DAE think the Seamoth uses too little battery?

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So when the Infected update dropped, I jumped into my trusty 'lil Seamoth HMS Annabelle (compensator mk3, armor, zapper and inventory), and dove right into the Lost River to explore the new locations. I sailed all the way up from the North Blood Kelp zone down into the TLR, and checked out both the facility and the cache. I then headed south out of the TLR to check out the new Crags zone. Took the girl for a spin around the whole area, zapped a few reapers and went east all the way off the map just for kicks, and then started running low on food and water so turned for home.

When I got back to my base in the Safe Shallows, I still had around 40% charge on my single battery.

I mean, I get that cells may be a sticking point for new players before they get a Power Cell Charger or Moonpool, but isn't this a little ridiculous? I always carry an extra Power Cell in my moth inventory, but even for such a round-the-world trip I barely used half the charge on a single battery. In fact, I don't think I've ever actually run out a battery on a Seamoth. The only reason I would go home is for food/water - battery is not a limiting factor at all. I brought along 5 salted reginalds and 5 large filtered waters on that trip - and ran out of those far far earlier than even a single power cell.

I think it would be significantly more interesting if the Seamoth were not capable of such lengthy trips on a single charge. Around a 50% nerf would not be excessive IMO - at least I'd need one spare powercell to go around the world then. The extreme long duration batteries also make the power upgrades on the moth utterly irrelevant - if you never run out, why would you ever need -15% power? Or solar charging? (neither of which you could even install without a moonpool, so you definitely have a proper charger by then)

A little rebalancing I think would add some depth to the game - IMO the cyclops should be the long-haul champion, that could easily go around the world several times over on it's power, whereas the moth and prawn pretty much require a closer power source to dock and recharge occasionally.

ThePassionateGamer

I did welcome the change in power consumption they made. Though I have to say that I skipped several updates and came back with the "Castles&Coffee" update. Before the Seaglide used power almost at a 1 Power/second rate now it uses power at a "decent" rate without using too less of it. If your observations are correct and you had no solar charge or power efficiency modul installed then yes the Seamoth could use a slightly higher consumption...but I would prefer small balance changes compared to your 50% nerf. Because the "perfect" balance is hard to find. Some (me included) may like it how it is right now with maybe a small nerf only. Others may like to exchange their Seamoth's powercell every now and then.

Maybe we will see additional upgrades in the near future that are very power hungry? I don't know. But balancing should be done with caution and not in brash big steps imo.

TL.DR: Yes it may use too less energy. So if it gets balanced, pls do it slightly and repeat if not enough instead of a big nerf that demands several powercells for each long trip.

scifiwriterguy

I'd have to disagree. The seamoth is a little Submersible, and appears to use a very efficient propulsion system (probably pumpjet), which means its power demands are probably pretty modest. Since a Cyclops can run a LONG time on six cells despite how much power it has to use, I really don't think it's unreasonable for a Seamoth to sip at its power rather than guzzle. It's not like it's an iPhone or something.