Suggestion: Escape pod supplies
LumpN
Join Date: 2002-10-30 Member: 1725Members, Subnautica Developer
Join Date: 2002-10-30 Member: 1725Members, Subnautica Developer
The problem with survival
So one of the first game reviews of Subnautica talks about how the survival mechanics impair an otherwise great game:
I agree. It's no secret: I'm not a fan of survival. Not at all. I don't like when games force a certain pace. Be it to move or to wait because of some arbitrary mechanic. I also don't like games that feel like work. Farming games anyone? I already have a job, thank you very much. In my opinion Subnautica currently violates both principles. Unfortunately! Freedom mode is an option of course but it feels like cheating.
The purpose of gathering and crafting
I do like the idea of having to prepare for expeditions however. I do like the fact that I as a player should bring flares and beacons and food and water supplies. Perhaps even some extra batteries, building material, and/or tools to create outposts. In my opinion that is a great way to go on an expedition even if the preparation stage feels a little bit like work. I'm okay with that because the expedition itself does not feel like work. In fact the expedition gets easier and I can get further into the unknown if I put some time preparing for it. There is very enjoyable gameplay coming out of a bit of preparation work. It adds purpose to all the gathering and crafting. Purpose!
So that is the Subnautica I would like to see. Where you can't just dash away in your minisub and go everywhere after 15 minutes of play. A Subnautica where you have to earn your range, where you claim your territory as you make it navigable for you, where you spread your network of outposts that allow you to restock your expedition supplies, where you feel your progress as you expand your reach. Until after hours of play you finally get to the point where you can build a large self-sustained vessel that will allow you to venture even further than you have imagined.
Just imagine how much more powerful the player feels looking back to the narrow escape from crash-landing the Aurora. It's the story of the self-made man. And it's a glorious one. The game doesn't even need to end here. Once you become self-sustained and powerful it might be time to make the planet habitable for colonists. Or build a rocket and go home. Or become Aquaman. Who knows?
The real adventure
The point I'm trying to make is Subnautica should not be a survival game in the sense of constantly impending doom in the first place. Its beautiful and lush landscapes are much more appropriate for a slow paced "adventure" game with a dash of crafting, base building, puzzles, and tons of exploration, discovery, and wonder. I put adventure in quotes because the term adventure game usually refers to interactive story and endless hours spent in dialog trees.
The proposed solution
I propose a very simple change to push the game away from bland survival more towards an intrinsically rewarding slow paced adventure: Initial supplies in the escape pod storage. Food and water for a couple of days.
Think about it. Engineers built a big badass mothership. Put escape pods on it just in case. Have no idea where that escape pod might go. Float in space? Crash-land on a planet? Probably put thrusters and a parachute on it. Also made pods float on water just in case. Smart guys! There's even a fire extinguisher on board. And a fabricator to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Nice! But no supplies whatsoever? Not even a single granola bar or some fancy astronaut food and a bottle of water? Do you want me to die mere hours after all what you did to rescue me?
If we had an initial stock of supplies at the start of the game we could teach them a lot of mechanics in a slow pace. We can teach them how to use the PDA, how to eat, how to use the storage, and how to use the fabricator (e.g. food powder + water = meal). They will also learn the importance of food and should easily be able to craft diving equipment and catch fish before the initial supply runs out. In my opinion this is a great way to introduce new players to the world of Subnautica in a very kind and forgiving way.
And that is what I feel Subnautica should be like. Beautiful, wonderful, mysterious, dangerous, but kind and forgiving. What do you think?
So one of the first game reviews of Subnautica talks about how the survival mechanics impair an otherwise great game:
For my third dip, I turn off the survival mechanisms. It’s a much, much better game this way – dealing only with the more interesting problems of mobility and exploration. I need to build extra oxygen tanks to allow me to go deeper, and mechanised propulsion systems to help me scout new locations. This is simply a more rewarding feedback loop
I agree. It's no secret: I'm not a fan of survival. Not at all. I don't like when games force a certain pace. Be it to move or to wait because of some arbitrary mechanic. I also don't like games that feel like work. Farming games anyone? I already have a job, thank you very much. In my opinion Subnautica currently violates both principles. Unfortunately! Freedom mode is an option of course but it feels like cheating.
