Loading Tips

Loading Tips are pieces of advice and lore that are displayed as a level (Round) is loading. As of Version 1.0.8.0, there are 65 unique tips, which vary in content from information about Europa, creatures, installations, medical conditions, and more. One of the following tips is displayed each time the game is booted up and each time a round is started.

Tips

• You will not get paid for delivering cargo if any of the cargo goes missing or gets damaged during the transport.
• Generating more power than the devices in the submarine are consuming may damage junction boxes or cause fires.
• Junction boxes and other electrical devices may get damaged if they stay submerged too long.
• Letting the submarine's nuclear reactor overheat may cause fires. If an overheated reactor is not shut down, it will eventually lead to a nuclear meltdown.
• Most submarines are equipped with stationary batteries that can be used as a temporary source of backup power in the case of a reactor failure.
• Railgun shells and depth charges include a compartment that can hold additional explosives.
• Passive sonar can be used to detect nearby sound sources without attracting unwanted attention. You can also get a rough idea of your surroundings based on the sounds reflected from the ice walls.
• There are many ways to get past locked doors, including forcing them open with a crowbar or rewiring them to a button you have access to.
• Stationary batteries are equipped with docks that can be used to charge battery cells.
• Oxygen generators are equipped with docks that can be used to refill oxygen tanks.
• Supercapacitors can deliver large bursts of power, but cannot store as much energy as batteries. They are often used to power railguns and other devices that require brief bursts of high current.
• Nuclear reactors are equipped with an automatic control system that adjusts the power output to a suitable level when enabled. However, the system is not always fast enough to react to large fluctuations in power consumption.
• The sonar imaging on the navigation terminal may become inaccurate if the terminal is damaged—make sure your engineers keep the terminal in a good condition!
• When deploying a decoy, be sure to deactivate your active sonar for best results.
• Attempting to rewire powered devices without adequate electrical engineering skills may get you electrocuted.
• Welding tools are simple enough to be used by any submariner, but trained mechanics are generally faster welders and have a lower risk of injuring themselves with the tool.
• All submariners have been trained to do basic repairs on electrical devices, but electrical engineers get the job done much faster.
• All submariners have been trained to do basic repairs on mechanical devices, but mechanics get the job done much faster.
• Captains are generally much more adept at maneuvering the submarine than the average sailor.
• If the reactor on a sub is not able to produce sufficient power to run all onboard systems, try reducing the charge rate for the onboard batteries and supercapacitors, or regulate the times when the sub is running at full speed.
• The electrical and mechanical systems on a sub will gradually degrade due to the harsh conditions and constant wear and tear. Be sure to have mechanics and engineers perform maintenance from time to time in order to avoid breakdowns at inopportune moments.
• Breaking down alien artifacts in a deconstructor may provide you with exotic raw materials.
• Some of the alien structures on Europa have been constructed of a metamaterial that's outstandingly resistant to physical damage, and as such has become an important subject of research to Europan scientists.
• Special caution must be taken when bringing alien artifacts on board the submarine.
• Very little is known of the presumably extinct alien civilization that built the ruins scattered all across Europa. The age of the ruins is also a mystery, since the self-repairing properties of the structures and devices make chronological dating methods wildly inaccurate.
• No remains of the alien lifeforms that built the ruins scattered all across Europa have ever been discovered. The only life encountered inside the structures are the biomechanical entities that maintain and guard them.
• While exploring ruins or caves, drop flares as often as possible to help mark a path out, should you need to make a hasty exit for some reason.
• Watchers are docile but inquisitive creatures: despite having no desire to attack submarines, they frequently approach ships to gaze at human activities.
• Cannibalistic behavior is very common among crawlers. Killing one in a swarm may distract the rest as they enter into a feeding frenzy.
• Mudraptors can easily tear their way through metal doors with their sharp beaks.
• The so-called husk parasites slowly take over and consume the body of their host, eventually turning them into nothing but an empty exoskeleton controlled by the parasite.
• Many creatures on Europa are protected by a strong shell, and are difficult to damage with conventional weapons, though there may be weak points in their armor.
• Loud devices and sonar pings may alert nearby creatures.
• Performing CPR without adequate medical skills may cause internal damage to the patient.
• Opiates such as morphine and fentanyl are an effective way of treating injuries in an emergency, but regular use may eventually lead to a state of addiction and cause dangerous withdrawal symptoms.
• Bleeding wounds can be treated with bandages and hemostatic agents. The patient may also need saline or blood packs to replace the lost blood.
• Mental disorders such as psychosis are unfortunately common among submarine crews, particularly after ruin expeditions. If your crewmates start seeing or hearing things others don't see or hear, report it to a medical doctor immediately.
