Best Of
Re: Ideas For Subnautica Below Zero
Is anyone else here bothered by the extraordinary amount of sea glide fragments littered about? what happened here? did a sea glide shipping container explode?
Re: Ideas For Subnautica Below Zero
There is one major suggestion I have for Subnautica Below Zero that I craved for gravely in the original game (which I have played countless run-throughs of).
The game feels great in every way until you have uncovered all blueprints and explored all biomes. Afterwards however, if you happen to be hardcore fan of the game (as I'm sure many of us are), there is a lack of an endgame. That is, stuff to do beyond just building bases and collecting fish and plants.
I would like to see some ultra rare collectibles (similarly to the idea of the cuddlefish eggs), which could also include decorations and materials for crafting special items. I would also like to see special hidden areas with significantly higher threats such as animals that are much more aggressive or more numerous, and may require special tactics to overcome.
These shouldn't be required for completing the story mode. But they should be additions that give the player a purpose to spend dozens more hours into further exploring the biomes after the story is finished and further push their mastery of the mechanics of the game.
This would give the hardcore fans the opportunities to demonstrate their skills and expansive exploration beyond what a more casual player may do.
The game feels great in every way until you have uncovered all blueprints and explored all biomes. Afterwards however, if you happen to be hardcore fan of the game (as I'm sure many of us are), there is a lack of an endgame. That is, stuff to do beyond just building bases and collecting fish and plants.
I would like to see some ultra rare collectibles (similarly to the idea of the cuddlefish eggs), which could also include decorations and materials for crafting special items. I would also like to see special hidden areas with significantly higher threats such as animals that are much more aggressive or more numerous, and may require special tactics to overcome.
These shouldn't be required for completing the story mode. But they should be additions that give the player a purpose to spend dozens more hours into further exploring the biomes after the story is finished and further push their mastery of the mechanics of the game.
This would give the hardcore fans the opportunities to demonstrate their skills and expansive exploration beyond what a more casual player may do.
Re: Command Module - 3D fan concept
Quiet_Blowfish wrote: »I must say it's a really nice looking job @NepsterCZ ! It also makes the suggestion of an agricultural Biodome look a lot more plausible.
Kudos
Thanks!
I envisioned some kind of bio-dome, or XXL multipurpose room concept too. Something akin to @MaxHess idea here:
The biggest obstacle is actually my inability to get the original Subnautica files. There is the "Proper way", and the "Ghetto way". I kinda know how to extract the files using the ghetto way, but I can only access to like 40% of the actual files
I did actually start on some multipurpose room upgrades concepts before, they are in various stages of "finishment"? Is that a word? Well, whatever, excuse the crappy renders:
Vertical double-window.
Double floor, with hole inside
Fixed ladder (The one in-game bugs, when you place two of them on top of each other, eat least it did when I last played the game)
Living-wall like addon for MP room. Adds 4 containers
Heavy WIP of "Solar panel" panel
I kinda got bored and moved on, but once the game is out, Ill probably try to extract all the files properly this time, which should make it easier not only to work with them, but also for someone to mod them inside the game.
Below Zero - base redesign idea
Now that I seem to get a better understanding of the 'base cell' concept and how it dictates the placement of base pieces like hatches, I think you should rework it a bit.
1) Generel height
First of all, consider to increase the height of each 'cell'. Currently, this causes quite a few bugs like unplacable glass domes, control room ceiling glitches or large room floor glitches.
Judging from the visual perspective, it wouldn't hurt, if both the floor and the ceiling would have twice or three times the height/thickness. Taking the multipurpose room as reference, I think three times the height of the thin white stripe on the picture below (between the windows) would be ok.
Same is true for the large room (ignoring that the window size feel odd): https://us.v-cdn.net/5019629/uploads/editor/n6/k3q5bdaza32z.jpg. This of course makes it necessary that the vertical connectors are adjusted (and the autmatic connection when two compartments are placed on top of each other). But to be honest, the vertical connectors are currently way to thin anyways:
It would be perfectly fine to increase their diameter (f.e. to match the size of the bottom plate with the frame of a window). Therefore, an increased height might not affect the overall height/width ratio (an increased hatch diameter would be cool anyways).
