Electronic pda map?

Silveressa

Given the hassle of dumping beacons everywhere across the world to mark places of interest makes for a world that's all too soon just a cluttered sea of pings I was thinking some kind of electronic map on the PDA would be more practical?

Basically the map would be created as you explore (that way you need to explore the world to get your map) and you could add notes and markers on it for easier navigation.

As it is the only way many people find their way around is with the F1 screen's coordinates, (even the wiki uses the coordinates to direct people to wrecks etc.) and assuming that the F1 menu will be disabled upon release, I can see how trying to find the various wrecks for new players would be an exercise in frustration. (since you have no real way of telling where you are in the world currently, finding your place on the map for a new player in relation to various crash sites would be pretty challenging.)

Perhaps add in some requirement to place a couple nav beacons at various places in the world first before your pda is capable of determining your coordinates. (Since with two radio signals you can easily triangulate your coordinates on map, or using a basic sextant by the sun/stars positions.)

Namely it would allow a player to see on the pda what areas they have yet to explore so they can hunt for wrecks on their own rather than wander aimlessly and hope to stumble across them eventually.

Rezca

As much as I would love something like this, the devs had stated they don't want maps of any kind in the game, so I think it'd be highly unlikely we'd have something like this unless they change their opinion somewhere down the line.

Silveressa

So without maps, or some kind of coordinates how are new players supposed to find their way around and locate any of the wrecks? (I know without the wiki's coordinates I'd have never found a few of them before giving up and playing something else.)

There needs to be some way of telling where you are in the world in relation to the rest of it, or finding anything is just blind wandering, and not many players will have the patience to just "go swim around over that way till you find it."

Rezca

Silveressa wrote: »

So without maps, or some kind of coordinates how are new players supposed to find their way around and locate any of the wrecks? (I know without the wiki's coordinates I'd have never found a few of them before giving up and playing something else.)

There needs to be some way of telling where you are in the world in relation to the rest of it, or finding anything is just blind wandering, and not many players will have the patience to just "go swim around over that way till you find it."

Part of the developers vision for the game is exploring and finding things on your own, which is a large part of why they don't want maps in it. That's just the way it is, but while they are sticking Signals in to help you find the more important things, the bulk of it you'll just have to find on your own by exploring rather than having it pointed out for you.

The Aurora serves as a constant landmark though, so that helps a bit.

Silveressa

Aye, that was why I figured a map that is created as you explore would work, given it encourages you to explore on your own, it just lets you see where you've already been so you don't spend hours swimming over terrain you already have gone through trying to find where you haven't been yet.

(Exploration is fun, retreading the same areas repeatedly with no way to tell where you are is tedious, and from what I've seen first hand from other family members when they played it for the first time, not at all entertaining.)

Rezca

Silveressa wrote: »

Aye, that was why I figured a map that is created as you explore would work, given it encourages you to explore on your own, it just lets you see where you've already been so you don't spend hours swimming over terrain you already have gone through trying to find where you haven't been yet.

(Exploration is fun, retreading the same areas repeatedly with no way to tell where you are is tedious, and from what I've seen first hand from other family members when they played it for the first time, not at all entertaining.)

Same; though the map is small enough that it doesn't take too long to memorize where the biomes are and what biomes contain what - though mileage there may vary. Since I really like the beauty of Subnautica's world, retreading the locales is more relaxing and fun for me so it's never affected me much. On the other hand, having your Seaglide's battery deplete three times on a short resource-gathering run IS very much tedious, I cannot deny that ><

Silveressa

Aye, and for new players trying to manage not only batteries, but also food & water, that random wandering turns frustrating in a hurry. (Frustrating enough to make new players potentially give up on the game in the beginning and do a steam refund when they find themselves unable to find their way around without getting repeatedly lost.)

Just leaving up the coordinates on the hud in addition to the compass markers would alleviate the problem almost completely really, since that way players can use the numbers as a reference for general areas, and those who are getting frustrated with finding things on their own can turn to the wiki instead of giving up on the game entirely.

Julian1337331nailuJ

Maybe The Map Is Made The More You Travel? Where You Know Where You Have Gone And You Can Go There To Maybe Your Base? Or Maybe Search The Map To Find Anything That A Scanner Room Found? Or Maybe You Check The Map To See The Beacons.

0x6A7232

I posted this idea in the polish thread, but here it is in case anyone hasn't seen it:

0x6A7232 wrote: »

Here's one: people are asking for maps, or coordinates, etc...

..devs want us to explore, not just steam straight to what we want and go back to our fortress.

...so what if we compromised? Have a very broad set of coordinates able to be bookmarked by the PDA. Have it so broad that upon returning, you still have to go actually find it, but you know the general sector, so you won't wander off to other areas. Sort of like how large the batches are right now, maybe?

It would be like if you made a bookmark for the Aurora drive core, it would make a mark for the whole Aurora -- you would know about where it was, and you wouldn't wander off into another zone while looking, but you'd still have to find it.

Silveressa

Aye that would work nicely, but whatever the fix, somthing does need to be done to give players at least some way to tell their location in the world so they don't spend hours retreading the same ground trying to find the area they haven't explored yet. (exploration is fun, aimless wandering over previously explored terrain isn't.)

0x6A7232

I usually take a sighting of the Aurora, as well as either the mountain island (I call it Money Island) or the floating island, if either of those are visible. It gives me a ballpark estimate. Especially if I have the compass. Then I can be like, 'if I'm coming from that part of the Aurora, facing [opposite of compass direction Aurora part I'm looking at is in], then I should bumble into this sooner or later...


But yeah, that can get old pretty quick if you don't find it soon-ish.

CAPSHAW

YES