Barotrauma – My Own Guide For Single Player Campaign (Useful For Multiplayer,Too)

Basic Info.

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Hi! I hope all of you have read the warning! 
Now, this post is not made to ask for tips from people but rather give tips to others… 
Here are some questions asked many many times before. 
“Can I play this game alone??”, “Is this game single player possible??”, “Why do bots AI suck so much??”… etc. 
 
Well, of course people can just play online with friends or strangers, but there are people out there who want to play alone. Or they still want to play the game when their friends are busy, not available. 
 
So here’s the tips/guide from me, who have played single-player campaign for around 150 hours (which I assure you, this number will only get higher) and complete countless missions with only bots, and without player character dying even a single time!! 
 
 
 

Before We Start.

Things you need consider beforehand… Playing single player is a lot harder than playing with real players… However it’s also the fastest and most efficient way to make you the most pro players in barotrauma! Because you have to do basically everything in this game, or you won’t be able to survive at all… Thus, you’ll learn and understand the game extremely fast! And if you actually manage to play 100+ hours of single player campaign without dying… Let me assure you… You’re going to be the strongest and the most wanted players in multiplayer… 
 
Before we start, you have to understand that when you first get into the game… You won’t be having all the resources to make these tips/guide work! So I suggest people to do some transport missions first in order to earn enough marks, so you can actually start enjoying the game. 
This is unfortunately… One of the hardest part of starting a single-player campaign… I guarantee you most people gave up at this phase… Because this is awfully boring and time consuming… 
 
Before you have enough marks, aka money/credits in this game. 
 
When doing transport missions, you can use active sonar when you’re at the start of the map, but you will have to use directional pinning very soon after… Toggle directional pinning to travel through the terrain and use passive sonar to sneak by hostile creatures/monsters. “Don’t Use Active Sonar When You See Them On Your Radar” it will only attract their attentions, not to mention your sub which I presumed is “Dugong”. No offense but I personally think it’s an awful sub… Switch that one for a better one as fast as possible when you get enough marks… Don’t even trying to upgrade it, since it’ll be dump into the trashcan soon after… 
 
For me, I use the sub called “humpback” which I really love! The reason is that it’s structure is simple and as a captain, you can get to all the important parts on your sub when things go down with only a short amount of time. And you can steer the sub while shooting the monsters with coil gun no problem at all, as long as you know what you’re doing. (You’ll need to do this kind of things a lot) 
 
Now I’ll just assume you past the first challenge… I’m not going to waste too much time on people who can’t even survive through the start… And I don’t want to bother teach people how to survive through it since it’s basically one of the hard parts people have to understand and conquer on their own… It’s a really important knowledge building phase. 
A good saying goes… “You’re not supposed to pick up baby turtles because it affects their survival.” (I know the fact that we shouldn’t pick them up is because oils from our skin can interfere with their imprinting process. But you know what I mean…) 
 
 
 

The Guide. (Start)

After earning enough marks. (Where the fun begins) 
The steps for both single player and multiplayer campaign are very similar! 
And all the tips/guides below are useful in both circumstances! 
 
1. Choose The Sub 
You’re going to choose the sub you wish to travel with on your journey!! This is really important and actually a milestone for you!! You can name your sub because it’ll be with you for a really long time!! 
You don’t have to follow my opinion on this one… Go ahead and choose whatever sub you like!! Building relations with your own sub is really important for a captain! 
 
Note: Please refer to barotrauma official website for all the “Default Subs” available for references. 
 
2. Understand Your Sub 
Once you’ve chosen your sub! Now you need to get familiar with your sub as soon as possible! 
If you so happen to regret your decisions, too bad… You’ll have to earn enough marks to change that, so either you like it or not… You’re going to spend time with her! 
You and your crew need to understand your subs layout! This is really important! One of the least thing you want to happen is trying to find the medical room when you’re dying or trying to find oxygen tanks when you’re blurring out… 
If you just can’t remember the layout of your own sub for some reasons. At least remember where the medical room, navigation terminal, weapons and engine room at, so at least you can save yourself or make yourself useful when things go down. 
 
3. Tool Belts And Tool Boxes 
Buy those… You need those… They’re your best friends… 
Give every bots on your sub tool belts if they don’t have one already. 
You and your bots are going to need those in order to store all the items you and your bots are going to need to survive. 
 
4. Broad-spectrum Antibiotics, Calyxanides And Medical Items 
Buy these things… Really… You won’t regret it… You need them to deal with the “husk parasite”… 
Basically… Not only calyxanides… You need to go to the internet and memorize most of the medical items all by yourself… 
Let’s be honest… You only need plastiseals, blood packs, morphines, liquid oxygenites 90% of the time… (You need to understand the medical items mentioned above) 
But here’s some medical items you should also memorize… 
Tonic liquid makes any medical affect lasts longer, which is really useful when used with Broad-spectrum antibiotics, which gives you “husk resistance”, and as the name suggests… You should take Broad-spectrum antibiotics before you go to the places where you may find a husk. 
Fentanyl is the stonger version of the morphine, but I’ve seldom really need to use them…(Morphine is OP) 
Naloxone is for idiots who think taking multiple doses of morphine or fentanyl is a good idea… Or for those people who is actually dying and has to take multiple doses of those things in order to survive… 
Haloperidol is used to cure you from your insanity… Give your clowns some of those… 
 
 
 

