This guide assumes you know all the precious endgame information (but haven’t yet beat the game so please be kind in the comments), and it is intended ONLY for if you’re stuck on Dark Bramble.

Dark Bramble’s scary as ♥♥♥♥. But if you know exactly where to go, it can be a straight shot with no fish in your way. I’ve tested the following configurations by basically flying my ship as freely and carelessly as if I were not inside Dark Bramble, so I can say with a high degree of certainty that if you follow these orientations, you’re either not going to run into any fish or you at least won’t manage to aggro any nearby on ~2 bars.

Some general tips:

• The fish hate noise, but they hate it from certain directions. The more directly you head for a seed straight from the opening, the less likely you’re going to set off a fish.
  
• You shouldn't run into a fish on the clear routes. But just in case, if you see it groan and move your way, just let go of the throttle. If you're going fast enough, the fish will stay focused on where it first heard the sound and you'll keep on coasting past it, so...be going fast enough. (And if you're feeling confident and you know a fish is there, you can intentionally cheese them this way and get free passage to a seed that is otherwise hard to reach.)
  
• If you do attract a fish or two, try to put it between you and a seed. It will get slowed down or stuck in the geometry, giving you some time to get into the seed.
  
• You can go into any opening and the seeds/fish will always be in the same configuration, but orientation. Is. Everything.
  
• I have only actually beat the game once so far, and I didn’t have any unexpected fish spawn in my chosen route. So if you run into one where I said there wasn’t one, umm,,, I'm very sorry.

I’m applying two different routes throughout. In some cases you can get straight to the Vessel, and in others it’s better to go to the Escape Pod 3 first, and then change your marker to the Vessel (which at least gives you something to do while you’re floating past the three fish). There is ALWAYS a fish guarding a Vessel seed, but the one in the Escape Pod room is much easier to avoid aggroing as a rule.

Dark Bramble has six different openings. Four along the sides, one on “top,” and one on the “bottom.” I consider Dark Bramble to be “upright” when it is oriented like so:

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Most of the time you’re going to be dumped in front of the four middle openings, which can be the hardest to recognize if you don’t know where to look.

I’ve decided to help identify these with some features I call the Dewclaw and the Forsaken Breadstick:

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Right in between the Dewclaw and the Breadstick, we have Chili’s:

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Chili’s has an Escape Pod in an ok place close by the entrance, and if you’re practicing going straight from Timber Hearth to Dark Bramble (protip: accelerate away from the sun for a bit at first), you will always see Chili’s first. But there’s some vines and stuff in the way of the Escape Pod that make this route sub-par. There’s better places, so we’re gonna skip Chili’s. Let’s talk about Tim Hortons.

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Tim Hortons is always to the right of Chili’s and the Breadstick and has the best Escape Pod route on the planet, apart from his brother Tom Hortons (who we will get to later). There’s no fish getting to the Escape Pod’s seed, it’s VERY close, and I have always avoided fish on my way to the Vessel seed from very soon after entering the room unless I was looking for a fish for Science (though there’s some annoying twisting geometry in the way if you don’t go in the direction of the Escape Pod for a bit). His Vessel route is very dangerous (I can't seem to cheese his fish and maybe I was just on edge but I think I aggro'd two once), so that's a hard no.

This Escape Pod is the route I used to beat the game, so I’m sure it works once you have the warp core (I don’t know if more fish can spawn after you get the warp core but just in case).

Left of Chili’s, we have Olive Garden:

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So at first I didn’t really recommend Olive Garden, because I thought the Escape Pod route was ideal and its Escape Pod will absolutely kill you. But its Vessel route is actually pretty straightforward and could actually be a winner (I had a hard time attracting the attention of its fish). It seems like Olive Garden tends to be the facing you get when you go straight from the Twins to Dark Bramble with the warp core so it’s probably the one most people naturally go into first.

