"Driller" Sub idea (No hate please

kingkuma

I was thinking, and this'll be a short post, but I was curious if anyone thought this would be a good idea:
A medium sized sub, with a drill on it to drill ice. The ice can be "processed" into minerals, with rarer minerals having a lower chance of being the end product.
Call it "The narwhal" cause arctic and drill

AnomalyDetected

Would be good in the expansion, as the base game already has it's own ideas. I like it, but that would require terraforming. I suggest it instead just mining the ice, you can drill into ice outcroppings and do what you suggested. Overall, nice idea.

Maalteromm

Ice isn't the best of places to drill for minerals.

lucashc90

Maalteromm wrote: »

Ice isn't the best of places to drill for minerals.

Yes, but there are theories that there will be areas where the surface level will be separated from the underwater biome by icecaps, so it would be pretty useful.

Maalteromm

Never said it wasn't useful, just that using it to drill for minerals isn't the ideal argument.

jamintheinfinite_1

insert hate here

scifiwriterguy

Well, if the devs are going for something really new, it might involve building your new bases in the ice. It wouldn't be hard from an implementation perspective; rather than true terraforming, it'd be more a matter of knocking a "hole" in the collision map and connecting it to existing base collision models that have been retextured. If that's the case, then a drillsub makes tons of sense. It could be the new habitat builder.

Mesh-deformation terraforming is a really bad idea from a system resources perspective. The subtle changes in geometry have to be tracked and recorded, and that just bogs everything down. Things like GeoMod from the Red Faction series essentially instantiated pre-defined "hole models" rather than deforming the 3D meshes. Using a similar system, which is really just a more precise version of how Minecraft does it, would be a really nice addition to the DLC. But that's just pie-in-the-sky dreaming, I admit.

Personally, though, I'd like to see the sub almost as described. The PRAWN gives us a way to harvest large resource deposits, but it's not what you'd call efficient. A sub you could bring down on top of a large resource deposit to mine it quickly - kind of like how you can rescue a PRAWN or Seamoth by bringing the Cyclops down onto it to trigger the docking sequence - would be a tremendous efficiency boost. Naturally, you'd have to nerf it somewhere, so I'd suggest making it unable to reach the deepest depths; lava zones should be off-limits to preserve the frustration factor of kyanite. But for strip-mining copper and silver? I'd love it.

DreadgeNought

I like the idea of adding additional ''industrial/specialization'' vehicles, that along with the 'Autopilot' / 'remote pilot' thing could be great, such that as you go along in your main "Atlas" Beluga Industrial Scientific Research & Operations Base Submarine you can have your additional fleet units in tow that are not being directly carried inside, which perhaps would include a Cyclops and it's smaller unit along with one or so upper bays for Drones and an Upper Areas Exploration Vehicle such as the Hovercraft(s).


By all such means, having the choice to specs build types of Subs between a Seamoth and a Cyclops along with specific kinds of Exosuits similar to the P.R.A.W.N. for better On Land / Suspended Water use,
could be a lot of fun. I for one would LOVE to sea such things, especially with upgrades to the user
interface / PDA for more effective remote controlling of Base Scanner and Research Areas with a radio.