the most "pay to play" this game is, imo, is just for the "dock space" if you want to keep all the ships. for the tech lab fleet points, you don't actually need to keep all the ships. just get them to level 120, to get all their tech points, and then u can scrap them for dock space. the tech points give perma boosts for that ship class, like HP, FirePower, Reload, etc. as far as spending money goes, i dare say that the bi-monthly gives you plenty of rewards for being, what, $18 or something, every 2 months? skins, blueprint pieces, premium currency, and more, for just that? that's cheaper than TV subs, and you get so much use out of it. same is to be said about the monthly, as well, for $8. this is assuming that you constantly run commissions, like, 24/7. granted, most take a minimum of 1 to 2 hours, the key ones take 8 and 10 hours. the 8 hour ones are usually timed to appear during night time, so if you just check your phone for about 40 seconds every hour or 2, you can get a whole bunch of resources, for just.. that. not much at all. if you don't do commissions, then you'll be struggling, though, as the passive oil / gold income rate is low

Welcome to Azur Lane! I've been playing daily for over 3 years (with historical gear set-ups only, even though there are 'meta' gears to choose) and it's great- I now have 99% ship collection and it feels rewarding getting them. Monetisation is really friendly too, I've only had to pay money to expand my dock to keep all my ships, and that was after about 2 years managing to avoid paying by collecting all the free gems and using those instead. If you want a quick TLDR heads-up on the plot, read below, otherwise, avoid reading to avoid spoilers. Spoilers: So basically, all the factions (based off WW2 factions) long ago fought against the Sirens (aliens) as a united front together- the Azur Lane. Since then, co-operation broke down until some left the Azur Lane (the flashpoint: whether to utilise Siren technology) to form the Crimson Axis, with others later joining them: these include the Germans (Iron Blood), Japanese (Sakura Empire), Italians (Sardegnia Empire) and Vichy French (Vichya Dominion), of whom the leaders of the first two- Bismarck and Akagi- have even made deals with the Sirens for tech (Bismarck later Iron Blood against the Sirens, Akagi is still shifty). This whole Azur Lane - Crimson Axis conflict was just a masterminded plot by the Sirens, who manipulate things in order to 're-enact' historical battles to gather data. As the pointlessness became evident, a would-be major battle between the Azur Lane and Iron Blood in the polar regions was used by Bismarck to unite the factions against the Sirens, and in the process, killed Compiler, a high-ranking Siren. Talks are underway to resume peaceful relations, if not re-integrate the Crimson Axis into the Azur Lane, with the opposite Free and Vichy French factions managing a successful reunification. As you can tell, this is not the first time the Sirens have meddled with peoples' lives- there are multiple timelines, and in most of them, the Sirens have already won, killing most of the shipgirls in the process. The survivors only survive through constant combat which damages their internal wisdom cubes (shipgirls are fully organic, but are created through the formula: cubes+ parts of given historical ship= shipgirl of said ship). This corruption causes metamorphosis- the META phenomenon- which basically turns them into edgy/depressed versions with better combat stats- the goal of Siren experimentation. The majority of METAs are part of the Ashes faction, which hates the Sirens, but sometimes (rarely) co-operates with them. Others are unquestioningly loyal to the Commander (Helena META or Memphis META), some are helpful to us and their alter-version in our timeline (Queen Elizabeth META), some do their own thing, some join 'our' version of 'their' faction (Gneisenau META), some are mute, mindless killing machines (Souryuu META), and some have gone REALLY bad (Hatakaze META). But generally, the Commander brings out a positive side to the METAs that they forgot they had. What's interesting are the origins of the shipgirls and Sirens, which have been slowly yet incredibly expanded since the game started: both were created initially in the 'original timeline' as defence projects by the scientists Miss Anzeel (a.k.a. the Creater) and Dr Aoste (a.k.a. the Magister) respectively. Following an arms race in that timeline's USA and USSR for cube-based weapons and Bon Homme Richard going... not quite META [but worse: turning into an evil gremlin that wants to corrupt/kill shipgirls, sow chaos and that can shapeshift into a corrosive, black tornado], the Sirens became somewhat of a contingency against both shipgirls repeating BHR's transformation, and the X (the reason why Sirens are also called the Anti-X or Antiochus): also called Leviathans, the X are basically the ultimate enemies being overpowered corrosive monsters. (What's worse, in a recent event, it was revealed that Hatakaze META and one of the Siren Arbiters (high ranking Sirens, named after tarot cards; this one was XV- The Devil, I think) have joined the X against basically everyone else.) The Leviathans/X are related somehow to BHR (probably BHR became the X), and they are what destroyed the original timeline- the only survivors being the Sirens (which have mainframes for their intelligences, infinite numbers of bodies [limited only by resources], and can travel across dimensions) and the original members of Ashes (who are shipgirls gone META, and can also hop across dimensions). This leads us to the present moment in time: Bon Homme Richard has discovered our timeline branch and is attacking it. Several Arbiters have now engaged BHR in what is a likely doomed war of attrition to prevent the destruction of this branch. Queen Elizabeth META literally told the Commander and 'our' Queen Elizabeth, "I'm ready to evacuate you and your allies out of this branch before it falls." Meanwhile Akagi is playing god (back in the Musashi event) by both figuring out how to grant herself more power without cube corrosion effects (what could go wrong) and may be trying to revive her dead sister Amagi. Likewise, the Eagle Union is trying to revive Lexington with a Type II-rigging (basically, same shipgirl, but different ship- in WW2 some ships that were sunk had later vessels named after them e.g. Benson class destroyer Laffey, then Allen M Sumner class Destroyer Laffey; Yorktown class carriers Yorktown and Hornet, and the Essex class carriers Yorktown and Hornet. For reasons obvious to those with knowledge of industrial capacity in WW2, this phenomenon was mainly found in the US Navy during the conflict, although many navies have and still do reuse the names of past vessels). Well that's a TLDR, if there's anything you want to know game-, lore-, or history-related let me know and I'm more than happy to help a new Commander.

Azur Lane became my main gacha game after leaving Fire Emblem Heroes around the start of 2019, though I can see that it might feel a bit outdated nowadays with Live2D and 3D models becoming the standard. It's main draws are it's VERY generous gacha system (arguably the most generous I know), huge roster and bold character designs. But on the other hand the main story is just convoluted alphabet soup nonsense, and the game is inevitably bloated after all these years, making it potentially overwhelming to newcomers. The game is great for collection-driven and pulling dopamine, as it's generosity ensures you can pull very frequently with little effort and without paying, and the huge roster means there's always new characters to look forward to pulling. But it wouldn't be the game I'd suggest for people who value gameplay or storytelling in their gachas.

played it for fun in 2018 stayed for my shipfus

Hi! Do you plan to continue playing Azur Lane?