PRAWN Propulsion Cannon

[🦊 Hermit]

Does anyone else find the prawn propulsion cannon arm a little dissapointing?

The standard, hand-held cannon allows you to pick up and drag around small fish, and with the prawn one saying it was 'industrial strength' I kinda expected it to ensnare and drag anything up to stalkers and bone sharks, perhaps even crabsquids.

But so far I haven't really seen anything it can lock on to which couldn't also be moved with the hand-held version. Am I missing something? What functonallity does it actually have over the normal one?

Also as a side note, will we ever get a repulsion upgrade for the thing, so we can just punt enemies away before they get close enough to bite our suit? Snce the normal cannon can do so, it would make sense to me that the prawn one would have such an option as well.

[Belegost]

I finally crafted this and gave it a try.

I currently have 2 PRAWN suits, one for mining and one for combat. The mining one is equipped with a drill arm and standard grabber to pick stuff up, it also has enlarged storage and thermal plant. The one for combat has a torpedo and grapling arm, as well as hull reinforcement and engine efficiency module. Both have mk. III pressure compensators and jump jets. The idea is that the mining one is used for long trips away from base mostly in "safe" waters and outside of deep trenches. The combat one operates either in the vincinty of the base or is deployed from Cyclops in emergencies and is manly designed for usage around the Lost River area (hence the grappling arm on this one).

Anyway, I currently can't find any practical use for the propulsion cannon in both of these circumstances. It's not useful for mining, because I would have to get out of the suit to gather stuff and that's well... meh. For combat... I dunno, I don't see anything it could do that a well-placed torpedo couldn't and flinging stuff around just for fun got pretty old pretty fast.

Am I missing something obvious?

[ImHelping]

The saddest Prawn moment. When you get out of your prawn to remove your Drill arm or Propulsion arm, get back inside, and then slowly try to pick things up with the claw arm while crying "SEE! Technically the Prawn can collect materials!"

I think I've grabbed lava lizards with the Prop arm, maybe? But it's useless against things that matter like warpers. It's essentially a joke.

You could, in theory, load your prawn backpack up with farm raised crash fish as ammo. But you can only restock those in bases, and also they only deal tickle damage to predators despite the fact a crash fish can one-shot a Seamoth. So you run out after doing very little for all that effort (and if it's warpers, they will often just teleport back after smashing them in the face with 6 explosive fish results in them only having a 30 second time out) .

That said, torpedoes are an even bigger dissapointment overall in this game.

[Belegost]

Why are torpedoes a joke? Vortex ones are pretty useful. I had some fun with them and bonesharks around floating islands.

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by Azaghal of Belegost:

Why are torpedoes a joke? Vortex ones are pretty useful. I had some fun with them and bonesharks around floating islands.

Crafted single use ammo for something that is worse than the handheld repulsion gun, even when it works right.

Though they do share in common with crash fish, the whole "Will really **** up a player, but just mildly tickle predators" when it comes to the gas torpedoes.

[Kazuma]

ive used it to pickup chunks of ore the ones you use the drill arm on and drag them around to better mining places or just mine them while holding them lol other than that ya theres nothing really to use it for

[Zemecon]

Vortex torpedoes will work on Crabsquids, AmpEels and Spine Eels if you can get them before they move out of the way. They will definately work against the gasopods. And I believe the gas torpedoes will work against Reapers temporarily. The Propulsion Arm will suck up whatever it grabs and that will end up in your P.R.A.W.N.'s default storage. It is useful for picking objects up that are too far out of reach with the claw arm.

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by neon5162:

ive used it to pickup chunks of ore the ones you use the drill arm on and drag them around to better mining places or just mine them while holding them lol other than that ya theres nothing really to use it for

That just drives home how sad it is, that you have to use your propulsion arm to pick up the ore you drilled, then one at a time put it in a corner so you can get out of your prawn and collect it.

[Belegost]

Originally posted by Salinité:

The Propulsion Arm will suck up whatever it grabs and that will end up in your P.R.A.W.N.'s default storage.

No, it doesn't appear to work this way, the object will just float in front of you until you either release it or shoot it. The only thing so far I have found to put stuff into PRAWN's container is the default grab arm. It would be nice if it worked that way, kinda like the regular hand-held gun, but it doesn't.

