[ANTIQUATED] Navigation Constants Tinkering (TERROR REDUCTION)

A simple guide pointing out the location of a file of interest and the implications of altering its numerical values.

Navigation Constants File Location

For most people, you should be able to copy and paste this into your folder address bar:

%homepath%\AppData\LocalLow\Failbetter Games\Sunless Sea\constants

The file is not within/under the Steam directory's Sunless Sea folders. Too many people seem to be making this mistake. It is in local files on your computer, usually right up there with saved games and documents folders. Just copy and paste the line above into the address bar of a folder (not a web browser <_<;).

%homepath% just means your user files for the account you logged into your computer with.

i.e. C:\Users\Mawd in my case.

Since there isn't going to be a consistent address with everyone having a different username for every personal computer they have, it is a useful shortcut.

AppData is generally a hidden folder that you won't see by manually searching anyway. You really must copy and paste the address line in the guide. Otherwise it's convoluted to alter your folder settings to make hidden folders and files visible.

If you have a Mac, I can't help you. But you can help yourself, or rather, Google probably can...
When I was first looking for the file location, I saw an address for it for Mac users but I don't remember where. An obscure-but-helpful forum post on an obscure-but-helpful forum no doubt.

Editing Values

You might find an _import version of the file but you only need to change the other one, using notepad or some simple text editor if it asks you what program to use. The _import version is just a clearly laid out copy of the file the game actually uses. It should look like this:

HungerUpdatePeriod : 10,
FuelUpdatePeriod : 1,
SomethingAwaitsYouPeriod : 60,
BaseHungerIncrease : 0.5,
BaseShipSpeed : 10,
BaseShipSpeedLimit : 0.00015,
ShipReversePenalty : 0.8,
EnginePowerModifier : 10,
BaseShipAcceleration : 5,
BaseShipTurningSpeed : 10,
EngineFuelDecrementUnit : 0.05,
LightFuelDecrementUnit : 100,
SkeletonCrewDivision : 2,
CrewLonelinessDivision : 4,
TerrorLonelinessMultiplier : 2,
TurboSpeedMultiplier : 1.25,
TurboPeculiarNoiseIncrease : 1,
GloomUpdatePeriod : 0.5,
GloomUpdatePeriodInLight : 1,
GloomThreshold : 10,
BaseGloomIncrease : 1,
GleamCheckRadius : 60,
BaseTerrorIncrease : 1,
BaseGleamIncrease : 1,
DimAmbientThreshold : 1,
BrightAmbientThreshold : 10000,
HeadlightGleamBonus : 1,
PortGleamBonus : 2,
RepairUpdatePeriod : 5,
RepairSuppliesConsumed : 1,
RepairHullIncreased : 1,
CombatStartingIllumination : 0,
CombatMaxIllumination : 150,
CombatStartingDistance : 50,
CombatFleeDistance : 95,
CombatFleeIllumination : 25,
FleeTerrorBumpMax : 10,
CombatAbilityQueueCount : 3,
SomethingAwaitsDateTimeIncrease : 12,
LegacyDateTimeIncrease : 730

Hunger & Fuel (Bread and Butter)

An important thing to remember for fuel and hunger updating periods is that the actual values do not change unless they are updated. So in a sense, fuel and supplies will not deplete until you want them to if you set this value higher.

How much those values deplete, when they do update, is dictated by the Base Hunger Increase and Fuel Decrement values.

My suggestion for maintaining immersion and not spoiling the game while still making it less grueling, is to only really change the Hunger Update to 1 (if at all) so that is syncs with your Fuel Update, while setting the BHI and FD to fractions of their default values. Also set Light Fuel Decrement to 1, as I've noticed fuel consumption seems to be effected by it despite it not being clear anywhere that you are using fuel to power your lights (though it makes sense).

Alternatively you could just never use your lights and manually turn them off in the game, but that's a terrible idea...

Terror

But that brings me to Terror management. I see a lot of people complaining on the com-hub about Terror being too nutty.

"Setting base terror increase to anything below 1 will cause you to recieve no terror after the skull meter fills up. Apparently terror will only increase by whole numbers, IE: two spins of the skull wheel at base terror at .5 will not cause terror to increase, nor will it ever; while setting BTI to 1.5 will cause it to fill up by 1 each spin.

It seems that to slow down terror build up (while keeping it in game) you'll want to play with the gloom settings to slow down the wheel.

Through increasing the gloom update period settings you can increase the amount of time for 1 dot on the wheel to fill up while away from land or a light source. The first GloomUpdatePeriod setting refers to when you are in total darkness, I'd leave this relatively low as a penalty for running dark in open waters (mine is set to 2, default 0.5). the GloomUpdatePeriodInLight setting is in effect when you are in open water with your light on or by a light buoy(or other lightsource) or your ambient light circle is in range of land. I've got mine set to 4(default 1) and that seems to slow down terror enough to make jumping from buoy to buoy more forgiving while still freaking my crew out in open waters."

Repairs (And Associated Supply Consumption)

You can also edit ship repair mechanics:
RepairUpdatePeriod: How fast the repairs take. If you want, maybe set it to 1 second.

