Abzu mining is pain

[JohnnyJohn]

It really is. Every single time I mine on oshan or neon, it's just bullshit. Run into a random sharkdrone I couldn't detect? Dead. Run into some trilobytes? Pinned in place and suplexed until dead. Take a pod for protection? The weak mining phaser can't even dig what I need. Go on foot to get materials to upgrade the pod? Dead. It's just an unwinnable lose-lose! What the hell am I supposed to do?

[Sord213]

I'm gonna say this, but know I'm not being a huge turd. It's a skill issue. There's strategies and things to learn about fighting the trench creatures. I have some tips to hopefully help your mining misadventures:

You can tank a gunshark face on while simply wearing the full dive suit. Whack it until it dies and you'll have most of your health remaining. Alternatively the weak mining phaser can enable you to beat the gunshark (and most other critters sans the big evil syndicate drones) with no physical damage. Just don't forget a welder to repair. Alternatively find some cover (or make it by mining!) and duck behind the cover when the shark shoots, then duck out and take a few whacks at it before retreating again.

Use Z to resist out of grabs of the pikaia. Punch/whack them to death. Moving away before it gets an aggressive grab on you will also break the grab.

Try to avoid upsetting big groups of buried trilobytes, they're nasty in large groups. Keep your headlight on so you can see the little cracks in the ground that means there's a creature buried there better.

The pikaia and hallucigenia drop goo that heals you pretty well when you eat it. Yes, really.

Ramming into a hallucigenia with your submarine will kill it instantly.

Overall just use a submarine as a critter fighting machine.

Use the special attack of your mining tools if you're having trouble clicking the critters.

Loot the trench loot crates. Phasers, lasers, and zip guns make killing trench critters super easy.

RUN THE FUCK AWAY from the big syndicate drones. Those WILL fuck you up.

Fish drones are another one that can fuck you up.

DON'T RUN THE FUCK AWAY from most other trench critters unless massively outnumbered. 2 or 3 trilobytes? Stand and fight, that gives you better fighting odds. Running away just gives them free shots at you. But if there's a huge group, probably best to run. Try to confuse their pathing if you have to run. Don't run in a straight line, run around corners repeatedly until they stop chasing you.

[Mouse]

Old roguelike tip: dig a one tile wide tunnel into rocks when you get swarmed to minimize the number of mobs that can attack you at one time.

Another tip: Make a coral spear (which you can do roundstart with no mining, use wirecutters on coral on the station z-level, steal steel from a manufacturer), which will give you a 10 damage weapon with a special attack that hits the two tiles (and everything on them) in front of you. Spam this.

[Emimiyu]

First and always, turn off auto sell so those pesky qm and roboticist won't suddenly mass buy 3000000 ores.

Second, mine on the safe area around the elevator first. Check if you have enough things for good pod/suit upgrade (or beg at qm to buy rock poop and glowy stone). You are mostly safe on the trench tile. Or open up crates for plasma cutter, I only use the pod so I can teleported away from my proble..

Optional, beg from QM or medbay to get you a first aid kkt.

[JohnnyJohn]

I'm gonna say this, but know I'm not being a huge turd. It's a skill issue. There's strategies and things to learn about fighting the trench creatures. I have some tips to hopefully help your mining misadventures:

You can tank a gunshark face on while simply wearing the full dive suit. Whack it until it dies and you'll have most of your health remaining. Alternatively the weak mining phaser can enable you to beat the gunshark (and most other critters sans the big evil syndicate drones) with no physical damage. Just don't forget a welder to repair. Alternatively find some cover (or make it by mining!) and duck behind the cover when the shark shoots, then duck out and take a few whacks at it before retreating again.

Use Z to resist out of grabs of the pikaia. Punch/whack them to death. Moving away before it gets an aggressive grab on you will also break the grab.

Try to avoid upsetting big groups of buried trilobytes, they're nasty in large groups. Keep your headlight on so you can see the little cracks in the ground that means there's a creature buried there better.

The pikaia and hallucigenia drop goo that heals you pretty well when you eat it. Yes, really.

Ramming into a hallucigenia with your submarine will kill it instantly.

Overall just use a submarine as a critter fighting machine.

Use the special attack of your mining tools if you're having trouble clicking the critters.

Loot the trench loot crates. Phasers, lasers, and zip guns make killing trench critters super easy.

RUN THE FUCK AWAY from the big syndicate drones. Those WILL fuck you up.

Fish drones are another one that can fuck you up.

DON'T RUN THE FUCK AWAY from most other trench critters unless massively outnumbered. 2 or 3 trilobytes? Stand and fight, that gives you better fighting odds. Running away just gives them free shots at you. But if there's a huge group, probably best to run. Try to confuse their pathing if you have to run. Don't run in a straight line, run around corners repeatedly until they stop chasing you.

First problem is that the standard diving suit does NOT fend off bullets that well. Taking it all point-blank will still bring me to crit. Second, I'm using my tools to full potential. Like, powering them on and everything. Third, other drones are way too fast and can easily catch up, especially if I'm at low health. This has happened to me before. Fourth, visibility in the trench is terrible, even with lights and meson goggles. I can barely see around to begin with, let alone minute little cracks in the ground.

[Mouse]

A full sharkdrone burst is, IIRC, 12 bullets, each of which does 1 damage.  A regular diving suit reduces ranged damage by 1/3, so that burst will do 8 damage.  You need to take 13 bursts to enter crit.  The bursts have >1 second delay between each other, meaning that you'll get more attacks in than it gets bursts in.  If you can't kill it before it crits you then I'm honestly not sure what to say.