Changes in the Voice of the Deep that need changing.
igottapi4
US Join Date: 2016-05-24 Member: 217419Members
US Join Date: 2016-05-24 Member: 217419Members
First, I really like the new ping feature. But can we please make it more opaque like it was before? Its too transparent and the green and blue colors are hard to see. Plus add some more colors. The red and orange are too similar and the yellow is just ugly.
Second, please! please! please!!! can we get the Cyclops lockers slots back to how they were? Meaning 2x6. Before I was able to fit the 3 weapons in one locker, the radiation suit set in another and then the extra equipment that I didn't use but might in yet another one. Now? I can only fit 2 2x2 items and have 4 empty slots. They just became completely useless IMO.
Second, please! please! please!!! can we get the Cyclops lockers slots back to how they were? Meaning 2x6. Before I was able to fit the 3 weapons in one locker, the radiation suit set in another and then the extra equipment that I didn't use but might in yet another one. Now? I can only fit 2 2x2 items and have 4 empty slots. They just became completely useless IMO.
Comments
This is getting ridiculous. A personal wall locker where not even a suit fits inside. And gloves as big as the body part. What exactly is that bad with a 5x6 wall locker size? At least you could make these lockers 3x6.
We need incentive to use them. Not incentive to ignore them. I can understand why they're smaller to begin with, being against the hull, but in this case I think it might benefit the Cyclops more to have storage that's at least as good or nearly as good as a wall locker. I hate slapping wall lockers everywhere because a cramped space just gets even more cramped. Not to mention looks messy because lining those things up is a lesson in patience.
Here's hoping this can be reconsidered!
Until something changes (which may be never), I'd suggest crafting some Wall Lockers. You don't have to go to the extent that some people do (I put in 60 Wall Lockers and 10 Lockers to add 2280 spaces), but you can add a few Wall Lockers to help. I primarily use the Wall Lockers as the label is helpful and it makes better use of Quartz, which is harder to get than Titanium. The 10 Lockers are laid out in 2 rows of 5 as Locker libraries.
And the Cyclops power. It's kind of silly at the outset: 6 Powercells. A sonar pulse costs 1% and a shield pulse 12%. A serious research submarine that size would have a serious powerplant. I'd even take requiring more materials to craft the beastie. Not sure how bad it is but I'm packing 8 spares and will have the Seamoth with its Solar Recharge Upgrade as a backup. Can also run back to my base which I've kitting out with 4 Powercell Chargers.
I've built a Battery Charger and a Powercell Charger on the Cyclops but don't expect to use them. Fortunately, I've got the Swim Charge Fins so I shouldn't need to recharge batteries.
2. Disagree. The built-in lockers are useless in generally. What the heck i can do with a 12 slot locker? ^^ There is place for nearly "nothing". Back to the change: I think they changed it to 3x4 because of the new UHC tank with 3x3. Well, it's a question of organisation. In this lockers i put only things with only 1x1 size. In my case extra water and cured fish. So i can use all 5 lockers fully. I mean, the most equipment and stuff is anyway in the "right" lockers in the upper level.
the ping colors could use tweaking
Like.....What?
Maybe it was just that bug regarding the Cyclops thermal reactor draining energy rather than replacing it. I really hope so because if not the cyclops is just garbage. Even if it wasn't the issue it's probably just garbage.
I remember another user saying we need incentives to use it, not to stay away from it. And he hit the nail on the head. I can't find a use for it. If i'm headed to get materials I can just take the seamoth and it'll probably be faster to collect things because getting in and out of it is as easy as pressing E. Getting out of the cyclops you have to go down the ladder, and leave, do your thing, come back, climb up the ladder, wait for the engine to start, THEN go. Yeah it has more space but if you need to hoard that many things at once you're likely either over-doing it, or you're more hardcore into creating huge sprawing complexes of bases and things. And that's okay and all, but it means the cyclops doesn't really appeal to the more casual players.
Yes, there's a possibility of just using it as a mobile base, but why would you? The world isn't remotely big enough to justify that IMO. And it takes away from one of the cooler parts of the game, which is building your own bases.
Maybe I'm just missing something. What do you all even use the cyclops for? I feel like any reason I can think of is really forced, and at the moment the alternatives to using the cyclops are far superior.
i think its mostly to transport the prawn suit as you need it to mine Kyanite and Large Resource Deposits
its kind of like a large RV
- being an indestructible base
- lot of storage for food & resources
- transporting the Prawn
Two of these still stand, (3 since the silent mode make it not being targeted) and are enough for me to use it.
