Rak's Subnautica playthrough (moved from the what are you playing thread)

[Rakaydos]

A mod asked me to stop cluttering up the "what are you playing thread, so this will be the proper lets play thread. For context, I tried to dig up all the relevant discussion. Let me know if I missed anything.
-------------------------------------------------
Subnautica is next on my list of unplayed games to play- any reccomendations for a new player?
-------------------------------------------------

Go into it blind. It's such a great experience when you're exploring and discovering everything the first time.

If you find yourself stuck and don't know what to do, either listen to radio messages or look for ways to go deeper.

Oh. Also play on the filmic setting if you can tolerate it. It decreases visibility but makes the colors more vibrant and amps up the atmosphere. It's how the game is meant to be experienced.

If the decreased visibility is bothering you then you can turn it off, but I would at least try it first.

The Aurora wreck is on the east side of the playable space. That fact of orientation will help immensely.

To be honest, it's a lot more fun going in blind and discovering stuff for yourself. The only slightly annoying part of that is that you have to find specific blueprints to, for example, unlock building the big submarine that allows you to go deeper, and then *other* blueprints to upgrade it to the max depth possible that will be needed to finish the storyline, and that can be a bit of a random process.

One thing I will say: when building a base, be sure to pay attention to the hull strength. This goes down when adding new modules, and up if you add reinforcements to the base. If the hull strength goes below 0 then you'll start getting flooding and that's a real pain to deal with.


Minor caveat: that only applies if you’re building underwater. If your base is over the waves you can ignore reinforcement.

That said, there are a few modules later in the game that can be problematic if you build them in open air.


I've never had many issues with base durability. It's an easy fix even if you accidentally break it. Sometimes I'll even let them fill with water so I can traverse them faster from my moonpool. There's also a bug where if you leave a flooded moonpool with your seaglide you gain super speed. It breaks the game, but can be fun to play around with.


Yeah, but who builds an above-water base in a game called Subnautica? :smallbiggrin:


Anyone who wants to build a 1,000+ meter bridge out of pure glass, or anyone playing during early access who wants a base that doesn’t flood after a patch that tweaks all the durability values. (Admittedly the latter is no longer an issue with vanilla Subnautica, but it was a thing at one point.)
----------------------------------------
Subnautica, 2 hours in.

So I think I'm stabilized now. I've figured out how to get food, filtered water, and the basic rock-type resources. I've built a scanner, seaglide, enlarged o2 tank, flippers, repair tool, and a few other things. I have the lead for a rad suit, but not the right kind of cloth- It's probably going to be a matter of hunting for the right ind of fish again- I died to lack of water once, and almost a second time before I discovered the right fish for filtered water. I missed the seapods for lubricant until I started reading the description of the thing I couldnt find and realized it referred to somethig I had seen.

I usually die to lack of oxygen after missing the 30 second warning. it feels inconsistant, but i could just be getting caught up in things and miss it. the seaglide should help.
------------------------------------------------------------

Fabric doesn't smell fishy. Just saying.


Sometimes you can cut things with the knife for new resources, if you missed that mechanic.
-----------------------------------------------
Subnautica, 4 hours in.

So apparently the seaglide runs out of power, and there's no obvous way to recharge batteries in the lifepod. Copper is now a critical component.

Went a bit farther afield now that I have the rad suit, and just aquired the base builder tool. still only have 2/3 of a seamoth, so I dont even know what I need to build it yet. Found a blueprint for a bio reactor and a trash can, assume these are base things.
----------------------------------------------

If it helps, all your electronic toys should have a % showing you how much battery juice they have left.


Batteries arnt consumed, though. Is there a way to recharge them, or are they just something to throw away?


Yes, you'll eventually get blueprints for a battery-charger that you can put in your base.
--------------------------------------------
Subnautica, 6 hours in. (seriously, every time I check my playtime after, it's X hours 55 minutes or so.)

Spent most of this time figuring out base building, half a KM from my lifepod and 50m underwater. Lots of trips back and fourth, mostly with just the flippers to conserve seaglide battery power. the new site has easy access to wreckage, but I had to take it all the way back to the lifepod to turn into titanium... and I spent most of my titanium thinking that pipes would be enough to pressurize an underwater base. Nope. had to build vertical base segements all the way above the water. hull integrity is minimal now, but I just barely didnt need reinforcements. (how do I get lithium? I found one diamond, so it may be the same sort of rock, if I can find another...) But I have a functional replicator at my new base, so food and water just need materials.

The last 30 minutes or so was exploring a hole below my new base to a deeper biome. coming back up for air is difficult, so I tried bringing the sub... and found that it's crush depth is barely below the roof of the cavern. Still, I was able to use it as a mobile air station, at least as far as I could take it.
---------------------------------------------

Sounds to me like you've not got power in the base--as soon as a base has power then it'll be clear of water (you don't need pipes at all, no matter how deep the base is), and perhaps more usefully, you can also build a fabricator inside the base so you don't have to keep making trips back to the lifepod. Early game you'll probably be using solar panels, but there are other methods of generating power that arrive later on.

Regarding batteries: you can recharge them, yes, but in the early game it's probably easier to just make new ones--the recipe isn't particularly complicated.


Have you found the fabric material yet? Because the easiest place to find Lithium early is along the shelf that the Aurora is resting on. There's sort of a vertical space that has lots of the rocks that generate it on the side. You'll need the suit early to get there though.

The easy way to explore caves early, is the surface air pump, then build the small pipes running down from it. The end of the pipe becomes an oxygen source. For battery chargers... look in areas with red grass.

Sounds about right. There's two upward entrances (the second one is actually closer to my lifepod), and 1 volcanic vent at the bottom.

I got power and air working eventually, I just had a false start with air pipes that cost me a lot of titanium.
-----------------------------------------
What was supposed to be my next session, I softlocked, without a save since starting. So no time update (though apparenty it was 1 hour and 0 minutes since my last save...)

Thinking I understood base building, I got myself enough materials for a tube, a solar panel, and a replicator, and set off toward the Aurora. this led to an awkward situation where I have to deconstruct the hatch to build a replicator. I also got to see a reaper leviathan up close and personal- it didnt seem hungry, and we circled each other enough for me to get perhaps 80% scanned before it took off.

I got into trouble when I tried to figure out what to do with the bioreactor. it's an interior part, but too big for the tubes I have access to.

My new hab was perhaps 1 level below the water. I built a hatch on the inside roof, then went out for more titanium, came back, built an intersection on TOP of the hatch, went inside, and tried to use the hatch earlier. It put me inside the new module, without a hatch back DOWN. And I didnt have enough quartz for another hatch. And I was well fed, so it would have been a long wait in a sealed room before I could die and respawn. So I quit.

Lessons learned.
----------------------------------

I haven't run into that bug before, but there is a console command to spawn yourself back at the life pod. If you press f3, enable console and type "Biome Safe" it will take you home. Press f3 again to turn it off.

I would avoid using console except for bug fixes though. It ruins the immersion and there are spoilers on the console command list.

I've got about 300 hours and I've gotten stuck from bugs probably 4 or 5 times so the command to go home is useful. Especially since I play on hardcore.
---------------------------
8 hours, 50 minutes in.

Setting off south of the aurora again, I apparently went a bit further south than last time. Set up a base where you can see glowing blue balls in the deeps, but also next to a kelp forest. After stocking up and determining that the deeps are just too deep for me right now, I set off closer to tha aurora with another base-kit.

The next base was 100m down near a hole, but not too far from a kelp forest, with a gradual slope down to the deeps. The hole wasnt that interesting, but by the time I figured that out, my storage locker was too full to relocate. in the area, though, I found a scanner room. Building it was somewhat interesting, as it costs a lot of materials, and I used it to hunt down a Lithium in the deeps. I also found a Stasis rifle blueprint, beacons (which should make my base chaining easier, if I can find them without relying on landmarks) and a few more odds and ends.

I also made another trip north, closer to the aurora, that found a decaying base very deep. That's where I found the stasis rifle, but I suffocated on my way back up. I still need to go rediscover it.

Also, apparetly wrecks have doors you can open? I constructed a new repair tool (I left my old one back at the life pod) to get in and get the beacon blueprint. That spurred a swim back to mark my southerly base, which is where I saved and quit.
----------------------------------------------


Out of curiosity, Rakaydos, have you actually been inside the Aurora yet? You talk a lot about being near it...


Nope. The closest I got was on the unsaved portion, where I scanned some things on the lifepod side of the aurora's beach.

I'm slowly approaching it from the engine side.

Edit: I'm also starting to see diseased wildlife, which I know from the speedrun I watched is related to the endgame story, but not the details.


It's definitely worth heading to the Aurora... Bring your repair tool.
----------------------------------------
10 hours, 18 minutes-
I've found the battery charger schematic, along with enough diamonds to build a cutting tool. Tried to find that deep hole with the decayed base in it again, but instead built a scanner under a reaper's hunting grounds. I'm 2 for 3 for the Cyclops, with the bridge and engine segments finished, and I think I'm 2/3 of the way with the sensor segment, too?

I circled the aurora after losing a seamoth to the reaper, found some decks that I could access, but with only one fire extinguisher I didnt get far. died to cave spiders.
------------------------------------------------

Stasis rifle or survival knife on the spiders. From the Aurora head past your life pod to the grass plains where the cave and wreck are located.


Once you get the grav rifle (I believe it's in the Aurora), it is endlessly entertaining to use it on those damn cave spiders. Sweet revenge.


I've got the schematics for the grav rifle, it's the rare materials that are difficult.
-------------------------------------------------
12 hours, 22 minutes. Found the entrance to tha aurora again- it wasn't where I thought it was. Made one aborted (couldnt get inside without propulsion gun) and 1 serious excursion. Acquired the Cyclopse efficency, prawn suit storage items, and the prawn suit schematics. I also made it into Cabin 1, but didnt find any clues to enter the captian's cabin. Also repaired the engine breaches.

There was a voice alert that there was another black box nearby when I entered the prawn bay, but the only hull breach I found was the one I entered by, so that... might be a bug?
-----------------------------------------------

Hmm, I don't think this is a spoiler, but I'll spoiler it just in case:

There are two ways into the Aurora, both along the same path. The most obvious is at the top of the path, a full on door right next to the place where you need the propulsion gun to move some boxes to proceed.

About halfway down the path that got you to the door, next to a floodlight there's a big pile of boxes that you can move aside with the propulsion gun to reveal a second way into the ship.


If I recall, when the game was in early access, it did have you start with the multipurpose room at the start. But some time later they made it that you had to scan it.

Also Rakaydos, here is a map of Subnautica that may help you navigate. Just thought I'd post it in a spoiler box below. If you don't want to use it, that's alright. Just thought I'd make it available for you regardless.
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/876374179358340191/57E153C0049DE222125594F238C44637FEA72D1B/


Early on the best place to get rare resources is actually on the vertical wall of the shelf that the Aurora sits on the Seamoth is particularly vital to such an endeavour, having both oxygen and more importantly spotlights toggled with right-click that will let you see contrast of the smooth sandstone rocks and the more sharp edged limestone agains the world textures.

---------------------------------------------------
14 hours, 1 minute.

With the schematics for a Prawn suit, I had some resource collection to do. No idea how to make Aerogel, but diamond was in Shale and titanium is in wreckage, so I moved a scanner moduel closer to the shale deposit I detected, above a big drop, with a wreck below. (approximately 700 south by 300 west, on that map, I think)

In the interest of exploring that wreck, I built another minimal base- a tube, solar panel, and two hatches- on the ledge above the wreck, about 200m down, to use as an air station. And because I was on a roll, I built another one about 300m down- too low for solar panels, but close enough for a power relay. The next one at 380m or so is built, but the power relay isnt chaining to it.

Using these airstations to explore the area, I have enough lithium for the prawn suit, and also found a nice load of ruby and uranite. Near the end of the session, I found a single gelsack- which unlocked how to make aerogel... but I didnt find another gel sack before another commitment came calling and I had to save/quit.
-------------------------------------------

You definitely need to find the Seamoth depth upgrade, from the sounds of it--it's a lot more convenient than having to build new bases as air stations all over the place, especially since it sounds like you still don't have a multipurpose room (so no bioreactor).


If you’ve got the outdoor grow bed, put the gel sack in it and hit the gel sack with the knife - this will let you harvest seeds, so you can plant more of them. You can do the same with the mushrooms and a couple other plants in game.

[Rakaydos]

16 hours, 17 minutes
Having pretty much played out the possibilities of the deep-exporation site, it was time to return to older stomping grounds. There was a wreck next to the first base I built, before I realized doors, repair tools, and cutting torches were a thing. I also made sure I had the materials for a scanner room on hand.


Unfortunately, that site was pretty much played out as well. So I packed up the scanner module, used the base for alignment, looked at the lifepod, then swum 180 around the base, to line up a swim (with the seamoth) directly away from the lifepod until I reached the next significant dropoff, with a triangle of vents visible below. I rebuilt the scanner station, but by the time I had the solar panel in place, night had fallen, so I had time to kill. A hole past the thermal vents had a wreck inside, along with blood kelp, unlocking Benzine. my deepest dive gave an alert that this cave had fossil reminants, and I had a beacon on hand, so I dropped and labled it so I could find it again once I had a depth upgrade. I also got the last part of the drill arm schematic.

With dawn risen, the scanner station was online. I needed a gel pod for the prawn suit, but more importantly, I needed a magnatite, for various reasons but mostly for the scanner HUD upgrade, so I could find what was being scanned.

After scanning a magnetite at he range of detection but in the shallows, and failing to find it, I built ANOTHER scanner, closer to the site. after powering this scanner, I found that the magnatite appeared to be almost right below my scanner... but deeper than the local sea floor.

Since Cameras hav the hud automatically, I used the camera station to find the cave, and saw a magnatite falling through the water. The camera followed, until it reached a shelf, then I tracked down the camera to find the magnatite.

With the HUD upgrade, finding more magnatite was a breeze, and I collected another 6-7 in short order. Gel pods, however, were more awkward. I could scan them, and they would appear on the hud, but they appeared to be a meter or two below the sand, wherever I found them. Eventually, though, I found a reachable one, and returned to the lifepod, and the vehical platform. After successfuly creating a Prawn suit, I called it a successful session.

[Triaxx]

The mountain area on the map is probably the best place to find gel sacs and Rubies.

[Destro_Yersul]

Don't forget to go back to your lifepod to check the radio ocassionally. A lot of the messages will point at areas with cool stuff to find.

[Anteros]

Sounds like you're progressing along at a nice pace. I don't really have much to add because I don't want to spoil anything for you, but I'm vicariously enjoying your discovering of the game for the first time.

[factotum]

I never found the Prawn suit to be all that useful until you have the Cyclops--it's just really slow and clunky to get around in one, but when you have the Cyclops you can dock the suit aboard, use the sub to travel to wherever you need to go, then swap into the suit for exploration.

Presumably, by this stage in the game, you've listened to the various radio messages and discovered the reason for the Aurora's crash in the first place? If not, you should probably get on that! There's a radio in the lifepod, or you can build one in any base.

[Silverraptor]

If you’ve got the outdoor grow bed, put the gel sack in it and hit the gel sack with the knife - this will let you harvest seeds, so you can plant more of them. You can do the same with the mushrooms and a couple other plants in game.

I did not know that. I went on extensive gel sack expeditions to get a lot of those things because I used up a lot of aerogel. I went overboard on the desalinization water filters and placed atleast 2 in each of my bases, but I wanted to make sure I was done chasing bladder fish for water. (It was only much later that I realized how to make bleach instead...)

[Triaxx]

The water filter water is much more efficient at restoring thirst.

The Prawn Suit is very slow, yes. Which is why running dual grapples is the most fun thing in the game. Reaper noise. Pa-thunk, zip fwee!

[Rakaydos]

I did not know that. I went on extensive gel sack expeditions to get a lot of those things because I used up a lot of aerogel. I went overboard on the desalinization water filters and placed atleast 2 in each of my bases, but I wanted to make sure I was done chasing bladder fish for water. (It was only much later that I realized how to make bleach instead...)

Early game, I was panicking about how to make bleach, until I accidentally caught my first bladder fish. But it wasn't until fairly recently that I actually went and bulk made bleach, just because I had so much salt stored up. And that's when I discovered that I had inventory problems, because apparently bleach makes two waters from one bleach. This has changed my whole world view on storing water, because bleach takes up less storage room, and can be converted at any replicator.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

I did not know that. I went on extensive gel sack expeditions to get a lot of those things because I used up a lot of aerogel. I went overboard on the desalinization water filters and placed atleast 2 in each of my bases, but I wanted to make sure I was done chasing bladder fish for water. (It was only much later that I realized how to make bleach instead...)

Yeah bleach isn’t the most intuitive thing. My first playthrough I depopulated the Safe Shallows of Bladderfish before I realized the coral was harvestable. In retrospect that might have been what got me started on hitting every new plant and coral I encountered with the knife. :smallconfused:

[Triaxx]

I just have a couple lockers of the large distilled water and void the excess salt.

[Rakaydos]

18 hours, 15 minutes

So apparently I only used the radio once, before leaving the capsure, and it picked up nothing.

The first distress signal was the mess hall guy, next to my first base. I looted that a long time ago.
The second distress call was the first officer, who crashed south of my second base. This lifepod was a great source of gel pods, and the voice log of the captian's transmission about land.
The first officer's rendevus point was on a floating island, whih was a novelty at this point, but just turned up a voice log of the two survivors trying to reach the aurora and getting eaten by a Reaper. "Consider us lost at sea."
(I didnt think of it at the time, but it may be worth trying to find the first officer's body, between the island and the ship- that's my best hope for finding the key code for the captian's cabin on the aurora)
The third and final distress call is for an engineer and someone else, jurry rigging a seaglide.

With the Prawn suit having a depth rating of 900 meters, I went to find the hole I found the stasis rifle in before. Turned out, that base also had a multipurpose room, a few PDAs about the previous expedition, and more blueprints. I'm now 2/3 or a modification station, have a nuclear reactor blueprint, and some miscilanius stuff. The interesting part was getting the prawn suit out, as the entrance I came in was about 5m too high to jump out of. This led to more exploration and eventually coming out near the first lifepod. I passed a lava vent down there, but I'm not yet ready to try heading down there.

Having what I need now for the prawn suit drill arm... I need a moon pool And juggling resources to make what I need too most of the rest of the session. I still havnt finished it, but it will likely be my next objective.

[Destro_Yersul]

The floating island is a great place to explore. I forget what can be found there in terms of PDAs, but there are a few components and things that I'm pretty sure are only found there. It's also a source for the multipurpose room, but you found another of those already.

[Eldan]

Also, land plants are SUPER useful. They give tons of food and water nad if you stick some in pots in a corner of your bases, you have biomass for fuel and enough food forever.

[Destro_Yersul]

plus they look nice. Lantern fruit isn't the best for food or fuel, but I really enjoy the aesthetic of the trees.

[factotum]

I believe the Captain's door code comes from a later radio transmission, so keep monitoring that thing. You can see if there's anything waiting for you on it because there's a light which only gets lit if you have a waiting transmission, plus, I think an onscreen icon pops up briefly when the transmission comes in.

[Anteros]

plus they look nice. Lantern fruit isn't the best for food or fuel, but I really enjoy the aesthetic of the trees.

It's actually pretty amazing for the bioreactor. It doesn't provide the largest yiel for size, but it does grow faster than it's consumed.

[Destro_Yersul]

Admittedly, I usually went with melons. Melons are just the best for everything.

[Rakaydos]

19 hours, 33 minutes.

Not much today, mostly gearing up for an expedition. I completed the moon pool, and discovered that it does not include a fabricator to produce a drill arm. Not sure how to build it, now.

I did load the storage bin on the Prawn suit with materials for a Thermal Plant, Moonpool, and Fabricator, along with the extra lead needed for 2 different Foundation units, for wall climbing. There's enough room left for a few Cured fish and some Bleach.

I did find a fish with a firey trail through the water- a scan indicated that it may hold some kind of cure for the disease I've seen around. I dont trust myself not to cook and eat the fellow, so it's aquarium time. (I still havnt built a multipurpose room, but it lets me build the aquarium half overhanging the edge of the Moonpool. Good enough.)

Still no leads on the 3rd part of the Cyclops, and I've got 2/3 of a modification station. I know how to build a reactor, but I've only built one fuel rod, and I would need to build a multipurpose room to store it in. There was two more radio messages- another ship on the far side of the system asking if we REALLY need assistance?, and a lifepod that couldnt reach rendevous because there was radiation in the way. (no location data, though.)

[factotum]

You need to manually build the Vehicle Upgrade Console using the Habitat Builder yourself--note that it can only be built inside a Moonpool, but now you have one, shouldn't be an issue.

[Rakaydos]

You need to manually build the Vehicle Upgrade Console using the Habitat Builder yourself--note that it can only be built inside a Moonpool, but now you have one, shouldn't be an issue.

A quick reboot of the game confirms that the Vehical Upgrade Console doesnt seem to be in my Hab Builder options. (I didnt save)

[Divayth Fyr]

I believe you need to find the blueprint for the console separately.

[Anteros]

Explore wrecks for the vehicle console. In general exploring the more dangerous areas is going to be profitable.

[Rakaydos]

20 hours, 48 minutes.

Test run for my "base in a can." After loading up everything I think I need... I start rambling, generally lifepodward, but not very finely. An exploration of a deep crevace in a kelp forest dumps me out into the mushroom forest, so I build out my base kit on the border.

And immediately run into problems. Assembily, of course, requires the moonpool that I stowed in the prawn to be in my personal inventory. The thermal plant isnt doing squat here, and a solar panel on the top of the hab is getting just enough power to keep the air refreshed, but not enough power to run the replicator. The other power options require a multipurpose room, which requires more titanium. There's scrap in the kelp forest I just left... but that requires a functional replicator.

So, back to the lifepod. New distress signal, VIP who requires a burial detail out in the mushroom forest I'm visiting. Also picking up the fuel rod I made and a few other essential components.

New plan is a solar panel on the ridge of the kelp forest biome, with two power relays to get the power down to the moonpool. That's not going to help me once I go cave diving with this rig, but the moonpool is right between a kelp forest with metal fragments, and a slope full of Shale, in range of one of my scanning stations, I guess, because my hud is showing where they all are.

Placing the power relays took a bit of debugging, and of course once it worked the sun went down. Time for that lifepod run. nothing major at the crash site other than a PDA, but coming back and looking for Shale, I found Cyclops Hull fragments and the final piece of a Modification Station!

So two parts to this base- build up and tear down. First, building everything I would want, then trying to get it all to fit inside the prawn and my personal inventory.

For the build up, the moonpool and replicator are essential, as is a locker for inventory management. With how much I'm using the builder tool for building and unbuilding, and the seaglide to find more pieces, a battery charger is critical. (a power cell charger is less so, as the moon pool itself has that function, as long as the cell is in a berthed vessel) A multipurpose room lets me do a test buildup of a nuclear reactor. I'm a bit hesitant to actually plug in my fuel rod, though- the UI doesnt give me faith about being able to get the fuel rod back out. Better include the thermal plant- you have all been talking about a "lava castle", so it's probably going to be hot in some of these places.

I didnt test the bioreactor- I dont really have moduels to grow stuff in, other than the aquarium. A water filtration plant also fits in the multipurpose room, so I did build it, but didnt run it long enough to get more than a salt out of it.

Then comes tear down. I wont be able to use lockers for inventory management when tearing down the moon pool itself, so I built a floating locker to hold anything that wont fit in the expedition package.

For the rest of this, when I say I put something somewhere, I mean the components.

There's the spare power cell, of course, into the prawn. The nuclear reactor, fuel rod, and desalination plant also go in the prawn, along with the multipurpose room itself. I forget where the two spare batteries and the battery charger went, but the replicator, moon pool, and thermal plant fit in my personal inveentory. There was enough room to put some bleach and cured fish in the prawn.

There's probably some more optimization that can be done, and I've got loose resources in the floating locker, but now that I have the cyclops blueprint, we'll see if all this effort was even necessary.

[Destro_Yersul]

in terms of 'mobile base' the cyclops works exceptionally well, and the only minor difficulty is having somewhere to charge its power. That can be solved a few different ways.

When I played, I didn't really bother with trying to move bases around. There's enough resources to just build a few cheap outposts here and there, and a couple of larger bases in a few critical locations where they look super cool.

[Triaxx]

Module Builder thing is always a nightmare to find the bits for.

Bioreactor is hands down bar none the best power source in the game. Go back to the Glowshroom cave and look around for what looks like a different colored version of another fish. (The name totally escapes me.) Put two of those in an aquarium. They're not only excellent food, but produce a lot of power. I build bases with power rooms consisting of two stacked Multi-purpose rooms with a reactor on top and aquarium on the bottom. No power? Feed a few more fish into the reactor.

[Destro_Yersul]

I never used the bioreactor all that much, but that's me and my love of maintenance-free power. I rarely used the nuclear reactor either, and Bases with no solar always got built near thermal vents.

[Rakaydos]

Admitedly, I mostly geared up for the idea of cave dives, where a larger sub may be less capable of entereing. The lava vents I've seen (if that's the way to the "Lava castle" you all have been talking about) dont look big enough to fit much bigger than a seamoth.

The next level of optimization may be to take a hard look at my personal equipment list. I havnt used the Stasis rifle once since I crafted it, and it takes up 4 slots- meanwhile the prupulsion cannon has been sitting in a box and I wonder if it could help me with a few shipwreks I havnt fully cleared out, according to the scanner. I probably dont need a fire extinguisher on a prawn, though I might want it on a cyclops, judging by the description. the seaglide is huge, but essential for long trips away from a vehical- but if I'm more than a full oxygen load from the surface, it may be best to leave it somewhere safe and reclaim the inventory space. on the other hand, it has the built in flashlight and holomap- so the flashlight might be left at home. Repair tool and cutting torch, you dont know when you need them. the pathfinder tool, I've never used, but it sounds useful.

