Barotrauma Guide

My Own Guide For The Whole Barotrauma. (Suspend Updating, Please Read) for Barotrauma

My Own Guide For The Whole Barotrauma. (Suspend Updating, Please Read)

Overview

This is a guide I originally made for people who want to play single player campaign but now I’m expanding!This guide is now aiming to provide large information for all people and for both single and multiplayer! No matter if you’re New, Average or Pro!This guide now contains a lot of tips from my personal 150+ hours 300 hours of “Single-player Hardcore” experience.This guide will cover many problems frequently asked in the community, both Single-player and Multiplayer!This guide is constantly updating, ready to give first-hand experience about any new update mechanisms to the others! And will slowly cover everything in this game so you’ll definitely want to keep track of this!

Changelogs

2021/7/2
Added Update: Thunder Under The Ice.
2021/7/11
Reworked some creature.
2021/7/13
Added Black Moloch, Crawler Husk, and a new photo for Normal Moloch.
2021/7/14
Finishing Ballast Flora, Added a new photo to Husks.
2021/7/16&17&18
Taking Screenshots In Game. Added “6” to “Thunder Under The Ice Update”.
2021/7/19
Added another photo to “Husks”. Added the “Cursed Spineling”.
Added a huge script error I found to the “Thunder Under The Ice Update”.
2021/7/22
Tweaked Ballast Flora a little bit for understanding why sonar isn’t recommended.
Added Earning Items And Money.
2021/7/25
Addressing the suspension.

About The Suspension.(Please Read)

The current “Barotrauma Community” is no longer a friendly place like it used to be.

After started some lobbies/discussions, one can quickly notice that, nontheless, I found many people have the same feeling like me.

Many said this is what “Every Game Communities Look Like”, but I really don’t want to accept that.

It might be true for most cases, but I want to believe that we can definitely do better.

Taking things into my own hands, after reporting the issues to the Devs, they seem to have acknowledged the problem exist, however, they decided not to take any further actions because of the current “Community Laws”, “Consumer Rights” or any possible reasons (which is just my guess).

Currently, the trolls and mean people are all over the “Barotrauma”, the situation is “bad in the community”, but it’s “worse in the game”.

Many players, new or not, after having their “Nowadays Multiplayer Experience”, simply left the game and never come back.

I can only hope the situation become better in the near future.

I may try to contact the Devs about the issues once again when the timing is right, but for now, I’ve decided to suspend the making of this guide as my personal “Silent Protest” for the rights of myself and other players who simply want to have some great time in the game and the community.

We love this game and sincerely hope the game only become better.

I got banned after contacting the Devs, and addressing the issues to them. Let’s just say, we had a short and unpleasant time.

I think this is probably the right time for me to quit this community stuff “completely”.

The ban isn’t permanent, but still, I just really don’t know why anymore.

The game is still really fun to play, so I guess it’s not a completely loss~

They told me I consider the situation too harshly and want me to take some time to calm.

After I got ban-hammered, the Devs “promised me they would change from now on, enforcing a good and kind community.”

This to me was enough, I took the ban and decided to step back and watch the Devs do some work.

I say, the Moderation Team now actually join the discussions, and trying to understand the situation instead of deleting and locking threads without second thought, which is a nice improvement indeed~

Just as I was thinking… Nope!!~ the people are still using “sensitive” words and swearing in the discussion, and I don’t see the Moderation Team do anything about those! In the following days, the discussion is still full of insults and F words, and the public games are still full of trolls/griefers.

There’re still people complaining the current game/community.

Of course, this could all because of the improvement is in progress slowly, however, I decided to see how long the Moderation Team keep up the good work before making any statements.

In the mean time, I began to think to myself deeply, for what reason was it that I did all this to myself? I mean, I don’t even enjoy Mutiplayer and Sharing that much~ Perhaps, it’s because I really love the game and want others to love it, too…

But in reality, I’ve to admit, I might not be able to change a thing, after all, the people could still despise others’ hard works, the Trolls/Griefers could still do whatever the **** they want to do, the community could still be full of insults and disrespect, and the Devs could still think they’re doing fine while I got banned for “criticizing the Dev and the Moderation Team”.

I’m going to remove this guide after a week or so if I can’t feel any “further” improvements happening during the time.

You have my words.

If this community still treat people like me like this why would I keep sharing?

People in this community can just be as impatient as they want to, then why should I be patient?

I occasionally even started to feel like the actual reason I got banned for is “All the Devs want us to do is pretending we can’t see any of these, and I refuse to do so.” However, I do hope this is not true.
——————————————————————————————————
20210803
No Visible Improvements, griefers are still in the game, the solution the great community has is still “Find Friends To Play With You, Don’t Join Public Game” just like usual… Not helpful…

I didn’t see any insults in the discussion recently, but I can’t decide if it’s either “1. The Moderation Team is doing a great job!” or “2. No troll/griefer is presented in the discussion right now.”

I think I need to observe a little bit more before making conclusion on the discussion part, after all, if the discussion can actually change, there’s actually hope.

