Tutorial: FAQ
A collection of questions that are frequently/hypothetically asked. This page is still under correction and revision.
Newcomer / Beginners
Is this game translated/is there an English patch?
No, this game is not translated and because it's a browser game, an English patch is pretty much non-existent. Will it be translated? Highly unlikely.
How do I get in?
In short, you would first need a DMM account and a VPN to register for the game. The following wiki links should be enough:
I notice all this terminologies, CA, CVL, CV, etc:
We are following the hull classifications.
- DD - Destroyers
- CL - Light Cruisers
- CA - Heavy Cruisers
- CVL - Light Aircraft Carriers
- CV - Aircraft carriers
- AS - Submarine tender
- BB - Battleship
- AV - Seaplane Tender / Seaplane carriers
- BBV - Aviation Battleship
- CAV - Aviation Cruiser
- CT - Torpedo Cruisers
- SS - Submarines
And how about w/x/y/z when you talk about crafting and what not?
Fuel/ammo/steel/bauxite
green/yellow/gray/brown
How does resources work in this game?
You have fuel (green), ammo (dark brown/yellow), steel (gray) and bauxite (brown). Fuel and ammo are generally used for resupplying your ship, while fuel and steel are used to repair your ship. Bauxite is used for planes in terms of crafting and resupplying planes to your carriers.
In crafting, different amount will be used for different equipment; planes will require higher bauxite, some guns require higher ammo capacity. Refer to the Development page.
Gathering resources come in 4 ways:
- Just wait it out. Fuel, ammo and steel regenerates at 3 points per 3 minute. Bauxite is 1 point per 3 minute.
- Expeditions.
- During Sortie, there are nodes that grant you resources.
- Dailies/Quests/Missions
Alright, I built my ship, kicked some ass and I noticed the orange faces. What gives?
Fatigue. It's accumulated when you sent your ships to sortie and its stacked through subsequent sortie. How much fatigue accumulated depends on the performance in battle. When you see the faces, let them rest for a while (orange: 10-11 mins, red: 21-40mins). Docking would help as well. Fatigued effects:
- Stats penalty (Lowered firepower, evasion)
- Higher chance of ship sinking even when it's only slightly (小破) or moderately damaged (中破).
My ship is sparkling/glittering!
The inverse of fatigue is sparkle which promises boost to stats[?] and last indefinitely until the next sortie/practice/expedition.
- Stats boost (Increased firepower, evasion)
- 150% resource gain and higher chance to get special item on expedition.
I notice there are a heart-lock in the ship selection screen.
Click that and the designated ship will not appear in scrap/modernization material list. Useful if you don't want to accidentally lose her.
Oh, and how about expedition?
You need a second fleet. Which can be activated in the 'Quest' section:
- Complete 「水雷戦隊」を編成せよ！which requires a light cruiser as the flagship and destroyers filling the rest.
- Complete 6隻編成の艦隊を編成せよ！ which is basically, filling all slots in the fleet with ships.
- Remember to check the quest to fulfil it.
My ship sank.
Print her picture, frame it, burn an incense paper and ring a bicycle bell because you're not getting her back unless you found another copy oh her but you and I know, it will never be the same. Or you could equip the emergency repair (応急修理要員) on her. You can get some by completing quests or you could purchase some from the cash shop.
To avoid your ship from being sunk, make sure the ships didn't have sad face/excessive fatigue before a sortie and they are not moderately damaged (中破) or more.
How does emergency repair (応急修理要員) work?
Ships equipped with 応急修理要員 will be revived to 1HP once they sank and be invulnerable throughout the battle. Note: Night battle and day battle are considered separate. However, it's a one-time use, so use it very carefully.
I want ship X, Y, Z, etc.
you could get it via:
- Drop in map, see Drop List.
- Crafting, see Crafting Recipe for each ship.
Does level or type of your flagship matter in crafting?
Depends.
- Crafting ships are only dependent on the amount of resources you pumped in, apparently.
- Crafting equipment may depend on the amount of resources and type of your flagship.
Is it important to craft equipment?
Not until you're level 20. You can try, but don't expect the rare ones.
I cannot rename my fleets!
You are probably using stand-alone flash player or API link to play the game. Use DMM's Kantai Collection page to play and try renaming your fleets again.
How to unlock third and fourth fleet slot?
- 3rd Fleet: Complete Quest A14 「川内」型軽巡姉妹の全3艦を編成せよ！
- 4th Fleet: Complete Quest A16 「金剛」型による高速戦艦部隊を編成せよ！
When does the daily/weekly reset commence?