There's also a cool nice feature of the vertical connectors: they remove the normal columns! So as a special requrest. it would be really cool to see something similar to wall foundation using a special vertical tube instead. F.e. attach it to a cave ceiling and start to build your base downwards (like a wasp nest). I could even imagine horizontal anchor tubes that would connect like sideward hatches and would function as a sort of wall anchors instead.
2) Moonpool as an upgrade, just like the large room alien compartment
With the new height of the rooms , it shouldn't be so hard anymore to make the moonpool a medium-sized room instead and to make the moonpool an optional upgrade. Just compare the size of the moonpool and the alien compartment in the background (the alien compartment is actually larger than the image suggests and almost matches the size of the moonpool):
If the height still doesn't fit... or just out of 'fun', consider to reuse the concept of the cyclopse with the slightly elevated glass floor with an attached bulkhead.
And I would absolutely love if I could add two moonpools to a single large room.
3) Multipurpose room size
One of my biggest concerns in regard of the MPR is that the space around an alien compartment is too small. Since you can't lower the size of the alien containemnt because the hatch has to be placed exactly at the border of a 'cell', consider to increase the size of the MPR instead.
If you look at the left side of the picture, you see the difference to how close a large room gets to the border of a 'cell'. This should be the same for the MPR (the size of two lights). This would give the player enough room inside the MPR without raising any 'wall-touching-wall' issues.
This of course would increase the size of each wall section. To compensate, you could increase the size of the window, leave a small wall on each side or split the wall section into two smaller windows. Just keep in mind that the diagonal hatch has to be shortened as well!
If this doesn't work, please consider to add a rectangular room matching the size of an MPR instead (with curved edges instead of diagonal wall sections).
4) Unify the doorways
There are currently 3 different versions: The bulkheads, the MPR doorways with the yellow handles and the moonpool / large room doorways. This looks odd. With an increased MPR size however, I think the ones with the handles could be replaced by the large ones.
5) Slightly decrease the size of the observatory and let it connect to multiple sides
First of all for obvious reasons:
So reduce the size slightly. This way, the size would even match the size of the new lifepod. (the height of the observatory could actually be used to retrieve the new 'cell' height I have in mind).
I would also love to see a non-glass observatory-like base piece (in addition to the X compartment). The mini glass dome could be a ceiling window upgrade instead. And due to the fact that it's too small to be a real observatory, just consider to introduce a special MPR room 'obervatory' instead that comes with a glass floor as well.
6) Match the visual of the large room glass dome with the observatory / MPR glass dome
I.e. the large room glass dome should be divided into different sections. They currently don't even align well with the large room partitions. So I would appreciate a more filigree structure that would create a large central glass piece that match the size and position of the large alien containment glass top.
7) Other stuff
.... and a central MPR locker upgrade (neptune rocket):
1) Generel height
First of all, consider to increase the height of each 'cell'. Currently, this causes quite a few bugs like unplacable glass domes, control room ceiling glitches or large room floor glitches.
Judging from the visual perspective, it wouldn't hurt, if both the floor and the ceiling would have twice or three times the height/thickness. Taking the multipurpose room as reference, I think three times the height of the thin white stripe on the picture below (between the windows) would be ok.
Same is true for the large room (ignoring that the window size feel odd): https://us.v-cdn.net/5019629/uploads/editor/n6/k3q5bdaza32z.jpg. This of course makes it necessary that the vertical connectors are adjusted (and the autmatic connection when two compartments are placed on top of each other). But to be honest, the vertical connectors are currently way to thin anyways:
It would be perfectly fine to increase their diameter (f.e. to match the size of the bottom plate with the frame of a window). Therefore, an increased height might not affect the overall height/width ratio (an increased hatch diameter would be cool anyways).
There's also a cool nice feature of the vertical connectors: they remove the normal columns! So as a special requrest. it would be really cool to see something similar to wall foundation using a special vertical tube instead. F.e. attach it to a cave ceiling and start to build your base downwards (like a wasp nest). I could even imagine horizontal anchor tubes that would connect like sideward hatches and would function as a sort of wall anchors instead.
