---
title: "Descent and ascent rates"
description: "The Descent & Ascent section: set a single or multi-segment descent and the three ascent rates, and see which rate governs which part of the ascent."
---

> Documentation Index
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> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Descent and ascent rates

import { AscentCard, DescentCard } from "@/components/react/PlannerScreens";

Travel between depths takes time, that time is on-gassing, and the planner
counts every minute of it. The **Descent & Ascent** section holds two separate
cards: descent, which you can break into segments, and ascent, which is always
three fixed phases.

## Descent segments

The descent card is a table with three columns, **From**, **To** and **Rate
(m/min)**, and one row per segment. A new plan starts with a single segment,
**Surface (0 m) → Max Depth** at 20 m/min. The last row's **To** cell is fixed
at *Max Depth*, so the descent stays valid when a level's depth changes.

- **Add Segment** splits the descent. The existing segment is given a concrete
  end depth, halfway between where it starts and the plan's maximum depth, and
  a new final segment is appended below it at the same rate.
- **From** on each row is the previous row's **To**, so the segments chain
  automatically.
- **Remove**, at the end of a row, deletes that segment. Removing the last row
  hands *Max Depth* back to the row above, and a single-segment descent has no
  remove control.

## The three ascent rates

The ascent card is fixed at three rows. Each governs a specific part of the
ascent, and the planner selects between them by where you are. All are entered
in metres per minute and must be positive.

- **Max Depth → First Stop**: the ascent from the deepest point until the first
  decompression stop is reached. On a dive with no stops it governs the whole
  ascent down to the last-stop depth. The planner starts at 9 m/min.
- **First Stop → Last Stop**: travel between every pair of consecutive stops.
  The planner starts at 3 m/min.
- **Last Stop → Surface**: the final ascent from the shallowest stop to the
  surface. The planner starts at 1 m/min. That ascent is decompression, not
  caution: the time counts toward off-gassing and appears in TTS.

## Watch for

- **A rate above the value the planner treats as customary raises a warning**:
  20 m/min on any descent segment, 10 m/min from max depth to the first stop,
  6 m/min between stops, and 3 m/min from the last stop to the surface. The
  warning does not change the schedule. See [Warnings](/planning/warnings).
- **A bailout ascent travels at these same rates.** The scenario the planner
  computes for a loop failure uses your ascent figures, not a faster set.

## Next

[Environment and stops](/planning/environment) is the next section: where the
dive happens, and the stop grid these rates travel between.

Source: https://docs.divelogic.ai/planning/rates/index.mdx