Basic Info. (New, please read)

[Warning: Any kind of harassing, aggressive, sensitive, sarcastic, troll…etc comments are against the community rules and will be reported to the moderators immediately without any chance, Do not actively trying to violate the community rules. Thanks! And have a nice day!]

Hi! I hope all of you have read the warning!

Now, this guide is made with a goal to give my knowledge of this game to others who might need
a helping hand, which is newly designed for new, average, or even pro players
.

Here are some questions frequently asked in the community.
“Can I play this game alone?”, “Is this game single player possible?”, “Why do bots AI suck so much?”… etc.

Well, of course people can just play online with friends or strangers, but there are people out there who want to play alone.

Or maybe they still want to play the game when their friends are busy&not available.

So here’s the guide I made, who have played “Single-player Hardcore Campaign” for around 150 hours currently 300 hours now, and this number will only get higher!

Like I said, I’ve completed countless missions with “only bots“, and “without my player character dying even a single time” in the whole 300 hours!!

Before we continue, I want to say this first!

This guide is completely made by me, so I want to create a good relation between myself and you! Dear readers!

Here’s the thing… This game is lacking a firm player base! This is sadly the current state of the game!

I can play this game really fine by myself! Which means I can decide whether I want to keep sharing my knowledge of this game to the others!

This guide took a really long time to make, so believe me when I say I want to play&enjoy the game myself rather than making this guide! Which means this guide I make is basically something I would only consider adding and updating if I have extra time!

Now, we have clarified this! Without further ado let’s get started!

Knowing The Pros and Cons of Single-player and Multiplayer

Pros:
Single-player:

1. You can still play&enjoy the game if all your friends quit playing it. Like me 🙁
2. You can be the captain forever!
3. You can learn&be good at this game extremely fast! No matter what mechanism it is!
4. You can actually experience some decent challenges in this game!
5. You can manage your money and resources whatever you like!
6. You can do whatever you want with your ship.
7. You can always let yourself having the best gear&medicine.

Multiplayer:
1. You can have some really great&fun time with friends.
2. You can have a lot time doing other things instead of actually playing the game.
2. Unlocking the hidden game-mode: The Easy Mode.

Cons:
Single-player:

1. If you did something wrong you’ll need to fix it yourself, and you’re the only one to blame.
2. Depending on the person, you might feel extremely lonely while playing the game. (I don’t)
3. Depending on the person, you might feel the game is too challenging for you. (I don’t)
4. Sometimes you’ll wish you have more than 2 arms. (I do)
5. You can’t have pets or plants. Well~ You still can but good luck with that 🙁
6. You have to do literally everything yourself.
7. Depending on the person~ Bots~ (I don’t)

Multiplayer:
1. You can’t really learn much even if you play this game for a really long time.
2. You will always have to share your stuff.
3. You have to follow the host&captain’s orders.
4. Depending on the condition of the ship you’re on, you might want to kill yourself.
5. You can’t manage your money and resources whatever you want.
6. Tyranny of the majority
7. You might not even be able to heal&defend yourself if your host really want to.
8. Items always missing
9. Human incompetence~
10. Griefers&Trolls everywhere~
11. The annoying people&kids.

Before We Start.

Now you know the pros and cons, I still have to say again!
Playing single player is a lot harder than playing with real players! Depending on the person, you might be more suitable for playing multiplayer.

However it’s my job here to teach you how to be good at this game!

Playing Single-player is indeed the fastest and most efficient way to make you the most “Pro Players” in barotrauma!
Because you have to do basically everything in this game, or you won’t be able to survive at all!

As a result, you’ll learn and understand the game extremely fast! And if you actually manage to play 100+ hours of “Single-player Campaign without Dying”.
Let me assure you that, you’re going to be the strongest and the most wanted teammate in multiplayer!

Before we start, you have to understand that in this game, the first step will always be one of the hardest part of starting a campaign!

You’re in-experienced, and you’re limited to the only resources that spawn on your character and the ship!

I guarantee you most people have already given up the game even before they actually start playing the game… After all, this is indeed gonna be awfully boring, annoying and time consuming! So please be prepared to do some grinding!

Dying in this game!

Under Construction!

Earning Money And Items. (Vary Useful)

1. Earning Items

When you still need some useful items but already used all your money in this game, you can sell trash to the shop to earn back some marks!

But do you actually know how much trash are there in each trip?

When you travel around outpost to outpost, you’ll be surprised by all the trash you find and how valuable those trash really are!

Here’s an example of how much worth of items you can exchange by using “Just The Trash Found In One Trip“!

***All The Trash Items Collected In One Trip***

Trash To Gold

***And Now The Worth Of All Those Trash***

Quite Impressive, isn’t it? Think about all the items you can exchange using all those junk~

By doing so, you can spend your money on the sub upgrades instead of items until you fully upgraded your sub!

To make things even better!

Here’s the “Artifacts” which can bring you some extra marks~

Keep In Mind!

