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.
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Subnautica is next on my list of unplayed games to play- any reccomendations for a new player?
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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?

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.)

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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.
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Fabric doesn't smell fishy. Just saying.

Sometimes you can cut things with the knife for new resources, if you missed that mechanic.

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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.
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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.

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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.
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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.

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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.
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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.

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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.
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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.

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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.
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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.

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

Spoiler: Another way into the Aurora

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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.

Spoiler: Subnautica Map

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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.

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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.
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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).

Spoiler: Tip for the Gel sack

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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]

Spoiler: Tip for the Gel sack

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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.

[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.

Spoiler: Stuff about the cyclops and bases.

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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.