Fall 2015 Fleet Setups

Introduction[]

This is partially for my own reference and partially for whoever wants to use them. Unlike the event pages that compile all the possibilities, for this I try to focus only on the possibility I care about - that is, the one most efficient at ship farming using only ships I possess. Anything with a [Done] tag is something I actually used and confirmed. As the event has been completed with all primary, secondary and tertiary objectives completed, this guide will no longer be updated. Not that there's much time left in the event anyway.

Initial resource state: 39813, 22536, 40201, 24324, 477, 250

Resource state immediately after clearing E3 Hard: 11672, 12598, 40426, 26199, 245, 172

Resource state immediately after dropping Graf Zeppelin: -264, 1787, 21950, 27872, 173, 145

Resource state immediately after clearing E4 Hard: 547, 3110, 18594, 26523, 146, 147

LSCs were done because of the massive resource surplus on E5 even with expedition set 2-4/166-5.

Resource state immediately after dropping Arashi and Sakawa on E5 Easy: 3501, 7595, 26124, 20591, 66, 139

Resource state after completing all farms (Harusame drop): 5196, 8003, 26798, 20335, 73, 142

All-Hard clear resource endstate: 5554, 6952, 26845, 20147, 30, 137

The reason for stating the above is to indicate how well (or badly) these handle resources. How many runs were actually done based on these resources are detailed in each separate map section below.

This is a personal blog, not a collaborative wiki page. The opinions expressed here are that of the author, not a social consensus of wiki editors.

Compositions[]

E1:輸送作戦!前路掃討[]

Main Fleet					Escort Fleet
E1 Composition (Hard Clear + Farm) [Done] Route: BEHJ

All ships use standard builds except Choukai who swaps a radar for a Fleet Command Facility, and Mizuho who goes triple Hyoteki in order to maximise your initial strike (which will be essentially all the escort fleet ever does. Hiryuu goes Murata-Iwamoto-Saiun-SCAMP for firepower cap and 2nd shelling order behind Roma, so that the initial shelling phase (which generally kills everything) tends to proceed in descending order of firepower. Weaker destroyers can be used. Support expeditions and sparkling are unnecessary even for farming Hard.

Results: 100% S-rank boss rate on Hard. The rare cases where one ship gets randomly taihaed by Ta or Ru are handled with FCF, so the fleet was never turned back. Number of attempts ~ 40.

Notable drops: Hayasui, Kazagumo - stopped at Kazagumo drop, for she was all I wanted from this map.

Note: While I used Roma, it has been discovered after that that an Italian ship is required for E4 CTF branching. Given the low battle potential of Libeccio, using a Kongou class would have been better here in retrospect. I'm leaving this as it is, since it's a record of what I actually used, but others might wish to NOT do the same.

E2:コロネハイカラ沖海戦[]

Main Fleet
E2 Composition (Easy Farm) [Done] ADFIJK

Main Fleet
E2 Composition (Hard Clear) [Done] Route: ADFIJK

Farm in Easy in full power first, then swap to hard and replace Radars with Drums for the clear once all desired ships are acquired. For the Hard clear, sparkle ships before every run. It's not 'necessary', but it reduces the bucket usage requirement. Support expeditions are not necessary except for S-rank farming Hard.

Results: 95% S-rank boss rate in easy farm (other 5% preboss taiha). Number of attempts ~ 80.

Notable drops: Nowaki x3, Maruyu x2, Takanami and Amatsukaze x2 - stopped at Takanami drop. The second Amatsukaze dropped on the only S-rank during the Hard clear attempts (without any support expedition use).

