Exercises

Revision as of 08:03, 13 August 2014 by >NomiaK (→‎Benefits of Participating: added note)

Naval Exercises are practice matches where you combat the fleets of other admirals.

Benefits of Participating

The first and most obvious benefit of exercises is that participation is required for several quests. The exercise list is updated twice daily, so you get ten chances total to complete all your daily quests.

Exercises are also a very safe way of gaining experience for your ships. Ships cannot sink, and are automatically repaired back to their pre-exercise status after a battle has concluded, minus a small amount of ammo and fuel.

Finally, winning exercises generally results in your ships becoming sparkly. Like sorties, sparkly depends on whether a ship is MVP or performed a critical hit. However, unlike sorties, there's a chance that all participating ships will get sparkly when getting an S rating. This can be useful if you wish to run long expeditions, or run repeated sorties.

  • Note that if you cannot start an exercise with a heavily damaged ship. Heavily damaged ship also cannot gain exp here.

When to Run Exercises

Flagship level / 

Level of 2nd ship

1 5 10 15 20 25 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 99 110 120 130 140 150
1 0 3 15 35 63 100 145 260 408 510 519 527 536 553 554 560 573 593 618
5 10 13 25 45 73 110 155 270 418 510 519 528 536 553 555 560 573 593 618
10 45 48 60 80 108 145 190 305 453 512 520 528 536 553 555 561 574 593 618

15

105 108 120 140 168 205 250 365 503 514 522 529 537 554 556 562 575 594 619
20 190 193 205 255 253 290 335 450 509 517 523 531 538 554 556 532 575 594 619
25 300 303 315 335 363 400 445 509 514 520 526 532 540 555 557 563 575 594 619
30 435 438 450 470 498 505 508 513 518 523 528 534 541 557 558 564 576 595 620
40 516 516 517 517 518 519 520 523 526 529 534 539 545 560 561 566 578 597 621
50 526 526 524 524 528 528 529 531 533 536 540 544 550 563 565 570 561 599 623
60 536 536 536 536 537 537 538 539 541 543 546 550 555 568 569 574 585 602 625
70 546 546 546 546 547 547 547 549 550 552 555 558 562 574 575 579 590 606 629
80 557 557 557 558 558 558 558 559 561 562 564 567 571 581 582 586 596 611 633
90 570 570 570 570 570 571 571 572 573 574 576 578 582 591 592 595 604 618 639
99 597 597 597 597 597 597 598 598 599 600 601 603 606 613 614 616 624 636 655
110 600 600 600 600 600 600 600 601 602 603 604 606 608 615 616 619 626 638 656
120 609 609 609 609 610 610 610 610 611 612 613 615 617 624 624 627 634 645 663
130 631 631 631 631 631 632 632 632 633 633 635 636 638 643 644 646 656 662 678
140 664 664 664 664 664 664 665 665 665 666 667 668 670 674 674 676 681 690 704
150 707 707 707 707 707 707 707 708 708 709 709 710 711 715 715 717 721 727 740

Top horizontal row represents the level of the second ship in the fleet while the first vertical row represents the flagship level. Generally, if the sum of the levels of the ships in the top two slots in the enemy fleet is roughly fifty or more, you can expect a base experience of about 500. The other four ships in the enemy fleet seemingly do not factor into the experience formula.

At low Admiral Levels, players have very low level ships, so the experience gain from exercises tends to be bad (sometimes far lower than running sorties). Simply put, it may not be worth running many exercises until you reach higher levels. However, there is usually one admiral in your list that is three or four times your level. Even though you will likely be slaughtered by a superior force, the high base experience still means that you come out with a great deal of experience.

Similar to sorties, you gain more experience with an S rank than with an A or B rank. If you can spare the resources and are certain of victory, it is almost always worth it to enter night battle to finish off a wounded enemy fleet. However, note that both A and B rank yield the same amount of experience. There is no point pursuing night battle if you have already won, and cannot finish off the enemy completely.

Do note that exercises reset twice daily, once at 03:00 JST and again at 15:00 JST.  This means you can run a maximum of 10 exercises per day.

Fleet Composition

As always, the flagship receives bonus experience. Thus, it makes sense to place a ship you wish to level in the flagship slot.

Running carriers in exercises is not recommended. Any competent Admiral will equip their fleet with lots of anti-air, which can utterly decimate your planes. A competently equipped fleet can easily cost you 200-300 bauxite in planes. If you wish to level a carrier in exercises, consider equipping high angle guns on them instead of planes. Running a carrier with planes is possible, but you should exercise great caution in doing so.

Battleships should form the backbone of your fleet. Their high HP and armor means that they can take a beating, and their firepower makes them effective against all ship types. The number of battleships you use should depend on the number of battleships and carriers in the enemy fleet.

The air combat phase and the opening torpedo salvo can often determine who wins the fight. To this end, make sure you equip sufficient anti-air to neutralize your opponent's carriers. Fielding Kitakami and Ooi is also generally a good idea, as they can very easily oneshot ships.

If the enemy has many light carriers, light cruisers, or destroyers, consider using a sub. As in sorties, anything that can target the sub, will, so you can effectively divert a significant portion of the enemy's firepower to the sub. Light cruisers and destroyers will continue to target the sub (if it is still alive) in night combat, so use this to your advantage. You could also opt to run a fleet of mostly heavies and battleships, as their high armor will shrug off most attacks.

Facing Submarines

When facing a fleet entirely made of submarines, the line abreast formation is recommended. As the enemy fleet's formation is based on the composition of said fleet, a fleet of four subs will always be in echelon formation. This is advantageous for you, as the accuracy of their pre-emptive torpedoes will generally suck because of this.

Using high ASW ships is helpful, but not strictly necessary. You will still deal good damage due to the line abreast formation. Stacking ASW equipment on your ships is highly recommended. Add in any battleship to enable the second round of attacks. Finally, take a light carrier (or a carrier if you feel you don't need the extra attack) equipped with a Saiun recon plane. The Saiun will ensure that the Crossing the T (Disadvantageous) formation is avoided, which is very important, as this particular engagement form significantly hinders your ability to kill subs.

If the enemy fleet has a sub supported by a real fleet (battleships, carriers, etc), the battle becomes more difficult. Consider running Kitakami and Ooi with minisubs and ASW equipment. Their pre-emptive torpedo attack will prioritize enemy ships over the sub, and they have reasonably high ASW. When using the torpedo cruisers, you should use line ahead formation in order to maximize their accuracy, as this strategy hinges on sinking or critically damaging one or two of the enemy's ships to win the surface battle. Field one or more battleships to cement your surface superiority, and possibly a carrier (light carriers will target the sub and deal very little damage due to the formation) equipped with a Saiun. Adding another good ASW ship such as Isuzu Kai 2 is a good idea too. The main problem of this enemy fleet composition tends to be killing the sub, not killing the surface ships.

As always, there is still some RNG involved with this strategy. If the enemy manages to inflict enough damage to your ASW ships, your chances of killing the sub are slim. Even then, you will probably still come out with an A or B rank.

Fleet Formations

Your PvP opponent's fleet formation changes depending on the ship types of both player's flagships.

  1. If your opponent has a submarine as flagship, and at least 4 ships in their fleet, their formation will be echelon.
  2. If your opponent has an aircraft carrier as flagship and at least 5 ships, their formation will be diamond.
  3. If you have a submarine as flagship and more than 1 submarine in the fleet, while the enemy has at least 4 ships, their formation will be line abreast.
  4. In all other cases the formation will be line ahead.