Tools and vehicles of Subnautica
Davycannonhound
Join Date: 2015-02-24 Member: 201527Members
Join Date: 2015-02-24 Member: 201527Members
I recently made a discussion of wildlife players would like to see in the game. I think it's appropriate to make one for tools and vehicles to aid the player. So, here are my ideas:
An underwater mech suit. The player does not have many offensive option and will need something to properly defend against things like bone sharks (besides the stasis rifle). The suit could be used to more safely collect materials as well. There could even be two versions of the suit like there are of the submersible, the bigger able to defend against the leviathan.
A harpoon gun. This one is obvious. No need to explain why. Maybe with different versions.
Also, the maximum depth of the cyclops needs to increase. A sub that size I expect to go much deeper than 100 meters. Frankly i would expect it to go deeper than the seamoth. But there could be somd science I'm not understanding there.
That's really all I have, can't wait to hear what y'all have to say commenters!
An underwater mech suit. The player does not have many offensive option and will need something to properly defend against things like bone sharks (besides the stasis rifle). The suit could be used to more safely collect materials as well. There could even be two versions of the suit like there are of the submersible, the bigger able to defend against the leviathan.
A harpoon gun. This one is obvious. No need to explain why. Maybe with different versions.
Also, the maximum depth of the cyclops needs to increase. A sub that size I expect to go much deeper than 100 meters. Frankly i would expect it to go deeper than the seamoth. But there could be somd science I'm not understanding there.
That's really all I have, can't wait to hear what y'all have to say commenters!
Comments
Most people here know my opinions on harpoon guns and the like :P lol (hint: don't like them)
I'd say this is an important topic, as this, besides the creatures, could very well make or break the game for me. Since there are so many concept arts for different vehicles, I'd like to see a lot more than we do now, but I suppose the Devs need to implement the other mechanics first, before fleshing out other ones
Would like to see a boat, frankly lol
It could be made very compelling by having the player find small nooks and crannies impossible to dive into and marking them to come back later with the drone, to explore where no human has gone before
http://www.atlantasmarine.com/images/made/5e4c02edfc1dde54/pro4_front_600_424.jpg
mainly since I liked the idea of this game having its own genre of survival where the player feels seriously worried about predators
basically why a harpoon gun when we could just get something non lethal that would defend us just as well? Seems slightly more interesting to me
Upgrade - SeaFly: SeaMoth variant with increased power efficiency and increased speed above 50m. Pretty much a specialized travel craft to go from point A to point B
Upgrade - SeaCrane: 4x4 storage area, can interact with items with LMB. More specialized for deepsea operations
Upgrade - Titan: Cyclops with a gravity-sphere-like section which captures small fish in small dedicated cargo bay, increased maneuverability. Drive-thru food
Upgrade - Manticore: Cyclops with a deployable electrified hull or stasis countermeasure and increased depth resistance.
Example: the Airbag item is pretty useless once you start going pretty deep, since by the time you realize you need air, you'll die before you surface. Rather than the item becoming obsolete, make it the primary ingredient in a sticky-inflatable (like the purple goos, only as strong as five) for environment manipulation. Simple crates obsolete because you have piles of lockers? Why not combine them with Beacons to make a beacony cache. WHen it's full, you can put the sticky-inflatable on it and float it to the surface for recovery rather than haul it in person.
There are other upgrades, like combining GravSphere's with Dive Reels to make an anchored grav-sphere. No more lost fishing tools. Upgrades to Flashlights to make them more of a deployable floodlight.
Items that are bad? Flares. They completely depend on a surface-level creature (that is obnoxious in its own right), rather than something more reasonable like Magnesium. They may be upgraded with Magnesium in concept, but they are still an a temporary light source that takes up too much valuable space and requires you to be out of your vehicles.
We don't want to add a harpoon gun, but we will be adding other more high tech tools that can be used as weapons, along the lines of the Stasis Rifle.
The Cyclops will eventually be able to have it's max depth upgraded through hull reinforcement upgrades.
I don't know if I like it or not. The first thing that comes to mind is 'that access hatch is ugly', and the second is 'every day is neck day'. Other than that, the attention to detail that went into its design is excellent, and it fits the SN tech artstyle. The only questions left are if it has a built in beacon and if Stalkers will work together to hide the damn thing like they did my crates.
Why no harpoon gun? Will the mech have offensive capabilities?
How far down?
It isn't in their artistic vision for this game, as they were trying to make a new sort of genre or experience with this game, one where violence is not supposed to be a go to solution
Just my two cents-- and I wholly agree that their ideas are refreshing
Suggestion 1: A Cyclops like submarine called "Nautilus" (Example) that is 1/3 of the size with a flood-able airlock and a similar control room to the Cyclops but with a smaller width and only 1 lower deck room (The flood-able airlock.) At the back centre of the control room with be a ladder leading to the Airlock. At the front of the submarine, the window for the captain; it will be quite wide, with a small height. Behind the ladder there will be a space the same size of the room on the Cyclops between the Seamoth launch bay and the control room. This room will have a cylinder shaped airlock at the back that when interacted with places you inside the Vessel stored there (E.g. Seamoth and etc), The vessels will come out of a opening hatch beneath the submarine. Safe Depth of 300, crush depth of 450.
Suggestion 2: A Vessel/All-terrain exploration vehicle which will go great with this is the "Stingray" A theoretical idea for deep sea exploration at high pressures. This vehicle will use caterpillar tracks, and is used best on smooth surfaces. This vehicle will be used with the Nautilus and will drop out of the deployment hatch on the bottom of the vessel, You would have to be quite close to the seabed for deployment to be an available option. It could be 2* the size of the Seamoth in scale. Safe depth of 350, crush depth of 450.