You don’t have to do exactly like I do, this is my long-term bad habit of collecting everything I came across.

I highly suggest only take things that are both “Expensive” and “Light-weight” with you, since it’s already far more than enough while greatly reduce your playtime~

2. Earning Money (The Secret Of Game Mechanics)

Compare to items, money on the other hand uses a “Completely Different Method“!

Which is my secret of how I fully upgraded my sub even before I leave “My Starting Area”.

Now, I’m giving this to all of you readers! (No, it’s not cheating, if you think it’s cheating, I’m gonna ban you!)

How I found this is completely an accident.

And it needs some “Luck” to replicate!

*Step By Step Earning Fast Money*

(1). Find The Correct Location

First thing you need to do is to find a location which “Only” have “Two Routes”. (This is vary important!)

***Examples***

(2). Missions

This step requires you to constantly “Restart Your Game“, but don’t worry, it’s only needed when first setting up I believe!

What you’re doing here is to “Receive All The Missions Available“.

I’ll explain this later~

Made sure you do have all the missions available and every missions you accept afterwards can no longer be added into your list!! Otherwise, it won’t work stably.

(3). Aggressive Hammerheads

Next, what you gotta do is to do the “Aggressive Hammerheads” mission!

Which gives you 6000 marks each mission!

Now, this is the moment you’ll know whether or not you can start making money.

When you get into the mission, Look into the Sonar and See if the hammerheads are spawned near you!

If they’re spawned around 350 meters away from you~

Congratulation! You can start making money!

Just go there and kill them! Hammerheads and the matriarch will only take you 1 – 2 minutes at maximum to kill after you get used to their behavior.

After killing them just return to the starting outpost to receive your reward!!

(4). More Aggressive Hammerheads

Once you return, go to find the manager or commoner to get more jobs~

Because you’ve already acquired all the missions that are available, the game will give you “Aggressive Hammerheads” again~ (If not, just restart the game.)

Then, you’ll find that the “Aggressive Hammerheads” may or may not be given to you on the same route, if the route is the same, you’re going to find the hammerheads and the matriarch are spawned at the exact spot like before, which is very close to you!

Now I suppose you know what I mean~

Just keep repeating the process until you finally have enough~

Occasionally, the mission might be spawned on the other route, but don’t worry, just go deal with it and return to the process~

In my personal game seed, it takes only 3 – 5 minutes to earn that 6000 marks,and I got really lucky, both spawn points for the hammerheads on both route are really close to the starting points, by doing what I literally just said, without any problem, I can earn at least 72000 marks per hour!

I hope you guys can find this useful in your game!

All the Default Submarines in this game. (With My Personal Opinions)

Under construction!

The Guide. (Start) [Old, Will be updated soon~]

After earning enough marks. (Where the fun begins)
The steps for both single player and multiplayer campaign are very similar!
And all the tips/guides below are useful in both circumstances!

1. Choose The Sub
You’re going to choose the sub you wish to travel with on your journey!! This is really important and actually a milestone for you!! You can name your sub because it’ll be with you for a really long time!!
You don’t have to follow my opinion on this one… Go ahead and choose whatever sub you like!! Building relations with your own sub is really important for a captain!

Note:
Please refer to barotrauma official website for all the “Default Subs” available for references.

2. Understand Your Sub
Once you’ve chosen your sub! Now you need to get familiar with your sub as soon as possible!
If you so happen to regret your decisions, too bad… You’ll have to earn enough marks in order to change that. So either you like it or not… You’re going to spend time with her now!
You and your crew need to understand your sub’s layout! This is really important! One of the least thing you want to happen is trying to find the medical room when you’re dying or trying to find oxygen tanks when you’re blurring out…
If you just can’t remember the layout of your own sub for some reasons, at least remember where the medical room, navigation terminal, weapons and engine room are at, so at least you can save yourself or make yourself useful when things go down.

3. Tool Belts And Tool Boxes
Buy those… You need those… They’re your best friends…
Give every bots on your sub tool belts if they don’t have one already.
You and your bots are going to need those in order to store all the items you and your bots are going to need to survive.

4. Broad-spectrum Antibiotics, Calyxanides And Medical Items
Buy these things… Really… You won’t regret it… You need them to deal with the “husk parasite”…
Basically… Not only calyxanides… You can go to the internet and memorize most of the medical items all by yourself…
But let’s be honest here… You only need plastiseals, blood packs, morphines, liquid oxygenites 90% of the time… (You need to at least understand the medical items mentioned above)
But here’s some medical items you should also memorize…
Tonic liquid makes any medical affect lasts longer, which is really useful when used with Broad-spectrum antibiotics, which gives you “husk resistance”, and as the name suggests… You should take Broad-spectrum antibiotics before you go to the places where you may find a husk.
Fentanyl is the stonger version of the morphine, but really… I seldom need to use them…(Morphine is already OP enough)
Naloxone is for idiots who think taking multiple doses of morphine or fentanyl is a good idea… Or for those people who is actually dying and has to take multiple doses of those things in order to survive…
Haloperidol is used to cure you from your insanity… Give your clowns some of those…

The Guide. (The Captain)

The Guide. (The Mechanic)

The Guide. (The Engineer)

The Guide. (The Medic)

The Guide. (Medical Items, Important!)

