Perils of using auto-explore early?

[dolemite99]

Here and there, I've seen mentions of the perils of using auto-explore in the early dungeon. I've yet to grasp exactly what kinds of bad situations auto-explore would put you in, that could conversely be avoided by utilizing specific techniques when manually exploring.

For example ... does auto-explore tend to make your character travel adjacent to tight corners (aka blind spots), even when a wider travel approach further from that corner would be possible via manually exploring? Are there different/additional reasons that seasoned players tend to manually explore when their character is very "young" (weak) with limited/no bail-out options? Thanks in advance for tips.

[bel]

Auto explore, for practical purposes, just explores blindly to an unexplored square (it's more complicated than that, but that's basically correct). The reason it can be bad is that you might take a narrow trail into the dark, and if you create some noise, your retreat might be cut off.

In practice, I use auto-explore all through the game. I use exclusions to not go into certain areas, and might manually explore if I am low on health or otherwise in danger. The risks are not that great, and I'm lazy.

[amaril]

Part of what makes a good tactical position good is the availability of retreat options from that point. Autoexplore is (as bel said) prone to lead you deep into unexplored space with a narrow path back to safety bordered on both sides by more unexplored space. Once you run into enemies and make noise, you are surrounded. When you notice autoexplore is following a tangent to nowhere XGing back to cleared area before you start autoexploring again tends to net you a more well-rounded bubble of safe space.

Other things autoexplore does poorly:
opens doors
doesn't recognize vaults (stone walls!) and blunders heedlessly in
walks across shallow water
walks into webs (I might be wrong about this)
wanders into areas where a known awake dangerous enemy may be lurking (i.e. erolcha, rupert, player ghost)

[Majang]

When I encounter a napping dangerous enemy, even with placing an exclusion around the danger area, auto-exploring may get you into trouble. If there is even the most narrow path alongside that exclusion, auto-explore will try to get you past it, and then you may encounter other monsters close by who then shout and wake up the guy that you meant to avoid.

[dolemite99]

Thank you all for these tips!

[4Hooves2Appendages]

When I encounter a napping dangerous enemy, even with placing an exclusion around the danger area, auto-exploring may get you into trouble. If there is even the most narrow path alongside that exclusion, auto-explore will try to get you past it, and then you may encounter other monsters close by who then shout and wake up the guy that you meant to avoid.

A partial solution to this problem is to place a wider net of exclusions. If someone wants to auto-explore, and not wake up certain enemies, a single exclusion is almost never enough.