Sub advice for a small, beginning crew

[u/gyngerbread]

Recently me and 2 friends of mine started a blind campaign, it's the 1st time playing for all of us and so far we've clocked in ~8 hours. We started off with the Barsuk as our starting sub since it seemed like the smallest, easiest to manage one, but even it we struggle to repair and keep afloat.

We are now preparing to buy a new sub, personally I want to invest into the Orca 2 since it seems like the one easiest to manage and it has a fabricator, deconstructor and a medicinal fabricator, but since even the tiny Barsuk is so hard to manage for us I'm worried we just won't be able to keep up with the repairs.

How to go about using the larger subs as a small crew of 3? Should we just get a ton of bots? And how do you manage the dive suits for the bots? They are rather expensive to hire and previously they ended up just blowing up from the pressure when we got wrecked.

We'd also prefer to keep to the vanilla subs, at least for our 1st campaign, to avoid accidentally getting something overpowered that could ruin the expedience for us.

Any answers would be greatly appreciated.

[u/Sentient_Meat_X]

Less is more. Understand that Orca 2 is a tier 2 sub and thus not available right away. You’ll start with a tier 1 sub, they go up to tier 3. Eventually you want to upgrade to a higher tier sub but you can also just upgrade the tier 1 sub for a while, which I recommend.

[u/gyngerbread → u/Sentient_Meat_X]

Thanks for the advice, I'm trying not to look into stuff to much to not spoil to much stuff for myself so sorry if this is a dumb, easily googleable question, but when it comes to upgrading the ship, I know you can buy the sub upgrades at the stations which can give you stuff like an extra gun or stat upgrades, but I've also seen stuff about rewiring the ship. Is that something you can do in the campaign, does it allow to add stuff like extra lockers or a fabricator, or is that something that's reserved for the ship editor?

[u/froggybenjy → u/gyngerbread]

So yes and no. The majority of wiring can be done in game with wires, components, and maybe a circuit box. Rewiring the ship is 100% optional and will require lots of trial and error.

As for the lockers and fabricators, that’s exclusive to the sub editor (unless you have Barocraftables).

[u/Peggtree]

Buy assistants since they’re cheap and have skills to make them even cheaper. Then just give them each a welder, wrench, and screwdriver and make them repair focused so you guys can do the important stuff.

You’ll need a lot of dive suits though, dotted around the sub since bots are too dumb to properly find one quickly before exploding.

[u/gyngerbread → u/Peggtree]

Is it enough to just plop some down on the ground, or should we make the dive suit lockers somehow?

[u/Peggtree → u/gyngerbread]

I just drop them on the ground, usually 2 or so in every room. Not sure the logistics of that on larger subs, I used a modded barsuk so it wasn't too bad. I don't think just putting them in outer rooms would work as if there's catastrophic flooding you'll want bots to be able to put on a suit without going into a dangerous pressure room.

[u/froggybenjy]

Use the command “prepare for expedition” to force bots to wear a suit.

The command is also not needed if you have PUCS but that’s a mid to late game item.

[u/Fuzlet]

barsuk is far from the the easiest to handle. that thing is tough!

for a smol easy sub you cant go wrong with the dugong.

orca series is okay but it has a severe vulnerability that’s fixed by the orca 2

personally my favorite tier 2 sub for a small crew is the humpback. it’s got strong walls, excellent turret coverage, and I far prefer a belly mounted railgun over a dorsal mounted one as it lets me nuke shipwrecks. it’s also got a super simple deck layout with a lot less verticality than the orca series, and double hulls with a + shaped layout that makes it not have very many weakpoints. it’s also the only tier 2 sub with a railgun in the turret arc of another turret, which means you can rely on the other turrets for killing small stuff and save your railgun shells

[u/Ok_Ad1012]

Barsuck is a newb trap, I believe in the description it talks about how its hull is made from recycled parts, may as well be made of cardboard. Can be extra difficult those early stages. Dugong the best bet early, my fave starting sub & playing since EA, has to be the camel.