FAQ/Quick Reference Guide for Kancolle Players

[Kalinsre]

I'm going to make mini guides for this game on my spare time to liven up the forum. If you have specific requests please leave them here in the request thread: http://himeuta.org/showthread.php?11...sts-for-Guides

This guide will server as a quick reference for various game mechanics in the two games in a way that Kancolle players can easily understand.
Also meant for people who already played the game a little bit and already found various basic info on wikis. There are currently no pictures in this because I'm too lazy to make screenshots, also because interface images are WIDELY available on various wikis already so I don't want to waste my time. But if people are willing to provide them for free I'll add them in.

1. Resources Basics
a) KC has 4 resources(fuel ammo steel bauxite), AL has 2(fuel and gold).
b) Fuel function: Sortie cost (ship has different consumptions, detailed later), time limited commissions(expeditions) and food item purchase(also detailed later).
c) Gold function: Pretty much everything else, from ship building to equipment upgrade, regen center upgrades, ship limit breaking etc etc.
d) KC's bauxite has no equivalence in AL. Using CV will NOT be more punishing than other classes.
e) Construction cubes = dev mats, quick construction drills = flamethrowers. Both are obtained in quests and commissions(expeditions) just like KC.

2. How do I get more resources(Commission(expedition) details)
a) Regen. The two resources will each be generated in facilities found in the academy tab, and you have to click on them to collect once resources are generated. There is a resource cap on top of the screen based on player level (like HQ level in KC) Regen rate and holding capacity can be upgraded with gold. In general for every 10 player levels you gain you can upgrade them(Lv 20, Lv 30, Lv 40 etc).

b) Commissions, aka expeditions. They are like KC expeditions with major differences:
i) They don't cost you ANYTHING. With the exception of time limited expeditions, there is no cost associated with them. No need to figure out minmaxing
ii) The list of expeditions is dynamic. They are not fixed expeditions that you can complete over and over again. You are always given 5 normal ones that you can complete. You have to complete one to unlock a new one to replace the slot. After every daily refresh, earlier expeditions tend to be more efficient, shorter, and resource heavy, whereas later ones tend to be longer, resource-inefficient and EXP heavy.
iii) The normal list runs out very quickly if you actively play, therefore by clearing maps you have a chance of unlocking time limited expeditions in the second tab. These are independent of the "do one replace one" system mentioned above. They are extra commissions that you can do in addition to the first tab. The catch is that they usually cost a little bit of fuel (5-30), but that is usually nothing. Some commissions also give paid in game currency (diamonds) for free.
iv) There is big commission on the normal tab that lasts between 8-12 hours, costing you 800-1200 fuel. This is meant for inactive players to exchange massive amount of fuel for other resources so that you don't overflow your cap while you are away from the game. It is often not worth it if you're actively playing, because fuel is much too important for sorties.
v) Like KC, the commissions have different ship type requirements (BB, CL, DD etc). However, there is no need to memorize them. When you click into a commission to select ships, ships that do not fulfill the criteria will simply be unselectable. The only thing you have to worry about is the Lv. requirement, which is just a number on the selection screen(Lv 70, Lv 50 etc). All you need is to have ONE ship of that level and above and you'll be good to go.

3. How do I get new ships(Construction and Drops)
a) Construction. There is no "enter your resource here" system like KC. You spend gold and construction cubes(dev mats in KC) There is also a "drill" tool that makes constructions instantly complete (analogous to KC's flamethrower) They are three different construction pools at fixed prices.
i) Light ship construction, mostly CLs and DDs and some other ships. Lowest cost costing 1 cube(dev mat)
ii) Heavy ship construction, BBs CAs blah blah blah. Higher cost and costing 2 cubes(dev mats)
iii) Special ship construction, mostly CVs, repair ships and all the other weirdos. Same cost as Heavy ship and 2 cubes.
iv) A fourth kind of construction appears for a limited time during some events. The event pool will contain event-exclusive ships and some old ships that you can get from normal construction. Cost has been historically the same as heavy and special construction (1500 gold 2 cubes).
There is currently NO pay-exclusive gacha as of now. All ship construction are done with game resources, same as KC.