The purpose of gathering and crafting
I do like the idea of having to prepare for expeditions however. I do like the fact that I as a player should bring flares and beacons and food and water supplies. Perhaps even some extra batteries, building material, and/or tools to create outposts. In my opinion that is a great way to go on an expedition even if the preparation stage feels a little bit like work. I'm okay with that because the expedition itself does not feel like work. In fact the expedition gets easier and I can get further into the unknown if I put some time preparing for it. There is very enjoyable gameplay coming out of a bit of preparation work. It adds purpose to all the gathering and crafting. Purpose!
So that is the Subnautica I would like to see. Where you can't just dash away in your minisub and go everywhere after 15 minutes of play. A Subnautica where you have to earn your range, where you claim your territory as you make it navigable for you, where you spread your network of outposts that allow you to restock your expedition supplies, where you feel your progress as you expand your reach. Until after hours of play you finally get to the point where you can build a large self-sustained vessel that will allow you to venture even further than you have imagined.
Just imagine how much more powerful the player feels looking back to the narrow escape from crash-landing the Aurora. It's the story of the self-made man. And it's a glorious one. The game doesn't even need to end here. Once you become self-sustained and powerful it might be time to make the planet habitable for colonists. Or build a rocket and go home. Or become Aquaman. Who knows?
The real adventure
The point I'm trying to make is Subnautica should not be a survival game in the sense of constantly impending doom in the first place. Its beautiful and lush landscapes are much more appropriate for a slow paced "adventure" game with a dash of crafting, base building, puzzles, and tons of exploration, discovery, and wonder. I put adventure in quotes because the term adventure game usually refers to interactive story and endless hours spent in dialog trees.
The proposed solution
I propose a very simple change to push the game away from bland survival more towards an intrinsically rewarding slow paced adventure: Initial supplies in the escape pod storage. Food and water for a couple of days.
Think about it. Engineers built a big badass mothership. Put escape pods on it just in case. Have no idea where that escape pod might go. Float in space? Crash-land on a planet? Probably put thrusters and a parachute on it. Also made pods float on water just in case. Smart guys! There's even a fire extinguisher on board. And a fabricator to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Nice! But no supplies whatsoever? Not even a single granola bar or some fancy astronaut food and a bottle of water? Do you want me to die mere hours after all what you did to rescue me?
If we had an initial stock of supplies at the start of the game we could teach them a lot of mechanics in a slow pace. We can teach them how to use the PDA, how to eat, how to use the storage, and how to use the fabricator (e.g. food powder + water = meal). They will also learn the importance of food and should easily be able to craft diving equipment and catch fish before the initial supply runs out. In my opinion this is a great way to introduce new players to the world of Subnautica in a very kind and forgiving way.
And that is what I feel Subnautica should be like. Beautiful, wonderful, mysterious, dangerous, but kind and forgiving. What do you think?
Comments
Supplies mean you can gradually introduce the need to catch fish etc. Definitely an idea for controlling the pace of the game.
I think everything else you mentioned is fantastic. Starting food, and perhaps basic scanning equipment so you can do some work onboard, but eventually you'll have to leave.Perhaps with some tweeking of the decay rates for food and hydration, the survival setting won't feel as bad. Currently with 100 health/hydration, I don't think I can go more than 20 mins before I'm scrambling back to home. Then I spend another 10 mins or so to hunt and prep for my next outing.
