Autopilot: Is there even a point?

[Gamerzilla]

I just started the game and watched a few "how not to suck" videos after doing the tutorials and being pretty disheartened by how simple stuff was not explained at all and I was forced to monkey-test everything to find the button the tutorial wanted me to hit... and found out the autopilot shouldn't be used except to remain motionless and to dock. Well I just did the Captain's tutorial and the autopilot got turned on when I got close to the next base... and the autopilot moved me away and out to sea, then back the other way a bit... then back the other way a bit... for 10 minutes. Never did it move toward the docking point, only side to side until I finally gave up and manual'd it in.
Am I doing something wrong?

[nimue]

the autopilot has three modes: to the point of departure, to the point of arrival and to maintain the position. maybe you chose the wrong one? and the autopilot is weak in front of the ice spires, so you need to manually destroy obstacles so that the submarine floats.

[Gamerzilla]

I was only a few meters from the destination (the last choice of 3, which is the destination) and the autopilot wasn't putting me in dock, so not sure still what I was doing incorrectly.

[Mishca_Glendor]

Autopilot doesn't dock, there should have been a tip that popped up about it.

[Gamerzilla]

No tip... Question 2: I took my sub 2 minutes away from the starting base, stopped next to a wreck, got attacked and some leaks happened. I fought off the fishies, fixed the leaks, but now I am apparently stuck sitting on the rock?/ice?/whatever seafloor. Why cant I move? Am I stuck in ice? Tried ships guns, did nothing to free me... so frustrated with the game already, so not a good sign...

[Thundercracker]

Originally posted by Gamerzilla:

No tip... Question 2: I took my sub 2 minutes away from the starting base, stopped next to a wreck, got attacked and some leaks happened. I fought off the fishies, fixed the leaks, but now I am apparently stuck sitting on the rock?/ice?/whatever seafloor. Why cant I move? Am I stuck in ice? Tried ships guns, did nothing to free me... so frustrated with the game already, so not a good sign...

sounds like you are indeed stuck on an ice spire. if there's any room, you can put a diving suit on, and go out with a plasma cutter and break it. on the sonar, ice spires are a different color than "regular ground," the ground shows as blue, while ice spires are greenish.

other reasons for not being able to regain buoyancy would be water trapped in rooms without pumps on the sub, or the ballast pumps having somehow broken. you also might be out of fuel, and/ or junction boxes between the reactor, pumps and/ or engines may be broken.

also, try not to get too frustrated, pretty much everyone's first few missions end in disaster. there's a pretty steep learning curve, and every new kind of encounter is probably going to kill you at least once. once you learn how to deal with things, though, it feels very good to get through tough encounters/ missions.

[Jesus Cat (Fwyrl)]

Originally posted by Terrorsaur:

also, try not to get too frustrated, pretty much everyone's first few missions end in disaster. there's a pretty steep learning curve, and every new kind of encounter is probably going to kill you at least once. once you learn how to deal with things, though, it feels very good to get through tough encounters/ missions.

I remember my first encounter with a Thalamus. Everything was going fine, we were getting close to the mining nodes we'd spotted... when suddenly the bottom of the ship disappears off the nav console, the gunner starts shouting about 'not safe' and the ship plummets, far faster than even a full flood could manage. I called for nuclear rounds on whatever the ♥♥♥♥ was happening to the ship, and we ate two point-blank nukes, as no one realized we'd already gone as far down as we could. Electrical systems were fried, armory was flooded (bottom of the ship was armory), reactor was half full with a good chunk of the wall missing... and then a railgun shell ripped through the ship, bottom to top, missing me by a hair, and pasting 2 of our 5 (4 players, 1 ai) crew. We were all on discord, so we could hear the gunner, and he had NO idea what had hit us, but the ship had just been cored, and then the AI vanished. About 30 seconds later, I get a report from engineering that the reactor's been hit by something massive, and the outer hull for all of engineering is just gone, and he has no pressure suit, because he's been too busy keeping essential electrical systems (guns, pumps) running to grab a suit. I'm almost outside the ship at this point, intent on mano-a-mano-ing whatever's got my ship in such a state, when I'm attacked by the spores, and they slow me just enough that another shot bisects me and plasters my internals on the seabed, and what remains of the hull.

The second time we did that mission, we just saturated the area with nukes from afar, until we were sure it was dead. It wasn't.

[Buggy Boy]

Autopilot to destination does work about 70% of the time, it may take a less direct or optimal route but if you have gunners that can see ice spires they will target and destroy them. Icebergs are another matter though and are best manually navigated around or destroyed (railgun makes short work of them). It doesn't know how to dock as mentioned so will just bob about near the end of the stage.

If you're the captain then manual control gives far quicker skill points progression than automatic, and in the medium to later stages it's far better to use full manual most of the time in order to avoid the bigger, more deadlier hazards, though Automatic Maintain Position can also be used quite effectively for navigation.