RepairSuppliesConsumed: You should leave this alone, as it makes sense for there to be some kind of cost associated with self-repair, otherwise it undermines doing it in London

RepairHullIncreased : Do what you like with it, though repairing one piece of hull for one crate of supplies is a bit daft. You might as well try to farm Bound Sharks at that point. Set it to something reasonable like 15. More than that, again, undermines London repairs.

Don't Touch Skeleton Crew Division & Starting Combat Illumination

(Combat Illumination may be outdated with the advent of the Steel Update's Real-Time combat)
I tried fiddling with Starting Combat Illumination to undermine low Mirror stats but it just makes the Combat AI wacky and sometimes it's just a bad idea. Especially against enemy ships that don't need to close distance...and can just outright shoot you the way you would the zee-beasts.

Skeleton Crew Division effects how many of your own crew you send when you capture and attempt to reappropriate a defeated vessel. Leave it alone: you need one man on helm and one in the engine room, so that makes 2 and it also just makes sense.

Something Awaits You (port-adventures update period)

Something Awaits You Period dictates how often something new happens. I tried putting it to a lower value so I could farm ports but it kind of defeats the purpose of the game sometimes if you can just chill on your ship and redock at Port Cecil and farm Scintilak for days (or until you go insane). Frankly, with the modifications to terror accumulation, and fuel/supply consumption, you should be able to go out to zee for longer periods of time, so you might want to leave the value alone or set it to maybe 20-30 (however many seconds you think it takes to go from one port to another after engine output modifications).

The SAYtime-increase only effects your logbook, I think, (unless it affects Time, the Healer, which might interfere with those pirate-monk wine-runs to Godfall). If you don't like the idea of time going by too fast, set it to a smaller value, but it will still accumulate at the rate dictated in SAYPeriod.

Engine Output Manipulation

Lastly, is engine output manipulation which I'm still fiddling with. So far I've come to the conclusion that your turning speed should probably exceed your base ship speed: upping the base ship speed by itself without turning speed will send you straight into the first thing you can possibly hit.

Alternatively you could opt to only increase the Turbo Speed Multiplier and guage yourself by balancing expedience with blowing up your engines and/or crew depending on your hearts-tests associated with it. All-in-all reminds me of Moonshine in Guns of Icarus Online...

It should be noted that extensively imbalanced or just overpowered engine output is...somewhat game-breaking? I once overclocked the engine while heading south fresh out of London and completely forgot Mutton Island existed. Apparently my ship hit the shore and flew right over the island because my course did not change at all and I only took one hull damage from the impact...

...so yes, it is literally possible to make your ship fly, in the air, presumably. But for some reason it won't amaze anyone in the respective port you just flew over. Keep that in mind.

Last Words

When I first got the game, I immediately popped open my memory editor[codefromthe70s.org] to give me a fat wad of cash to fiddle with different things, but it became clear that most of the game is about the joy of exponential wealth accumulation with its own pacing...you know, in addition to the exploration and rogue-lite elements facilitated by the dark atmosphere created by the writing and visual aesthetics.

So starting again fresh I still had the urge to tweak a few things and found these constants, and I tried to responsibly alter them so that there was still a challenge and fun that didn't defeat the purpose, and I encourage others to do the same, again, with all the people complaining about terror and such.

You don't have to wait for the game to update, so learn to tinker things to make them the way you like it, instead of complaining on the com-hub!

[z3bulin]

It seems some of the values you suggest are already there by default. ;) Others are still different. In any event, it's nice to know this file exists, and what some of the values do, at least. Thanks!

[Pop-Top Atlas]

Yeah, sorry, this guide was back before they broke out of Early Access. Things should be different and better now. I've changed the guide's name to say ANTIQUATED as I'm not sure if it's outright OUTDATED.

[z3bulin]

It seems like this file is recreated with the defaults if I exit/restart Sunless Sea. Perhaps that's a change since you wrote this, or is it expected?

[Pop-Top Atlas]

I'm surprised it's still relevant ._. but glad nonetheless it's still helping.

[sabishii]

thanks for this, it saved the game for me

[slightlysketch]

found it fixed it now have a crew damage weapon.

[Pop-Top Atlas]

Oh, I get it now. You wanted to decrease the hull-damage of a weapon, presumably so you can...what, kill enemy crew and send it home as a prize ship? Are harpoon flensing attacks still good for that? I don't know if that changed. I've been neglecting SS since I've been too sated with Fallen London just from the browser game.

[Pop-Top Atlas]

No, it doesn't. But one of those constants is a multiplier that dicates how much damage everything does. Both your damage and the damage of enemies against you. If you just want to edit the damage that one particular weapon does, well that seems like it would undermine buying anything better than that weapon.

And if it's the best weapon possible anyway, well at that point you should just adjust the multiplier instead of giving yourself an imbalanced weapon that one-shots everything...while not giving it the opportunity to one-shot you back.

Look for "IronDamageCoefficient"

But maybe I'm just being fascist telling you how you should play your game...
Anyway, you'd have to find whatever file dictates the attack value of the weapon you're talking about. I don't know where or what that is. Sorry.

[slightlysketch]

the file does not contain anything that has to do with specific items.

[Pop-Top Atlas]

From what I saw, after the Steel update, there is a similar file of constants that dictates combat. Fiddle around with that as you see fit. I haven't done so yet.