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

[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.


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.

[Rakaydos]

1 Day 16 hours 28 minutes

Retracing my steps.

So reloading got the spiral plant to work right. AL-AN's beacon led to a new artifact, and unlocked the Teleportation module for the seatruck. Takes an advanced wire kit to create, and all my chips are accounted for, so I'm going to need to keep an eye out for table coral. The next search beacon is for an artefact I've already scanned, though it seems to help ALAN connect with his past more.

Since I was in the area, I went after the sealed facility in the ice worm area. soon as I reached the bridge, AL-AN knew something was up. Got lost a few times, died once to the worm because I tried going on bike instead of by prawn, but I eventually made it. Rockslide with an arm under the debris. The arm tech can be used for any bodypart. And no, that doesnt lead to screw ups, not since the 4th iteration.

More artefacts that I've already seen. Found some table coral, didnt have the silver for an advanced wire kit. After revisiting the purple vents artefact, I notice I'm pretty close to the crystal caves entrance. Dont remember seeing an alien facility exactly, but I didnt really explore the whole place, and it's the only place so far that's needed max depth upgrades. Lets go see the Ruby cave again.

Didnt find the ruby cave, but while exploring a hole, I saw anotehr chamber below, unconnected, with my seaglide sonar. Given I was already at 750m, a deeper chamber seemed exactly what the doctor ordered. This chamber was a decent size, but no thermal vents and not much in the way of wildlife- if I was going to be running the scanner long enough to find the chamber, it was time to pull out the big guns.Large room, hatch, nuclear reactor+rod, defabricator, propulsion arm and a copper wire, with the arm and wire turning into a scanner room, a reinforcement and 2 range upgrades. No anomalies, but I plotted the path to the deep chamber and took the prawn out. Alien facility with stasis'd internal organs. Now I just need to locate the medical facility. After finding my way back to the surface, of course.

No leads. I head back to base to recharge and refuel. Chances are we're talking Sector Zero again, since there was nothing significant there. I've got all the materials I need to craft a body stuffed into the prawn, though I'll need to defabricate a plasteel ingot into titanium and lithium for the body. Also I craft the teleportation module and add it to the middle of my train. Not sure how to use it, but it's there now. Saving now, before I set off.

[Rakaydos]

1 Day, 18 hours, 35 minutes.

Sector zero is still a bust. Alterra really cleaned it out.

Checking my voice logs... the facility is at "considerable depth." Crystal cave really are the deepest area, and I STILL havnt revisited the ruby cave.

After some searching, I do find the ruby cave, and it keeps going down- the facility is somewhat hidden but has a suspicius "hollow wall" look on the seaglide map. it's also at 950m, almost the seatruck's max 1000.

Alan has a body, and he leaves your head for it. Alan was the head researcher on the kharra bacteria, and is responcible for the decision to incubate seadragon eggs- which led to a seadragon mother breaching the facility and releasing the bacterium. He needs to find his people and make amends. You want to help, and he gives the coordinates for an alien gate.

In the course of setup, though, I discover my quantum locker is empty! After getting the coordinates, I head back to base, and the locker I leave out is missing. Replacing the base supplies that were there takes a bit, and I save before taking off.

At least now I have a clear lead. and I'm probably nearing the end of the game.

[Destro_Yersul]

Is the whole story in it, then? I don't know how far along they've gotten in terms of that stuff, I've only been keeping half an eye on the development

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Is the whole story in it, then? I don't know how far along they've gotten in terms of that stuff, I've only been keeping half an eye on the development

My understanding from the last update’s notes is that they are saving the ending for the official release.

[Rakaydos]

My understanding from the last update’s notes is that they are saving the ending for the official release.

18 hours, 46 minutes.

After reaching the beacon (finally a use for the Sector Zero alien facility!) there's an alien data terminal, and the back room is now blocked off with invisible walls. I'm pretty sure that's a wrap of the story so far.

I'll probably give it another run shortly, to see what cluehammers I missed the first time around.

[Rakaydos]

Hardcore mode, 51 minutes.

Flippers, knife and tank are easy enough. The biggest roadblock to the early game was finding the ribbon plants for my first battery. And returning from one of my later expeditions, I spotted a cave directly under the pod with some. Go figure. There's plenty of seaglide scans around, so I was able to craft one with my second battery.

