"Ecosystem Biologist" Expansion
GlitchTMG
Join Date: 2018-05-30 Member: 241002Members
Join Date: 2018-05-30 Member: 241002Members
Introduction
The start of this suggestion-post is me gushing about the game for a bit, just to provide some context in which I make these idea-suggestions, the short version is "The devs are remarkably good at game design in both big picture and small details, whatever they ultimately do with the game going forward is something I trust."Subnautica is an amazing game. It's not perfect, nothing ever is, but it is nonetheless a game that I personally enjoy immensely. I've only picked it up recently in its mostly-completed state, now fully complete, and still haven't finished a playthrough yet (just not enough time) and I have a lot of merits to give to this game. They probably all stem from the biggest overall compliment I can give this game; From a game design perspective, it's consistent. In terms of its mechanics and themes, this is a game where each mechanic and theme ties strongly into something else, no feature of the game that I can tell is just "there" by itself, but reinforces and synergizes with another section of the game, and reinforces the primary themes.
The Themes
The game's primary themes, as I experience them when I play this game, seem to be in two main 'sides'; There's the horror, isolation, and survival side of the game, but there's also the exploration, discovery, and wonder side of the game. You are dropped into a hostile environment with the goal being to survive, but the environment you have been dropped in is an alien ocean that is absolutely filled with astounding beauty, in the form of incredibly creative and imaginative flora, fauna, and environments. Even as you try to find a way to survive in an environment filled with danger, one can't help but feel awed and humbled by the entire ecosystem of this eerie unknown world, with both its fascinating originality and its scale of being so much larger than you.
Right Decisions Made
The devs have done so many things right with Subnautica. The clearest way you can tell is by watching the huge amount of LP series by game streamers of this game. While the individual experiences of course vary in the little details, going back to what I said earlier about consistency, virtually every player has the same glee as they begin to craft new, cool tools (including vehicles) to use in this world for the first time, the same awe as they enter a stunning new biome, the same tension when trying to push forward into a place they know isn't safe, and the same terror as the monsters that lurk in the deep are beset upon them. These things are nearly universal to all players, and that's how you know Subnautica is a solidly-designed game. But it also gets down to the little details; numerous things were added, removed, or changed from Subnautica's Early Access days, throughout its development cycle to today. In my opinion, nearly all the final decisions that the devs have arrived at are things I think were very well-decided.In no particular order, just a random selection of things off the top of my head;
- The changing of recipes to remove dangling things like "magnesium" that contributed to only a single tool, the inclusion of lead into the construction of several important Base-Pieces and making it slightly less common, as well as just numerous tweaks to other recipes before settling on set as they exist now? Brilliant.
- The way the UI was continually updated, made brighter, more intuitive, that conveys necessary information in an easy-to-digest format (such as making recipe ingredients actually display their item icons, getting the Seamoth/PRAWN health/energy readouts from little white text at the bottom to large colorful indicators in the bottom-right)? Brilliant.
- The various iterations the "Depth Module" and O2-tank upgrades went through over the development period, from being stackable and having variable final values, to being singularly upgradeable (with rarer materials) and having set benchmarks for depth and O2 capacity? Brilliant.
- The addition of the "Beacon Manager" in the PDA, and changing Signals from an item in your inventory you have to equip, to simply "perma-beacons" you can turn on or off at will in the Beacon Manager? Brilliant!
- Changing the Creature Decoy recipe to craft 3 at a time, as well as massively reducing their inventory size, thus making them actually viable for hand-deployment outside of a Cyclops? Brilliant! (even if they could still really use the ability to be bound to the action bar and deployed the same way Beacons are, rather than indirectly deploying by loading into PropCannon or opening PDA inventory)
- Changing the old theoretically-useful but unworkably-buggy Dive Reel tool into the current Pathfinder tool? -Absolutely- brilliant, amazingly elegant solution that neatly solved all issues with the Dive Reel and made it even more useful than it would have been unbugged!
