Board Thread:Fleet's Prepared-ness/@comment-33295205-20181216012913/@comment-26366865-20181216145640

You’re not really missing anything, so right now you have two options: either round up the improvements on all your top-grade stuff (mainly your heavy and medium guns) to +9/MAX, or focus on specialized equipment that may or may not be used, such as seaplane fighters and anti-installation gear. I’d argue balancing both is ideal, so you can manage fodder and screw usage better.

Right now, your equipment is at this weird point where the only equipment you’re missing that would noticeably improve you effectiveness on Hard… can only be obtained by clearing stuff on Hard. This is most evident looking at your LBAS planes, but also includes RADARs and some event-only guns. I don’t think the devs will ever reintroduce that stuff, so you just have to accept that you’ll be at a disadvantage compared to others who’ve been clearing Hard for many years. The gap will only get bigger the more you wait, so all I can say is toughen up and just do it.

I’d also recommend you get and train up the few ships you’re missing. You never know when they’ll add some BS Miyuki-only route or whatever, so it might pay off someday. Training a new unit is also a lot better use of XP than getting yet another DD to 99 – you already have everything you could need, just need to plug a few holes to deal with whatever random routing requirements the devs can come up with.