Yes, you can play this game singleplayer, and I personally find it even more enjoyable singleplayer than multiplayer.

When playing solo, you can get AI crewmembers to help run the submarine and do the various tasks. They can often be even better than normal players when it comes to the more mundane tasks, leaving you time to do fun tasks like piloting, shooting weapons, crafting equipment, preforming first aid, and doing EVA missions.

Of course singleplayer isn't for everyone, it can get tedious at times, and goofing around with friends is a big part of the game. The bots can be stupid and get themselves killed, so be prepaired for 20 minutes of gameplay to be restarted if you want to keep everyone alive. The good news is that in the campaign, you can posses bots at will, allowing you to micromanage everyone and overcome difficulty through skill.

Overall, Barotrauma is worth it for just the singleplayer campaign alone, the multiplayer and submarine editor is a further bonus.

Yes, you have bots which can fill the rolls.
You can also give them commands to follow you in the water

Only a few issues
1. Bots are not smart. They will happily stay inside gas which drains their o2
2. Bots can't mine, but you can access their inventory to store goods in them
3. They will protect you - as long as you aren't in the way and they have clean line of sight
4. They struggle pathing around destroyed walls. They will claim it is impossible to cross
5. They will over medicate you - so don't keep bots on healing unless emergency

Otherwise bots are fine,
They will repair the ship
They use ship guns better than most humans because they can see much further
they will automatically reload turrets - but they won't think what they are loading. They will prioritize reloading same ammo as already in the turret then switching to nearest option.
They won't pick best ammo type for situation, you got to do that manually

Also there is a workshop where you can download custom submarines. If you want to play without bots, there is always the option of downloading a submarine that is smaller and can be fully operated by just one person.

yes, select the campaign mode

Thanks for all the advice. Really appreciate it.

Originally posted by jpinard:

Thanks for all the advice. Really appreciate it.

Feel I have to throw my two cents in, given that I am still a learning player and have only played solo exclusively, full vanilla.

I did a post asking about crew management not too long ago because let me tell ya, you and the retry button will get veeeeery acquainted real fast, real soon. Unlike other crew management games, this one does NOT have a pause button! So your bots better be sat up correctly, except they won't because it's impossible to predict every situation, but otherwise get ready for sh*tshow after sh*tshow. I'll sum up some of the more useful tips I got from the community:

- For the love of honk, DON'T allow them to leave your guns unmanned when there's a school bus full of crawlers and/or mudraptors and/or anything knocking around your hull looking to eat those delicious walking meat sticks inside. However..
- Also prioritize fighting intruders. This means your gunners CANNOT be your enforcers, so it'll be up to your captn, mechanics, engineers and whatnot, to fight intruders.
- When hits the fan, LET THE SUB SINK. Even better, park it yourself and get one worry off your mind. If you are sinking tho, at least remember to steer it safely into leveled terrain and away from pits.

Would add other things I've had to learn.. the hard way, but I don't wanna make this post much longer. Good luck cmmndr! o7

Early game can be a bit finicky without trained crew and sub upgrades, but in the middle and late game parts of the game you should have little trouble if you can figure out how to run your sub and which orders work best.

At some point your electrics will run so smoothly you barely have to keep an engineer on standby to repair them and pumps pumping so fast you'll barely ever fit the floor, but before that you'll have to give efficient orders and sometimes rely on multitasking to get the job done.

Thanks for the tips. You guys rock!

Originally posted by jpinard:

Thanks for the tips. You guys rock!

+1 this all helped a LOT, thanks everyone!

single player for adhd players sucks, but luckily theres a mod that can increase game speed

you can.. but at times its gonna feel unplayable or at least crazy frustrating because of the pathing issues... the bots just get stuck on ladders for 5 mins and fix nothing till you have multiple broken systems and sink or will live in the ballast till they run out of oxygen and die... really surprising they havnt fixed this yet as so many people comment on it.... not that even going into how hard it is to actually get 1 to follow you outside the sub and watch your back as you mine. Online multiplayer is better if you can find some reliable players who dont grief your campaign atempt.

I am playing it singleplayer. It's a different game to co-op because some things you HAVE to do yourself, and you HAVE to set your team and sub correctly.

Engineers, Mechanics and Assistants can run the sub themselves. They can repair, control reactor, shoot guns, and patch the hull with 100% efficiency.
A bot can also steer the sub, but 99.999% of the time you should park the sub and engage autopilot to hold position.
The only reason to keep Captain as bot at the Helm is to have him call out targets on the sonar.

What your crew cannot do is harvest loot from killed creatures, mine minerals or even find them, water plants, or deal with any kind of away mission.

What you need to do is have your crew orders laid out so that everyone can fix leaks (unless they have three more important tasks, or they man the guns).
When the Latcher hits the fan, all hell will break loose and there will be no time to fiddle with crew orders or do everything yourself.
Electricians/Assistants should fix 'letrics, or one should hug the Reactor at all times.
Mechanic can fix stuff.
Everybody who is able to fight, and is not a dedicated gunner should have defend from intruders as 1st priority. Fix leaks is 2nd, unless they are Electrician/Mechanic, but they should not fight or fix leaks because they have better things to do.
Remember to buy extra welding tools if you have a lot of people fixing leaks.