[IthilanorStPete]

I'm all for nuclear power; it's pretty low- maintenance, and uranium is fairly abundant in the later game.

Rak, the Lava Castle is still a ways beyond where you are, the lava vents you see don't lead to it.

[Anteros]

I'm all for nuclear power; it's pretty low- maintenance, and uranium is fairly abundant in the later game.

Rak, the Lava Castle is still a ways beyond where you are, the lava vents you see don't lead to it.

Would have been more fun for them to find that out on their own.


in terms of 'mobile base' the cyclops works exceptionally well, and the only minor difficulty is having somewhere to charge its power. That can be solved a few different ways.

When I played, I didn't really bother with trying to move bases around. There's enough resources to just build a few cheap outposts here and there, and a couple of larger bases in a few critical locations where they look super cool.

I keep a mobile base locker section on my cyclops with materials for a quick scanner room, or moon pool based on what I think I might need. It's really convenient to be able to plop down a scanner room any time you need a specific resource. I also keep melons and lantern trees in pots on the cyclops so I always have plenty of fuel and food+water without having to worry about it at all. Plus they look nice.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Rather than build tons of bases, you may be better off building a single base with everything you need and just returning to it. That worked for me for the vast majority of the game. (I did eventually build a puny little second base at the bottom of the fossil caves, but it was made mostly redundant by the Cyclops, except for the scanner room).

[Rakaydos]

My basebuilding has evolved from "Solar panels have to be in the sunlight, above the water, right?" to "What's structural integrety and why is my base flooding?", to a minimalist tube/hatch/panel/replicator/locker setup, to replacing the tube with a scanner, and now expiriments with power relays and new room types.

I may have to try the aquarium/bioreactor combo.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

the seaglide is huge, but essential for long trips away from a vehical- but if I'm more than a full oxygen load from the surface, it may be best to leave it somewhere safe and reclaim the inventory space. on the other hand, it has the built in flashlight and holomap- so the flashlight might be left at home.

My unsolicited recommendation is to keep the Seaglide and leave the flashlight. Even if you’re too far from the surface to reach air, it’s useful for escaping predators. Whereas if you need a long term dedicated light source, you can always go back for the flashlight.

[Anteros]

My unsolicited recommendation is to keep the Seaglide and leave the flashlight. Even if you’re too far from the surface to reach air, it’s useful for escaping predators. Whereas if you need a long term dedicated light source, you can always go back for the flashlight.

No way. The light on the flashlight is so much better than the seaglide light. It's definitely worth it's tiny inventory cost. Especially if you play on filmic, it's basically unplayable without the flashlight.

[Triaxx]

Don't overthink your inventory too much. Carry at least one beacon with you, and have the inventory module in the Seamoth with a second. Leave them at any wreck you can't complete on the first try and name them with the reason. RT for repair tool, cut for the cutter. So you can see what to bring on the signal. The Cyclops makes a good mobile base station. Build a Radio and fabricator aboard and you have them portable.

Unless you know you're going to need the Prawn Suit, bring the Seamoth. It's less durable but much easier to replace, and is more maneuverable for a lot of tasks. Plus it floats so you can use it as a portable oxygen tank.

[Destro_Yersul]

Honestly once I have access to the cutter, I just carry all the one-tile tools with me at all times, along with a spare battery. I basically never worry about the seaglide past the point of having the seamoth. Would it be useful? Maybe sometimes, but six inventory slots is a lot.

[factotum]

My mobile base setup was basically a hatch, multipurpose room, bioreactor, and scanner room (and I think a tunnel to connect the two, can't actually remember if that was needed or not)--you can easily fit the components for all that in a Seamoth, and to power the bioreactor you just go outside and catch a few of the local fish. That much power will last plenty long enough to scan for anything you might need.

As for taking the Cyclops into a cave, the ones that you really need to investigate to finish the game's story are Cyclops navigable, albeit things can get a bit tight in places. Do remember that the Cyclops can move straight up and down without having to move forward or backward at the same time, which makes things easier (it controls somewhat like helicopters do in video games).

[Rakaydos]

Sleeping on the idea, my base site last session really is a good place for resources, now that I finally have a power setup in place. I'll probably make a run back to the lithium stores I have back at the lifepod, then build this into a big base, with a vehical fab on the surface, and possibly an elevator (chained vertical ladders, climbed instantly) if I have enough lithium for the nessisary reinforcement.

My views on the seamoth and Prawn are colored by the fact I do not have the vehical modification upgrade yet- Seamoth can only be an airstation 199m down, which isnt even to the sea floor in interesting places. Meanwhile the Prawn can reach 900, but has a little trouble getting back up. Both work as air stations, both can carry the cargo module.

[Triaxx]

There's a single Seamoth depth upgrade hidden on the Aurora that bumps it to 600 meters crush depth.

[Eldan]

For what it's worth, I used to build bases every few hundred meters too, especially around cave entrances. Mainly to recharge my submarines, secondarily for food and water. Found that to be totally worth it. A room with a bioreactor, recharger and a half-dozen plant pots is not that hard to build.

[factotum]

There's a single Seamoth depth upgrade hidden on the Aurora that bumps it to 600 meters crush depth.

That's not right--there are three levels of depth upgrades for the Seamoth, which take it to 300m, 500m and 900m respectively. 900m is deep enough to get almost anywhere apart from the end-game locations.

[Silverraptor]

Fun fact, for each solar panel you build, even on bases deep enough that don't get solar panel, you increase that base's maximum power supply. So say you have a deep base, you are generating enough power overall, but find you can only do a couple things before the power runs out and you need for it to recharge, if you just throw on a few solar panels as wingy bits onto that base, you can increase the maximum power and do more things without waiting for the power to recharge.

[Triaxx]

Ah, right I had 300 being the default in.my brain. With two upgrades, not three. I guess I just always snag the one from the Aurora early.

[Rakaydos]

1 day, 24 minutes

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/721456771964600411/747502358178824394/Main_base.png

Building this was relatively simple. Moonpool, with a scan room in 1 direction, a multipurpose room on another (Bio, 2 aquariums, and a desalination plant), a cliff on a third side, and a short tube with a vertical shaft 50m up on the 4th side. Moonpool has easy access to shale in the mushroom forest below.

The vertical shaft opens at a convient height to access the kelp forest, with metal and sandstone common. The intersection leads to another tube and vertical shaft, to just below the surface.

The surface level has access to a Safe Shores biome over my right shoulder in this image, with Table coral and a coral tube highlighted with a Power Relay connection. It also has a vehical fabricator just a few meters past the hatch.

All in all, I like the base and it's location.

What I dont like, is hunting down Stalker teeth.

I need 3 Enamled glass to create a cyclops, but the only Stalker teeth I'm picking up are far below the level geometry. I need one more, before I can build the sub.

[DeTess]

I need 3 Enamled glass to create a cyclops, but the only Stalker teeth I'm picking up are far below the level geometry. I need one more, before I can build the sub.



You can cause stalkers to drop teeth by 'feeding' them a bit of scrap salvage.

[Rakaydos]

I'm already trying that, thanks to that speedrun I watched last year. The RNG is not my friend though.

[Rakaydos]

1 day, 57 minutes.

A reload of the game seems to have cleared the problem. Stalker tooth aquired, cyclops crafted. Replicator added to the storage deck.

Also, a lifepod was 500m down. PDA retrieved, deepshrooms aquired, and now I'm getting creepy alien messsages.

Ok, that may be related to something that happened last session. When searching for shale in the mushroom forest, a cave had some kind of alien waterlock. Inside was an arch of some kind.

[Destro_Yersul]

I forget what triggers the alien messages, but I think it's entering a specific biome.

And yeah, stalker teeth are terrible.

[Rakaydos]

1 day, 3 hours

Sunbeam is coming to get me! (yea right...)

so the Sunbeam's radio messages started awhile back, first as "I cant believe these people... do you really need assistance? we'll try again tommorow" to "oh ****, the debris... the people... we didnt know..." to "we'll be in orbit shortly."

I now have a rendevous point.

I've been working on outfitting the Cyclops for a MAJOR expedition, with resources to build a major base wherever and the spare parts to build anything the datapad suddenly remembers is useful. Two fishtanks in the room foward of the upper prawn bay are leaded with Bladderfish and Peepers, with lockers for salt and cured food, and the locker hall has... considerably more lockers in it, several of which are starting to get sorted and labled resources in them.

This was while I was parked with the cyclops hatch just outside the High Base's mid level hatch, which meant that grabbing a water consisted of entering the base when returning from a resource run, synthesizing something to tighten my inventory, grabbing the water from the desalination plant, taking a ladder, to a hatch, turning to enter the cyclops, dropping off metals, climbing another ladder, and returning to work on the galley.

This was interrupted by the rendevous point and time of arrival for the Sunbeam. Time to take the Cyclops out for a test drive. I'm light on bottled water, but the bladder fish will do fine for a surface mission- I can load up on bleach later. (because of course this isnt going to work)

Reaching the rendevous point... it's on an island, with an alien facility. There's a force field that wants a tablet... and a purple tablet. 30 minutes until arrival. How will I spend my time?

[Destro_Yersul]

There should be some caves on the island, you could always try exploring.

[Anteros]

Be careful of using the lockers on your Cyclops. If something moves your Cyclops while you have a locker open it can cause you to clip through the floor and fall to your death. It's a huge pain in the rear when you're playing hardcore and suddenly fall to your death through no fault of your own. Less troubling on non hardcore modes, but still annoying. Basically if you notice the cyclops start to shift while youre in a locker, hurry up and close it.

[Rakaydos]

1 day, 5 hours, 14 minutes.

With half an hour to kill before the Sunbeam arrives, I build a scanner station, and start collecting sandstone to fill out my slvr&gld locker. There's a lot of hostile wildlife in the area, and I get a scan on a Warper in exchange for about half my health. good thing I installed a medkit dispensor on the cyclops. There's more alien structures underwater, but I dont really examin them.

I have to stock up on water. Fortunately there's bladderfish on these here shores.

Finally, the Sunbeam arrives... and fails. You know how it goes.

No longer on a time limit, I explore the alien facility, marking the alien sub-bay with a beacon. The doomsday device seems excited to see me... the main control room seems considerably less so. Stab. Ow. Having gotten all I can from it, I left from the sub bay. There's another alienarch underwater, on top of a buildin with no visible entrances.

Some cave diving got me raw lithium and uranite, though not enough for a second fuel rod. An upper cave also has an arch, and another purple tablet. I cut my exploration short when my water starts running low again- it was time to head home.

For a first trip, the Cyclops did well. Needs more provisions though. Setting the scanner to Limestone, turning my salt reserves to bleach, and stashing the +50 waters from the base filter on the cyclops, in the room I've designated the mess hall. more salt turns peepers into cured food, which also goes in lockers. One Aquarium is designated for Enzyme peepers- I dont know what to do with them yet, but having a few around will probably be useful at some point. A Power Cell charger gets added to the base, just inside the midlevel entrance I use with the cyclops. As long as I can keep the bioreactor filled, I can charge the cyclops up 2 cells at a time.

More copper, more titanium, more fish, more bioreactor fuel, more filtered water and salt to turn into bleach. Only peepers get cured, and only if they dont have the enzyme. Putting a tool locker by the hatch of the cyclops, and a deployables locker next to it, though as of present it only has a floating locker and a few beacons.

I'm about halfway to where I want to be, when a cloud starts appearing inside the sub with me. It's locked with my visor, as it resolves into an alien face. "Who are you?"

[Rakaydos]

1 day 8 hours.

Falling down the base management hole. My reserves of various common and partially refined materials are rising, and the only new thing to come in on the radio is the code to the captian quarters. An accidental launch of the Prawn led to an expansion of the base- now the mid level has a moonpool with Foundation under it, that leads under where I park the Cyclops. I could launch the prawn from the sub, walk it over to the new moonpool and berth it there, and vice versa. Along with some Plasteel production (all I need now is another stalker tooth to build a second cyclops) my titanium reserves are a bit low.

But I should launch an expedition soon- to stock up on Ruby and uranite, if nothing else.

[Destro_Yersul]

There's not really any use for a second cyclops. You can put interior growbeds on board the one you've got though, if you have the blueprints for that. If you don't, you need to do more exploring and scanning. Then all you need is something to grow in them, and the Cyclops becomes more or less self-sufficient, since food grows faster than you get hungry.

[Rakaydos]

1 day, 11 hours.

A Cyclops depth upgrade requires ruby, and I'm fresh out. A swim to my southerly bases detected a few deep in the grand reef, and I set out far and deep. Good uranite findings, and a broken Degasi base. Multiple levels, but I couldn't figure out how to get in to anything but the lowest level. Also got scans of a crab spider.

Used pretty much the last of my magnatite making a thermal generator down there, about 500m below the floating island. It easilly powers a Scan room, which found me plenty of ruby. I compressed much of the Uranite into fuel rods for transport.

On my way back, I explored the floating island again- found outdoor grow beds with edible food, but no indoor grow facilities. Also another alien gateway.

Returning to the sub, I upgrade the depth to match the Prawn suit, and go explore the fossil cave. Scans indicate a biome called the "lost river".

Approaching my depth limit, I come across a broken alien facility. More ion cubes, more data, and my own infection progresses. Leaving the planet while infected, is of course a recipy for the same meal Sunbeam bought.

Reading the new data back on the cyclops, the "Sea Emperor" is in an "isolated research facility" in a Vocanic region 1.4 KM down. (cough cough "lava castle"), and is the best shot at a cure. Not like I can go there now. If I had more magnatite, I might try the air station approach, but right now each air station would need to be a utility room with a nuclear reactor and a hatch... which seems overkill. Could be doable, with the resources on the Cyclops... but I should probably go back for more upgrades and more magnetite.

[Rakaydos]

"Hmm, people arnt really replying to my letsplay thread. Are people even interested?"
"wait, I know. Check to see how the view count changes after each post. That means booting up the laptop instead of the phone, so you can see view numbers."
"Ok, where am I at n- FOUR THOUSAND VIEWS?"

[Destro_Yersul]

Well, I'm interested, for sure. I'm playing Subnautica again because of this, and I had forgotten how terrifying some parts of it are. I'm not even afraid of the ocean normally, but just knowing what's out there in Subnautica is somehow worse than not knowing.

There's absolutely an indoor growbed on the floating island, but there's also at least one in a wreck somewhere. As for the base in the grand reef, check for ladders. You can swim up those.

[Rakaydos]

The Grand reef's abandoned base is a stack of three multi-purpose rooms, and I didn't see any connections between levels other than the multi-purpose rooms. I know how to swim up vertical connectors, but I didn't see any ladders on that base.

[Destro_Yersul]

Ladders can exist in multipurpose rooms. I'm pretty sure that base has some. I think it also has hatches on each level, but they don't all work.

[Anteros]

The Grand reef's abandoned base is a stack of three multi-purpose rooms, and I didn't see any connections between levels other than the multi-purpose rooms. I know how to swim up vertical connectors, but I didn't see any ladders on that base.

Two levels are connected by a vertical ladder. It sounds like you found the one level that wasn't connected. All 3 are accessible.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

My sister and I can attest that those ladders are surprisingly hard to find (they blend in something fierce), but they're there. Not helped by the fact that turning on your flashlight to try to find them attracts the EMP crab. What's in those extra levels is well worth the effort, though.

[factotum]

Reading the new data back on the cyclops, the "Sea Emperor" is in an "isolated research facility" in a Vocanic region 1.4 KM down. (cough cough "lava castle"), and is the best shot at a cure. Not like I can go there now. If I had more magnatite, I might try the air station approach, but right now each air station would need to be a utility room with a nuclear reactor and a hatch... which seems overkill. Could be doable, with the resources on the Cyclops... but I should probably go back for more upgrades and more magnetite.

You can upgrade both the Cyclops and the Prawn to allow you to go that deep, so I'd recommend that approach rather than a string of re-airing stations. You might also want the thermal power upgrade for the Cyclops which generates power when you're in hot places...

[Destro_Yersul]

The thermal plant is great, but it's a catch-22. You need materials from the lava areas to build it, so you can't get it beforehand.

[factotum]

The thermal plant is great, but it's a catch-22. You need materials from the lava areas to build it, so you can't get it beforehand.

Yeah, but it's really handy:


When those annoying little sods who limpet onto the hull and start sucking your power come along, because it'll overcome the power drain from them without you having to get out and cut them off all the time.

[Rakaydos]

1 Day, 15 Hours.

Getting out of the Lost River was more of an adventure than getting in. Crafting a few more Beacons so I'll know my way around next time, I made a few wrong turns, ran into a hammerhead or two, got hung up on fossilized ribs, caught fire a few times, and generally made a mess of things.

Once I was out, though, I made a beeline for the nearest entrance to the Jelly Cave, to stock up on magnatite. I already had a scanning station in place fromlast time I stocked up, so getting about half a locker of magnatite was relatively smooth. I also took the opportunity here to set the scanner to Limestone, and restock on Copper and Titanium. (copper filled up faster, so the last run was actually set to Metal wreckage.)

Since we had those discussions on the floating island and the degasi multi level habitat, I headed south. Found the three habs on the island, including the non-purple tablet, pots and an indoor grow bed. Time to replace the Bed in the Prawn bay with something more useful. Sleep is for the weak.

The degasi hab had another tablet, and a few other things I forget. Probably this is where I got the Wall Pots.

Then I stared working my way back north.. but my map (posted by SilverRaptor and quoted near the end of the first post) said there was a few wrecks, a bit farther west than I've been. I scanned a Sea treader, then tried to figure out how to get out of the cave I got into.

I got an ecological dead zone warning heading north, so I backed up, and used that to ballpark a bearing to the furthest south wreck. When the terrain dropped out from under me, I got out to look around, see if I'd gone too far. What I presume is a ghost leviathan said that yes, I was in fact too far. No dead zone warning this time.

I died, but respawned outside the cyclops, so I quickly got in and went into reverse before it came back. The wreck I was looking for wasnt that far away. That was an accurate position to aim for the other Sea treader wreck, the blood kelp wreck, the dunes wreck, and the Mushroom forest wreck. Since I was in the area, I finally checked out the Sea Floor escape pod, and the captian's cabin in the aurora (there's a third keypad in the aurora, just inside the entrance, that doesnt respond to either code I have... curious.) Loot includes Prawn suit torpedo arms, grapple arms, propulsion cannon arms, Cyclops shield generator, and finally a vehical modification console

Then it was time to return to dock. Pull the power cells for the 6 spares in engineering, drop the prawn onto the platform and walk it over to the mid level moonpool, drop the first two power cells on the charger, drop to the lower level, build the planter, go back tot he cyclops for plants, and put the vehical modification console in the mid level prawn bay.

A quick browse of the options reveals that some of them require meterials I havnt seen yet. But that felt like a good point to call it quits for the day.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

"Hmm, people arnt really replying to my letsplay thread. Are people even interested?"
"wait, I know. Check to see how the view count changes after each post. That means booting up the laptop instead of the phone, so you can see view numbers."
"Ok, where am I at n- FOUR THOUSAND VIEWS?"

Sorry Rakaydos, I am watching the thread but half the time I think of something to post and then go “wait...that might be a spoiler” and then I don’t post.

[Rakaydos]

Sorry Rakaydos, I am watching the thread but half the time I think of something to post and then go “wait...that might be a spoiler” and then I don’t post.

That's fine. I was suprised. I'm used to smaller, active threads, but given that 900 people have viewed this thread since I posted that, The Show must Go On.

[Rakaydos]

1 day, 17 hours 30 minutes.

No real adventures here- restocking the elements I know how to get, building stuff I havnt had before. Heat resistant bodysuit, drill, torpedo, propulsion and grapple arms for the prawn, a depth and solar charge option for the seamoth (and a second storage option, so they dont have to share), and a few more things.

I also spiffed up my base with a lot of glass. Moved the scan station, put an observatory where it was at. Glass looking into the mushroom forest on either side of the grow bed (which is behind the bioreactor), windows on the midlevel moon pool looking into the kelp forest. And reinforcements on the hallways and directly behind the grow bed, so the base doesnt spring a leak with all this glass.

Titanium bunkers are topped off, lithium locker topped off (though I could pre-manufacture a few more plasteel if I wanted to squeeze a littel more in) Magnatite enough for 6 thermal reactors (possibly a bit low, given how low I need to be going, but the jelly cave hasnt respawned them yet. Something to start next session with)

And in the interests of visibility, the Prawnsuit is now bright red, with the Seamoth bright orange.

[Anteros]

Yellow is actually the most visible color by far.

Resources don't naturally respawn. Once you use them up in an area that's it. There's a cheaty way to get around it, but I've never felt the need.

[Destro_Yersul]

I believe all three keypads on the aurora are accessible. Two from PDA documents found inside the aurora, and one from a code you get on the radio.

And yeah, resources don't respawn, with the exception of fish, and some plant items. I got around this by installing a mod that adds a resource drill to generate more, because I don't like that it's theoretically possible to run out, no matter how long that would take. I'm a creative person, I like building large, nice-looking bases, and feeling like it's not a 'waste' to sink resources into decorative stuff is great for that.

[Rakaydos]

I believe all three keypads on the aurora are accessible. Two from PDA documents found inside the aurora, and one from a code you get on the radio.

And yeah, resources don't respawn, with the exception of fish, and some plant items. I got around this by installing a mod that adds a resource drill to generate more, because I don't like that it's theoretically possible to run out, no matter how long that would take. I'm a creative person, I like building large, nice-looking bases, and feeling like it's not a 'waste' to sink resources into decorative stuff is great for that.

I am 90% certian that Quartz respawns. I assumed that other resources did the same.

[factotum]

Resources don't naturally respawn. Once you use them up in an area that's it. There's a cheaty way to get around it, but I've never felt the need.

That's not my experience--there's a big coral tunnel near where you start that always had a good stock of limestone outcrops and quartz in it, and they always came back no matter how many times I cleared the place. I can imagine it might be the case for the rarer resources, though.

[Silverraptor]

Then I stared working my way back north.. but my map (posted by SilverRaptor and quoted near the end of the first post) said there was a few wrecks, a bit farther west than I've been. I scanned a Sea treader, then tried to figure out how to get out of the cave I got into.


I'm glad my map was useful for you.:smallsmile: Also, fun fact, you can actually scan the ghost leviathans in the dead zone. They just move so incredibly fast that it is hard to get significant progress on scanning. And you'll likely die a lot, but I managed it in my playthrough. Never underestimate my patience/stubbornness.:smalltongue:



Oh, and my game respawned all resources every time I loaded the game from a save. So that lime tunnel was always ready for harvest for me each time I came back to devote a couple more hours to finishing the story.

[Destro_Yersul]

What's actually happening there is that you're resetting the game's cache folder, which regenerates the resource nodes and things. They're not supposed to respawn. Very few things are. Metal salvage might, I'm not actually sure about that one, but under normal circumstances if you clear an area it's supposed to stay cleared.

[Anteros]

According to the devs themselves things do not respawn unless you're somehow resetting the cache folder. That shouldn't happen during normal saving and loading, but Subnautica is such a buggy game I can't say for sure it isn't for some people.

[Triaxx]

There is a source of infinite resources. The sea treaters stir up materials with their feet as they walk, and seem to do so constantly. They can accidentally step on you though, so be careful.

[Destro_Yersul]

this is true. However, the resources they stir up are always shale, which only release gold, diamond, and lithium. useful, for sure. just not as useful as silver and quartz.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

I’ve had resource nodes respawn. I just assumed it was because I was playing for a really long time. :smallconfused:

[Rakaydos]

1 day, 19 hours

Took the prawn suit out to mine the large magnatite I saw last time I was in the jellyshroom cave. Picked up a large gold while I was there. That gave me a slightly overfull bunker of silver+gold (gold mostly, but no shortage of silver) an almost full bunker of magnatite, and a lead bunker of a bit less than half.

took my upgraded Seamoth on a quick tour of my other bases, collecting lead, diamond, power cells, batteries. I did a lot of "prioritizing" earlier in the game that left lead in lockers in random airbases, so that brought back plenty- I upgraded one of my stored Titanium Bar into Plasteel to fit the lithium I found in it's bunker.

Making sure every battery in every device is charged up, sticking extra power cells into the locker in engineering, moved the seamoth's free torpedos into a locker in the Prawn bay.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/721456771964600411/748930032701014026/Seabase.png

Goodbye, home. I'll be back when I think I know how to survive a rocket launch.

[Destro_Yersul]

Which mushroom forest is that? Is it the one next to the area full of bulb bushes, or the other one?

[Rakaydos]

Which mushroom forest is that? Is it the one next to the area full of bulb bushes, or the other one?

Call it North 300 by West 750, where there is a sharp cliff between mushroom forest and Safe Shallows, and access to kelp forest resources.

[Destro_Yersul]

That'll be the other one, then, near the Dunes. I ask because I built my base in a mushroom forest on my current playthrough, and I thought it would be funny if we had independantly picked the same place.

[Rakaydos]

1 day, 22 hours.

Setting off, the cyclops, the Prawn, and myself. Stores topped off, 6 vortex torpedos loaded in the prawn torpedo arm, prawn default equipped with drill and empty hand, but with one each of the other arm types in storage.

At the first thermal vent, I build a scanner station. Nothing new to report. I go a little further, look at the edges of the brine, find a nickle and a sulfur... go back to the scanner station, and it reacts with suprise that I meant THAT new stuff.

After drilling for a locker full of nickle, and about a third of a locker of sulfur, I built a moon pool and vehical modification, got my prawn suit depth upgrade 1, and jump jets. The Cyclops depth upgrade 2 was a bit tense, if not difficult- get the resources, then take a deep breath, pull the depth increase 1 from the slot, ignore the warnings blaring as you calmly (but quickly) walk over to the modification station, upgrade it, and walk back and plug it in. My modification station was in the upper prawn bay, and there was a planter bed in the way, and there wasnt any leaks from the attempt.

