Trying to build a few general fleets(mob, AA, carrier, etc) for campaign/opsi. I should be able to go from there.
#General Fleets
cunning smelt
sharp plover
Can you post again in here the fleets you showed before as well as your dock
cunning smelt
Main fleet ships.
sharp plover
Note that an "AA fleet" is kinda meaningless, since there isn't a single occasion that you would build a fleet solely for AA
cunning smelt
Vanguard.
cunning smelt
Note that an "AA fleet" is kinda meaningless, since there isn't a single occasio...
So by AA fleet, I meant a fleet to help counter the campaign missions with higher amounts of aircraft.
Four of the fleets I have so far.
sharp plover
Fair enough, but that's merely constructing campaign fleets to match the content
There isn't any particular point constructing a fleet with just AA to the expense of anything else
Anyhow, do you want to start with Operation Siren, or campaign?
cunning smelt
Let's start with campaign.
sharp plover
Alright, where are you up to?
cunning smelt
Got stopped at 11-4, my Iron faction fleet couldn't get me passed that. That's when I realized I need to actually learn how to build fleets.
sharp plover
Honestly, with the ships you have available, you probably can just power through 11-4 by now with sheer level advantage, assuming you have some reasonable equipment at your disposal
Something like
Mob: 2 BBs of your choice (FDG by herself is already completely overkill, you can honestly take some of the SRs like Roma/Massachusetts/etc. just for the sake of saving oil) + Unicorn + say, Minneapolis + An Shan + Z23 or something
Boss: BisZwei probably kills the boss (iirc Sendai) more or less by herself
Setting that to one side, World 12 is the first of the plane worlds, so I suppose I'll outline the basic principles applicable to the plane worlds (12, 13, and 15 - note that World 12 is just an appetiser before what was once considered the "plane hell" of World 13, and which is now itself just a shadow of what World 15 is)
cunning smelt
15 sounds like fuuuuuun
sharp plover
Defending against planes can be broken down into three pieces:
- The AA capabilities of your ships, as dictated by their AA stats and the efficiencies of their AA guns.
- The AA guns you have available (bring Guam to W15 with bad equipment and you'll still die).
- Intercepting planes carried by your CV/CVLs (non-rocket fighters and torpedo bombers like the Wyvern and Breguet)
cunning smelt
I'm fairly confident with gear, that was pretty easy to understand(especially after reading through Samheart guides for hours).
sharp plover
In order to beat plane worlds, therefore, you will want to
- Bring good AA ships - the key example of a ship you have that does this is San Diego (although if you haven't retrofitted her yet, her value is considerably lower), although most CLs tend to be at least acceptable in their AA capabilities. Backline ships (apart from interceptors carried by your CV/CVLs) tend to contribute less to AA fire due to the way you usually equip them, but in a pinch ships like New Jersey and Vanguard (who have massive AA stats) can be equipped with damage-dealing AA guns to take advantage of their AA capabilities.
- Bring more CV/CVLs than BB/BCs (I'll leave Kearsarge out of this because if she's less than Dev 20 you definitely should not even contemplate bringing her into any kind of content), with your CV/CVLs carrying intercepting aircraft
cunning smelt
If I had Kearsarge Dev 30, would she be more useful then?
sharp plover
Definitely, although her value in campaign at least is a little bit less for a couple of reasons, but she can be used very well in boss fleets in Operation Siren
outer summit
her only disadvantage is she doesnt have secondary gun, which is important in later chapters
cunning smelt
So a fleet something along the lines of:
Shinano
(Flag) Musashi
Hakuryuu
Agir
Sirius?