Under Construction~

The Guide. (The Security)

The Guide. (Bots) [Old, will be updated, but still a little bit useful even for now~]

5. Bots Command
This is important! Get used to them if you haven’t already… Your life can depend on this…
I suggest understand all of the commands while inside the station… Because it’s a safe place for you to test stuff… Of course… I’m not talking about random events that some mudraptors crawl inside the vents or husk eggs in drinks…

6. Communications With Bots
Bots will let you know when there’s problem inside or outside the sub, so be aware of the left button corner…
It’s the only way you’ll be able to know your sub’s current situation or possible emergency while you’re steering the sub, outside exploring, or doing the mission objectives…

7. Understand AI Are Not That Great
You have to understand AI are not that great…
They can kill themselves even if the sub is completely safe at the moment…
I had 2 bots died of suffocation inside the sub with oxygen/air quality completely normal near the air lock…
By giving correct orders, you can make them better at doing their jobs… However, they’re dumb and they’re expendables… If they die, hire new ones from the outposts, simple as that.
But… There’s a small chance that some of you’ll grow to like your bots…(like me)
The only thing I can tell you is that… Congratulations! You’ve finally understand your bots, accepting they’re what they’re and they’re really not that smart, but you’re fine with that, you may even want to protect them from now on.
Which is still a little bit ridiculous even to myself…

8. Mechanic Bots
After starting the game, you should already have 1 mechanic bot and 1 engineer bot, this is based on they didn’t die of course.
Always have at least 2 mechanic bot. When your sub is leaking, you need them to fix it for you, so you can steer the ship away from danger or deal with the danger.
One may stuck because they’re dumb or they can’t reach the leaks, so be aware of your left button screen! When they’re not able to reach the leak, they’ll tell you! And if all of them fail at fixing the leaks, you’ll have to fix it yourself.
But remember, every bots with a welding tool can be ordered to fix leaks, it’s only for better management that I use mechanic bots to fix the leaks before things go down, and if things do go down… Order engineer bots to fix the leaks, too. While you set your sub to maintain position and you join the fixing crew.

9. Engineer Bots
Always have at least 2 engineer bot. You need them to fix the electrical devices for you! (Your sub shall have a lot of those installed all over the place)
And you need them to take care the reactor for you, if one’s dead, you still have at least one at your disposal, the rest I believe is basically the same as the mechanic bots.

10. Security bots
The last thing you want to see when you finish your exploration of sunken ships, alien ruins, caves is to find your sub is no longer at the place where you left it.
And I guarantee you that your sub has a really high chance of getting attacked when you’re away, busy.
So order security bots to control coil guns when you’re going to leave your sub for some time.
I always only hire 1 security bot because I don’t need any more of them…
I’m a monster killer myself… I can kill every monsters before they even touch my sub, and I can kill monsters outside the sub without any problems as well. (I’ll talk about this later…this is important, too!)
Also, I give every bots revolvers while security bots get smgs, which give all of them fighting ability when things go down.

11. Medic bots
No medic bots! They’re the worst bots in this game (in my opinion)… They’re completely unnecessary… And here’s why…
They costs too much, their AI is that, whenever one’s injured, they’ll always try to heal them… “using whatever medical supplies they think fit…”
Because they’re bots and their medical AI performance are primarily decided by their medical skills… They can eat through your medical supplies extremely fast! Which is a really bad thing if you ask me! And the bots always use high tier medical items over low tier ones! (I’ve made a development suggestion in the past that focused on the AI’s medical items priority.)
Anyway, you don’t need them… Every bots have the ability to heal themselves…
Give every single one of them 8 plastiseals, blood packs, morphines, liquid oxygenites, and I assure you’ll never have to worried about them for a “really long time”.

Note: If you think all of those medical items are expensive! You should try hiring a medical bot yourself! You’ll see this is a lot and I mean “a lot” cheaper…

The Guide. (Small Creatures)

1. Crawlers

These are probably going to be the first creature you’re going to deal with in the game.

They’re weak and basic. Nothing special about them.

The only thing you need to be concerned is that They tend to stuck on your sub walls.

“All” ships in this game got “blind spots” where your sub weaponry just can’t aim at.

And when this situation happen. You’ll have to swim outside to deal with them yourself!

You’ll find crawlers stuck from time to time! Don’t worry! You’ll get used to it!

To make life easier, just remember to assign some bots to operate the coilguns.

***Crawler Human Size Comparison***

2. Mudraptors

This creature is decent! It’ll make un-experienced crew suffer by constantly breaking through the hulls!

Once inside, they will break through your sub “very fast”, and they got “armor”.

There are unarmored variants, but once you play through the campaign! The chance of armored ones to spawn will only get higher!

Their weaknesses are their legs and torso underneath! Which will always be unarmored!

