Combat/Night Battle

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LBAS
Jet Assault  · AACI
Battle Opening  · Artillery Spotting  · Anti-Submarine Warfare Cut-In
Support Expedition  · Special Attacks  · Anti-Installation  · Friendly Fleet
Map Mechanics and Nodes  · Evacuation  · Damage Calculations  · Accuracy, Evasion and Criticals  · Shooting Order and Targeting


Night Battle Breakdown

 
The screen after Day Battle. Clicking "夜戦突入" on the right will begin Night Battle

When the fleet pursues the enemy into Night Battle (夜戦, yasen), or enters special Nodes such as Night Nodes or Night to Day Nodes, the fleet will fight at night.

The Night Battle has the following structure:

  1. Friendly Fleet (event only)
  2. Support Expedition (if the battle starts at night only)
  3. Night Contact and Spotting
  4. Night Shelling Phase

In case neither fleets meet the requirements, the sub-phase will be skipped.

Night Contact and Spotting

 
Star Shell, Searchlight, and Night Recon activated. The Night Recon is displayed on top of the Enemy "Radar".

When the fleet is equipped with certain equipment, additional effects are triggered for the duration of the Night Battle. The relevant equipment and their effect are listed below.

Equipment Effect Requirements
  Star Shell 
  • Increases the   of the fleet.
  • Increases the cut-in rate of the fleet.
  • Greatly decreases the cut-in rate of the enemy fleet.
  • Ship must have at least 5 HP  
  • Trigger rate is 70% per ship equipped with a Star Shell. If multiple Star Shells are in the fleet, each will have a chance to trigger in fleet order.
 Prototype Night Zuiun (Attack Equipment) 
  Searchlights 
 
  • Greatly increases the   of the fleet.
  • Greatly increases the cut-in rate of the fleet.
  • Decreases the cut-in rate of the enemy fleet.
  • The equipping ships have their evasion   sharply reduced, and get targeted more often, see here
  • Ship must have at least 2 HP  
  • Trigger rate is 100%
  Skilled Lookouts 
 
  • Increases the cut-in rate of the ship equipping it.
  • None
  Night Recons
  • The recon cannot trigger on a slot of size 0.
  • The success rate is dependent on the level of the ship it is equipped on.
  • Trigger is determined by:
    • [math]\displaystyle{ \text{Triggers %} = 4 \times \bigg\lfloor \sqrt{\text{LoS}} \times \sqrt{\text{LV}} \bigg\rfloor }[/math]
    • With:
      • [math]\displaystyle{ \text{LoS} }[/math] The base LoS   of the recon (excluding Improvements   and fit bonuses),
      • [math]\displaystyle{ \text{LV} }[/math] The Level of the ship carrying the Night recon.
    • Like Day Contact, if multiple night recons are in the fleet, each will have a chance to trigger, in base accuracy order.
  • If the Night Battle was preceded by a day battle:
    • The Air State must be AD, AS or AS+.

Night Shelling Phase

 
Example of engagement order during Night Battle

Following the battle preliminary stages, Night Shelling proper will begin. Similar to Day Battle, attacks performed by ships are shelling attacks.

Some rules are applied to shelling attacks:

  • Attack power is defined by   +   stats instead of only  .
    • It is often represented with the   "Night Battle Power" (Yasen) icon.
    • If the enemy is unaffected by torpedoes, such as installations, only   is used instead.
  • The Shooting Order is altered, with notably Heavily Damaged, evacuated, and sunk ships performing an actionless turn.
  • CV(B/L) are unable to participate in night battles, unless specific requirements are met (see below).
  • Shelling attacks that target submarines will always deal Scratch Damage, making it impossible to sink submarines during Night Battle.
    • This rule is void if the player's fleet is a Combined Fleet.
    • Friendly Fleets can also ignore this rule, and may damage submarines.

In addition to that, Night Battle is not affected by the Day Battle's Engagement, but is still affected by the Formation.

Carrier Night Attacks

Normally carriers cannot attack at night unless certain conditions are fulfilled. There are three different kinds of carrier night attacks: Standard Shelling, Swordfish Night Attacks, and Carrier Night Air Attacks.

This is not to be confused with Carrier Cut-In Attacks which are for daytime shelling.

