All of the submarine's controls are manipulated using your motion controllers.

At the front of the submarine is a large wheel used for manipulating the rudder (steering left and right). The wheel has two modes, which you can toggle between by flipping the switch in the center of the wheel's front display.

• Heading Mode The default mode, easily identified because the front of the wheel will be lit up like a gauge, with the label "Rudder Assist". In this mode, turning the wheel moves an arrow which sets the target heading (e.g. 220 degrees). The submarine will automatically turn towards and maintain this heading. This is the "easy" steering mode, and is useful in single player because you can set the heading in a couple of seconds and then focus on other tasks.
  
• Rudder Mode This mode is what you probably picture when you think of steering a ship. Turning the wheel directly manipulates the rudder. In other words, turn the wheel to the left to steer left (to port) and turn the wheel right to turn right (starboard). A gauge above and behind the wheel will display the current rudder angle. The controllers will vibrate slightly when the wheel is in the center position, to make it easier to center the rudder.

Tips

• Use Heading mode when navigating towards a distant waypoint, and use Rudder mode when avoiding mines or engaging an enemy ship or submarine
  
• Be careful not to oversteer in Rudder mode. A submarine doesn't turn on a dime, and will continue to turn for several seconds after you move the wheel back to the center. It's usually not a good idea to turn the wheel as far as it will go.
  
• Never walk away from the wheel while it is in Rudder mode and not centered, unless you want your sub to do donuts

To the left of the rudder control are your Air and Ballast controls. In between the two, a gauge labelled "Buoyancy" indicates whether your submarine is currently rising or sinking (negative means sinking, positive means rising). In brief, use Air to rise and ballast to sink.

Both the Air and Ballast are operated by manipulating levels underneath their respective gauges.

• Raising the Air lever will increase the "Current Air Flow" and gradually increase the sub's buoyancy. This will gradually deplete your "Reserve pressurized air", which is slowly restored when the Air Flow is off.
  
• The Ballast (and its gauges) functions exactly the same as the Air, except that it decreases the sub's buoyancy.

Tips

• If both levers are in the off position, the bouyancy will very gradually return to 0. This means the ship might continue to rise or sink past your target depth. If you only want to adjust your depth by a few meters, try not to open the lever all the way or let the buoyancy gauge max out.
  
• You can apply ballast after applying air to rapidly return the buoyancy to neutral, and vice-versa.
  
• Never open both levers at the same time; they will cancel each other out
  
• Never leave an open air or ballast lever unattended
  
• If you take damage, the buoyancy may decrease as the sub starts taking on water. When this happens, open up the Air to prevent the sub from sinking to crush depth.

The Hydrophone, located in the periscope room, is a passive sensor device; it is a more primitive alternative to SONAR, used to detect other vessels. Think of the Hydrophone as a microphone that you can turn 360 degrees. When the Hydrophone is pointed at another sea vessel, you'll be able to hear that vessel's engine noise. (If I remember my navel warfare history correctly, skilled hydrophone operators could distinguish and identify other vessels based only on the sound of their engines).

You can manually set the oriention of the Hydrophone by turning the large wheel underneath its display. When the Hydrophone is pointed at another vessel, you'll hear a loud rumbing noise that sounds sort of like a train rolling across train tracks. A gauge at the top of the Hydrophone will indicate the strength of the noise, which you can use to roughly gauge the distance to the vessel.

When you are not manually operating the hydrophone, it will automatically sweep around the sub, and may hold position for a few seconds when it detects an enemy vessel.

Tips

• The Hydrophone is largely redundant and unnecessary if you have Waypoint Assist turned on. When Waypoint Assist is turned off, you should use the Hydrophone to determine the heading of your next target.

The Periscope allows you to view the surface when the ship is within the blue region of the depth gauge, and is used to target enemy ships and platforms. The Periscope starts out recessed in the ceiling of the Periscope room. You can pull it down to eye level by grasping the handle on the bottom of the Periscope. Once it is at eye level, you can rotate it by grasping the horizontal arms that stick out from its bottom.

The Periscope control has two view openings. One shows the view out of the Periscope; the other (an electronic display resembing a blank RADAR) will show the progress of torpedoes as they approach an enemy vessel. A rotating lever on the left side of the Periscope control is used to raise and lower the Periscope's view; a rotating lever on the right side is used to zoom the view in and out.

Targeting enemies
On the front of the Periscope control is a Lock Target switch. When the Periscope is pointed directly towards an enemy target on the ocean's surface, the Lock Target switch will light up green. Flicking the switch will activate the targeting computer. After a few seconds, the front of the Periscope display should indicate that you have a lock.

On the wall near the periscope are the firing controls and targeting computer. A gauge on the targeting computer will show the "Solution Quality", indicating how likely your torpedo is to hit the target.

To the left of the targeting computer is a bank of four switches, representing the torpedo tubes. Once you have a lock, the switch for any torpedo tube that is armed will turn green. You can flick any green switch to fire the corresponding torpedo (or yell at your crewman in the torpedo room to fire if you are playing multiplayer).