Suggestion 3: Drones, Launch-able from ports on sides of various submarines. They can be created an then installed for deployment when required, you approach the console that is set for drone RC inside the vessel. A video feed appears on your screen with simple controls as well as a method for collecting resources. It will have a basic inventory that can be accessed when the drone has returned to the ship by pressing a button, (E.g. Return to vessel.). The drones can be repaired, and are about the size of a Rabbitray.
Feel free to add on to my ideas bellow, Come up with more detailed ideas following on from mine if you want . Safe depth of 100, crush depth of 200. Discuss ideas bellow. Thank you for reading . I just had to share my ideas, this game has a bright future if it continues how it is.
I was advised to post this here by a very polite user
I'd also like a map! My character has some fancy equipment but he can't draw?
a) a desalination machine
I don't like the way water is produced in-game at present. I don't like to play the "realism" card, and I certainly don't expect realism in computer games, but making sea water drinkable by adding bleach (or any purifying chemical) just doesn't wash with me. It should at least require filtered water which you then purify. I also think the fabricator is overpowered at present, and I would like to see a more gradual acquisition of technology (as they are beginning to implement with the fragment analyser, hopefully it will be taken further). I would very much like to see a desalination plant that you install in your base, which could then produce batches of clean water and a small amount of salt. It could work off water collected, an ingredient, or, more simply, just off power supply, giving say, 4 bottles of water and 1 salt for a certain amount of power drain.
b) power supply not linked to chemical batteries
Wave turbines are just crying out to be implemented in Subnautica. Futuristic, science-oriented, underwater game - screams out for wave power. A simple turbine tethered to your base to supply base power. It would either need to be maintained, and/or as your base grows or you add more appliances, you need to build more turbines or upgrade the main turbine or the power will drain too quickly, resulting in appliances not working, loss of air, that sort of thing. For vehicles you could either use regular batteries/power cells, or, better, have rechargeable ones that you can charge at a station in base as well as recharging vehicles when docked. You would need to manage the power supply for your vehicles with some care, though you could always fall back on scrounging the materials for regular batteries/power cells if you got stuck.
So we all know that the Subnautica world is full of godawful fanged monstrosities that would love to take your face off and use it as chewing gum. We also know the devs are not going to give us anything resembling effective offensive weapons. To my mind, that makes for a similar situation to wildlife divers in our world, who need means to keep e.g. angry bull sharks, curious-hungry Humboldt squid and other unpleasant customers at bay without murdering them outright.
So a few thoughts came to mind while rewatching Nigel Marven's brilliant Chased by Sea Monsters series. In it, he 'travels back in time' to particularly nasty marine biomes to encounter some of the biggest, nastiest and least congenial sea animals we know of. Among these are C. megalodon (the real-world Mega-Shark), Liopleurodon (huge Jurassic marine reptile), Cameroceras (a giant paleozoic proto-squid), Dunkleosteus (massive armored monster-fish) and a bunch of indeterminate mosasaurs (reptilian killer-whales of doom, basically). He brings with him a panoply of means to deter attack, and it is these that made me think of the following pieces of kit:
Stun rod: Doesn't actually harm the animal, but causes a jolt of pain which will deter it from attacking further. Fairly cheap to build, but won't work against really big critters, but is both longer and safer in use that e.g. your knife. Getting this to work might require some AI updates to make the animals react realistically to pain, but that would be a good addition anyway.
Stink suit: A rig worn over your swimming gear (or even rad-suit) which emits foul-smelling chemicals into the water around you upon command, or maybe by proximity switch. Will deter even quite large predators for a short time, but requires moderately hard-to-come-by resources. Has limited chemical charges which need refilling.
Armor: Various types might exist, providing protection against the jaws of ever more frightening beasts. Chain mail might work against Stalkers, but a sand shark might require more powerful composite materials. Armor slows your swimming somewhat, as it makes you heavier, but not too badly, and later armor types might provide more protection for less mass.
Speaker: Sometimes, the best defense is deflection; a waterproof loudspeaker might emit interesting noises that can attract even the biggest sea monsters. If you put a speaker somewhere and set it to playing a particular animal's noises, it might attract that animal - or its predators. Which might mean that critter is not where you're going next. Would also mean a use for hydrophones to record the sounds of various animals.
All of these have in common that they're non-lethal defenses, deterrents or misdirectors. Thus I'd say they fit with the style of the game quite well.
@Autochton I like the idea of different suits, not necessarily armour though. Why not a suit made from one type of animal that deters one type of animal from attacking or noticing, but in another area attracts predator. For example a Peeper skin suit lets you swim slightly faster, and deters Mace tails from spitting out their toxic soup from their butts. But go deeper into Sand Shark territory and you are a larger Peeper that they suddenly want really badly, take damage in that suit and you bleed peeper blood and attract more Sand Sharks.
Really I just want one type of suit that allows you to be invisible to those Dick plants that shoot spines while Im harvesting resources in the red fields.
The idea of a heavier suit of armour is intriguing as well, especially since the Crocs love metal, good armour but the Crocs come a running when they smell it nearby. They come and try to drop you in their nests or whatever.
I like the speaker but I think a Chum type device would be more realistic and fun, go and harvest a bunch of prey animals and cook them up into a Chum and drop it where you want the beastie to go and it bleeds into the water for a while.
Cool ideas though, thank you sir.
I don't know about chum. It's one of those things that doesn't really seem to fit super-well with the game's style, to me - leaving big slicks of blood in the water.