E3:抜錨!海上輸送部隊[]

The purpose of this type of combined fleet is for the escort fleet to do all the fighting and literally escort the ships in the main fleet. The main fleet's power value is extremely low for the most part except Hayasui, and its main use is only to eliminate any non-AV hime target so the escort fleet can concentrate firepower in yasen. Ships in escort fleet are listed in reverse order of firepower (lowest first) so that even if the earlier attacks hit under the AV hime's armour value they can still scratch effectively, while the later attacks are almost guaranteed not to scratch - FCF activation also consistently removes the weakest destroyer this way, preserving maximum firepower for the encounters. Main fleet is listed in order of firepower (highest first) so that the ships with the greatest damage potential fire under minimum risk of being chuuhaed/taihaed first during shelling phase II.

Main Fleet				Escort Fleet
E3 Composition (Easy Boss Farm) [Done] Route: ACDGIHK
								N/A
								N/A
								N/A
								N/A

When farming in easy do NOT repair ships in the main fleet until they are taiha, reason being that the only ship that would ever get to shoot them for the most part will be the AV hime, who is capable of one-hit taihaing ships regardless of their health state - and by the time they get to fire, the only target left will be the AV hime, who they will scratch regardless of their health state. If you repaired them earlier it would be a complete waste of buckets in a map that already wastes buckets like nothing. In contrast, since the escort fleet does the heavy lifting, they need to be kept at shouha or above, and CAs in particular should be kept at clean health since shouha reduces Artillery Spotting rates.

Results: 95% S-rank boss rate in easy farm, remaining 5% are cases where everything dies except AV hime (with like <100 hp left). Was ~80% with Chikuma earlier, so that's how much of a difference Hayasui makes on Easy.

Number of S-ranks required to acquire Akizuki: 203. Other notable drops in the process: my 3rd Akashi, for all the good that does (i.e. none). No Mizuho, no Umikaze, no Maruyu. Such love. Amaze.

Main Fleet
E3 Composition (Easy Asashimo Farm) [Done] Route: ABF
		N/A
	N/A	N/A
	N/A	N/A
	N/A	N/A
	N/A

100% S-rank rate in F. DDs run single sonar with twin LM HAs, due to their ASW boost - it virtually guarantees the S-rank on the first node on all except red T, though this is frankly optional since there are no notable drops. All larger ships hold sec for secgun CI, which eliminates the PT Imp(s) in F quite readily. Zuiun used for artillery spotting, to enable anti-sub attacks, and in the mainfleet's case, to get Air Supremacy - though the required air power value is >0 anyway.

Number of S-ranks required for Asashimo: 30.

Main Fleet
E3 Composition (Hard Clear) [Done] Route: ACDGIHK
	N/A	N/A
		N/A
	N/A	N/A
	N/A	N/A
	N/A
	N/A

Do not FCF away more than one ship from escort fleet in the Hard clear - if the taiha ship is in the escort fleet just abandon the sortie as it will likely fail to achieve A rank at boss unless you have boss support expedition activated. In the easy clear do not FCF away more than two ships from escort fleet, and even two already risks failing to get S-rank.

Use at least node support and sparkle at least the escort fleet and support shelling fleet. A ranks are necessary for gauge drain, which mean the Ta-classes need to be sunk. Don't expect S-ranks to be common. Given the extreme unlikeliness of S-ranks without at least two successful 300 damage-CIs at shouha or above health, attempting to farm this is impractical in the extreme. For the Hard Final clear, sparkle all four fleets and activate both node AND boss support expeditions. This is the single hardest fight in the entire event and underestimating it would be unwise.

Hayasui is a liability on Hard since the higher base AA of Abyssals tends to shoot down all her bombers so she cannot even attack at boss, and even a taihaed Ru-class at node H can instantly taiha Hayasui. Her opening airstrike is also far less effective as the Abyssals on Hard have greater evasion and armour, and far less relevant as support shelling for the clear is far more devastating than her strike. Therefore a Tone-class CAV becomes optimal, especially with SCAMP - though both accuracy and Artillery Spotting rates for the main fleet in this Combined Fleet type seem SEVERELY nerfed, to the point that destroyers with virtually full accuracy in the escort fleets of other Combined Fleet types will only hit half the time when sparkled and mounting 3 type 33 radars.

