Expeditions (Ruin Reclamation)

Expeditions are the newest game mode available in Ash Arms. The main reward are special Expedition Medals, which can be exchanged in the shop for Doll Data - including powerful 3-star Dolls. Expeditions are accessed using a special button from the main screen, and to be allowed in you have to use a certain amount of Expedition Tickets. Normally you can get 2 of these from Daily Missions, and more can be purchased for Gems, starting at 50 Gems/ticket.

## Starting an Expedition

After picking an area and a difficulty, you have some setup to do before you actually start. First, you will have to setup two teams:

* Despite the name, **this is your primary team** - use your strongest dolls here
* This team will also be handling the boss of the map as well

* Main task is to defend your buildings, which does not necessarily involve any actual battles
* Feel free to use your weaker dolls here
* Can have 2 extra dolls in reserve

    It is important to prioritize the Recon team as they will fight 99% of all battles. Further, **battles in Expeditions do not cost alloy** - this is the time to spam those expensive 3-star dolls!

Finally, you can pick **3 passive skills** that will give you a small buff for the selected Expedition. Below is the list, translated from top left to bottom right:

* **Receive extra 20 Tactics and Backline points at the start of Expediton**
* Reduce the cost of repairing Heavy units by 3 points
* Reduce the cost of repairing Medium units by 2 points
* Reduce the cost of repairing Light units by 1 point
* **Increase your final score by 15%**

Recommended skills are listed in **bold** - it is a good idea to take these always, then add one repair skill based on your team composition - usually light units would be a good choice.

## Expedition Overview

Expeditions may seems quite complex at first, but they are not hard once you get the hang of them. The general flow of an expedition is as follows:

1. Explore the nodes
2. Protect your HQ
3. Construct buildings to protect your territory and gain resources
4. Gain points by defeating enemies, especially the boss
5. End the map when you can't or don't want to continue to receive a ranked reward

### **Expedition Interface**

Below is the translation of the Expedition map interface:

### **Exploring the Map**

You can explore the nodes that have a blue icon on them - it can show as Airship, Monster, or Boss, depending on the threat level. Usually (though not always) this will lead to a battle, which uses the standard combat interface you are used to, with members of your Recon team as your units. As mentioned before, battles cost no alloy. If your units get damaged, you can repair them from the main map by clicking the Airship or Train buttons in the botton of the screan. The repair cost is 9 Tactics points for each unit, with a possible discount based on the Passive Skills you selected. Exploring a node ends your turn - in fact, there is no other way to pass a turn then to explore!

### **Nodes and Buildings**

After successfully exploring a node, you will be able to construct a building on it - the cost is 35 Backline points (crates). There are 3 kinds of buildings, though you cannot choose which one to construct. Instead, this depends on the node you are building on:

Buildings are build instantly and have two main functionalities. First, if you click on a building, you can assign a unit (preferably from the strike team) to protect it further. This is free, and the unit can be recalled back using the same button. Second, you can deconstruct a building (Yellow button), which fully returns all resources. HQ of course cannot be deconstructed, its second button instead takes you to the tactics page. One thing to note about building is that they can only be built in a chain - if you deconstruction a building, all building that are not connected to your HQ will be scrapped as well.

### **Threat buildup**

    Most nodes that don't have a building on them emit a puff of smoke. This represents enemy influence, which will attack your nearest building after you pass a turn. This is represented by increasing Threat level of each node (this is represented by a purple bar on each building).

If the threat level reaches 100, an enemy force will appear and you will lose the node. You can prevent this by attacking the enemy force with your Strike Team, before or after you lose the node. The best way to reduce Threat buildup is to assign units to guard nodes which are in danger, and it is strongly recommended to do that so you don't get bogged down by enemies and lose your territory.

### **Winning an Expedition**

    You can end the map at any point through the manu button, though this is a bad idea in most cases. Usually, the best way is to beat the boss first, which will cause a new button to appear in the bottom right of the screen. When you feel you have done all you can on a map, simply click this button and your map score will be calculated, and you will receive a reward based on your rank. You receive points for battles won, explored nodes, outposts build (max 1000 pts?), and leftover Tactics points. Backline points are not counted, so feel free to use them all up!

If you picked the recommended skills, the final score will be calculated as follows:

**(Merit Points + 2 x Tactics Points + Territory Bonus) x 1.15**

To achieve S rank, you need to reach the following scores:

* Easy - 1200 pts (awards 120 Airborne Medals)
* Medium - 3000 pts (awards 300 Airborne Medals)
* Hard - 6400 pts (awards 500 Airborne Medals)

## HQ Tactics

Tactics are abilities that can be used from HQ, or by clicking the Orange circle button in bottom left of the Expedition map screen. Basically, you exchange Tactics points for a benefits. Purchasing enough will level up you HQ for the current Expedition and allow the purchase of new abilities. At the moment, only 2 abilities are actually worth purchasing, these are:

* 増援 I - Increase your Backline points by 20
* 早期警戒 - Decrease the amount of threat needed for Defense battle by 10 pts
* 増援II - Increase your Backline points by 20
* 防護工事 - Decrease threat in all territories by 2

These allow you to construct additional buildings, which makes defense easier. Other tactics are not worth it,  since unused Tactics points are added to your final score, so it is not wise to waste them. This is true especially for Easy difficulty where every point counts.

## Rewards and Medal Shop

Your hard-earned Expedition Medals can be exchanged for Doll Data and Implants (not recommended) in the new shop. Notably, this includes several 3-stars, and some are available even if you do not have the specific doll in your roster. The 3-stars on offer are:

1. Flak 88
2. Jagdpanther
3. B-24 Liberator
4. Centurion Mk. I
5. AD-1 Skyraider