrate all of your aerial support there.

When you reach the node where the aerial support is requested, a land-based air battle will take phase before the carrier-based air battle, the support expedition, and the initial torpedo strikes. This allows them to weaken the enemy air fleet and their air power, allowing your fleet's air force to secure air superiority more easily.

If you have cleared Spring Event E4, you'll have an additional airfield to accommodate more aircraft, allowing you to target four nodes instead of two. Clearing Spring Event E5, will unlock the 3rd airbase fleet/squadron.

Similar to the shipgirls, the air fleet that are assigned to the air base needs to be resupplied as well.

The refueling process for aircraft is similar to the refueling the shipgirls. However, the right box resupplies bauxite instead of ammunition. Use drag and drop to un-equip a plane from air base.

Caution:  Un-equipping a plane from an air base will make that plane unavailable for 20 minutes while it is being "relocated"

Aircraft Flight Range and Classification
Aircraft that can be assigned into an air base can be divided into the following categories:
 * Carrier-based Aircraft : Can be equipped on both air base and aircraft carriers. May be further categorized as fighter, bomber, and recon aircraft.
 * Seaplanes : Can be equipped on air base, cruisers, and battleships. Generally have lower performance compared to carrier-based aircraft.
 * Flying Boats : Can only be equipped on a flying boat tender (such as Akitsushima) or air base. Has enormous flight range.
 * Land-based Attack Aircraft : Has greater flight range than carrier-based aircraft, but cannot be equipped on shipgirls.
 * Interceptor Aircraft : Purpose-built aircraft for intercepting bombers that are stationed in the air base. Has lowest flight range.

Options
There are 5 options in the airbase menu as shown below. You can click the label to flip between these options:



Those options are, in left-to-right (for pictures above) to descending order (for description below):
 * 【出撃】 Sortie


 * Allows the player to choose nodes where you want airbase support.
 * Recommended if you require extra firepower in a few nodes.
 * 【防空】 Air Defense


 * Protects Air Base from Enemy Raid.
 * Provides additional fighter power in nodes that receives airbase support within squadron combat radius(unconfirmed)
 * 【退避】 Retreat


 * Prevent your planes being damaged by Enemy Air Raid. However, damage to resources stockpile might increase?
 * 【休憩】 Rest


 * Increases morale recovery speed
 * Bauxite natural recovery speed would be halved if you set your squadron to this status. (i.e. 1 bauxite regen every 6 minutes instead of 3.) Does not affect those who have more bauxite than the natural regen cap.
 * 【待機】 Standby
 * Air base will take no action
 * Increases morale recovery rate

Choosing Sortie will allow you to choose nodes you want airbase support. Choosing Air Defense will skip the choosing node process but will allow interception of enemy air raids, so you should only choose Air Defense mode with AA planes equipped at the airbase. Retreat is currently unknown. Rest supposedly means you don't want airbase support at maps where you can use it and thus you'll not have an option to choose which nodes to attack.

Cost

 * Putting planes onto a land base consumes bauxite.
 * Check these links to see each plane's cost:
 * Fighter, Torpedo Bomber, Dive Bomber, Seaplane, Land-based Attack Aircraft, Interceptor Fighter, Reconnaissance
 * Note that the cost listed in these tables are the cost for equipping 1 plane, but each slot in your land base can have 4 planes (for reconnaissance planes) or 12 planes (for other planes), so you'd need to multiply the listed cost by 4 or 12 respectively to get the equip cost per slot.
 * Some planes, like Shinden Kai, Prototype Seiran, and Type 1 Land-based Attack Aircraft cost more than a hundred bauxite just by putting them into the air base.
 * Sortieing planes consumes fuel and ammo.
 * Land-based attack airfract consume 18 fuel and 8 ammo per squadron.
 * Other aircraft consume 12 fuel and 8 ammo per squadron.
 * Resupplying planes would consume fuel and bauxite.
 * Fuel consumption is equal to 3 times the number of planes lost, and bauxite consumption is equal to 5 times the number of planes lost