The 8th attempt to clear Hard Perfect-S ranked node H, resulting in a second Asashimo drop. All Hard clear attempts except one were A-ranks without boss support - it seems exceedingly likely that S rank on boss is virtually impossible without boss support expeditions. Boss support was used on the final clear and very barely succeeded with the 4th ship being sunk in yasen's last attack turn, due to Red T engagement form. 12 out of 15 attempts made it to boss with node support active, and all 12 were A ranks.

On the very last clear, swap Chikuma Kai Ni to flagship and replace her SCAMP with the FCF, and put three fighters on Akitsu Maru and drop her to slot 6, as that will be the only way to get Air Superiority against AV form 3.

In total, Akitsu Maru has three configs - maxed 2-slot Eva + FCF for Easy, maxed 2-slot Airsup + FCF for Hard TP debuff and maxed 3-slot Eva w/o FCF for Hard Final.

E4:西方戦線!機動部隊派遣[]

Main Fleet
E4 Composition (Medium Eugen Farm/Hard M Debuff) [Done] Route: DEFIKM
	N/A	N/A
		N/A
		N/A

Eugen farming is done on Medium as drop rates are basically doubled while the boss is not significantly more difficult to kill, while the diamond enemy formation drops Eugen unlike in Easy.

Hard M debuff is done in exactly the same formation, except with a node support shelling expedition. 100% S-rank rate in 2 debuffs, though the PT Imp Pack IV may be difficult to kill with lower-levelled ships - both attempts only barely managed to kill the imps with the closing torpedo phase and 3rd yasen shelling respectively.

Results: 93% S-rank M rate in medium farm (one failure was due to BWS one-shotting the main fleet's flagship at node I, one failure was due to a Line Ahead formation where a 15hp imp lived when the main fleet shot the boss 9 times out of 12), FCFs used ~25% of the time. Number of attempts taken until Prinz Eugen drop = 28.

Main Fleet
E4 Composition (Easy Graf Farm/Hard HP Drain) [Done] Route: DEFIKNO
	N/A
		N/A
		N/A
		N/A
		N/A

Graf farming is done in easy; if U-511 is desired instead farm in Medium for the higher drop rate. Graf's drop rate in Medium is lower, however. Nagato is used as the final boss is done in Formation I, even though she has more firepower than necessary for nodes F and I.

Results: Progress: 100% S-rank boss rate in easy farm, all in yasen. FCFs used 3 times. Number of attempts taken until Graf Zeppelin drop = 26. The resource cost per sortie is relatively high, but this is incredibly easy relative to the M node farm, which is incredibly easy relative to the E3 easy boss farm.

In hard boss HP draining, an S-rank was acquired once, and A-ranks acquired 4 times.

Main Fleet
E4 Composition (Hard J Debuff) [Done] Route: DEGHJ
	N/A	N/A
		N/A
		N/A

If using Roma or Littorio here for pathing instead of Libeccio, replace Nagato with the Italian battleship, and the J debuff composition keeps Fubuki and Shimakaze. The idea is identical to node M's composition as the enemy composition has the same basic idea. Support shelling expedition should be called as the quadruple Ru-flagships are difficult to sink without them - and if they survive long enough to shoot your escort fleet, you're going to have a bad time. One attempt was used and it was an S-rank, though the PT Imp Pack III needed the escort fleet's closing torpedoes to finish off.

Main Fleet
E4 Composition (Hard Final Clear) [Done] Route: ABCEFIKNO

		N/A
		N/A
		N/A
	N/A	N/A

This was modified greatly from the original STF form to this CTF form as it was unclear whether or not the JM debuffs applied to STF or not. Both camps have groups of players swearing by them, but nobody disputes that it definitely works for CTF, so I'm just playing safe with this. 2 attempts were used; the first killed everything except the submarines due to Head-on and terrible luck; the second killed everything except Dyson in day battle since Dyson shot at my armored carriers instead of my ASW users. This build does not contain night-battle equips as its only purpose is to defeat the boss, not to acquire an S-rank - there was no point continuing to yasen given the remaining ships had a zero chance of sinking Dyson in yasen. While Hayasui and CT are said to force a ABFIKNO routing, my Hayasui was shiplocked in E3, and given how central she is to E3 farming, it is something I do not regret.