Don't worry too much if your orders aren't perfect. People will die, duffel bags will be left unattended at the next outpost, and everyone will live and learn. As long as they live.
Or learn.

Right clicking on an existing order will temporarily deactivate it. Sometimes this is useful. For example maybe you don't want a bot medic (there's a phrase that fills with fear) administering drugs because the afflictions are minor and non-lethal, or you're training a rookie electrician and well...
Or maybe you want to let the sub drift while you do something else, but the eager beaver helmsman will take over and engage autopilot, parking the sub.
Left clicking on a deactivated order, reactivates it.

You will get the hang of it, but for starters just know you can use right and left clicks.

- if crewmember mans the guns, the gun is 1st priority. And NEVER disabled unless you know what you're doing. Seriously!
- make sure 1 person at least is set to put out fires. They won't otherwise...
- if you want to train an Assistant, you should deactivate higher skill crew from doing the same tasks.
- it's ok to have only two tasks for a crewmember. If they get sent on away missions often, it's actually easier.

Speaking of away missions...

You also need a separate set of orders for away missions.
It helps if you have an Assistant acting as second banana engineer/mechanic, so the main crewmember can leave the sub without the O2 generator failing or every junction box catching fire.

For easy solo missions like early beacons or minerals gathering in caves cleared of enemies, you just need to have an Assistant take over the duties from the Engineer/Mechanic who is away.

If you need backup outside, and by the time you reach the first transition this will certainly be the case, you will need to work some crew order magic in order to have bots cover you and help you work.
They can do it, but they need orders.

First pick the main person for the mission. This is the one you will control. You MUST give them the stand still order and make sure it's the 1st priority. If you do not, first time you swicth control to another bot, your guy/gal will swim straight back to the sub, even through a Crawler banquet.
You need them to stay put.

Secondly, pick one or two or three teammates and give them the follow order. When ordered to follow, they will never leave the person you're controling. If you use a scooter, they will use one. If you put on a diving suit, they will put one on.
They are smart enough.
If a hostile attacks, they will shoot.

What they can't do, is avoid gas vents or ice spikes. So have a LOT of extra oxygen canisters, and destroy crystals with a Plasma Cutter.

Thirdly, you should position the sub very close to the area the away team is exploring. Park it so it's blind spots are against the wall, and the turrets have good coverage.
Unless you're frightened, leave the sonar on active. Maybe the sub can annoy whatever is guarding the caves and lure them out.
Much easier if the sub weapons kill them.

Fourthly, you should try damn hard to acquire a cargo scooter. Just one will be enough, and it for sure is hella nnoying to use but you're risking a lot for the loot, and sometimes there is a LOT of loot.

Fiftlhy, the people covering you during the excursion should be able to use weapons. Don't expect them to dual wield or use weapons intelligently. That does not matter, all that matters is that they have weapons and Weapons skill. They will shoot and kill. Good enough.

Finally, one of the away team should be a medic. Bot medics are a bit stupid on their own, but they can keep people alive.
Still, you should NOT let them act on their own. They must have Follow as 1st priority.
In case you need a medic, take over them and use their skill and equipment yourself, then switch back to your main character.

And finally, finally. You will at some point come across the Raptor Bane plant. Buy one, deconstruct it for the seed, lie, cheat, or steal a plant pot and grow that plant!
When you are able to manufacture Raptor Bane extract, and have a syringe gun, put it in a safe place, never let a bot near it, and always bring one along with you.
If you don't have it, i suggest you leave Mudraptors you encounter in the wild well alone. Unless you just started the round and don't mind restarting it.


So this is a long, ranty, post. But i wanted to share some important priorities when playing solo. You have to manage crew much more directly. You will live and die by the crew orders.
Learn from your mistakes.

All the rest you can figure out yourself.
In co-op, people can organize and work together. In single, you cannot multitask so you have to rely on bots having the right priorities.

Oh, and try to have as many diving suits as you have crew.
Esp. if you're piloting the Barsuk.

If you're playing solo with bots, make sure you have at least one nuclear engineer and one electrical engineer, and at least a couple other guys.

Set up everyone's tasks in order of importance; everybody should probably have "Fight Intruders" and "Fix Leaks" as their most important jobs so you don't end up with them doing irrelevant tasks as the ship is filled with aliens and sinking.

Other than that, the nuclear engineer should be primarily manning the reactor and the electrical guy should be running around repairing the electrical stuff, and everybody else should be doing maintenance on the non-electrical stuff. Maintenance needs to be done constantly, even if nothing is going wrong. And if you have enough guys for it, you might want to have some of them man weapons at all times.

I get assistants because they are cheap and level them up with indentured servitude. Five indentured servitudes stack to make assistants free to recruit, so you can max your crew and take losses cheap. Later I get one non-assistant in each specialty to get their bonuses. One apprentice for each job.
Gunners for each gun and they do nothing else. Unmanned guns are bad.
Electrician powers up reactor and nothing else. Power outage is bad, and don't want him to do risky stuff lose his ship buffs.
Low level assistants fight intruders & fix leaks, and go diving. Dangerous job.
Mechanic repairs and maintains, don't wan't to risk him and lose his ship buffs.
One layabout with carry ammunition.
Apprentices fix leaks but don't fight intruders for less risk.
Repair and maintains too.