I bought Sunless sea this month, and I’d like to start by saying I’ve never played a computer game before, so while exploring and trading island to island is fairly intuitive from playing Fallen London, I think that my lack of experience with shooting/aiming games prevents me from anything beyond trying to run away from every monster that appears.
When one appears, the battle icon lights up, but too often the loading progress gets blocked out and I can only ever fire off a shot by stopping in the waters and waiting for the monster to remain within range, which doesn’t seem quite right. Is there a method for engaging with an enemy, even if the ship is facing away from them or if they’re going out of the range of your prow light? It seems that you can’t shoot with that light off, but with the light on they come too fast for the guns to load, so I’m not sure if I should be trying to trade for a new boat without engaging with any enemies.
It’s incredibly frustrating not being able to turn and fight when the loading icon just stops. I’ve figured out that you can sort of fire at things even if the head of the ship isn’t facing them, and even so, those two arrows by its side still confound me with their mysterious purpose, which really weren’t the mysteries that I wanted to be faced with when I started. Any help would be appreciated!
You can only prepare firing solution (the loady thing) when the enemy is in your firing arc. So long as they stay within the red border, you can let it load. I’m not sure why you can’t fire with your lights off? I do all my combat under a blackout. That’s the best strategy I’ve happened upon. Early combat involves a lot of that kind of sneak-attacking. Although if you get spotted, you do end up in situations like going full speed reverse away from a lifeberg almost all the way to the northernmost border of the map. The only way you can fire at something is if it’s in your arc. And the only way you can add arcs is to add guns.
The next gun costs…150? I think? You should be able to cover it after a few rounds back and forth ferrying tomb colonists. Faster, if you take on admiralty commissions. I’m aiming for a flensing cannon, which costs 200. Any other tips will have to come from people who’ve gone farther in the game than me.
If you turn on combat mode and then click on an enemy you can build a firing solution even if your lights aren’t on and they haven’t spotted you.[li] edited by MrChapeau on 11/22/2014
Thank you! I suppose I do have to turn more (without going in circles all day), so retreat while reversing seems to work best. (finally made it to Mt Palmerston with the running the hell away strategy though)[li]
I definitely advocate the sneaky strategy early on too. Lights off, quietly putter towards the target, and those first couple of shots before they’ve spotted you can make all the difference.
I have an issue where I can’t fire salvos - only torpedoes. I have no idea how to fire salvos. Is it because I need to hope multiple weapon systems? I have the Bandersnatch currently and that served as both main guns and torpedos. edited by Galdis on 11/24/2014