I'm not particularly interesed in a fight with the hammerhead, so I go straight back to the blue tree, and enter the next biome.

After everything starts glowing red-orange, I build another thermal/scanner/hatch setup. To my suprise, it detects a new resource without prompting- a blue crystal I need for depth upgrades. The first scan station only found enough for 1 upgrade, and I returned to the cyclops to see leeches on it. Punching them with the prawn suit free hand works great, but if this resource is rare, I better make sure I can stay out long enough for it. First upgrade goes to cyclops thermal generator.

The path is fairly straight foreward, until it opens up, and I see a new, impressively large dragon/squid leviathan. I stop, back up, and build a new scanner station. More of the blue crystal resource. Also, apparently there's an alien structure somewhere in this chamber, according to my PDA. Rather than send the whole cyclops to be a chew toy, I send the prawn out mountian climbing. First expedition comes back with enough for 1 depth upgrade. Prawnsuit gets it, beause it's more maneuverable and has the drill- it can bring back blue crystal that the cyclops cant reach, if only the cyclops had the depth upgrade. With the damage the prawn took from the leviathan, and also the sharks, I buy the auto repair, too. (Building an extra repair tool for it, so I can still make manual repairs if needed)

No helping it- cyclops into the chamber.

The far side of the central structure has plenty of the blue crystal. It also has sharks and the dragon, so the prawn suit could only be out for so long. The cyclops doesnt seem to be prey for the dragon, so once I had enough material for the cyclops depth upgrade, the prawnsuit thermal upgrade, (though I dont have it yet, because i'd need a moonpool for it) and a reserve of a few more (the escape rocket probably needs it), I went back to exploring with the cyclops.

I finally find an entrance to the central thermal vent, bracketed by alien columns. I check it out in the prawn, andter emptying the alien materials locker into my pocket. The alien structure in the core has ANOTHER leviathan circling it. Also, I get another psychinc message, inviting me to find the source of the message. The Leviathan severly damages the prawn while I try to find an entrance. I start back to to cyclops, then remember I kept a spare repair tool for this exact reason, repair the prawn and go back in.

The entrance leads to a small facility, with a blue slate, a pile of ion cubes (that are somehow safe to take a power drill to) and an alien arch... with pedestal. The prawn suit got hung up on the ion cube dispensor, but after the cubes were mined, it was freed. The pedistal eats an ion cube and opens a stargate- not being interested in leaving my vehical, I walk the prawn through the gate.

...and I'm back at the big alien gun facility. Gate is still open, so I can go back. The prawn suit gets hung up again, this time on a random ground cube, and I figure saving and quitting might solve it. We'll see when I reload.

[Triaxx]

Yeah Prawn Suit loves getting hung up. If you're not drilling the grapple arm helps you getting unstuck.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

After drilling for a locker full of nickle, and about a third of a locker of sulfur, I built a moon pool and vehical modification, got my prawn suit depth upgrade 1, and jump jets. The Cyclops depth upgrade 2 was a bit tense, if not difficult- get the resources, then take a deep breath, pull the depth increase 1 from the slot, ignore the warnings blaring as you calmly (but quickly) walk over to the modification station, upgrade it, and walk back and plug it in. My modification station was in the upper prawn bay, and there was a planter bed in the way, and there wasnt any leaks from the attempt.

I did that too on my last playthrough; nerve wracking! But the alternative was trundling that behemoth of a vehicle all the way back to shallow water.

The big problem I ran into with Kyanite is that there are very few non-drill nodes of it. :smallannoyed:

[Rakaydos]

I did that too on my last playthrough; nerve wracking! But the alternative was trundling that behemoth of a vehicle all the way back to shallow water.

The big problem I ran into with Kyanite is that there are very few non-drill nodes of it. :smallannoyed:

It's not like the Seamoth is any good that deep. There's no reason NOT to bring a Prawn drill in the bay.

As for the depth upgrade, the other OTHER option is just to craft a spare depth upgrade. Upgrade the spare, and swap it. But that wasnt nessisary.

[Destro_Yersul]

my problem with kyanite is that the drill nodes aren't guaranteed to give you much. There's a fair bit you can pick up around one of the alien structures, though. The one in the lava castle, I think.

[Triaxx]

Just north of the North eastern bulb zone is a long low sloping tunnel easily navigable by the Cyclops. Take ot down there and past a Ghost Leviathan is Lost River. But below it is a lava castle entrance.

That's how I go in. There's a spot to park the Cyclops by a thermal vent, then I take the Prawn past the Leviathan either way. As for maneuvering? Double Grapple Arms make it super fast. Grapples plus the jet pack mean you can coast almost as fast as the Seamoth.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

It's not like the Seamoth is any good that deep. There's no reason NOT to bring a Prawn drill in the bay.

As for the depth upgrade, the other OTHER option is just to craft a spare depth upgrade. Upgrade the spare, and swap it. But that wasnt nessisary.

I was in Lost River when I swapped mine, so Seamoth was still an option. And I didn’t have the resources for an entire new module; that would have been even more tedious than steering the Cyclops back to shallows.

[Rakaydos]

1 day, 23 hours. Short session today, and I have something else so I won't be able to play again this afternoon.

The prawn suit was freed up by the reload, and I was able to go back through the gate.

The lower level of the facility was sealed off with another purple tablet, and I just used my only one getting the blue tablet. I know the recipy, though. I dont have diamond on me, but there's shale by the Enforcement facility. I did bring supplies for a thermal plant, fabricator and hatch, but while I could plant a thermal plant in the doorway of the alien facility, I had the build a tube a ways down the wall of the lava chamber. I could build a power relay, but then I couldnt build the replicator. and I didnt have the titanum for the hatch anymore, because I used it on the tube.

But I previously built a scanner station by the enforcement platform, while waiting for the Sunbeam. Even if it doesnt have a fabricator, I could disassemble it for the parts I need for the replicator. (I could just go out to the cyclops for the diamond and replicator, but I'm so close to not needing to!)

Got my diamond, got the materials for a fab, built my replicator, built a purple tablet, scanned the Alien Thermal Plant, got Ion Power cell technoligy, and got the location of the Primary containment Facility. Deconstructed the thermal plant, the replicator, the hatch and the power relay, but I didnt have room for the tube, either in the prawn or myself, after picking up the scanner station and the pile of ion cubes as well.

On the way out, I got turned around, took a different path out, saw a few more sulfer and kyanite resources that I dropped titanium for, but eventually made my way around to the Cyclops.

The dragon was waiting. I dodge some fireballs, got bit, gave him a free dental examination with my drill, and managed to get docked with the cyclops before he came back to finish me off.

The offline cyclops gets, like, zero aggro. I made myself a pair of ion power cells, though generally I'm good on power- I carry extra batteries, and I replace anything below 90% at the charger anytime I'm on the cyclops. I've got the thermal charger on the cyclops now, along with all my spares in engineering, so I probably dont need it but it's probably a component of something lategame, like the rocket. my stash of +50 purified waters is running low, but my locker of bleach is doing fine- so I'm transitionng over to disinfected water except for long prawn missions like I just had.

So, primary containment. no hud marker, but the datapad says it's south by southwest and below me. turning on the sub and making that bearing, I run right into it. I have to get out of the sub to see there to exit the hole (directly behind and below where I entered, of course) but it was easy enough to enter the next chamber.

"I am what you seek. I want to help you" says the psychic hallucination.

Another dragon attacks me, but he isnt persistant, and the Cyclops is tough. I locate the facility, and park the cyclops 3m from the door.

Facility needs a blue tablet. it also looks pretty big, and I discovered last time I cant just build a fab inside an alien structure. I'll need to prep for this... next time.

[Cikomyr2]

Just FYI, I read your thread regularly but never comment. So keep up the good work, astronaut!

[Kareeah_Indaga]

The offline cyclops gets, like, zero aggro.

Concur with this. I've been in a number of situations where the most efficient way to get away from sea monsters is just to turn the engine off until they go away - maybe scout around the Cyclops with the cameras while I wait.

[Cikomyr2]

Concur with this. I've been in a number of situations where the most efficient way to get away from sea monsters is just to turn the engine off until they go away - maybe scout around the Cyclops with the cameras while I wait.

So stealth is actually a thing in the 30 feet submarine?

[Rakaydos]

2 days, 1 hour, 30 minutes

First things first, alien keys. Crafting 2 purple tablets, a spare orange tablet, and a spare blue tablet.
I cant build structures inside alien structures, but if there's an arch somewhere useful, I stuff a hab builder and materials for a solar panel, hatch, tube and fabricator into the back of the prawn. I also put my remaining purified waters, and my reserve of ration bars from the aurora wreck in there- if I'm away from a food source that long, it's the most compact way to fill up. it's also a non-renewable resource.

First thing I find is an infinite Ion cube generator. There's a force field as one of 8 doorways from this room, and some alien artifacts to scan. Learning my lesson from last time, I leave the prawn in the central room. Starting from the left of the forcefield, i find an arch... connecting to the arch I already identified, next to my base. I should label that arch in the containment room... beacons. I swing by the base, but I already stripped it of resources before taking off, and the scanner doesnt detect limestone, and the only copper is large deposits, and I left my drill back in the central room. *sigh*

Going all the way back to the cyclops, I craft my remaining copper (I precrafted too many copper wires, I should have left more reserve) into 4 beacons, and pull 2 more from my deployables locker.

The 9 oclock door leads to the air plant. There's scan data about Peepers coming and going through those alien vents I discovered ages ago. No arch.

The 730 door leads to an arch. it goes nowhere I have an immediate presence, but I recognize a "bulb zone" bulb. Good enough to identify it.

The 6 oclock door, above the entrance,leads to some kind of autopsy facility, giving scan data on Sea Emperor young.

The 3 oclock door leads to an egg collection

The 430 and 130 doos lead to arches, though I forget which is which, now. One leads to the far south of the map, almost directly south of the lifepod. I tenatively lable this as "Crag zone?", whild dropping a beacon on the other side of the arch- it's decently near some of my secondary bases in the Grand Reef, I think. The other leads to a section of the Lost River I did not explore, due west of the enforement platform. My last beacon went to labling that section.

I'm getting a calorie warning at this point, but I'm not that far from my sub- rather than ear an irreplacable food bar, I return to the sub for lanturn fruit.

Finally, the 12 oclock forcefield requires a second blue tablet, which thankfully I crafted at the start of this session. Inside is something that looks like a moonpool. dropping in with the prawnsuit... a leviathan swims up, and talks to me. This is the voice that was psychically speaking to me. "Will you swim with the current, or against it, as those who built this facility did?"

The room is a lot larger than the moonpool- large enough for the leviathan- the Sea Emperor? to swim in circles. I can actually craft a base inside the natural enviroment, though the solar panel doesnt work. Getting the prawn suit out of the aquarium is also something of an adventure. In just flippers, you can get over the lip with a dolphin jump out of the water, if you aim it right, but the prawn suit needs an awkward combination of grapple and jump jets to swing onto the lowest platform- and then tends to get stuck. Getting it back to the ion cube generator involved a lot of grapple slides. I go back to the cyclops for materials for a multipurpose room and bioreactor- there's plenty of room down there, plenty of life, and air doesnt actually seem to drain power, just require it.

Once the air station is built in the aquarium, I try and figure out what the creature wants. There's an arch, buried in sand, and a cave layer to the aquarium. I'm down to trying to swim with the leviathan in circles, when I finally notice the eggs in front of the arch. Ion cube, and another conversation. Set the creatures young free, and "I will give you freely what they sought to take" IE, the cure.

More floundering for awhile until I head over to the arch, and suddenly the Sea emperor is blowing away the sand. Another ion cube, and the gateway is open. the leviathan gives me a recipy for an enxime to hatch it's eggs, which is also presumably a cure to the disease. The components are a bunch of plant samples, the sort of thingI'd discarded as "useless" previously. So it's going to be a final fetch quest.

The arch in the aquarium leads outside the enforcement platform, an easy swim to the alien moonpool and the alien thermal plant arch. Not really useful, except for the probable final shutdown of the defense gun, before launch.

A big central hub... one of the spokes of which is already next to my main base. Might as well bring the Cyclops home.

The long trip home has no significant events, other than crossing one of the moonpools I built in Lost River and using it to give the prawn suit it's final upgrade, the thermal reactor. Still have 3 kyanite left. On a hunch, I also take a sample of one of the Lost River's flora- yep, part of the recipy. I get two samples.

Docking back at base is a good point to call it. the thermal plants meant that the cyclops is still at 99% power. The purified water locker is nearly empty, but the bleach locker is still full. Copper is my biggest consumable, and I spotted those lrge copper deposits when I looked around from the arch- mining them will probably be my first priority next session. Then figuring out where the samples I want are at.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

So stealth is actually a thing in the 30 feet submarine?

Yes. There is actually a 'Silent Running' mode you can use for stealth, but it takes more battery juice than normal whereas turning off the engine takes less. Not sure if that was intended player behavior. :smallconfused: :smallbiggrin:



I'm getting a calorie warning at this point, but I'm not that far from my sub- rather than ear an irreplacable food bar

I'm glad I'm not the only one who treats those things like gold.


I go back to the cyclops for materials for a multipurpose room and bioreactor- there's plenty of room down there, plenty of life, and air doesnt actually seem to drain power, just require it.

That has always been a head-scratcher for me: what is the point of emergency power if it doesn't cover basic life support?



Once the air station is built in the aquarium, I try and figure out what the creature wants. There's an arch, buried in sand, and a cave layer to the aquarium. I'm down to trying to swim with the leviathan in circles, when I finally notice the eggs in front of the arch. Ion cube, and another conversation. Set the creatures young free, and "I will give you freely what they sought to take" IE, the cure.

More floundering for awhile until I head over to the arch, and suddenly the Sea emperor is blowing away the sand. Another ion cube, and the gateway is open. the leviathan gives me a recipy for an enxime to hatch it's eggs, which is also presumably a cure to the disease. The components are a bunch of plant samples, the sort of thingI'd discarded as "useless" previously. So it's going to be a final fetch quest.


IMO the triggers for this part of the game were a bit clunky; it could have used a little more telegraphing about what you're supposed to do next, because with the arch buried it's not obvious you're supposed to use it until after the scene plays out, and it's far enough from the eggs I wasn't triggering it by accident.

[Triaxx]

Two things to note. The Arch in the Sea Emperor's hab is near a wreck that might spawn in before you realize if you leave with the Prawn Suit. I lost one to the wreck appearing around me.

And the arch leading to the Bulb Zone actually sits on a small shelf overlooking the long easy sloping entrance to the Lost River/Lava Zone area. Also that area has quite a lot of large prawn accessible resource nodes.

The food bars in the Aurora are nice but Salted Reginald and Large Water will keep you going forever.

[Destro_Yersul]

it's possible to despawn wrecks by building a habitat piece through them. Not the intended way to explore themm though it's used for the speedrun, but should work to free up your prawn if it gets stuck.

For the ration bars, I just got a mod that lets me craft more.

Good luck to you on finding the resources for the enzymes, Rak. Four of them are pretty easy, but that fifth one's a doozy.

[Rakaydos]

2 days, 4 hours, 30 minutes.

The first four parts of the enzime were easy. The last is an ongoing wild goose chase.

The copper mining went as planned. While I was in the mushroom forest, I picked up a pair of Fungal samples, and put the copper and the fungal samples in storage.

Fungal samples were at one of the primary research facility's gateways, and the ghost stalk thing was found in the Lost River, which another of the gateways onnect to. The bulb sample was an easy pickup through the bulb zone gateway, and a little searching outside the Crag Field gate found that component

But where to find the Sea Crown?

There's two other exits from the primary containment facility- a lava area with no flora and angry fauna, and also the aquarium gateway to the quarantine enforcement facility. No dice on the sea floor there.

as a combination of search pattern and to double check I'm not being stupid, I walked the prawn suit across the Mountian's sea floor toward the beacon I placed at the North Lost River entrance- I entered easilly enough, confirmed the ghost plant was the native lost-river component, and came home through the gate.

Perhaps it was a safe shallows plant I missed? No dice. I did accidently fumble my depth upgrade for the seamoth during this, losing it to the abyss. On the other hand, I found a few metal fragments, and tried the "eating out of my hand" apprach the Degasi survivors seccomended. Got a pair of Stalker teeth.

Might as well pull on the other threads available to me. The launch pad, gantry, and engines were easy enough. The fuel reserve, i already made the needed ion cells, but I needed one more Kyanite.

Prawnsuit to gate nexus, to aquarium, to Enforcement platform, inside the platform, and gate to the Alien Thermal Plant. Now you're thinking with portals. There was a loose kyanite inside the lava chamber, helpfully pointed out by a scanner station I left in operation nearby.

On the way back, I took the prawnsuit up the mountian the enforcement platform is on. There's another gateway that I now recognize as one I can feed an ion cube to, (unfortunately, the prawn cant get through the door to that room), and I open a gate to the floating island. No sea crowns on land, of course, but it will let me quickly get back if I'm in that area.

Did you know prawn suits dont take falling damage, even jumping from a mountian? Weee!

Finishing up the Neptune rocket was relatively straightfoward. Even the shield generator was already built, plugged in but never used. I used the last of my precrafted titanium ingots got the plasteel for the Neptune, but I have enough reserve titanium if I need it for something else. With that commitment seen to, I also re-craft the seamoth depth upgrade, and level it to 500m.

I just need to find that darn Seacrown plant. There's only so many biomes in this game, I'll get it eventually.

[factotum]

Just to note: apart from the plant that you actually find in the Sea Emperor's pool, all the others are near the exits for those teleportation arches you discovered--that's literally why those things are there.

When I did this part the game had bugged out and I actually had a regular leviathan swimming around in the empty air inside the alien facility's main chamber, which made negotiating that area somewhat fun!

[Anteros]

So stealth is actually a thing in the 30 feet submarine?

If you manage to scan the Reapers you'll learn that they hunt by echolocation, so it kinda makes sense.

Also terrifying because it means that any time you can hear one roaring it means it can already see you.

[Destro_Yersul]

Mechanically that's not actually how it works, but it is nice that audible roars are a way to tell you're near a Reaper's detection bubble, if not actually in it yet.

And yeah, the Sea Crown is the one I meant when I said one of them is hard to find. There are an extremely limited number of the cheeky blighters in the game, and nothing directly pointing you to where they are. If you don't stumble across one by accident, or look up the location, you could be searching for a very long time indeed without finding any.

[Anteros]

Mechanically that's not actually how it works, but it is nice that audible roars are a way to tell you're near a Reaper's detection bubble, if not actually in it yet.

And yeah, the Sea Crown is the one I meant when I said one of them is hard to find. There are an extremely limited number of the cheeky blighters in the game, and nothing directly pointing you to where they are. If you don't stumble across one by accident, or look up the location, you could be searching for a very long time indeed without finding any.

Eh, that destroys the immersion though. Besides, they wander a bit so if you can hear it there's a chance it'll come for you eventually.

The Sea Crown can either be the easiest or the hardest piece to find, and that's all I'll say. I'm sure Rak can Google where it is if they want spoilers on it without us giving them.

[Rakaydos]

Eh, that destroys the immersion though. Besides, they wander a bit so if you can hear it there's a chance it'll come for you eventually.

The Sea Crown can either be the easiest or the hardest piece to find, and that's all I'll say. I'm sure Rak can Google where it is if they want spoilers on it without us giving them.

A bit late now, but I'll try to make it sound like I discovered them naturally. :p

[Destro_Yersul]

there's one cave with one that I usually stumble across early on and, knowing I'll need it eventually, grab a couple seeds. But if you don't know it's coming, or that the plant is rare, or that it's in that particular cave, you wouldn't know to do that.

[Rakaydos]

ahem...

2 days, 5 hours, 30 minutes.

So where to start?

Checking my PDA, there's three lifepods that dont have locator beacons. One south of the aurora in the crag zone, one on the surface that I think I came across coming home from my first aborted aurora trip but never exploited, and a third that uses thesurface lifepod as a direction gude instead of the aurora.

Craft a beacon, swim to the aft of the aurora drop it, and dodge Reaper leviathans in the seamoth trying to get a KM of distance. (strafe when you hear a close roar, and you will get some scraping against your hull, but not a grab.) The crag zone lifepod, lifepod 7, has a bobblehead, a hat and a toy car. I'm sure this voice log will prove enlightening.

Going around the reaper zone to pick up the beacon, drop the seamoth roughly amidships, swim out 150m and look around- even if you get the position or angle wrong, in daylight you can see it from about anywhere. Drop the beacon, pick up the seamoth, dodge some mushrooms, get a bit of false hope when you see those violet fan plants, and it's not that hard to find. No luck. Searching the mushroom forest between them turns up nothing the other mushroom forest doesnt have.

Bulb zone is probably the next place to start. from somewhere between the two lifepods, I set off for the Bulb Zone Arch beacon, searching the sea floor.

Lifepod 12 happened to be close enough to my line to be worth checking out. No PDA, I must have picked it up earlier, but across from the thermal vent...

Ok, it wasnt quite that easy. It's on a higher ledge and just outside close load-in range. I actually got distracted by a cave dive, cut my air relatively close, made a rush for the surface, and spotted it coming back down for the seamoth. But it's on a ledge overlooking the geyser.

Getting three samples, I came home. Made an underwater planter, planted two, crafted one into an enzime.

That's probably enough "Luck" for one day.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

there's one cave with one that I usually stumble across early on and, knowing I'll need it eventually, grab a couple seeds. But if you don't know it's coming, or that the plant is rare, or that it's in that particular cave, you wouldn't know to do that.

It actually occurs in a number of places, but IMO the easiest is

In the tank with mommy Sea Emperor.

Besides those and the ones Rak found, the Red Kelp zone (I’m guessing this is the area you usually hit Destro?) has some and so does Dunes. They seem to like caves.

[Rakaydos]

Epilogue:

Probably should have just carried through to the end of the game, after that.

Taking the prawn suit down to the primary containment facility is fast and easy, from my base. hatching the eggs, simple enough. Once through the gate the juvinile egg emperors begin producing blobs, which I stick my hand into. #cured. And hey, the enforcement facility is right there.

After shutting down the laser, the facility gets dark and creepy. In any other game, this is where the twist happens, the enemy the weapon system was REALLY holding off would attack.

Not my problem. Like most predators in this game, ignore them, and they will mostly ignore you back. Perhaps the sequel touches on the subject of a broken quarentine defense system on an infected planet.

The Neptune is already built. I take the chance to craft a spare enzime, and an ion battery cutting tool, before heading up the rocket. Going down the checklist- Power, Comunications, Hydrolics, Computer, Life support, and time capsule. hello, whoever finds it. Have a cure for the desease ravanging this planet. Also a battery.

As someone who plays Kerbal, I have issues with the flight path the neptune takes. But that's not important. The Sea Emperor has one last message for me, affirming our connection. Roll Credits.

...also, Alterra wont let me land until I pay them for all the resources I mined from a biohazard planet.

[sihnfahl]

...also, Alterra wont let me land until I pay them for all the resources I mined from a biohazard planet.
By very dint that you're an Alterra employee, and any unclaimed planet you land on becomes theirs. And all its resources.

Resources that you used.

Tsk, tsk, stealing from your employer?

[Kareeah_Indaga]

By very dint that you're an Alterra employee, and any unclaimed planet you land on becomes theirs. And all its resources.

Resources that you used.

Tsk, tsk, stealing from your employer?

I just gotta say, Alterra had better have a PHENOMENAL hazard pay policy after all that. :smallannoyed:

And I do wish the aforementioned sequel was a little more stable. :smallfrown:

[factotum]

After shutting down the laser, the facility gets dark and creepy. In any other game, this is where the twist happens, the enemy the weapon system was REALLY holding off would attack.


Not sure if serious, but the game makes it quite clear that the reason the weapon system is there is to provide a quarantine to prevent the disease getting off the planet--if nobody lands or takes off because they're evaporated when they try, no way the disease gets out, right? I think there's an implication that it somehow got out anyway and killed all the aliens, which is why nobody knows about them, but that part might be just my headcanon and not supported by in-game text like the above bit is.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Not sure if serious, but the game makes it quite clear that the reason the weapon system is there is to provide a quarantine to prevent the disease getting off the planet--if nobody lands or takes off because they're evaporated when they try, no way the disease gets out, right? I think there's an implication that it somehow got out anyway and killed all the aliens, which is why nobody knows about them, but that part might be just my headcanon and not supported by in-game text like the above bit is.

Other way around.

The plague killed a bunch of them first, then they came to 4546B to study it and were experimenting on the native life to find a cure. They figured out the Sea Emperor made an enzyme that cured it, but she was sick/old/damaged and not making it well enough, so they wanted to hatch her eggs. So they started researching the other Leviathan species to figure out how to do that, BUT they didn’t have the facilities for adults, so they started stealing Leviathan eggs. After this one of the parent Leviathans followed them back to the Lost River facility and attacked it; that caused a breach which released one of their infected test subjects, and bye-bye biosphere, hello Kharaa plague.

[Rakaydos]

Not sure if serious, but the game makes it quite clear that the reason the weapon system is there is to provide a quarantine to prevent the disease getting off the planet--if nobody lands or takes off because they're evaporated when they try, no way the disease gets out, right? I think there's an implication that it somehow got out anyway and killed all the aliens, which is why nobody knows about them, but that part might be just my headcanon and not supported by in-game text like the above bit is.

I'd have to double check the PDA, but I'm pretty sure alien data downloads support the idea that there was a containment failure that resulted in widespread infection in the alien civilization. My impression was that it happened BEFORE the sea emperor was captured, and that the whole base was a crash program to find a cure.

