Ha ha probably!
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Subnautica scared the absolute goddamn bejesus out of me.
- Thread starter air_show
- Start date
Purple
(She/Her)
I'm pretty sure scannables eventually respawn so you don't HAVE to, but there is always a super super dense patch of Cyclops parts right there by the main Aurora engines, you can get all the scans you need in a snap.
... and there is absolutely no giant obvious horrible horrible reason to avoid doing that except as a last resort.
Maybe save before you leave and maybe don't save after you get back for a bit.
... and there is absolutely no giant obvious horrible horrible reason to avoid doing that except as a last resort.
Maybe save before you leave and maybe don't save after you get back for a bit.
It'll be fine. Everything is fine!
I, on the other hand, am pretty sure the Cyclops parts spawn where they spawn, and in pretty limited number. Time to go make some new friends!
Maybe, maybe not. Cyclops parts can be found in many places!
- around the Aurora, especially behind
- in the mushroom forest near the Aurora
- on the beaches or underwater slopes of the Sunbeam island
- rarely, inside the giant crates in the Aurora
air_show
elementary my dear baxter
Well seeing as I have utterly scoured every inch of of the mushroom forests (and know I found one there already anyway) and already explored inside the Aurora and around the island yeah, I think behind the engines is the only place left to look.
I mean it’s not like I haven’t played in a couple of days cuz I’m scared or nothin.
I mean it’s not like I haven’t played in a couple of days cuz I’m scared or nothin.
Totally fine.
air_show
elementary my dear baxter
Oookay. So I found that last engine part. It was indeed behind the Aurora as I suspected.
I've thus far had three close encounters with reapers total, though I have been screamed at a few times during joyrides.
The first of course was in the video in my opening post. The second was later in the PS4 run after I finally looted the Aurora fully and was heading back to the lifepod. I heard the reaper yell at me and I foolishly turned around to get a look at it while running. This caused it to grab my ship and tear it to pieces and send me home crying on my seaglide.
Last night was close encounter number 3. I took a wide route around to the area behind the Aurora and ended up setting up a scanner room on a sandy dune where I could hear but not see the reaper. Sure enough once things were set up I saw immediately that there was a fragment on the list before I even put the range upgrades in. And rather conveniently it was just over the hill ahead of my scanning station.
I just swam over the hill and scanned the engine part. Bing bang done. I go back to base and everything is smooth as peaches, or at least, that's how it should have been. Except there were scraps of metal nearby and I correctly assumed that I would need a lot of metal for my new boat. So I decide to grab them real quick. I only had to swim a couple feet forward, it should be fine. As soon as I picked up the third scrap I heard not the threatening attack roar, but a distinct sound from the reaper to indicate that it has... noticed something. I realize I have in fact forgotten to put my seaglide on my hotbar but do not DARE open my tablet to do so and just book it back to the scan station as fast as my fins will carry me.
Halfway there, a shadow falls over me. A distinctly writhing, serpentine shadow, and I do the FPS equivalent of glancing over my shoulder and see that I have been followed. A few mere meters away from the scanner room and I hear it do the attack roar and suddenly feel like I'm swiming 20x slower. I 100% expected to turn around and see the reaper's face leering in at me when I scramble inside the hatch, and have to wait a few moments to collect myself before daring to venture back out, hop in Jet Jaguar and get the fuck out of Dodge.
I should add for flavor that long before I played the game, I spoiled what most of the monsters look like in it because I wanted to see if anything was huge and terrifying enough to make me want to play the game. I found the reapers, hyped up as the scariest monsters in the game, to be a massive disappointment. I was hoping for colossal cosmic horrors after all. However, having played the game now, seeing footage of the reapers in a youtube video simply does not do justice to how utterly intimidating those motherfuckers are in game. There's a reason I use half my battery popping the sonar every ten seconds when I hear one in the area.
I've thus far had three close encounters with reapers total, though I have been screamed at a few times during joyrides.
The first of course was in the video in my opening post. The second was later in the PS4 run after I finally looted the Aurora fully and was heading back to the lifepod. I heard the reaper yell at me and I foolishly turned around to get a look at it while running. This caused it to grab my ship and tear it to pieces and send me home crying on my seaglide.
