Dive or Die Beginner Guide (TIPS and TRICKS)

In Dive or Die, you only have 40 days to save humanity, so you want to make the most out of every day. Here are 18 beginner tips and tricks that should make your diving more efficient and just a little bit easier.

Caution, extremely minor spoilers ahead

1 - The most important thing in Dive or Dive is your oxygen and depth. Always keep an eye on your diving depth at the top of the screen and the air remaining in the bottom left. It gives you an alert when you hit 50 percent oxygen, as well as 25 and 10. Take note of depth when you hit 50 oxygen.

2 - Speaking of oxygen, use B to dash if you prefer going faster, it uses more 70 percent more oxygen, but also makes you go faster 70 percent faster, so it balances out doesn’t use any extra oxygen when you factor in distance as well.

3 - Watch out for the Killer algae. Once you get a knife you’ll be able slice it and kill it with one or two swipes. It might give you some algae tissue, but beware it will regrow after a short period, which you’ll need to be aware of if it’s on your exit path.

4 - As much as you want to collect goods and resources for crafting and upgrades. Your first priority will be to keep your people fed and sane, so make sure you bring back enough mementos and canned food first.

5 - In the case you have filled your pack before you found something you really need, you can open up your pack with Y on controller and then use X to drop. It won’t drop all of the same resource, which is nice if you only need a little extra weight.

6 - When you get to an area with a lot of different items in one spot, you can use the directional pad to the right to switch to the next item in the vicinity. This is great if you dropped a bunch of items from your pack and need to pick one back up.

7 - Minerals spots are always in the same location attached to the sea bed or sea wall. They don’t always spawn, but iIf you need a specific resource like lithium, it will possibly spawn where you found it the first time.

8 - You’ll need to expand your camp so that more people can work on the different structures or dive when Joe Saltman eventually dies or goes insane. There are a few ways that you’ll get new recruits, but the two most common are sending people on autonomous expeditions, which will yield better survivors or every day at the lighthouse a new one will show up.  However, the ones that arrive at the lighthouse aren’t always the best, as they might have bad stats or negative traits, but You don’t need to always accept new recruits. So think about how badly you need a survivor  because they will deplete your resources faster.

9 - Speaking of depleting your resources. When you level up your survivors, one of the first traits you can select is sobriety, which is undervalued and I would highly recommend for most of the people who you deem a worker and not a diver because sobriety will cause them to drain one less food and one less sanity per day. If you don’t have enough food people will go unconscious meaning they won’t be able to be used until they are cured at the infirmary

10 - During diving, there are thresholds where the pressure increases and depletes your oxygen faster. The first threshold is at 50m. To counteract this, there is a rebreather, but you’ll have to find the blueprint and craft it first.

11 - Listen to the ocean. Dive or Dive has some incredible audio design and audio is the first clue. If something sounds off, or there is a change in music or you hear a weird sound you haven’t heard before, Proceed with extreme caution as something might be making its way towards you

12 - It might not be obvious how you go insane, but once you do, it will start to drain your oxygen at an incredibly dangerous rate which could spell death depending on how far you’re down when it happens. Also, when you get back to the surface you’ll need to be cured of negative traits at the infirmary. One of the worst ways to increase your insanity is from leeches as they can quickly accumulate.

13 - Keep an eye open for new spots to surface at the top. There are three in total. You’ll always be able to return to surface at these spots, but once you upgrade your diving deck, you’ll be able to start your dive from there as well, which can greatly change the success of a dive depending on where you need to go.

14 - To upgrade any location, it needs to be operated  by someone and it makes sense to keep the same person at the same location as you can upgrade that survivor with specific location bonuses. For example you’ll need to upgrade the lighthouse to send out expeditions, or upgrade the diving deck to access different dive starts

15 - There are eight idols that you need to find in the depths to appease the rain maker, but each idol grants you an eldritch power during your dive that operates on a cool down or limited use. Don’t  forget to use your Eldritch power. One of the first you find will pacify enemies in your vicinity for a short period, which works extremely well for areas with high concentrations of leeches.

16 - In the toxic area don’t slice the red strands if you don’t need the web resource because it will alert the crawler who can potentially kill you with one attack.  If you swim around the red strands, there is a much greater chance that it won’t be alerted.

17 - To bless items you’ll need to either make a sacrifice underneath from some tremor looking creature by giving the life of one of your divers or you can wait for the moonlight beam of the blue moon to bless items. Drop all the items you need blessed and hover around the items until the beam locks.  Once it stops moving, swim out of the way or it will kill you instantly.

18 - Not everything is dangerous under the surface. You will see a fish that glows and looks like a puffer fish. This is the Boon Fish, but it works like a treasure goblin as it constantly tries to swim away. I wouldn’t suggest chasing it unless it makes sense as you might lose health and will definitely lose oxygen. Make this decision based on the color of the boon fish. Purple refill some sanity, red will refill some health, and white refills oxygen. Sometimes you can burn a lot more resources trying to get it than you’ll get in return.