Subnautica - Deep Sea Exploration & Survival-All

Sonicator wrote:

Plus it's nice and shallow so you can use solar panels to power it.

Getting close to the end of the game and getting a bit fed up with

Spoiler:

the larva zone. Leave them on, they chew through power. Knock them off with the shield pulse, it drains a bunch of power. Get them off manually, another one attaches as soon as you get back into the cyclops. Best solution so far seems to be to unload all the power cells every time I stop to get resources,
which is just tedious.

Is there a better way of dealing with them?

The first thing I did when I got down there was...

Spoiler:

...gather everything I needed to craft the thermal upgrade for the Cyclops that recharges its power cells via heat. Other than doing what you are already doing, which is tedious and time consuming, that’s the only permanent solution I found.

Sonicator wrote:

Plus it's nice and shallow so you can use solar panels to power it.

Getting close to the end of the game and getting a bit fed up with

Spoiler:

the larva zone. Leave them on, they chew through power. Knock them off with the shield pulse, it drains a bunch of power. Get them off manually, another one attaches as soon as you get back into the cyclops. Best solution so far seems to be to unload all the power cells every time I stop to get resources,
which is just tedious.

Is there a better way of dealing with them?

Easiest way

Spoiler:

Just get the mod that creates energy via heat. You can basically ignore them since you are always charging in the lava zone. I hated the lava zone, just getting there is a pain, but that helped a lot. And I didn't even have the shield.

Sonicator wrote:

Plus it's nice and shallow so you can use solar panels to power it.

Getting close to the end of the game and getting a bit fed up with

Spoiler:

the larva zone. Leave them on, they chew through power. Knock them off with the shield pulse, it drains a bunch of power. Get them off manually, another one attaches as soon as you get back into the cyclops. Best solution so far seems to be to unload all the power cells every time I stop to get resources,
which is just tedious.

Is there a better way of dealing with them?

Don't take the Cyclops down there. Or make sure you have the engine efficiency and heat charging mod if you do. Build a base at the bottom of the waterfall. The seamoth can get to there.

Spoiler:

I never had a problem with larva. I never took the Cyclops down below the green river area. After that I got out with the Prawn and walked down. My solution is more of avoidance... Other people's solutions are better if you want to deal with the problem head-on

my current WIP base setup in my second run through...

IMAGE(https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/920295085127909691/36B8BAC8D5A99465F6B3858E30FFA0CD8E69000A/)

...built around the active vent in the opening shallows for added drama! Going clockwise from the surface access (to my very sparse living quarters)... construction area, scanner, moon pool, general storage (with separate containers for all materials encountered so far) and then bio reactor in the foreground. I've planted a bunch of empty plant beds around outside a lot of the glass windows which I'll eventually fill in with various collected plants. And eventually I'll tie a thermal reactor to the vent if I can.

I've since added a little observation tower half way between the base and the surface so that I can go up and look over the vent and the base, just for fun.

pyxistyx wrote:

my current WIP base setup in my second run through...

Ooooh.... very nice! I like the idea of building it around the vent. I'll try and post a screenie of mine later, but it's fairly sad in comparison. I'm just relying on a biogenerator and a bit of solar power at the moment.

I discovered a new biome yesterday - the blood kelp area, and as usual I'm far too scared to just dive in exploring at the moment Also-

Spoiler:

Warpers. They scare the bejeezus out of me. Did I just imagine this or did one of them straight up warp me out of my seamoth? I haven't progressed the story too far yet but I have the vague notion that they serve a greater purpose in the game than to just mess with me while I'm foraging.

No, you did not, and maybeeee? In that order

It's the Mesmer fish that freak me out. Actually they arn't so bad. Ohhh shiny.

Oh no! My poor Seamoth got magically trapped inside a suddenly spawning shipwreck. Luckily I avoided being completely fused inside the walls, and I can retrieve all of the upgrades and stuff in the storage units, but still... poor old faithful Bubblebutt Mk1 is forever trapped!

Alas, poor Bubblebutt

pyxistyx wrote:

Oh no! My poor Seamoth got magically trapped inside a suddenly spawning shipwreck. Luckily I avoided being completely fused inside the walls, and I can retrieve all of the upgrades and stuff in the storage units, but still... poor old faithful Bubblebutt Mk1 is forever trapped!