But since the heated discussion about Oxygen Tank, I'm been wondering something,
QUESTION:
Would you be interested in Submarine becoming "huge air reserve" rather than "air generator" ?
(with a failsafe mechanic to give it some air if you die and respawn in it)
I use the Cyclops for material transport when I want a new base somewhere, for PRAWN transport, sometimes for material gathering, and sometimes for safe(r) passage (it's a mobile spawn point, y'know). That's enough to make it appealing to me.
Honestly though you only need 5 Kyanite. Ever. I Just went into the Inactive Lava Zone with my prawn alone and left alone because I use the Hook arm or whatever it's called. I don't even use it to haul the prawn suit very often since I can just get back out of wherever I go myself with ease.
Yeah I guess that's fair. I can definitely see using it to transport stuff for new bases ad mobile spawn point. I guess I just really like the idea of the cyclops more than anything - Having a stronger submarine with storage space to explore with - and I WANT it to be useful, and I want reason to use it, but in actuality it's just not that game changing to have it.
I've heard this thrown around a bit, and I would really hate that. To me subnautica at its core is more about exploring, discovery and creation than it is really a hardcore-survival game. Which has it's ups and downs when it comes to what that means for the game, but things like limiting the oxygen in the seamoth just feels like a tedious way to slow players progress.
I mean just think of the seamoth with a Mk. III depth upgrade, going down into the lost river, 900 M deep. Having to ferry back and forth for oxygen would just be stupid and annoying.
Yeah there could be a lot of tinkering with how much oxygen the seamoth would have as a big source, but I feel it would either be so much that there's barely a point in having a limit, or it wouldn't be enough for some players who like to play and explore at a slower rate.
You just end up over-managing your players. I want to be able to play at my own pace for the most part.
Yeah That's probably true, didn't think of that. But I'll put it this way. I went through the entire Inactive and active lava zone without the cyclops. Just the prawn, and I was fine. you have to take it slow in those areas anyways, with the sea dragon leviathan lurking. And having the extra mobility of a smaller vehicle (PRAWN as opposed to cyclops) was instrumental in avoiding him. And In the new update you can take your PRAWN through the Warpgates (In the base within the lava castle and the Containment facility) that bring you back to the surface. you don't need the cyclops to bring it back out anymore since you can just use the warpgates to go in for the first time, and come back anytime you want to later.
As for the changes, I'm adapting to them. I really think the UWE devs focused too much on the backlash at the Cyclops being destructible and having infinite power. That wasn't everyone and even then not everyone wanted the invincible and everlasting Cyclops. What people wanted was that a big game investment couldn't be trivially destroyed and wasn't tedious to use.
So we had the back-and-forth over beastie aggression and damage. That may be in the right place now, with few animals able to damage the Cyclops and the player able to control that. I will have to test to be sure.
But it is kind of crazy, with gameplay-driven design that makes no sense for an exploration submarine. Powered by 6 Powercells? A silent-running mode and flank speed that both can only be used for 30s each and seem to be intended to be used together. And a flamability that has me thinking to stock up on Extinguishers before moving out.
Throughout a game, a player gains new sources of energy and the need to recharge them from the base. We can craft Batteries early, but we have to get the Battery Charger blueprint and set up a base for it to restore our used Batteries. Later we move to the Powercell-powered Seamoth and we need a way to recharge them too. The Powercell Recharger has harder to find fragments, but the Moonpool can provide that too (which is what happened in my recent game). And then we can move on to using the Seamoth Solar Charger Upgrade, although with a centrally located base of operations, it isn't really necessary.
And then there's the Cyclops and the PRAWN, especially when using them in the Lost River and below, which is farther than I've played a game. There's a PRAWN Suit Thermal Reactor for its recharge and a Cyclops Engine Efficiency Module, but that second one isn't a complete solution.
I think the devs want to keep Bases relavent and Energy a concern into the late game. I can understand that, but it's still an irritant. I hope I can get by with an appropriate LR Base and a lot of spare Powercells. But being cautious, I'm also crafting a lot of things prior to setting out. I don't want to use the Fabricator I've installed onboard for anything I can prep for, as for each use that'll be 5 energy gone out of its 1200. Considering that a sonar pulse uses about 12 and a shield pulse about 144, I'm not wanting to waste any of it.