And as I said, "any other game," meaning not Subnautica. Perhaps it was just a different "creepy alien facility" track that came on after the shutdown, but it felt ominous, not like I had finally dealt with the last barrier between me and escaping the planet.

[DeTess]

And as I said, "any other game," meaning not Subnautica. Perhaps it was just a different "creepy alien facility" track that came on after the shutdown, but it felt ominous, not like I had finally dealt with the last barrier between me and escaping the planet.

Yeah, I remember being very creeped out by the facility after shutdown as well, like Something was going to jump me at any second.

[Destro_Yersul]

It actually occurs in a number of places, but IMO the easiest is

In the tank with mommy Sea Emperor.

Besides those and the ones Rak found, the Red Kelp zone (I’m guessing this is the area you usually hit Destro?) has some and so does Dunes. They seem to like caves.


That would be the easiest if I knew where in the tank it was, but I've always just found that early one. It's in a sort of sinkhole cave, I think in the red weed plateaus. Might be near the north mushroom forest?

And yeah, the ending is funny. While I know that it's mostly there for the joke, I feel like Riley could probably turn the huge bill into a job opportunity, as the person who knows the most about the planet. At very least, he could hand Alterra a bill right back for all the work he did making the planet habitable. Releasing the Sea Emperor juveniles will cure the whole biosphere eventually.

[Cikomyr2]

If you manage to scan the Reapers you'll learn that they hunt by echolocation, so it kinda makes sense.

Also terrifying because it means that any time you can hear one roaring it means it can already see you.

Sadly, that's not how echolocation would work. The Reapers emit a sound to track me, so being completely still shouldn't make me invisible to them.


I just gotta say, Alterra had better have a PHENOMENAL hazard pay policy after all that. :smallannoyed:

And I do wish the aforementioned sequel was a little more stable. :smallfrown:

Altera is notoriously cheap and amoral in its business practices. The ship who come and rescue you has a discussion about how a lot of distress signals are just Altera ships crying wolf for a free spare part or fuel or whatnot, and that the company deliberately under equip their ships to rely on the Good Samaritan policy of other spacers.

[sihnfahl]

Altera is notoriously cheap and amoral in its business practices. The ship who come and rescue you has a discussion about how a lot of distress signals are just Altera ships crying wolf for a free spare part or fuel or whatnot, and that the company deliberately under equip their ships to rely on the Good Samaritan policy of other spacers.
But because they're such a large company and have so much power, smaller companies play along because they really don't have much of a choice...

[Rakaydos]

I've started to watch other lets-plays, and overrreactions are hilarius.

Or perhaps they arnt overreactions. Perhaps seeing a flash of motion in the murky distance is supposed to reduce you to incoherent babbling. Perhaps I'm just jaded- that first encounter (in the unsaved section) with the Reaper where I got 80% of a scan before it ran off threw off my threat assessment, and there were a few deaths I recieved because I simply didnt give them enough respect.

I never built a heat blade, never fired a torpedo, and almost never remembered I crafted a Stasis rifle or propulsion gun. (and never crafted the repulsion cannon) My policy with large predators was to ignore them, and occasionally juke if I thought it could help, but if I had to die, best if it didnt destroy my equipment. (biters, bleeders and spiders got knifed, of course)

[Destro_Yersul]

Reapers be pretty scary. Probably a lot of them are playing it up, but the distant roars can be pretty unsettling.

I basically never use torpedoes, or a heat blade. Not really necessary. Stasis Rifle can be nice in a pinch, but it's big so I don't usually carry it around. Propulsion cannon is magical. Using it to fling spiders into the stratosphere is so satisfying.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

I can easily see not bothering with torpedos, and I never got the hang of the Stasis Rifle myself, but why no heat blade? It has all the functionality of a normal knife, plus as long as you’re in a biome with prey fish you don’t need to bring food: just kill fish as you get hungry.

[Eldan]

I mean, I got to the lava castle without ever building a weapon in my playthrough. Running from reapers can get you very far.

[Destro_Yersul]

I can easily see not bothering with torpedos, and I never got the hang of the Stasis Rifle myself, but why no heat blade? It has all the functionality of a normal knife, plus as long as you’re in a biome with prey fish you don’t need to bring food: just kill fish as you get hungry.

Holdover from when knives had durability, for me. The thermoblade used to break super fast, so I just got used to not using it.

[Triaxx]

I'm still amused by the Fanon that Subnautica guy and Shipbreaker guy are the same person and Subnautica is how he racked up such an enormous debt.

Personally I never actually built an escape rocket so my guy just sent: I have control of this planet's defenses. Therefore it is now mine. Take your bill and stick it.

[Anteros]

Sadly, that's not how echolocation would work. The Reapers emit a sound to track me, so being completely still shouldn't make me invisible to them.


Yes but less noise is better when being targeted by a predator that hunts by sound.

Running into some unusual problems on my own recent playthrough. I'm using a modded version that let's you craft extra depth and a drill arm for the Seamoth. This keeps a lot of the tension because many of the enemies in the late game that the prawn can safely ignore almost 1-shot the seamoth. The problem is that this means I can't drill things on dry land, which means I can't access the infinite supply of ion cubes. It's a small problem in the grand scheme of things, but inconvenient since I can't afford to activate all the teleporters.

There's another mod on the nexus that I'm eyeing that lets you spawn in additional leviathans at the start of your game. I'm not sure if you can randomize their placement, but if so it would be nice for when I re-play the game in VR one day.

[Rakaydos]

Is there any interest in a letsplay of a second playthrough?

[Destro_Yersul]

I'd follow it. The second go through you already know all the stuff, and where to find things, and so it ends up being a lot less about exploration... but there's usually a thing or two that you missed, so the game can still surprise you in places.

[Triaxx]

Yeah, would be nice to not havd to avoid spoilers in answers.

[Rakaydos]

First session:
So, since I already did a survival run, lets kick it up to Hardcore.

The life pod landed practically on top of a geyser, and near a kelp forest. All the speedruns I've seen love these things, easy access to silver, gold and lead, you just have to watch how much heat you take.

Easy tank, flippers, knife and scanner, but died to the geyser heat (I think), so that was a real short run.

Second attempt, 26 minutes in
This time, spawned almost on top of a minor cave system with easy copper and sulfur. There was a kelp forect just outside visual range from the pod, and it had sandstone, too. So tank, scanner, flippers, knife, repair tool, some bleach for emergency water, scanned 2 vehical bay fragments, and I even played frisbee with the doggos for 3 teeth before I needed to go back for a medkit. I've got enough lead for the radiation suit, once the aurora blows, and I just crafted the hab builder.

Pretty good start so far. I havnt run into any radiation zones or seen any grassland biomes. The kelp forest I saw is a narrow canyon, probably 240 south by 50 west, which would put the pod around 130 south or so.

According to the map, there's the Degasi entrance to the Jellyshroom cave not too much further from the forest I believe I'm at, and that degasi hab has a multipurpose room. I've also got a few wrecks to check out. And my old base location at the western mushroom forest should be a good place to get cyclops fragments, if I can get an airbase that low.

[Rakaydos]

Nope. Got overambitious looking for the degasi jellyshroom hole. Working my way "south" from the kelp forest, I must have gotten turned around. I found a jellyshroom cave on the border of grass and kelp, probably one on the 200 south by 200-400 west area. Trying to guesstimate which way the degasi was from there, (I only check the map between sessions), I found a drop to the grand reef, and got distracted by a wreck with prawn suit drills. I gave myself 30 seconds plus a basic tank swap to get to the surface. It was not enough.

[Rakaydos]

3rd hardcore attempt: 14 minutes in.
I'm getting faster at the initial buildup.

Started nearly on top of a large coral tube. no obvous kelp forest, but swimming in a random direction yielded something. Picked up gold, silver and lead at the same time as the seed pods I need for the knife and flippers- a few close calls there, but made it back to craft O2, flippers, scanner, repair tool. The hab builder didnt take much longer.

Life pod is roughly in line with the aft bulkhead of the Aurora, but no idea of distance. I want to say I'm near 0,0 but I cant say for sure.

Edit: Made some forays north, scanned a full seamoth blueprint, but failed to watch my health around Biters when scanning laser cutter fragments.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Nope. Got overambitious looking for the degasi jellyshroom hole. Working my way "south" from the kelp forest, I must have gotten turned around. I found a jellyshroom cave on the border of grass and kelp, probably one on the 200 south by 200-400 west area. Trying to guesstimate which way the degasi was from there, (I only check the map between sessions), I found a drop to the grand reef, and got distracted by a wreck with prawn suit drills. I gave myself 30 seconds plus a basic tank swap to get to the surface. It was not enough.

If it helps, I believe you can use Bladderfish for air if you have any in your inventory.

Keep an eye out for the Brain Coral too.

[Rakaydos]

4th attempt. 38 minutes in

Life pod was right on the edge of a kelp field, albet one with poor sandstone access, probably somewhere along the 200 west line. Could not for for the life of me find a sulfer cave, but I got lucky with scans when criss crossing the safe shallows looking for one. I am now the proud new owner of a Beacon and a Seaglide. Between the lifepod and a beacon, triangulation will become much easier. And of course the Seaglide (and a spare high capacity tank) should make it harder to drown when scanning in the deep.

Update: I was doing so well. Found the degasi hab, and parts for a scanner room. It's a bit of a long dive, but with the seaglide I was able to get down to it, scan the multipurpose room and observatory, come back up to the airbase. Go down, find a magnatite, come back, build a scanner room and a hud chip. Go down, scan the water filtration system, come back. (no ruby or gel sacks nearby, alas) Go down, get 2-3 mangnatite and a diamond, come back up. Go in for the data box and queen size bed scan... clip a seaweed on the way out of the base, instant game over. Dammit!

[Destro_Yersul]

Yeah, those stingers are murderous. I usually remove them with the propulsion cannon before going in there, and I also usually wait until I have the seamoth before doing the jellyshroom stuff.

[Rakaydos]

Yeah, those stingers are murderous. I usually remove them with the propulsion cannon before going in there, and I also usually wait until I have the seamoth before doing the jellyshroom stuff.

I was doing so well, and that was probably going to be my last run inside, anyway. *sigh* I probably should have made a secondary airbase in the flore of the cave, if I had enough materials for a bioreactor. Or even a rebreather.


Format question for you all. The blind survival run made sence to run by timestamp, but with Hardcore I'm going to be playing through the early game a lot, and I'm not going to have a timestamp for my failures.

Should I go for one post per session, or per run? Most of my attempts have been, "Rush the early setup, start exploring, meet an untimely end before reaching another solid breakpoint," so I've been doing a lot of "Here's my start. Edit: and here's how it falls apart" posts and/or double posts. What do you all feel works best?

[Destro_Yersul]

How about one post per milestone? Something like speedrunners do, with splits. Of course if the run fails before the first milestone happens, than that's simple enough to do in one.

possible milestones:

- Aurora reactor fixed
- Glowshroom Degasi Base
- Deep Reef Degasi Base
- Lost River research facility
- Lava Castle/Emperor Aquarium (I usually do these both in one trip because I hate going to the lava zones. After you've been once there's teleporters in case you missed something)
- Eggs hatched
- Rocket Launch

Another thing I do early is rush the floating island for marblemelons and the multipurpose room, so that I don't need to worry about food ever again, and water is a bit less of a thing. I forget what wrecks the water filtration machine is in, but I know one of the degasi bases has one, so I usually leave that for a bit.

[Anteros]

I have to think that eventually you'll stop dying so much. I think you've died more times in this thread than I have in several hundred hours of playing the game. I suppose I'm naturally very cautious when I play due to my thalassophobia though.

[Silverraptor]

Obligatory post of this video. Is best to watch after you finish the game. Since you finished it, it's time to post this for your enjoyment.:smallsmile:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoETiwKEBT0

[Rakaydos]

Very good run, ruined by a misclick.

Got my early game, with rebreather and compass, and got some good scans for an early seamoth in the northern mushroom forest. wandered into the mountians. Since I was in the area, I went into the QEF sub bay, got a cube, took the gate to the floating island, and got the multipurpose room, indoor and outdoor growbeds, and marblemelon seeds. Came back to the QEF, headed generally west, toward my preferred base location. Nailed the underwater island wreck, but lost my seamoth to the local wildlife while I was exploring it.

I took my time setting up the base, got 2/3 of the cyclops components, got a vehical modification station, had several options for prawn suit arms.

Set up a scanner station just above the crevace at 250 south by 750 west, went down looking for ruby. I had a rebreather, and a spare oxygen bottle, so I wasnt too worried. I started back with 30 seconds left on my first air bottle.

And I dropped the second air tank instead of swapping it. I had plenty of time to fumble around looking for it and to curse my misclick before I drowned.

[Destro_Yersul]

yeah, welcome to one of the reasons I never bother with swapping out air tanks. Far safer to stick with places you can get there and back on a single tank.

[Rakaydos]

I'm probably going to stick to 1 solid run a day- I've got a class that I really should be working on.

Landed in the far south, somewhere like 450 south by 100 west, or so. got my basics, used the radio to get a seaglide from the lifepod with a damaged one (plus a box I stumbled over on the way), built my portable base and a seaglide on the spot.

Worked my way west, then rode the kelp forest/grassland border. Scanned a few wrecks and seamoth parts. Biters were annoying. Went back to the lifepod for a medkit.

Since I was so far south, the jellyshroom Degasi hab was practically right there. Might as well go for the multipurpose room. Navigation without the compass is a pain, so I accidently ended up above the Grand Reefs wreck- Got a gel pod there, which would make advanced material hunting easier later on. Thermal plant and scanner room scans, mostly.

Got to the Degasi hole, and this time I put the minihab a good 15-20m inside the hole, making all my trips easier. The hab had some nice stuff outside- a full moonpool, a full modification station, a full stasis rifle, and a single nuke plant fragment. I was also able to scan the water filtration system from the outside, and the multipurpose and observatory. Magnatite and shale was available, so I started working on a laser cutter.

Then I come up from one trip to find there's radiation outside my minihab. Ok, I've got lead from cracking sandstone earlier, but I need fiber. I make a trip to the local kelp forest, come back with enough for the first fiber... and there's radiation INSIDE the hab. I stick with the plan, go out for another pair of creepvine samples, and die at the replicator. Sigh.

[Destro_Yersul]

After the Aurora explodes, the radiation bubble it kicks out is pretty big. Enough to cover the northeast mushroom forest and most of the koosh zone. I don't think it reaches any of the lifepod spawns, but it covers almost everything east of them that isn't also covered in Reaper leviathans. Another reason to make fixing it a priority... or at least, to go for the lifepod replicator instead of one in a radiation zone.

[Rakaydos]

After the Aurora explodes, the radiation bubble it kicks out is pretty big. Enough to cover the northeast mushroom forest and most of the koosh zone. I don't think it reaches any of the lifepod spawns, but it covers almost everything east of them that isn't also covered in Reaper leviathans. Another reason to make fixing it a priority... or at least, to go for the lifepod replicator instead of one in a radiation zone.

My issue was more that the bubble wasnt static. The aurora exploded when I was still back at the Great Reef, but the radiation zone expanded over my hab after I was using it for awhile- and I had the initial impression that the hab itself protected me.

That said, this is an easy lesson, as you said- Build your rad suit away from the rad zone.

[Destro_Yersul]

I think the way it works is that before the Aurora explodes there's no radiation, and then once it does explode the bubble expands slowly outwards from the Aurora until it reaches a fixed size or the drives are fixed, whichever comes first. Once the drives ARE fixed, the bubble slowly contracts until, once again, it no longer exists. I don't know how long any of this takes, what rates the bubble expands or contracts, but I think I've said previously that I usually rush the Aurora once it explodes to fix the drive core and loot the rest of the ship, so it's never really been an issue.

The way habs work is also a bit weird, because they can be built anywhere. Sometimes you'll see a fish school (the ones with no collission) swimming through a room or hallway. I think the way it works is that passing through a 'module entry', either a hatch or a moonpool, turns on gravity and turns off the underwater filters. It might also turn off ambient temperature detection, but I'm not sure. Point is, anything that works underwater needs to be specifically turned off for it to not work inside a hab, and radiation clearly isn't.

[Rakaydos]

I will say, though- replaying the start of the game over and over, consulting the map far more than I did in my initial playthrough, I'm getting a much better sence of spacial awareness, of where all the biomes and wrecks are in relation to one another, and the sorts of things I can expect in each biome.

The route on that last run felt good- the seaglide, the western grassland scans, the grand reef wreck, and the jellyshroom degasi... get me a cyclops engine from, I think, the crag and/or crash zones (watch out for the crash zone reaper), deal with the aurora (and check out the cargo bay and lab, which I missed in my first run) and get the Prawn. Then jump over to the route on the run I had the big base build on: North mushroom, enforcement island to floating island, degasi habs and food, back, then underwater island wreck, mushroom wreck, and build the big base. (I like the verticality of that site, because vertical ladders are teleporters- you can get from the mushroom forest floor to the surface in 5 seconds. Bit expensive titanium wise, though.)

[Destro_Yersul]

yeah, vertical teleport ladders are fun. It is expensive on titanium, though - I've got a mod that adds resource drills, which generate resources based on the biome you set them up in.

[Anteros]

I think the way it works is that before the Aurora explodes there's no radiation, and then once it does explode the bubble expands slowly outwards from the Aurora until it reaches a fixed size or the drives are fixed, whichever comes first. Once the drives ARE fixed, the bubble slowly contracts until, once again, it no longer exists. I don't know how long any of this takes, what rates the bubble expands or contracts, but I think I've said previously that I usually rush the Aurora once it explodes to fix the drive core and loot the rest of the ship, so it's never really been an issue.

The way habs work is also a bit weird, because they can be built anywhere. Sometimes you'll see a fish school (the ones with no collission) swimming through a room or hallway. I think the way it works is that passing through a 'module entry', either a hatch or a moonpool, turns on gravity and turns off the underwater filters. It might also turn off ambient temperature detection, but I'm not sure. Point is, anything that works underwater needs to be specifically turned off for it to not work inside a hab, and radiation clearly isn't.

This is exactly right. It takes about 2 or 3 day cycles for the radiation to travel either way in my experience.

[Triaxx]

Honestly probably best to memorize what you need for the Rad suit and prep it as soon as you spawn. That way as soon as the Aurora blows you can get yourself safe.

[Destro_Yersul]

rad suit's pretty easy, too. It's two lead two fiber, and you'll probably have lead anyways from searching for silver.

[Triaxx]

Exactly so being able to assemble it as soon aa you get the pattern is literally a life saver.

[Rakaydos]

4 hours, 44 minutes. Status: Not dead.

Built a scanner, knife and repair tool the first time I came back to the pod, and ran across early seaglide fragments, so early game went smoothly. I tried to replicate the "seaglide lifepod, and go west" but aimed a bit too far north- when the grassland gave way to (west) mushroom forest, I said screw it, and made a temporary base where the real base would be, eventually.

After outfitting for another expedition, I went over the safe shallow southward, explored a few wrecks, got to the grand reef wreck dropoff, found a thermal reactor, drill arm, and a full modification station. (have you ever seen a modification station fragment in a crate? It looked weird) I also found a time capsule with a laser cutter, along with a scanner, hab builder, and repair tool, all with ion batteries. I had the radiation suit in hand before reaching the jellyshroom degasi hole, but without being able to use the the rebreather, I put the airbase a little deeper this time. Degasi had a full nuclear reactor, along with the usual stasis rifle, water purification, multipurpose, but not much else. It took me awhile to find a magnatite, too. (I didnt go for the databox without a rebreather)

After fruitlessly searching the crag zone and some of the crash site for engine fragments, (though I did get a nice load of ruby. No gel sacks yet) Iheaded back to the lifepod to clear out my inventory before heading into the aurora. Found the cargo bay, which had a full cyclops engine inside, and got the usual efficency moduel, seamoth depth, and cargo modules. Radiation gone, Prawnsuit aquired, though I didnt have the captian's cabin code on me, so it wasnt a clean sweep.(I tried to guess a few times from memory, but no dice) came out with several posters and a nice stockpile of nutrient bars.

I tried sweeping the east mushroom forest before going back to the lifepod, but ran into inventory issues. I completed the cyclops and moonpool blueprints, and went back to the pod without going on to the enforcement platform as originally planned.

With moonpool, multipurpose, and several vehical blueprints, I drooped as much of the rations as i could in the lifepod, loaded up with components, and returned to the minibase at the west mushroom forest. after some building and resource gathering, the moonpool and bioreactor are in, and the elevator to the midlevel is complete. Next up is moving everything (Fab, radio, solar, medicfab) from the minibase over to the main base.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Found the cargo bay, which had a full cyclops engine inside, and got the usual efficency moduel, seamoth depth, and cargo modules. Radiation gone, Prawnsuit aquired, though I didnt have the captian's cabin code on me, so it wasnt a clean sweep.(I tried to guess a few times from memory, but no dice) came out with several posters and a nice stockpile of nutrient bars.

I tried sweeping the east mushroom forest before going back to the lifepod, but ran into inventory issues.

You got through the entire Aurora and started on another biome before you ran into inventory issues? You must have a lot more self-control than I do; my usual looting habits tend to result in multiple trips no matter where I go.

[Rakaydos]

You got through the entire Aurora and started on another biome before you ran into inventory issues? You must have a lot more self-control than I do; my usual looting habits tend to result in multiple trips no matter where I go.

Lol yea. I knew it was going to be a problem before I went in. The trick is: Medkits and disinfected water are effectively infinite, outside the aurora. Keep what you need to survive, toss the rest. The duffle bags are just lockers that take up more space. Other than the vehical upgrades, the only stuff in the aurora worth looting is ration bars, posters, and the stuffed toy.

Even so, I cleared out my inventory before I went in, and got greedy with trying for the biome after.

[Rakaydos]

Dumb thought that probably doesnt work.

The seamoth apparently doesnt crush while inside the cyclops bay, and even when launched, it doesnt crush instantly. How many seconds does it take to explode? Can you extend that with hull reinforcements to add health to the seamoth?

...because apparently seamoths dont aggro Sea Dragons. It would be a 1 way safe trip, if it lasts long enough.

[Anteros]

Dumb thought that probably doesnt work.

The seamoth apparently doesnt crush while inside the cyclops bay, and even when launched, it doesnt crush instantly. How many seconds does it take to explode? Can you extend that with hull reinforcements to add health to the seamoth?

...because apparently seamoths dont aggro Sea Dragons. It would be a 1 way safe trip, if it lasts long enough.

It doesn't last long at all. And I can tell you from playing with depth mods for the seamoth that it does aggro. It just doesn't have a special attack animation for it.

[Destro_Yersul]

I'm pretty sure the cyclops doesn't aggro at all, provided it's turned off. It's also durable enough to take a couple hits even if it does aggro, and has the benefit of shields to block all damage, and decoys to lure the dragon away. The lava zone isn't too bad once you know where you're going.

I still only ever want to go down there once, though.

[Triaxx]

The trick with Ruffles is to carry them back to the main entrance and then fill them there ao on subsequent trips you don't have to go all the way in.

[Anteros]

I'm pretty sure the cyclops doesn't aggro at all, provided it's turned off. It's also durable enough to take a couple hits even if it does aggro, and has the benefit of shields to block all damage, and decoys to lure the dragon away. The lava zone isn't too bad once you know where you're going.

I still only ever want to go down there once, though.

The dragon will sometimes hit the cyclops even if it's off and empty, but it doesn't do any damage. A powered down cyclops is basically immune to damage. You can even go park in the void and power off. Good luck getting out though unless you have a shield generator.

[Rakaydos]

Daily update: Died by mixing up east and west when consulting map, and wanding into the dead zone while looking for a wreck.

So, first radio message I recieved was the sunbeam coming to get me. Half an hour, plenty of time to prep for an expedition. Normally I use the "tube+hatch+solar panel+fab" method of doing exploration bases, but this time I wanted to try something a bit more comprehensive.

After packing and seagliding to the enforement platform, I assembled my prototype. A moonpool only has the same number of components as a tube+hatch- it's harder to replace those components if you leave it in place, but I wasnt planning on doing so. A battery charger, fab, and medikit fab, a solar panel and a ruby and magnatite (I didnt have the materials for a thermal plant yet, but I might run into them), and materials for a bed (I forgot to scan one in the aurora, but they can be built inside a moonpool, which makes the moonpool the better option for this expedition). There's enough room left over for the seaglide, therml blade/hab builder/scanner/cutter/repairtool (4 of which have ion batteries), my safty blanket spare air tank, and a few bleaches (60 water per inventory slot with access to a fab, vs 50 for a purified water) medkits, and ration bars.

While waiting for the sunbeam to show up, set the seaglide and hab builder batteries on the charger, entered the facility far enough for to get the cube, ran the cube to the island portal, came back to watch the explosion, topped off on bulba seed water, then regathered the expedition kit and went to the floating island.

First bit of awkwardness- until I went through some of my provisions, I couldnt pick up the small marblemelon, which was one of my objectives. This was made worse when I went to the first officer's pod and found exactly one gel sack- enough to make an aerogel for a thermal plant, or to bring home, but not both. The compromise was to make a minimal base (only the fab) and use the loose titanium for an exterior growbed. Plant the gel sack, whack it once, plant the seed, take the original sack to the fab to turn my ruby into aerogel.

That left me stuck with a minimal base until the new gel sack grew. There was a wreck somewhat nearby, I dont remember what was in it, but I burnt some time there. Also some of my water stockpile.
Without a secont magnatite, grand reef was off the table- too deep for solar, too deep to explore without an airbase. I could go back to Jellyshroom to remedy both the magnatite and the coordinates, but instead I penciled in the Sea Treader wrecks. Followed the cliff separating grand reef and sparce reef till I reached a corner with sea treaders visible below, and made an airbase.