2) Moonpool as an upgrade, just like the large room alien compartment
With the new height of the rooms , it shouldn't be so hard anymore to make the moonpool a medium-sized room instead and to make the moonpool an optional upgrade. Just compare the size of the moonpool and the alien compartment in the background (the alien compartment is actually larger than the image suggests and almost matches the size of the moonpool):
If the height still doesn't fit... or just out of 'fun', consider to reuse the concept of the cyclopse with the slightly elevated glass floor with an attached bulkhead.
And I would absolutely love if I could add two moonpools to a single large room.
3) Multipurpose room size
One of my biggest concerns in regard of the MPR is that the space around an alien compartment is too small. Since you can't lower the size of the alien containemnt because the hatch has to be placed exactly at the border of a 'cell', consider to increase the size of the MPR instead.
If you look at the left side of the picture, you see the difference to how close a large room gets to the border of a 'cell'. This should be the same for the MPR (the size of two lights). This would give the player enough room inside the MPR without raising any 'wall-touching-wall' issues.
This of course would increase the size of each wall section. To compensate, you could increase the size of the window, leave a small wall on each side or split the wall section into two smaller windows. Just keep in mind that the diagonal hatch has to be shortened as well!
If this doesn't work, please consider to add a rectangular room matching the size of an MPR instead (with curved edges instead of diagonal wall sections).
4) Unify the doorways
There are currently 3 different versions: The bulkheads, the MPR doorways with the yellow handles and the moonpool / large room doorways. This looks odd. With an increased MPR size however, I think the ones with the handles could be replaced by the large ones.
5) Slightly decrease the size of the observatory and let it connect to multiple sides
First of all for obvious reasons:
So reduce the size slightly. This way, the size would even match the size of the new lifepod. (the height of the observatory could actually be used to retrieve the new 'cell' height I have in mind).
I would also love to see a non-glass observatory-like base piece (in addition to the X compartment). The mini glass dome could be a ceiling window upgrade instead. And due to the fact that it's too small to be a real observatory, just consider to introduce a special MPR room 'obervatory' instead that comes with a glass floor as well.
6) Match the visual of the large room glass dome with the observatory / MPR glass dome
I.e. the large room glass dome should be divided into different sections. They currently don't even align well with the large room partitions. So I would appreciate a more filigree structure that would create a large central glass piece that match the size and position of the large alien containment glass top.
7) Other stuff
- Non-glass hatches (like the round bulkheads from the cyclops)
- Different window options (f.e. choosing a lot of smaller ones instead)
- a wall segment that comes with 2-3 perfectly aligned lockers attached to the wall
- Maybe some wall lockers that can be accessed from both the outside and the inside (see quantum locker)
- Wall-mounted power switches (see neptune rocket) f.e. to close all bulkheads or to shut a whole base down
- The command chair (see neptune rocket), maybe as some sort of auto-medbay.
- better matching colors for a large room and base columns (I can dim them if I want to, so you don't have to)
- indoor wall color & setting the color & brightness of the interior lighting
- maybe different light/color settings per room (choose a room like you'd choose one to disable the energy there)
.... and a central MPR locker upgrade (neptune rocket):
Subnautica has an easily-fixed game design problem that's costing it an enormous number of players
Apologies for the dramatic title, but I think it's justified. Short version: a significant number of new players attacking the game cold (i.e. without researching tips and tricks, and without any involvement in the online community) aren't realizing that they can make a seabase out of a single tube section, and are quitting out of frustration over storage issues.
Long version: for the record, I just finished the game and I love it; it's in my lifetime Top 100. That said, looking at the plot-based achievements, it's interesting (i) that only 8.5% of players finished the game, and (ii) that the biggest drop-off occurs between players jumping in the water and players building their first crude seabase, which shouldn't be separated by very much gameplay.
https://steamcommunity.com/stats/264710/achievements
75% of players jump in the water, which I assume means 25% of players bought it on sale and haven't installed, or finished playing during the beta before achievements activated. But only 48% of players built a basic seabase which means that fully a third of all players who bought this game, installed it, and jumped in the water, quit before engaging in one of the first and most basic, satisfying activities.