That being said, I enjoy the game even in its infancy. I'm sure many many facets of the game will change with time. I really love the idea of evolving your character through genetic research. Like needing less oxygen and perhaps ultimately none at all. How about scaled armored skin, and built in webbed feet/hands for faster swimming?. So you could conceivably build an underwater city without the need for pressurization. Or going the other way, perhaps a floating platform with tubes down to lower sections, like a rapture kind of thing. Or just an entire floating city. All modular of course. I know it's been mentioned, but terraforming sounds exciting. I also like the idea of crafting nets, traps, perhaps a desalinization machine as part of the "end game".
Keep doing what you're doing guys, loving the game so far.
Honestly I'd rather do away with food and water altogether (freedom mode) or slower the hunger and thirst rates to the point where food and drink are vanity/immersion elements and possibly story/mission ones (Sort of like hard core mode of Fallout New Vegas - character does need to eat, drink and sleep but taking care of those needs takes less then 1% of your play time)
As for expedition preparation. 100% with you on that. However don't see why we should be fixated on food and water, especially not while oxygen and power seems so much more important. Yes you should plan and prepare your expeditions, be it 15 minutes dive or 3 days in submersible. Fill your air tanks, charge the batteries, bring few spares, bring the necessary and appropriate equipment and parts, balance all this with mobility and inventory considerations... Food? yeah you can through food in the mix here, but even than I wouldn't give it more thought than vague "two days worth of food"
- The earlier part of the game would still require you to collect food/water as it is now.
- Later on once you construct a cyclops, you could construct a "water recycler" module that completely eliminates the need to constantly find new water. There would also be a "food enhancer" that makes food provide more sustenance so it last significantly longer on long journeys. Both of these take some time to process the final product and require energy in the process.
- Trade offs may have to be made depending on the energy requirements in the cyclops to support all systems (ie... shut off food enhancer and water recycler to support defense, etc...)
And I like the idea of aeroripper that you can later construct a "water recycler" as an standalone module or maybe as an addition to the escape pod?!
The subnautica-ocean is salty? Than the water recycler can provide you with salt, too.
And an enhanced gravesphere (or an autamtic underwater fish-farm) could be your fish/food supplier.
(trying to steer this back into a specific suggestion thread rather than a general gameplay one.)
I think that the survival components give the game an entertaining conflict which challenges and motivates the player. While I agree that the game's best feature is its exploration, I for one love the challenge involved in planning out your dives and seeing how far you can explore before you need to head back.
However, as the game becomes larger, with a larger number of species and locales to explore, I can foresee the current form of the survival component becoming somewhat of a drag as the player wants to travel farther than they or their sub can take them and for longer stretches of time. This is why I think base-building and a structure for some form of automated farming would help the game open up near the end-game. Imagine coming back from a long trip, and your farm has already produced enough food for another long trip, for example.
I would keep it so the fabricator did the basic fish as is, but then you have a cooking unit, like the water recylcyer which enables you to cook more advanced meals, providing much greater nutrition.
Also, you can live without water for 3 days, and food for a week, yet those meters currently go down way quicker than that.
Perhaps I should clarify what I mean by survival and where I draw the line. My definition of survival is: Persistent impending doom is hurrying the player.
For example in Don't Starve you can't really gather or prepare enough food for a couple of days. You are constantly on the edge of starvation. You might trade food gathering for item progression on some days but it will hurt you. Another example: in FTL: Faster Than Light the fleet is forcing you to move in one general direction at a certain speed. You can't outrun them. You can't go back too much. It is a pacing mechanic. That is survival.
On the other hand a game where there is hunger and it will kill you if left unattended but it is super easy to gather enough food for a couple of days, I wouldn't call that survival. There is no rush, no stress, no difficulty. It's just a mechanic to add immersion and purpose to resource gathering. And I'm perfectly fine with that.
I wholeheartedly agree with your points on adding purpose to resource gathering, and particularly with Don't Starve, whose impending doom makes extended exploration outside the safety of your home base's perimeter very difficult.
