Never turn your sonar off?

[Zothen]

I dont turn my sonar off. Playing this for ~6yrs now with 600hrs+ on Steam. Mostly with "Into the Abyss".

I never saw a reason to bother flipping the sonar off.
Change my mind?!

[Xanth™]

You turn the sonar off if you want to go silent. Creatures will have a much harder time with sonar off in finding your sub (even more when you turn the lights outside off too). You can go through entire missions by being silent and stealthy without anything noticing you.

[Zothen]

Hm. Usually mobs spawns close enough too you so they get into your path anyway. And without sonar you dont even know where they are, so you cant avoid them. loss-loss in my book?

[Guardian-of-Light137]

It depends on the sub. Some can't handle getting into a lot of confrontations. So it's better to avoid getting spotted. And some just prefer a stealthy approach to missions. Add to that it conserves power, which if someone's not good at resource management, can save them precious seconds on those fuel rods over time.

Most experienced players do a quick flick. They'll turn it on to send out a single ping just to see what's around them and then continue traveling till they feel they need to again. Such as checking for hostiles. Ultimately there's no right or wrong way to do it. It just depends on what you need it to do, and if you have the skills to deal with the resulting attacks. Especially at higher difficulties.

And lastly even if you are skilled enough to always have it on and deal with the enemies and keep enough resources to make it through. ... It's just nice to not have to hear it the entire time.

[357 Magnum Ace]

I don't do that unless I'm in combat. Normally I just toggle passive -> active -> passive and analyze my environment for creatures and the terrain, set a course to a safe waypoint, then coast in the dark. Repeat the process at every checkpoint.

The reasons are like others have stated. It lowers my profile to enemies, it saves me fuel, and most of the time I really do not need up to date information since a lot of stretches are just empty.

[FourGreenFields]

Leaving the sonar on "active" disables passive sonar. Switching to active to send a ping, and immediately switching back does not - gives you slightly more info on your surroundings.

Originally posted by Zothen:

Hm. Usually mobs spawns close enough too you so they get into your path anyway. And without sonar you dont even know where they are, so you cant avoid them. loss-loss in my book?

If they show up at the edge of your sonar, a hearing 1 creature will not yet hear you. Often enough you can sneak past, but it absolutely depends on the creature.

[Passier Reis]

Not worth it, leave it on and kill em all before you accidentally run into a swarm while crashing into ice spirals because you're blind

[shrekstyle]

Yep im the same, leave it on all the time.
I think its funny when someone joins the server and gets all paranoid that the sonar is on all the time, im just like "we kill everything, no running away. Do you want to not do anything for 20 mins but fix junction boxes.. get on the dam turret or weld the hull.. swarm incoming 2 o-clock".