There's no guarantee they all quit for the same reason, but I can't help noticing that the drop-off happened at a point that nearly caused me to quit for good, too. I was careful to read the survival guide on my PDA, which mentions the importance of building a seabase, I wanted to build a seabase because it seemed like a cool thing to do, and I desperately needed the storage. But looking at the menu in the Habitat Builder, it was not at all clear that a single tube section is, totally alone, a functioning base within which I could build storage lockers.
The "Quick Start Guide" in the data entry for the Habitat Builder mentioned starting with a basic compartment, but I never even saw that data entry. As careful as I was to read data entries throughout the game, it never occurred to me that the description for my basic tools would contain critical plot instructions. Without any size reference and without knowing that a tube would grow supports when placed, I assumed when I reviewed the building menu that I was looking at passageways between functional rooms, not freestanding structures - useless on their own. I tried to wait until I found a room module, which of course takes a good 1-2 hours before stumbling across the multipurpose room blueprint on the floating island. During those 1-2 hours, frustration is mounting quickly: since the player's instinct is to collect everything in sight, the lifepod's storage fills up almost immediately, and no seabase means managing a bunch of tiny floating storage lockers. That frustration is going to lead less invested players to quit.
Some reading this might roll their eyes and call me an idiot, but I'm just going to point at that 33% drop-off in players who bought the game, installed it, booted it up, and then quit before attempting one of the most basic, satisfying aspects of the game. Beginnings are such delicate times, to steal a line from Dune. You want a player to build a crude seabase as quickly as possible to keep the logistics functioning and the cycle of positive emotions flowing, and for that, you need to make it more obvious that a tube alone is good enough for those players who don't read a tool description.
The solution is straightforward and will take very little effort. (i) In the PDA's Survival Checklist entry, amend step #8 to read "Find or construct a more permanent habitat (refer to Quick Start Guide)". Make the Quick Start Guide a PDA entry that you start the game with. If you want to really drive it home, include a little illustration in the QSG entry of a single-tube base with a hatch, solar panel, and struts coming out the bottom, to help the player visualize what they're being told to do and avoid confusion about the role of foundations (not actually necessary).
If you really want to take a swing at the problem for those players who aren't natural readers or paying close attention to their PDA, you could make "Step 1" more visually obvious by inserting an entirely separate tab in the Habitat Builder's menus titled "Emergency Shelter", with a single entry: a linear tube section with a hatch on one end and a solar panel on the roof. Make it cost the same as all those items separately.
P.S. The second-biggest drop-off is in players who never find the Disease Research Facility. Although I had no trouble with this, I've heard anecdotally that many players either didn't scan the item in the QEP that gives the necessary guidance, or forgot to read that databank entry in all the excitement, and had no clue what to do after the QEP destroyed the Sunbeam, leaving them motoring around the map aimlessly until the radio calls ran out and they lost interest. There's no good reason why about a third of the players who had the dedication to build a Cyclops wouldn't also have had the dedication to explore the Lost River. For whatever it's worth, I don't think this would be all that difficult to solve, either.
Long version: for the record, I just finished the game and I love it; it's in my lifetime Top 100. That said, looking at the plot-based achievements, it's interesting (i) that only 8.5% of players finished the game, and (ii) that the biggest drop-off occurs between players jumping in the water and players building their first crude seabase, which shouldn't be separated by very much gameplay.
https://steamcommunity.com/stats/264710/achievements
75% of players jump in the water, which I assume means 25% of players bought it on sale and haven't installed, or finished playing during the beta before achievements activated. But only 48% of players built a basic seabase which means that fully a third of all players who bought this game, installed it, and jumped in the water, quit before engaging in one of the first and most basic, satisfying activities.
There's no guarantee they all quit for the same reason, but I can't help noticing that the drop-off happened at a point that nearly caused me to quit for good, too. I was careful to read the survival guide on my PDA, which mentions the importance of building a seabase, I wanted to build a seabase because it seemed like a cool thing to do, and I desperately needed the storage. But looking at the menu in the Habitat Builder, it was not at all clear that a single tube section is, totally alone, a functioning base within which I could build storage lockers.