b) Ship drops: Ships have a chance to drop from maps. You can look at where ships drop on various wikis.
i) In general, the color of a battle square on a map(analogous to KC's map node) indicates the highest rarity a ship will drop. So if it's gold, it can drop gold and below. If it's purple, it can drop purple and below.
ii) Squares(nodes) very rarely if ever have drops specific to them.(i.e. this ship drops on this node but not on that node etc etc insert KC nonsense), they only care about max rarity that can drop. The new World 10 introduction on the CN server kind of suggests that ONE ship might drop on boss only even though normal nodes can drop the same rarity, but this is still unconfirmed and is more of an exception than a rule.
iii) Most of the "boss node farming" situations arise from boss node dropping things at a different rarity than the rest (Akagi and Kaga on 3-4 boss), not because the boss node has an inherently different drop pool. Other nodes on the map simply cuts off the part beyond purple rarity while boss extends to gold.

4. How do I get equipments(and equipment details)
a) Unlike KC there is NO equipment construction. You have to get them from opening equipment boxes or create from blueprints.
b) Boxes are bought from the Akashi or Shiranui store with gold or PvP merits.(detailed below)
c) There are 5 Kinds of boxes. T1-T5, but more colloquially, grey, blue, purple, gold, rainbow, corresponding to the background color of equipment rarity.
d) Each color will mostly give you equips of the rarity color BELOW it. For example, opening gold boxes will give you mostly purples, opening purple will mostly give you blues etc. Rainbow boxes can only be obtained from events and fixed main line quests as of now, and you' are guaranteed a gold in it. Rainbow(T5) equipments so far can only be obtained from events rewards.
e) Five equipment boxes can be fused into a box of higher rarity. For example, five greys make one blue, five blure make one purple, but this system only goes up to purple. You can't fuse 5 purples into a gold.
f) Another way to get equipments is to make them from blueprints. Blueprints are specific to each equipment and they are dropped from maps. This is a feature that allows you to "farm" for a specific equipment if you don't have luck opening boxes. Each map tells you what equipment BPs drop from it. If you collect enough, you can spend them to create that specific equipment.
For example: If you keep farming 3-4, you can collect Zero Fighter Type 21 T3's blueprintes. Once you collected 10 of them, you can spend them to create one such plane.
g) Like in KC, equipments can be modified to be upgraded for a maximum of 10 times. T1(grey)equipments can be upgraded 3 times, T2(blue) can be upgraded 6 times, and T3(purple)/T4(gold)/T5(rainbow) can be upgraded for 10 times. Doing upgrades will consume the upgrade material of appropriate types (colloquially known as "plates") that you get from battles and quests, along with some gold.
h) It is important to keep in mind that equipment upgrading is NOT a late game phenomenon like in KC's Akashi shop. You should do it as soon as you can because it does offer a huge bonus, and the resources it costs are not nearly as hard to get as KC's Akashi screws.

5. Sorties and Battles
a) Battle details are in the tutorial and can be found in various wikis so I will not waste your time. You get to control your ships like a side scrolling shooter. But you can do automode if you chose to.
b) The most pressing question ever so I'll put this in red: WILL MY SHIPS BE LOST IF THEY SINK? The answer is NO. They will get less exp and lose affection(detailed later), but you will not lose them forever.
c) There is also NO REPAIR SYSTEM for the game. All ships are repaired automatically once you finish a map.
d) Every map has a 10 fuel flat rate entry ticket. Then every battle that you do will cost you fuel equal to the total consumption of that fleet. This leads to players tossing the 10 fuel to reroll a map for a better enemy spawn position in later/harder maps as so to not waste time.
The battle mechanics for this game are actually VERY complicated(or at least on par with KC). I cannot possibly detail it here in this quick guide(will probably do that in a few separate other guides). But I will say one thing about it: The game is not very hard and leveling ships will most likely overcome all of your obstacles, because in the battle damage calculations, ship's actual level number is being taken into account for "level overpowering" effect, so even if your favorite ship is bad you can still make her useful if you leveled her up

6. How do I marry my ships(and affection details)
a) You need the ship's affection to be at 100/100. You do NOT need to level your ship to Lv.100. Once you max out the affection you can give it a ring(you get one for free form the game, the rest you have to buy just like KC).
b) Affection is a system that affects your ship's stats. Making it go up will increase their stats. You can check it by clicking on the affection icon in ship details.
c) Affection is increased by ships taking MVP(highest exp) and by resting in the dorm.
c) Stat modification go in increments such as 1%, 3%, 6%, 9% for all stats except for sailing speed. 6% is the highest you can get from a non-married ship at 100/100 affection.
d) Marrying a ship will increase the affection cap from 100 to 200, and automatically makes the buff to +9%. After further increasing affection to 200/200, the buff will be +12% overall.