To the right of Olive Garden (and left of Tim), basically in the “back” of Dark Bramble if you’re facing Chili’s like when you first arrive, there’s Tim’s brother Tom. This far around it’s hard to see our main two landmarks so here’s a newer, worse one (sorry):

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I called him Tom Hortons because at first I thought he was basically a copy of Tim’s, but Tom is actually better because Tom is an all around yes man. You want to go Escape Pod? Do it bud. Vessel seed? Yeah man. Tom’s a bro. However he is, as I discovered intensely painfully, very easy to mistake for Dark Bramble’s sixth location (the one most visible from directly on “top”), which I have decided to call Taco Bell because it is a pain in my ass:

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Taco Bell is kind of caged in by everybody’s sick ‘do’s and is most easily accessible from going around back of Chili’s, to either Olive Garden or Tom Hortons. It has a perfectly acceptable Escape Pod, and its Vessel seed is basically completely hit or miss. There’s a vine in front of it in some orientations, so if you go the wrong way around it there’s a Very Mad fish. So like, unless you’re aiming for an Escape Pod route, just don’t go to Taco Bell, y’know? It’s not worth it.

Finally, on the bottom, there’s Subway:

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Subway is extremely easy to find because it’s on the very bottom and caged inside a bunch of vines that can be a little tricky to navigate. Also, its Escape Pod route will kill you. Its Vessel route may, potentially, also kill you--I found the fish easier to aggro--but it is very close and convenient like Olive Garden and Tom Hortons. Basically you might as well go to one of those, they’re just as close and easier on entry, but if you’re really struggling to identify them then Subway is impossible to miss. You have to want to go there.

Again, orientation is EVERYTHING in Dark Bramble, so if I say things are in the upper left/right/whatever then that’s gonna be meaningless if you approach from a different angle, but here are some outside and inside photos from the center openings as approached from an “upright” angle. This is proceeding around Dark Bramble’s center, starting from Chili’s and moving right:

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Taco Bell on top and Subway on bottom are impossible for me to give a consistent orientation for, so Subway may vary significantly from what you see depending on your angle:

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Taco Bell’s a pain so it gets two of these based on which other (better) opening you face before you fly “up” over it:

So basically, the safe Escape Pod seeds tend to be very close to the ceiling or wall and out of the way, and if the Vessel seed looks far away I’d try another entrance. From cross-referencing I have determined that a safe initial distance is usually between 1 and 1.3m, and a distance between 1.5 and 1.7m almost certainly has a fish, but again some orientations may still end up attracting attention where others would not.

Best Escape Pod Routes:

• Tom Hortons
  
• Tim Hortons
  
• Taco Bell
  
• Chili's (obstructed)

Best Vessel Routes:

• Tom Hortons
  
• Olive Garden
  
• Subway
  
• Taco Bell (obstructed)

I am pretty sure that both the Escape Pod room and the Vessel room are the same entrance flipped around different ways no matter where you enter the seed, and it’s really impossible to make the orientation consistent, but as a result both the Pod and the Vessel should be in the same place and you can navigate from there.

If you choose to take an Escape Pod route, I’d recommend aiming for the Escape Pod itself until you see a really prominent red glow from the Vessel seed. This can help you avoid all the crap floating around in the way, and it’s also completely safe once you get into the vines (I have never been eaten there from any orientation). Alternatively, following the lights to the dead Nomai also gives you a straight shot to the Vessel seed with what feels to me like the smallest possible chance of running into a fish (I think this is a gameplay mechanic), but it takes longer.

Once you actually make it into the Vessel seed, DO NOT MOVE. You will not hit the fish. You cannot hit the fish. You will literally go through the fish, and then it’s ok to start accelerating up to 2 bars as long as you are under 900m away from the Vessel marker (but probably safer at under 800m).

After further testing, I’m pretty sure there’s only one fish inconveniently close to the final seed, which you pass on the way. I tend to be drifting at this point to make sure I don’t slam into the branch between me and the seed, so I don’t recommend going above 1 bar around here if you can help it, the fish is more aggressive than I first thought and it’s kind of 50/50 whether he’ll actually chase you.

Fortunately, there’s a pretty foolproof direction to go in:

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This last branch before the seed has a little curved area that is the perfect size for your ship, and if you go through it while still aiming for the Vessel, you will be almost perfectly lined up for an opening. (In this particular orientation I managed not to alert the fish at all, but it’s not a good idea to stop and adjust here, I’d just aim for this opening regardless.)

I think this section is kinda designed for the fish to notice you, and even if he does, you’re generally going to be close enough to the seed to make it inside before he can reach you. But sometimes he screams at me just as I’m about to go inside it even if he made no reaction before, so be prepared for that possibility.

Anyway that’s all I got, so good luck and may your crashes always be survivable!