The "Quick Start Guide" in the data entry for the Habitat Builder mentioned starting with a basic compartment, but I never even saw that data entry. As careful as I was to read data entries throughout the game, it never occurred to me that the description for my basic tools would contain critical plot instructions. Without any size reference and without knowing that a tube would grow supports when placed, I assumed when I reviewed the building menu that I was looking at passageways between functional rooms, not freestanding structures - useless on their own. I tried to wait until I found a room module, which of course takes a good 1-2 hours before stumbling across the multipurpose room blueprint on the floating island. During those 1-2 hours, frustration is mounting quickly: since the player's instinct is to collect everything in sight, the lifepod's storage fills up almost immediately, and no seabase means managing a bunch of tiny floating storage lockers. That frustration is going to lead less invested players to quit.
Some reading this might roll their eyes and call me an idiot, but I'm just going to point at that 33% drop-off in players who bought the game, installed it, booted it up, and then quit before attempting one of the most basic, satisfying aspects of the game. Beginnings are such delicate times, to steal a line from Dune. You want a player to build a crude seabase as quickly as possible to keep the logistics functioning and the cycle of positive emotions flowing, and for that, you need to make it more obvious that a tube alone is good enough for those players who don't read a tool description.
The solution is straightforward and will take very little effort. (i) In the PDA's Survival Checklist entry, amend step #8 to read "Find or construct a more permanent habitat (refer to Quick Start Guide)". Make the Quick Start Guide a PDA entry that you start the game with. If you want to really drive it home, include a little illustration in the QSG entry of a single-tube base with a hatch, solar panel, and struts coming out the bottom, to help the player visualize what they're being told to do and avoid confusion about the role of foundations (not actually necessary).
If you really want to take a swing at the problem for those players who aren't natural readers or paying close attention to their PDA, you could make "Step 1" more visually obvious by inserting an entirely separate tab in the Habitat Builder's menus titled "Emergency Shelter", with a single entry: a linear tube section with a hatch on one end and a solar panel on the roof. Make it cost the same as all those items separately.
P.S. The second-biggest drop-off is in players who never find the Disease Research Facility. Although I had no trouble with this, I've heard anecdotally that many players either didn't scan the item in the QEP that gives the necessary guidance, or forgot to read that databank entry in all the excitement, and had no clue what to do after the QEP destroyed the Sunbeam, leaving them motoring around the map aimlessly until the radio calls ran out and they lost interest. There's no good reason why about a third of the players who had the dedication to build a Cyclops wouldn't also have had the dedication to explore the Lost River. For whatever it's worth, I don't think this would be all that difficult to solve, either.
Why the PRAWN Suit sucks
My overall experience with the prawn suit can be summed up by my first encounter with a reaper leviathan in the dunes, in which I attempted to boost myself up and out of the way, but instead only succeeded in floating a bit towards the left, falling, landing and being temporarily stunned, trying to escape, getting stuck on a salt deposit, and then being nearly crushed to death.
My point being that the prawn suit is very frustrating to use.
While the seamoth is fast, maneuverable, responsive, and overall a very fun vehicle to drive, the prawn suit is slow, floaty, and entirely unresponsive. For a vehicle that's nearly required to complete the game, you'd think it would be a bit more fun to use.
I will now go over my three main issues with the prawn suit, as well as a variety of solutions and additional suggestions, because I believe that it has a bountiful supply of untapped potential to be a very fun and useful vehicle.
1. Poor Maneuverability
The prawn suit is a dreadful thing to control. Instead of feeling like I'm the pilot of an incredibly powerful mech suit, I feel a lot more like I'm running around in a bulky suit of armor on the surface of the moon.
Walking on the seabed is a very slow and agonizing experience, and the only way to move at any realistic speeds is by jumping along and boosting with your jet over and over until you reach your destination, getting stuck on various plants and animals along the way.
Whenever you land with the prawn suit, no matter the height, a single animation and sound effect are played, followed by about a half second where you can't really move, followed by a sluggish return to your usual pace.
2. Unsatisfying Reactions to Touching Things
Bumping into any object with the prawn suit will usually cause it to instantly stop, followed by the aforementioned pause and slow regain of speed.