- Even the fact that the earliest betas of the game had an environment-deformation mechanic with digging sand and the Terraformer tool that were ultimately removed entirely, I think were smart decisions (The Terraformer especially. I understand it was removed for performance reasons, but I also think it works from a thematic standpoint as well; you are but one human in a vast ocean that you -cannot- subjugate completely, and the ability to make massive terrain-alterations is a bit too "god-like" to fit in with that theme. Plus, terrain-deformation simply didn't directly interact with any other mechanics except basebuilding, kinda. No synergy).
Origin of Suggestions
Which is why I have a set of suggestions for future additions they could possibly make--they're not actually my suggestions, but suggestions from a friend who goes by the Steam name Liatai (stated with her permission) but is too shy to directly post here herself--but I wouldn't necessarily expect them to be followed exactly. If the devs take -any- inspiration at all from these ideas, I personally trust they would be able to figure out the best ways in the specific details to make things work in the end. Subnautica does the survival and terror aspects very well. One example; something I am frequently afraid of is losing my fear of Reaper Leviathans from watching LP videos of other people playing, I feel no terror when chuckling at someone else's, but each time I get back into Subnautica, the game's ambience and atmosphere, and knowing how bad those things can mess me up, has not yet failed to put me into the appropriately anxious mood when I encroach near them, and I love that. For Liatai however, while she likes the game and regards it highly also, it has fallen a little flat in the end on the other side of the game's primary themes; There is exploration of ways to interact with the environment, the awe of discovery of so many cool things, but it didn't quite go far enough. She has worked with veterinarians before, and is deeply fascinated with and knowledgeable of biology and ecology.
Liatai's Early Experience
One particularly stand-out point of Liatai's experience compared to the majority of other people was her first encounters with Stalkers. Most people are terrified right away when meeting them for the first time, even if they get braver later. Liatai, on the other hand, instantly fell in love with the Stalkers. She paid extremely careful attention to their behavior patterns, such as they are, and noticed right away that they weren't blindly aggressive, nor persistent attackers. She figured out right away she could "hand-feed" fish to the Stalkers and they would become temporarily docile to her, and even when she did get bit sometimes she kept her cool and stayed in the same place, figuring out right away that after one bite, the Stalkers usually didn't try to bite again, or at least not right away, drawing parallels to real-world sharks that bite divers/surfers in that it's usually not a deliberate attack; *bite* "Bleh, you're not the food I expected, you aren't what I want to eat."--it's an incidental mistake, not deliberate aggression. Naturally, she also of course immediately caught on to the Stalker behavior of playing with Metal Salvage, and she was delighted to just watch them do that from close-up;
From that point, she basically ALWAYS carried both live fish and some Metal Salvage in her inventory when passing through any of the Kelp Forests, specifically to drop for the Stalkers, and also ended up overflowing with Stalker Teeth. She drew parallels in that the Stalkers were like "sea wolves" and "sea crows", from how they displayed pack-behavior and the lore and their behavior hinted at them having deceptively canny intelligence (in the lore sense). Her only wish in the early times was wanting the taming behavior to stick. Even with the loner and more-aggressive Sandsharks, she had a comparatively warm view towards them and didn't fear them, but did respect them; *hears a snarl* "Oh hey! Sorry buddy, I'll be out of your hair in a second. Gonna give you a wide berth... there we go... see? You go eat fish, I'll just scan these and be on my way." *gets charged?* "Oop, oop, oops! Sorry pal, I know, I got too close, shhhh, I'm backing up, not gonna hurt ya, not gonna be food though. That's it, bye!""Got a big ol' egg I picked up somewhere that I'm keeping because it's weird and cool... Ooh! OOH! IT'S A STALKER EGG! D'awwwww I feel all happy now! I know exactly where it came from! There was a pack of three stalkers hanging around a downed lifepod, so I played with them for a while and just kept bringing them scrap metal and watching them play. I feel like they trusted me with a gift now! D'awwww~!" ... "It was a tad unnerving the first time one cruised by me and just *shomf*'d the fish right out of my hand... But then I had a pack of about three of them swimming around me, playing with the scrap metal I brought. It was kind of magical, really. One of them kept dropping salvage right in front of me, but then another would come by and scoop it up immediately. "Gift from meeee!" "No, from meeeee." "Meeee!" Either that or they were playing keep-away, ha. Intelligent critters. It's a joy to watch them play."
