Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1421453-20150901010720

Opinions about Reinforcement Expansion
This item is a new reward, and since it is consumable on one ship, it is necessary to figure out who would be the best candidates to use it on.

This discussion will be only about summer event E-7 which requires a combined fleet. I will not talk about RE's (Reinforcement Expansion) usage in a single fleet or somewhere other than the event maps. The main issue will be about the repair teams (damecon).

The things that we can use with RE
1) Underway Replenishment : This is for Hayasui only, and since I don't see any reason to use her, there is absolutely nothing to talk about this.

2) Combat Provisions : This is actually somewhat useful to boost our ship's morale, however it is not so significant that it requires a ship to use a RE on. RE should be used on ships that need damecons the most. Only after installing a RE on a ship, you can use combat provisions on them.

It might be better to use this item on a ship that is not adjacent to a flagship. That way, we can maximize it's use. You may also think about the potential MVP stealers, but it may not be possible all the time since we have very limited REs at the moment. You should plan your composition according to the boss. Combat provisions shouldn't have priority on your ship selection or order as we have a hardcore boss.

3) Damecons : This is what actually makes REs worth something. "Since we don't have many REs for now, we must use them on ships that are the most vulnurable to getting taiha. "...

...is what you may have thought at first. First, we need to analyze who really needs it : a weak ship which has taiha risk? or a ship that has a particular task?

Possible Candidates
I'll write all the ship types that I could think of and discuss what would happen in case of one got taiha, and whether we really need REs on them or not. [And also, sinking a ship is unforgivable.] 2nd fleet flagship : Is the most ridiculous ship to use a RE. Since she has no risk to sink at all, there is absolutely no need for one.
 * 2nd fleet flagship
 * 1st fleet ships
 * Battleships,heavy cruisers etc.
 * Carriers
 * AACI users
 * 2nd fleet ships (other than the flag)

1st fleet ships : You have 2 possibilities here, either watch one getting taiha and retreating her with an escort ship from the 2nd fleet, or install a RE on her and then give her a damecon, then have both her and the first available DD in your 2nd fleet continue. Using RE here may do good because it stops one of your valuable DDs from retreating. Having more ships in the 2nd fleet helps the damage to be scattered, giving you more chance to have healthy ships at the final night battle. However, this has almost no effect on your 1st fleet ship. Their performance will be reduced and you won't gain any benefits unless that ship has a particular task. (Gonna discuss below)

BBs,CAs : If the ship is a BB in the 1st fleet, she will stay taiha for the next fight which means a poor performance (they can't even trigger artillery spotting on taiha, and their damage will be reduced to 40%, which is equal to a DD in terms of shelling firepower. Much worse for CAs). So advancing with a taiha BB is not really worth it compared to the other options we have.

Carriers : Normally, carriers would be crucial, perhaps one of the most probable ships to be installed a RE. However, in this E-7 map, the boss has no air power at all. Which means there is not much of a problem unless that CV gets taiha before a BWS node. After that, it is not really necessary to bring a CV to the final battle. A repair team will not make them attack at the shelling phase, but it may allow you to maintain AS or AS+, and maybe eliminate some enemies on the opening air strike. I'd use one RE on a carrier for the next events.

AACI users : They are also important, especially on the maps which have a boss that can launch planes, but in this E-7's final node, we don't have that. So it is not a problem to skip them for now.

2nd fleet ships : I don't need to mention that ALL of them are important as any of them can give you a chance to achieve a victory, that's also why I don't like using AACI ships on the 2nd fleet. And a RE may have a good effect on your 2nd fleet ships. Why? Think that one of your 2nd fleet ships got taiha in preboss. You can either retreat her and lose 2 ships from the 2nd fleet, or install a RE and advance with her, however she will be taiha already, so there is no way that she can help killing enemies. But(!), she can be used as a decoy to prevent any other 2nd fleet ship from receiving damage (This move receives a bonus when that ship has a searchlight). And by doing this, you will save your DD which was supposed to escort her. This is why 2nd fleet ships should have a priority on installing a RE compared to 1st fleet ships. MORE SO in a carrier task force.

Potential boss killers MUST stay in the fleet, however if they get taiha, then there is no use. Retreating a bosskiller will be harmful as it reduces your chances in the final run a lot, but moving forward with a taiha ship "which can't even attack at night" is not of any use either. But the latter sounds better since it saves you a DD (or the whole sortie if you have no available DDs).

Also there is a little tricky part here. Using a RE on a DD may occasionaly turn out to be useless. If another ship which has no repair team gets taiha and you happen to retreat her with "that DD" as an escort, then you lose your chance to make use of RE on that DD.

Protection Options
There are 5 ways to protect your ships in case that one has gone taiha:

1)Retreat : This is the last thing we want. (0% chance to kill the boss)

2)Use Fleet Command Facility : A useful item as it helps us reach the boss, but it weakens our 2nd fleet. (Gives the highest chance to reach the boss, but Medium-Low chance to kill the boss, even worse if the taiha ship is in the 2nd fleet, terrible in case of more retreats)

3)Use damecon on her : Has potential to save only the ship that it is equipped on. But that ship will stay taiha so don't expect any good performance from her. Since it is hard to predict which girl will get taiha, this is not a dependable option. Also wastes a slot on that girl. Multiple uses may reduce overall battle performance. (High chance to kill the boss, but not reliable, 1 slot loss)

4)Use damecon on a RE slot : Almost the same with the 3rd option, it only saves a slot for that particular ship. (High chance to kill the boss, but not reliable)

5)Make her the flagship of the 2nd fleet : This ship is not going to sink, but in case of taiha, she will not attack at night. (High-Medium chance to kill the boss since it makes you lose a turn)

There is also the repair goddess option but since it is hard to get them, I'll leave their use to your decisions.

As you see, the difference between using damecon on a normal slot or a RE slot doesn't chance much. But it is true that it gives you the highest chance to kill the boss among the others.

--- But what if we combine them? FCF + Damecon

To make our winning chance as high as possible, we have the option to use both of them together. Or actually we had already, but it seems like most people chose either FCF or damecon, or none at all. People who wanted to make sure that they got to the boss used FCF, people who did not want to reach the boss with a weak fleet chose damecons. But using the 2 of them had already existed. You can use both if you want to, although it is not advised.

And now, we have the option to use both FCF and damecons with the help of RE. Which gives us a high possibility to reach the boss with low performance penalty. In this case, you have both of the options to retreat that ship or continue with her. Though this is not really different than the previos version, the only difference is 1 slot. 1 slot on a taiha ship... So it is better to use this on a ship that needs all her slots, and won't have a problem in fullfilling her task even though she is taiha. A cut-in ship is not fit in this description. This either goes to a carrier, or an AACI ship, or a not so powerful ship which has to carry some night battle equipments (especially searchlight), and 2nd fleet ships have the highest priority.

And finally, there is the 4th option, using Repair Goddesses which I won't get in much detail because it is hard to obtain them.

You can share your thoughts here and tell us what you think about, and which ships you'd rather choose for installing a RE on. 