Barotrauma

Barotrauma

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Waverunner Mk.IIa (Solo campaign ready)
   
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6 Oct, 2020 @ 8:17pm
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Waverunner Mk.IIa (Solo campaign ready)

Description
This submarine is clearly useful for those who don't have friends available to play Barotrauma with, but I also highly recommend giving it a try if you've primarily played multiplayer. It is a unique experience to challenge Barotrauma, deep within the void in total solitude, hours away from the nearest living human, with nothing and no one to depend on but your own self-sufficiency.

99.9% of credit goes to Blart for the original Waverunner Mk.II, https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2221541968, of which this is merely a light modification.

The Waverunner Mk.II is a small, minimalistic sub designed by Relic Runner Blart. Because of its small size, the Waverunner is extremely agile, and is able to outrun most of the threats Europa has to offer. It features a condensed version of Captain Eric's Arc Reactor System, two coilguns, one railgun, an artifact-compatible airlock system, a relatively massive engine, and a lot of spunk.

The IIa variant is designed to be operated by a single intrepid captain, optionally with a helper player or bot. Like the base variant, this submarine is more than capable of completing the campaign.

Strengths:
- Simple and efficient to operate by a single crewmember.
- Easy to manually operate silently. Turn off the reactor, keep the throttle on low, and don't accelerate past ~20.
- Straightforward maintenance, especially once you've gotten some progress into your skills.
- Faster than a bat out of hell. With engines on high, you can go from zero to 60+ in about five seconds. In a sufficiently open area nothing will be able to catch you if you need to get away.

Weaknesses:
- Ballast balance is extremely sensitive, due to the small overall volume. Even filling the airlock will cause the sub to start sinking.
- The airlock entrance is outside the gun firing arcs, and it'll frequently be breached by wildlife.
- Single-compartment design means that even minor breaches will lead to major flooding and immediate sinking. You need to be well-prepared for rapid damage control, and understand how to use autopilot to keep yourself alive when you're not at the navigation console because you're busy stabbing mudraptors and sealing breaches in the hold.
- Running the reactor efficiently requires thorium fuel rods. You'll want to buy any that you come across, and it'll be a major early game drain on your finances until you understand how to manage power usage optimally.

The sub comes with only the barest minimum of equipment. You will want to take inventory before leaving on your first mission, and strongly consider spending your starting capital on some extra equipment. Wearing a diving suit at all times while aboard is recommended.

Major changes against base Mk.II variant:
- Greatly expanded storage. Nobody'll be around to help you organize items, so the storage space crunch has been alleviated to reduce un-fun time spent dragging items around. You can also carry a meaningful amount of raw materials for long trips into the depths of Europa without excessive toolbox management. A crate shelf has been added to make it harder to lose mission cargo in the event of a major hull breach.
- The coilgun periscope has been moved to the command room, to make one-man steering and gunning easier. The railgun periscope and loader have been moved out to cargo. Lack of shell storage racks is intentional.
- The engine's peak output has been reduced by 25% to make it more manageable, and a toggleable power limiter caps output to 30% so that using manual steering for ordinary maneuvering is no longer a life-or-death proposition, while preserving the ability to make a quick getaway when you need it.
- The oxygen generator can be toggled to conserve battery power when you leave for a dive.

Minor changes:
- The display screen next to the reactor now shows remaining battery charge in kWh.
- The sub is now waypointed for an AI helper, who is best used manning the guns and maintaining equipment. The reactor area intentionally lacks waypoints to discourage bots from pulling your thorium fuel rods out of the reactor and throwing off the automatic reactor control system, though sometimes they'll manage to get in there anyway.
- A status panel has been attached to the navigation console, to make finding stray leaks less irritating.
- One set of extra thorium fuel rods is provided to make the early game progress a bit faster.
- The neutral ballast level has been tweaked to make holding the sub at a standstill more straightforward.
- The interior is slightly better lit when lights are deactivated.
- Two extra fire extinguishers in locations that are less likely to already be on fire when you need the extinguisher.