Today: Falling a Little Short
She still likes the game of course, and acknowledges that the devs have nailed the "survival, isolation, horror" aspects of the game, with the focus on that giving the end-goal of the game being "escape the planet", but does have some critique about it in other areas. She wanted a different ending to the story; The PC's life before the crash didn't seem that great, returning to rule by the mega-corps didn't seem like that desirable end-goal to her. And besides, what if the cure for the bacterial infection isn't permanent? What if it only suppressed the symptoms, but the PC is still a carrier and risks spreading it back their friends and loved ones? She wanted an ending option to stay on the planet, to continue to study the ecosystem, to live with and work with it, to continue to combat the bacterial infection that's swept the planet as much as possible. Use the rocket-launch technology to send up a communications satellite instead of the PC to warn everyone away from the planet, to contact loved ones back home without infection risk, to continue to document everything in the alien ocean and transmit it back to grow the wealth of galactic knowledge. She wanted a Bart Torgal ending. She wanted an Ecosystem Biologist ending.
Improving the Theme: List of Ideas for Inspiration
Most of all, she wanted more interactions with the oceanic life, more marine-biology to immerse herself in. More exploration, discovery, and wonder. What follows is just a list of off-the-cuff brainstorming ideas, not necessarily with any large amount of thought behind any one, but that of course isn't the purpose; rather, it is a collection of ideas that together represent a theme, to inspire more well-considered ideas that continue the theme. Not necessary most, or even any, of the following ideas need specifically be implemented, but some ideas are like;
- Use flora-fauna, fauna-fauna, and flora-flora interactions to unlock new ways to do stuff. Learn more about plants and animals by cultivating them and experimenting with interactions.
- Allow you to learn more about various animals and plants by cultivating them and seeing how they interact with each other. Like you'd leave your base with a tank containing a gasopod for a while, then return and check your computer to find there's a new recipe unlocked because you've analyzed the compounds in its pods. ("Since gasopod gas pods are corrosive, they could be an ingredient in (something you could apply to mineral nodes before harvesting), and also introduces another risk-reward thing [see section "On Leviathans"]. You get more stuff from a node -- but harvesting damages you and might attract critters to the smell of blood. Do you want to take that risk?") Or get notes on their behavior patterns you could use to interact with other organisms.
- Maybe a secretion from some organism keeps Crashfish from blowing up so fast.
- Maybe the song of the jellyray and ghostray can be used to pacify hostile predators.
- Maybe peeper eyes make great fertilizer and let plants grow twice as fast.
- As far as interactions; you could have some REAL fun with Mesmers if you learn how to study THEM.
- Reefbacks would be great to study for anyone of a more horticultural bent.
- You could learn more about tiger plants to make them not attack YOU, but still attack anything that comes near them. You'd unlock them as defensive turrets, so to speak.
- Learning more about Crashfish/Sulfur Plant symbiosis could let you learn how to create a renewable source of sulfur.
- You could learn how to reduce Stalker teeth into titanium, creating a renewable source of that.
- For more stuff you could learn about flora and fauna; studying their digestive processes can help you make more nutrients available in the food you consume, or distill more water more efficiently, or learn to craft advanced medicines. This would unlock better food/water/medkit upgrades or possibilities.
- Bleeders, being ocean space ticks, are excellent vectors for disease. Study them and you can make more efficient medkits to fight specific pathogens they transmit, and waterproof styptics to reduce the amount of damage caused by bleeding.
- Studying scavengers and detrivores could allow you to better extract resources from the environment, increasing material yield from scavenged metal and/or deposits when you apply a certain compound with a recipe you unlock.
