Pressure should affect diver too
Osydius
France Join Date: 2015-09-19 Member: 208031Members
France Join Date: 2015-09-19 Member: 208031Members
So we know from Trello that the team is working on diving limits for all submarines (Cyclops is now supposed to go deeper, etc), but I don't think I've seen anything on the diver himself.
Normally, you would not be able to go further than 100-120 meters on air alone or it would end up killing you. I've read that deep sea divers use a mix of gases to go deeper and can reach up to 320 meters, although they then have to spend quite some time in decompression.
So in order to be more realistic, I think the diver's body in subnautica should be submitted (more or less) to the same limits, i.e.:
What should happen if you go beyond those points without the right equipment is (i) that your available air will decrease faster due to pressure and (ii) if you go 50 meters deeper than the depth limit, you will start losing HP.
Relevant gases or liquid could be filled using a mix of air + some component you have in your inventory. So for instance, you could have a new tank designed specially to hold a specific gas, and everytime you come up to the surface to breath, your upgraded tanks would fill with air + a fraction of the gas contained in said new tank. So after maybe 5 or 10 uses, you would have to go back to base or Cyclops to refill your additional tank.
I think that would add a lot to the realism of the game (together with submarine updates) and of course we could imagine using DNA at a later stage to increase those limits.
Normally, you would not be able to go further than 100-120 meters on air alone or it would end up killing you. I've read that deep sea divers use a mix of gases to go deeper and can reach up to 320 meters, although they then have to spend quite some time in decompression.
So in order to be more realistic, I think the diver's body in subnautica should be submitted (more or less) to the same limits, i.e.:
- Air alone until 150 meters; then
- you need to improve your tanks to fill them with mix gas to go up to 350 meters; and then
- you need another upgrade for your tanks to fill them with breathable liquid to go beyond.
What should happen if you go beyond those points without the right equipment is (i) that your available air will decrease faster due to pressure and (ii) if you go 50 meters deeper than the depth limit, you will start losing HP.
Relevant gases or liquid could be filled using a mix of air + some component you have in your inventory. So for instance, you could have a new tank designed specially to hold a specific gas, and everytime you come up to the surface to breath, your upgraded tanks would fill with air + a fraction of the gas contained in said new tank. So after maybe 5 or 10 uses, you would have to go back to base or Cyclops to refill your additional tank.
I think that would add a lot to the realism of the game (together with submarine updates) and of course we could imagine using DNA at a later stage to increase those limits.
Comments
Exactly. It would have been a different story if for some reason (water density, DNA alteration, gravity, etc.) pressure was not an issue on this planet, but it clearly is since our submarines are limited by said pressure (even more than on Earth actually). So it only makes sense for the diver also to feel the effect of said pressure.
And even if you say that the air, while breathable, is actually composed of other gases allowing a diver to go deeper than he would have with Earth air, your lungs would still get crushed at some point under too much pressure.
It just feels weird to think that our titanium submarines need to be updraged several times to be able to reach 1000 meters, but that we can then simply get out and stroll around without any ill effect.
Nah you are right but not right now cause the only option we have right now to do stuff outside our subs is in our diving suit. A feature to be implemented one would say
Eventually they'll depth cap us.
Not just necessarily Terran either. Those log entries talk of the other crash survivors being infected with something. I would bet it's some kind of retrovirus rewriting their DNA and turning them into something local, aquatic, and not bothered by depth.
http://subnautica.wikia.com/wiki/Propulsion_Cannon
I would also be fine with a propulsion cannon mounted to the front of my Seamoth like a Space Marine Landspeeder that let me hoover in stuff without (and this is the key point) actually getting out of the Seamoth ever.
What type of one-man submersible doesn't even have a robotic arm? It is not like you can go out of the sub at 1,000 meters to grab some marine sample. Also, Subnautica should have the technology to create Drones for air surveillance, aquatic exploration, and aquatic labor. Drones should actually be standard equipment for all lifepods since it is the best method of viewing the surroundings in safety while on an unknown planet.
