Subnautica Realism Mode
Pleb
under the sea Join Date: 2015-04-24 Member: 203775Members
under the sea Join Date: 2015-04-24 Member: 203775Members
I'm yet to try Subnautica but it looks interesting. I understand it's mostly a survival/crafting game, but it has huge potential to be a realistic scuba diving simulator. Currently there are very few diving simulators, and theyre all just bad and boring as games. Subnautica already has a lovely art style with decent polish and a working model that could become a diving simulator with a few modifications. If all of what I'm thinking about is implemented, it will take a lot of the fun out of the crafting aspects of the game, which are pretty essential, but it will provide scuba students and people interested in realistic diving simulation a great game to sink their fins into (sorry) and learn a little about how diving is done.
I've posted this on another forum, but am posting it here to see if anyone has interest, be it the devs themselves or the modding community.
"Venturing out would need a fair bit more planning. Drop a shot line with decompression tanks for the journey back up, make your own trimix/heliox/nitrox mixes on the ship then switch tanks at appropriate depth, watch your swimming speed when in a wreck so you don't kick up silt and get lost, residual nitrogen time for multiple dives (surface intervals), adjustable buoyancy in the vest to compensate item weight in inventory or lift bags to send gear back to the top, a gta style drunk effect with increasing severity when you descend below 30 or 40m, and have your lungs explode or a brain aneurysm if you use that squeezy thing to ascend. Colours change as depth increases, they should desaturate through the spectrum, red first then orange, yellow, etc. until basically you're so deep everything is blue.
Agoraphobia is nothing compared to the fear of being at a depth and not having enough time to ascend without getting the bends or dying, or getting lost in a wreckage engine room with so much silt kicked up you cant see your hands, or being so exhausted from swimming too fast or working too hard that you start to black out.
Even if they just added Boyles Law/decompression sickness and a way to make your own breathing mixtures it'd be more challenging and more.... immersive (sorry again) it'd also be a lot more fun than literally every other dive sim because it doesnt look and play like a bargain bin game from 1995.
There are MIDI USB devices that get data from breathing into them. It's probably possible to put that in an old second stage regulator so the game is so realistic that your tank depletes according to your actual breathing. Then you can sit there with a reg in your gob while you play, with VR goggles on, looking like a total idiot.
Obviously a lot of this takes the fun out of a survival crafting game, but you could use it to learn actual dive theory. Or if they do what some other basic dive sims do, you could "try out" different models of dive computers before you fork out hundreds or thousands of dollars."
I dont have any real knowledge of modding or game dev, but my guess is the hardest thing to implement will be the nitrogen absorption algorithms or the rights to use real world dive computer names and replicate their functions.
Here are my ideas in a simpler list:
-Boyles law incorporated into game mechanics, specifically safe ascension rate (usually said to be no more than 9m/minute) and nitrogen decompression
-dive computers
-adjustable buoyancy control devices (inflatable jacket) important because..
-player buoyancy (affected by inventory weight, a weight belt or integrated weight BCD, and gas added to BCD, and slightly by the remaining gas in the tank because it becomes lighter with use)
-lift bags to send looted goods to surface
-shot lines for navigation and attaching...
-decompression tanks.
-nitrogen narcosis (a drunk effect at a certain Partial Pressure of Nitrogen)
-oxygen toxicity (you will start convulsing at 6m+ if you are breathing pure oxygen)
-decompression sickness aka "the bends" (could even have a craftable deco chamber in your base to treat the bends)
-Submersible Pressure Gauges to monitor the amount of gas in the tank instead of the O2 gauge. The difference is it'll need to actually be checked by looking down or pressing a button, so its easier to ignore and get into trouble.
-realistic gas consumption - I saw a video where the user has a few minutes at >20m, but a typical recreational 8L or 11L tank can usually provide enough gas for about 25-35 minutes at those depths. Increased gas consumption when swimming fast, or for a long time, or when breaking rocks/attacking fish or other exercise
-tell the diver to stop doing a breast stroke or he will use up gas faster!
-remove the air bubbles that replenish gas and remove tank auto refilling at surface (or maybe add a fancy sci fi rebreather craftable item that has a fictional air compressor to accomplish this) the compensation is tank gas will be more realistic and last longer
-silt on the sea floor that can be kicked up into a cloud. Maybe instead of crouching, the player switches to a frog kick
-areas/maps with different visibility (sort of like fog)
-are there wrecks? ship wrecks/random sunken debris would make for good looting and fun atmosphere to explore
-colour desaturation with increasing depth
-gas compressors and tank filling to players specification. A craftable device with pure N, He, O tanks that can fill a breathing tank with any combination of the three gasses in a player specified ratio. eg. a 10/90 Oxygen/Nitrogen Nitrox mix, or a 60/40, or a trimix using all three
-the ability to change tanks underwater, to utilise the different breathing mixtures, submerge with 30/70, then switch to 10/90 when deep to avoid oxygen toxicity
-real wildlife? Personally I think the ones in the game are unique and look great, especially that gigantic leviathan. But who doesn't want to swim with a group of sharks or giant manta rays?
There doesn't need to be much added to the control scheme. Crouch (L control?) becomes frog kick, and two buttons (maybe scroll wheel?) to adjust air in BCD. One more button to check the SPG console or dive watch, or even just have it show up when the user looks down at their fins.
It might make the game too difficult, but if the current rapid water/food consumption is adjusted it could balance out nicely.
Thanks for reading this exhausting list of suggestions. Thoughts? I don't want to replace the original state of the game, but have a fairly different and more realistic mode to play it in.
I've posted this on another forum, but am posting it here to see if anyone has interest, be it the devs themselves or the modding community.