Alas, poor Bubblebutt

I somehow got my first Seamoth trapped inside a beach. I still have no idea how I managed that, but I guess it saved me having to put a beacon up.

pyxistyx wrote:

Oh no! My poor Seamoth got magically trapped inside a suddenly spawning shipwreck. Luckily I avoided being completely fused inside the walls, and I can retrieve all of the upgrades and stuff in the storage units, but still... poor old faithful Bubblebutt Mk1 is forever trapped!

Alas, poor Bubblebutt

Found this thread that might help with the stuck seamoth. I've not messed with console commands myself but it looks pretty safe.

After thoroughly exploring the

Spoiler:

floating island, I've just had my first 'vision'. Some apparition asking "What are you?".

This game. I hate horror stuff in games, even though I'll happily watch it on TV, but this game keeps me coming back for more despite the scares.

Thanks for the suggestions. I have the upgrade a few of you mentioned, but it seemed like the power was still dropping even when I was parked where it should have been working well. Might give the "use another vehicle" option a try.

Edit: don't think I changed anything, but the upgrade seems to be working now. Weird.

I now have a prawn suit and a Cyclops. The prawn suit I love, the Cyclops... I'm not so sure. It will certainly take some getting used to anyway, it feels very cumbersome and I feel so.... exposed. The only use I can see for it at the moment is transporting the prawn suit to distant locations, because the suit is a bit slow. Anyone with any Cyclops tips?

kergguz wrote:

I now have a prawn suit and a Cyclops. The prawn suit I love, the Cyclops... I'm not so sure. It will certainly take some getting used to anyway, it feels very cumbersome and I feel so.... exposed. The only use I can see for it at the moment it transporting the prawn suit to distance t locations, because the suit is a bit slow. Anyone with any Cyclops tips?

- ALWAYS drive using the three cameras, never standing at the steering wheel. Learn to switch between them on the fly as they all serve a purpose. For general navigation I mainly used the two on the bottom, one to see what’s ahead in front of me and the other to watch the back of the sub in tight spots. The conning tower camera becomes essential though when you are going through caverns and other tight spots.

- You can smack into the terrain and not really worry about getting damaged from my experience. The larger sea creatures were the only ones that could damage the sub enough to need repairs, but I never did much more than bumping into things. I suspect if you were going fast enough you probably could.

- When you are ready to exit the sub and go exploring make sure you turn the engine and external lights off to save power. Bright lights also tend to attract some of the nastier things as well.

- Work on getting the engine efficiency upgrade and thermal recharging upgrades as soon as you can. Together they will make it so you almost never run out of power.

- Always carry six fully charged spare power cells just in case. With the upgrades mention above I don’t think I ever ran totally out of power.

- The sub is a mobile case so treat it as such. I kitted mine out with everything; fabricator, radio, med kit, storage, plant pots for growing food, battery and power cell rechargers, modification station, the works. The bottom area ended up being my main cargo storage with wall to wall lockers each labeled for a particular resource. I basically never had a need to return to my main base save to recharge during the last third of the game. You will need to eventually recharge, so I set up three power cell chargers in my moon pool for easy access. Once you get the thermal upgrade you can stay down in the hotter areas forever as long as you have food and water.

That's very helpful Glyc, thanks very much.

One Cyclops note I discovered the hard way: even if it gets destroyed by an attack, you can salvage most of your stuff from the wreck. This lead to a nerve-wracking series of trips between the wreck and my nearest base, while a leviathan prowled overhead. (Which was actually a lot of tense fun, but you probably don't want to intentionally end up that way...)

How easy is it for a leviathan to destroy a Cyclops? (Or a prawn suit for that matter)

Glycerine wrote:

The larger sea creatures were the only ones that could damage the sub enough to need repairs, but I never did much more than bumping into things. I suspect if you were going fast enough you probably could.

If I understand the mechanics correctly, the Cyclops is immune to environmental damage above its rated depth. If you're rated for, say, 900m, then running into stuff above that won't hurt you. It's only when you go below 900m that you can take crash damage.

(not true of the Seamoth, maybe true of the Prawn.)

The sub is a mobile case so treat it as such. I kitted mine out with everything; fabricator, radio, med kit, storage, plant pots for growing food, battery and power cell rechargers, modification station, the works.