That's funny because I was telling a color blind friend about subnautica and then said it doesn't matter because nobody can see anything so far under water anyway.
Maybe the more fundamental issue isn't with the cyclops itself, but the fact that the map is, at the end of the day, fairly small. The cyclops would be very useful for extended exploration journeys to far out areas, but currently, when you have that central base in the shallows, it really doesn't take that long to get to and from any end of the map (not talking about depth) with a seamoth or even Prawn. So those extended journeys the Cyclops would be great for, don't exist. Maybe the map is just too small currently for the cyclops to be practical. Why would I take a cruise ship to cross a lake when I could get across just as easily with a dingy?
I personally feel the Cyclops is too large with it being "two stories" high. Like you say, it's silly that you have to climb up a ladder to get to the functional deck, or climb down a ladder everytime you want to exit.
There's a lot of wasted space on the lower deck: at the entrance there's a long hallway with tiny lockers that aren't practical. Most people fill this section with Wall Lockers or Appliances, but that crowds the already-cramped area, making it look and feel claustrophobic.
Next is the Seamoth/Exosuit docking area. It can't be used for storing anything else, nor can you put wall appliances there. In the previous update you could build a Thermal Plant there... but why? If you have a vehicle there, you can't repair it or access their storage or upgrades.
Then there's the stern section of the lower deck. It's just a section no larger than an I-Corridor, and all you can build there are just two Wall Lockers... which causes targetting issues when you want to climb up (you'll climb up but will be looking into the 'open' locker). In fact, the area with the engine also is silly. There's the open areas behind the ladders where you could put Lockers or Indoor Growbeds, but the game refuses to let you put anything there.
My point of this post is I propose they remove the lower deck completely, and possibly slim it up a bit. The Docking Bay can stay as is, and that won't affect the upper deck entry. The ladder exit would simply connect the Bridge and the current exit (move the hatch back to the ladder, and play the two animated sequences together).
If the devs aren't interested in that change, then simply add a reason for us to use the lower decks! Put in a mini-Scanner Room or Recharge Station (anything!) in the lower stern section. Let us drop and store items in the Docking Bay when it's empty - lock the bay doors if a vehicle can't dock safely. And finally, could they please widen the hallway at the Cyclops Lockers so there's a bit more room to move around? It also drives me crazy that the hallway narrows towards the bottom; stuff built on the walls are always at a slant.
That's my personal opinion on the Cyclops, I'm sorry if people disagree with it but I just wanted to get it out there. I simply don't understand all of the underused space that the vehicle has.
I agree completely, the power demands of the cyclops completely outweigh the tiny power plant that it has. As a submarine it's not practical at all. You'd go out for a voyage only to be out of energy 10 minute later. I think the players and developers may be losing sight of the game. The current Cyclops is a disappointment, there's a lot of busywork in just keeping it on because of the ridiculous power demands, which is silly for what should be an exploration sub.
I really feel these changes are taking the game in the wrong direction. Exploration and adventure coupled with vehicles that help get further away from a safe base should be encouraged, not nerfed and made more inconvenient at every possible opportunity.
An added Fabricator on the Cyclops doesn't consume Cyclops charge.
While the base was still in brownout, I went and use a Fabricator I'd added to the Cyclops. And discovered such an added Fabricator doesn't consume Cyclops charge. The Cyclops Upgrade Fabricator does. But not an added one. And here I was using the base Fabricator (which drew down the charge enough that Water Filtration Machines could hold it in brownout) to avoid what I thought would be a big draw down of charge on the Cyclops.
EDIT: I don't think these details were intended, but I'm not liking the impact of the changes to the power system.
2 Water Filtration Machines running can draw down 24 Solar Panels during the day into brownout. 1 may be enough. And 1 can certainly hold those 24 Solar Panels in brownout during the day.
I tried setting up Thermal Plants at the geyser near location -100,-30,-450. They don't work as they show 0/250 charge on mouse-over. Ones in an older savegame still work.
For some reason, Power Transmitters no longer show a beam when there's no charge at the power source. And their range Transmitter to Transmitter appear to have dropped.
To improve maneuverability further, they would have to reduce the Cyclops lenght a bit and speed up turning time. Additionally they could allow a bit more nose tilting up or down, thus allowing the cockpit to turn a bit into vertical driving direction.
