The Compositions filter is one of the most important and often least-understood elements of KCNav's filtering system. It allows you to specify criteria to match against the fleet compositions used in sorties. Using this filter, you can specify ships and classes to be included or excluded, and even place restrictions upon how many of each ship class the fleets should have.
The basic terms used within the Compositions filter are ships and classes, and they may be written in either English (e.g. Akebono Kai Ni and DD) or Japanese1 (e.g. 曙改二 and 駆逐).
Ship names are always interpreted literally. For instance, if you specify Nelson, it will assume you mean base Nelson, not remodeled Nelson Kai. If you wish to search for a remodel, you must specify the exact remodel you're searching for, e.g. Nelson Kai.
If you misspell a ship name, KCNav will usually be able figure out what you intended, as long as it's still fairly close.
KCNav also supports a set of aliases/nicknames commonly used among the western community. You can use these aliases in place of the actual ship names, for convenience.
Examples:
bono → Akebono
whale → Taigei
kamo → Akitsushima
abruzzi → Duca degli Abruzzi
sushi k2 → Musashi Kai Ni
shoukek k2a → Shoukaku Kai Ni A
Currently you can only specify classes to be included or excluded individually. There is no "OR" syntax, so things like CV(B) and 2(CA+CL) are not currently supported. This may come in a future update.
The Compositions filter generally follows the English community's conventions for specifying fleet compositions. This is typically written as ship and class names, with a separator character between each entry. The separator character is typically a dash (-), but may alternatively be a comma (,), semicolon (;), or simply whitespace ( ).
For example, these are all equivalent:
BB BB CVL CL DD DD
BB-BB-CVL-CL-DD-DD
BB,BB,CVL,CL,DD,DD
BB;BB;CVL;CL;DD;DD
Typically, the Compositions filter operates in an explicit inclusion mode. This means that the query is executed exactly as written, and applies to the fleet as a whole. The user must ensure that their query accounts for the number of ships they're intending to match against. E.g. if you search for DD DD, this will only produce results with exactly two Destroyers, and no other ships -- because the query only provided criteria for those two ships.
In order to match a subset of the fleet while still returning full fleets of six ships, you must account for the remaining ships. There are ways to perform more open-ended queries, as seen in the following sections.
If you wish to only specify explicit values for part of a fleet's composition, while not caring so much about the rest, you can use wildcard syntax. There are two types of wildcards: explicit and open-ended.
The 'Explicit' wildcard allows you to specify a placeholder for a ship not already accounted for by the rest of the query. It will match any ship, as long as it does not conflict with the other query criteria.
Example: DD XX will match all fleets with one Destroyer, one additional ship of any type (which may also be a Destroyer), and no other ships.
The 'Open-ended' wildcard allows you to specify a placeholder for any number of ships not already accounted for by the rest of the query. It will match any number (zero or more) of any type of ship, as long as they do not conflict with the other query criteria.
Example 1: DD * will match all fleets with at least one Destroyer, and any number (including zero) of any other ships.
Example 2: Taigei SS * will match all fleets with Taigei, at least one Submarine, and any number (including zero) of any other ships.
You may combine wildcards as desired.
Example: BB CVL XX XX * will match all fleets with at least one Battleship, one Light Carrier, and having at least four ships in total.
If you wish to exclude a ship or class from the results, you may include it within your query, and prefix it with an exclamation mark (!). This tells the system that it should ensure that its results do not include the specified ship or class.
Example: !Nelson Kai * will match all fleets, with any number of ships, that do not include Nelson Kai.
If you wish to specify that a fleet should include more than one of a specific class, you can do this either by specifying the class multiple times (e.g. DD DD) or by specifying the desired number as a prefixed value (e.g. 2DD).
Normally, wildcards (XX and *) can match additional ships of classes you've already specified in the query. For instance, in an example above, DD XX can potentially match fleets with two Destroyers.
If you want greater control over the exact quantities matched of a given class, you can use the 'strict' prefix (=). This will force the query to only match exactly the number you specify, and the wildcard will no longer be allowed to match that class.