I need to double-check this, but I believe that firing a torpedo will immediately clear your lock, so it is usually not a good idea to fire multiple torpedoes at once unless the target is stationary.

A bank of four levels underneath the firing switches can be used to offset the torpedoes a bit to the left or the right. I'm not sure what this is useful for; it may be for manually aiming the torpedoes in case you don't have time to achieve a lock.

To be expanded...

The Hydroplane control is located between and underneath the Air / Ballast controls. A gauge indicates the current hydroplane setting (from -10 to 10), while a medium-sized wheel is used to adjust the value.

The hydroplane controls the pitch (vertical angle) of the submarine. In other words, it is used to adjust whether the submarine is angled nose-up, nose-down, or level. When the submarine is angled nose-up, it will climb faster. When it is angled nose-down, it will dive faster. Note that adjusting the hydroplane may cause the buoyancy gauge to display misleading values. For example, when the hydroplane is fully in the nose-up position, the submarine may climb although the buoyancy gauge indicates negative buoyancy.

Tips

• The hydroplane value has no visual effect on the submarine itself, only on the gauge. This may be to avoid motion sickness.
  
• Use the hydroplane to rapidly dive or surface while avoiding the depth charges from a Destroyer
  
• Always return the hydroplane to 0 as soon as you finish the current maneuver; otherwise, you're likely to forget its current value, and may find the submarine behaving differently than you expect in subsequent maneuvers.

Located in the Periscope room; although you can interact with these machines, they currently have no function.

You can load and fire torpedoes here. You don't need to use this room if the "Reloading" assist is turned on.

To be expanded...

Damage can be repaired with the welding tool. This is a new feature I haven't actually gotten the chance to try yet.


Fighting airplanes can be fun, but it is largely pointless. The planes have very basic and repetitive attack patterns, so they're relatively easy to shoot down. However, it seems like the planes never stop spawning, and you don't actually gain anything from shooting them down, so in most situations it's safer just to dive and avoid them.

The Destroyer is a very difficult opponent, because it can survive five torpedo hits, moves very quickly, and is deadly-accurate with its depth-charge strikes. To have any hope of defeating the Destroyer, you need to approach it slowly and get off a sneak attack before it spots you.

Once you are within visual range of the Destroyer (about 3000 meters according to the concentric rings of the main display, or 2000 on the Waypoint assist indicator), dive immediately and try to remain submerged for the duration of combat. When you are within 2000/1000 meters, drop down to half speed and move to periscope depth. Make sure you have good visual contact with the Destroyer (don't mix it up with civillian convoy ships).

As soon as you can get a decent lock, try to fire at least two torpedoes at the Destroyer. If it is moving perpendicular to you and you have a good view of its broadside, I suggest firing all four torpedoes. Some of them will probably miss, but the more you can hit it with up front, the better. As soon as you fire, the Destroyer is likely to become aware of your presence and start angling towards you. If you didn't fire all your torpedoes in the initial barrage, try to line up and fire any remaining torpedoes while it is headed straight towards you.

If you don't manage to hit the Destroyer before it starts dropping depth charges, I strongly suggest aborting the mission and restarting. You are very unlikely to be able to defeat it if you don't land the first hits.

When the Destroyer picks you up on its SONAR, you'll hear the SONAR pinging against your hull. If the pings become more frequent, that means the Destroyer has a good fix on your location (which is bad). Once Destroyer detects you, it will make continuous bombing runs, where it sails directly above you and drops depth charges. You move much too slowly to avoid these, so your best hope is to change depth very quickly, so that the depth charges (going off at your previous depth) will do less damage.

These depth charge attacks are very frustrating, because they are almost impossible to avoid, and any hit you take will cause you to start taking on water and losing depth. The amount of time it takes to recover from a depth-charge strike is almost the same as the amount of time it takes for the Destroyer to come about and make another run, so it's easy to get stuck in an endless rut of taking damage, and barely recovering just in time to take the next wave of damage.

As soon as the Destroyer finishes an attack, you need to start your next manevuer. If the Destroyer is in front of you, climb to periscope depth and try to make a torpedo attack.

If the Destroyer is moving behind you, dive to around 50 - 70 meters and change headings to try and lose him. It may seem counter-intuitive, but I suggest staying at half-speed while battling with a Destroyer. You can't hope to outrun his attacks even at full speed, but at half speed you make less noise and he may temporarily lose track of you. Once you hit 50 meters, carefully watch your main display to monitor the Destroyer's position. You should see him come around and start sending off SONAR pings. If you're lucky, these first few pings will miss you. Try to avoid his pings as long as possible. If he gets a solid lock on you, don't keep trying to evade; focus on a rapid depth change at the last moment to avoid the charges. Once he's in front of you again, try another torpedo run.

After taking a few hits, the Destroyer will visibly catch fire. It may behave more erratically from this point. I've noticed a Destroyer that has taken four hits will occasionally abort his attack runs, which can give you a golden opportunity to finish him off.