- Studying lava lizards and lava larvae might help you develop better thermal protections.
- You could learn to stimulate coral growth, creating structures and also renewable coral resources.
- Learn to craft tags, which, if you're brave, you could attach to stuff like leviathans to get an alert when they approach within X meters as an early warning system. (Of course, to research leviathans and unlock stuff about them, you'd need to DELIBERATELY SEEK OUT LEVIATHANS. Which is an adrenaline rush of an adventure no matter how you slice it. You can't make the leviathans non-hostile. They're still a major threat. But you CAN gain early warning systems and perhaps learn to repel them from certain areas as an end-game thing, like if you want to build a base near the Aurora.)
- Tracking tags to allow you to monitor where certain organisms are, their migration patterns and such.
- You could learn how to tag yourself as not-infected to Warpers once you've been cured, to stop their hostile AI response.
- This increase in player-ecosystem interactions would also be a driving force to get the player to explore more, and seek out data pads and the ruins of those people who came before them. Because it's clear the peoples who lived on this planet before DID study the native life.
- Older areas could contain data for recipes and behavior related to creatures like warpers, or even extinct species which were common ancestors for some contemporary ones.
- They could hint at some uses for flora and fauna that the player had not yet discovered, by reading the logs. It's a chance for more lore.
- You could learn ways to make various flora grow larger, and even use them to build biologically-based, well, bases.
- Place bait attractive to certain species in places to draw them out, or to cause them to school, making collection and scanning easier.
- You could very well even, in the end game, learn how to replicate the curing enzyme and go out to cure organisms with a special device. You could even unlock stuff based on how many creatures you've cured. (Or for the sadistic, you could learn to grow the bacterium in vitro and spread it to creatures.) Cure/infect count is governed by a specific variable, so infecting a subject and then curing it creates a net zero change. So you can't just spam your way to rewards. (perhaps one set of rewards for going the infection route and studying the effects, and a different set of rewards for going the curing route and improving the health of the ecosystem)
- Specific actions you could take to actually earn progress towards these more advanced unlocks:
- Scanner tool, attempting to raise the creature in containment, attaching tags to the creatures (and then retrieving said tags later -- more time attached, more knowledge gained.) You could also unlock a "deep scanner" or something that would require sustained physical contact with the entity in order to study it. This is the riskiest one to use. Or some kind of sampling device you'd have to use to get a biosample into your inventory, and you'd have to return it to a computer in your base to unlock knowledge. It would be a device that you'd have to contact the creature with, but it would, say, get a scale sample, or draw a blood sample, or fecal sample, or tooth sample, a piece of skin tissue, a shred of muscle tissue, a bit of nervous tissue, etc.... To reduce the number of resources required, just lump each kind under "(species) Biosample." The device would probably have a business end that would contain a variety of needles, pads, and scrapers. Not enough to cause meaningful harm to the organism, but it's definitely something they'd notice. Easy to collect from passive organisms. And from stuff you can just harvest wholesale, like eggs or teeth or whole fish. Stick those in the computer and they're worth (x) biosamples' worth of progress toward unlocking a thing. But hostile critters? They'll notice the sampling and react. You've got to get close and be quick. Strategy required. You'd also need inventory space to hold any biosamples you collect. You could also pick up data pads that would hint at stuff that could be unlocked. Or provide progress toward unlocking a thing. It also provides a use for eggs besides raising them or tossing them in the bioreactor.
- If dangerous critters are given more advanced yet consistent AI, studying them could unlock behavior guides for how to avoid them better, or do other things with them.
Improving the Theme: On Stalkers and Bioluminescence
Of course, being one of the more intelligent, active, and sociable creatures in Subnautica, Stalkers would ideally get special attention.
