Sunbeam and plot progression
Firebee
Ontario Join Date: 2015-12-30 Member: 210581Members
Ontario Join Date: 2015-12-30 Member: 210581Members
Ive played through the new stuff with the sunbeam recently and have some thoughts about the events placement in the time line. I feel like it happens a bit too soon? Playing through while rushing, I managed to get a seamoth before it came but I hadn't been to the aurora yet, or gotten to most of the lifepods, or even made it to the floater island and it just made me feel so much more rushed and confused. Because I had so many plot things telling me to do stuff between the auroras drive core needing repair, the message telling me to go to the rendezvous point on floater island, and the Sunbeam messages slowing building on me. I under stand having it happen sooner so you don;t fund the structure on the other island before the message tells you to go there but it kind of ruins the feel of the game for me. I've always liked the laid back, do it as you do it feel of subnautica and everything happening so fast kind of got in the way of that.
It also got in the way of the guided exploration we had with the other messages, since, the life pod messages guided us around and then guide us out to floater island with the aurora this ever present option that we are not actively prompted to go to. I feel the Sunbeam plot should be triggered by actually going to the floater island so that once youve done that and got your next bread crumb to go deeper, then you are guided to the second island. By then most people will have wrapped up all the life pods, and probably gone to the aurora after checking out life pod 4. I just personally feel like it would fit better there. What does every one else think?
It also got in the way of the guided exploration we had with the other messages, since, the life pod messages guided us around and then guide us out to floater island with the aurora this ever present option that we are not actively prompted to go to. I feel the Sunbeam plot should be triggered by actually going to the floater island so that once youve done that and got your next bread crumb to go deeper, then you are guided to the second island. By then most people will have wrapped up all the life pods, and probably gone to the aurora after checking out life pod 4. I just personally feel like it would fit better there. What does every one else think?
Comments
As for the aurora's drive core, other than the initial blast, nothing in the game pressures you to explore it, much less fix the core itself. You can feasibly go through the entire game ignoring the area around the aurora and only explore it when you want to.
I think you probably just checked the radio a tad bit too often and ended up getting things to occur all at once.
There probably is no scripted result for shutting down the weapon before the Sunbeam arrives because you basically need to all but complete the game (get cured) in order to deactivate the weapon.
Which means building a Cyclops, probably a PRAWN, diving down through the Lost River, into the Lava Zones, dodging the Sea Dragons, finding the Emperor, and getting back up to deactivate the weapon.
I think trying to save the Sunbeam is as futile as attempting to keep the Aurora from exploding.
Originally the Sunbeam's messages basically told you "Yeah sorry, we're not equipped to help you right now but we'll drop a message at the next starbase in a year or so. Hold out until then m'kay?" and the Signal Device was the thing that pointed you at the island. After they started phasing out the Signals in chests with ones received from communications, I guess they needed something/someone to direct you to the not-that-hard-to-find island. I'm still not convinced the Sunbeam was the best way to go about it, but it works I guess.
Trying to save it under the current conditions, yeah it'd be futile. A fun speed run challenge for those who are into that sort of thing perhaps, but futile for everyone else. I don't think it could be futile though - our coms relay is obviously short range. Enough to pick up and transmit in the vicinity but not enough to go off-planet. The Aurora's distress signals though, are strong enough to go off world and the Sunbeam picks those up. After that a timer starts in the background until it arrives (I don't feel like a week actually goes by between the first message and their arrival does it? Guess they pick up the pace after they find your ship got messed up) and that gives you X in-game days to find out about the defense platform and its purpose then either (A) Disable it, or (B) repair the Aurora's long-range communications and signal to the Sunbeam that approaching the planet is suicide. Oh, and (C) - letting them approach anyway, because variety's good like that and the possibility you simply failed to meet the requirements for saving them.
Like how I feel about the ILZ access points right now I feel the game should be allowing the player more choices in things, and there's plenty of room for allowing the Sunbeam to be spared - we just don't have the means to in the current build of the game. When more achievements are added in the future, I could see saving them (Or failing / refusing to) as being an achievement of its own too.
True, for now. In the future though they'll either need to have an alternate outcome where it lands without getting shot down (However you may get that done) or have a way of getting them to turn back. Because having a disabled weapon still be able to fire sounds a little odd xD
http://subnautica.wikia.com/wiki/Data_Downloads#Alterra_Launches_the_Aurora
So as you play normally you have a pretty good chance (100% is pretty good) of seeing the sunbeam explode. Now imagine that all the people asking if you can save it... actually get a yes for an answer. Speedrunning reward.
Just as metroid 1 had samus becoming a girl if you did everything fast enough, so too do you get an alternate ending if you can cure the disease and stop the cannon fast enough. Should you beat the clock, you get to leave then and there, and get some cool ending. It would be a reward for speedrunning the game, and create a challenge to overcome.
The game is about exploration, but just as any open world game, it is about challenge. When you run out of challenges, you make your own. So this would be a challenge to overcome, a cool one that would be made by the devs.
Think about it when you go into the game blind you don't know anything about what is happening within the game. So you are either going to get the messages because you fix the communications relay, which for 99% of new players will eventually happen and probably long before you find any information about the carar and gun itself.
Also, it seems to be that the communications relay is a tempoary solution when being crash landed on an alien planet. It doesn't seem to be effective enough to send out strong enough signals allowing you to directly communicate with the Sunbeam ship. Although it is unclear whether this is because they will implement it but haven't, the planet is too far away from civilisations so direct transmission is impossible or whether the communications relay really is just a emergency terminal where you can get information and send out an emergency report but that is essentially it.
TBH the Sunbeam is pretty dumb they don't take any precautions to scan and identify whether there was a major hazard that destroyed the Aurora.
To your eyes it appears to be shrouded in cloud. To a mechanical scanner, it probably appears to be an innocent island with two mountain peaks. One does not realize that one of the peaks is artificial until it's too late.
Why, when they just wanted quarantine? Perhaps they didn't want someone leveling their gun with a KEW.
well..... sometimes....
well.... i'm on the new Exoplanet that NASA found... i'm from the future...... nah i dont... so.... waht now? suggestion?