Add ability to rotate in the water!

Miri

Anyone underwater exploring enthusiast will want to rotate in the water! Rotation instills a sense of weightless-ness - like a space-walk. Perhaps this may not want to be assigned keys by default, maybe list this under some advanced control scheme?

LumpN

Miri wrote: »

Anyone underwater exploring enthusiast will want to rotate in the water! Rotation instills a sense of weightless-ness - like a space-walk. Perhaps this may not want to be assigned keys by default, maybe list this under some advanced control scheme?

You want to go all somersault, is that it? Not a joke question. I don't know what you mean by rotate. Obviously it must be something else than the current ability to look around. Or are you referring to 6DOF controls like in good old Descent?

Aeroflux

Descent controls would be fantastic!

Miri

Roll!

Miri

Might need a "roll to surface" hot key, too. Like the default gameplay, if enabled. I mean it might be easy to lose the up direction.

I'm just thinking out loud about this one, more intuitive would be a drift back to normal like it does by default, but more slowly?

2cough

You can kinda do that in the seamoth a lil bitty bit

Lye

The only reason I could see implementing this, is so that you could swim upside down, or maybe through tight cracks in cave walls if they were any position other than horizontal.
Otherwise, it'd just complicate the control scheme I think.

Aeroflux

There are more reasons than that:

* Correcting your attitude in a cave
* Fitting through a particularly tight spot by changing your profile
* Using your point of view to observe what is below because you can't exactly turn your head without turning the vehicle

I think the oversimplification of controls in a game like this does more harm than good. When you assume that the craft will be in a certain orientation it ruins level design. Descent was an incredible game that challenged your perception of what was up, but always gave you a point of reference. This consideration allowed complex level design, which would not be far from the cave designs of Subnautica in most aspects. Complete attitude control should be standard in a free-floating environment.

As it stands right now the sea moth does a really annoying roll with the yaw. What's even worse is the roll will leave your craft lopsided even if you are traveling in a straight direction--and there is no way to correct it without changing your direction of travel. My hope is that physics on the vehicles aren't implemented yet, as it controls more like a first-person shooter than a vehicle. It makes sense while interacting with the player body, but without different characteristics affecting the craft it feels like a graphical sticker slapped onto a body with changes in speed and turn rate. Even the fish operate like this--they can spin in place, completely abolishing the idea that they (and we) are moving through a volume of matter. But it's still very, very early in development. I feel more like I'm preaching to the choir than bringing up points unknown to the dev crew.

Miri wrote: »

Might need a "roll to surface" hot key, too. Like the default gameplay, if enabled. I mean it might be easy to lose the up direction.

I'm just thinking out loud about this one, more intuitive would be a drift back to normal like it does by default, but more slowly?

Descent had an option like that. I think it was called auto-level or something along those lines.

LumpN

Forsaken got it right. It had full 6DOF controls but also automatically rolled the vehicle so that your up/down is in line with gravity. If anything I would love to see the Seamoth behave like that. But keep in mind that those games used to be played with a joystick. Preferably one with at least three axes. We want to allow for the standard keyboard + mouse combo too. The lopsiding can and will be improved for sure. Early access!