Also in regards to the the bioluminescence idea, that could also certainly do well with some more expanding upon. As Liatai said, "Almost all species in Subnautica have distinct bioluminescent patterns, let's use them!" As mentioned in the Stalker blurb, one possible unlockable through deeper study into various creatures is patterns that you can apply to yourself to mimic another creature's bioluminescence, which would change the behavior of some creatures around you. Put on a Peeper pattern, Peepers and Oculi approach you--but so do predators that eat Peepers (creatures without interactions with Peepers would not be affected). Patterns for poisonous creatures could repel certain other predators, depending on how hazardous the poisonous creature is. A Boneshark pattern might repel prey species and smaller critters, but attract something that eats Bonesharks. Things like that.It's pretty clear that Stalkers are meant to be an equivalent of, say, undersea corvids. They show social behavior and a high capability for learning. And, importantly from a gameplay perspective? The player can provide them with -meaningful rewards- for behavior. I would love to see that capability for learning expanded upon. The "taming" behavior, as it stands now, is temporary. But why wouldn't they come to associate you, an unusual creature in their environment that brings them food and rewards in exchange for peaceful behavior, with good things? I'd love to see the taming behavior stick longer and longer each time. Now, my initial thought was to have the taming be individualized, but I have a better one now that's less back-end-intensive but also hints at Stalkers' intelligence. Have each gift over time build up a hidden "stalker reputation" value, if you will. As this goes up, you'll notice Stalkers will be less likely to attack you. They may approach, but then wait a bit before attacking. (As though waiting for food from you.) As this increases, you may even get Stalkers initiating the gift-giving behavior WITHOUT you giving them a reward, and then waiting nearby. They become more passive toward your presence and more friendly, so to speak. But here's the thing. This happens even with Stalkers -you have never met before.- Think of those experiments with crows and masked individuals. This would hint that Stalkers COMMUNICATE with each other. That they PASS ON knowledge they've gained about their environment to others. That they're SOCIAL ANIMALS.
This could even tie further in to the marine-biology update/expansion idea. See, one idea I had is that since so many creatures bioluminesce, one tech you could unlock over time is bioluminescent pigments you could use to mimic various creatures in the ocean. Whether on your wetsuit or on your tech. Stalkers don't bioluminesce. But as social animals, you could learn more about how they communicate. Unlock gestures, or frequencies/sounds you could play to communicate specific things. Like "friend" or "food" or "metal" or "danger nearby." You'd have to reach higher "Stalker reputation" first, of course, to be able to observe the social behavior. They'd never be completely "tamed" like the Cuddlefish. But you COULD become a known non-threat/friend to the population. Some might even start to follow you a bit. If you build close enough to their habitat you may notice a group hanging around. Checking your base out. You could, over time, if you learn enough about them, teach them things like leaving your camera drones alone. (Say, by unlocking a special coating that repels Stalkers or has a bad taste to it.)
Once you've learned about the "danger nearby" signal you'd start to notice Stalkers coming up to you and producing that signal when hostile creatures or hazards are nearby. Or they could flash you a "food" signal and lead you to a school of edible fish. Or a "metal" signal and lead you to a deposit or some salvage. Of course, you'd have to be careful to avoid certain signals. Like you'd learn a signal used by a Stalker defending its territory or staking a claim to a mate. You'd have to move away or make a placating signal to keep it from attacking you. If you enter their territory while wearing a bioluminescent pattern akin to a prey fish, they might attack you just because they mistook you for food. Like sharks attacking surfers and then backing away when they realize "hey that's not the food I expected!" It's a lot more complex than other interactions I've mentioned thus far for the expansion idea. But it would be a reward for dedicated players, and provide an alternative to the scanner room if players would rather take the biological approach. Provide multiple ways to solve a problem.
It actually wouldn't be that hard, I reckon. It's a set of behaviors governed by two or three variables I can picture just off the top of my head. Variable one; stalkerReputation. If stalkerReputation < 0, this behavior pattern. If stalkerReputation is between 0 and x, this behavior pattern. If stalkerReputation is between x and y, this behavior pattern. If stalkerReputation is between y and z.... You get the idea.