Automated Reactor Control System:
- Push the left button to activate. Requires automatic control on the reactor to be off, and four thorium fuel rods loaded in the reactor.
- Push the right button to enable direct reactor power to ship systems, which can be useful if your battery is damaged and that mudraptor a few feet below in the cargo compartment is too enthusiastic for you to risk an electrical burn right now.
- The reactor can generally safely be powered off at any time to conserve fuel. For maximum safety, 1) deactivate automatic control, 2) power off the reactor, and 3) set the battery's charge rate to 0%.
- For optimal efficiency, you should turn off the reactor and use battery power once in a while.
- See https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2080129857 for more details.

A depth charge system would make gameplay more interesting, but also probably make things too easy.
7 Comments
Laevateinn  [author] 1 Oct, 2023 @ 5:10pm 
probably broken with patches since it was last looked at, I may or may not fix it at some point. Feel free to give it a shot and publish if you want.
maximustrajan23 1 Oct, 2023 @ 8:46am 
so how do i even get the guns to have power to work? lol
Blart 7 Oct, 2020 @ 4:04pm 
I agree that there's definitely something funky with the electrical system. Normally when you're in a campaign, the sub uses slightly less power than is generated, so the overloading junction boxes normally only happens during level transitions or outpost levels, when the load of the sub seems to get funky and mess up the system. That's why turning the reactor off right before a level transition to let the battery drain for a bit (because it is the battery being full that messes it up) seems to let it run fine for the next level. So far, I haven't come up with an actual solution for this, other than restarting the reactor every round.


Also, Eric hasn't actually released the ARC system Mk.II yet. He's pretty much done with it, but he's fixing a few kinks with the system and doing some last-minute tweaks. To my knowledge, he's going to release it whenever he releases his next big ship (the Persephone), and he's fairly close to finishing it. It'll probably be out in 1-3 weeks.
Blart 7 Oct, 2020 @ 4:02pm 
The deal with the gap thing is that gaps can only work between two hulls. The gaps in the cockpit and engine room are in-between three hulls. So the actual problem that's happening is that when the water is draining into the ballast, it's not actually flowing through the bottom part of the engine's hull directly into the ballast, but it's actually flowing through to the adjacent hull, and then into the ballast. The actual solution was to move and resize the existing gaps so that they would only be crossing over two hulls, and then add more gaps where there technically weren't any before. Gaps are weird, and I didn't fully understand them when I first released the Waverunner lol.
Laevateinn  [author] 7 Oct, 2020 @ 3:21pm 
Thanks for taking a look. I noticed the water in the engine thing - status says it's 4% full even when visually fully drained. Took a look at the gaps/hulls in the editor and it's not obvious to me what's wrong, so I'll take a look at your newer version when I have time.

The electrical system is also a bit finicky, think at some point I'll take apart the automated reactor circuitry and try tweaking it. If you turn off the oxygen generator the right three junction boxes will be slightly overvolted, plus the system doesn't set the fission rate to 0 when the battery fills up. I couldn't find Captain Eric's mk2 system that you were talking about, do you have a link?
Blart 7 Oct, 2020 @ 11:02am 
One thing I do have to say tho, is that you seem to have started on a slightly outdated version of the waverunner. Everything should work fine, but there are some issues with the gaps (mainly the gaps in the cockpit and below the engine) that make water flow kinda funky. It's most noticeable when the ship floods and a tiny sliver of water remains floating below the engine. But yeah, nothing too major, it's an easy fix, and you can just delete this comment if you'd like.
Blart 7 Oct, 2020 @ 10:55am 
You did a really great job with this! There are so many great things you added that I didn't even think about. The hi/lo engine switch is an ingenious addition, all of the storage cabinets linked to the crafting machines is a nice touch, and the CRATE HOLDER! I tried so hard to get a crate holder to fit in there. But yeah, this is a really well done modification, and I commend you for it.