Don’t even bother wasting ammo on the armor.

Only “High-Caliber” or “Explosives” can destroy the armor! Coilgun and Railgun for example!

They are basically good as dead without the armor.

***Unarmored Variant: Left, Adult; Right, Hatchlings***

3. Husks (Important)

These things are infected human divers wearing broken diving suits (Color Brown).

There’s only one thing you need to know when facing them!

“Try Your Best Not Get Bite!!”

There’s a chance of getting infected with The Husk Parasites” “Every time they hit you!!”

By wearing a diving suit will drop the chance a little bit, but using “broad-spectrum antibiotics” in advance is highly recommended! Using a tonic liquid as well if you have money! Still cheaper than calyxanide!

Note:
Always remember to carry some calyxanides on you! To protect you from potential threat and Barotrauma griefers!

This is some small tips I often use to avoid getting bitten by husks!

Turn up your volume and using your ears!

Husks make footsteps, some serious and loud choking sounds when nearby!

Using Plasma Cutters instead of crowbars when you think there are husks in the area you’re about to explore!

The reason is because the game mechanic.

You won’t be able to shoot or swim away from danger since your character get stunned for a few seconds as the water pushing you inside the husk room after the door opened!

By using the plasma cutters, you can avoid the stun if done correctly, which in terms guarantee your safety!

Warning:
They got buffed after the “Embrace the Abyss” update!
They’re faster, got more health, damage and can now regenerate health slowly, which will cause un-experienced crew a lot more trouble.

They got nerfed again~ The damage and speed are mediocre, the health regeneration is basically non-existent.

***Husks Charging Towards Me***

4. Crawler Husks

Crawler Husks are basically Crawler + Husk.

I personally consider they’re more of a husk than a crawler.
So please take caution as if you’re killing husks.

They’re slower than normal crawlers, but they can compensate this by having the ability to inflict the “Husk Infection” to their victims.

They look “almost” identical to normal crawlers, however their skin is more dark, and there’re some husk stingers poke out of their mouth just like human husks.

Note that, crawlers are the only creature, besides humans in this game, can be infected with the “Husk Infection”.

Another side note is that, Crawler Husks’ AI also prioritize “Normal Crawler” than “Normal Human”.

***Crawler Husk Human Size Comparison (You Can Clearly See The Husk Stingers)***

5. Spineling

These bug-like creature are Annoying Like Hell!

They attack the ships&divers by launching their spikes towards the target.

Their spikes deal “laceration” and “bleeding” to the target.

Their spikes can also “penetrate” multiple layers of walls before finally stop.

It only become even more annoying, knowing the fact that no matter how much money you put into your sub walls! how buffed/upgraded your sub walls are! They can still shoot through those like Butter!

They’re added in the “Uncharted Depths Update“, basically a “Countermeasure” made “Especially” with a goal to “Annoying Skillful Players” since nothing can hurt us anymore if we just stay in our sub the whole game!

The most important part is “They’re NOT Even Strong, yet they’re actually the ONLY creature in this game that can hurt people Directly INSIDE the ship!” (Watchers do not count.)

This become an even more serious problem when you’re playing the game with “a Bunch of Bots“! For more info, please refer to “Bots” or “Medical”.

The wiki says the weak spot is the “Head”, however, since their bodies are very fragile while agile in the water, I say “Just shoot at wherever you can/want will definitely work better~”

***Spineling Human Size Comparison***
Curse These Things.

The Guide. (Medium Creatures)

1. Hammerhead

As the name suggests, they attack you by charging their head towards you.

These creatures swim very fast and their solid heads deal some considerable damage to the ship once hit.

Their huge size make them easy targets. “Railguns” can make short work of them!

Note:
Don’t swim outside the sub when fighting them!

They’re a lot more dangerous when spawned in packs!

If you encounter more than 3 hammerheads at the same area! Always assume a “Matriarch” is present nearby!

For more information about the “Matriarch“, refer to “The Guide. (Large Creatures)“.

Warning:
They got buffed after the “Embrace the Abyss” update!
They got more health, damage and now cause your sub to shake a lot more than before once hit, which will certainly cause un-experienced crew a lot more trouble.

***A Dead Hammerhead***

***Hammerhead Human Size Comparison***

The Guide. (Large Creatures)

1. Moloch

These creatures are the least dangerous large creatures.

They’re slow and their only attack to your ship is constantly bumping you left and right.

There’s only a few things you need take into concern when fighting them.

1. Do not fight them when the ship is close to a surface.

Their damage is done by bumping your ship, if they pin you down on a surface( i.e. walls, grounds), your ship will be destroyed so fast you don’t even realize.

2. Don’t swim outside the sub and get too close to them.

Their shell protect them from standard damage, its “core” is its weakness.
You’ll need “coilgun with piercing ammunition” or “rail gun” to hit its weakness.