[AquaX]

All other upgrades fail to the grapple and drill combo. The drill can act as a melee weapon and hurt anything that are atking you, even a leviathan. Do enough damage and they run from you. The grapple gives you the greatest mobility in the entire game if used properly.

[Belegost]

Personally I'm not a big fan of grappler. I found it extends too slowly to be very precise or accurate and the range is not very good. It has uses in "Oh shoot!" situations, like getting out of Jellyshroom Caves before I got the jump upgrade, but honestly I prefer to just jump around normally.

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by Azaghal of Belegost:

Personally I'm not a big fan of grappler. I found it extends too slowly to be very precise or accurate and the range is not very good. It has uses in "Oh shoot!" situations, like getting out of Jellyshroom Caves before I got the jump upgrade, but honestly I prefer to just jump around normally.

Keep a grappler in your prawn inventory just in case, he's useful for climbing back out of a particular plot location without using a portal all the way back to mountain island, if the jumpjets and collisions on the ledge get iffy.

[AquaX]

Originally posted by Azaghal of Belegost:

Personally I'm not a big fan of grappler. I found it extends too slowly to be very precise or accurate and the range is not very good. It has uses in "Oh shoot!" situations, like getting out of Jellyshroom Caves before I got the jump upgrade, but honestly I prefer to just jump around normally.

It's all about timing and your aim. I can travel far with just 1 full thrust and grapple slingshot technique. Even further if I choose to land for a bit.

[or0b0ur0s]

Originally posted by Azaghal of Belegost:

Why are torpedoes a joke? Vortex ones are pretty useful. I had some fun with them and bonesharks around floating islands.

They're slower than every fish in the game, so it's nearly impossible to hit from beyond point blank range. Your target won't be there when the torpedo arrives. Warpers are the most hittable target (that you actually want to shoot at, short of using a vortex warhead to pull a Reefback off your base), and even they just "Ole!" around the thing like a bullfighter or something. And, of course, even if you hit them, they just come right back in a couple seconds anyway.

Torpedoes also tend to detonate prematurely (like stasis rifle blasts) from hitting nearly-invisible small fish between you and the target.

And, on top of all that, the Vortex torpedo is basically no better than a stasis rifle blast (except more expensive and harder to hit with), and the gas torpedo nowhere near as lethal as the natural version, which feels horrifically unfair.

Aside from Warpers, the gas IS effective at shooing critters away... but let's look at the 2 vehicles that mount launchers. The Seamoth's Perimeter Defense System is FAR superior at shooing away large swarms of things at once, is cheaper, easier to use, and has many, many uses more than the measly 4 rounds you get in a torpedo launcher. Heck, I've actually seen it kill sharks if you really want it to and charge it up, which makes it more lethal than torpedoes as well!
Meanwhile, the PRAWN can simply punch anything, for free, to shoo it away. Funny enough, that's ALSO more lethal than the gas! So the gas torpedoes usefulness as both a non-lethal deterrent AND a lethal weapon is fully and soundly trumped by cheaper, easier, and, most damning, more effective alternatives for each vehicle.

At least the dissonance between the natural crashfish damage and player-used crashfish explosions isn't quite so bad as it is with the gas. 2x2 is WAY too large for something like crashfish, though; they should go back to being 1x1 if their damage is going to be a sad joke, and take forever to breed replacements. I can see me loading up the storage full of them and trying to take out the Sea Dragon that way. But I strongly doubt it would die even if I didn't miss even once. And that's without taking being dropped into lava, messed with by Warpers, lava lizards, etc.

[Belegost]

Originally posted by AquaX:

It's all about timing and your aim. I can travel far with just 1 full thrust and grapple slingshot technique. Even further if I choose to land for a bit.

I've been spoiled by Batman and Just Cause series. I understand that in this case it's under water, so the slower speed is justified, but still... compared to near instant grappling in those games it feels very clumsy.

[Kazuma]

Originally posted by ImHelping:

Originally posted by neon5162:

ive used it to pickup chunks of ore the ones you use the drill arm on and drag them around to better mining places or just mine them while holding them lol other than that ya theres nothing really to use it for

That just drives home how sad it is, that you have to use your propulsion arm to pick up the ore you drilled, then one at a time put it in a corner so you can get out of your prawn and collect it.

you misunderstand im not talking about the ore i drilled im talking about that giant chunk of ore that you will drill