Last night was close encounter number 3. I took a wide route around to the area behind the Aurora and ended up setting up a scanner room on a sandy dune where I could hear but not see the reaper. Sure enough once things were set up I saw immediately that there was a fragment on the list before I even put the range upgrades in. And rather conveniently it was just over the hill ahead of my scanning station.
I just swam over the hill and scanned the engine part. Bing bang done. I go back to base and everything is smooth as peaches, or at least, that's how it should have been. Except there were scraps of metal nearby and I correctly assumed that I would need a lot of metal for my new boat. So I decide to grab them real quick. I only had to swim a couple feet forward, it should be fine. As soon as I picked up the third scrap I heard not the threatening attack roar, but a distinct sound from the reaper to indicate that it has... noticed something. I realize I have in fact forgotten to put my seaglide on my hotbar but do not DARE open my tablet to do so and just book it back to the scan station as fast as my fins will carry me.
Halfway there, a shadow falls over me. A distinctly writhing, serpentine shadow, and I do the FPS equivalent of glancing over my shoulder and see that I have been followed. A few mere meters away from the scanner room and I hear it do the attack roar and suddenly feel like I'm swiming 20x slower. I 100% expected to turn around and see the reaper's face leering in at me when I scramble inside the hatch, and have to wait a few moments to collect myself before daring to venture back out, hop in Jet Jaguar and get the fuck out of Dodge.
I should add for flavor that long before I played the game, I spoiled what most of the monsters look like in it because I wanted to see if anything was huge and terrifying enough to make me want to play the game. I found the reapers, hyped up as the scariest monsters in the game, to be a massive disappointment. I was hoping for colossal cosmic horrors after all. However, having played the game now, seeing footage of the reapers in a youtube video simply does not do justice to how utterly intimidating those motherfuckers are in game. There's a reason I use half my battery popping the sonar every ten seconds when I hear one in the area.
Purple
(She/Her)
The closest equivalent to reapers in the sequel act more aggressively, do more damage, and frequent areas much harder to steer completely clear of, but they don't, for lack of a better word, ham it up to anything approaching the same degree, so I'm always just like "hey you little rascal, that was 80% of my HP. That wasn't very nice!"
Meanwhile to this day I'm still not actually sure I've ever scanned a reaper.
Meanwhile to this day I'm still not actually sure I've ever scanned a reaper.
Enjoy having to run around to different parts of it repairing it!
air_show
elementary my dear baxter
Ok ok here's a thing that's been on my mind, a criticism if you will. Not game-ruining but at the very least, noticeable, on my end. And it's that I don't feel like anything in the game feels as big as they're supposed to. Like I watched a youtube video displaying the actual scale of the creatures you encounter and a lot of them are way bigger than I perceive in game. The acid farting seacows seem like big dogs. They're more like buffalo. The rabbit ray is this cute little bunny sized critter. Naw man, that's the big dog. The reapers, motherfuckers are bigger than blue whales! That's "swallow you whole and you can do NOTHING to stop it" big! So why don't I feel THAT level of size terror when I encounter them? They're certainly very very large things that are very very scary. But it's an "Oh god it's going to bite me in half!" scary not a "Jesus god no oh fuck I'm a tiny helpless speck" scary. And it should be.
My best theory so far is that something about the FOV and the way your arms and legs look drifting in the water aren't necessarily making the creatures feel smaller, but it's making me feel bigger. Like when one of these creatures is in front of me they really should be taking up a lot more of my view but the camera in relation to my sense of place in the world is pulled further back. It makes for prettier screenshots but less of a sense of being a tiny fragile being.
It makes me really, really, dread and be curious about whether playing the game in VR fixes this problem.
My best theory so far is that something about the FOV and the way your arms and legs look drifting in the water aren't necessarily making the creatures feel smaller, but it's making me feel bigger. Like when one of these creatures is in front of me they really should be taking up a lot more of my view but the camera in relation to my sense of place in the world is pulled further back. It makes for prettier screenshots but less of a sense of being a tiny fragile being.