The Guide. (Bots)

5. Bots Command 
This is important! Get used to them if you haven’t already… Your life can depend on this… 
I suggest understand all of the commands while inside the station… Because it’s a safe place for you to test stuff… Of course… I’m not talking about random events that some mudraptors crawl inside the vents or husk eggs in drinks… 
 
6. Communications With Bots 
Bots will let you know when there’s problem inside or outside the sub, so be aware of the left button corner… 
It’s the only way you’ll be able to know your sub’s current situation or possible emergency while you’re steering the sub, outside exploring, or doing the mission objectives… 
 
7. Understand AI Are Not That Great 
You have to understand AI are not that great… 
They can kill themselves even if the sub is completely safe at the moment… 
I had 2 bots died of suffocation inside the sub with oxygen/air quality completely normal near the air lock… 
By giving correct orders, you can make them better at doing their jobs… However, they’re dumb and they’re expendables… If they die, hire new ones from the outposts, simple as that. 
But… There’s a small chance that some of you’ll grow to like your bots…(like me) 
The only thing I can tell you is that… Congratulations! You’ve finally understand your bots, accepting they’re what they’re and they’re really not that smart, but you’re fine with that, you may even want to protect them from now on. 
 
8. Mechanic Bots 
After starting the game, you should already have 1 mechanic bot and 1 engineer bot, this is based on they didn’t die of course. 
Always have at least 2 mechanic bot. When your ship is leaking, you need them to fix it for you, so you can steer the ship away from danger or deal with the danger. 
One may stuck because they’re dumb or they can’t reach the leaks, so be aware of your left button screen! When they’re not able to reach the leak, they’ll tell you! And if all of them failed at fixing the leaks, you’ll have to fix it yourself. 
But remember, every bots with a welding tool can be ordered to fix leaks, it’s only for better management that I use mechanic bots to fix the leaks before things go down, and if things go down… Order engineer bots to fix the leaks, too. While you set your sub to maintain position and you join the fixing crew. 
 
9. Engineer Bots 
Always have at least 2 engineer bot. You need them to fix the electrical devices for you!(Your ship will have a lot of those) And you need them to take care the reactor for you, if one’s dead, you still have at least one at your disposal, same as the mechanic bots. 
 
10. Security bots 
The last thing you want to see when you finish your exploration of sunken ship, alien ruins, caves is your sub is no longer at the place you left it. 
And I guarantee you that your sub has a really high chance of getting attacked when you’re outside. 
So order security bots to control coil guns when you’re leaving your sub. 
I always only hire 1 security bot because I don’t need more of them… 
I’m a monster killer myself… I can kill every monsters before they even touch my sub, and I can kill monsters outside the sub without any problems.(I’ll talk about this later…this is important, too!) Also, I give every bots revolvers while security bots get smgs, which gives all of them fighting ability when things go down. 
 
11. Medic bots 
No medic bots! They’re the worst bots in this game (in my opinion)… They’re completely unnecessary… And here’s why… 
They costs too much, their ai is that whenever one’s injured, they’ll always try to heal them… “Using whatever they think fit” because they’re bots and their medical AI performance are primarily decided by their medical skills… They can eat through your medical supplies very fast! Which is a really bad thing! And the bots always use high tier medical items over low tier ones!(I’ve made a suggestion in the past focused on the AI’s medical items priority.) 
Anyway, you don’t need them… Every bots have the ability to heal themselves… 
Give them all 8 plastiseals, blood packs, morphines, and liquid oxygenites and you’ll never have to worried about htem for a “really long time”. 
 
Note: If you think all of those medical items are expensive! You should try hiring a medical bot yourself! You’ll see this is a lot and I mean “a lot” cheaper… 
 
 
 

The Guide. (Possible Threats)

12. Leaving Your Sub. 
This is very important… In single player campaign, any missions that need you to leave your sub are the most dangerous ones… 
You’re going to die out there if you’re not well-prepared! I never die before so trust me about this one… 
Here’s how I survive through all the danger! Stack yourself with medical supplies and oxygen tanks! 
As for weapons, I suggest smgs and shotguns. But since now the items do stack, I think some other weapons will be viable, too. (which weapon you use more comfortable is much more important than my opinion… Because your life is depend on it.) 
As for the rest… I can only tell you guys to become a better fighter… Aim and kill small monsters fast because their speed inside water, use poisons to kill the larger creatures if you “really need to”… 
Be cautious of husks, they can spawn inside ruins and sunken ships, and they’re living nightmares! Have calyxanides on you at all times! 
Finish your objective as fast as possible… every minute you spend outside is a possible game over for you… 
You need portable sonar to help guiding you and you need water scooter with fulgurium batteries! If you’re almost out of power, use the portable sonar’s battery instead, as long as you don’t use active sonar the portable sonar will never use any power, so you’ll still be able to find your sub with little power it has. 
Grab glowing sticks, flares, flashlights… Basically any kind of light because you need them when you explore! 
Now, some of you may think how did I store so many items on me… Like I said… Tool belts and tool boxes are your best friends… 
 
Now… I’ll just leave this at the moment… I’ll add more stuff when I’ve more time… 
 

Hope you enjoy the Guide about Barotrauma – My Own Guide For Single Player Campaign (Useful For Multiplayer,Too), if you think we should add extra information or forget something, please let us know via comment below, and we will do our best to fix or update as soon as possible!