"Venturing out would need a fair bit more planning. Drop a shot line with decompression tanks for the journey back up, make your own trimix/heliox/nitrox mixes on the ship then switch tanks at appropriate depth, watch your swimming speed when in a wreck so you don't kick up silt and get lost, residual nitrogen time for multiple dives (surface intervals), adjustable buoyancy in the vest to compensate item weight in inventory or lift bags to send gear back to the top, a gta style drunk effect with increasing severity when you descend below 30 or 40m, and have your lungs explode or a brain aneurysm if you use that squeezy thing to ascend. Colours change as depth increases, they should desaturate through the spectrum, red first then orange, yellow, etc. until basically you're so deep everything is blue.
Agoraphobia is nothing compared to the fear of being at a depth and not having enough time to ascend without getting the bends or dying, or getting lost in a wreckage engine room with so much silt kicked up you cant see your hands, or being so exhausted from swimming too fast or working too hard that you start to black out.
Even if they just added Boyles Law/decompression sickness and a way to make your own breathing mixtures it'd be more challenging and more.... immersive (sorry again) it'd also be a lot more fun than literally every other dive sim because it doesnt look and play like a bargain bin game from 1995.
There are MIDI USB devices that get data from breathing into them. It's probably possible to put that in an old second stage regulator so the game is so realistic that your tank depletes according to your actual breathing. Then you can sit there with a reg in your gob while you play, with VR goggles on, looking like a total idiot.
Obviously a lot of this takes the fun out of a survival crafting game, but you could use it to learn actual dive theory. Or if they do what some other basic dive sims do, you could "try out" different models of dive computers before you fork out hundreds or thousands of dollars."
I dont have any real knowledge of modding or game dev, but my guess is the hardest thing to implement will be the nitrogen absorption algorithms or the rights to use real world dive computer names and replicate their functions.
Here are my ideas in a simpler list:
-Boyles law incorporated into game mechanics, specifically safe ascension rate (usually said to be no more than 9m/minute) and nitrogen decompression
-dive computers
-adjustable buoyancy control devices (inflatable jacket) important because..
-player buoyancy (affected by inventory weight, a weight belt or integrated weight BCD, and gas added to BCD, and slightly by the remaining gas in the tank because it becomes lighter with use)
-lift bags to send looted goods to surface
-shot lines for navigation and attaching...
-decompression tanks.
-nitrogen narcosis (a drunk effect at a certain Partial Pressure of Nitrogen)
-oxygen toxicity (you will start convulsing at 6m+ if you are breathing pure oxygen)
-decompression sickness aka "the bends" (could even have a craftable deco chamber in your base to treat the bends)
-Submersible Pressure Gauges to monitor the amount of gas in the tank instead of the O2 gauge. The difference is it'll need to actually be checked by looking down or pressing a button, so its easier to ignore and get into trouble.
-realistic gas consumption - I saw a video where the user has a few minutes at >20m, but a typical recreational 8L or 11L tank can usually provide enough gas for about 25-35 minutes at those depths. Increased gas consumption when swimming fast, or for a long time, or when breaking rocks/attacking fish or other exercise
-tell the diver to stop doing a breast stroke or he will use up gas faster!
-remove the air bubbles that replenish gas and remove tank auto refilling at surface (or maybe add a fancy sci fi rebreather craftable item that has a fictional air compressor to accomplish this) the compensation is tank gas will be more realistic and last longer
-silt on the sea floor that can be kicked up into a cloud. Maybe instead of crouching, the player switches to a frog kick
-areas/maps with different visibility (sort of like fog)
-are there wrecks? ship wrecks/random sunken debris would make for good looting and fun atmosphere to explore
-colour desaturation with increasing depth
-gas compressors and tank filling to players specification. A craftable device with pure N, He, O tanks that can fill a breathing tank with any combination of the three gasses in a player specified ratio. eg. a 10/90 Oxygen/Nitrogen Nitrox mix, or a 60/40, or a trimix using all three
-the ability to change tanks underwater, to utilise the different breathing mixtures, submerge with 30/70, then switch to 10/90 when deep to avoid oxygen toxicity
-real wildlife? Personally I think the ones in the game are unique and look great, especially that gigantic leviathan. But who doesn't want to swim with a group of sharks or giant manta rays?
There doesn't need to be much added to the control scheme. Crouch (L control?) becomes frog kick, and two buttons (maybe scroll wheel?) to adjust air in BCD. One more button to check the SPG console or dive watch, or even just have it show up when the user looks down at their fins.
It might make the game too difficult, but if the current rapid water/food consumption is adjusted it could balance out nicely.
Thanks for reading this exhausting list of suggestions. Thoughts? I don't want to replace the original state of the game, but have a fairly different and more realistic mode to play it in.
Comments
Allow players to give other players their alternate air source regulator, so you both are tethered together, and the tank being used is consumed at double the rate. Maybe even the more daunting buddy sharing technique, where two divers are breathing from one regulator. This should be difficult and scary. Maybe have a button (use button?) the player has to hold to breathe in and hold their breath as well as then passing the reg, then release the button to breathe out. Sort of like a QTE.
We don't talk about the "R" word around these parts. Hurts peoples sensitive feelings.
If the devs did implement a realistic mode, it would be fantastic. But I don't see something like that happening anytime soon, since there's a lot more going on in Subnautica as it is, thematically: alien world, creatures, advanced tech, crafting, etc.
But keep it coming, man. Threads like this, with interesting ideas and in-depth concepts, are always a good read.
What he said. It's good to contribute such threads, and as Cranky stated what you suggest would make for a great but completely separate game, although maybe more in tune with Stranded Deep (another excellent survival game). With the way the game is tracking now, an ultra realism mode would be a serious shift in how the game is tracking. Not to mention, many people have expressed they don't want scientifically plausible realism added, it would take away the "easy going" nature of the game.