User blog:KptRudobrody/Akashi guide for everyone

ToC:
 * 1) Prelude
 * 2) AIA - how it works?
 * 3) What should I upgrade?
 * 4) Effects of improving
 * 5) Afterword

PRELUDE
Hello there fellow TTKs. This guide will tell you the basics of how Akashi's Improvement Arsenal(AIA) works. First of all, you will need to get her. She is dropable in: Now if you have her, to access AIA you need to: Congratulations! Now you are able to dive into the world of improvements, upgrades and blinking akashi :).
 * 2-5 boss node - only for you, who did not have her earlier;
 * 3-5 hoppo node;
 * 6-2 both south pre-boss nodes;
 * 1) Set Akashi(kai) as your first fleet flagship
 * 2) Go to the main screen
 * 3) Hover on development icon
 * 4) Click in the button which will appear

AIA - how it works?
To understand how AIA works you will need to know few of basic terms: To improve an item you will need: Also, what you need to know is that improving and upgrading is not guaranteed to succeed. While there is and option of guaranted succes it will be far more costly in terms of screws and Development materials but can be considered to use when you are upgreading something that will use rare equipment to upgrage/improve.
 * improving - means adding the ★ on piece of equipment, equipment improve range is  +0★ (no indication), +1...9★, ending on max ★(+10);
 * upgrading - means that you will convert one piece of equipment which you have improved to max ★(+10) and "improving" it again which will try to convert your upgraded piece of equipment into new equipment - piece of equipment you wish to upgrade CAN'T be locked. It will usually remove all of the improvements your equipment had, but will give you somenthing new - some of equipments you can upgrade will automaticaly be improved to +3/+5★ after the upgrade.
 * screws - Improvment materials, can be obtained from:
 * Quests:
 * One time: A44, A45, A49, B41, B44, B45, B47, B49, C6, C7, D11, D18, F17;
 * Daily: F17;
 * Weekly: BW5, BW7, BW9, BW10, C4, D11;
 * Monthly: BM3, BM4 BM5, BM6, BM7;
 * Items:
 * Medal
 * First Class Medal
 * Present Box
 * Mochi
 * Item shop 10 screws for 700 DMM Points
 * Screws
 * Development Materials
 * Normal Resources
 * Other pieces of equipment

The failure rate is afected by: As AIA have only 3 slots for items possible improvement/upgrade, what type of equipment you can improve/upgrade is decided by ship in second slot in fleet and day of the week - remember that things you can process in AIA are changed at 00:00 JST.
 * level of improvement - it is easier to improve something from +1 ★ to +2 ★ than from +9 ★ to max ★. You should USUALLY improve to max ★ without slider, and use slider for upgrade, in some cases like upgrading Type 1 AP shell using slider all the time can be considered;
 * Akashi Kai have better chances to succes than unremodeled Akashi;

If you are no in dire need of something, you should upgrade one piece of equipment every day to use F17 daily quest as it will be most screw efficient that way.

What should I upgrade?
As you can upgrade a lot of equipment in AIA you are probably wondering what comes first. It all depends on situation you are in. I will try to highlight some of very usefull equipments you should aim for.

LIGHT GUNS
From this section you should focus on improving 10cm Twin High-angle Mount + Anti-Aircraft Fire Director as it is the strongest gun for DD. Upgrading 12.7cm Twin Gun to 12.7cm Twin Gun Type-B Kai 2 is not realy worth since Yuudachi gives one on 55 lvl. Improving 12.7cm Twin Gun Type-B Kai 2 can be considered.

MEDIUM GUNS
Here you should focus on improving: If you can afford to improve 15.2cm Twin Gun Kai you should upgrade to it from your 15.2cm Twin Gun.
 * 20.3cm(no.3) Twin Gun - good gun for CA(V)
 * 15.2cm Twin Gun - good for CLs (accuracy boost)
 * 15.2cm Twin Gun Kai - good for CLs (accuracy boost)

HEAVY GUNS
Well, in this section you should focus on improving the guns you find most useful for your fleet:

FBB: BB(V)
 * 35.6cm Twin Gun - cheap and effective if you are using Kongou-class
 * 38cm Twin Gun Kai - Bismarck drei main guns
 * 381mm/50 Triple Gun Kai - Italian FBB main guns, can be considered to upgrade from 381mm/50 Triple Gun
 * 41cm Twin Gun - best guns for BBV and Nagato-class
 * 46cm Triple Gun - good guns if you are using Yamato-class (>insanity)
 * Prototype 51cm Twin Cannon - the heaviest guns which only Nagato-class and Yamato-class BB can equip, improving costs are very high - basicaly equipment LSC

SECONDARY GUNS
In this section, you should consider improving:
 * 90mm Single High-angle Gun - VERY cheap gun to upgrade, have build-in AAFD
 * OTO 152mm Triple Rapid Fire Gun - great gun for CLT

SHEELS

 * Type 91 AP Shell - great equipment to get to +6 ★ as costs are almost non-existent
 * Type 1 AP Shell - if you have a lot of Type 91 AP Shell you can consider to improve this to +6 ★ insted. Improving past +6  ★ is pure masochism.