Though I think it's much too late to change the Cyclops internal design anymore and even less chance to change the devs mind how to use the Cyclops, I agree with the space usage being wasted. The most important lower deck part are the lockers and the vehicle access. But the lockers are a joke and the vehicle access can't really access upgrades, cargo or power cells and is thus useless.
Of course the lower deck could serve as a chance to react to flooding, but the game hase no vertical bulkhead flood seal. That's stupid, as the water from the lower levels will fill the cockpit from below without this kind of seal. The same with fire and smoke if the Cyclops lockers would burn and the steam would rise up directly to the cockpit. Stupid design.
Finally the devs idea to reduce silent running misusage. Total nonsense. All players use the Cyclops as a carrier only and the game is without warfare. Thus the Cyclops only needs to get to a place and stand still until the Seamoth, Prawn or diver comes back. That means engaging any leviathan is pure fiction and advertisement. The reality is bypass with speed or sneak to the target and power down the engines. Decoys and shields aren't really much of a help if you don't want to simulate a fake Cyclops vs Sea Dragon encounter.
Maybe the devs imagined a Cyclops vs Leviathan engagement in a great vision, but the programming doesn't work. It just got a big eternal proceed with minimal damage and then stay silent, invisible and invincible part while you repair damage.
I tried flank speed several times, but found no real good use for it, as the other features are more than enough and with normal being fast and safe together. Did you find one other than playing with it?
Yeah I realize It's faster. It's also pretty useless, like Zeta said. And how realistic is it that you could use a speed setting for *less than a minute* before your engine catches fire? It's not realistic, and it doesn't make sense from a gameplay perspective either.
Edit: The Cyclops wiki page states the following: "Piloting the sub in Flank speed for more than 20 seconds will cause the engine to overheat, at this point there is a chance for a fire to start every 2 seconds." So It's actually worse than I thought.
As a side note, if they keep it this was, can we for gods sake add a bar on the cyclops HUD that shows us engine heat? I need to be able to manage it on a numbers level. Having the ship say it's going to overheat isn't enough. I want to be able to reasonably manage engine heat if the Devs plan on keeping this as a mechanic.
I'm fine with the idea of the mechanic - over-clocking the cyclops engine to increase speed, but risk engine overheating and fires - but right now it's ridiculous. 20 seconds is absurdly short. 1 1/2 - 2 minutes seems much more reasonable to me. But that probably still isn't addressing the cyclops's more core issues.
Once again this all rolls back to the accelerated time the game seems to thrive on. The PDA tracks messages received on "Day X" so each day/night passage is a "day". But then there's the fact when you hit 30 seconds of oxygen remaining, the PDA states "30 seconds". So we can only stay underwater for 45-135 seconds, but a full day lasts 10 minutes? Or is the accelerated time taking being taken into account, and 20 seconds of Flank Speed supposed to be like "5 minutes" of gametime?
I've been voicing discontent with the timetable of Planet 4546B for a while now - dusk and dawn last but mere seconds, and nighttime is barely an inconvenience. Heck, a lunar eclipse takes all of 20 seconds real-time to pass; even in the game's converted timespan it lasts less than an hour.
I really wish they would slow down the passage of time to be more realistic to be believable. And before you say "it's an alien planet bruh!" our own planet Jupiter has the shortest day in our solar system at just 9 hours and 55 minutes. The days pass too fast to be productive, and the nights are too short to be fearful. And we can be stranded for weeks on end between the Sunbeam coming for rescue to the time they are "more than halfway there" - they must be travelling at impulse speds, lol. It just really breaks the immersion with the days just speeding by.
I get to the Aurora midgame with a well-stocked Cyclops (with a lot of exploration and gathering of mats along the way) after about 3 days (72 hours) of playtime. To complete the story even at my drawn-out pace would likely take no more than 150 to 200 hours (estimated high due to never exploring the LR and below yet). So the game can't possibly portray the survival experience at 1-to-1 throughout of what in reality would take months. We still need the small-scale experience to be close to 1-to-1 though to make sense. I think Subnautica is close to getting it right, but it could be improved.
Things could be adjusted. Some may be possible before the release of 1.0, like adjusting the thirst and especially the hunger rate down a bit, as well as tuning the rates of sky phenomena.
Others will likely have to delayed to post 1.0 due to their complexity or high likelihood of creating bugs, like adding a sleep system.
Oh GOD that's a terrible idea. I don't want to have to run out of air inside the Cyclops when I take it down to the Lava Zone.