People with more better sonars and depth charges could do more ASW, but this was the allocation I had based on the sonars and depth charges I had. Given that it already succeeded without needing to yasen the submarine princess, it probably isn't necessary to have better ASW than this - though it would certainly help.

No battleship is necessary in the main fleet as the escort fleet fires first - so there's no way that the main fleet can help reduce damage taken from submarines in nodes C or N. In the final node, Dyson is present at a 100% rate, so there's already going to be double shelling phase without bringing your own. This also avoids a second shelling phase in node F, which reduces the damage your carrier fleet will take if things go south and you cannot sink the enemy by the end of the first mainfleet shelling phase - it is STRONGLY recommended NOT to have a battleship here in the main fleet.

Ultimately with the correct equips, this fight should still be significantly easier than the Final clear for E3 Hard. No support expedition was used in the final clear, no effort was made to intentionally sparkle ships, and the ships' evasion is lower than it could have been due to the initial offrouting. However, this composition is NOT recommended for farming as it has an absurd bauxite cost - farming Easy is much more cheaply done with the STF composition listed in the Easy Graf Farm section.

E5:乗り越えろ!バニラ湾夜戦![]

Main Fleet
E5 Composition (Easy Farm) [Done] Route: ACGJKLN

Map should be farmed in Easy before final clears as the yasen nodes are deadly at higher difficulties. To deal with the boss, use Double Line formation for the increased accuracy - as far as possible you need to eliminate all Imp Packs in the day. The boss herself will fall very easily at night to the combined firepower of a triple gun sendai and double-attack Kitakami as long as these attacks are not wasted on Imps.

If farming for Harusame, do nodes J and L in Line Ahead formation for a greater S-rank chance at these nodes, in exchange for greater damage being taken and a higher chance of not reaching the boss. If farming boss, do them in Echelon formation to reach boss more often in exchange for reducing some possible S-ranks to A ranks in these nodes. As it is impractical to farm Harusame without also farming the boss, it might be good to start farming her first then swap to the more survivable formations later.

Performance: J node 72/82 S-ranks, L node 46/81 S-ranks, boss node 23/40 (w/o support) + 28/40 (w/ support) S-ranks. Number of taiha-turnbacks: 2/78 (J node, L node). Average number of used = 3 per attempt (w/o support), 2 per attempt (w/ support). Additional cost of support expedition ~ 105, 78, 40 per trigger, not including the cost of sparkling the support expedition fleet FS DD.

Notable drops (51 boss S-ranks): Maruyu x4, Nagato x4, Mutsu x2, Mikuma, Arashi, Shimakaze x2, Yahagi, Agano, Sakawa.

Notable drops (29 boss A-ranks): Kawakaze.

Node support is pointless as it doesn't trigger in yasen nodes. Tentative recommended expedition set for E5 farm: 2, 4/166, 5 - where expedition 4 is run while the ships are sparkled, and boss support exped 166 is run while actively sortieing the fleet. Sendai has permanent sparkling already because she is flagship, and Kitakami has permanent sparkling because she is Kitakami; count the number of MVPs that the other DDs steal from Kitakami occasionally (especially node L if she attacks imps), and deduct that from the number you need to do in the preparation phase, then sortie 3 times under full sparkling conditions. Bucket chuuha/taiha in this active phase, ignore shouha or less. At the end of 3 sorties, dock-repair the shouha ships, bucket the chuuha+ ships, and resparkle. 3 attempts requires 3x 1-1 sorties (minus the number of times they stole MVP from KTKM in the 3 attempts) per DD used to recover.