[Thundercracker]

Originally posted by Jesus Cat (Fwyrl):

Originally posted by Terrorsaur:

also, try not to get too frustrated, pretty much everyone's first few missions end in disaster. there's a pretty steep learning curve, and every new kind of encounter is probably going to kill you at least once. once you learn how to deal with things, though, it feels very good to get through tough encounters/ missions.

I remember my first encounter with a Thalamus. Everything was going fine, we were getting close to the mining nodes we'd spotted... when suddenly the bottom of the ship disappears off the nav console, the gunner starts shouting about 'not safe' and the ship plummets, far faster than even a full flood could manage. I called for nuclear rounds on whatever the ♥♥♥♥ was happening to the ship, and we ate two point-blank nukes, as no one realized we'd already gone as far down as we could. Electrical systems were fried, armory was flooded (bottom of the ship was armory), reactor was half full with a good chunk of the wall missing... and then a railgun shell ripped through the ship, bottom to top, missing me by a hair, and pasting 2 of our 5 (4 players, 1 ai) crew. We were all on discord, so we could hear the gunner, and he had NO idea what had hit us, but the ship had just been cored, and then the AI vanished. About 30 seconds later, I get a report from engineering that the reactor's been hit by something massive, and the outer hull for all of engineering is just gone, and he has no pressure suit, because he's been too busy keeping essential electrical systems (guns, pumps) running to grab a suit. I'm almost outside the ship at this point, intent on mano-a-mano-ing whatever's got my ship in such a state, when I'm attacked by the spores, and they slow me just enough that another shot bisects me and plasters my internals on the seabed, and what remains of the hull.

The second time we did that mission, we just saturated the area with nukes from afar, until we were sure it was dead. It wasn't.

not dissimilar to my own first encounter with the same. i was doing a wreck salvage mission. i made it to the wreck no problem, but when i went to get into position above it so my gunners could take out any roaming crawlers or mudraptors that might have been in the wreck, the flesh canons speared me and drug me down to the bottom. i was completely unprepared for the spores.

but after another attempt or two, i got my system down for tackling such a threat - i keep the sub out of range, swim out solo, and destroy the thalamus from within. i'd rather not waste nukes or railgun shells when i can exterminate the threat with a crowbar and some anti-paralyze-juice.

sometimes, though, i miss the wreck sonar signature on the bottom and get speared again. in those cases, some piercing and/or explosive coilgun shots to the base of the flesh canons will destroy their ammo sacks and free me.

[Jesus Cat (Fwyrl)]

Didn't know about destroying the base with explosive/piercing coilgun rounds. I'll have to pass that onto my gunners. We currently use Oxygenite (strongest explosive item) Nukes for anything that the normal strategy (NPCs on coilguns, Players on Railguns, Clowns and Engineers go and melee it) can't handle in a reasonable time.

Last time we had to pull those out was when a pirate ship we were supposed to kill for a mission fell down a hole and... red sonar pings. That was a terrifying 20 minute hunt for the pirate sub while playing hide and seek with the giant worm. Used 2 nukes on the pirate sub to take out their engines, and had two more loaded to start on the big threat if it saw us. Fortunatly, it did not, mostly because despite all the chaos, we'd all drilled on what to do to hide, after the first one nearly killed us earlier in the campaign (only had coilgun rounds at the time, survived entirely on fast welding and pressure suits).

[Thundercracker]

Originally posted by Jesus Cat (Fwyrl):

Didn't know about destroying the base with explosive/piercing coilgun rounds. I'll have to pass that onto my gunners. We currently use Oxygenite (strongest explosive item) Nukes for anything that the normal strategy (NPCs on coilguns, Players on Railguns, Clowns and Engineers go and melee it) can't handle in a reasonable time.

Last time we had to pull those out was when a pirate ship we were supposed to kill for a mission fell down a hole and... red sonar pings. That was a terrifying 20 minute hunt for the pirate sub while playing hide and seek with the giant worm. Used 2 nukes on the pirate sub to take out their engines, and had two more loaded to start on the big threat if it saw us. Fortunatly, it did not, mostly because despite all the chaos, we'd all drilled on what to do to hide, after the first one nearly killed us earlier in the campaign (only had coilgun rounds at the time, survived entirely on fast welding and pressure suits).

oof. a pirate is about the only thing i'd use a nuke on. not even against "red ping monsters."

sure, those two can take a little while using the other kinds of ammo, but a skilled gunner can decapitate the worm. assuming you got that red ping. the other thing does not have that weakness, but basically goes down like a boss version of a hammerhead.

yea, it's a lot of repairing work, i find it best to just find a spot on the bottom (or in a wall if i cant get to the bottom) and shoot the threat down with "conventional" ships weapons.

but yea, i'd nuke a pirate anytime. explosive/ piercing works well, too, but they are just as likely to have piercing.

[Jesus Cat (Fwyrl)]

Didn't know you could decapitate it. Could you elaborate on that?

[CW2 P. Larkins]

Originally posted by Jesus Cat (Fwyrl):

Didn't know you could decapitate it. Could you elaborate on that?

you necro'd a bit but basically if you keep hitting near the neck again and again and again you will eventually just decapitate the thing which causes it to either die instantly or bleed out really fast