It makes me really, really, dread and be curious about whether playing the game in VR fixes this problem.
air_show
elementary my dear baxter
I didn't even know there were cameras to switch to. I'll keep that in mind. I only just learned that C is the descend key as I had to look it up last night to figure out how to make the sub go deeper. I'm gonna have to craft like a jillion upgrades for this thing because I got it so late-game.
This is one reason I love the game in VR. The scale really comes out.
God, someday I'm going to play this game in VR and die of a heart attack. It will be glorious.
Same.
I think it's a testament to the rest of the game's presentation that despite everything looking much smaller than actual size, some of the predators are more frightening than they are actually dangerous.
air_show
elementary my dear baxter
I simultaneously like and dislike the inventory system. I actually like that nothing stacks, it feels like it keeps the recipes simple and straightforward. But running around from locker to locker and/or having to meticulously catalogue and label everything in separate lockers can get awfully tedious after a while. It would have been like, the biggest galaxy brain idea to make it so replicators can pull from any container on the same base as them, or make that ability an upgrade you can pursue. It would save SO much time when crafting more complicated objects, and make managing all the stuff you drill up simpler to store and use.
There's probably a mod that does exactly that but I'm going to feel compelled to beat the game vanilla at least once.
There's probably a mod that does exactly that but I'm going to feel compelled to beat the game vanilla at least once.
Purple
(She/Her)
To me it feels a bit like training the player out of grabbing everything they see as soon as they see it and instead leaving stuff where it is unless you actually have a need for it. But it still gets annoying. And you still need like... 100 or so titanium over the course of the game?
And yeah, I'm also on team "this is the only thing I'd actually like to play in VR so I can be properly scared to death."
I think in the proper scale the height of a human is roughly equivalent to like, one eye of a crabsquid or something ridiculous like that?
And yeah, I'm also on team "this is the only thing I'd actually like to play in VR so I can be properly scared to death."
I think in the proper scale the height of a human is roughly equivalent to like, one eye of a crabsquid or something ridiculous like that?
air_show
elementary my dear baxter
I'm a little sad I got the Cyclops so late and never really got to use it in the earlier areas. By the time it was built I had discovered just about everything and acquired all there was to get anywhere above 900 meters.
It means I basically had to learn to use it in the most hostile conditions for doing so. Everything is dark caves with tons of collision hazards and hostile creatures more than happy to smack it around. Also, even though I have the efficiency module installed, this thing absolutely devours power cells at a terrifying rate. Just traveling from the Bone Zone to Hell seems to eat up half my power reserves. If I turn on the shield or sonar for more than a brief moment, I'm pretty sure I'd completely run out of juice in less than a few minutes. The sonar being such an enormous power cost is especially distressing when I basically need it to see at all in a lot of the dark passages down here. I could make and install the thermal charger, but would that be useful anywhere other than Hell? And would it do any good considering I'd probably have to keep the shield on the whole time because of those super aggressive squid dragons?
Also at this point I feel very hamstrung mobility wise. The cyclops, in addition to all the rigamarole you have to go through to navigate passages without banging into things or attracting hostile attention, is very very slow. And while the general community consensus is that the prawn suit is an overpowered beast machine that can zip across the map like Samus, I am just not able to figure out how to use the grappling hook consistently enough to maintain good momentum. I mean you have to buy your trajectory an engagement ring every time you use your thrusters which makes turning and avoiding obstacles incredibly sluggish and difficult. You're always at threat of missing a grapple, running out of jump juice, and plummeting down to a deep hole you have to climb out of all over again, and because it has no sonar if you're lost in a dark place good fucking luck figuring out how to find the way out. They both just feel like incredible downgrades compared to the swift mobility of the Seamoth, which can zip across the map in a couple minutes and also ping its sonar a decent number of times without dying in the middle of nowhere.
It means I basically had to learn to use it in the most hostile conditions for doing so. Everything is dark caves with tons of collision hazards and hostile creatures more than happy to smack it around. Also, even though I have the efficiency module installed, this thing absolutely devours power cells at a terrifying rate. Just traveling from the Bone Zone to Hell seems to eat up half my power reserves. If I turn on the shield or sonar for more than a brief moment, I'm pretty sure I'd completely run out of juice in less than a few minutes. The sonar being such an enormous power cost is especially distressing when I basically need it to see at all in a lot of the dark passages down here. I could make and install the thermal charger, but would that be useful anywhere other than Hell? And would it do any good considering I'd probably have to keep the shield on the whole time because of those super aggressive squid dragons?