Quest/Mission:
- Daily: 05.00 JST
- Weekly: Monday 05.00 JST
Daily PVP roster: 03.00 and 15.00 JST
How do ships with multiple remodels work (e.g., Chitose, Chiyoda)?
Think of them as evolutions. You can remodel a ship at any point after it reaches the required level, and you need the previous remodel in order to get the next.
Example: Chitose -> Chitose Kai -> Chitose A -> Chitose Carrier -> Chitose Carrier Kai -> Chitose Carrier Kai 2
How do I fix flash stretching the game resolution when using the API?
Use Flash projector to run the game in it's native resolution using the API link.
Sortie
Why do I keep getting sent to the wrong place?
Different nodes on different maps will have different requirements. Some of the nodes are random in nature while the rest are dependent on your fleet composition (Boss in 3-2 for example can only be reached by a fleet of destroyers)
Weird animation: An 'arc' appears in front of my flagship and another ship of mine got damaged instead, what happened?
Flagship protection. Ships will occasionally protect the flagship from getting damaged. What really causes it is not known but some formation boost the probability of it happening more than the others. Ring-shaped / Diamond shaped formation will raise the probability of it happening more than the Vertical line formation.
What ships are 'counters' e.g. destroyers against subs?
Generally, Battleships and regular carriers are the queens of the battlefield except when it comes to submarines. Heavy Cruisers are jack of all trades and light cruisers and destroyers are natural enemies of submarines and probably the only enemies as they could drop depth charges.
I saw a red text on my screen before I sortie, what does it mean?
You have reached the maximum limit of ships in your dock (default: 100 ships). Consider scrapping or use them as modernizing material before heading out. You will not be able to obtain new ships if you reach the limit. If you wish to expand your docks so you can collect more ships, you have to buy it from the cash shop. Refer to pastebin for more information on hating your money.
What happened if i disconnected to the game during a battle?
The game will calculate the battle results and your fleet will automatically return to base.
I notice some players are farming those poor Isuzus, why?
Isuzu Kai (五十鈴改) has stock equipment which is desirable to a lot of admiral (12.7cm Twin High-Angle Cannon and Type 21 Air Radar). Combined with her value as modernization material (+4 AA) and low remodel level requirement (Lv.12), It's an attractive proposition.
Other example:
- Chitose/Chiyoda for midget subs (Type A Ko-hyoteki)
Again, these battles reset twice a day at 03:00 and 15:00 JST.
How could other admiral have significantly higher leveled ships?
Doing naval exercise yield low admiral exp (20 exp) and high ship exp (up to 1k exp, maybe more). Compound that everyday and the exp gap would grow higher and higher. Overall, it doesn't really matter for you.
The other admiral use a fleet of low-level ships, why would he do that?
It's to make you easier to have sparkle. see sparkle effect for more details.
To help other admirals (and hopefully you as well), please make sure your main fleet consist only a high level ship (more exp to them) or low level ship when you will be offline for a while.
Equipment and Stats
What does each stat mean?
- 耐久 (Endurance) - HP
- 火力 (Firepower) - Affects the damage a ship's guns do during bombing/shelling phase.
- 装甲 (Armor) - Damage reduction against incoming attack.
- 雷装 (Torpedo) - Affects the damage a ship inflicts with a torpedo attack. should not be confused with anti-submarine warfare.
- 回避 (Evasion) - Self-explanatory
- 対空 (Anti-Air) - Self-explanatory. See below for explanation on AA guns.
- 搭載 (Aircraft) - Total plane capacity for each ship. For capacity in each slot, see this.
- 対潜 (Anti-submarines/ASW) - Ship's capability to conduct anti-submarine warfare; higher chance of inflicting damage to submarines.
- 速力 (Speed) - Self-explanatory. The mechanics are not clear but it apparently gives bonus to evasion if all ships are fast speed.
- 索敵(Reconnaissance/LOS) - This stat apparently determines the success of the recon phase at the start of the battle. The higher it is, the higher the success rate. Generally done with seaplanes or Saiun recon planes, though some ships are easily able to do this by themselves (see Tone and Chikuma).
- 射程 (Range) - Determines the firing order during the start of the battle. Ships with longer range will start off first.
- 運 (Luck) - Self-explanatory; various UNCONFIRMED hidden combat bonuses. Accuracy, evasion, critical hit rate, evasion of sinking, you name it.