Trigger Requirements

Standard Shelling
Swordfish Night Attack
  • This is just limited to Ark Royal/Kai 
     
    when equipped with a Swordfish 
     
     
    .
  • This attack cannot be triggered when moderately damaged (中破).
  • The attack power is calculated using the surface night battle damage formula but only taking into account Ark Royal's base firepower and the Swordfish's stats and   improvements[1].
    • All other equipment stat/bonuses are ignored.
    • Swordfish fit bonuses are also ignored.[2]
  • Plane Proficiency still affects the critical rate.
  • May be set up to activate Cut-Ins like the Double Attack.

On a side note, unlike the browser version, on the arcade version the attack is very powerful.

Carrier Night Air Attack

Night Special Attacks

When using special equipment setups, ships may perform one of multiple special attacks at night. These attacks are often referred to as Cut-Ins due to the way the equipment is displayed on the screen before the attacks are performed. Particular cut-ins are often referred to by their acronym, such as TCI for Torpedo Cut-In, GCI for Gun Cut-In, DA for Double Attack, etc...

Compared to Day cut-ins (Artillery Spotting), Night cut-ins do not require any particular Air State, relying solely on the equipment restrictions and the stats of the ship performing it. Do note that the specific equipment being shown during the cut-ins animation have no influence on the damage output.

Cut-ins may be activated during a ship's turn and will override its normal single attack.

In addition, all "Special Attacks" (Touches) can trigger at night, with the "Kongou-class Night Assault" being only available during night battle.

Setups and Attack Types

Different setups have different conditions, trigger rates, damage, and number of hits. Cut-ins are solely determined by the attack's prerequisites.

For a given cut-in, any other equipment can be added to the remaining slots. Be wary that adding certain equipment may change the Cut-ins rolled for. If the setup fulfills multiple prerequisites, the Cut-in closer to the bottom of the list will be used. Additionally, each ship will roll for "New Type" Cut-ins first, if possible.

Special attacks that hit twice will roll independently to determine hit, critical chance, and armor penetration. Although their animations appear as single hits, Torpedo Cut-In, and Mixed Torpedo Cut-In are actually composed of 2 separate hits, with their damage added together in-game.

"New Type" Cut-ins

 
Uranami performing a DD-exclusive Torpedo/RADAR/Lookout Cut-in, or TRL for short.

The "New Type" Cut-ins are the Cut-ins introduced with the implementation of Saratoga Mk.II onwards. From top to bottom, each eligible Cut-in will be rolled if the previous roll has failed. If all rolls fail, then an additional single roll for a "Original Type" Cut-in is performed.

Do note that Night Carrier Cut-ins require a CV(L/B) with Night Operation capabilities by either equipping a NOAP 
 
or being a CVN.

  • Carriers that can perform Surface Shelling attacks at night will not perform Carrier Cut-ins without said Night Operation capabilities.
Night Zuiun CI
  • Can only be triggered on BBV, CAV, CL, or AV[1].
  • The ship must not be more than lightly damaged (小破).
  • Performs 2 attacks against random enemies.
    • The same enemy can be targeted twice.
  • Drops a Star Shell during the attack.


If not applicable, ships will skip rolling for "New Type" Cut-ins altogether and only roll for "Original Types" instead.

Attack Type Prerequisites Notes Pre-cap Damage Modifier Accuracy
Modifier[1]
Hits Chance for 2nd Hit[2][3]
(LV 80+ DD only)
Trigger Rate
[math]\displaystyle{ \text{Base}_\text{attack} }[/math]
(lower is better)
Destroyer Cut-ins    Surface 1.3 1.1 1 or 2 65% 115[4]
With 12.7cm Mod D K2  1.625
With 12.7cm Mod D K3  1.706
With 2 12.7cm Mod D K2  1.820
With both 12.7cm Mod D K2  & K3  1.911
With 2 12.7cm Mod D K3  2.002
  Surface  1.2 1.2~? 50% 140[5]
With 12.7cm Mod D K2  1.5
With 12.7cm Mod D K3  1.575
With 2 12.7cm Mod D K2 [6] 1.680
With both 12.7cm Mod D K2  & K3 [6] 1.768
With 2 12.7cm Mod D K3 [6] 1.848?
    Requires TSLO  1.5 1.37~? 87.5% 125[7]
    Requires TSLO  1.3 ? ~55%? 122[8]
Carrier Cut-ins[9]       =      1.25 ? 1 N/A 105[10]
   1.2 120[10]
  