The ADS or exosuit starts somewhere at 500m and probably ends at endgame depth of 1500m or beyond. It's like a personal sub with its own breathing environment like the seamoth. Only that it's armored to the max. The exosuit is probably less flexible than scuba diving, but also allows heat and acid protection. Practically the exosuit should allow to access inventory and tools or we can't do much with it in the deep.
Between 200m and 500m we'd have to use either saturation diving (not implemented in the game) or some exoskeleton based, reinforced diving suit together with an advanced breathing tank system, advanced rebreather or liquid breathing system. An alternative could be to reimplement the rebreather use, so that a rebreather gets a must beyond 200m and allows diving to 500m. Otherwise the exosuit would be mandatory at 200m, making wreck exploration somehow impossible. So the exosuit use is somewhat best for depths beyond the wrecks.
Saturation diving, different breathing mixtures, decompression or the bends could make it into the game. But as it would only be played by a few hardcore players, it's very questionable to put programming effort into it for only a few players. And the roadmap is already at its limit without it. So I think it will never make it into the game.
Diving in tight places like wreck shafts is either limited to above exosuit depths or managable with some endgame tech that allows diving with some underwater ironman liquid breathing suit or by transfusion with some dna. In case we allow diving at all depths, like it just works now, the exosuit would get a usability problem and only be best used at the lava biomes or deep river depths far below 900m.
We'll probably know more next month with the exosuit update.
I think decompression will never make it because it would create too much downtime. I mean Airlocks would make a lot of sense too but I think the reason they're not in is the same, i.e. it would craete too much downtime (I would love it myself but not sure the feeling is shared by many).
But it could be very easy to implement for instance liquid breathing with a simple update of the suit or the tanks, or DNA. It would only take one small adjustment to the modification station which seem very feasible.
Otherwise, as you mention quite correctly, what would be the point of getting an exosuit (aside from the cool factor)? Making the diver pressure dependant makes the exosuit relevant, which is what we all want.
A chamber connecting 2 sides with a different environment. Open to one side, but never open for all. Go in. Press adaption to auto-close doors and start environmental adaption. This will take some short playable time to remind you adaption is going on and give you the feeling. Then the other door will auto-open to avoid the whole chamber being a game-fun-stopper or hazzle. So all you do is go in, push and wait, then exit.
The underwater base has then different pressured environments according to its outer exits if they are more than let's say 100m apart and would need to segment itself with the chambers. A small base with a moonpool at 400m wouldn't need it. But if you'd enter the seamoth and exit it later at 0m, you should die in hardcore mode. Or if you enter a base with a moonpool at 0m, drive the seamoth to 400m and exit, you'd die.
Another possibility could be less science fiction and more time consuming. A decompression chamber coupled to a lift station. You enter the lift at 50m. Then press button sub 1 for the first exit at 450m. The lift travels down while pressure levels adapt and sci fi helps your body to adapt faster too. The travel time could be simulated to be 1 minute each 100m, so you might get a feeling that this takes time but not enough to destroy play. If the lift is inside glass, the scenery watching could shorten the waiting time. You could also allow RC station control with the PDA or connect to your scanner room cams while travelling in the lift.
The different modes could carry different adaption times. Creative or Freedom is without adaption. Survival uses a quick 10 seconds adaption time for 100m, while hardcore could increase it to 1 minute or more to force you planning it carefully.
I think the elevator solution might be the most convenient one. But it also means that you can't just connect 2 different pressure sections of a base without creating breaches and giving the player the bends.
With swimming it would mean that you couldn't change heights too fast without getting damage. Only the exosuit and seamoth would allow a quick height change and another reason to make the exosuit more useful. You could even walk at the beach inside the exosuit and then dive down the mountain cliff in no time or get up from below and explore the surface with the exosuit. But not with your normal suit and tanks. The HUD depth display could flash in color and with accoustic warnings if you change height too fast.
And last but not least, there's the transfuser and alien DNA to allow you to adapt to pressures faster.
So no, the limit isn't too technical. Maybe too much programming effort if the roadmap doesn't allow it anymore. Or creating too much hazzle because the interface implementation goes wrong (like those bioreactor, nuclear reactor and cyclops reworkings to make them hazzle free and used again). It's probably more a question if the game has enough players that want it or accept it as a part of an advanced diving simulation.