Inventory management is kind of a PITA. Here's an idea.
Wodenifferous
Join Date: 2017-03-01 Member: 228458Members
Join Date: 2017-03-01 Member: 228458Members
Preface: I'll be shocked if hundreds of people haven't already made this same suggestion.
Managing inventory is easily the worst part of Subnautica. Dozens of containers filled with the detritus of mining expeditions and all the "ooh shiny" moments you get while sailing around, and then when it comes time to build something you have to spend time searching them all to find where you left that one piece of silver.
In other words, it's annoying and time-wasting. So, suggestion time.
Step one: we should be able to break ingots back down into ores. Crafting is done via some Star Trek replicator business, so there's no reason it couldn't restore an ingot to ore.
Step two: all resources should be craftable into ingots (or appropriate equivalent).
And there you have it. Far fewer inventory headaches, through the power of science!
(Optional step three for additional quality of life: allow the crafting system to use ingots as inputs for recipes that call for ores, and deposit the leftover ores into the player's inventory to "make change.")
Managing inventory is easily the worst part of Subnautica. Dozens of containers filled with the detritus of mining expeditions and all the "ooh shiny" moments you get while sailing around, and then when it comes time to build something you have to spend time searching them all to find where you left that one piece of silver.
In other words, it's annoying and time-wasting. So, suggestion time.
Step one: we should be able to break ingots back down into ores. Crafting is done via some Star Trek replicator business, so there's no reason it couldn't restore an ingot to ore.
Step two: all resources should be craftable into ingots (or appropriate equivalent).
And there you have it. Far fewer inventory headaches, through the power of science!
(Optional step three for additional quality of life: allow the crafting system to use ingots as inputs for recipes that call for ores, and deposit the leftover ores into the player's inventory to "make change.")
Comments
Inventory management is only as much as a pita as you make it.
But it's a safe bet that the useless resources won't be useless forever, which is going to expand the inventory slots required for a reasonable supply. And even if they were useless forever, relying on the player to manage the inventory explosion depends on the player already having a deep knowledge of the game, which means many new players will wind up doing exactly what I did: wasting cumulative hours gathering, transporting, and shuffling inventory to store resources that shouldn't be bothered with.
If, instead, fabricators could save nine out of ten inventory slots, it would shift some of the focus back onto playing the game instead of futzing with inventory, and I think that's an important design goal.
The fabricator can access it and you can build away without having to move resources into your personal inventory first.
The room can contain a readout of its contents via some panel.
I actually suggested something in that vein over here, as it happens.
(holding a titanium ingot out to a stalker)
"Just bite it apart, would'ya? Come on, you chew on any metal you find! Just bite the ingot...OW! THE INGOT, YOU JERK! NOT ME!"
Not everything has to craft into an item named "ingot," but everything can craft into some 10:1 form. It's cool that you find inventory management fun. I absolutely don't. I am constantly annoyed every time I have to perform arbitrary fiddlefarting just to make what I want to make.
I think that's part of the challenge, though (although I agree metals should be able to be condensed into an ingot and then broken back down, perhaps make crafting ingots and breaking them down cost 5x power or something to compensate for the saved inventory space?)
Level 1: Titanium and Quartz (10:6 lockers)
Level 2: Copper, Silver, Gold, Diamonds, Lithium, Lead, Salt (4:2:2:1:2:1:2) with a side open for spares
Level 3: Magnetite, Aluminum Oxide, Uraninite, and other things I don't run across much of. Also: a locker for table coral, a locker for common coral, a locker for eggs, and a locker for miscellaneous biological products. Occasionally I'll end up with enough stalker teeth to warrant its own locker, but not in a normal run through. Kyanite, sulpher, and other new stuff would go here as its not usually full.
Level 4: Overflow, frequently titanium and quartz if I'm not actively building while mass salvaging.
I'm also one of those people that grabs literally everything that I find resource wise so I kinda have to keep things organized otherwise I'd lose the one piece of silver among 48 lockers...
Yeah, I can dig that. Cost:benefit is a good mechanic to implement.
We really should have a blueprint of a seabase module that can act as a storage and the fabricator, modification station, and vehicle modification station can access the contents. This would keep the fish out of water feeling that we have in the beginning but allow us to have a decent inventory system for mid to late game.
I would actually have the thing be two separate blueprints. The whole setup would require two levels of a MP room. The bottom level would be the actual storage area and the upper level would be something on a wall or something that you could build the fabricator and other things so they can access the storage contents.
I organize my stuff by chemical formula.
Wall lockers in my cyclops:
Titanium - Ti x2
Quartz - SiO4 x1
Copper - Cu x1
Silver - Ag x1
Gold and Diamonds - Au / C x1
Magnetite and Lithium - Fe3O4 / Li x1
Aluminum oxide and Kyanite -AlO2 / Al2SiO5 x1
Salt - Nacl x1
Reginalds x1
Ion crystals + precursor artifacts x1
Player equipment (tools, torpedoes, that sort of thing) x1
Vehicle upgrades + Prawn arms x1
Lockers in hallway
Locker 1 - Water
Locker 2 - Misc eggs
Locker 3 - Table coral
Locker 4 - empty
Locker 5 - misc junk