OR
   
1.2 120?[10]
     1.18 130[10]
Night Zuiun Cut-ins      Surface Is affected differently by "night equipment", see below 1.36 1.02~1.11 2*Will fire at 2 random enemies N/A 135[11]
     1.32
    Surface 1.28
    1.24
  1. [1]
  2. [2]
  3. [3]
  4. Buffed from 130 to 115 [4]
  5. Buffed from 150 to 140 [5]
  6. 6.0 6.1 6.2 Tashkent Kai only.
  7. [6][7]
  8. [8]
  9. NB CVCI [9]
  10. 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 [10]
  11. [11]
Derivated set-ups

When using an SLO  or TSLO  in the Reinforcement Expansion, it is possible to "mix" the Destroyer Cut-ins, making 2 cut-ins available to trigger at once, and so increasing the odds of having at least one that activates during Night Battle.

Those set-ups are:

GTRL is sometimes referred to as "GUiTaRSolo" for "Gun, Torp, Radar, and Skilled Lookouts (SLO)".

Do note that if a DD is equipped with a  Surface Surface Radar AND a   Skilled Lookout 
 
, then it gain a post-cap evasion bonus during Night Battle.

Original Cut-ins

In contrast with the "New Type" Cut-ins, "Original" Cut-ins are only rolled once, even if multiple setup prerequisites are met. The setup used will be the top-most that meets the prerequisites. If this roll fails, the ship will perform a Single Attack.

Attack Type Prerequisites Notes Pre-cap
Damage
Modifier
Accuracy
Modifier[1]
Hits Trigger Rate
[math]\displaystyle{ \text{Base}_\text{attack} }[/math]
(lower is better)
Gun Cut-in     + Any on the remaining slots 2 2[2] 1 140
Mixed Gun Cut-in     No additional   1.75 1.5[2] 130
Submarine Cut-ins  Sub_LM   With Late-Model Sub Torps ONLY 1.75 ? 2 105[3]
 Sub_LM  Sub_LM 1.6 110[4]
Torpedo Cut-in    + Any on the remaining slots 1.5 1.5 122
Mixed Torpedo Cut-in    Additional    allowed 1.3 1.5[2] 115
Double Attack    No additional     1.2 1.1 -
   Additional   allowed
   Additional    allowed

Single Attack

If all rolls fail or the ship meets no Cut-in requirements, then it will perform a "Single Attack", a default 1 hit shelling attack, with no particular damage or accuracy modifier.

Trigger Rates

Trigger rate formula
[math]\displaystyle{ \text{Trigger %}_\text{Cut-in} = \left[ \dfrac{\text{Base}_\text{ship} }{\text{Base}_\text{attack} } \right] \times 100 }[/math]
With
  • [math]\displaystyle{ \text{Base}_\text{ship} = \lfloor 15 + \text{Luck} + 0.75 \times \sqrt{\text{Level}} + \text{Modifiers}\rfloor }[/math] , if the Ship's Luck stat is less than 50.
  • [math]\displaystyle{ \text{Base}_\text{ship} = \lfloor 65 + \sqrt{ \left( \text{Luck} - 50 \right) } + 0.8 \times \sqrt{\text{Level}} + \text{Modifiers}\rfloor }[/math], if the Ship's Luck stat is 50 or greater.
  • [math]\displaystyle{ \text{Base}_\text{attack} }[/math] is the Value used by each type of Cut-in. See the above tables for value.
  • [math]\displaystyle{ \text{Modifiers} }[/math] is the sum of various equipment modifiers See the below table for value.
    • Do note that modifiers change based on the Cut-in that is being used.
    • Do note that modifiers can affect the enemy fleet.
Notes
  • The effect of   over 51 is negligible due to diminishing returns, thus going above such value is generally discouraged.
  • The formula used above was datamined from KanColle Kai and is corroborated by test results in the browser version.
Modifier Value
Allied Enemy
Other CIs Night
Zuiun CI
Ship Placement Flagship 15 N/A
Other 0
  Health Moderately Damaged
(中破 Chuuha)
18
All other health states 0
 Skilled Lookouts  - 5 8
 Torpedo Squadron Skilled Lookouts [1] DD/CL(T) 8 0
Other 0
Fleet   Searchlights 
 
[2]
- 7 -10 -5
 Star Shell 
 Prototype Night Zuiun (Attack Equipment) [3]
Do not stack 4 -10 -10
  1. https://twitter.com/Divinity_123/status/1680201615746146304
  2. [15]
  3. Only affect attacks after the Night Zuiun CI triggred.

See Also