AA-DIRECTORS
You should aim to upgrade your Type 94 Anti-Aircraft Fire Director into 10cm Twin High-angle Mount + Anti-Aircraft Fire Director as 12.7cm Twin High-angle Gun + AAFD can't be improved later on - so 90mm Single High-angle Gun is better, and even if you don't have 90mm Single High-angle Gun, Maya can do AA-CI on setup with HA Mount and 25mm Triple Autocannon (Concentrated Deployment) + AA radar. 12.7cm Twin High-angle Gun + AAFD should be an upgrade target only if you are using other AA-CI ship for example Isuzu and you do not have 90mm Single High-angle Gun or you just want to unlock gun entry in Kancolle pokedex.

Type 91 Anti-Aircraft Fire Director should not be improved, because upgreading it is inefficient - Type 91 Anti-Aircraft Fire Director -> Type 94 Anti-Aircraft Fire Director -> 10cm Twin High-angle Gun + AAFD or 12.7cm Twin High-angle Gun + AAFD.

AA-GUNS
You shouldn't focus on this section, as upgrading to 25mm Triple Autocannon (Concentrated Deployment) is not really necessary as Maya Kai-2 have it as her kai ni equipment and she is the only one to effectively use it.

TORPEDOES
61cm Quad (Oxygen) Torpedo Mount should not be upgraded - they are kind of expensive, getting Kitakami or Ooi to 50 lvl is not really a problem and it will result in 61cm Quint (Oxygen) Torpedo Mount.
 * 61cm Quint (Oxygen) Torpedo Mount - best improvable torpedoes
 * 61cm Triple (Oxygen) Torpedo Mount - additional survivability in exchange for damage

RADARS
Improving radars is very costly but can help with a lot of situations.
 * Type 13 Air Radar Kai - best small AA radar in-game, you will have a lot of these from k2 ships, so you should not upgrade to it from Type 13 Air Radar
 * Type 21 Air Radar Kai - on max ★ is belived to be better Air radar than FuMO25 Radar. Currently you can get one only when you will upgrade Type 21 Air Radar
 * Type 22 Surface Radar Kai 4 - small surface radar, you will get 2 of them from Quests, getting more from AIA can be considered
 * Type 32 Surface Radar Kai - big surface radar, currently only obtainable from AIA

ASW EQUIPMENT

 * Type 3 SONAR and Type 3 Depth Charge can be improved for exta stats.
 * Type 93 SONAR and Type 94 Depth Charge shouldn't be upgraded into stronger versions because Type 3 SONAR and Type 3 Depth Charge are cheap to craft and are obtainable from most of rare DD kai's.

SEARCHLIGHTS

 * Searchlight can be upgraded into Type 96 150cm Searchlight which can be considered to equip on your BB in Yasen to help with survivability of you lower armor ships.

Effects of improving
Data about results of improving is based on data from here.

As you are improving your girls gear you will probably notice, that stats of your equipment does not change. It is because every improvment you make is increasing stats, but this increase is hidden. Everything that we know about improving was discovered by statistic and a lot of sorties to examine effects of AIA. We can't be sure if this formulas and data are 100% right. But here are few tables which were created by knowledge of peoples who wanted to figure out the effects of improving your gear.



The formula to calculate TOTAL FP and ACC you get from improvements is: Effects on other equipment (from KCwiki): This values should be highly considered, because usually max ★ guns are better than proto version, so uprgading this guns will give you weaker version in terms of stats. However, it is highly possible, that improvement bonuses are not calculated in support sortie, which leads to using improved guns for "normal" sortie, and leaving prototype ones for support sortie.
 * FP = floor(total additional FP)
 * ACC = floor(total additional ACC)
 * Depth Charge/Sonar
 * ★+2~7: +1 bonus to anti-submarine damage
 * ★+8~10: +2 bonus to anti-submarine damage
 * Sonar - bonus to torpedo evasion
 * Depth Charges, Sonars, AA Directors and Searchlights - bonus FP as in Small/Medium Gun, Ap Shell table
 * Machine Guns - bonuses to torpedo when improved
 * RADARs - extra accuracy, AA, LoS after improvement.
 * Torpedoes - Torpedoes and accuracy as in Small/Medium Gun, Ap Shell table

Afterword
Akashi's Improvement Arsenal is one of the most important things for Late Game TTK. If you are a proud owner of Akashi, then you should treat her the best you can! She is the best support girl your fleet could get. Also, try to get a good supply of 41cm Twin Gun as almost every good big gun uses it to improve. Doing all of the weekly quests except 4th world chain quest weekly (for me it is not worth), will help you immensely with your screw stock.

Bye and may the screws be with you!