Note:
When doing “Killing a Moloch” missions, there’s a small chance that the moloch you need to kill to finish the job is stuck at some really annoying places where your sub can’t get to~

Whenever this happens, you can simply fail the mission~ Or use a syringe gun and kill them with Poison like “Morbusine” or “Radiotoxin“.

I personally prefer “Radiotoxin” over the other because it’s actually more efficient at killing large creatures while cheaper.

Warning:
They got buffed after the “Embrace the Abyss” update!
They got more health, damage and now cause your sub to shake a lot more when hit than before, which will cause un-experienced crew a lot more trouble.

***A Moloch With Its Shell Broken After Shot By The Railgun***

***Moloch Human Size Comparison (It’s large)***

2. Black Moloch

The creature are basically the same as normal moloches, except they can create disturbance in your navigation terminal, and they’re black.

As the game describes it, this type of moloches inflict less damage to hulls but their ramming attack has a large area-of-effect which stuns and has a light EMP effect.

In the past, these creature only spawn during random events, but after the previous updates, these creature can now spawn as a target to eliminate when doing “Killing a Moloch” missions.

The fighting strategy against this one is the same when against a normal moloch.

If you can take down a normal one, you shouldn’t have trouble take down this one~

***A Black Moloch With Only Its Core Left After It Tried To Challenge Me***

***Black Moloch Human Size Comparison (Brain Only)***

***Black Moloch Item Drops Are The Same As Normal Ones***

3. Hammerhead Matriarch

The Guide. (Abyss Creatures)

Under Construction.
WHY there’re so many Bloody END WORMS, yet no “Charybdis”???
I’ve killed 21 End worms with 0 Charybdis!!!

The Guide. (Ballast Flora)

The Ballast Flora, the one thing that has screwed over so many.

In this section, I’m using the pirate ships I “accidentally” found that got infected with this thing during my missions~

Meaning this is not my ship, so I can give you guys a deep and close examination about this thing.

Normally, only the captain will know whether or not your ship is infected at the first moment.

One ship only contracted the infection if passing through a “Colony Of Ballast Flora Spores”.

The “Colony Of Ballast Flora Spores” is faintly visible on the “Navigation Terminal”, which is not really reliable to be honest.

***What It Looks Like Outside***

***What It Looks Like On The Sonar***

So don’t even bother trying to avoid them using the terminal, it’s just more practical to learn how to get rid of them fast.

<Step By Step Dealing With Ballast Flora>

Step 1. Checking Your Ship

The Captain:
You’ll know when you pass through a colony, so please maintain your position and inform everyone on your vessel the potential infection.

The Crew:
Once you hear the captain, go to check “Every Single Pump” on the vessel for any signs of the infection.

If everyone did what I said, you can skip to step 2.

Now, if your captain fail to detect such thing, and none of the crew go into the ballast during the time, you’ll probably only notice the infection happening as the image below.

***Finally Notice The Ballast Flora***

Step 2. The Condition Of The Ship

No Ballast Flora Sign:
You’re safe for now, but be sure to check every pump again after a minute or so, in case of any human error or late infection.

Clear Ballast Flora Sign:
Now, this is very important! Stay Calm!

There’re a lot of stages of ballast flora infections! And trust me when I say “Panicking Will Only Making It Faster!”

Whatever you do, do not try to burn the stems or anything on the walls!! It’ll only make it want to Protect Itself More And Angry!

You gotta make sure everyone having their own diving masks when you’re about to do this.

Step 3. Finding The Source And Deal With The Problem

The person who is gonna do this need a diving suit and a welding tool with one extra fuel tank.

Suppose No One Tried To Hurt The Flora During The Time.

All you need to do is following the images below.
Already found the source just start with the third image.

* If Anyone Tried To Hurt The Flora During The Time, you now need to use plasma cutter to cut through your own walls and doors to get to the source.

***Finally Notice The Ballast Flora***
***Follow Its Stem Which Will Lead You To The Source***
***Found The Source***
***Burn The Source Using The Welding Tool Until Its Gone***
You’ll know you’re “Burning The Source Correctly” if you see smoke coming out of it.

<Some Side Notes And Tips About Ballast Flora>

1. Understanding The Cons Of Other Methods

Now, the thing is there’re a lot of “Bad” methods on the internet describing how they handle this thing, I’ll tell you why my method is better than those~

(1). The Fire Method:
This method requires a flamer with fuel, a fire extinguisher, and a welding tool.

This method requires you to drain the pump completely out of water, and burn down the flora source using the flamer.

This method is the fastest, but most dangerous!

A lot of crew accidentally explode themselves using this method because they damaged the oxygen tanks and the welding fuel tanks they and their friends are carrying, killing/hurting everyone nearby~

Not to mention if people failing to extinguish the fire fast enough, it can easily damage the ship, spread out to cause explosion and tremendous loss.

(2). The Plasma Cutter Method:
This method requires a plasma cutter with oxygen tank and a welding tool with fuel tank.

This method doesn’t require you to drain the pump completely out of water, all you need to do is using the plasma cutter to burn down the source.

This method is relatively slower but relatively safer than The Fire Method.