Sparkle only the DD flagship for the support fleet as carrier airstrike accuracy is independent of morale, and use Mutsuki-class DDs as the DDs in an Airstrike Support expedition do not participate in the battle; only the carriers do. All carriers use quad torpedo squadrons as it is an airstrike build; airstrike support is used because it attacks 16 times instead of the 6 that shelling support does, the damage each attack does is irrelevant as the targets in Easy boss are one-shot kills as long as the support hits, except the boss which will never take anything more or less than scratch damage from this. By overwhelming the fleet with sheer number of attacks, an average of 2-4 ships (including PT-Imp Packs) will be sunk per activation. It's also exponentially cheaper than support shelling expeditions, and requires less sparkling since airstrike, unlike shelling, is independent of morale.

If you have more buckets than time, you can just do the sorties nonstop without sparkling or support, but it will cost more buckets.

Optional modification is to swap the torpedoes on Sendai for a Night Scout specifically for simultaneously farming for Harusame (Night Scout triggers ONLY in yasen nodes when you don't have Air Superiority, and Harusame drops only in yasen nodes, so...), in exchange for reducing S-rank rate at boss (as it reduces Sendai's damage) and increasing bucket repair costs (as it reduces the chance Sendai will taiha/sink the boss and thus prevent her from attacking in yasen).

Performance for same comp in Hard HP phase: J node 0/4 S-ranks, L node 0/4 S-ranks, Boss 2/4 S-ranks. No support expedition used.

Main Fleet
E5 Composition (Easy Harusame Farm) [Done] Route: ACGJKL

Other DDs that need to be levelled can be used in slots 4, 5, 6 as this route is so easy it's not necessary to have these three - all their firepower really ensures is that the first node will not have issues even in Red T. In the yasen nodes, kills are guaranteed as long as hits occur. Any heavier ship used would have no effect except increasing sortie costs.

Run this until all 3 pathing ships have orange morale, then do something else until morale recovers, and then return to farm some more. Doing this without normal morale is unproductive as missing in yasen would be a waste of resources, but sparkling for a farm like this would also be unproductive as it's too easy.

There is no need to repair ships until they reach taiha, as chuuha alone already provides overkill damage.

Harusame farm performance post-Sakawa (sparkles not done due to ease of nodes JL relative to boss): J node 21/28 S-ranks, L node 14/25 S-ranks. Number of taihas: 3/28.

Notable drops (93 S-ranks J, 60 S-ranks L): Single Harusame drop in J at S-rank #93.

Main Fleet
E5 Composition (Hard TP Drain) [Done] Route: ACGJKLN

Clear TP before debuffing, as S-ranking the node with drums equipped like this is less likely to begin with. Just A/S drain TP down until the HP bar appears, then debuff and clear the map in a single day before the armour break status can reset. Do not use supports as passing the preboss nodes is not as easy as in Easy, and anything less than a full clear will drain the exact same amount of TP.

This build drains 32 TP on A-rank and 47 TP on S-rank out of a needed 360. At minimum, 8 S-ranks will clear the map; at maximum 12 boss encounters are necessary.

Performance: J node 1/13 S-ranks, L node 6/10 S-ranks, Boss 3/10 S-ranks. 3 attempts out of 14 taihaed in node J, while the fourth taiha-turnback occurred at node G. Average buckets used: 3 per sortie.

Notable drops (4 boss S-rank): Noshiro, Sakawa x2 - as if Tanaka is saying 'I told you her drop rate wasn't that low'.

Main Fleet
E5 Composition (Hard Debuff) [Done] Route: ACEH

Performance: H node 3/4 S-ranks, 15 Imps killed in 4 sorties. Laughably easy node even on Hard. Just do it on Double Line.

