Development vs. Construction — what's the difference?
Both use the same four resources — fuel, ammo, steel, bauxite — but they're separate menus with separate outcomes. Construction (建造) produces a new ship. Development (開発), covered on this page, produces equipment: guns, radars, planes, and other gear you then equip onto your ships. New players sometimes pour resources into the wrong screen expecting a ship and get a gun instead — check which menu you're in before committing resources.
The four standard recipes
| Target | Fuel | Ammo | Steel | Bauxite | Good for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All-round starter | 10 | 10 | 10 | 10 | Cheap, early-game gear of any category — use this while you're still short on resources. |
| Aircraft-focused | 20 | 60 | 10 | 110 | Carrier-based fighters and dive bombers for your air power. |
| Radar-focused | 10 | 11 | 251 | 250 | Surface radars and air radars — key for night battle cut-ins and anti-air. |
| Large-caliber gun-focused | 10 | 251 | 250 | 10 | Big guns for your battleships' shelling phase. |
How much do I need to keep in reserve?
The radar and large-caliber gun recipes both call for 250+ steel or ammo per attempt, which is steep for a newer admiral. A practical approach: run the all-round recipe while you level up and stock resources through expeditions, then switch to the specialized recipes once your reserves can absorb several attempts in a row — a single pull rarely gives you what you want.
If you're only after a specific radar or gun for one ship's loadout, it's usually cheaper to check the drop tables for that item on a farmable map first — development is best used when you need a steady supply of a gear category, not a single copy.