I think there is something to be said about Don't Starve's mechanics, however, that could relate to Subnautica. By making that impending doom a bell that constantly rings in the forefront of your mind, everything you accomplish from basic survival to constructing a useful base is extremely rewarding, especially if you succeed by taking risks like exploring far.
Subnautica is pursuing other means of evoking that feeling of accomplishment, certainly. However, some of my favorite experiences thus far in the game were those intense moments in which I had traveled far beyond the safety of my escape pod, my supplies running low, and I was driven by a strong desire to just "see what's over the crest of that next hill." I've died multiple times for doing so, but I didn't care, because the experience was so thrilling: riskily exploring further while still having to manage multiple time-limiting factors from oxygen, to food, to the conflicting question of whether or not I should conserve the resources I have picked up along the way and head back now.
Just my two cents
And one more thing. 1 Salt possessing 1 quarter of PDA or Storage and needing 1 salt for 1 cooked fish are too much as well. 1 sand(?) for 1 quarter is also too much. Why not letting us to store sand/salt in some seperated glasses(which is an objective which possesses 1 quarter of PDA/Storage) and letting us use those per mL/g? Like 30g salt for each salt-pickup and 10g salt for each cooked would be fine. And it would make more sense.
Allow each 'Salt' slot in the inventory to hold up to say 30 salt or something.
Why does it make sense to use grams and kilos? Only metric users understand that. Imperial users would want ounces and lb's.
What make sense is to use 'portions' as we are not actually worried about taste from the meal, so 1 salt, 1 fish, 1 purple fan means 1 portion of.. That makes much more sense in this world than using grams/liters or anything like that.,,
Let me expound upon my suggestion a little, for whosoever might belong to the peanut gallery of limited imagination.
Right now, the X portion needed for a recipe works well, but that's not to say it can't be improved. Considering this is set far into the future, comparing our fabricator to today's 3D printers might be a slight logic fallacy, but it is the closest comparison we can make. They work by loading the print material by a measured amount. There is no 1 or 2 of it, there is a reservoir that it pulls from, it uses no more or less than needed. (Because I can't take for granted that someone might misconstrue things, let me state this is a simplified description). So given that idea, perhaps a system where our printer can be pre-loaded with an amount of raw material for certain print jobs. From my research, the best consumer based 3D printers out today have the ability to print some of their own upgrades and replacement parts. So one of the many things we can initially work towards is re-engineering our fabricator to make it so that we can an upgrade its current form to do this, with subsequent upgrades to hold larger amounts of material for larger printing jobs.
Hmmmm he used the metric system yet you didn't feel the need to argue his point.
You then asked a question:
to which I replied. I wasn't arguing anything lol, I was merely pointing out that for the sake of inclusivity, a simple portion system is all we need.
My point in my own little meandering rambly way, is we only need the numbers, anything else is irrelevant from the perspective of the game. You can have the numbers represent whatever they want, however in game they need only be numbers.
I pretty much play ONLY survival as I enjoy the hunger/thirst mechanics and they really don't put too much strain on the gameplay imo, though balancing of how it depletes of course is still up for change. I still think it would be nice if some resources stacked, at least to possibly 3 or 5, only things like salt/sand, quartz maybe, not metal or fish/water of course.
- water and food for at least a week for all (2) occupants
- medicines and first aid equipment
- a water-processing unit to gain drinking water from any water source
- a survival kit (knife, flashlight, flares, gun etc.)
But maybe in the story the escape-pod was in maintenance service and there are no supplies at all. And the water-processor was damaged etc.
Or the pod is not an escape-pod but a small research lab?!
Why not add a difficulty setting to the ingame menu?