Main Fleet
E5 Composition (Hard Final Clear) [Done] ACGJKLN

eLoS at my levels: 16.19. Converting even one more to a CI build will result in inconsistent routing to boss. This is used for the Hard Final clear only. Normal Hard HP-phase clears and post-clear Hard farming both use the Easy farm composition as firepower of this level is unnecessary, and the reliability of double attacks is more important. Use boss support in Support Shelling mode (NOT Support Airstrike, this is different from the Easy farm).

Performance: Single Final attempt. Node J Perfect S-rank, L A-rank, boss S-rank with 2 taiha and all other ships in green health. Battle was concluded by Yuudachi; a full health Kitakami had not yet fired in Night Battle - and she would already kill the boss solo if necessary.

What formations should I choose?[]

Nodes not involved in the pathing described above will not be mentioned.

E1
- Formation IV: E, H, J.
E2
- Line Ahead: D, K.
- Echelon: F.
E3
- Formation IV: C, D, F, H, K.
- Formation I: B.
E4
- Formation I: D, N, O.
- Formation IV: F, G, H, I, J, M.
E5
- Line Ahead: G, N (Medium, Hard), J (if farming Harusame), L (if farming Harusame)
- Double Line: H, N (Easy).
- Echelon: J (if not farming Harusame), L (if not farming Harusame).

The reason for how complicated E5 looks is that Echelon has the effect of reducing enemy cut-in trigger rates while increasing friendly evasion^[1] in yasen nodes; your fleet's accuracy is highest in Double Line in the day, Line Ahead in the night, lower in Line Abreast and very low in Echelon, while your fleet's damage is highest in Line Ahead, lower in Echelon and lowest in Line Abreast. However, due to the fact that these targets are all easy to overkill in night battle even in Line Abreast, defensive factors and accuracy predominate as considerations. Also, Easy's boss has a lot of PT Imp Packs, so the accuracy of Double Line in the day is important to eliminate them, while Medium and Hard have Late Model Elite destroyers, so the damage of Line Ahead in the day is important to eliminate them.

What difficulty should I choose?[]

In general, higher difficulties have a higher drop rate. When farming with limited resources, what you want to do is to farm at the point where your overall drop rate is the highest after factoring in your S-rank rate, without using any support expeditions.. The reason for this is that the use of a support expedition not only costs resources, but also critically prevents you from using that expedition slot for resource recovery, so you lose resources twice over. In farming you want to try to keep your resource input and output rates as balanced as possible so you can sustain your runs without bleeding resources down to zero - unlike in clears, where the objective is to clear the map in the highest possible difficulty you can for the maximum reward. Since clearing a map removes ability to change difficulties, you must farm BEFORE clearing the map, or else clear the map in the difficulty you wish to farm it at, if you cannot guarantee being able to reach the end of the event due to an unreliable schedule. For the same reasons, any ship that can be farmed in both single fleet maps and combined fleet maps (Kawakaze comes to mind) should be farmed in single fleet maps, as single-fleet farming allows for all three expedition slots to be used for resource recovery.

As for how to choose difficulties, what is critical for getting one of each ship is not the drop rate itself, but the probability of getting at least one drop. By convention the probability used for this is 50% - the following numbers indicate the number of S-rank victories you must get in order to have a 50% chance of dropping at least one ship of the given type in the stated difficulty. The drop rates scale linearly with the probability of getting at least one drop though, so the decisions you make based on these will still apply even if you want multiple copies of each of the drops, and even if you want to use a different probability than 50%.

For those interested in the nature of the calculation, it is derived as ln(0.5)/ln(chance of not dropping), rounded up. The 0.5 can be modified to another probability, should you want to calculate a 90% chance of dropping at least one, for instance. The data used for this is from poi-statistics' drop database.

Note that there are also some other nodes that drop these, but they either have lower drop rates or accept only one difficulty - for instance, Hayasui drops only on Hard. In the former case, farming there isn't efficient anyway. In the latter case, you have no choice, so there's no need to calculate anything. Any calculation that does not change the decision you will make is a waste of time.