You can't really climb up hills without boosting, and you can't walk down them without an ear shattering bang bang crash every other second. This, with the added issue of constantly bumping into plants and bits of terrain, is incredible frustrating.
3. Poor Execution of Suit Augmentation
One of the prawn suit's shining abilities is that it can use any combination of two different arms, each with a unique purpose. Unfortunately, most of them are pretty useless (or at least don't come very close to their potential).
The grappling hook is far too short, the drill can only break ores, the claw has a 1.5 second delay on picking up anything, and the torpedoes continue to go completely unused.
And that about sums up why I just hate using the prawn suit. It's frustrating to pilot for so many different reasons.
Here are my suggestions to make it much more bearable, or hopefully even fun.
- Make the thrusters more powerful and responsive
The prawn suit's thrusters are incredibly weak. The ones used while you're off the ground, anyway. I think that they should be significantly more powerful to allow for better control.
- Make the suit more agile on the seafloor
There's nearly no point to walking on the seafloor, as cool as it is to think about. It's a noisy, slow, and frustrating experience, and it's always better to just use the jets and glide toward your destination. That's why the prawn suit should be made faster and more agile on the seafloor, and perhaps less likely to get stuck on random bits of coral.
- Add 2 additional landing animations
The current animation looks pretty good for moderate falls, but for a 10 cm drop or a 50 meter drop? No chance. There should be two additional animations, complete with unique sound effects, for falling short and long distances.
- Make the thruster sounds less annoying
Every time you let go of the thrust button, it plays a rather obnoxious 2.5 second audio clip of the thrusters powering down. This is fine if you aren't trying to land accurate on an object, but if you are? The audio clip loops every single time you press the thrust button. Instead, this sound clip should only be played when the thrusters run out of fuel.
- Make the grappling hook actually useful
While the hook seems like an incredibly useful tool to have, it's kind of awful. The range is too short, the hook travels too slowly, and the snapback and recharge times take forever. All of those stats should be tripled. You should also be able to lower or raise yourself on the grapple rope and swing at high speeds.
- Make the storage upgrade work as advertised
As it stands, the storage upgrade increases the prawn suit's container size by a measly 6 slots. Where are my other 10 slots? Add em'!
- Make the claw arm more responsive
The claw arm is just ridiculous. Picking up any item takes a full second, where you have to have the cursor aimed exactly at the item you're trying to grab. It's easier just to leave the prawn suit, pick up whatever items you're trying to grab, and get back in!
- Give the drill arm a vacuum
Remodel the drill arm so that it has a vacuum in the center that can be used to pick up resource items. I hate having to either use the claw arm or get out of the prawn suit every time I need to pick stuff up. I usually have to do it more than once per resource deposit because otherwise the resource I'm mining rolls over a cliff and into an acid pool or whatever.
it should also be like maybe 20% faster because i think it takes too long ;/
- Add 2 additional upgrade slots
This will work in part with my two following ideas for new upgrades.
- Add an Arm swap-out upgrade
I'm not 100% sure if this is a good idea, but I think that it could be balanced fairly well. Anyways, when placed in an upgrade slot, another slot would appear next to it that you could place an additional arm it. It would add a quick-select tool that, when used, would swap out the right arm for whatever arm you placed next to the upgrade itself.
You would be able to swap between up to 6 different arms (even though the game doesn't have that many) if you utilized all 6 of the prawn suit's upgrade slots for this one upgrade. Newly added arms would alternate between the left and right arm.
Sorry if I explained that poorly, but I think you'll understand the gist of it. If i go into the details of it i'll just get everyone confused.
- Dash upgrade
The dash upgrade would allow the prawn suit to perform a dash in any direction by double-tapping its respective button. This upgrade would work great for escaping from predators, maneuvering through difficult areas, or even just for trying to get from point A to point B as fast as possible. It would use a bit of jet fuel every time you used it.
Conclusion :
Like with the many cyclops updates, the prawn suit could be significantly improved with the application of some of my ideas. As it stands, the prawn suit is, like i've said dozens of times, frustrating to pilot, hard to maneuver, and painfully slow.