Behaviors like feeding Stalkers and giving them metal would increase the stalkerReputation variable's value. Actions like stealing eggs or initiating a territorial bout would decrease it.
Second variable; stalkerDroneTraining. If stalkerDroneTraining is between 0 and x, Stalkers will steal drones. Between x and y, they'll only do it occasionally. Over y, they'll leave them alone.
Applying a Stalker-repellent coating to your drones would provide a toggleable +y buff to stalkerDroneTraining. Removing it removes the buff. Not sure how you'd train them to stop chewing drones without the coating, but that could be played with.
Improving the Theme: On Leviathans
The various Leviathan-class predators in this game are scary. Liatai and I are both in emphatic agreement; They should -stay- that way. Some Subnautica players have been and probably still are asking for "real weapons" to be implemented in the game, and I for one am very grateful to the devs for resolutely staying on-course and refusing to add weapons, despite the requests to do so. Right now, the game is evoking a very consistent and solid tone, and a large part of that is due to the lack of weapons forcing the player to either avoid or outsmart the biggest baddest fish around; this is a good thing and the addition of weapons would ruin that.If new ways of interacting with Leviathans to get closer study were implemented, one thing that would definitely need to happen is a nerf or removal of the Stasis Rifle. Its Databank Entry even says it may not work properly on larger organisms, but as the game is presently, a face-shot (where their hitbox is, along with any other "long" creatures it appears) stops them cold--it's even possible to kill them this way, by repeated stasis and stabbing. Liatai was actually not aware that the Stasis Rifle worked on Levis (as she had taken the PDA info at face value), and upon learning that it did in fact work just fine against such large creatures in contradiction to the PDA, immediately expressed disappointment. Instead, some enhancements on the Leviathan AI, and the devs could set up a situation for skilled players willing to take the risk of a high-stakes tango with a Leviathan. One way that seems to sort of be possible already is dropping multiple Creature Decoys to distract the Levi, then continually swim to its -side- (or under, or above) when it comes at you, possibly using the Repulsion Cannon to both move the player slightly out of the way and also knock the Leviathan slightly off-course, as the Repulsion Cannon -barely- works on a Leviathan, but does just a little, which is perfect. It'd be something like being a Leviathan matador/bullfighter, in order to get the up-close study and data from it, with whatever research activities and tools you can use to unlock advanced lore/interactions/recipes. Or some other way of doing it, but it should be hazardous; the idea is that whatever you unlock from close-up Leviathan study is optional, but you have to be skilled to attempt it. High-risk, high-reward.
As idea for reward, Liatai thought maybe after completing in-depth study on all Leviathans, you could maybe unlock a pattern for your Cyclops that wards off everything -except- Leviathans. Bonesharks, River Prowlers, Crabsquids, Ampeels, etc. stop being a problem, but as Liatai put it;
During the discussion in which all of these ideas arose, someone else thought of ideas about raising/breeding pet or "miniature" Leviathans, or "genemodding" Leviathan-parts onto smaller predators, but both Liatai and I were quite confident that--while it is a cool idea--such a thing couldn't, or shouldn't, fit into Subnautica specifically."I mean, you've braved the worst this ocean has to offer. Other predators SHOULD fear you. But Leviathans can tell you're not one of their kind. They'll investigate you. And their investigation can be quite damaging. Because you're not a Leviathan. So it's a risk-reward thing again. Do you want to repel all other predators at a risk of attracting Leviathans? Or keep the predator attraction level at the status quo? You could even, before end-game, unlock a debuffed version of the paint pattern. Infected Leviathan. Which would repel a lot of things... but ATTRACT Warpers. Even possibly cause them to warp in and ID your Cyclops as a threat from a farther distance. Again, risk-reward calculation. Repel most things, but attract Leviathans and Warpers; or keep it the same?"