Admirals with more resources than time need not care about the support expedition caveat, and can proceed to simply multiply their S-rank rate by the numbers below, and pick the one with the lowest resultant number of attempts.

Note that the table only indicates uncraftable equipment.

Ship name	Farm Map	Easy	Medium	Hard	Reason for dupes
Required S-ranks for 50% chance of at least 1 drop
Kazagumo	E1J	40	24	22
Amatsukaze	E2K	20	21	19
Nowaki	E2K	19	21	12
Takanami	E2K	20	12	13
Asashimo	E3F	49	39	35
Akashi	E3K	82	62	89
Akizuki	E3K	40	42	35
Hatsukaze	E3K	53	63	51
Mizuho	E3K	70	63	39
Umikaze	E3K	64	41	35
Akitsu Maru	E4M	49	51	48
Libeccio	E4M	178	198	302
Prinz Eugen	E4M	76	33	31	Duplicate cannot be acquired.
Roma	E4M	112	131	173	With blueprint
Graf Zeppelin	E4O	31	38	32
Hayashimo	E4O	35	34	35
Kiyoshimo	E4O	35	34	36
Tokitsukaze	E4O	34	33	34
U-511	E4O	165	76	139
Harusame	E5J	63	52	49
Harusame	E5L	43	38	56
Kawakaze	E5N	50	57	49
Arashi	E5N	23	21	15
Sakawa	E5N	23	23	23
Maruyu	E5N	24	18	12	Luck-modernization
Mikuma	E5N	35	32	32

Example: If you want to acquire Akizuki, you S-rank E3K Easy 90% of the time, Medium 70% of the time and Hard 50% of the time, the numbers of attempts you'll need are 40/0.9 = 45 runs on Easy, 42/0.7 = 60 runs on Medium and 35/0.5 = 70 runs on Hard. Therefore you should farm on Easy.
Example 2: If you want to acquire Eugen, you S-rank E4M Easy 90% of the time, Medium 70% of the time and Hard 50% of the time, the numbers of attempts you'll need are 76/0.9 = 85 runs on Easy, 33/0.7 = 47 runs on Medium and 31/0.5 = 62 runs on Hard. Therefore you should farm on Medium.
Example 3. If you want to acquire multiple Maruyus, you S-rank E5N Easy 90% of the time, Medium 70% of the time and Hard 50% of the time, the numbers of attempts you'll need are 24/0.9 = 27 runs on Easy, 18/0.7 = 26 runs on Medium and 12/0.5 = 24 runs on Hard. Therefore you should farm on Hard.

If farming multiple ships at the same time, redo this calculation for each ship and decide based on your priorities.

What expeditions should I send?[]

The support expeditions are in the special event button on the expeditions page. There are only two expeditions on that page: a 15 minute node support expedition and a 30 minute boss support expedition. With only the exception of boss support on E5, all other support expeditions should be of the shelling support type due to their greater damage potential (the exception uses carrier support, as it spreads damage more evenly, and the targets you want eliminated by the support in E5 boss tend to have very little HP and armor; it also costs less to use).

As for resource recovery expeditions, bucket recovery specifically is taken care of by the 2-4-5 expedition set. For recovery of other resources, see the separate guide linked below.

Frequently asked questions[]