However, you might as well just cut a hole through your own submarine using this method.

This is just downright ridiculous compare to my “Welding Tool Method”, the only thing this method do is maybe save you around 20 marks on the fuel money.

I mean, does 20 marks really worth the risk of the lives of the whole ship? Welp, apparently it does for a lot of people since this is still a common method used by many.

Please, for your own safety. Use the “Welding Tools” instead of the “Plasma Cutter” now.
Both don’t require you to drain the pump out of water, yet welding tools never damage anything while removing the Flora!

2. Understanding Ballast Flora Behavior More For Future Encounter

Ballast Flora is actually pretty docile to be honest, its growing time is long enough for any crew to get rid of it safely before it actually starts causing trouble.

Meaning that, if your ship is taken down by it, there must be some problems with the overall condition of your ship. You might need to discuss this with your friends if you’re playing multiplayer.

When the ballast flora starts growing, it’ll slowly grow its way to the nearest electricity source.

***Ballast Flora Keeps Growing To The Nearest Electricity Source***

***Ballast Flora Grows To The Junction Boxes***

When it has absorbed enough electricity, it’ll begin to enlarge itself really fast.

***Ballast Flora Taken Over All Junction Boxes***

***Ballast Flora Enlarges***

Even though its enlarged, don’t be fooled by its look, it’s still really docile as long as you don’t burn it. It’s just the fact that it’s now eating more electricity and probably going to sink your ship soon.

Once it eats the junction boxes, it’ll start moving itself towards “The Reactor”. This is why you should never put all your junction boxes in one room when designing a sub.

Assuming you never hurt it, you can still open doors normally as if nothing bad is about to happen.

Using this to your own advantage! Moving yourself towards the flora source without it even notice you!

That’s why you keep your calm!

Now, hope you guys understand how ballast flora work.

The Guide. (Creatures Part 1)

16. Hammerhead Matriarchs
These creatures are dangerous! “Do not let them touch your sub!” They are “Suicide Bombs”. Their only attack is charging at your sub at their maximum speed and cause huge damage to it, while also spawning tons of “Hammerhead Spawns” after hit.
In my personal opinion, the hit and the hammerhead spawns are not the scary part. The real scary part is what happens “after” it hit your sub.
If your sub walls are not strong enough, they won’t be able to withstand the damage… Thus, there will be hull breaches on your sub, and with all the water coming in… I guess you already know what’s next… Better wish you have a good fixing crew standing by at all times.
Fortunately, they’re passive creatures, which means they will only try to charge at your sub if you shoot at them with your weapons.
However, it doesn’t mean it’s safe to go near them… Like their name suggests, they got a lot of “Hammerheads” protecting them.
Even if the Matriarch doesn’t want any trouble, her body guards will happily charging at your sub without any hesitation…
In order to kill them, I suggest using the rail gun on your sub because it can one hit kill both the hammerheads and the matriarchs. The heads of the matriarchs are their weaknesses, they are fragile and can be easily killed if aimed properly even with coil guns. However, when all the hammerheads are swarming at your sub, I don’t think you’ll want to shoot them one by one slowly with the coil guns… Better kill them all fast with the rail guns.

Note:
Just like Molochs, they can be spawned at some really annoying places. However, unlike molochs, I suggest using a grenade launcher to kill them instead of poisons. They can be killed really easily when you hit them in the head, and even if you somewhat fail miserably and only deal a body shot, you might still be able to kill it with the smgs thanks to the explosion it has already taken.

The Guide. (Creatures Part 2)

17. Threshers
There’re two variants of the creature, one is called the “Bone Thresher” which is the dangerous one while the other is called the “Tiger Thresher” which is the useless one…
The bone threshers are the huge and green ones while the tiger threshers are the small and dark ones.
When you encounter the threshers, kill the bone threshers ASAP, and if there’re no bone threshers in them… You’re basically safe and win the fight.
The tiger threshers are just trashes when come to damaging the sub… Because of their body movements, they’re really fast in the water, however, it’s also because of their movements that they can’t even attack your sub right…
I’m going to be honest, I believe the tiger threshers have never actually succeeded in causing hull breaches on my sub before.
What I think is that the bone threshers cause hull breaches on the sub, then tiger threshers cause chaos. Which also means that without the bone threshers to cause hull breaches in the first place, they’re not much of a threat to deal with…

Note:
“Tiger Threshers” are trash “only” when you’re “inside” the sub! If you get outside of the sub, they can cause you a lot more trouble than the crawlers!
My tips? Kill them with smgs… They’re fast and agile in the water.
Very deadly when encounter them in the deep water or dark cave systems!
“Threshers” die when not in the water, meaning that, if you can’t fight them inside the sub, you can at least try fixing the hull breach to stop the leaks to kill them!

The Guide. (Sunken Ships)

Under Construction.

The Guide. (Alien Ruins, Alien Artifacts)

Under Construction.