While perhaps a bit emphatic (hot-button issue, as noted), we both feel pretty strongly about the anti-suggestion of making Leviathans "safer"; doing so would wreck one of Subnautica's current really strong points, as I noted earlier."Leviathans are supposed to be scary to the player at all times. Taming them makes them lose their edge. Keep them hostile." .... "I still think trying to create mini-Leviathans should NOT work. Leviathans need to be scary. You want pet predators, look at stalkers. Also they're noted to have arcane, complex breeding rituals and behaviors. I mean. Look at how hard it is to get PANDAS to mate. Leviathans are a heck of a lot more dangerous than pandas. And their eggs would require SUCH specific conditions to hatch and be viable that it's... just not a possibility for a lone breeder. Plus they'd need food. A LOT of food." ... "Don't try to tack Leviathan traits onto stuff that's supposed to be friendly. A player should see those things and think DANGER at all times. Don't make that threat go away. It's part of the theme of Subnautica. There is ALWAYS a bigger fish. You are NOT the apex predator in this ocean. The player NEEDS to feel that tension. If they don't want it, they can play Creative mode. But the ocean should never, NEVER completely stop being dangerous. And Leviathans are a constant reminder of how dangerous it is. Don't even flirt with the idea of making them "safe." They're NOT safe. And we shouldn't be trying to force them to be. As humans we need to learn how to accept that some things are beyond our control, and the world does not need to conform to our whims. Leviathans are a force of nature, not a cool new toy to play with. Let's keep it that way. It's like people trying to keep lions and tigers as pets. Little hot-button issue of mine from a biologist and conservationist standpoint. Sorry to go off on you, [other person] but my point stands. And as Glitch said -- the Precursors tried, and THEY failed. We're ONE human, and not even a dedicated scientist at that. Study it, yes, but let nature be nature. You'll discover a lot cooler things that way, and there'll be a lot less death and tragedy all around."
Miscellaneous Ideas
One thing Liatai likes to do quite often is try to apply her real-world knowledge of biology and ecosystems to analyze the biology and ecosystems of things in video games and fantasy stories. She loves trying to work out the how and the why of a fictional ecosystem being the way it is, even if it's something the storywriter or developer never thought of. As an example; there aren't any skeletons on the Aurora, nor anywhere in the shallows. Or mid-depth areas, not even any skeletons of Reapers, which would normally leave mini-ecosystems when they die. Her conclusion; the Cave Crawler crabs are not only efficient scavengers, but also osteophages--they eat bones. She thought a hole in the idea was the fact that Stalker Teeth don't despawn, and had a thought that maybe Stalkers are just really good at eating and playing with the stone-like crabs before they can eat teeth, but then remembered that Stalkers play with metal salvage and natural metal deposits in the first place to stud their teeth with titanium flakes for strength, which then lends itself to an alternate explanation that perhaps the titanium particulates actually are indigestible or toxic to the Cave Crawlers, which would also neatly explain why Stalker skeletons aren't around, just the teeth. And as for the biomes like Lost River and deeper that do still have skeletons and have the offshoot cousins of Cave Crawlers, Blood Crawlers, perhaps the Blood Crawlers don't have the osteophageous diet that their shallower-depth relatives do. Expanding the lore of Subnautica's ecosystem with deeper details like this, expanding on how the different ecologies and biomes interact, how the populations of flora and fauna in the ocean rise, fall, and migrate, all of that would be really cool additions to Subnautica.
Closing Thoughts
In short, what Liatai, and I, and hopefully many other people would like in this game, is two primary things: an alternate ending of "stay on the planet" rather than "leave the planet", and just more expansion and depth into the biological and ecosystem modeling of the game, more expansion and depth on the ways the player can interact with it. If the Subnautica devs were to take this general idea and really run with it, it would probably be too big for just one update, and might be something more akin to an "expansion pack" that is rolled out as a series of updates in several stages like the game's initial development to work on the possible systems one or few at a time for increasing interaction with Subnautica's amazingly creative wildlife--a series of updates that, collectively, would constitute an "Ecosystem Biologist Expansion".Hopefully someone else thinks these are good ideas!