Even the airbase was 250m down, at the edge of sunlight. Finding the wrecks without wandering into the dead zone was going to require better navigation. I had the materials for the Compass, but that copper wire/wiring kit was used in the battery charger. Fortunately, there was sandstone and limestone around, so I made the compass and hunted for copper and silver. Whereupon 1)I discovered a random magnatite. Score!, and 2) at that depth, with one solar panel, I could only use the fab every other day. And turning bleach into water used one of those days. This led to another round of scavanging to build a second solar panel, so I can compless my inventory back into portable form before running out of water. I left the extra panel in place.

Before trying for the grand reef base, blind, I needed water. And where I was at, that meant bulbotrees on the floating island. Then, it was straight down from the eastern island looking for a hole and thermal vent. It was a 1 way trip- I got the thermal plant set up with 30 seconds of air left in my main tank, and the moonpool took a nerve-wracking amount of time to be assembled. (I had the spare tank, but if I needed it, I might fumble it again) Then I fumbled around, looking for the degasi base, until I checked the map and realized it had to be north-ish, since I was at a thermal vent, and I had a compass now. Since it was on the far side of the vents, I moved the thermal plant and moonpool closer, then made two trips to clear out the base. (no cuddlefish egg for me, but the orange tablet was important)

Repacking the base, I went back to the floating island- I was thirsy again, and there was bulbotrees up there. I also needed to charge my seaglide, even with the ion batteries.

You can just barely reach the moonpool ladder from the ground, and if you use the ladder to get down, you dont take falling damage.
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/713925917751115807/758758034817155152/unknown.png?width=770&height=433

So, I was back on track for wreck hunting. I went north around the floating island then went directly left across the surface until I got my one and only warning about the dead zone, exactly as planned. backed the hell up, turned north-ish and dove for the wreck.

I think I was already mixing up my easts and my wests at this point, because my air base was pretty far west from the wreck. I ended up moving it closer, under the harassment of two warpers. coffie machines from the grand reef degasi helped with my water problem, though the required more titanium than I was carrying. The wreck had like 6-8 torpedo arms, though, so I had plenty of titanium. I just couldnt pack it all up. after getting the important non titanium bits, I headed to the surface, then did a diagonal dive roughly west by northwest. around the time I needed to head to the surface for air, I could see the edge of a hole, which was near my destination. I kept drifing foward as I rose and checked the map. Wait, isnt that EAST, not wes- *rrrr*CHOMP. You have died.

Overall, the expedition had mixed results. On one hand, it would have been better if I'd prepared better before heading out to sunbeam- scanned beds in the aurora, built a compass before hand, gotten a second magnatite from jellyshroom, gotten the degasi location from jellyshroom- and these things I could have done better. On the other hand, the time capsule that gave me those ion batteris was a big measure of how I could persevere through those problems, particularly with the seaglide and hab builder. Not going to get that lucky again. And the saftey air tank- it puts a real squeeze on my inventory- it's possible to do the expedition with it, but once I start adding key items during the trip, it cuts my options dramatically. If I can let it go, I might be able to bring a spare battery and enough titanium to build a thermal plant without robbing from my other stuff. Perhaps getting the gel sack from the first officer's pod earlier, so I'm not having to haul one around for the whole trip?

If I hadnt made the navigation error, I think I could have continued my wreck expedition- once I hit that wreck, it's a straight shot north to the blood kelp wreck. I would probably need to call it off there- blood oil takes too much inventory space, and there's also the deep shrooms.

[Triaxx]

Does carrying a second airtank do any good?

Also don't forget the free standing air pumps. Build one then run pipes down. At the end of the pipe they produce tank filling bubbles not unlike Brain Coral.

[Rakaydos]

And I just spent the last half hour planning how I might bootstrap a prawnsuit+cargo upgrade on the other side of a gate, with my portable base setup, given that the island game cannot be passed with the suit. (narrow caves, probably because someone noticed that if it falls off the floating island, there's no way back up and you have to walk the long way home)

The key is that a vehical unit is only 3 components, though it takes 9 unfurled. And a creepvine seed + exterior growbed takes 2 spaces + titanium I was bringing anyway, and (eventually) gives me the 2 cloth and 1+2 lube, before I ever leave the floating island. (assuming I can grow underwater plants in the floating island shallows)


5 tools
9 Titanium
3 Ingot
2 plasteel
4 lead
3 quartz
1 enamled glass
2 copper
1 copper wire
1 silver
1 wiring kit
1 gold
1 computer chip
2 magnatite
1 table coral
1 Cargo upgrade
1(4) Creepvine seed cluster
1 Power cell
2 diamond
=48


Scan degasi habs
Exterior growbed+ creepvine seed, Tube+hatch+solar+fab
fab new creepvine seed into lube, move solar+fab to ledge above lifepod 19, with moonpool
Build scanner room off the moonpool, (needs copper from shopping list below)
Shopping list in sparse reef/grand reef: Gel sack (grow 3), 3 ruby, 1 copper, 2 titanium
Grow 2 lube, silicone, 2 cloth from creepvines
Lube+ingot+power cell=vehical fab
2 gelsacks, 2 ruby= 2 aerogel, + enamled glass, 2 diamond, 2 lead, 2 plasteel = Prawn
Add cargo module to prawn.
Repack:
5 tools
11 Titanium
2 Ingot
1 lube
2 lead
3 quartz
3 copper
1 copper wire
1 silver
1 wiring kit
1 gold
1 computer chip
2 magnatite
1 Aerogel
1 table coral
4(1) Creepvine seed cluster
1 gelsack
2 Fiber mesh
1 marblemelon seed
4(1) Camera Drone (improvised beacon)
=48 slots

Personal inventory full, prawn inventory empty and ready for exploitation)

Abandon vehical fab

[Rakaydos]

Does carrying a second airtank do any good?

Also don't forget the free standing air pumps. Build one then run pipes down. At the end of the pipe they produce tank filling bubbles not unlike Brain Coral.

If you remember to right click to swap instead of left click to drop, a "spare" high cap tank (that you remembered to fill) will give you an extra 90 seconds of air, but once you reach the surface/hab, you need to remember to refill it.

My first game, I toyed with the air pump+pipes, and I feel they take too much resources to build and too much inventory space to move, to get any reasonable length. (100m, at least) With a seaglide and rebreather, 90 seconds can get me about 500m, for only 6 inventory slots.

[Destro_Yersul]

My rule of thumb is to never go anywhere you can't get back from on a single tank of air. Swapping them out is a pain, 6 inventory slots is a lot, and the knowledge of having a safety net can lead to unecessary risks.

Regarding growing underwater plants on the floating island, you might be able to do it a little deeper if needed by plonking down a foundation to put your growbed on. Takes an extra 2 titanium and 2 lead, but it's not something you have to really move afterwards. 2 titanium 2 lead isn't really worth the bother of saving.

[Rakaydos]

My rule of thumb is to never go anywhere you can't get back from on a single tank of air. Swapping them out is a pain, 6 inventory slots is a lot, and the knowledge of having a safety net can lead to unecessary risks.

Regarding growing underwater plants on the floating island, you might be able to do it a little deeper if needed by plonking down a foundation to put your growbed on. Takes an extra 2 titanium and 2 lead, but it's not something you have to really move afterwards. 2 titanium 2 lead isn't really worth the bother of saving.
An interesting idea, but the issue isnt carrying it AWAY from the floating island, but bringing it TO the floating island in a single trip, without a cargo bay.

I've now penciled in the whole base (initial tube+hatch, grow bed, and eventual moonpool) on the ledge overlooking the second officer's lifepod, so I dont need the foundation. I think I'm getting a little obsessed with this idea (Nomad base!) that will take hours to set up. I have an essay to work on, dammit!

[Rakaydos]

3 hours, 52 minutes. Status: waiting for Sunbeam to tell me to wait for them.

I dont knwo why early game felt better- was it that I was focusing on copper and silver, and crafting advanced components to fit my inventory better? having an extra 6 slots free from not haviing a reserve tank? Or just NOT picking up every random piece of wreckage to fill my inventory with loose titanium? I did get an early beacon, and practically the first grassland wreck I went after had a full battery charger. I put a tube base on the eastern edge of the western mushroom forest at the corner of a kelp forest and a drop to the underwater island area, about 300 west by 700 north, and I almost immediately got a full moonpool and 2/3 of a modification station. When the aurora exploded, I was already on my way back to the pod, with the materials for the suit and the moonpool.

The aurora was straightfoward. I made sure to scan a bed this time, and I looked up the captian's cabin code so I wouldnt need to come back. (Then I ended up coming back when I realized I left the cargo module behind, dammit)

swapping back to the rebreather at the pod, I still needed a scanner station blueprint, and magnatite for a HUD and eventually a thermal plant. rooting around a non-degasi jellyshroom hole (with the moonpool over the entrance as an airstation, I got 3 magnetite suprisingly quickly... and still didnt have a scanner station to craft the HUD with.

My shopping list came together fairly quicky. I finally found the scanner station, crafted the hud, left the seaglide at the lifepod (I never built any lockers), and migrated to the mountian to finish my list.

I've opened the quarentine facility and activated the mountian gate, and double checked my preparations. I had a brief panic that I didnt have a outdoor growbox for the silicone to build the power cell I need to bring through the gate, but the nearest kelp forest wasnt THAT far away. The warpers were a bit agrivating while filling out my diamon and the lithium for my plasteel, and I didnt bring fiber for a medikit fabricator, since I was going to grow it on the far side. Since I've got a good hour at least before the sunbeam shows up (force of habit, I suppose, I could just go through the gate now) I might as well do another kelp forest run for a few creepvine samples to turn into fiber to turn into medkits.

All is prepared as planned. The list a few posts up is accurate, except I dropped another titanium and copper (should be easy to locally source, and doesnt quite stop my bootstrap process) to bring a premade Advanced Wiring Kit (when I unlock the grapple arm, the table coral is a difficult to source component, so the kit is prebuilt for packing efficency) and an acid mushroom, which lets me use a grow bed to turn copper into any number of batteries and (with creepseed) power cells once I'm through the gate.

[Rakaydos]

4 hours and 19 minutes- 10 minutes until sunbeam's arrival.

So I did a medkit run and did one final pre-march loadout, disasembiling everything and dropping everything I need to drop... and discovered a mistake.
Fully loaded, after tossing the moonpool lube as planned, I had room for the spare battery I was also planning to discard, and I had the full 9 titanium despite also including the two things I'd included in place of it- the advance wiring kit and acid shroom. After panicked tabbing in and out of the game, as the Sunbeam approached, I found the problem.
So that spoiler above, with the packing list, that i've been working off of? it's only 45 items, not 48. I had 3 extra slots to work with all along.

The spare battery wasnt needed, but I could make a run for another seed pod and remake the lube. That would simplify my early setup by letting me go straight to the moonpool, rather than bootstrapping to it. (and on my way back, I trip over the old discarded bottle of lube lying on the beach.)

I did decide to watch the sunbeam from a differnt perspective this time.
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/713925917751115807/759156217028280330/unknown.png?width=770&height=433

You cant quite see the enforcement platform from the gate trail, but that's nothing a few Foundations cant fix. just a matter of finding a place you can stand to put the foundation against solid ground, then just chain them out.

[Rakaydos]

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/713925917751115807/759222249231876126/unknown.png?width=770&height=433

To whoever may find this time capsule:

The ship that came to rescue me is gone. I've salvaged what I can from the Aurora, but not even the rocket blueprints will save me from that horrifying alien gun.

But there's no bad without a little good, I suppose. This gateway is activated by a cube from the alien base. I dont know if it's a transportation device or a matter disinegrator, and at this point, it wouldnt matter to me if it was.

But assuming it's a transport, I've packed heavy. No way to get a prawn suit into this cave, but if I can grow creepvine on the other side, I can build a vehical bay and prawn on the other side. I've got the materials for a nice pop-up moonpool-base... fabricator, battery charger, medkit fab, even a bed if I can harvest creepvine. Can scavange the fab for parts for a scanner room, if I find Limestone. Aerogel components would let me build a thermal reactor. A supply of some form of copper, like limestone, would let me grow acid shrooms into more batteries and power cells to keep the prawn running. There's even plans to make some kind of coffee maker. (decaf, but you get used to it)

Hopefully I can find some answers. Take my Seaglide- there's no way I can take it with me like this.

[Triaxx]

Seaglide just fields in your inventory though, right?

[Rakaydos]

Seaglide just fields in your inventory though, right?

Not if I follow my "one trip" rule. I'd have to leave 6 important things behind if I did bring it.

On the other hand, if I need it, I should be able to build a replacement. But with a prawn suit, seaglide is less important- infinite air means that I dont need to move fast.

[Destro_Yersul]

Yeah, I usually either never make a seaglide, or just ditch it as soon as I've got a seamoth. There's probably a couple places where it might still be useful, but ultimately the 6 inventory space is more valuable.

[Anteros]

No way. For me it's far more valuable to have the extra speed. It's going to save far more time than those 6 extra inventory slots.

I don't like constantly jumping back into vehicles for air though. I'll park in the area and go explore until my oxygen is fairly low.

[Destro_Yersul]

yeah, I don't mind jumping in and out of vehicles four or five times for a big wreck. I stay pretty close to my vehicles, and if I want to explore somewhere further away, I'll move the vehicle. Since you can get the seamoth and the seaglide almost at the same time, really, it's not usually worth it for me to spend the resources on the seaglide, especially since it will *also* take one of my precious hotbar slots.

[Rakaydos]

6 hours, 22 minutes. Status: Bootstrapped and repacked for a trip to the deep.

Went through the gate, immediately got a radio message. NOT officer keene. No waypoint to the lifepod. It's in the sparse reef, however, which is just north of the floating island, so I'll make a guess and walk it in.

Scanned exterior growbeds, immediately left for the sparse reef. found a ledge of moderate depth- near drops that would likely contain gelsacks/ruby, but not in them, where solar power would be difficult. Moonpool, Solar panel, grow bed, plant the creepseed.

I now have time to kill while the first creepvine grows. Back to the island degasi hab. interior growbed, marblemelon, ceramic pots. Back to the hab, plant the first marblemelon pot. Look around, find a copper, build a scan room, search for databoxes. Close enough for a rough swin there and back. (~180m from the moonpool, vs 140m or so from the surface. And two databoxes were behind cutting tool doors. Air trips were required.) Jackpot- the wrecks have ultraglide fins, reinfored dive suit, vehical modification station, multiple torpedo arms, and the last piece of the Modification station.

Still not done growing. Scan for gel sacks, found a few close by, spotted a ruby. Planting gel sacks, resetting the scanner for ruby, get a half dozen or so, along with a few more copper and titannium, a lithium and a diamond. Deconstruct scanner, give me back my Fab. (dammit! forgot to pull off a camera to use as a beacon!) The first seed cluster turns to lube for the vehical bay. the second becomes a second creepvine, before I try harvesting fiber for the bed and medifab.

Meanwhile, I'm getting thirsty, and the marble melons arnt dont yet. The gel sacks are, though, and are worth decent water each. Prawn suit will have to wait for the next batch of gel sacks to turn into aerogel. More resource hunting. Limestone is actually pretty rare, as is shale, and sandstone is even more so. I did turn up a few copper and titanium, a quartz, a lithium, and a diamond. Also a thermal reactor fragment... which I still didnt have. oops? Built a second solar panel, as I was having power supply issues while charging hab builder batteries.

Prawn. With storage upgrade. My first locker the whole game! (second, if you count the lifepod) 2 marblemelons, 4 seeds into storage, 4 replanted. Whereupon I realize that I have everything except a lead for a modification station. I have a lead, but it's part of the moon pool.

Given how newly planted the marblemelons were, I decided to cut my losses. Deconstruct everything in the moonpool. Build a basic tube base. (the hatch required deconstructing one of the solar panels, which cut power to the moonpool) unmake the moonpool just enough to get a lead, assemble a modification station and a fab inside the tube. Thermal blade. Ultraglide flippers. Unmake everything, rebuild the moonpool, second solar, and rebuild the base and interior growbed. Retrieve my "saved" marblemelon seeds and start bootstrapping again.
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/713925917751115807/759425916186918942/unknown.png?width=770&height=433

With the bed, the growbeds and battery charger are more efficent, though marblemelons take longer. A wider search of the area turned up a few more thermal reactor components, so I'm ready to head to deep grand reef. vehical modification station doesnt have anything for me- I need nickle and sulfer, or deep shrooms, do make anything worthwhile.

Then it's a matter of packing up. I try not to discard anything- it was hard enough to collect in the first place- but it's a tight squeeze even into the prawn storage once I include enough marblemelon seeds and gel sacks to make bootstrapping faster. My original calculations never figured on the second solar panel, either... and the mobile vehical bay is right out, abandoned in place. Shouldnt be TOO hard to find when I come back for the Neptune.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/713925917751115807/759426138690027560/unknown.png?width=770&height=433

[Destro_Yersul]

you are doing a lot more deconstruction of bases than I ever bothered with. Course you'll probably have to do a lot less resource hunting.

Oh, and I'd point out that you'll need the vehicle bay to construct a cyclops, even if you never use it for anything more than building the shield generator to use in the rocket.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

you are doing a lot more deconstruction of bases than I ever bothered with. Course you'll probably have to do a lot less resource hunting.

Second this, and the bootstrap base is WAY more efficient space-wise then anything I’ve ever built.

That said, if I was going to do a similar mini-base, while IIRC the interior grow bed is a more efficient use of Titanium, I’d probably use the little shelf pots to conserve more floor space.

[Rakaydos]

Wont be hard to find.

Though I could have packed more efficently. One gel sack can provide seeds for a whole grow table, and though I can also use them for water (before I get the coffie machine, or for long trips without building one) I need to have them in my personal inventory to do so. I'm also right at the edge of turning loose titanium into an ingot for compressed storage, which would free 9 slots- enough for the vehical bay. (that would leave me 2 titanium shy of being able to build a thermal plant and scanner room)

I'm also pondering whether I should make a detour for the Transmutation Doll. The Unusual doll is an easter egg item, but it has an unintended effect. It is built with a glass and a titanium, but counts as a fragment, so when scanned give 2 titanium. This would give me the ability to transmute 2 quartz (easy to find in any biome, if not exactly common) into titanium at any fabricator. Since I'm not using glass for base construction (and I'm not getting stalker teeth anytime soon), it increases my options. On the other hand, it's a bit out of my way, and until I get the coffee machine water is going to be the limiting factor of my base setups.

[Rakaydos]

Although...

If I kill my moonpool and lose the chip from the medkit fab, I'm only 1 lead short of building the Neptune launch pad. I can make due with a tube until I rebuild my titanium stockpile from wandering around, though I may be living off a diet of gel sacks for awhile. That gives me a nav point on top of the vehical bay, and "frees up" inventory space (perhaps too much!) for a more hunter/gatherer lifestyle in my prawnsuit. (though the inventory problem isnt going to get easier, the further into the game I get.)

Risk is being unable to charge the prawn until I reach a bare minimum 22 titanium/2 lead/2quartz, again. (hmm. I'm only 4 titanium (and 3! lead) short of that, though some of that titanium is penciled in for the thermal reactor. So no moon pool until I'm out of the deep grand reef, unless I get up to 2 lead/25 titanium. might be managable.)

If I build the platform now, the next goal is to build the gantry before leaving the sparse reef/floating island environs. (the 1st stage rocket requires nickle, which requires moving on, so it a good point to move on).

Tenative mission plan, then, is
1) reorganize inventory, compress a titanium ingot
2) find a lead in Sparse Reef
3) build Neptune platform
4) Deep grand reef/coffee machine
5) Unusual doll
6) Grand reef wreck
7) Neptune gantry
8) Sea treader wrecks
9) blood kelp, deep shroom upgrades in BKF.

[Rakaydos]

7 hours 20 minutes. Status: finished step 4, recovered moonpool capability.

So, first things first. Build a scanner room and hatch, see if there's any lead/sandstone nearby. And since this is where the neptune launch pad will spawn (at the surface, where the MVB is at), I planted the marblemelons under the hologram. At first no such luck, but I made a few trips to look for quartz (if I'm going to be titanium contrained for a bit, a tube base made of glass instead of titanium may be a better choice in the short term), and eventually the scanner started to pick up sandstone. Out in the grand reef, of course, which was just far enough out I wanted to take the prawn out to be sure of getting air. The lead took a little while to find, but eventially I did. I went up, started building the platform, and went back to check on the marbelmelons, without even watching the spawn.

I had time to kill before my water-replenishing plants were ready, so I went to check out the wrecks again. Scanned a few things for titanium, and somehow tripped over or glitched through a ledge in the prawnsuit. Not nessesarally in the lost river, but I could see bloodkelp over the next ledge. And the ledge I fell off of was a bit more than the prawn could jump.

But, there was sandstone down here, and I got 2 lead in only 4-5 rocks cracked. That was enough to put a Foundation halfway up the wall, letting the prawn rest it's engines before jumping the rest of the way. I of course swam back to retrieve the lead and titanium from the Foundation, and a bleeder (or something of that sort, I didnt scan it) grabbed my arm as I got into the prawn. I had to get out to slash it off.

After a meal of 6 marblemelons (and harvesting the 8 seads from the other two) to recover my water, I disasembled the scanner and headed down into the Grand reef.

Locating the degasi hab, I put a thermal plant near the closest vent, built a tube, crafted two glass, built a glass tube, and replaced the fab on the back wall to make sure I could. If I built an ingot, I was going to be titanium poor for awhile, so an airbase that only took 2 titanium for a hatch+2 or 5 for a power source, +1 for a fab, would be helpful. Deconstruct the titanium tube.

Taking the prawn to the degasi hab was... interesting. I had to stick to the ledges to leap over to the pillar the base was on, and when I went in, (coffeemaker! also PDAs, and an alien containment unit) the crabs had pushed it off a ledge. After getting it back up and going in again (swim charge fins data, orange slate), I had to retrieve it again, before going back to the airbase. (and repairing my prawn)
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/713925917751115807/759608583628914708/unknown.png?width=770&height=433
After properly hydrating, I crafted the first ingot, and packed up.

In my first file, I mostly entered the degasi area from the direction of the grand reef wreck, so I knew east was more of a slope than a cliff. Lots of vents in that direction too, apparently. Saw a ghost leviathan as I want around one vent-spire, decided to go around the other way. Quietly as a 2 ton mech can do. Eventually I hit the crag zone.

There was limestone, now, so I cracked a few, discarded a few copper, and made my way to the top of one of the crags. Solar panel and scanner room, with hatch. plenty of limestone... but also metal wreckage. Score!
Ingot completed. Moonpool available for construction. Will charge the prawn tomorrow.

It occurs to me that between the coffeemaker and the thermal knife, I kinda dont need the marbelmelons anymore. I dont know if I can toss them, but not replacing them is going to free up a lot of inventory space for materials. I wasnt much of a farmer anyway. I was always waiting for it to finish growing and getting into trouble in the meantime. The whole idea is to travel light, and those seeds are now dead mass.

[Destro_Yersul]

IMO there are only two essential upgrade modules for the prawn suit, but it has four slots. You could slot storage modules into the other two, and increase your capacity by quite a bit. 6 titanium and 2 lithium shouldn't be especially hard to come by.

[Rakaydos]

I thought I tried that in the past, and didnt find any additional cargo. it's possible it was there and I didnt find it.

Regardless, there's a problem with that. I used my chip on the Launch platform, so in addition to no medkit fab, I also have no vehical modification bay until I find table coral.

The hel of it is, I actually brought an additional chip through the gate, but it was pre-crafted into an advanced wiring kit, in anticiption of the Grapple arm. If I'd left it as a ship, I would have had better flexibility, and could always upgrade it later.

[Triaxx]

So you've kind of shot yourself in the foot trying to travel too light sounds like.

[Rakaydos]

So you've kind of shot yourself in the foot trying to travel too light sounds like.

Eh, that's part of the scenerio, same reason I dont just swim back to safe shallows for more coral. I know I've seen table coral in the lost river, and I accidentally discovered that last river entrance right by the launch pad.

Tiime: 8 hours 0 mintutes Status: short session because I have laundry and a family TTS planned.

Consulting various maps, and using the previous encounter witht he leviathan, and having just entered crag field going east as a ballpark for my location, locating the doll was relatively easy. navigating from there to the north grand reef wreck was a more hit and miss- I overshot, and assembled the moonpool just one tier below the kelp forest. Discovering where I actually was, I used that glass airbase as a staging point for the wreck. Full drill arm, half a grapple arm.

I also had an actual kelp forest to play with, with stalkers and creepvine and wreckage, so I played with the stalkers a bit, made an enamled glass, and made another ingot before looking for another lithium for the gantry. (went out to about my air limit, returned, and practically tripped over a loose lithium on the way back) Also needed to make a medpack or two, after playing with the stalkers, and this is a better place than most for that.

[Destro_Yersul]

I thought I tried that in the past, and didnt find any additional cargo. it's possible it was there and I didnt find it.

Regardless, there's a problem with that. I used my chip on the Launch platform, so in addition to no medkit fab, I also have no vehical modification bay until I find table coral.

The hel of it is, I actually brought an additional chip through the gate, but it was pre-crafted into an advanced wiring kit, in anticiption of the Grapple arm. If I'd left it as a ship, I would have had better flexibility, and could always upgrade it later.

It does add a few slots, it's just that it's a lot less than what it adds to the seamoth, and it does it differently. On the seamoth, each storage module adds a separate 4x4 container. On the Prawn, each module increases the size of the default storage by 6 spaces.

[Rakaydos]

It does add a few slots, it's just that it's a lot less than what it adds to the seamoth, and it does it differently. On the seamoth, each storage module adds a separate 4x4 container. On the Prawn, each module increases the size of the default storage by 6 spaces.

Huh, and I guess that means even without a module, the prawn has what 24 spaces?

If I redid this challenge for a YouTube video or something, I think I'd adjust what I bring to the gate with me, knowing that.