Also at this point I feel very hamstrung mobility wise. The cyclops, in addition to all the rigamarole you have to go through to navigate passages without banging into things or attracting hostile attention, is very very slow. And while the general community consensus is that the prawn suit is an overpowered beast machine that can zip across the map like Samus, I am just not able to figure out how to use the grappling hook consistently enough to maintain good momentum. I mean you have to buy your trajectory an engagement ring every time you use your thrusters which makes turning and avoiding obstacles incredibly sluggish and difficult. You're always at threat of missing a grapple, running out of jump juice, and plummeting down to a deep hole you have to climb out of all over again, and because it has no sonar if you're lost in a dark place good fucking luck figuring out how to find the way out. They both just feel like incredible downgrades compared to the swift mobility of the Seamoth, which can zip across the map in a couple minutes and also ping its sonar a decent number of times without dying in the middle of nowhere.
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I use the Seamoth all the time because it's the best. I use the Prawn suit in the late game/depths because you have to. I build a Cyclops for one specific reason (you need it to make a part for the end game) and never drive it anywhere, because I hate trying to pilot it. I actually use the Seaglide a whole bunch even in the late game because you can still grab resources while using it, which rules.
Purple
(She/Her)
I appreciate having the cyclops at the end of the game because warpers can't rip you out of the damn cockpit and you can bowl over damn near everything else that might want to mess with you, so it gives a nice sense of security as you end up having to explore further and further away from home, but it IS a terribly unwieldly thing.
As far as power issues go, while I never actually made the thermal upgrades, I basically always go with all-thermal power, and I can say they definitely pay for themselves since there's PLENTY in what you're calling "the bone zone" and the real late game areas past there are very hot everywhere you go. Also there is a... late enough in the game I don't especially see the point recipe where you can make absurdly good batteries and power cells.
But in terms of just basic power management, some tips:
- Don't leave the lights on when you don't need them, exterior or interior.
- Really don't leave silent running on when you aren't sneaking past something (honestly you don't even NEED it then, but, we all get scared).
- Try to just make mental maps of things and use beacons rather than spam sonar. The late-game geography is honestly pretty simple on a macro scale. Just kind of assume you're in a series of hallways with right angles in "the bone zone" and a series of big circles and rings with exits in floors and ceilings past there, and remember you have a compass.
- When you feel the need to use your shields, try to just kinda do a quick pulse through the danger bit rather than keep them on.
- Biggest tip of all here and kind of a spoiler, once you're in the real late game area which let's call lethal lava land there are these fairly innocuous creatures that look kinda like leeches or lampreys or something and which latch themselves all over your hull and start sucking down battery juice. Really nothing to be done besides pulse the shields to toss them off if you know there's a lot, or get out and scrape'em off with a knife now and then otherwise/when you've left the area.
As far as power issues go, while I never actually made the thermal upgrades, I basically always go with all-thermal power, and I can say they definitely pay for themselves since there's PLENTY in what you're calling "the bone zone" and the real late game areas past there are very hot everywhere you go. Also there is a... late enough in the game I don't especially see the point recipe where you can make absurdly good batteries and power cells.
But in terms of just basic power management, some tips:
- Don't leave the lights on when you don't need them, exterior or interior.
- Really don't leave silent running on when you aren't sneaking past something (honestly you don't even NEED it then, but, we all get scared).
- Try to just make mental maps of things and use beacons rather than spam sonar. The late-game geography is honestly pretty simple on a macro scale. Just kind of assume you're in a series of hallways with right angles in "the bone zone" and a series of big circles and rings with exits in floors and ceilings past there, and remember you have a compass.
- When you feel the need to use your shields, try to just kinda do a quick pulse through the danger bit rather than keep them on.
- Biggest tip of all here and kind of a spoiler, once you're in the real late game area which let's call lethal lava land there are these fairly innocuous creatures that look kinda like leeches or lampreys or something and which latch themselves all over your hull and start sucking down battery juice. Really nothing to be done besides pulse the shields to toss them off if you know there's a lot, or get out and scrape'em off with a knife now and then otherwise/when you've left the area.
air_show
elementary my dear baxter
Yeah I hate those power leeches.