Here's some counterarguments I thought up followed by my rebuttals :
While you could say that maybe the prawn suit is bulky on purpose, I'd say that games should never have a feature that's annoying and unwanted, and only included for the sake of realism.
You could also say that the prawn suit is fine as is, to which I'd tell you to maybe boot up subnautica and take a stroll through the mushroom forest.
While the cyclops is useful for transporting the prawn suit around, getting in and out of it whenever I want to go somewhere else is a bit of a hassle.
And now I've run out of counterarguments because I'm currently blinded by my ability to think basic thoughts the genius of my suggestions.
Anyways, I didn't include the recipes for the arm swap-out and dash upgrades because... well i'm lazy and bad and balancing.
Thanks for reading(or at least skimming through) this thread. I hope you enjoyed it, and agree with my ideas.
If you have any additional ideas or suggestions to improve this thread, please post them.
My point being that the prawn suit is very frustrating to use.
While the seamoth is fast, maneuverable, responsive, and overall a very fun vehicle to drive, the prawn suit is slow, floaty, and entirely unresponsive. For a vehicle that's nearly required to complete the game, you'd think it would be a bit more fun to use.
I will now go over my three main issues with the prawn suit, as well as a variety of solutions and additional suggestions, because I believe that it has a bountiful supply of untapped potential to be a very fun and useful vehicle.
1. Poor Maneuverability
The prawn suit is a dreadful thing to control. Instead of feeling like I'm the pilot of an incredibly powerful mech suit, I feel a lot more like I'm running around in a bulky suit of armor on the surface of the moon.
Walking on the seabed is a very slow and agonizing experience, and the only way to move at any realistic speeds is by jumping along and boosting with your jet over and over until you reach your destination, getting stuck on various plants and animals along the way.
Whenever you land with the prawn suit, no matter the height, a single animation and sound effect are played, followed by about a half second where you can't really move, followed by a sluggish return to your usual pace.
2. Unsatisfying Reactions to Touching Things
Bumping into any object with the prawn suit will usually cause it to instantly stop, followed by the aforementioned pause and slow regain of speed.
You can't really climb up hills without boosting, and you can't walk down them without an ear shattering bang bang crash every other second. This, with the added issue of constantly bumping into plants and bits of terrain, is incredible frustrating.
3. Poor Execution of Suit Augmentation
One of the prawn suit's shining abilities is that it can use any combination of two different arms, each with a unique purpose. Unfortunately, most of them are pretty useless (or at least don't come very close to their potential).
The grappling hook is far too short, the drill can only break ores, the claw has a 1.5 second delay on picking up anything, and the torpedoes continue to go completely unused.
And that about sums up why I just hate using the prawn suit. It's frustrating to pilot for so many different reasons.
Here are my suggestions to make it much more bearable, or hopefully even fun.
- Make the thrusters more powerful and responsive
The prawn suit's thrusters are incredibly weak. The ones used while you're off the ground, anyway. I think that they should be significantly more powerful to allow for better control.
- Make the suit more agile on the seafloor
There's nearly no point to walking on the seafloor, as cool as it is to think about. It's a noisy, slow, and frustrating experience, and it's always better to just use the jets and glide toward your destination. That's why the prawn suit should be made faster and more agile on the seafloor, and perhaps less likely to get stuck on random bits of coral.
- Add 2 additional landing animations
The current animation looks pretty good for moderate falls, but for a 10 cm drop or a 50 meter drop? No chance. There should be two additional animations, complete with unique sound effects, for falling short and long distances.
- Make the thruster sounds less annoying
Every time you let go of the thrust button, it plays a rather obnoxious 2.5 second audio clip of the thrusters powering down. This is fine if you aren't trying to land accurate on an object, but if you are? The audio clip loops every single time you press the thrust button. Instead, this sound clip should only be played when the thrusters run out of fuel.
- Make the grappling hook actually useful
While the hook seems like an incredibly useful tool to have, it's kind of awful. The range is too short, the hook travels too slowly, and the snapback and recharge times take forever. All of those stats should be tripled. You should also be able to lower or raise yourself on the grapple rope and swing at high speeds.
- Make the storage upgrade work as advertised
As it stands, the storage upgrade increases the prawn suit's container size by a measly 6 slots. Where are my other 10 slots? Add em'!
