Land Base Aerial Support

Introduction

The Land-Base Aerial Support (tentative name abbreviated LBAS for now) is a system introduced in the May 2nd-3rd 2016 update along with the Spring 2016 Event, which enables carrier-based and land-based aircraft to be launched from air base and assist you during the sortie.

STATUS: Currently, LBAS can only be used in E4, E5 and E7.

Prerequisite

Currently, the only way to unlock the air base is to clear E3 and its prerequisites during the Spring 2016 Event.

You will recieve your 1st Air-base after clearing E3. You will recieve your 2nd Air-base after clearing E4.

The 3rd air base can be unlocked by clearing E5 during the Spring 2016 Event. Though E5 is optional, players are recommended to clear E5 before proceeding to E7 for additional air-base firepower.

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 the will be performed. You can also select a single node in order to concentrate all of your aerial supports there.

When you reached the node where the aerial support is requested, a land-based air battle will take phase before the carrier-based air battle, support expedition and initial torpedo strikes. This allows them to weaken the enemy air fleet and weaken 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.

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 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 requires extra firepower in a few nodes.
• 【防空】 Air Defense

• • Protects Air Base from Enemy Raid.
• 【退避】 Retreat
• 【休憩】 Rest
• 【待機】 Standby

Choosing sortie (or standby?) 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.

Limitations

• Each aircraft has their own "flight range", which indicates the combat radius of the aircraft. Aircraft that have low flight range may not be able to effectively support the 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 phase of Land-Base Aerial Support is calculated separately from Opening Airstrike and Support Airstrike expedition, and aerial conditions from one phase will not be carried over to subsequent phases. Securing air superiority or air supremacy during Land-Base Aerial Support phase can weaken the enemy fleet's air power, reducing the required air power to secure air superiority for your fleet.
• 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 use 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 (approximately 15 minutes). Thus, do NOT change your aircraft too often.
• Warning: Swapping an aircraft assigned to the land base will cost you 100 Bauxite.  There is no usage indicator to show the potential loss of Bauxite.
• Warning: When a land base squadron is sortied it will cost roughly 60 fuel per squad. Again there is no indicator that this is happening.

Fairies Morale Matter!

Enemy Raid

A warning gives you a signal that an Enemy Air Raid has been triggered.

As of May 5, 2016 Update. Along with the update of increasing the Air Base Support Damage, Abyssal can now Raid your Air Base in Spring'16 E5.  This is triggered randomly within the map itself, destruction of the Air Base will result in your Land Base Aerial Support not triggering in the designated location. To prevent this, you must assign a  Squadron to defend the Base.

An Aerial raid battle

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
• The air base featured during the Spring 2016 Event is located in 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.