7. WTF is this dorm thing?(ship leveling)
a) The dorm thing is where you put ships in to do 4 things.
i) recover condition(morale in KC) for when they lose it in battles
ii) gain exp
iii) gain furniture coins (they get dialogue popups on the sprites, you click to gain coins)
iv) gain affection (they get dialogue popups on the sprites, you click to gain affection)
b)You put food in the dorm which is consumed over time for them to gain exp. This is actually a great way to level your ships so that you don't have to put them through hell like in KC.
c) There is no map like KC's 3-2 where you have to cheat the system to level a ship quick. Usually the latest map you can do is the best for your exp gain. But before you do that putting ships in the dorm can level them a LOT if you go afk.
d) Dorm exp gain is modified by furnitures. You do NOT need to place the furnitures in your dorm for the multiplier to go up. They are automatically calculated by an algorithm for placements. You can actually buy them and never place them and still get the exp multiplier. This is great for aesthetic reasons as you can actually buy furnitures for exp, but only place the ones you like for decorations.


8. What is limit break?(and how to increase ship stats)
a) This is "dupe feeding", which isn't in KC but is in a lot of other games. You basically do that to give a ship a "hardware" upgrade that she can't gain from simply leveling, stuff like increasing max torpedo attack rounds, increasing main BB gun turrets and increasing CV attack rounds.
b) Each ship can do limit break for a maximum of three times.
c) Ships gain different things when they get limit breaks, this is too much detail to fit in one guide but let me know if you want to know them so I can put them in ad different guide. But overall, they get all around stat boosts and hardware upgrades.
d) Limit breaking will increase the maximum ship level a ship can gain on the JAPANESE server only. NOT on CHINESE server. A ship with 0 limit breaks will only go up to Lv 70, after the first limit break she will go up to Lv 80, then 90 and 100. On the Chinese server, you can level a ship to Lv 100 without ever limit breaking, leading to minmaxing strategies of "0-break farmings", because limit breaking DOES INCREASE ship consumption. However this strategy is limited to Chinese server only.
e) Feeding a ship other ships will increase her stats. ONE IMPORTANT DIFFERENCE FROM KC is that you do NOT get set maximum modifiable stats from the beginning. For example, in KC you can get a Lv.1 ship and feed her to max before she even reaches Lv 2 as long as you have enough modernization material. For here, the stats caps increase with the ship. So you will ALWAYS have be vigilant in feeding your ships so that they do not fall behind. Unless she's Lv. 100, seeing "MAX" on the stat doesn't mean the cap won't be broken later.

9.Approaches to PvP
a) PvP is similar to KC, except instead of fighting their fleet 1, you fight their specific PvP fleet they set up.
b) You have a refresh button if you know you can't beat them. You will get new and hopefully easier opponents.
c) Getting more PvP points will gain your PvP ranks. After reaching each new rank you will get a bonus in the mail box. Ranks reset every 2 weeks so you can get the leveling up bonus again.
d) The resource being gained from PvP is "merits"(or colloquially, "swords"). You use them to redeem things in the Shiranui item shop, which leads to two ways people use PvP
i) If you want to do the biweekly ranking, you should try to fight harder opponents. Only a set number of top players are allowed to rank further up than "colonel" while most people will stop at that rank. Going further than colonel will continuously gain you rank up merit rewards in your mailbox, along with epeen.
ii) If you have no interest in ranking, it's probably better and less frustrating to pick on the easy targets to get your fixed merit gain per pvp. This way you don't have to put thoughts into what you use against enemies specific fleets and can just get easy points.
e) You do also gain exp based on the ships you fight, but the exp aspect of PvP is FAR less important than in KC for several reasons:
i) Ships have no repair costs. You might actually gain more exp by just fighting a battle in a sortie.
ii) The exp gain in later maps are actually considerably higher than what you can get in PvP for MUCH less effort.
iii) Dorm passive exp feeding is still the most ridiculous leveling mechanic in this game. PvP seriously pales in comparison.