Comments
I do think that probes should get an overhaul. Their locations should be placed on a 3D map, we should be able to program them with basic tasks like slowly radiating outwards from a central point and sending underwater soundings to the ocean floor every few meters before returning to its origin when it reaches the maximum scanner range. The player can then advance their drones and scanning range to add layers on top of that data to extend the sonar to reach greater depths or send out scouts to analise the composition of the ocean floor... they can even attach lattices to drones which have different instruments which the player can control within range of their mobile base through VR. Maybe even satellites could be used to predict weather patterns and to connect the player with their navigational buoys across the map which might be powered by ion batteries in order to make them worthy of atmosphere ascent.
But here's my main problem about exploration. And it is apparently against everything which I have stated thus far. My main problem is how easy exploration is, not how accessible it is; as I have stated, previously, HZD; which I loved for its exploration but was irritated at for how easily explorable it is. This was chiefly the fast travel system, as you never need to go from x to y once you have already visited y once. After that, y is labeled as explored territory and you can visit any time you want- which you probably never will. What I don't like about any game that is aimed around exploration is that it's too easy to reach a point at which you've already seen it all. I will go back to HZD (sorry for referencing other games in my explanations, but I don't have that many games to reference) and note that its producers made a dlc much as Unknown Worlds is, now, for their own exploration / open-world game. The DLC was amazing. It covered the willingness of the player to take things slow, leap at any random ropes course they came upon, and made travel more difficult by throwing more hostiles at them. Subnautica doesn't have quite as much of this problem, which I think is because of how multi-layered it is. But it still can be like this. And so, I think that the way in which hostiles could be handled to give it more allure to the explorer who is likeminded to myself is to improve on a system where the player isn't going to be killed by an enemy, but is going to have to lick their wounds for awhile- and perhaps more likely to find a sound strategy by analising what went wrong last time; which might be covered by an increase in 'knowing thine enemy' as I heard somewhere.
But this is nothing serious or whatever. Subnautica is an amazing game as it is, and I am more than willing to accept it for being Subnautica.
Post script: I regret having to use the phrase 'more than willing'. If we assume that the 'more' of whatever you are, the more willing you are, then it's impossible to be more willing than willing itself besides not being willing at all, no matter what word you use which is analogous with willingness. I am sorry for using this cringe-worthy phrasing.
One thing I would like to point out with all these theoretical added features is, and I slightly feel this with the way the game is as-is too and may write in a different post, for every "reward" or "progress" function in the game you need something to "spend" those rewards on. In general terms this means that in the game you gather resources (rewards) to build new tools or vehicles (progress), and you use those tools to gather more/new resources or do things that you previously didn't have access to (spending). You can also spend these things on more optional goals, like making a bigger base, a scanner room, observatories, looking for PDAs, etc. Personally I feel that the game currently doesn't give you enough to "spend" on and that it gives you some things too easily, but a lot of the ideas you've listed here sound like things I would gladly invest resources in! Being able to study the flora and fauna of the planet more in depth to unlock access to more PC-environment interactions (and add to general world building) sounds like a lot of fun, especially if it reflects the behavior of real life ecosystems.
Also, it's important to make sure that low-level or early game tools and resources still have relevancy later on, and aren't just replaced but higher tier items. For example right now I've unlocked most of the buildables on the habitat tool, but I'm still having quite an excess of things like titanium and copper, because I don't have a whole lot to spend them on. Adding more things I can spend these resources on would be great.
Definitely in love with a lot of these ideas. Devs could even use some of these to "trick" players into learning something about real life aspects of ecosystems
And yes, spot on with that "more things to spend on", that's precisely what my post was getting at as well, but said in a better and more detailed way!
And heeheehee, slipping in a few lessons about real-life ecosystems to the players--while not a likely idea--is a very fun one to imagine!
And for other players, who else has any input of their own to add on this topic, things to discuss to raise this thread's visibility to the devs?
It is very hard to simulate or emulate ecosystems. Given that, teaching through games is an idea that has been proven successful time and time again.