Aquanox: Deep Descent — How to Buy and Craft Ammo

You’re going to need a lot of ammo to take down enemy ships in Aquanox: Deep Descent. But there’s a conspicuous lack of the stuff in Aquanox‘s early levels. Your initial weapons, such as the Sting Ray MK2 Gatlin cannon, will rip through your supplies quickly, even if you lock onto enemies using the middle mouse button.

Destroying ships and blasting open crates is one way to get ammo in Aquanox: Deep Descent. Enemy ships will sometimes drop bullets, rockets, and other ammo types when they’re destroyed, which you can find floating in their wreckage. These show up on your mini-map as a row of bullets, missiles, or shotgun shells. 

You can also break open crates that are found on the seafloor, cliffs, and other outcroppings. Sometimes these are found alongside scannable wreckage. Sometimes they aren’t. And not all crates can be broken open. 

Those that can shimmer and are distinguished from Salvage by their lack of a purple glow. You’ll need to shoot these crates to break them open, but they only take one shot from your Gatlin cannon. 

However, relying on this method for getting more ammo isn’t really efficient. Drops from enemy ships and crates are random, not to mention few and far between. 

Instead, you should focus on buying and crafting ammo. It’s not clear how to do either, and if you’re like me, you might find yourself scratching your head while looking through the menus. 

How to Buy and Craft Ammo

To buy or craft ammo, you’ll need to dock your ship at either a capital ship or at one of the undersea bases, such as Port Royale. In the top left of the docking screen, you’ll see a row of icons.

• Click on the screwdriver and wrench icon to open up the mechanic screen
• Click on the bomb icon to the right of the screwdriver and wrench
• Click the first box below the icons (two weapons will be in the box)
• Click on one of your weapon slots, doesn’t matter which one
• Click the weapon you want more ammo for, which pops up underneath your weapon slot in a scrollable list
• To buy ammo, press “V” or click “Purchase” 
• To craft ammo, press “C” or click “Craft”

To buy ammo, you’ll need Credits, which can be found by completing some missions, destroying other ships, breaking open some crates, and selling crafting parts to the Merchant.

Neither difficulty nor ship-type seems to impact how many credits you get from destroying enemy ships, though the number of credits you receive seems random. I loaded a save 10 times in a row, and the number of credits I received from destroying the same two ships was different every time. 

To craft ammo, you’ll need various crafting items, such as parts, oxygen, fuel, iron, and nitrogen, depending on the ammo you’d like to craft. You can gather these parts from crates and Salvage, or you can buy them from the Merchant in capital ships or undersea bases. 

That’s all you need to know on how to buy and craft ammo in Aquanox: Deep Descent. It’s easy to do but also easy to overlook. Make sure you stock up on ammo before going out on missions and make every shot count. If you found this guide helpful, please consider sharing it!