Much brighter flares to make them worth using. Illuminate an entire area (but for a shorter time)

0x6A7232

What it says on the tin. This will also give Crashfish powder more use. Basically, you'd use a flare to light up an entire area, like the entire (outside of) the wreck by Lifepod 17. You wouldn't want to carry it any more, though.

Perhaps make it frighten away some predators, maybe draw others in (frighten away Sandsharks, draw in Biters to their doom).

Maybe make then composed of 2 ingredients: Magnesium and Crashfish powder. If that was the case, though, you wouldn't want to cut down the burning time (maybe you wouldn't want to do that anyways, Crashfish powder isn't that commonly found).

Right now, it's sort of like a campfire, I'm thinking more of a mega bonfire.

scifiwriterguy

Really? Because, so far, I've thought flares were incredibly overpowered for a simple hand-held submersible flare. It's a big part of the reason I don't use them very often at all.

However, I see where you're coming from and I do agree that a more powerful flare option could/should/would be very helpful. I'd suggest taking a cue from military artillery illumination rounds. The aerial shells use a parachute to stay aloft longer and they burn incredibly bright. The Subnautica version could be a deployable similar to the beacon. The Navy calls their illumination round a starshell, so I'd suggest Sunflare for this tool. It could operate thusly:

1. Deploy the Sunflare like a beacon, ideally at least 20-30m above the seafloor. It will stay put just like a beacon.
2. Countdown timer starts. Flare auto-ignites in 5-10 seconds. You have that time to get clear of it. If you're still within, say, 10m of the Sunflare at ignition, you start taking heat damage.
3. The Sunflare burns for, oh, 5 realtime minutes. While it's burning, though, it's casting a 50m(?) sphere of intense white light - enough to make it daytime at the bottom of the darkest deep. If you approach it during the burn, you get burnt. (No picking this up and reusing it. Unless you're sick of having hands, that is.)
4. At the end of its burn, it disintegrates. Nothing to reclaim.

As for construction, I'd say you're right: two or three magnesium (which has too few uses right now as it is), a crash powder (serving as ignitor and booster), and a titanium (the shell).

Ideally, it would also antagonize predators that hunt by light - leviathans and suchlike - making the indiscriminate use of Sunflares a risky proposition. (Or perhaps a good strategy for the cunning player.)

From a development standpoint, the object itself could be cloned from the Beacon, editing its properties to suit. Effectively replacing its beacon package with a light emission routine, both of which are probably already coded modules to allow for easy re-use. (Yay for object-oriented programming!)

Dracobomba

scifiwriterguy wrote: »

Really? Because, so far, I've thought flares were incredibly overpowered for a simple hand-held submersible flare. It's a big part of the reason I don't use them very often at all.

However, I see where you're coming from and I do agree that a more powerful flare option could/should/would be very helpful. I'd suggest taking a cue from military artillery illumination rounds. The aerial shells use a parachute to stay aloft longer and they burn incredibly bright. The Subnautica version could be a deployable similar to the beacon. The Navy calls their illumination round a starshell, so I'd suggest Sunflare for this tool. It could operate thusly:

1. Deploy the Sunflare like a beacon, ideally at least 20-30m above the seafloor. It will stay put just like a beacon.
2. Countdown timer starts. Flare auto-ignites in 5-10 seconds. You have that time to get clear of it. If you're still within, say, 10m of the Sunflare at ignition, you start taking heat damage.
3. The Sunflare burns for, oh, 5 realtime minutes. While it's burning, though, it's casting a 50m(?) sphere of intense white light - enough to make it daytime at the bottom of the darkest deep. If you approach it during the burn, you get burnt. (No picking this up and reusing it. Unless you're sick of having hands, that is.)
4. At the end of its burn, it disintegrates. Nothing to reclaim.

As for construction, I'd say you're right: two or three magnesium (which has too few uses right now as it is), a crash powder (serving as ignitor and booster), and a titanium (the shell).

Ideally, it would also antagonize predators that hunt by light - leviathans and suchlike - making the indiscriminate use of Sunflares a risky proposition. (Or perhaps a good strategy for the cunning player.)

From a development standpoint, the object itself could be cloned from the Beacon, editing its properties to suit. Effectively replacing its beacon package with a light emission routine, both of which are probably already coded modules to allow for easy re-use. (Yay for object-oriented programming!)

...Damn, that's a really good idea. I would actually use this in a ton of situations, from nighttime excursions to Blood Kelp trench exploration.

scifiwriterguy

I'll admit that since reading 0x6A's post, I've been wishing I had one. Or two. Or ten.

So how does this sort of thing come to the attention of developers? Wait and hope or is there some formal process?

0x6A7232

You can mention them... but they're kind of busy, so... I dunno. Like I can mention you: @scifiwriterguy and it will show up in your notifications.

Or, you can try waiting on the Subnautica Discord server until one of them is available and @mention them there (probably better, as you can see they're available then).

I'd try Obraxis first, he's cool.

scifiwriterguy

Well, seeing as how I'm hip-deep in prepping for a trade show, I'll try mentioning first and go from there. So here goes!

@Obraxis - if you have a minute, we might have an easy-to-implement item that could find a real place in the Subnautica world. Details above! (And always open to questions!)