10. How P2W is this game?
Believe it or not, actually less than KC.
Let's do some calculations(from the perspective of an absolute free player). Ship slots are 150 instead of 100 as a start.
You get one free ring, which is the same as KC, However...
There are various ways to gain diamonds (paid currency) without actually paying. Clearing maps on 3 stars gives you a little bit of diamond (50-100) on EACH map. There are currently 36 maps on JP server and 40 on CN server, and on average a set of 4 maps(per world) gives ~200 diamonds.
So there is a fixed amount of about 2000 diamond you can get.
Completing the ship index will give you 50 or so diamond for specific quests, they are less than what you get form map clears but they are still something. Maybe 300-400 in total, but new collection quests can be added later to increase that number.
Each ring is 600 diamond, so as a free player, you're allowed about 4 rings + the one for free.

Of course there are various skins you can buy, but I brought up calculations for rings because this is actually relevant to gameplay(as it modifies stats, albeit minor), which is what a free player worries about.

Devs also distribute free diamonds (usually 200-500) every time they reach a milestone in player number, so there's that as well.

This is all I have from writing in one sitting. I know there are other topics that isn't covered here so drop me a line if you have suggestions as to what to add and/or to write new detailed guides about.

Omake: Bonus picture courtesy of Haganenokaze to point you to where everything is on the menu.

[Rayfenx]

Really helpful guide, most of my doubts are cleared

Dorm leveling seems pretty op

[Kahlev]

@Kalinsre

Regarding the P2W section, how "needed" are those features? In KC you can play perfectly fine with 100 slots and no rings (my first all hard mode event went this way), and the cash shop is more of a side feature than the core of the game. How does AL compare in that regard?

How does stockpiling resources work? Is there an artificial low limit to resources like in some gaccha games, that force you to either pay or wait, or can you slowly build up to the point where you can play 24/7 with no arbitrary delays?

How are "rare" ships dealt with? In KC you can, for the most part, do with common drops; events even encourage to use them for routing purposes here and there, and the ultra-rare event/lsc stuff tends to be situational or focused on hard mode. Can you do so in AL, or is getting SSRs the make it or break it of the game?

[Kalinsre]

@Kalinsre

Regarding the P2W section, how "needed" are those features? In KC you can play perfectly fine with 100 slots and no rings (my first all hard mode event went this way), and the cash shop is more of a side feature than the core of the game. How does AL compare in that regard?

How does stockpiling resources work? Is there an artificial low limit to resources like in some gaccha games, that force you to either pay or wait, or can you slowly build up to the point where you can play 24/7 with no arbitrary delays?

How are "rare" ships dealt with? In KC you can, for the most part, do with common drops; events even encourage to use them for routing purposes here and there, and the ultra-rare event/lsc stuff tends to be situational or focused on hard mode. Can you do so in AL, or is getting SSRs the make it or break it of the game?

If KC's P2W features didn't matter for you, the ones in this game will matter even less. Marriage makes even less of a difference than in KC. It's just that sometimes they also offer a marriage skin. As for slots, you get 150 from the get go. If you 100 slots worked for you in KC there's no reason 150 won't work for you here. If you do decide to buy more ship slots, however, the pricing is lower than that of KC. KC is 1000 yen for 10 ship slots. For here, 10 ship slots cost 200 diamond, which is a small enough amount to get from game for free. Even if you want to pay for it, it is much cheaper because when you buy diamond packages for the first time they always give you twice the amount. Say if you want to buy a small package for 600 yen, you will get 300 + 300 bonus diamonds, which is enough to expand 30 slots for less than 6 US dollars. If you bought packages with higher values the discount can get even higher.

I wouldn't say 24/7, but after you reached a certain player level, the soft cap is already good enough for continuous play unless you're doing something outrageously costly. I never really attempted to hit hard cap, because regen is very effective in this game. You can stockpile like KC if you like, I just never had a need for that personally and always spend away once I hit soft cap.

As I stated in the guide, ship level tends to trump everything else, including ship rarity, because of the way damage calculation is done. Back on the CN server, I did the most notoriously hard event in the game's history with a few 1 star ships, which is the lowest rarity possible. But I did level them to Lv. 100. They did not seem to underperform much compared to their peers with higher rarities. In general, PVE in this game(even event maps) is not at all difficult if you have some common sense, even for hard mode, and you don't really min-max down to the last ship's last equipment. But if you care about PvP (which I personally don't), then the ship tiering might make a difference and you'll have to consider taking one ship over another for the win.