Example: BB =2DD * will match fleets with one or more Battleships, exactly two Destroyers, and any number (including zero) of any other ship classes. the =2DD tells it that the count is strict, and it shouldn't attempt to match additional Destroyers using the * wildcard.
In more complex queries, you might have more specific requirements for the counts of specific classes. There are a number of ways to build more dynamic searches, as outlined in the following sections.
If you want to specify a varying number of a given class to match against, you can use a range value. This is similar to specifying the count normally, except you specify the minimum and maximum counts you're looking for, with a dash (-) separating the min/max values.
Example: 2-4DD * will match all fleets with at least two, and at most four Destroyers.
Another option for specifying varying numbers of a given class is via comparators. The logic is similar to how you might do numeric comparisons in mathematics, using 'greater than' (>), 'greater than or equal to' (>=), 'less than' (<), and 'less than or equal to' (<=).
Example 1: BB CVL CL <2DD * will match fleets with at least one Battleship, at least one Light Carrier, at least one Light Cruiser, zero or one (less than two) Destroyers, and any number of other ships.
Example 2: >=3DD will match fleets with three or more ships, all of which must be Destroyers.
By prefixing the open-ended wildcard * with a numeric constraint, you can place a limit upon the total number of ships in the matched fleets. This can be handy when using numeric constraints on other classes in maps like 1-5 where full fleets may not always be desired.
Example: >=2DD <=4* will match all fleets with four or less ships total, where two or more of those ships are Destroyers.
Frequently, being forced to provide the exact set of classes is inadequate. For instance, you might want to see runs that include all battleship variants, including fast and aviation battleships. Or you might not care about the distinction between standard carriers and armored carriers. With the multi-class syntax, it's possible to achieve this by specifying multiple classes for any given entry in the query.
The standard way of doing this is by using a delimiter to provide a list of classes the query should try to match.
By separating the classes with the | or / symbol, it will attempt to match against any class within the specified list. It does not matter which of the two symbols you use.
Example 1: CL/DD will match either a light cruiser or destroyer. This can also be written as CL|DD.
Example 2: BB|BBV|FBB will match any battleship variant.
In addition to manually specifying the list of classes to match against, KCNav also supports the following shorthand syntax:
(F)BB, BB(V), (F)BB(V), BB*: Battleship variants (BB, FBB, BBV)
CV(L), CV(B), CV(B/L), CV(L/B), CV*: Carrier variants (CV, CVB, CVL)
CA(V), CA*: Heavy cruiser variants (CA|CAV)
CL(T): Light/torpedo cruisers (CL|CLT)
CL*: Light/torpedo/training cruisers (CL|CLT|CT)
SS(V), SS*: Submarine variants (SS|SSV)
DD(E), DD*: Destroyers and coastal defense ships (DD|DE)
AUX: Seaplane tenders, repair ships, submarine tenders, fleet oilers, amphibious assault ships (AV|AR|AS|AO|LHA)
HEAVY: Heavy ships (BB|FBB|BBV|CV|CVB)
MEDIUM, MED: Medium ships (CA|CAV|CL|CT|CLT)
LIGHT: Light ships (DD|DE|SS|SSV)
SUB: Submarine fleet ships (AS|SS|SSV)
AVIATION, VV: Aviation ships (BBV|CV|CVL|CVB|CAV|AV)
TORP, TS: Torpedo squadron ships (CL|CLT|DD)
The multi-class syntax can be used in the same ways as single-class syntax, including the use of class counts, ranges, and explicit markers.
Note that when you specify a count for a multi-class entry, it will allow for any combination of the specified classes that meets the counts specified.
Example 1: 2DD|DE will match DD+DD, or DE+DE, or DD+DE.
Example 2: (F)BB =2HEAVY 1-2DD|DE * will match against one BB or FBB, exactly two 'heavy' ships (battleship variants and standard/armored carriers), one or two destroyers or coastal defense ships, and any number of ships of any class that are not 'heavy' ships, destroyers, or coastal defense ships (due to the = prefix on the HEAVY entry and the range constraint on the DD|DE entry).
Footnotes
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The Ship Classes filter always shows the English names for these classes, but localized names for them can be viewed by hovering your mouse over the class in question. ↩