Almost immediately you pick up the beacon for the supply cache. Once you have the scanner, it's a beacon, and also the resource scanner blueprint, and some basic food/water/medkit/flare stuff. It's also directly over a cave with a few sea monkey nests(MVB, laser cutter) and gold, sulfer and silver resources. it's a bit deep, but if you keep moving, you can jump between 3 oxygen plants in different tunnels indefinately. There's also an archetect artifact here.

Twisty bridges also has a lot of oxygen plants, allowing longer, deeper dives than a veteran of subnautica 1 would expect.Found the rebreather first, right outside the SOS cave with a seatruck wreck half inside it. I picked up ALAN before the hab builder, this time. There's also 3 ion cubes in the cave, and plenty of table coral in the bridges itself. eventually I find the example base in twisty bridges and get the hab builder, along with finishing the MVB blueprint and a second seatruck scan.

Back at the pod, I can finish the hab builder and the repair tool, as well as top off on food supplies. Saving progress.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

I kind of wonder what Subnautica 3 will be - they did tropics for the first one and arctic for the second, I can’t think of any other major extremes involving water. Maybe they’ll switch things around and have us start really deep and have to work our way to the surface instead of the other way around?

[Destro_Yersul]

Subnautica 1 did have the coral plants that spit out oxygen bubbles, but those weren't exactly common. And anyways 'deep dives' is what the Seamoth was for.

[Rakaydos]

Subnautica 1 did have the coral plants that spit out oxygen bubbles, but those weren't exactly common. And anyways 'deep dives' is what the Seamoth was for.

The subnautica 2 oxygen plants might be a better choice for that, giving about 30 seconds on oxygen on activation, and regrowing every 40 seconds or so, instead of subnautica 1's brain coral (3 ticks of 10 air, if you catch it, every 15 seconds or so)

I've thought about a mod to enforce the "prawnsuit backpacking" idea I ran with in subnautica 1, but I wouldnt know where to begin, programming wise.

[Destro_Yersul]

Probably depends what you want to do. I don't think Subnautica is especially difficult to mod, especially if all you want to do is add or alter some recipes, but I'm not sure what you mean by 'enforcing'.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

For this hypothetical deep-water start I was thinking a cave system - the player got stranded there (probably by a crash, since those are shaping up to be traditional ) and the ‘exit’ is blocked somehow - rocks? Radiation? Don’t put the Seamoth or whatever in until later in the game, make the first vehicle something that walks, like a less-beefy Prawn suit, so the player can have their air-bubble but has to use the Seaglide to go ‘up’ until later in the game.

I thought about giving the player some fantasy version of the bends too (requiring the player to synthesize treatment before going too far ‘up’) but we already did a plague.

[Rakaydos]

Probably depends what you want to do. I don't think Subnautica is especially difficult to mod, especially if all you want to do is add or alter some recipes, but I'm not sure what you mean by 'enforcing'.

Delete lifepod 5, corrupt the locker, wall locker, and floating locker blueprints, have the player start at one of the slave gates with text implying that theconnection is unstable before it shuts down, and the player starts with some variation of the full inventory I usually used before traveling the portal. (materials for a basic base and to craft a MVB and prawn suit)

[Rakaydos]

so that first hard mode run just ran into a "learning experience." Tracked down Sector Zero, started scanning the prawnsuits. But there was a snowstorm on, and I opened the door to the facility at half a second after 0. The screen went white, but I didnt die until I was already inside. I did stop moving while I waited to see if I lived, though, which could have contributed if I needed to move to warm up.

Gonna start up another- see if the pod location is random or preplaced.

[Destro_Yersul]

Delete lifepod 5, corrupt the locker, wall locker, and floating locker blueprints, have the player start at one of the slave gates with text implying that theconnection is unstable before it shuts down, and the player starts with some variation of the full inventory I usually used before traveling the portal. (materials for a basic base and to craft a MVB and prawn suit)

Disabling the blueprints is probably easy enough, could likely be done with scripts of some sort. Pretty sure starting inventory can also be adjusted without much trouble. Deleting the lifepod and changing the spawn, though? No idea how you'd do that. I don't know if it's possible without changes to the game's actual code

[Rakaydos]

1 hour, 49 minutes. Status: ALAN, seatruck, hab builder, quantum locker, prawn blueprint, prawn drill blueprint, moonpool and large room blueprints.