Kind of a spoiler on how to feed yourself indefinitely in the Cyclops:

Spoiler:

What I like to do is put two indoor planters in the room just behind the bridge; there's just enough room for them. One planter of marblemelons will keep you alive indefinitely. I typically also plant a second planter with half Chinese potatoes and half lantern trees, but I almost never use them. When I'm hungry, I usually eat six marblemelons, cut two, and then plant 8 seeds to fill the planter back up. They'll fully regrow well before you get hungry again.

Voila: food and water solved.

That's not a story spoiler, just a mechanics spoiler, by the way.

-edit- Turned out it was a spammer not some obscure joke about hull strength I wasn't getting.

Don't quote the spammers!

strangederby wrote:

-edit- Turned out it was a spammer not some obscure joke about hull strength I wasn't getting.

I mean, it was about hull strength and pressure...

It's long and hard, but only has one seaman.

Malor wrote:

If I understand the mechanics correctly, the Cyclops is immune to environmental damage above its rated depth. If you're rated for, say, 900m, then running into stuff above that won't hurt you. It's only when you go below 900m that you can take crash damage.

I don't think that's right. It takes *crush* damage below 900m, I'm pretty sure it can take crash damage anywhere.

Disclaimer - relative subnautica noob, I could be completely wrong.

kergguz wrote:
Malor wrote:

If I understand the mechanics correctly, the Cyclops is immune to environmental damage above its rated depth. If you're rated for, say, 900m, then running into stuff above that won't hurt you. It's only when you go below 900m that you can take crash damage.

I don't think that's right. It takes *crush* damage below 900m, I'm pretty sure it can take crash damage anywhere.

Disclaimer - relative subnautica noob, I could be completely wrong.

The first time I tried to park it near my base in the kelp forest I grazed the base and both sprung leaks.

Pretty sure it can take environmental damage anywhere.

Am I doing something wrong? I don't know how linear the story is but I feel like I'm missing something.

Spoiler:

I found the alien outpost, watched a rescue ship get shot out of the sky, and still have no ship to get around in. I've got a dagger, some beacons, found a lot of stuff for an outpost, created the floating buoy that creates a ship but not found all pieces. I'm assuming I just need to explore more and I may have overlooked a piece of a ship. Or does that come later in the game?

Just need to look around a little more.

One mistake I made early on was to go to the lifepods just to get what was in them; they're also there to draw your attention to areas/biomes.

More specifically if you want it:

Spoiler:

the fragments for the Seamoth - the first little craft you make - are generally in the sandy areas with red grass iirc

Ok, I've been playing the game at a snails pace, ultra cautiously building up safe outposts at plenty of locations, and not taking my seamoth anywhere there might be something bigger than a bladderfish. Finally, with my Cyclops pretty well kitted out, and feeling almost invincible in my PRAWN suit, I think it's time for me to venture a little further.

Spoiler:

Tonight I'm going to the Lost River zone, I don't think I can progress the story any further without doing so (looking for the disease research facility). I've made a base right at the entrance from the Blood Kelp zone and had a peek just inside the cave, there's a Ghost Leviathan right there. I don't think he can do too much harm to me in my PRAWN suit but I guess I'll find out.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/xNYst1y.jpg)

Totally fits! Although there's a weird bug that lets water inside the Cyclops when it's parked here.

Can't believe I haven't posted in this thread yet. Subnautica is a huge contender for my GOTY, not least because it achieved in a small, cheap game most of what I was hoping to get out of Star Citizen. I really, really hope we see more of this kind of thing. It's a damned masterpiece.

Wonder what percentage of Cyclops' are named "Nautilus".

Not sure how much to spoiler so just spoilering all of it, even though I'm not directly mentioning any story beats. Reasonably late game biome (I think) adventures.

Spoiler:

I've been stomping around the Lost River biome for a couple of nights. That beastly Ghost Leviathan didn't even bother attacking me, but I did get attacked by a couple of Warpers near a certain alien facility. With my grappling and drill arms fitted I've taken to just doing the Warper rodeo proactively and they soon disappear. Eventually, after progressing the story a bit, I found a lovely looking tree, but reached my max depth. Next step is to use some of the nickel I found down there to up my limit to 1300m. I have a nice little base set up just at the entrance to LR from one of the Blood Kelp zones (I gather there are other entrances?), so it's nice to not have to trek all the way back to the surface.

I've also realised after watching a youtuber that there are a couple of items I haven't found yet that I really should have by now - namely the reinforced dive suit and nuclear reactor. Strange that I've missed them, will have to hunt for a few more wrecks later.