Tutorial: How to Play
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This page assumes that you are already signed up for Kantai Collection and have successfully joined a server (i.e. you are not asked to select a server upon loading the game.) If you haven't done this, please go to the page Tutorial: How to Register and follow the instructions on it.
You should see the screen on the right when you are ready to begin playing also remember that this is a Japanese game and not American/English.
Selecting a Starter Ship
The very first thing the game will ask you to enter your name. After that you have to select your initial ship girl. Click the arrows to either side of the button at the bottom to see your five options.
次 = Next
前 = Previous
決定 = Decide
Don't struggle too much over this decision; the starter ships are all destroyers with fairly similar stats and you will soon have a full navy of other ships that can replace them if you so wish. Feel free to make your choice based on their appearance or voice.
The five starter ships are:
Tutorials
There are five tutorials to be completed before you dive into the game.
- Create a ship in the Factory/工廠 (see The Main Screen, below, for help finding this and other locations in the game): Simply use the default amount of resources to create a ship. Don't waste resources as at the tutorial level you cannot create anything powerful.
- Once you have your new ship, to add her to the fleet you use the Organize/編成 page to do so.
- Using the Quest/任務 page you must perform a quest (select the top quest with the ship icon) to gain resources and a new ship. 遂行中/達成! will be displayed by the quest indicating Quest in progress/Completed! respectively.
- It's time to Sortie/出撃. At this point you can participate in the first mission by clicking on the turret and plane icon and selecting the only available mission. It's probably safest if you participate in the first battle only as your ships will not be strong enough if the navigational compass sends you to the boss stage. To ensure this, select the right hand option (Retreat/撤退) after the battle is over.
- Finally, you must resupply your ships to ensure that they don't run out of fuel or munitions during a battle. Do this by using the Supply/補給 menu.
The Main Screen
This screen is where you'll be spending most of your time in Kantai Collection. The ship girl on the right is the flagship of your first fleet and will speak if you click on her, also referred as your secretary.
- Main Functions
- Organize - Organize your fleets for sorties and expeditions
- Supply - Refuel your ships and resupply them with ammunition and planes
- Refit - Change the equipments on your ships or modernize them by sacrificing unwanted ships
- Docking - Repair your damaged ships
- Factory - This is where you go for ship construction, ship dismantle, equipment development and equipment discard
- Sortie - Send your fleets to battle or on an expedition to gather materials
- Top Menu
- Port - Return to your main screen
- Stats - See statistics about yourself and set your greeting message
- Friend Fleet - Not in the game yet
- Card Display - Display your collection of ships and equipments. You can also re-watch the marriage of your married ships here.
- Items - See your inventory of miscellaneous items such as medals , furniture boxes, buckets, instant build items and cash items.
- Furniture Makeover - Change the appearance of the room on your main screen
- Quests - Complete quests to receive materials, ships and other rewards
- Shop - Buy stuff with real money, or furniture with coins found in furniture boxes
- Materials - You need these to resupply, repair and create things in the Factory. They are :
Fuel 
Steel
Ammo 
Bauxite
Going on a Sortie
Repair and Resupply
Chances are that one of your ship girls was damaged during your first sortie. If not, they certainly will be in short order, so you had better learn to repair.
Click the Repair button (入渠) on the Main Screen. You will see your repair docks (two by default; more can be unlocked by purchasing the key from the cash shop.) Click a dock to see a list of your ships, by default ordered by the extent of damage taken. When you select a ship, you will see a screen similar to that on the right.
Every repair costs a large amount of steel and a smaller amount of fuel. By clicking the slider, you can also use an Instant Repair Item (also as "buckets"), which looks like a green bucket with the word 修復 on it. These are more abundant than you might expect- it may be possible to run out of them if you use one on every single repair, but don't hesitate to use them on particularly long ones.
Click the button on the bottom right (入渠開始！！) to start the repair. Unlike when building ships, there's no need to 'claim' a repaired ship. Also, there is a bug that may be of interest to KanColle addicts; if less than one minute remains on a repair timer, it will be completed immediately upon switching screens.
Finally, if you change your mind about waiting for a repair to finish, you can click the green button on the right (高速修復) at any time to use a bucket and complete the repair instantly.
Even if your ships didn't take damage, you will need to resupply them. Click the Resupply button (補給) on the Main Screen.
The Resupply screen is sorted by fleet and appears fairly straightforward. Click on one or more ships to select them, then click on the bottom right button to refill their fuel and ammo.
Fuel+: Refuel only
まとめて補給: Resupply everything
Ammo+: Resupply ammo only
This is not clearly shown on the Resupply screen itself, but refilling fuel and ammo also refills other consumables attached to ships, most notably airplanes that were shot down. These also cost materials to refill- in the case of airplanes, bauxite is consumed. If you don't have enough bauxite, not all the airplanes on your ships will be refilled, and you'll be unable to refill those again until you spend some of the ship in question's fuel and ammo on an expedition or sortie.
In short, be careful of your bauxite level when resupplying carriers or other ships with airplanes.
Using the Factory
You'll probably want to build some more ship girls to bring your first fleet up to its maximum of 6 (this is one of your quest objectives, actually.) Click the Factory (工廠) button on the main screen.
The buttons on the left, in order, are:
- Construction (建造)
- Dismantle (解体), often called "scrapping"
- Development (開発)
- Discard (廃棄), "scrapping" of equipments
Selecting 建造/construction brings up the dialog on the right. You can fine tune the amount of materials you want to use to attempt to get a certain category of ship, with 30-60% accuracy. You can try your luck with random amounts (which is likely to result in a destroyer), see the Construction page or individual ship pages for details on ship formulas, or use these basic ones:
(Materials are in the order Fuel/Ammo/Steel/Bauxite)
- Destroyer/Light Cruiser: 30/30/30/30 (no rare ships)
- Rare Destroyer/Heavy Cruiser/Submarine: 250/30/200/30
- Aircraft Carrier: 300/30/400/300
- Battleship: 400/30/600/30
Please bear in mind that the result of ship construction is random. The actual rate to obtain a ship might be lower than the rate shown in the Construction page due to statistical errors. You can safely assume that the actual rate of obtaining a rare ship is far lower than the rate shown.
The slider will allow you to use a Fast Build Item, akin to Fast Repair. You are unlikely to run out of these unless you build ships nonstop. However, if attempting to build a specific type of ship, you may wish to begin the build first, compare the build time to those listed on Construction page to see what you're building, and then instantly complete the build if you so wish by clicking the button on the right of the dock.
解体/Scrapping ships will destroy a ship to give you a small portion of materials, and should be self-explanatory when performed in game. The amount of materials returned is meager enough that you should consider using unwanted ships for modernization instead. All equipment on a ship will be scrapped as well when you scrap a ship, so if you want to keep the equipment you may wish to remove it first.
開発/development is similar to building ships, but the result depends on the flagship of your main fleet as well as the materials used, and has a chance to fail completely which is rather high when not following a pre-tested formula. Upon a failure, you will lose all materials used except the development material.
廃棄/Scrapping of equipments works similarly to scrapping ships.
To do construction/development, you will need development materials, which have an icon that looks like "two nails side by side and a gear". You can get them by completing some quests and expeditions.