- Make the claw arm more responsive
The claw arm is just ridiculous. Picking up any item takes a full second, where you have to have the cursor aimed exactly at the item you're trying to grab. It's easier just to leave the prawn suit, pick up whatever items you're trying to grab, and get back in!
- Give the drill arm a vacuum
Remodel the drill arm so that it has a vacuum in the center that can be used to pick up resource items. I hate having to either use the claw arm or get out of the prawn suit every time I need to pick stuff up. I usually have to do it more than once per resource deposit because otherwise the resource I'm mining rolls over a cliff and into an acid pool or whatever.
it should also be like maybe 20% faster because i think it takes too long ;/
- Add 2 additional upgrade slots
This will work in part with my two following ideas for new upgrades.
- Add an Arm swap-out upgrade
I'm not 100% sure if this is a good idea, but I think that it could be balanced fairly well. Anyways, when placed in an upgrade slot, another slot would appear next to it that you could place an additional arm it. It would add a quick-select tool that, when used, would swap out the right arm for whatever arm you placed next to the upgrade itself.
You would be able to swap between up to 6 different arms (even though the game doesn't have that many) if you utilized all 6 of the prawn suit's upgrade slots for this one upgrade. Newly added arms would alternate between the left and right arm.
Sorry if I explained that poorly, but I think you'll understand the gist of it. If i go into the details of it i'll just get everyone confused.
- Dash upgrade
The dash upgrade would allow the prawn suit to perform a dash in any direction by double-tapping its respective button. This upgrade would work great for escaping from predators, maneuvering through difficult areas, or even just for trying to get from point A to point B as fast as possible. It would use a bit of jet fuel every time you used it.
Conclusion :
Like with the many cyclops updates, the prawn suit could be significantly improved with the application of some of my ideas. As it stands, the prawn suit is, like i've said dozens of times, frustrating to pilot, hard to maneuver, and painfully slow.
Here's some counterarguments I thought up followed by my rebuttals :
While you could say that maybe the prawn suit is bulky on purpose, I'd say that games should never have a feature that's annoying and unwanted, and only included for the sake of realism.
You could also say that the prawn suit is fine as is, to which I'd tell you to maybe boot up subnautica and take a stroll through the mushroom forest.
While the cyclops is useful for transporting the prawn suit around, getting in and out of it whenever I want to go somewhere else is a bit of a hassle.
And now I've run out of counterarguments because I'm currently blinded by my ability to think basic thoughts the genius of my suggestions.
Anyways, I didn't include the recipes for the arm swap-out and dash upgrades because... well i'm lazy and bad and balancing.
Thanks for reading(or at least skimming through) this thread. I hope you enjoyed it, and agree with my ideas.
If you have any additional ideas or suggestions to improve this thread, please post them.
Re: is "save data loading failed" ever gonna get fixed?
PLEASE FIX THIS
Re: is "save data loading failed" ever gonna get fixed?
I have the same issue and it is literally so frustrating. I have a 32 hour save that I can no longer play because of this error, unbelievable. I refuse to make a new save because that's so much time gone to waste. Guess I'm just gonna quit the game until they release an update someday. Disappointing that broken games are allowed to sell for full price.
Re: is "save data loading failed" ever gonna get fixed?
This game is basically unplayable now with this issue. This has happened to me 5 times this week and only 1 save ever worked out of 6 attempts on my most recent playthrough after the new patch. Doesn't seem to matter if you save every 5 mins or every hour, the game simply will not save anymore for xbox one. Only suggestion I have is try saving the game in the life pod not your base.
is "save data loading failed" ever gonna get fixed?
I encountered the error, "save data loading failed (header checksum illegal)". I see many others are still experiencing save\load issues.
It looks like the console version hasn't been patched in many months.
Have the devs abandoned support for the xbox version? If not, what is the a timeframe for the next patch?
Otherwise, I guess I, too, will abandon the game
It looks like the console version hasn't been patched in many months.
Have the devs abandoned support for the xbox version? If not, what is the a timeframe for the next patch?
Otherwise, I guess I, too, will abandon the game