If hard = current settings then
Easy = 30% consumption rate (this is food, water, o2, etc), permanent day (no night time), no reapers (or other giant
monsters), reduce number of hostile creatures (except stalkers and crash fish [the ones with the powder]) by
1/2, remaining hostile creatures have hostility reduced by 1/2, all eatable items are multiplied by 2, all usable
items (like quartz, lithium, titanium, etc) multiplied by 2
Normal = 60% consumption rate, 2x the length of day, 1/2 the length of night, no reapers (or other giant monsters),
reduce the number of hostile creatures (except stalkers and crash fish) by 1/2, all eatable and usable items
multiplied by 1.5
Hard = Current settings
Impossible = 100% consumption rate, 1/2 length day, 2x length night, 125% the number of all hostile creatures, all
hostile creatures with current hostility, all eatable items at current settings, all usable items at 75% the current
settings
For the starting supplies there should be a builder tool, compass, 1 med kit, food for 2 for 1 day, water for 2 for 1 day, 1 signal scanner (small radio), (the supplies to build) 1 solar panel, 1 foundation, 1 fabricator (removing the one in the pod), 1 hatch, 1 straight corridor, 1 small locker.
Also the power packs should not be able to recharge them selves and should be removable (for use in other things). This goes for batteries in tools as well. Then there can be a new module for bases (and the Cyclops or larger sub) to allow the batteries and power packs to be installed into so they can be recharged or even power the base/ship at night. We should also be able to take the escape pod apart to reuse the parts to help get our base going (it should equal up to 1 Sea Moth without the lube just to keep game balance.
Also I love the Sea Moth but it needs to have it upgrade module slots increased to 6 (instead of 4) and have 3 of them put on the other side of the ship (for both looks and logic since half of the stuff gets mounted to that side of the ship anyway).
The Cyclops should have 10 upgrade slots since it is bigger and can do more (half of the slots on each side of the engine). Also the Cyclops should be able to use all of the Sea Moths upgrade modules except the cargo module. When using the torpedo module 1 adds 2 tubes (1 to each side of the ship between the forward lights) and have it so they can be loaded from inside the forward most room (1/2 of the torpedoes on each side). If you add any other torpedo modules it just increases the torpedo storage capacity in each launcher. The sonar unit would be setup so it is on or off and if on it will keep running and use 0.01% of one cell per second. All the other modules work the same as on the Sea Moth. The roof panels are redone so there can be up to 6 solar arrays put in (4 at the front and 2 at the rear). The upgrade slots will determine where each solar panel is placed. (I also have an idea for the ship to be able to be modified by use of a 4 slot console in place of the portside computer terminal in the forward most room.)
I have to agree though, different difficulty levels will be interesting, but the current food and water system is a bit out there, but then it's the same I found with Fallout New Vegas, can go for 3-4 days without sleeping and 2 days without water or food ... not really realistic, but I can understand it with the Day-Night speed.
I still would like some sort of system to generate food and water. Frankly I have four aquariums in my base simply to hold live food so I can munch as I need. I just grab a few fish every time I leave and it stays resonably stocked. Just add salt when I need rations for setting out. Or just use a heat blade and instant meal on the go. Water however, even with a still suit, just feels frustrating. I really feel there should be a system on base to distill water, maybe even as a constant energy drain until it fills a 'tank'. Something like every 10 seconds a filtered water appears in the inventory and costs 20 energy until a 4x4 inventory is filled.
The only frustrating thing I really find on the survival aspect is that there isn't currently a way to make supply gathering self sufficient on a base. Fix that, and I don't see there being an issue.
These are some good ideas. However, I would like the depth modules to have their own separate upgrade console. I'm thinking 4 depth upgrade slots for the Seamoth and 6 for the Cyclops. For both of these vehicles we need a way to increase or decrease the brightness of our lights inside and outside the ship. We also should have upgrades for the Sonar and Torpedo modules, specifically sonar and we can have the sonar upgrades stack onto each other. So if I make a sonar upgrade that lets me find edible fish, I can then build an upgrade to locate predators as well without needing two separate sonar modules.
As for the food and water rates I feel like they should be slightly faster than Minecraft's hunger bar. That's just a suggestion though.
Do you have the module installed? If so do you have the torpedos made? If yes to these then it's on the right side of the moth at the front