• The medical doctors' main task is to keep the crew in a good shape, but a medic with a syringe gun and a bit of knowhow on poisons can also be very useful in fending off intruders.
• Administering drugs without sufficient medical knowledge may reduce the quality of the effects of the drug.
• Many drugs may have unintended side effects. Keep an eye on the patient and be ready to administer additional medications to counteract these side effects if necessary.
• When using a diving mask, be careful not to mix up welding fuel tanks and oxygen tanks.
• Diving masks let you breathe underwater, but don't offer any protection against the bone-crushing pressure outside the submarine. If there's a major hull breach, find a diving suit immediately.
• In the event of a fire, burns are not the only thing to watch out for—fires can quickly consume all the oxygen inside the submarine.
• Traversing the so-called Hydrothermal Wastes requires special caution. Not only are they abundant in wildlife, but the water currents caused by geothermal activity make navigation even more hazardous.
• Some of the sessile lifeforms in Europa emit low-frequency sounds that may disrupt the submarine's sonar.
• Europa is rich in natural resources, and an enterprising captain with a sharp eye and a plasma cutter may stand to make a tidy profit.
• You can disguise yourself as someone else by wearing their ID card and something that covers your face.
• It's possible to build voice-controlled systems by linking wifi components to the radio chat in the submarine editor.
• The radiation belts around Jupiter make it impracticable to establish permanent settlements above Europa's surface, and as such almost all Europan outposts are located below its icy crust.
• The dynamics of Europa's underwater ecosystem are still not fully understood, but it is believed that the base of the food chain is mostly formed by chemosynthetic bacteria.
• The Europa Coalition started off as a trade and cooperation agreement between the two largest Europan settlements and a handful of private paramilitary groups, but gradually grew to become what is essentially the Europan government.
• The much-ridiculed initiative to help submariners cope in a high-stress environment by including professional entertainers in the crews was promptly deemed a failure and discontinued.
• Most vessels avoid venturing outside the tunnels and cracks within Europa's icy crust—the vast, empty Abyss between the surface layers and the rocky interior hosts many of Europa's largest and most dangerous inhabitants.
• If left undisturbed for several years, a colony of Ballast Flora can eventually grow into a Thalamus, an intelligent organism capable of exerting some degree of control over the systems of the submarine it's inhabiting.
• You can give context-sensitive commands when the cursor is over a usable object by holding down shift and opening the command interface.
• Making trouble at an outpost hurts your reputation. A bad reputation might cause the inhabitants of the outpost to charge you a premium for their services, or, in more extreme cases, lead to a confrontation with their security.
• Many Europan outposts don't recognize the Coalition's authority, although it is still powerful enough that few dare to openly oppose it. However, there are groups such as the Jovian Separatists who do fight against it, aiming to bring it down and create a more democratic society.
• Behold the Watcher. Don't lose your mind.
• Ice spires are enormous icy projections that sometimes burst through the subsurface tunnels under Europa's crust. Submarine crews are advised to avoid any contact with the spires, or to destroy any they come across, as the sharp edges can easily tear through a submarine's hull.
• Most of the human habitation on Europa is situated in the so-called Cold Caverns. Due to the cold water and relative proximity to the surface, this biome is biologically less diverse than others, primarily hosting moderate concentrations of crawlers and practically no vegetation.
• Straddling the border between surface ice and the denser, rockier subsurface ice layer, the Europan Ridge is the area along the western-most slope of the Eye of Europa. Warmer water is convected into this area, allowing a wider array of life to subsist.
• The Aphotic Plateau sits atop the western rim of an ancient impact crater known as the Eye of Europa. As with the neighboring Europan Ridge, the Plateau’s tunnel networks consist mostly of dark, rocky ice pressed as hard as any stone by the unimaginable weight of the ice above it.
• The poorly understood "Piezo Crystals" found in The Great Sea pose some extra challenges to crews travelling through the region: Navigating too close to one may cause disruptions in the submarine's electrical grid.
• Generating more power than your sub's devices require leads to overvoltage, which can be used to push some devices (such as engines and pumps) past their normal capacity. However, a too-high voltage level may also damage devices.
• The Eye of Europa, and the strange gravitational phenomenon around it, has puzzled scientists ever since it's discovery by the first unmanned missions to Europa. Conveniently for Europan colonists, the gravity around the Eye is close to that of Earth's, instead of the normal 0.13 G surface gravity elsewhere on the moon.
• The shrimp-like mantis was believed to have been hunted to extinction by Europan colonists, but recently a new, venomous subspecies was discovered. The cave-dwelling mantises are known to change the color of their shell and are very effective at camouflaging themselves on cave walls, which most likely gave them an advantage over their bright-orange cousins.

Gallery

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  Barotrauma's loading screen in Version 0.9.0.6 featuring a loading tip regarding water pressure.