The Guide. (Creature Loots, Unique Items)

Current Plan and Future Plan

I’ve now began my summer vacation.
I’ll be updating this guide as promised before, but I’ve to gather a lot more game-play data in order to do so.
After all, A lot of updates happened during the time.
But don’t worry! I’m on my way!
I’m planning to gather another 100 hours with my bots to understand some new items and mechanic!
Anyway, I’ve already killed some “Endworms”, 7 by now if I remember correctly. Anyway here’s my “First” Endworm kill in my Single Player Hardcore Campaign! Hope you guys like it!

Edit:
I wanted to finish the creatures sections first.
Then, maybe the job section.
If so, next will be the structure section.
Finally, sub editor.
Basically~ Creature -> Job -> Structure -> Sub Editor.

The Newest Update! (Thunder Under The Ice!)

Alright, I’ll put this simple to understand!

In this update, there are a lot of things added in this update, but most important things are:

1. Mutiple Missions in One Trip:
This is one of the most long requesting mechanism by the community! Me as well!
If you’ve played this game for some time before this update, you’ll know that the missions in this game used to be so swarmed that you’ll never be able to finish them all!

This is made to fix that, since this allows people to finally do more than one mission in a single trip!

Now, back to reality& my personal opinions:
This doesn’t change much~

Each outpost gives you 2-3 missions and you’re allowed to finish 2 missions at one trip didn’t help that much, not to mention you can still get swarmed if you re-open your game!

2. New Missions

***Warning***
There’s a huge error inside the scripts causing only the “Commoner Escort” out of all Escorts to be available for us right now! I’ve found the error and patch it myself! The bug should be fixed in the next update if the Devs have already noticed this! If not, welp, I may contact them when I feel like it~~

This update added 2 new mission types, which are the Escort and Pirate.

(1) Escort
There are 4 kinds of escort, escorting Commoners, Prisoners, VIPs, Terrorists.

(a) Commoners
If you want to do this one, do not pair it with a fighting mission!

The Commoners are fine, but when your ship engage in any kinds of battle, they’re going to be panicking all over you ship!

You can refer to the bot section, the medic part to see what bots tend to do with your precious and expensive medical items when they got some little bruises on them~

That’s not even the worst part! The worst part is they will Puke All Over Your Ship!

In the previous update, the devs tweaked the attack data of some big creatures in this game, mostly moloches and hammerheads, please refer to the creature section.

If your ship got hit by some hammerheads, the ship will Shake A Lot! Normal “Crew Bots” won’t be affected by that~ but since these are Commoners, they’ll start puking and leaving their puke decals all over the walls of your sub!

You’re going to need a Thorough Sprayer Cleaning after this!

(b) Prisoners
These are just some commoners with big mouse and only slightly tougher. And I mean really slightly!

Best way to make them shut their stupid mouse! Make sure they’re cuffed, then beat them up a few times with the batons.

Or you can be just like ME!

Stun baton them and putting them into the ballast!

They’ll be constantly underwater begging for the sweet release of death!

But be careful! You might actually kill some since they’re only good at their mouth~

But hey! Since they’re mostly murders, why not do some justice and return some favor to the society? One can get so rich in this game so easily, I never have to bother with the payment so why should you?

(c) VIPs
These are just prisoners with guns, plus one commoner~

The only good part about this mission is that~ The Mission Only Need Them To Survive The Trip In Order To Get Paid~

Which means you can either be a good person and sent them all to safety, VIP and the guards~

Or you can be just like ME!

Since the guards are so arrogant and always exaggerate themselves, can’t even do much when the things really heat up, why not just Take Away All Their Equipment?

Just stun baton and cuff them~ Better sell those to others who might acutally need& appreciate those~ Am I right? 🙂

(d) Terrorists
Stun Baton Everyone and Find What’s Inside Their Inventory.
If You See Bomb, Gun or Knife, You Know What To Do Next~

Remember~ No Prisoners~

(2) Pirate Mission
Please refer to this:
[link]

3. Sub Weaponry Customization
2 new weapons, the Pulse Laser and the Chaingun
Both are just really mediocre in my opinion~ They don’t have much ammunition type.

Good old fashioned Coilgun and Railgun are still better in most situations~

But hey! Chaingun provides Gunshot Wound Afflictions while Pulse Laser provides Burn Afflictions so that’s something~

Other good part is now you can swap sub weaponry! You can actually attach 3 Railguns on your sub if you really want to! Good Luck!

4. Outpost Events
12 new events, the majority of them are just here trying to mess you up spice things up~

By the way, The Clowns and The Separatist Terrorism are officially a thing now!

5. Submarine Upgrade Tweak
Changing to new submarines will no longer set you back to square one now~

Upgrades you buy now applied to all the submarines! Even the ones you didn’t even buy!

This doesn’t change much, since the mediocre ship is still mediocre~
Also, it really doesn’t matter if you already find “Your Ship“~

That’s all for now~ Take me 3 hours! Hope this help some of you! Enjoy the Game!

6. The Lag
The game becomes even more laggier than before! Definitely needs some optimization ASAP!

SteamSolo.com