San Diego(Once I retrofit her)
sharp plover
That and you cannot speed up her barrage pressure, which can be very annoying if you need to kill stuff faster
cunning smelt
That'd be better for W12?
sharp plover
Sure, that's a fine boss fleet that would probably run everyone over lol
Empty slot can be taken by Implacable for stop support
Mob fleet can be triple CV or 1 BB + 2 CV and you can probably cook it in multiple ways as long as you bring Unicorn
cunning smelt
My mob fleet currently is:
Unicorn(Retrofit)
(Flag)Sovetskaya Belorussiya
Perseus
Minneapolis
Shimakaze
Yuudachi(Retrofit)
sharp plover
You should be fine in W12 with just one healer, but in W13+ life is made considerably easier if you have Unicorn + one other healer
Perseus rather conflicts with Unicorn due to the way she works, but at least for W12 you're probably not going to be punished for it
Better second healer is usually a targeted healer like Volga or Aquila, although I don't think you have either
Oh never mind, I went blind... you do have Aquila, my bad
sharp plover
It's fine, Aquila is a fine healer
cunning smelt
I forgot, I swapped Shima for An Shan
sharp plover
If your Belorussiya is 2LB, you honestly might as well use Soyuz lol
But uh... you can put any of your rainbow BBs as flagship to just cheese W12 mobs
Unicorn + Aquila at the side, I'd much prefer to devote your SR Bulins for Aquila than Perseus
cunning smelt
Looking at the skills now, I see what you mean.
sharp plover
Note that your proposed vanguard of Minneapolis + An Shan + Yuudachi has absolutely abysmal AA... you can probably still get through World 12 with it because World 12 is comparatively easy, but such a composition will struggle in World 13 and will die horribly in World 15
It might be instructive to look at their stats to see what I mean: both Yuudachi and An Shan have sub-200 AA stats (this is very low), An Shan's AA efficiency is 105 (when combined with her AA stat, this is terrible) and Yuudachi's AA efficiency is 85%
cunning smelt
Ah.
So I should replace one of them with a cl with good aa and fp?
Or at least damage output
sharp plover
Definitely
I've been looking up and down your vanguard ships and it's a bit strange you seem to have missed out on almost every good AA ship that comes to my mind lol
cunning smelt
Wow, ouch.
sharp plover
All is not lost for W12, again
But you might want to look into ships like Shimanto (PR6) and Cheshire (PR3) afterwards
cunning smelt
Starting to regret all those times I just threw Monteplier away.
outer summit
scylla, allen, and ingraham have good AA, not AA carry but theyre good on plane map
sharp plover
It's a bit of a funny use of Helena, but since your boss fleet definitely does not need Radar Scan to work, it's not a completely ridiculous idea to just put Helena in your mob fleet and use her as an AA + gunnery cruiser
Yes, and krieg is right
But I was looking more for like... Laffey and Guam 
cunning smelt
Again, two events I happened to miss.
sharp plover
Which is a beyond ridiculous bar, to be fair
Those are two of the best AA ships in the entire game
cunning smelt
So for AA, I could swap An Shan or Yuudachi for Scylla.
sharp plover
Sure, if you want
I do like Scylla because she can be used for boosting CV fleets in OpSi, although Idt that's a very popular opinion
On the other hand, if you don't want to invest in Scylla (she takes 3 gold bulins to MLB, after all), Allen (who is MLB) is fine as well
cunning smelt
Slapping some AA on Helena is looking like a much easier route to take though, at least until they do a Guam rerun.
Honestly, for a second I forgot Allen exsisted.
sharp plover
Something like Minnie/Allen (or, honestly, if you don't want to level Allen... Noshiro exists, her AA is fine, and she's already high level)/Helena will clear W12 mobs with the backline already suggested
outer summit
Allen is downgrade laffii. she just lack ability to tank
cunning smelt
I've got plenty of coin, chips, and over 13k xp books. Leveling isn't the problem, lb is.
sharp plover
Good stuff, then
Minnie/Allen/Helena + BB of your choice (feel free to skimp for oil or w/e, a decent MLB gold should kill before you even have to get into your collection of rainbows)/Unicorn/Aquila
Or triple CV, someone like Sara would also work fine
cunning smelt
So for 12/13
Shinano
(Flag) Musashi
Hakuryuu
Agir
Sirius?
San Diego(Once I retrofit her)
(Boss Fleet)
Unicorn(Retrofit)
(Flag)[A BB]
Aquila
Minneapolis
Allen
Helena(Retrofit)