Generally if the stat is 0, it means the ship can't do anything pertaining to that and there's no way you could increase it.
What do the stars underneath the ship level mean?
How close they are to their max stats.
Is it worth to turn Fuso, Mogami, etc into aviation battleships/cruiser?
Worth it. Firepower stats drops a little, but every other stats increase. Their Aviation BB-form are still eligible for the quest completion.
Does slot positioning of the equipment matter?
In general, yes. For ships capable of carrying aircraft, each slot may gives different aircraft-carrying capacity. see below.
Is there any equipment that could do preemptive strike?
Torpedo and dive bomber could do it on the opening bombing phase. Ship or submarine equipped with midget submarine Type A Ko-hyoteki (甲標的 甲) also allows you to have opening torpedo attack.
What do green and yellow guns do? Also, I really hate fighting carriers, which guns help me shoot planes?
Only green guns (high-angle gun and machine gun) shoot planes.
46cm guns also shoot planes. (Yes, even though they're red.)
Yellow guns (secondary gun) do NOT shoot planes.
All guns with with +AA stat help green guns shoot planes but do not shoot planes unless they are green guns themselves.
There are two types of green guns: dual-purpose guns (46cm red, 12.7cm green, 10cm green), which trigger a forward sliding motion from ships in a battle, and machine guns (everything you see towards the back of your equipment inventory list), which produce a "tracer bullet" visual effect when they fire. Dual-purpose guns tend to reduce the number of incoming enemy planes in general; machine guns tend to reduce the amount of planes attacking a single ship, as in, they defend themselves.
Green ammo makes a ship shoot planes regardless of gun. This makes it redundant for BBs with 46cm guns.
AA radar is effective but helps only the ship that it's equipped to.
For those wondering about yellow guns: They're for more accurate fire on secondary targets, for this purposes of this game that would be on their second round of fire. Historically, they were meant to fire faster and track fast ships more quickly, hence the accuracy boost. By the way, don't ever use 15.2cm yellow guns, they were bad historically and they're bad in this game too. The 15.5cm yellow guns are great.
What is the function of the green ammo?
Sanshiki, San-Shiki or sanshikidan (lit. "type 3") ammunition is a combined shrapnel and incendiary round for anti-aircraft use, used by the Imperial Japanese Navy. The shell was historically designed for several gun calibers such as 41cm Twin Cannon, 20.3cm Twin Cannon, and 12.7cm Twin Cannon.
In essence, it makes your non-AA gun perform like a flak gun.
What do the red, blue, green, yellow and light green planes do?
Red planes are dive bombers, blue planes are torpedo bombers, green planes are fighters for air superiority, and yellow plane are used for recon phase. Light green planes are seaplanes, the 零式水上偵察機 Zero Recon is for scouting only, the 瑞雲 Zuiun scouts and also does some light bombing.
Blue planes deal very high damage in opening attack if your side have air superiority, if not, you will lose lots of blue planes and very limited damage to the enemy.
Red planes also attack in opening phase but their damage is low and inaccurate. They give carrier higher damage bonus in shelling phase, and less vulnerable from enemy anti air unit
What's the difference between CV and CVL?
CV can hold more planes and a higher plane count means better performance in the initial air combat phase. You get higher firepower for your fleet as well, which translates to better damage in the shelling phase. Last but not least, CVs have higher defense and HP.
One thing CV can't do is attacking subsmarines whereas CVL can. CVLs cost less to upkeep than CVs too.
What does the number beside my plane stand for?
The capacity of the planes it can hold. Different slots have different capacity and will affect the performance of the carrier. Blues on the slot with the most planes = more damage during the bombing phase
Expeditions
Help! my fleet failed to do an expedition.
There are at least two reason for that, which is:
- Incorrect fleet composition; see Composition for more details.
- Not resupplying your ship beforehand.
I don't have expedition #xx unlocked.
Don't skip clearing any previous expedition (e.g. for expedition #18 you need to clear expedition 1 until 17). By clearing, it means completing for the first time.
What expedition is the most efficient?
See Theoretical Hourly Net Earnings.
- Always have your fleet full of sparkle when going into long expedition, see sparkle effect.
- Using ships with low fuel and ammo cost is another way to optimize the efficiency of your expedition.
- Remodeled ship may have up to 27% increase in fuel/ammo usage. While it is not significant, please take it into consideration in deciding your expedition fleet.