Why do you not load Type 3 Shells in the E4M main fleet?
- The Anchorage Water Demon II and III forms that you'll be farming on Easy and Medium for Prinz have an armour value of 220. At minimum armour roll, it has 154 armour. The daytime firepower cap is 150. In the sec-gun cutin setup you'll need to kill the PT Imp Packs in the same node, you can output only 180 damage - which after armour deduction, means a maximum damage value of 26. The Anchorage Water Demon has 430 HP, which means scratch attacks will average 43 damage at full HP. The Nagato classes are unaffected as they are already at firepower cap, so usage of a type 3 shell makes no difference to pre-cap firepower but reduces their total damage potential to 165, which means only 11 damage; while an AP shell will increase postcap damage output - it increases the damage dealt to a potential of 224, which can deal at maximum 70 damage. The heavy cruisers would be better off having lower firepower - at 100 firepower, the special attack will not exceed 120 damage, which is a guaranteed scratch if it hits, while at 150 firepower cap due to Type 3 shell, they can deal up to 165 damage, which means the boss will take only 11 damage. Ergo, loading Type 3 shells on the main fleet always REDUCES damage output. Because the night battle damage cap is 300, however, the escort fleet which does enter night battle carries Type 3 shells.
  It is not sufficient to memorise the mantra of 'always equip Type 3 Shells against installation bosses' because some rules have exceptions, and this just happens to be one of the exceptions.
What's with the triple red gun build on Haguro in E4?
- The main fleet doesn't enter yasen anyway, so she gets more firepower like this - normally this kind of build isn't used since it replaces the yasen double attack with a pointless maingun cut-in. The use of a radar will improve double attack trigger rates, but this version hits harder, even though it'll have a somewhat lower double attack rate.
Why do you not equip AA guns or Type 3 shells against PT Imp Packs?
- While there are Admirals who believe these have effects, my personal opinion is that at present there is insufficient data to conclude that they have any effect and the general sentiment on these equipment might be based on confirmation bias. My opinion on this may change over time if we have more conclusive proof they work, but until then I will not advocate using them. Secondary guns and sec-gun cut-ins, however, are known to increase accuracy - in the first case because the developers specifically said so, and in the second because it has increased accuracy across the board ever since its inception - so even in the absence of a PT-specific effect, the general effect will still help.
Why are you using Yahagi for E4M farm instead of a stronger CL like Nagara?
- What's important in E4M for the CL is accuracy, not damage, as the CL's main purpose is to eliminate DDs and PT Imp Packs, neither of which require raw firepower. I use Yahagi because as my waifu she has greater accuracy than any other CL in my fleet. Should you not have married a CL, the optimal CL here will be your highest-levelled CL - and if you have more than one at the same level (say... 99), the optimal CL here is the one with the greatest survivability, not the one with the greatest firepower.
Why should your opinion be trusted when you've barely been here for 6 months?
- My hit-rate will tend to be quite high since this isn't the first game I've theory-crafted in, this isn't the first guide I've written for this game, and I'm one of the main authors of the wiki event page itself. I'm quite familiar with the enemy compositions since I was the one who compiled them (though a great many number of users contributed the compositions so I had something to compile in the first place), even though I haven't tested all of the comps yet. However, since I haven't tested some yet, they will remain in italics until I do because no theory is complete until it can be shown to be representative of reality.
- However, you should not trust it wholesale, nor do I even trust myself wholesale. Like anything else created by a human, this may have mistakes in them - low error doesn't mean no error. If you understand the game enough to analyse it independently and something here doesn't seem to make sense, ask about it - it is entirely possible you spotted a mistake I did not. Like in previous guides, if there's an edition due to someone else's input, a credits section will appear with the name of the person who contributed as well as the nature of what the person contributed.
- I write guides both to act as a sounding board for my own benefit - since anything that doesn't make sense will show up more clearly to be wrong when written down than when simply thought about. If it's helpful to others that's great too, but it doesn't have to be read for me to want to write it.

Credits[]

Exorathz for spotting the 2 CA composition limit for Escort fleet in a Combined Fleet.
Chocolatecravinghobo for spotting the Kiso-Ooi copy-error in E4 Final composition.

References[]

↑ User_blog:Homuhomu123/How_Formation_Affects_Night_Battle_Performances_(by_Kuubowokyuu)

[1] User_blog:Homuhomu123/How_Formation_Affects_Night_Battle_Performances_(by_Kuubowokyuu)

[1]