Had a few false starts and over extensions- this isnt the first hardcore run after that last post. But there's some veins of gold/silver and/or copper (didnt see both in the same run) right under the shelf you enter the water from as you make the first pod dash. There's multiple routes tot he water, so some searching to find the right part of the shelf may be required.

Lifepod location is randomized. But both the supply cache cave/artefact and Sector zero are easy to find. ALAN's cave is easy once you find the platform the rebreather is on, but I dont quite have the layout of twisty bridges figured out yet. All you need is a seaglide and a basic air tank, though.

Plot is a lot easier to follow with ALAN to bounce off of- he's clearly intended as an early game pickup. My first game I just got sidetracked by the twisty bridges Deeps, and thought the distress signal "depth 200 meters" was like the glowshroom cave in the first game "depth 90m", when it isnt. Enough searching yields a seatruck blueprint, though, so it's not a great loss. Sector zero gives the first two prawnsuit scans, a lot of base building scans, Lantern fruit/interior growbed, power cell charger, ect. Delta station pops up on the scanner a bit over an hour in, mostly worth more base scans, but there's an artefact on the south side of the island, and a nut tree.

The artefact gives me quaantum locker tech, so I scrounge around and build a basic tube base and fab. Probably not a good permanant position, but I slap a beacon on it, and let the nut and lantern trees grow while I take the seatruck to the mining site. There's air plants almost exactly 30 second's seaglide apart, so you can swim way out, scan for a little bit, then swim way back, air up at the truck, and go back out to scan again. Moonpool, complete prawn blueprint, drill arm blueprint, diamonds for the laser cutter, and ruby, as well as a 3rd artefact. One more and I'll have defab tech. Save and quit back at the minibase.

Alan's got a lead on an artefact for me, I could probably go back in to the mining site for more diamond (enamaled glass is important for prawn construction) while I wait for the first nuts to mature, I'm missing a sulfur for the laser cutter but believe I have one back at the pod.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Disabling the blueprints is probably easy enough, could likely be done with scripts of some sort. Pretty sure starting inventory can also be adjusted without much trouble. Deleting the lifepod and changing the spawn, though? No idea how you'd do that. I don't know if it's possible without changes to the game's actual code

The lifepod’s location is random, correct? So it’s movable. If you can’t delete it maybe just bury it underground, or off in Ghost Leviathan spawn territory.

[Rakaydos]

Another greedy death. The seaglide is clearly slower than 10m/s vertically in this game, though. 75 seconds of air, 250m to cover should leave me almost 30 seconds to scan and avoid the leviathan. I ran out of ai before I even reached the leviathan coming back up. (I baited it against the seatruck on the way down so I would be unmolested.)

[Destro_Yersul]

The lifepod’s location is random, correct? So it’s movable. If you can’t delete it maybe just bury it underground, or off in Ghost Leviathan spawn territory.

It's randomised between a set of locations. I guess you could add one that plonks it off in ghost land, and disable the others...

but you'd still need to change the player's spawn to not start at the lifepod.

[Rakaydos]

3 Hours in.

...remember to actually SCAN the beacons.

Got defab (4 artefacts), Alan, Seatruck depth, and the seatruck storage and fab moduels, along with every thing I did in the other runs. not much new ground exactly, other than a dive to twisty depths for the seatruck modual fragments and a crapton of diamond.

[Rakaydos]

3 hours, 38 minutes

Short session. With the depth upgrade I was able to get the iceberg deep-hole relic, and got almost a deep as my old airase in the lillypad deeps. Got the skeleton, someof that area's unique organic resources, and enough magnatite for a thermal reactor. I'd have stuck around to get more, but my seaglide's battery died, and my other batteries are all 50% or lower. I really should make a battery charger base.

The lillypad area felt like a good place last time, resources wise, so I try setting up more centrally in it this time. Single solar panel, large room, hatch, defabricator. had to go hunting for a few more titanium to turn the compass I'm wearing into a battery charger and my cloth into a bed. even after sleep, though, a single solar panel at this depth cant keep up with charging 4 batteries at once.

Saving here before I start plotting an alternative approach. Probably bioreactor, but I'll need more titanium.