[Destro_Yersul]

Yeah, 24 is the default. A 50% capacity increase from adding two storage modules is not bad at all, considering the total cost for that is 6 titanium 2 lithium.

[Rakaydos]

If I redid this challenge for a YouTube video or something, I think I'd adjust what I bring to the gate with me, knowing that.

5 tools_ (thermoknife/hab builder/scanner/welder/cutter)

4 (1)Creepvine seed (infinite lube/silicone/fiber)

2 ingot
2 lead
1 lube

1 chip (for launch platfom)

14 Minimal prebase (hatch/tube/solar/outside growbed/fab, minus 1 quartz)
+2 copper for scanner room (total:9 titanium, 2 quartz, 1 gold, 1 table coral, 3 copper)

1 ingot
1 power cell (MVB)

1 chip (medkit fab/Vehical mod)
1 silver (medkit fab)

2 plasteel
1 enamled glass
2 diamond
2 lead (prawn suit minus 2 aerogel- +24 inventory)

1 wire kit
1 copper wire
1 titanium (Battery charger)

1 spare chip (grapple arm?)

2 magnatite (thermal generator)

Essential:
5 titanium,
2 aerogel,
2 magnatite (thermal gen)

4 titanium,
1 quartz (tube+hatch)

1 titanium
1 gold
1 table coral (fab)

1 wire kit
1 copper wire
1 titanium (Battery charger)

5 tools
25 = 11 titanium, 2 aerogel, 2 magnatite, 1 quartz, 1 gold, 1 table coral, 1 wire kit, 1 copper wire, 5 tools
23 +24 slots available

12 Guaranteed (already on hand)
-2 copper
-1 quartz
-2 chips
-4 (1)creepvine seed
-1+ gelsacks
-1 silver
-1 lube

Shopping list
10 (20) titanium, converted to ingots as reserves permit
2 lead, (moonpool)

2 quartz (second potential solar panel)
2 fiber (medkit fab, bed)

1 plasteel (10 titanium, 2 lithium)
1 copper wire (2 copper) (neptune gantry)

4 (3 titanium+1 lithium) (+6 prawnsuit inventory)
10 (5 titanium, 4 diamond, 1 lithium) (Prawn drill arm)
14(5 titanium, 1 lithium, 1 salt, 4(1) blood kelp sap, 2 gold, wiring kit) (prawn grapple arm)
6 (1 plasteel, 3 nickle, 2 ruby) (Prawn depth upgrade)

7 (Plasteel, 3 nickle, 2 aerogel, wiring kit) Neptune booster


I probably wont use this, but it's here anyway.

[Rakaydos]

10 hours 14 minutes. Status: Lost River rebuild.

Since the moonpool in the northeast grand reef is better for farming stalker teeth than I'm likely to encounter for awhile, I crafted a total of 4 enamled glass and a few more ingots. The idea is to build the cyclops now, and use the wall lockers to store the command pod enamled glass. Was able to turn the ingots into plasteel on my way over, with lithium from a cave in probably the lower corner of the sparse reefs.

Just one problem. I had the cyclops engine and a single bridge fragment, but no hull fragments at all. I could clear the gantry from my inventory, and drop the marblemelon seeds, but I was still pretty packed. I needed table coral, and that meant Lost River.

Down past the Degasi hab, there is an entrance to the lost river. Saw a bunch of crystaline sulfer I didnt dare pick up, and dropped a beacon by a Nickle deposit I would need a drill arm to recover. Relatively close to the neptune launch pad, so it's something to pick up on the way out. Went too far when I saw a ghost leviathan, and he saw me- had to give it a few robotic right crosses to get it to back off, and I backed off as well. checked the map, I overshot my turn for the precursur cash, through the lower blood kelp, and into the area I was familiar with. Climbing the lost river with an un-upgraded prawn was difficult, but possible- I didnt need to resort to Foundation platforms again. I was, however, running low on water. This deep, I couldnt just make a tube airbase, I needed a thermal plant. (though come to think of it, the cofee maker doesnt use power- would it work inside an unpowered tube?) I did turn my orange tablet into 3 cubes at the cache, though that just tightened my inventory problems. I allowed myself a single blood oil, as I passed through, before finally reaching a thermal vent- and Table coral!

Some placement issues resulted in not having any gold, after building a fab and 2 power relays to reach what by rights shouldnt take any at all. Enough to start getting some crunchy hydration. Also, the prawn charged faster than the thermal generator could provide power, so I had to undock it to use the fabricator. I found a ledge I coulld build an outdoor growbed, and planted my blood oil and creepvine. I was able to get it down to one relay by moving the thermal generator, which let me build a chip- which let me build a vehical upgrade console. A few rounds gave me quartz and some titanium, which let me use the transmutation doll a few times, to make a drill arm. I also had found enough loose nickle (which took priority over gold on the way over) to craft a depth upgrade for the prawn, and the trip had taken me far enough to collect a few more blood oil and deep shrooms- it took another trip to find the last diamond I needed for the reinforced dive suit. Goodby, radiation suit, hello, littering charges. Unfortunately, I needed a few salt for polyanaline, and I didnt even have the water purifier as an option. A Deep shroom was just going to have to sit in the inventory.

There was enough lithium to get more cargo upgrades. I gave the prawn a total of three- If I needed a jump upgrade, I could hot-swap it, but so far I'd managed without.

The creepvine had bloomed, and I could finally harvest some fiber to replace the one I used on the dive suit. A found gold gave me another chip, so I could build the medkit fab AND the bed. battery charger to top off the hab builder, and, time to hit the sack.

[Triaxx]

The way you're building the Bulb Zone entrance to the Lost river is probably a better option since it has a few thermal vents that you can use for power. Plus it's a more gentle slope so getting the prawn in and out is easier even without a grapple arm.

[Destro_Yersul]

I like the cove tree as a permanent base location. There's a ton of vents there, and good access to most resources. Bonus points for just not having any hostile creatures around.

[Rakaydos]

I'd ballpark my current base as about 900 west by 50-ish north- Only a few hundred meters from the blood kelp forest, at the near side of the first thermal vent available from the Grand Reef blood kelp lost river entrance. (there's probably a closer thermal to the grand reef entrance, but that ghost leviathan might have things to say if I built there.)

That said, I think my next move is to make a run past that ghosty, mine that nickle deposit, and craft the neptune booster stage, then head to the sea treader path for cyclops parts. ferrying parts back to the launch pad (which was set by the initial MVB after going through the gate) is what's keeping me locally southwest, and not exploring "better" options that take longer to get to and back from.

[Destro_Yersul]

What are you going to do once you need to do the world tour for enzyme bits? Just leave the base constructed while you take care of it?

[Rakaydos]

What are you going to do once you need to do the world tour for enzyme bits? Just leave the base constructed while you take care of it?

Depends on if I actually world tour, or just take the gate network. If I'm touring, I want to take the camper shell/moonpool to charge the prawn, if nothing else. If I take the gate network, though, each sample is right outside the gate, so all I need is a base by the enforcement platform to fabricate the enzime.

[Destro_Yersul]

You know, I've never tried building a base inside the Sea Emperor facility. I wonder if it's allowed.

[Rakaydos]

You know, I've never tried building a base inside the Sea Emperor facility. I wonder if it's allowed.

It is, inside the aquarium, but you dont get solar or thermal power, so you need a multipurpose room. Bioreactor is best, given the peeper availability.

I once built a thermal reactor at the door of the Alien thermal plant, in the air zone, but I had to put the tube outside.

[Destro_Yersul]

Yeah, I think the rules on placing exterior modules are slightly different. I like to put mine on foundations, just so I don't need to mess around with relays.

[Rakaydos]

11 hours 55 minutes. Status: a productive loop

So I noticed in videos that cuddlefish will follow you around in the prawn suit. I crafted all my quarts to glass before packing up the lost river base. After making my way past the leviathan (staying mostly under the brine) I made a pit stop back at the alien cache to pick up the cuddlefish egg, mined just enough nickle from the deposit for the neptune booster, and made my way to the grand reef, keeping an eye out for more quartz. I had to drop a few crystaline sulfer to fit it all in, but I made it back to the launch platform. Set up the moonpool, the solar panel, docked the prawn, start building a coffee machine... and the sun goes down. Turns out that no, you cant make coffee in an unpowered hab. sigh.

While night was going on, I created the neptune booster and a multipurpose room, and scrounged around for enough quartz to finish an alien containment unit- the cuddlefish takes awhile to hatch, so I wanted it started before I went looking for cyclops parts. Once the sun came up, coffee spam, quartz to glass and the alien containment unit, a hatch, and a cuttlefish egg. Then to the west, young man.

There was a wreck not too far into sea treaders that had everything I needed, and I made sure to scan some extra titanium- I'd mined some lithium, but still needed to turn it into plasteel for the cyclops. I would also need to make another lubric- oh.

Yea, turns out, I never packed up the outdoor growbed back in the lost river, which had my creepvine seed bloodoil, and gel sacks in it. I could use the lube from the moonpool I was in, but I was going to have to go back to my old base site, harvest a seed, make a tube, craft the lube, unmake the tube and rebuild the moonpool, before I could charge the prawn again. I also got the blueprint for the grapple arm, but I couldnt ake that without blood oil either.

Having enough ingots was still a tight squeeze. release the cuddlefish, unmake the alien containment (5 glass), use it to make 5 transmutation dolls, and turn it into plasteel. Unmake the multipurpose room and the coffeemakers, turn it into a plasteel. Double check the prawn inventory- 3 enamled glass, 3 plasteel the moonpool lube, and that damned advanced wiring kit, and 3 lead. Craft and go.

This time, I went to find that blood oil forest I accidently fell into before. Turns out, Officer Keene's lifepod has a tunnel that turns into a bloodkelp area, that eventually dumps into the blood kelp lost river entrance. Nice to know.

Back at base, momentary panic as I made sure I had the aerogel for a thermal plant (it was the prawn that required aerogel, not the cyclops), but I was able to rebuild my moonpool. (though the little guy kept swimming in the way of my hab builder, slowing me down) Got my benzine for the grapple arm, but I need an advanced wiring kit now- and I'm short on gold. Something for next time.

[Destro_Yersul]

Funny enough, gold is one of the easier resources to find, because you can get it from big deposits, sandstone, and shale. Probably the only thing easier is titanium, which also comes from fragments and scrap, to make up for its only being in limestone.

Also, from the grand reef there's a kelp forest that's not far. You probably could have saved yourself some moonpool-related headache and just detoured briefly to grab the creepvine. I also find it funny that you're relying on the coffee machine so heavily for water, given that I basically never use it because it's so inefficient. The number of coffees you need to make up any reasonable amount of water is so huge.

[Rakaydos]

Funny enough, gold is one of the easier resources to find, because you can get it from big deposits, sandstone, and shale. Probably the only thing easier is titanium, which also comes from fragments and scrap, to make up for its only being in limestone.

Also, from the grand reef there's a kelp forest that's not far. You probably could have saved yourself some moonpool-related headache and just detoured briefly to grab the creepvine. I also find it funny that you're relying on the coffee machine so heavily for water, given that I basically never use it because it's so inefficient. The number of coffees you need to make up any reasonable amount of water is so huge.

That kelp forest was the one I stocked up on enamled glass at- just far enough away that it feels like going out of my way, when I could (and did) just go back to my old site. I was heading in that general direction anyway.As for the coffee machines, 4 titanium (2 machines, both activated twice) gives 16 water about every15-20 seconds. If I'm thirsty, I build them before any thing else, then start building the rest of it, and come back every time it resets to start another 16 water. That's about 6 cycles, 2 minutes for 90-ish water. most indoor plants would have finished glowing in twice that time.

---------------------------------------
14 hours, 0 minutes
Status: heart still slowing after a near brush with inevitable death.

So, gold. A scanner room didnt show any gold deposits or sandstone nearby, but shale got me 2 gold and a few diamond. Crafted the advanced wiring kit, crafted the drill arm, go to put it on and realize I already had a drill arm, mine more titanium, build the grapple arm. Pick up a creepvine seed, leave the planter in place as I pack up the base.

My next base was by the fossil skull, between the research facility and the tree. The local wildlife was giving the cuddlefish a hard time, so I killed one, under the moonpool, so it floated up to the "surface" and no further. Crafted the prawnsuit jump upgrade, but put it in storage. If I got stuck, I could always swap out. *ominus music*

I also tried the modification station, since I hadnt used it in awhile. Made the really big air tank. went to turn my fins into ultraglide fins, turned my creepfine seed into sillicone, and realized I already had ultraglide fins. Oh well, it's 2 inventory slots instead of 4, and the only thing I could build right now that uses lube is a seaglide. After unmaking the base, I brought the prawn into the disease research facility, but I didnt have a purple tablet (or diamonds, after the drill arm snafu), so ther was a data station I wasnt able to collect.

Since I used to take the spiral path behind the tree down to the inactive lava zone, this time I chose to continue past the research facility. grabbed a few diamonds, Saw a ghost leviathan, dropped down to the lower zone (and it was a big drop) before it saw me.

Made another base before heading toward the lava castle. Turns out, that deep a moonpool needs reinforcement even without any attachments. Made sure I had everything topped off and ready to go before I raided the sea dragon's lair. (I did have a few very large fins pass through the moonpool while I was working, but no damage.)

Entering the lava castle was relatively straightfoward, and I started collecting loose kyanite- I needed 2 for the second blue tablet, and 4 for the Neptune, but I only collected 5. Dropped the sillicone to fit that much in. Inside the facility, I didnt have a tablet, but I did have a cube for the gate.

Back at the enforcement platform, I picked up the tablet in the lower facility, but had to go up to the beach to craft a second tablet. (and also for water. Bulbo trees instead of coffee this time, since I didnt have to wait for them to grow)

Back at the thermal plant, I remembered to pick up the sillicone on the way out, and built a simple tube base to craft a second blue tablet. (one for the front door, one for the aquarium door) Got a prompt to play with the cuddle fish, and clipped it inside the tube with me, which was hilarius. Packed up, got the directions from the tablet, and snuck behind the sea dragon in a 2 ton robot suit. Mined another kyanite so I had all I needed,and dropped to the active lava zone.

"Maximum depth reached." *creeek* *THUD* f*ck I forgot to upgrade the depth module. Can I get back up?... hah. fat chance. And the prawn has all my stuff... Ok, it doesnt seem to be crushing me as fast as the seamoth is crushed... I swum up to the wall and turned 2 lead and 2 titanium into a foundation, a little over a third of the way up the wall. Jumped up, still taking damage. Still, it's slow enough, and my repair tool has full charge... yes, it heals faster than the depth crushes it. Ok, I have time. Prawnsuit has another 2 lead from cracking sandstone looking for gold- fortunately I didnt toss it all. Another platform, two more jumps, and the prawn is safe. Whew. I recovered the foundation platforms.

Ok, modification station. Crafted a moonpool... and I dont have any lithium for a reinforcement. The place is flooding, slowly. Ok, I can handle that. Also, no diamond for the modification station. That's a problem. Scanner room? Scanner room! structural integrity's already gone, but it works while flooded. Lithium first, there's plenty around this hole, patch up the moonpool. Diamond, also easy enough. Depth module. Prawn does not crush inside the moonpool while I'm upgrading the depth module.

Ok, I think that's enough excitement for one day.

[Destro_Yersul]

Yeah, I think there's some shenanigans the game does in regards to docked vehicles. They become immune to stuff.

[Rakaydos]

Somewhat amusingly, the cuddlefish followed me to the enforcement platform, even though I use a gate.

It's been useful to distract mid-to-large sized predators, and I havnt really had a problem with leviathans since I got it.

[Rakaydos]

16 hours, 30 minutes. Status: All systems go for launch.

So after my little panic session, I needed to reevaluate my equipment. Most notably, I had two ion cubes sitting in my inventory, ion cell technoligy, and access to silver, gold, and two sillicone. I also used three of the 4 kyanite I'd budgeted for the neptune escape rocket. The gold was actually the hardest- it was just lying around, but in 1-off chunks, not a deposit like the gold or kyanite. Made a pair of batteries, put them in the hab builder and repair tool, the systems I use the most of. ditched the old batteries, and some of the plant life I was carrying around. Not much fish around here, so after topping off on coffee-filtered water, I actually built a vending machine to turn water into food. topped off, then topped off my water again.

In the active lava zone, the sea dragon took issue with the way I jumped from rocky outcropping to rocky outcropping. He put some tooth marks on the prawn, I gave him some dental work. Found a ledge and repaired the damage before he could come back and finish the job. Made it to the primary containment facility, turned around, and made a thermal generator and a tube base, right across the entrance waterbarrier. Cuddlefish nowhere to be found. Rest in peace. Blue tablet to get in, mine a few ion cubes, open the aquarium. I deliberately left the prawn up in the main hall- it's awkward getting that thing out of the aquarium. Incubator cubed, gate cubed, abd back up for air. Sea crown sample, right where it's supposed to be. Bulb zone, top off on water from bulbsamples before taking one back with me. Mushroom forest, uneventful. Crag zone, I actually fell off the path, had a bit of an adventure finding the way to get the prawn out. And lost river, a ghost attacked when I got out of the prawn to take the sample- fortunately he went after the prawn and not me.

Back to my tube base at the bottom of the stairs with the very loud lighting. Hatchng enzimes. Ion power cells for the prawn. Took a swim to hatch the eggs,get cured, and head to the Gun, but I need another purple tablet to actually get to the control room. (I used the one in this area back on the thermal plant). Back up the aquarium, to the tube, craft a tablet, back down, turn off the gun. Back up, unbuild the tube, and head to the crag zone again, closest to the launch platform.

On the way, I realized I was missing an important component- deep shrooms for the polyanaline. Ditched it with the rest of the bio matter back before i reentered the active lava zone. Hopefully the bloodkelp tunnel by Keene's lifepod has some. Built the fuel reserve, putting the regular power cells back into the prawn, then headed down to the life pod and the bloodkelp. Not at first, but I found some down a ledge- recovered three, climbed back up. (much easier with a grapple arm and improved jump jets.) I burnt through my titanium reserve making the fuel reserve plasteel so I ended up just putting the fabricator in the cyclops itself- made the polyanaline, made the shield generator, and constructed the crew compartment of the rocket.

Then, I stripped the vehicals. Pulled the prawn storage, all the upgrades, and both power cells, and put them in lockers on the Neptune. unbuilt the fabricator on the cyclops, stripped the remaining 5 power cells (after using one on the generator) and both fire extinguishers, and the mobile vehical bay too. Put them in lockers too. I even swam back to the life pod, getting my old seaglide and the stuff I left there. I did NOT go back to lost river to get the radiation suit and grow bed, or the active lava zone entrance to get those batteries. Everything else is more or less natural.

The text I wrote for going through the gate was too long for the time capsule, but I managed to trim it down without losing too much. I swapped the battery in the seaglide with an ion battery, so that it isnt a complete waste when it gets picked up. I ran out of lockers, but the remainder fits in my personal inventory. Leave only footprints, after all.

Who knows, it might offset Alterra's bill.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Congrats on making it Rakaydos! :D

[Rakaydos]

Congrats on making it Rakaydos! :D

was a bit rough in places, even knowing the game and with wiki and map access. Forgetting to upgrade the depth module could have been a run ending mistake.

[Destro_Yersul]

Yeah. I think you made it a lot harder on yourself, doing the mobile base thing instead of constructing something permanent, but it was an interesting added challenge. I've never bothered actually finishing hardcore, but I do tend to make it all the way without dying. Benefits of an overabundance of caution. Takes me a lot longer, though, I've never made it to the rocket in under 20 hours.

[Rakaydos]

I think the mobile base thing shortened the playthrough significantly, though the gate-restriction didnt do me any favors. Even when I was messing around with inventory management and resource collection, it was always in pursuit of an immediate goal, and almost never a random backtrack for something I left behind. (notable exception for that creepvine seed in lost river, and the final escape pod run to pack everything to go)

Could it have been smoother? definately. Getting the neptune plans on the first visit to the aurora was an impulse "at least I will never have to come back here", that ended up radically changing (and improving) the pathing once I was through the gate. My inventory problems would have been simpler if I had gate chained from the thermal plant, and hand carried the fuel reserve back to the launch site, then chained back to the prawn in the lava castle, rather than trying to get the last three steps at once. (fuel/shield/capsule)

Better route planning (either through the gate, or just a "regular" lost river route) could have minimized wasted inventory space- I carried ruby out on the rocket that I basically carried through all lost river, wasting inventory space. A checklist of all the materials I would need and in what order, would have made it easier to "speed run" this category. (I actually did have a check list for the initial loadout, pre-gate. It worked well.)

[Triaxx]

The only speed improvement I can imagine is fast tracking the Clops because it can take the function of much of the mobile bases. Mobile Fab, Bed, Lantern Fruit/Melon Planters. And has space enough for lockers to carry the stuff you need.

[Destro_Yersul]

Cyclops is really good as a mobile base, and can even charge itself after a point. You can get it down to the Lost River with only one depth upgrade, too, so it doesn't necessiraily require a ton of extra resource hunting to make it useful.

It is also the obvious option, though, so possibly less interesting as a challenge.

[Rakaydos]

The only speed improvement I can imagine is fast tracking the Clops because it can take the function of much of the mobile bases. Mobile Fab, Bed, Lantern Fruit/Melon Planters. And has space enough for lockers to carry the stuff you need.

That's just a lack of imagination. there's a sub 2 hour glitchless run that runs seaglide only, and only build the cyclops at the end because they need the shield generator. Speed is all about planning your resource/blueprint hunting in advance, and knowing when you can stop because you have enough.

[Destro_Yersul]

If you allow the super seaglide glitch, the run is 35 minutes. The extra time there is probably just needing to stop and get yourself air or a spawn point. It used to also involve a lot of resetting until an optimal spawn point showed up, I'm not sure if it still does that or if they just have a file seed with a good spawn these days. But speedrunners are crazy.

[Rakaydos]

Ultimately, this was a weird hybrid "lockerless" and "No return to safe shallows" run, and it didnt even really start until 4 1/2 hours in when I waited for the sunbeam before gate traveling.

[Rakaydos]

Trying a different loadout. (If I found an extra gelsack, the other ruby would be aerogel too)

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/713925917751115807/761998332407054356/unknown.png?width=770&height=433

[Rakaydos]

So I've been going back to Subnautica a few times, and now I've broken down and bought Below Zero. Since they added the plot in the recent update, there's hope there might be an actual game behind the survival gameplay.

I'll might set up with an "orbital scan" before I start playing, and I've got a few spoilers from previous updates (and the new trailer), but other than that, I'm going in relatively blind. Wish me luck.

[Destro_Yersul]

Yeah, Subnautica itself started early access, and it was a while before the story got added and finalised. Below Zero seems to be taking the same route. It's why I'm waiting for the full release to pull the trigger

[Rakaydos]

Boot up the game, and I get a warning. Graphics card too weak, frame rate might suffer. Noted.

So, you're sneaking down to the planet in the middle of a meteor storm. your lifeDrop pod falls off your lander, and while you survive the crash, your ship doesnt. First task, a run for the pod.

No radio or medkit dispensor. There's a fab, and a bigger storage than in Riley's lifepod. I grabbed a bladder fish on the way over, so first things first- basic survival supplies. I'm severly lacking in blueprints so far, but until I find the ribbon plants that seen to have replaced acid mushrooms, I KNOW how to find sillicone rubber for the knife. Creepvine is right over there.

Rocks seem to be different than there were in the Crater- instead of offering a few different types of materials each. these rocks seems to be "chance of X, or else titanium" There's a seaglide fragment right by the pod, so once I get the scanner, i'll be on my way.

I find a few ribbon plant and pick up a beacon about the same time. I also found some sulfur- same angry bombfish as the crater, but sometimes they have eggs, and sometimes they have crystal sulfer, like in the deeps of the crater. No hab builder yet, so my only fab is back at the pod. Craft the scanner and repair tool.

I also check the PDA- You're looking for your sister.
Alterra hired her to make a robot spy penguin, and while she was there, alterra discovered a leviathan on ice that's still infected with the alien civilization destroying bacteria. Evil corporation was considering -all- their options, sister got the word out, and sufered an unstated "accident due to her own negligence."
You are a former employee of Xenowerks, that does alien world survival games for a paycheck. Alterra recently bought Xenowerks (and no doubt promoted the previous owner to the Board of Directors of Alterra, as per last game's lore- possibly Riley? Our hero has some skepticisim of Alterra that she may have picked up from her last employer)

The supply stash has a resource scanner, and two MVB fragments. Woo! I also find a few more ribbon plants. Back to the pod, craft the resource detector- which can find fragments. woo! it's a bit of a power hog, though. after some deliberation, I craft a seaglide too. Unfortunately, they fixed the "dead battery to craft new tool=full battery tool" trick. There's also some kind of distress signal, of unknown origin, thumping through the water, and a beacon for Delta station, where my sister worked. No high capacity tanks, but I'm able to craft a few microchips and wiring kits and salted arctic peeper before I head off.

Delta station dock has a coffee machine on the docks, and a few multipurpose rooms up on the land. some PDAs and hab fittings, and a radio tower. Also a warning that Alterra is tresspassing on someone's land. Sure sounds like the female Degasi survivor. And sure enough, prawn suit with a blade. "You were warned, Alterra" "I'm not with Alterra." "Then you're doubly screwed."

The PDAs gave a location further on, and on the way there, I run across a wrecked ship. in an accessable room I find a Power cell and Power Cell blueprint, but it's too deep to really explore without an air station. (maybe, MAYBE worth making an air pump and pipes out of all this titanium, if they're going to keep holding off on the hab builder or 3rd vehical bay blueprint)

Then I get greedy. The beacon is too far down, and I'm over 200m down when I get the 30 seconds warning. I wake up in the life pod, with only the Power cell recovered.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

So I've been going back to Subnautica a few times, and now I've broken down and bought Below Zero. Since they added the plot in the recent update, there's hope there might be an actual game behind the survival gameplay.