Limitations

 * Each aircraft has their own "flight range", which indicates the combat radius of the aircraft. Aircraft that have low flight range will not be able to reach map nodes that are too far away from their air base. In most cases, land-based fighters have greater combat radius than carrier-based aircraft.
 * The aerial battle phases of Land-Base Aerial Support are calculated separately from Opening Airstrike and Support Airstrike expeditions, and aerial conditions from one phase will not be carried over to subsequent phases.
 * The air fleet may become demoralized if your fleet does not reach the node their supports are assigned to. The Air Fleet can also be demoralized if used too often.
 * When you change an aircraft that is assigned in the land base, the aircraft that is switched out will be tagged with "配置転換中" to indicate that it is currently being relocated, and it will be unavailable to be reassigned to either a land-base or shipgirls for the duration (20 minutes ), do NOT change your aircraft too often.
 * Each airbase slot only has a relatively low number of planes and which quite susceptible to enemy AA, especially when ships like Light Cruiser Tsu-Class are present.
 * Warning: Swapping an aircraft assigned to the land base can cost you Bauxite depending on which plane you are swapping them into. There is no usage indicator to show the potential loss of Bauxite. Do NOT change your aircraft too often.
 * Warning: When a land base squadron is sortied, it will cost  fuel and some ammo per squad. Again, there is no indicator that this is happening.

Enemy Raid
In some maps enemy land bases may assault allied bases with their aircraft. This is triggered semi-randomly, accompanied by a siren sound effect, within the map itself. A certain number of raids (dependant on the map) is guaranteed before reaching the boss.

Damage to the bases can result in losses of planes (starting from the first slot) and resources. Efficacy of sortied planes may also decrease, although at least bombing damage is unaffected by the damage state of the base.

To mitigate the effects of enemy raids, players may assign bases to "Air Defense".

Enemy Raids will most often occur twice before reaching the Boss node.

The following images in the latter gallery section are the banners used within the game. Thanks to Admiral Mikado for providing transcripts as well as translations for these:
 * 空襲により備蓄資源に損害を受けました！
 * Your resources have sustained losses due to the air-raid!

基地航空隊にも地上撃破の損害が発生しました！
 * 空襲により備蓄資源に損害を受け、
 * Your resources as well as your land-based air fleets have sustained losses due to the air-raid!


 * 空襲により基地航空隊に地上撃破の損害が発生しました！
 * Your land-based air fleets have sustained losses due to the air-raid!


 * 空襲による基地の損害はありません.
 * The air-raid has inflicted no damage to the land base.

Mechanics
Outlined below is how the LBAS operates during a sortie

All information in this section are now under verification, please treat information in this section carefully.

Fighter Power Calculations
The calculations work the same as if you were to equip them in a carrier equipment slot of the same size.
 * Fighter Power Calculation from each individual squadron are treated separately.

Sortie Aerial Combat
When you sortie to a designated node the bombing phase is similar to that of the normal Aerial Combat Opening Airstrike stage with a few exceptions:
 * Each squadron will go through the entire process of from stage 1 to 3 once but without enemy bombing, costing losses to enemy fighter group
 * This reduce the fighter power required for main fleet to obtain air superiority in that node.
 * Yellow or orange text will be displayed at the bottom of the screen if allied plane losses exceed certain thresholds in each attack.
 * The yellow text  ( 基地航空隊、未帰還多数)  states that your currently attacking squadron has sustained significant damage.
 * The orange text (基地航空隊、被害甚大)  is a more severe version of the yellow message.
 * There is no visual display of the air control state (AP/AS/AS+/etc.)
 * The air control state is recalculated for every bombing pass, based on the remaining enemy fighters that survived previous bombing passes.
 * Squadrons can be sent to fleet air raid nodes (single arrow nodes).
 * While bombers will attack enemy airfields, it seems to serve no purpose.
 * Fighter-heavy squadrons can help reduce enemy bombers and decrease damage taken at these nodes.
 * In the case of a concentrated (2x) attack on a single node only, enemy AA defense will eliminate planes during both passes, but only plane losses from the second pass will be accounted for when returning to base. However, it appears plane ranks are lost in accordance with losses from each pass.
 * Therefore, it's possible to have planes left in a slot after a sortie, but still lose all ranks on it.
 * In addition, the bombing damage on the second pass will be calculated ignoring any planes lost during the first pass.