I installed the thermal upgrade and saw my power level start chugging up even while I'm in an area that doesn't actively hurt my dude with the heat so I think this may have been a worthwhile investment. It better be considering I had to get in my prawn and walk all the way back up to the Bone Zone from Hell to get the salt necessary to make it. And I was only able to get salt there because my water filter creates it, otherwise it would have been a journey all the way back up to the shallow areas. No matter how prepared you think you are when you plan for a lengthy trip there's still always something you forget that just can't be found in the biome you're in.
I've only tried to use beacons on major landmarks and settlements, but you may have a good idea when it comes to placing some navigation beacons to make moving through certain areas easier.
Thermal power is great. I've been considering trying to switch my bases running on nuclear over to it because the fact that nuclear reactors ultimately create un destroyable waste actually bothers me in the same way it bothered me to have to just drop my empty batteries on the PS4 playthrough before I discovered the charger.
I installed the thermal upgrade and saw my power level start chugging up even while I'm in an area that doesn't actively hurt my dude with the heat so I think this may have been a worthwhile investment. It better be considering I had to get in my prawn and walk all the way back up to the Bone Zone from Hell to get the salt necessary to make it. And I was only able to get salt there because my water filter creates it, otherwise it would have been a journey all the way back up to the shallow areas. No matter how prepared you think you are when you plan for a lengthy trip there's still always something you forget that just can't be found in the biome you're in.
I've only tried to use beacons on major landmarks and settlements, but you may have a good idea when it comes to placing some navigation beacons to make moving through certain areas easier.
Thermal power is great. I've been considering trying to switch my bases running on nuclear over to it because the fact that nuclear reactors ultimately create un destroyable waste actually bothers me in the same way it bothered me to have to just drop my empty batteries on the PS4 playthrough before I discovered the charger.
Purple
(She/Her)
Are there seriously no naturally occurring salt deposits in the lost river? I mean, you've literally got waterfalls of concentrated brine (and I'm still shocked that's based in reality), I'd think it'd be all over the place.
But yeah, I really do love how without being all pushy with any environmentalist themes, the way the game just never has garbage collection for any batteries you throw on the floor or the corpses of those rabbit rays you eventually ram into with your seamoth at full tilt (or the 5 dozen ghost rays I think we all killed the first time we took the cyclops into the late game areas) plus the whole optional sidequest of "hey, want to maybe patch this reactor leak that's eventually going to kill everything in what might be the only part of this planet that has multicelular life if left unchecked?" (along with, you know, the main plotline) just all kinda gently seems to push most players towards a low-environmental-impact headspace.
Except the ones who decide to make it their mission in life to knife-fight every leviathan in the game to death. Probably a few people who clear-cut kelp forests too. But, you know, trends.
But yeah, I really do love how without being all pushy with any environmentalist themes, the way the game just never has garbage collection for any batteries you throw on the floor or the corpses of those rabbit rays you eventually ram into with your seamoth at full tilt (or the 5 dozen ghost rays I think we all killed the first time we took the cyclops into the late game areas) plus the whole optional sidequest of "hey, want to maybe patch this reactor leak that's eventually going to kill everything in what might be the only part of this planet that has multicelular life if left unchecked?" (along with, you know, the main plotline) just all kinda gently seems to push most players towards a low-environmental-impact headspace.
Except the ones who decide to make it their mission in life to knife-fight every leviathan in the game to death. Probably a few people who clear-cut kelp forests too. But, you know, trends.
You may want to check your color grading setting. "Filmic" tends to make things darker and, in the deepest areas, it has this exact effect: it's too dark to see anything normally, and even strong lighting does very little to help. With any other color grading option, you should be able to see well enough to navigate pretty much anywhere the Cyclops can go.
None of the lights should use any power, so at least that's not an issue. There are a few non-leviathan critters that may attack the Cyclops, but I don't think any of them can even do enough damage in one hit to pass the regeneration threshold so don't waste energy on silent running or shield in those cases.
Pretty sure you can destroy both nuclear waste and unwanted items (N.B.: I have never used these mechanisms).