I'll might set up with an "orbital scan" before I start playing, and I've got a few spoilers from previous updates (and the new trailer), but other than that, I'm going in relatively blind. Wish me luck.

Good luck; I’ve had it crash on me frequently (to the point where I was spending more time loading up the game after a crash then actually playing, and I accidentally destroyed my file when one of my frequent saves ended up being at the tail end of an animation). It seems to happen most often during storms and

around the purple vent zone.

It’s been disappointing because I had loads of fun during Early Access for base Subnautica and what I saw of Below Zero was interesting. :smallfrown:

[Rakaydos]

2 hours, 54 minutes.

Some exploring brought me into beacon range of the Phi robotics facility, where our hero's sister worked. It's an overland treck, with plants that refresh your heat meter and caves where you can "come up for air" by warming yourself up. More hab components, not a hab builder in sight. There was a map for the land-based areas, and Cold Suit blueprints. They require "snowfox fur", which sounds like a land creature. Some exploration of the area yielded a blueprint for the "Snowfox hoverbike", but somehow I dont think that I will be getting fur from that. (it also requires magnatite, which I havnt found yet.) There's occasional "bad weather" that drains your temperature faster than normal... and ohhey angry snowbear thing. Also I apparently dumped my knife in the pod locker- oops. I do get away, but I'm pretty sure I know where you get "Snowfox fur" now. Drop a beacon in the creature's territory so I can find it later. as I get ready to leave, there's another facility that catches my eye, but it's behind a non-extended bridge. I head back to the pod and craft more food and water, and retrieve my knife.

[Rakaydos]

3 hours, 59 minutes.

Did a second pass of Delta dock, found a scanner room databox, and a hab builder just laying around on a box. I must have been blind. Went back, and crafted it. Then loaded up on base building supplies.

The crashed ship by Delta Dock is my first priority- right at the 100m mark, and unexplored. Even with the air base, there was a lot of seagliding in, finding and scanning one thing, seagliding back out. And I didnt even get a complete laser cutter out of it.

Some exploration further along the ice shelf that Delta dock was on revealed a cave with an ion cube, alien device, and some growable nuts. Delta dock also had some pots I missed last time, so turning some metal wreckage into pots I've started growing 2 plants inside a tube base. Also a battery charger, and a coffeemaker... which doesnt actually filter water in this game, just heats a thermos. Which means that I actually have a bit of a water problem. After messing around trying to power relay to a tube closer to the "pilot's last coordinate" waypoint, I gave up, packed up, and saved at the base.

[Rakaydos]

4 hours, 32 minutes
So, run back to the bladderfish-populated area near the lifeboat. I'm hydrated enough to make a few detours, though, and a dive in twisty bridges found a third seatruck part. Recipe involves an Advanced Wiring kit, but there's table coral in twisty bridges too.

Got a bladderfish, got a drink at the lifepod, hunted out another 7-8 bladderfish and turned them into water too. Put some into the lifepod locker, got myself back to 100%. and kept some on hand.

So, Seatruck. Needs the advanced wiring kit- easy enough, there's copper in storage (though I'm running low) and I got enough table coral for two microchips. Needs a power cell- I found one in the crashed ship, but it's in the forard base locker. The base locker also has the last lead I need. And I have plenty of glass.

On the way back, explorations reveal another archetech artefact, and my PDA figures out how to make teleporting lockers. That would be nice, but I'd need an Ion cube on each end, and the new artefact didnt have one.

At the base, the nut trees are full grown. the nuts actually give health, not just food, but due to poor placement, I cant actually reach the pot in the back. The downsides to building a base in a 2 titanium tube. Swapped out my seaglide and scanner batteries at the charger, picked up the lead, power cell, and ion cube, and started back.

This time I swung a bit further south than the direct path when exploring, and was rewarded- a sea monkey nest with a third laser cutter fragment. Unfortunately, still needs diamond, and I have no idea where to get it.

Sea truck. A little smaller than a seamoth, it has a door in the back that supposedly connects to "train segments", but you cant actually move around in the cockpit, just in and out of the top hatch. Still, it's got a crush depth of 150, which should work as a mobile air base. Saving everything else for after laundry day.

[Triaxx]

So... Should you ever manage to get the Seatruck stuck in a pair of doors, remind me and I'll tell you a secret. It's a spoiler though so I won't say anything now.

[Rakaydos]

5 hours, 38 minutes

Brand new seatruck, 150m crush depth. Time to check out that deep part of twisty bridges.

150 gets me about as far as I could safely check in a straight dive-and-rise, but I can be much more systematic about it. Found a likely looking hole, built a Scanner room at 160m. Yea no, that hole goes more than the depth of the scanner. There's a diamond are the edge of the reach of the scanner, but without the HUD, I'm not going to try to make a reach for it. There was a databox with a rebreather nearby and a few other things, but after leaving a few emergency supplies at the scanner room, I'm running a bit low, so it's back to the hab for more hunting. Also building that rebreather, which I almost forgot to do.

Next, checking out the "pilot's last position" beacon. On the way over I spotted a databox with high capacity O2 tank, but I didnt think to crack a not-shale silverbearing rock on the way over. There's nothing at the beacon, but it's a decent place to build a scanner base- doesnt even need a locator beacon, since the radio coordinate does that already. Dont have enough copper for a scanner, though. Still, I can make a cross-tube base with plans to expand into a scanner base. My first tube base is a relatively short seaglide away, just it's annoyingly just outside visual range. I ended up parking the seatruck halfway between, and just seagliding past the truck each way as I dismantled and moved the nut planters, the locker, the battery charger, and fabricator.

There's an annoying creature in the area that does the Mesmer "look at me" trick, but instead of taking a bite out of you, it scrambles your sense of direction, sets your Compass spinning, and all your hud beacon icons are in the wrong locations. As I went out to pack up the solar panel and the tube itself, there was no place to stock back up on air, but it was a short enough trip. Except that damn mesmer caught me, disorented me, and I didnt have enough air to find the base or the seatruck. Sigh.

I respawn in the seatruck. Might be enough playing for now.

[Anteros]

As much as I love Subnautica, I don't want Below Zero spoiled for me before I even play it. So I don't think I can follow this thread.

The original is my favorite game ever, and the little I played of below zero early access didn't impress me, but I'm hopeful they improve things for the final release.

[Rakaydos]

6 Hours, 34 minutes. Not tired enough to sleep, why not give it a little more?

Building up the base at the beacon. since I had the titanium but not the copper, I built a multipurpose room, and collected enough quartz to make a glass aquarium in it. Went back to the pod to collect all the eggs, and swing wide enough to reach the iceberg with the crack through it. Scanned a rock grub, saw another starship fragment, though with no visible entrance. Collected titanium and copper, and my first ruby. (I've already got a few gel sacks) After getting the eggs, came back, built the aquarium hatch and a scanner room. dumped the eggs in, read through the list. There's an exo suit upgrade, and a type of rock with no preview image. Seeing as I need a mineral I havnt seen yet (magnatite), that sounds promicing. Unfortunately, I dont really get a direction before the power dies. 160m isnt 249,, but it's still not great for solar power. I cant quite finish a second solar panel, but after some searching, I find a mess of Seatruck Aquariums, enough for some spare titanium to finish the solar panel. That's enough to break even, it seems- I sat at 0 power for awhile, without the lights flickering. I spent my spare cloth on the rebreather, I think? so no bed in the scanner room.

Next time, I'll continue the hunt for magnatite.

[Triaxx]

Does the Scanner Room still have the driveable free floating camera's? If so those can be impromptu HUD markers.

[Rakaydos]

Does the Scanner Room still have the driveable free floating camera's? If so those can be impromptu HUD markers.

You have to build them separately now. But the charge ports still exist. I did that withh the twisty bridges scanner.

[Rakaydos]

8 hours, 21 minutes.

Some blind exploration in what I thought was the right direction yielded the front half of the Mercury II. This one had some real prizes- a nuclear reactor blueprint, and 2/4 prawn suit fragments. Also more base building resources. Made a pod run, found a nice cave with lots of table coral, so I've got what I need for a camera dron, an extra chip, and another scanner room. There's still more table coral here, so I drop a beacon. I forget the lube on my first trip, so I have to make a second run to the pod.

base has a bio reactor now, and it's own camera drone. flew the drone out to the caliceate reading, and there's nothing there- it's floating in open ocean. There's an interesting anomaly nearby though. Seatruck airbase, and investigate. Big UFO jellyfish, tendrils grabbing the ground below. it left cracks, with thermal vents... and thermal reactor fragments and power relay- not fragments, since I cant scan them, but visual reminders of how thermal reactors and power relays work together. More ruby, uranite, and a PDA log from the lady in the exosuit, which I havnt read. Also a "booster tank" databox.

The main base is still getting prawn suit readings, though, and they're suprisingly close. Anoter examination of the topo map mess says that there's caves under the base. A cursory investigation turned up 3 seamonkey nests, with a thermal upgrade fragment, a grapple arm fragment, and... I forget what the third was. Would be nice if I had the magnatite so I could leave the scanner room going while I looked. Also the Arctic mesmers are annoying for any long duration exploration- as they add a lot of risk when you are out of visual range of a base or the seatruck's spotlight. (and even they they waste a good 10-15 seconds of air.)

Turned the uranite into a fuel rod, saved, and called it there. I'm due for another water run shortly anyway.

[Rakaydos]

10 hours, 0 minutes.

A few local bladderfish tide me over for the water run.

Exploring the local cave system with seatruck support got me the 2/2 thermal prawn upgrade. After moving the truck a few times for better positioning, I find a hole going DEEP... and at the bottom, I'm getting Magnatite readings. Time for extreme measures.

Solar panels work down to 245m or so, and if you're not trying to run a fabricator or scanner room, that's all you need. but 250m isnt deep enough for this hole. Fortunately, there's a lot of gold bearing rocks in the area, because I'm doing a Power Relay chain, down to the point the lighting changes. Tube, hatch, airstation. Only 75-100m more to the bottom of the cave, plenty close enough. Magnatite aquired.

Back to the base, where the bladderfish in the ACU have started breeding. Water problem solved! Power, on the other hand...I can feed bladderfish to the bioreactor, and also nuts. Got it. 5 power, and Hud Chip aquired.

Where's my prawn suit? Unfortunately, the scanner only revealed the two suits I'd already scanned, plus a 3rd in the same wreck. Still one short. Also some supply boxes I need a laser cutter for, and I still havnt found a diamond. Back to the lillypad deeps, except I'm bringing spare water and a nut tree in a pot. It's a long seaglide from the main base, but I can dip through the caves to avoid the arctic mesmers, and dont need to come up for air until I reach the airbase.

No diamond, but there's plenty of magnatite, and the components for Benzine and Polyanaline. dropped the spare water in a sideways locker and the nut tree beside it. Swam back tot he main base.

The aerogel is back at the pod, but once I aquire it, I have the components for a thermal plant. I still need diamond, and I stil havnt explored the deep twisty bridges. (last visited before the high cap tank and the rebreather and the hud chip) That's probably a good place for next time. Saved at the pod, after aquiring aerogel.

[Rakaydos]

12 Hours, 0 minutes.

My sidetracking got sidetracked.

Let's see- Deep twisty bridges. Got diamond, got an ion cube, got another architect scan.

Scanner station in the purple jets area, in the deeps area. Short on titanium, found an archetect scan and ion cube while looking for rocks to break. Also several types of seatruck components.

Required a second thermal plant to pay for the scanner room's upkeep, which required a second aerogel, which required a ruby. Went to deep twisty bridges for a ruby, didnt see one, but went deep enough to find a SEALED architect room, with a ruby in front of it. Came back, came up on the wrong side of the room from the air station, caught sight of it coming around the central pillar just as I faded to black. Respawned inside the station, with the one item I picked up- the ruby. mission accomplished? Except I also need magnatite for the thermal plant, so back down for two more.

Over to the main base to actually craft the aerogel, and also the laser cutter- but I need sulfer for the laser cutter, which should be back in the purple jets area. Still short on titanium, searched wider, wandered into the iceberg area, found a hole with a big nasty creature between it and the surface- and even with the high cap tank and rebreather, I can just barely get from the surface, down the hole for the archetect scan and ion cube, and back up. Would probably be easier if I actually had the seatruck, but I've left it at the purple jets scanner as a locator beacon. And on the way back, I stumbled over ANOTHER alterra base, with exterior growbeds! Now I need to remember to go find a creepvine seed... eventually. Also a desalination plant, which should be a nice upgrade to the main base if I craft ANOTHER aerogel.

Finally get the scanner set up, and oh yea, there's a smaller wreck right next door. AND craft that laser cutter. Another power cell (I really need a power cell charger), a seatruck dash upgrade, and a fragment of a "parallalel processing unit." Whatever that is. And I have enough spare titanium for a nut tree pot in this permanantly powered scanner room. Except I ate my nuts for healing after that iceberg area leviathan took a bite or two out of me. The lillypad deep base is slightly closer. Nut, planted, build a camera for this scanner, and back to the main base.

What did I need diamond for again? Right, Enameled glass! Seatruck depth upgrade! 300m mobile airbase! Also some vehical stuff I have to go back to the Pod to make at the MVB. Oh, and I have the components for some modification station stuff, but they're also back at the pod, for vehical-related reasons. How do I build Quantum lockers, again? they dont show up with the Hab builder...

I'm going to need to take inventory before I go much further. I've got two other crashed ships to investigate with the laser cutter, I've got trailers for the seatruck to figure out, I've got that sealed alien facility in the DEEP deep lilypad area... oh! I havnt actually touched the hoverbike yet, or the Snowfox pelts I would need for the Cold Suit. Wasnt there a bridge I couldnt get past, on land? Back in the water, that giant stationaly Jellyfish looked like it could be entered...

[Destro_Yersul]

That sounds like a lot of exploring. It'll be an interesting game to get into, once it's done. Learning where everything is again, all of that good stuff.

[Rakaydos]

13 hours, 35 minutes.

First things first, the vent garden. If I'm going to get eaten, lets do that before I get too far into a save.
The jellyfish had an accessable but tight opening on the bottom, at about 300m, and plants of various types on platforms inside. One of those plant types is an essential component of synthetic fibers. Come back out the way I came before running out of air. While I was in the area, I dug around the lava area where I found margurite's 1st log, got some more Ruby, gold, and titanium from thermal reactor fragments.

Then I swing east, found the bow of the crashed ship. This one is pretty extensive, with an entire section only accessable by leaving through a hull breach, going through a tunnel with 3 oxygen plants in it, and coming back up through another hull breach. And while you're investigating, the only way back out is back through that tunnel. Died a few times getting the hang of it, but got two more "parallel processor unit" fragments... whatever they are. blueprint complete. Also a few reactor rods. Back to base to drop off my ill gotten gains.

I figure out how to build a quantum locker- it's a deployable, not a base component, but I dont immediately make the connection to floating lockers. Unable to place it inside the base, I try stuffing it inside a normal locker and hope it connects if I build a second one. Need more table coral to make another one, so it's off to twisty bridges.

Lots of seaglide fragments and rocks left here. I found how to build the Recycler, which lets to de-fabricate items into it's components. It doesnt work on everything, but it works on Titanium ingots and glass, so building materials just got a lot more compact. I end up crafting about 25 titanium worth of ingots. Still need silver from the pod for the 2nd quantum locker.

Over at the pod, I need to build a minibase in order to use the modification station and recycler. I crafted all my titanium into ingots, so actually making the base took some resource gathering. Crafted the infinite-seaglide fins, and the 2nd quantum locker. Figured out that I needed to deploy the locker outside, and hurrah! 16 (or was it 24?) units of storage that can be picked up while full! (and also can be left in place and accessed from any other quantum locker)

Since I've all but eliminated pod runs, and it's so far from my main base, I pack up the Mobile vehical bay, and as much of the materials stashed in the pod as I can carry and/or fit in the quantum locker. I'll need to make a second trip to retrieve the locker itself and the minibase, eventually.

Back to the main base. released the MVB, though it's a good 160m up from the base itself, built a grow bed with a creepvine seed, a not-acidshroom, some gel sacks, and some not-deeppshrooms, as well as a spare cutting from the inside of the jellyfish.

I upgrade the depth module to 650m on the truck. Adding Storage and fabricator cars to the truck sounds interesting, but I need more lead. I'm short of lead, silver, diamond, ruby and magnatite. Could probably use some Lithium too. PErhaps redesign the base as a large room instead of 2 multipurpose rooms.

Strings to pull- exploring on land, investigating the sealed facility below the lillypad area, and exploring further south There was also a tunnel below the vent garden I didnt fully explore- with some magnatite, I might move the scanner room further down to get an idea what's down there. (or just move the whole purple vents scanner room and thermal plants?)

Also, at the edge of my scanner room's reach, I sometimes see corners of squared off areas- facilities, is my guess. Any entrance they may have is off the scopes. I could extend the scanner range for a better look, or move the scanner.

[Rakaydos]

14 hours, 41 minutes

Got a brainstorm, since I've got reactor rods from wrecks and a de-fabricator, I've got at least a few lead already. Enough for a Storage pod for the seatruck at least. Except... the storage pod needs a wiring kit. No harm, I've got a scanner room, argonite cant be that hard, right?

Turns out I've pretty much picked the sea floor around here clean... but I never touched the clumps of rock held up by the lillypads. Plenty of silver-bearing rock, but also plenty of lead-bearing rock. I'm soon able to get both a storage and fab module. Figuring out docking took awhile- the first one was super easy, so I didnt immediately grasp that each pod has a front and a back and only docks one way. The fab pod has a locker in it, and the storage pod has 4 small bins and 1 large one. (two of the small ones look like they should be bigger, though)

Off to the purple flares area, to deconstruct the thermal plants and scanner room. I also finished the Sleeper pod schematic, and fabricated a plasteel with the lithium in the area. Over to the giant gellyfish, under it's roots, and built a thermal plant next to a lava vent. This is MUCH more effective than the purple jet I was using earlier- a single thermal plant easilly covers the scanner room's upkeep, and the power gain when the scanner is off is about the same rate as the power drain when the scanner is on. Lots of ruby, stocking up since I'm growing gel sacks back at base now. The scanner map reveals large boxy areas that are probably developer oversight- they probably wont make it into the actual game, and the same for those "facilities" I thought I saw from other scanners. There's also a path generally leading north, toward the rest of the explored map. No thermal signatures, so I leave the scanner room behind and set off with the seatruck.

Margrite gives me another warning when I reach an equipment stash. Got a stillsuit blueprint, and a fork in the "road"- deeper, or more of the same. I go deeper, and enter a crystal cave... with Kyanite. I also get a warning about a leviathan, and catch a glimpse of it moving through the relatively narrow caverns. The seatruck isnt that great at evasion, but... kyanite. It hits like a Ghost leviathan, too- 30-45 hull on the seatruck cab, 75 health in person. There was one point where I leave the cab to pick up a kyanite crystal, get jumped by the reaper in the 10m between the cab and the crystal, die, and respawn back in the cab.

I'm mostly navigating these caves by stepping away from the controls and pulling up the Seaglide's sonar while still inside the cab. I get 3 kyanite before I find a hole upward and start heading to the surface. Once I'm "safe" in the purple jets biome, I get up, craft a beacon in the fab pod, and swim back down to this second entrance to the crystal caves. I make sure to label the beacon before heading back to the cab.

Back to the surface, back to the base. Not a bad shakedown, though I could stand for fewer leviathan jump scares. Still dont know where to find another prawn suit piece- I'm one short of being able to craft one. I might try the surface next, try out the new hoverbike.

[Rakaydos]

16 hours, 29 minutes

Prepping for Land expedition.

above sea level, solar power always works, as long as you build it during (or wait for) day. And you dont even need solar power for a basic shelter- an unpowered tube above sea level has both air and temperature control. The quantum locker is 4 slots for 24 slots of storage but is a bit awkward to use. The recycler takes 2 slots, but lets me store titanium NOT needed for a basic tube base as ingots. (5 titanium per slot) And building a snowfox pad and vehical would give me transportation. I get some more silver for wiring kits, move most of my crafting supplies to the seatruck, resolve to look out for more Gold on the way, and head back to Delta base.

Delta base is honestly not much. it's an island, not connected to the land mass to the north. The antenna requires a test override kit, but there's no hint as to where to aquire even a blueprint. There's a scannable wall map, though... and it looks like pretty much everything I've been doing was in the eastern half, except for Phi Robotics. I can see the bridge I spotted earlier on the map, as it separated the Phi robotics area from a long overland trip to another alterra base. O on it's side.

Heading over to the dock by Phi robotics, I check out the bridge first. Same deal as the antenna- needs Hydrolic fluid, lube doesnt work, no hint or scan as to where to find any. (though there is some kelp not far from the robotics, between the dock and the pod)

Instead of heading into the robotics facility again, I break past it, to explore the glacer. I saw a land predator last time in the area, and while critters in subnautica dont drop loot, I need to find "snowfox pelts" somewhere. The hoverbike has an odd steering mechanisim- WASD is all strafing. The only way to turn is to be BOTH looking in the direction you want to turn, AND pressing A or D in the right direction. It can also be picked up and carried- it takes 9 inventory slots. It's notable benifit is having a warm engine- your temp doesnt go down while riding. Still, it's a bit of a hassal, and when it got hung up on a ledge with too little inventory space to pick it up, I left it for later.

Got into a fight with a "Snow Stalker", the large predator from earlier. Does 35-40% of health per pounce, but with good strafing, I was able to kill it with a heatknife while only getting bitten once. No fur drops. Found another Archetect relic and ion cube. And I found a pool with a dock on it, with one underwater cave going back toward Robotics, and another going away.

The away tube emerges in an above water cave with a Stalker and young. I burnt my medkit on my initial exploration pass, and escaped back to the dock area with a third of my life.

This is why I brought a health nut. Not for eating, though- after crafting a tube base, I pulled out the locker, retieved the nut, and planted it. No room for a bed, but I can make a chair. Save, call it there.

On reflection, I can totally decompress an ingot and make a multipurpose room for a bed. That would give the plant a "night" to grow, so I can heal up before exploring again. I coulda swore I scanned a glacer map (not the area map at Delta, a land map), but I'm not seeing it in the databank. perhaps I just took a picture? Anything to give me a better idea what there is to look for in this area. I do want to check out the stalker cave again- prey carcases might have "snowfox fur."

[Rakaydos]

17 Hours, 57 minutes.

Recyclotron defabrication really changes the packing formulas in ways I am still coming to understand.

So, multipurpose room, and bed. I could make it a scanner room, if I only had some gold. With a scanner room, I could find some gold. But i've got a mineral scanner, and caves with veins of material in them, and time to kill. Put together a battery charger- the hab builder is a bit drained, and the mineral scanner will be- it's a real power hog. after fruitlessly searching, (at least for gold- there's plenty of copper, silver, and even veins of magnatite in the walls) I realize I've got the defabricator- all I need is something with gold IN it, like the hab builder's chip. I get it disassembled before I remember I need the gold for a hab component. None of my other tools have a chip as a component. (I didnt think to check the quantum locker itself until much later)

The map I thought I had turned out to be a PDA screenshot in the photogallery. Checking the compas against the robotics lab beacon, I'm about as far south as I can be on land. There's unvisited territory to the west, though. Packing up was interesting, as I realize the best way to pack copper and silver is as Compasses. (2 copper and 2 silver per slot) I ended up leaving the tube with the nut tree in place, even as I removed the hatch and solar panel. plants dont need light, right? Now I just needed to brave the stalker caves.

The stalkers take 5 heatknife strikes to kill. The juvenile stalkers are cute, but snap at you after you try petting them. And snow STALKER fur is sometimes found on the ground in their lairs. Past the cave there's a sparse foresty area with a snowfox jump jet databox, and following the outside ice-wall brought me to a cave in the ice... one with a security office carved into the walls, and voiceover commenting on it's presence. Clearly plot is afoot, and I'm going to limit my discussion of that plot.

On site, however, there's an Advanced Wiring Kit, to which my immediate reaction is "Arr, there be me gold." There's also the last Prawnsuit fragment (might be a whole prawnsuit, but it was the last fragment I needed), and a selection of fibers reminded me that I could clear out my inventory some by crafting coldweather gear, now that I had furs.

Outside the cave, I started unpacking, decompressing, and recrafting. amusingly, a battery charger is just a Compass and a titanium. The advanced wiring kit became a compass, 2 table coral, and a gold. Turns out there's no other gold anywhere around here. Good to know. (this is when I think to check the quantum locker- yup, the recipe involves an advanced wire kit, which had gold all along) There's an ion cube in scanner range, but its probably going to be an adventure for another time. While I wait for depleted batteries to charge, I uncraft my gloves to make a bed out of the fiber. First compasses, then the clothes on my back? clearly, I need to spend more time thinking about the implications of this technology.

The question for next time is, do I complete the loop back to the seatruck to drop off excess gear? or do I go for the ion cube now? The answer will probably depend on my packing next time, and whether I have room for an ion cube.

[Destro_Yersul]

it continues to surprise me how differently from me you play this game. I don't think I have ever worried about packing things, or moving bases. I basically always just build one big base, and maybe a couple smaller satellite bases, and once each is placed it never gets deconstructed. If I need more stuff, I go hunting for it rather than breaking down something I've already built.

[Rakaydos]

22 hours, 27 minutes

I recovered the hoverbike, and brought it back to the charger. Buncha jellyfish are swarming my seatruck at the dock. Build a minibase to decompress the components I need to make the jump upgrade for the hoverbike... and it's really kinda anemic. I tried jumping the disabled bridge, but no such luck. I start reoganizing the storage pod, running back and forth to the defabricator... when suddenly the seatruck being swarmed by jellyfish blew up.