Enemy Raid

 * Squadrons stationed at bases set to Air Defense will protect all land bases from enemy air raids.
 * Intercept and Anti-bomber stats are far more important than Anti-air stat.
 * Damage to bases can result in semi-random losses of "reserve supplies," which are better known as the player's bauxite and fuel.
 * If a single base takes 50 or more damage in a single enemy raid, 1~4 planes starting from the first slot will be lost for that base.
 * For example, taking 30 damage to Base 1 in the first enemy raid and 40 damage to Base 1 in the second enemy raid during the same sortie will not lead to losses of planes.
 * Bases set to "Retreat" will not suffer losses of planes in the event of taking 50+ damage, but can still incur resource losses.
 * The damage "tags" on abyssal installation types will be applied to your air bases when they're sustaining damage. For more information you can refer to this page on the types of damage "tags" that are applicable.

Damage Calculation
Note that in this section, CL0= non-critical hit while CL1= critical hit, which is different from other pages on the wikia.
 * It have been observed that non-critical damage range (CL0) is different from the regular damage range, or bonus exist.
 * When Ryuusei Kai or Type 1 Land Attack Aircraft attack enemy ships, torpedo animation is displayed but the damage is close to the usual Dive Bomber range, except when CL1 (critical) happen.
 * Dive Bomber and Torpedo Bomber follow same calculation, and their damage difference is only determined by individual plane's stats and plane count. After May 5 fix, Type 1 Land Base Attack. Aircraft's damage have been increased and other things are unchanged.
 * Attack power affected by number of planes remaining in the attacking slot.
 * Number of proficient plane in the squadron does not affect CL0.
 * Placement of Bombers/Attackers does not affect CL0, and probably not for CL1 either.
 * Damage is neither affected by engagement form nor formation.
 * Aircraft Proficiency does not affect Cl0.
 * Whether you focus your attack onto one node or separate them to different node, their attack power won't be affected. (It would only affect the number of time you can get LBAS support in that node.)
 * Abyssal flagship protection can happen when attacking abyssals.
 * Contact bonus exists and can be found via API, but there is no graphic display.
 * Bomber damage is not affected by the HP state of the associated base.

Distance Calculations

 * As of the Summer 2015 Event, the range of an entire base is determined by the planes with shortest range stationed there.
 * Stationing a flying boat will increase the range of all aircraft at the base by three.
 * Previously, range was equivalent to the longest range squadron stationed at the base.

Morale

 * Orange and red faces (analogous to kanmusu morale indicators) can be seen after repeated sorties.
 * Impacts on performance are not well-tested yet, but it is safe to assume squadrons will exhibit lower performance when fatigued.
 * Removing planes from base slots will reset their morale.  However, they cannot be equipped after removal immediately, and replacing slots with unequipped planes will cost bauxite.  Utilize the "Rest" assignment to recover morale quickly at low cost.

Trivia

 * When the system was first implemented on May 3rd 2016, there was a bug that caused the bombing damage from land-base aerial support to be omitted from internal enemy HP damage calculation, which occasionally causes a supposedly sunk enemy unit to be able to act as if they were alive (able to attack/be targeted by your fleet), as shown here
 * Two days after the system's implementation, an emergency update was deployed to fix the performance of land-base attack aircraft.
 * The air base featured in the Spring 2016 Event is located at Johnston Atoll, while the air base in Spring 2016 Event E5 is the Henderson Field (now Honiara International Airport), located at Solomon Islands; near to Buin and Rabaul.
 * In-game, the island allied bases are located on is named Erehwyna Island, an anagram of Anywhere Island. This is likely a tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact that range calculations are based off of fleet starting points, which can vary even in the maps themselves, implying the island has the magical property of being able to move to wherever the player fleet starts in each map.
 * In the Summer 2016 Event, the bases are indicated at an actual location on the event map.  However, the starting points for fleets on each map are all relatively similar.