...that's bad. I quickly pack the minibase, grab the two remaining pods at the approved push bar, and start pushing as hard as I can to get them out of the same zone as those jellyfish. cant use the seaglide, and you move like you're finless , pushing them, but I get it out of the jellyfish, through a kelp forest, and into a different twisty bridges. Safe enough for now. Swam back to the main base (and the MVB) solo.

making a new seatruck involved another twisty bridges scan room run, stocking up on a dozen diamond and a bunch of lead. Unfortunately I also lost my depth module, but I can rebuild that once I get the pods to saftey.

The databank map entry suggests there's another alterra facility tot he southwest of Delta, so I circle delts to the south... and stumble right over the facility, entrance door depth 135. Not too much inside I can reach... except a databox, with MOONPOOL, BABY! YEA! Back to recovering the pods, repairing the damaged one, and bringing them all home.

Then, completely redesigning and reconstructing my main base. The Control room sounds interesting, especially with the problems Ive had with scanners passively draining energy faster than solar charges it, even without an active scan. A large room lets me put the bioreactor and alien containment in the same room, and the water filtrator in a different room, that the control room can shut off. Moonpool and scanner on opposite ends, with the scanner having it's own hatch. Lots of rearranging the internal layout as I figure out what feels best. Then, crafting- the depth module, level 2 depth module, Prawn suit, Prawn suit thermal reactor, prawn suit depth moduel, Prawn suit max depth module, the prawnsuit suitlock trailer for the seatruck. all with lots of resource runs, fabbing, refabbing, grabbing a meal, turning off rooms not in use to save power.

I dont actually have the blueprint for the grapple arm or torpedo arm, and havnt even scanned a single drill arm. I might go try looking for Maida, or that new alterra base, or go fight that creature in the crystal caves. (Prawn suit is invincible!) I never actually went for the ion cube by the robotics facility, and now that I have prawn suil, I can navigate the tight turns to the sealed alien facility while inside an air station. And then there's the last facility on the alterra map, north of the bridge. If I dug up enough titanium, there's no reason I couldnt just base-build my way over that bridge, or over the cliff directly from the ocean. No bridge repair needed.

[Rakaydos]

Not an in game post- Planning and packing.

So a basic tube and hatch costs 4 titanium and a quartz. A thermal reactor costs 5 titanium, 2 magnatite and an aerogel.
A moonpool+bioreactor requires more space. A large room would actuall pack better than a multipurpose room, only costing 2 plasteel instead of 6 titanium. The moonpool requires 2 ingots, 2 lead and a lube. And the bioreacotor costs 3 titanium, a wiring kit (that you need in order to get power, so no compass tricks) and another lube.
That's 13 slots and 12 slots(plus a critter or plant), but they can share 3 titanium, so it's 22 slots to carry both. Once you have power, a recyclotron (2 slots) lets you pack denser. That should all fit into the prawnsuit backpack. (9 titanium, 1 quartz, 2 magnatite, 1 aerogel, 3 ingot, 2 plasteel, 2 lead, 2 lube, a wiring kit, and an ion cube)

A fabricator costs 2 quartz (1 glass), 2 titanium, and 2 copper (copper wire). A battery charger costs a copper wire and wiring kit (compass), plus a titanium. A bed costs a cloth (can be worn as a glove) and a titanium, and a pot and nut for medical help costs 2 titanium and 4 slots for the nut. the titanium can be gotten from a single ingot, so these components add 8 slots. A scanner room costs an ingot worth of titanium, and components from a microchip. (2 slots) A Nuclear reactor and water purifier costs a plasteel, advanced wire kit, 3 lead and at least 1 fuel rod, plus a copper wire and a second aerogel (in case you want to run the water purifier from the thermal plant), as well as the tube's worth of titanium (since it has to go into the large room or a multipurpose room) And 1 plasteel just about covers two Reinforcements if the base is deep enough to need it.
This internal inventory then, is: 1 glass, 2 wire, 1 compass, 2 ingot, 1(4) nut, 1 chip, 2 plasteel, 1 advanced wire kit, 3 lead, 1-2 fuel rod, 1 aerogel. 19 or 20 slots. Throw in a Creepvine seed for infinite medkits.

Actual packing: the internal inventory should probably go in the prawn suit, and the base supplies in two of the 3x4 storage bins in the seatruck, and carried when leaving the seatruck behind. I've got one 3x5 bin reserved for land gear: the jump-equipped hoverbike and the coldweather facemask. The other 3x5 bin, and the 6x3 trunk and the fab module's 6x2, are for resources collected along the way.

[Rakaydos]

1 day, 0 hour 11 minutes.

Preparation.

So if I'm going to be doing any serious leviathan fighting, I need medkits. I've got 2 creepvines planted outside the base, but they take time to regrow start with them. Seed, 5 samples, replant the seed, craft the fibers, seed, 5 samples, replant the seed, craft the fibers and medkits. Go resource hunting.

The list in last post is pretty long, and somehow a lot of the resources I needed for it went into the vehical and upgrade crafting last session. Whenever I'm not actively using the scanner room, I've got power off to the scanner and power on to the water purification plant. I harvest the creepvine 3-4 times and get 7-8 large waters. I got to the point where I have all the special resources I need, but I'm short 10 titanium and 1 lithium. (that is, 1 ingot and 1 plasteel) I figure I can finish that with resource gathering en route to... wherever. I should only need them for the more comprehensive bases.

Before leaving, though, I really should have a Reinforced dive suit. For fighting leviathans in, of course. I pin a recipe from the fabricator, gathr the last component from the outdoor growbed, and... oops, Its's the still suit. The reinforced dive suit isnt hard either, but it needs a ruby (not hard, I saw one earlier, something from the growbed, and 1 more titanium. I swear, I got 3 gold and 2 copper looking for that titanium.

The extra gear and uncrafted ingots makes storage a bit tighter than planned. One locker has the snowfox hoverbike and the coldweather headgear, and 2 "combine with snowball for a large water" tablets. A second has the reinforced dive suit, and the rest of the slots filled with medkits. The top cabinets have everything I need to turn the lights on in a base and get the recyclotron going, and the prawn has almost everything I need to outfit a base, in compressed forms. The bench locker has the coldweather bodysuit and a bunch of water and salt. The fab locker has some odds and ends, as well as a nut. I'm wearing the rebreather, the still suit, and because it's a nifty way to carry a cloth, coldweather gloves, along with a hud chip, compass, high cap (but not ultra cap) tanks, and swim charge fins.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/713925917751115807/776581727836831774/unknown.png

All aboard the Cave Train? Last call!

[Destro_Yersul]

I really like the ability to pin things, so you can track resource progress. That's a nice QoL upgrade. Not sure about the seatruck vs the seamoth, though. How do you find it? The seamoth is my favourite exploration tool in the main game, to the point that I usually skip the seaglide entirely in order to just rush the moth.

[Rakaydos]

The sea truck by itself, is basically a slightly smaller Seamoth. But instead of upgrading it with modules, you find wrecked pieces of what are essentially train cars. Each train car slows you down a bit, but they keep your narrow profile, and each one gains you more and more Cyclops functionality. I dont even think it's possible to fit a cyclops down some of these biomes, so mobile-base functionality on something narrow in profile and maneuverable like a seamoth is great. (Seriously, these biomes start at lost river and go up past mushroom forest in terms of vehical navigation)

[Kareeah_Indaga]

The sea truck by itself, is basically a slightly smaller Seamoth. But instead of upgrading it with modules, you find wrecked pieces of what are essentially train cars. Each train car slows you down a bit, but they keep your narrow profile, and each one gains you more and more Cyclops functionality. I dont even think it's possible to fit a cyclops down some of these biomes, so mobile-base functionality on something narrow in profile and maneuverable like a seamoth is great. (Seriously, these biomes start at lost river and go up past mushroom forest in terms of vehical navigation)

I don’t know if they tweaked it with the last update, but I found the Seatruck to be a lot clunkier than the Seamoth. The corners kept getting caught on things and getting in and out of the vehicle was trickier. I didn’t get past just having the first module during my playthrough though.

[Balmas]

I think it's pretty telling that one of the most downloaded mods when I last played Below Zero did nothing but make it so that the Seatruck didn't slow down when you added modules.

Keep in mind that the last time I played Below Zero, cold weather still wasn't a thing to be concerned about, but I think the devs missed a beat with how they implemented the Seatruck compared to the vehicles from the first game. The Seamoth, if you'll pardon an analogy, is a sports car--fast, nimble, agile, perfect for just getting around. The Cyclops is a semi truck: slow, powerful, with enough storage space for long journeys and mobile basing. The Seatruck, on the other hand, feels like an around-town van with a series of trailers behind it. It lacks the storage and mobile base-iness of the Cyclops, and the zip of the Seamoth, until you're left with an unhappy compromise that's worse than either option.

[Rakaydos]

Perhaps I was just turned off the seamoth too early by the tiny (base) depth limit, and because I missed beacon scans on my first playthrough, mostly used it as a beacon and an airbase in a fixed location instead of as transport. by the time I got the depth upgrade from the Aurora, I was addicted to the prawn.

In Below Zero, beacons hit you with the cluebat at the start of the game, (alterra beacons are active, and also scannable, so it's not a matter of finding fragments, AND their utility is being demonstrated) and once you have the hab buildier, any place you need an airbase, you can just build an air base- there isnt really as many yawning voids in this game. I think the seaglide is slightly slower, too, at least vertically. 10ms, not 11, or something.

[Rakaydos]

1 day, 1 hour, 47 minutes

So first thing, I actually took the prawn suit out for a short trip and punched a squidshark to death. y'know, as a warmup. Repaired the prawn afterward, brought it back to the seatruck.

Where to first? well, I really didnt get much of a chance to explore the crystal caves, what with the jumpscare leviathan, and I've recieved an achievent for finding the Survivor's base when all I found was a platform and a databox, so retracing that expedition with more exploration sounds good.

I stop at the scanner room I left here, stick the prawn suit next to a thermal vent, and swap the drained Seatruck battery into it and a full one back into the seatruck. The thermal reactor fragments in the area are easy titanium, and there's a few lithium available, so I'm able to finish out my wishlist easy enough. No real unpack, just a recharge pitstop. The stillsuit is making my water packing redundant, but I really didnt pack much in the way of food. Hopefully my heatknife finds plenty of prey.

Maida's base is before the crystal caves- I just followed the wrong wall to find it. She's got her own moonpool I can access, with a customized prawnsuit that's seen better days. In the next room you get jumped by a Stalker, and Maida has some words for you while you're on the ground. She's finally entertaining the possibility you might not be alterra, and says if you sabotauge the main radio tower, she MIGHT remember a few things about your sister. She points you to a scannable fragment of a "test module" that could do the job, that "she couldnt make work." And no wonder, the blueprint requires the thing I had to scan in at least two different wrecks. Also, there's a seatruck perimiter defense module lying on the floor. I'm sure she wont miss it. The Stalker keeps me from following maida into the other room.

Back to the seatruck, and the crystal caves. And the jumpscare leviathan. The plan is, bait it into grabbing the truck, climb out, pull out the knife, and slash it intil it backs off, then repair the truck while it's away, and repeat. The plan works. I can safely explore in 5 minute segments, punctuated by 30 seconds of terror and rage.

The crystal caves are pretty extensive, it seems, and extend deeper than the seatruck's 650m depth. I've got the max depth for the prawn, though, so I took it down. some really deep sections have no side tunnels but extensive minerals, and another area seemed to be a cave of cyclops-sized ruby crystals. I didnt rule out tunnels behind the ruby section, but I know how to return there.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/713925917751115807/776836540885368872/unknown.png

If I only had a drill arm.

I worked my way back up to the seatruck. The leviathan's territory includes some of the deeper areas, and at one point I actually cornered it in a small cave bend. Unfortunatly either I didnt kill it, or it peaces out on death- it seemed like it fled partially through a wall when it left. I've heard it but havnt seen it since.

Not really in a hurry to head back to the surface, I keep exploring the crystal cave and collecting kyanite. It's the low-calory warning that gives me pause. There no red featherfish in the immediate area, but there is batteryplants- and there's enough room in the cave for a moonpool-large room base.

The initial large room-moonpool setup was a bit tricky, making sure both could be placed in the confines of the cave while being hooked together. And it's deep enough that just the two rooms floods. but once the bioreactor was in and turned on, the recyclotron built, and another plasteel I brought for this purpose retrieved, I had a Reinforcement so I could patch up the base.

Still hungry. I've got two nuts in storage, so 2 grow pots, in order to get ahead of my hunger. Batery charger for the repair tool, deconstruct the glove into a bed, and take a quick nap. Still only a third of the way done, so I build and sit on a chair (which stops your meters from going down) and start reviewing my PDA, especially the alterra voice logs. There's a radio towe mechanic who basically tells you to look in the wrecked ships for something tower related. (which I've done, and which maida has now given the other piece of the puzzle) There's more backstory on the seatruck pilot, who implies his moustash grooming kit has saved his life at least once on this planet. And your sister has been discovering more about alterra's activities on the planet. Also, the robotics lab team plays Among Us Alien Intruder.

When that's done, the plants arnt ready, but I can sleep again. After that, the first nut has grown, so my food status is stabilized. More unpacking, got the fabricator out, did a battery swap between truck and prawn (it's easier to dock the prawn than detach the seatruck cab and dock it), and saved. Next time, I'll probably unpack a scanner room.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/713925917751115807/776836755122028544/unknown.png

The long wait for the nuts to grow may be a bit of a problem for a long term expedition. Two sleeps and a chair between them worked this time, but chairs are boring, unless you have a backlog to go through. I do have a lot of salt, so I could probably hunt some rations down and store them. If I did it here, though I should probably be wearing the dive suit from the IAMVRYBDAS locker, in case that jumpscare leviathan comes back. (which I still need to scan, dammit!)

[Kareeah_Indaga]

I really like the ability to pin things, so you can track resource progress. That's a nice QoL upgrade.

Missed this comment earlier, but I want to second this. Having to hunt for blueprints in the menu as it increasingly expands was one of the few places I think the original game fell down. The pinning also doubles as an easy way to keep track of what you were intending to build, so if you put the game down and come back some months later you can remember what you were doing.

I also like that they added the battery bars to anything you can use up or that degrades over time. Much more intuitive and easier to use than the percentages.

[Rakaydos]

1 Day, 3 hour, 54 minutes.

Built the scanner- nothing really interesting nearby. Turned all the salt I had stored into cured red featherfish, topped off on food and water, repacked the base, and went out to poke the jumpscare leviathan again. Same trick with the seatruck bait, except pulling out a scanner instead of the knife. Almost got a full scan before it turned away, too. Repair, try again. Turns out it's called a Shadow Leviathan. Not much else down here, came up throught the purple jets area.

Before returning to base, I decided to hit the lillypad deeps, and check out that sealed door in more than a quick glance while searching for something else. Seatruck navigates a twisty narrow passage almost as bad as the Lava castle shell. No pedestals or scannable stuff. I do build a scanner room in the next room over, which had enough room for a moonpool+multipurpose room+scanner if you place it right- there's plenty of organics for a bioreactor down here. The squidshark was also entirely bark and no bite.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/713925917751115807/777213833038004254/unknown.png
You came to the wrong neighborhood, bucko.

Looks like there's only a single room behind that gate. there's another cave system that's not connected relatively close by- from the direction, I assume it's Crystal Caves.

Packing up this time was somewhat complicared by the squidshark carcass- I had to push it out of the moonpool and away before the hab builder would let me dissasemble the pool. After that excitement, though, it was back to base.

I've got materials for the final depth upgrade for the seatruck now- I could have done it earlier, but I forgot to pack a diamond for my trip. Since I'm here, though, I craft it, and also the thing I need to shut down the radio tower. If I find another lithium I could make a torpedo arm, I just needto craft the aerogel now. Dont have the grapple arm blueprint, or the drill arm... hmm. The propulsion arm is basically a scanner roomplus some magnatite... magnatite that could be turned into scanner room range upgrades, with some extra titanium. AND it takes a prawn suit arm instead of inventory space. Sold. The main base desalination plant has more large waters for me, and more salt for rations.

Next time, I'm thinking shutting down the radio tower, checking out that mining shaft where I found the moonpool data, and perhaps seeing how deep Twisty Bridges goes, since it doesnt seem to be connected to the crystal caves. Then back to that old ion cube hit near the robotics facility, and cross the bridge to the northern facility. The one with the *null* symbol on the map, possibly what the PDA has been calling Sector Zero.

[Rakaydos]

1 day, 7 hours, 26 minutes.

Started with twisty bridges. no sign of what's making that SOS. whole plaace bottoms out at no more than 350m. disapointing.

The tower. Simple enough. Maida radios me, gives me directions to the Greenhouse, now that I've turned off the tracking sats.

The mining base. unable to get the seatruck through, I didnt go past the first room, but being able to bring the prawnsuit through the doors, I went all the way through the facility and out the other side of the island. This is where all the prawn suit wrecks and drill arms were hiding. Also a prawn suit jump jet, so score.

On the way to the greenhouse, I swapped batteries and left the prawnsuit on a thermal vent. 40 degrees is barely a trickle charge, but it should add up while I'm away. finding the right glacer was a bit tricky, but you know you've found the right one when it's got boxes on the shore.

Maida is waiting, seems much happier now that alterra isnt on her tail. points you to a PDA that's a recording of maida convincing our sister to sabotauge... uh, that one cave with the security office herself. Maida handled the Omega lab herself. The greenhouse has wall planters (I've seen them in ruined bases, but they wernt scannable), interior growbeds, marblemelons, and some kind of purple fruit. Also chineese potatoes and horshoe nuts. basically the works. I take a sample of marblemelon and the purple fruit and take off.

The other Twisty bridges. Got down there, built a scanner room for the map, nothing significant. Killed a squidshark.

The ion cube in the cave below my land base. Made sure to bring the snowfox, the cold weather gear, the defab, and the propulsion arm/scanner room. Parked the seatruck the next biome over- I dont want a repeat of the jellyfish problem. I rememer I disasembled thesolar panel, and probably the hatch, so I brought some extras and collected quartz on the way over.

The cave goes deep. Really deep. Disasembled my heat knife for the sillicone needed to craft a rebreather (I left my usual one on the truck) and I still couldnt reach the bottom. The ion cube, however, was in an easy to miss shelf partway down. I'll need to come back with the prawn suit.

Back at the seatruck, I exchange the snowfox for more base supplies. There's a ledge that might work for getting a grapple-less prawnsuit on land, the trick would be getting the prawn suit onto the ledge. Braving the jellyfish zone, I back the seatruck into the ledge, grounding the prawnsuit trailer. Walking the prawn safely onto land, I return the truck back to a safe distance. Made sure I've got supplies, then returned to the prawn and saved.

This cave is my second to last string to pull. I'm not counting returning to the cave I now know my sister blew up- but figuring out how to cross the bridge to the north is the last piece.

[Destro_Yersul]

I wonder if there's an intended solution for that bridge, or if you're just meant to make your own.

[Rakaydos]

I wonder if there's an intended solution for that bridge, or if you're just meant to make your own.

I originally thought the intended solution was the Snowfox jump upgrade, but I was severely disapointed by it's capabilities. You're probably right, it's just a base building challenge.

Edit: so I just checked the wiki, apparently there was a scan on the bridge that I missed, for an empty can of hydrolic fluid.

[Rakaydos]

1 day, 8 hours, 54 minutes.

So, first thing I do, is check to see if I just missed the hydrolic fluid scan. Run over in the prawn suit, it the snow ramp toward the bridge, and clip through terrain. Send a dev report and restart.

Try that again, but jumping OVER the seam in the terrain I fell through last time... yep, there's the fragment. I seem to have left my scanner back at the truck. It's not a hard recipy though. once I get to a fab at my land base, I can just pull a battery and spend a titanium on it.

Taking a different route past the robotics lab, I take the loop I took last time in reverse. Plot cave with security station first. Found TWO datapads I missed, and my sister's necklace. According to the PDAs, this is where they found my sister's body.

Continuing around the ice field, I saw a rockfall that looked climbable, at least with prawnsuit jumps. This was a bad idea. I got in, and there was a PDA, some magnatite and quarts, and some equipment... and no way out except a robo-pengling sized exploratory hole. I was never supposed to actually come here. My useful assets include 2 lead, 2 glass, and 2 titanium, but the entranceway is too narrow for a Foundation platform. After some expirimentation, a perfectly placed set of tubes could provide 3 steps up to the way I came in. This plan has 2 flaws: I only have enough materials for 2 tubes, and the prawn suit cant actually jump on top of a tube without a boost. Still, a bit of platforming ALMOST gets the job done- a ledge gets me to the top of the first tube, and dumping on an ice waterfall gets me on a second tube. I can deconstruct the 1st tube to build the third, but the prawn suit cant get up it. If I climb OUT of the prawn suit mid jump, I can get up and make the jump to the exit.
I'm not leaving the prawn suit, though. I look up how to open the dev console, give myself two more titanium, and build a HATCH on the 3rd tube. That's enough of a ledge for the prawn suit to get on top of the tube. leave and close the dev console.

With that excitement, it's around to the base, craft that scanner, and down the hole. it goes down a few hundred meters, and comes out under the ice sheet, in the jellyfish area. Prawn suit climbs back to where I parked the truck, prawnsuit batteries at 1/4 power. gonna have to go back to base before any bridge crossing. Before I do, though, I seaglide over to the bridge with my new scanner. it's night now, and I see why I missed the fragment, it may be bright orange in the light, but it is invisible in the darkness. I know where it should be, though, and pixel hunt until I find and scan it. 4 gelsacks and a creepvine seed- I have that back at base.

I apparently screwed with my packing for that last prawnsuit trip, so after park at base and start charging the prawn, and craft the bridge repair fluid, I save, with plan to do inventory before I head off again.

[Rakaydos]

1 Day, 11 hours, 47 minutes.

I am officially out of strings to pull.

Some inventory adjustment and readjustment, trying to fit my entire core base into personal and prawnsuit inventory, and still fit a reasonable amount of supplies. And also the hydolic fluid. I could probably have left the thermal plant and nuculear fuel rods, but I wasnt thinking of cutting down, just fitting it in.

Turnes out, the bridge doesnt lead to Sector Zero. There's a northwest snow area with heatknife wielding leviathans that pop out of the ground, a databox for a dune-style Thumper to avoid them, a small diamond mining site, and a sealed alien facility in the far north. Walking the coast reaches a bay, and taking the seatruck along the coast reaches a trivilly low but not easilly transversable cliff on an ice shelf, itself not exactly easiily reachable from an iceberg. Both of these things are fixable by builing a half submerged tube between the iceberg and the shelf, a tube and hatch-railing next to the cliff, and doing a bit of platforming to get on top. The hab builder even has enough range to pack up the half-submerged tube from the top of the cliff.

So this is not developer-intended playable area, as I clip through a mountian that's normally a visible landmark in the distance (weather permitting). Some careful exploration finds the frozen river where my ship originally crashes, but despite checking the Delta Station beacon against the alterra map, I'm not finding sector zero- until I jump in the water, and find a tunnel leading north.

Sector zero has more prawn wrecks, and another sealed alien facility. Sam left datapads psyching herself up to attack the plot cave, but the other scientist at this facility is almost more interesting. She's trying to figure out a way to "wake up" the archetects, by providing a sutable organic body. The local staff is about as dismissive of her as they are of our sister's concerns about the bacterium. Still, nothing seems to move the plot foward here.

I guess I recheck the twisty bridges biomes for the source of the SOS again?

[Rakaydos]

1 day, 13 hours, 6 minutes.

It was never in the deeps.

So, there was one last place in Sector Zero I didnt check, because I would have needed a spy pengling for it, and I never built one. The pod has pretty much all the components, though, for the drone and remote, so I put it together and head back. Not really anything, a battery to replace the one I used for the pengling. Oh well, I have one now.

Over to twisty bridges. Before I try building another base in the deep, I boot up my emplaced scanner, and just make sure I didnt miss any databoxes. Two in range, both empty... huh. There's been ancient lights scattered around the game, but that one there is half in a tunnel. And flashing. Flashing fast and slow and fast again. y'know, like the SOS I've been hearing. And there's plenty of oxygen plants...

This ancient facility's force field is fading. Sanctuary power critical, and an archetect requires emergency storage. Our heroine apparently didnt read the PDA last session, about organic components, and now she's got an alien inteligence in her head. She takes it... about as well as can be expected. To get the ALien-INteligence (AL-IN) OUT of her head, he needs a body to move into... but he's lost the blueprints over the last million years or so. They should be around here somewhere...

The closest alien facility is... Sector Zero. I can walk through the force field now, but it seems pretty empty. More to be added, I guess (either later in plot, or later in development)

Next closest is probably the first one I found, in the Deep Pads area. I can hit the base afterward to recharge my vehicals. Lo and behold, my new "friend" senses what we're approaching and gets excited, encouraging me onward. Can walk through the field still, and there's a bunch of land plants, including an Ancient Ornamental plant. There' also a skeleton on the floor. We're here for the skeleton. And we're going to build it tough enough to handle FTL. Got a blueprint.

Back at base, AL-IN picks up a signal. I start my prawn charging and start working on the components for the skeleton, even though I dont see it in the fabricator. My spiral plant in the grow bed isnt giving me clippings, though so I'm going to save here, and check through my records (this thread) for other sealed facilities.

[Destro_Yersul]

Is the flashing light supposed to be the clue, do you know, or is there something else to point you at that facility? If not, seems a bit of an oversight.

[Rakaydos]

Is the flashing light supposed to be the clue, do you know, or is there something else to point you at that facility? If not, seems a bit of an oversight.

In the first subnautica at least, you always knew you were close to some kind of alien facility because of those green lights. This game offers up a few false positives, but being in set in a cave that I have not explored, while blinking for attention, inside the "SOS zone" (would you find out about right at the start, and the PDA probably told you the depth it was coming from, if I hadn't forgotten.