Gonna need a bit more information about what you have now and what you define as a 'good' base. Best thing to do is to play with it and see what suits you.
A good base is somewhere you can grow food. Make water. Store your junk. Have enough power. But also make the things you need.
My first base ( all all other bases due to save/load issues ) was right under my life pod.
Close enough to the surface for solar power. Deep enough but not on the bottom for my moon pool. It grew to a size not really necessary but i liked to have a mansion with a room for every item. My grow room produced enough food i didnt need a water filter but i had one anyway. I had a bio/nuclear power as well as solar. A nice bed room area with coffee vending machine ( never used ) alien containment room and scanner room ( wasted in the shallows near the kelp biom ) it was a nice base but completely over the top. You just need some storage and food/water
It depends what facilities you already have. I will assume not much more than the default ones considering you just have gotten a habitat builder. I'll avoid spoilers.
Obviously the first thing to decide is where to set up shop. The Safe Shallows are a good starter choice with one crucial detail to keep in mind: build near an edge, because otherwise one particular vehicle can not be parked near your base and that will on occasion just be annoying. You could choose to build near a geyser for one particular convenience, but you can get by with transmitters, so it's not necessary. My favorite spot to build is the slope leading into the Kelp Forest just North of a Grassy Plateaus cave entrance to the Jelly Shroom Caves and some wreckage.
Start with a temporary base a little away from your intended spot. As you gain new modules, you can form a design for a permanent base and then not have the temporary one in the way.
Get yourself some lithium ASAP. It'll allow you to reinforce your walls and gives you more possibilities to design as you please. Note that a wall has to be free to be reinforced and that currently some items are bugged to not be possible to be built on reinforced walls (and windows) or to be removed.
Building above water level is not ideal, but you can get a little done by using a mobile vehicle bay as jumping platform. Jump on the rails, then the display, and you can get up a corridor built just above the water, allowing you the angle to make a second above water layer. There's other tips and tricks like making stairs out of platforms - there should be tutorials on YT and the like.
If you ever get the means to "contain aliens", make sure to reserve at least two storeys for it. Certain plants can't grow to their full height with just one.
To practice base building, especially once you find a spot you like (I put in a Centre Base at Loc -130,-16,-243), start a 2nd game in Creative Mode so you can practice laying out the parts.
When you go with your Survival game, you won't have to worry about Lithium and reinforcement for a while if you build at a shallow depth, keep the base small, and put Foundations under most everything. I start off with 2 Foundations and put down a Glass Corridor and a Hatch. At the far end of the platform, I put in 4 and later more Solar Panels. (Between them I can park the Seamoth.) In that one corridor, I can stuff 2 wall lockers, 2 floor lockers, a Fabricator, a Medkit Fabricator, a Comm Link, and later a Battery Charger and 2 Powercell Chargers. I keep the wall opposite the hatch clear as I add in a Multifunction Room there when I get its blueprint. The only rooms you don't want Foundations under are the Moonpool and the Scanner Room; put the Foundations in first before the rooms that go on top. I expand from that 1st MFR both sideways and up.
kingkumacancels Work: distracted by Dwarf FortressJoin Date: 2015-09-25Member: 208137Members
edited March 2017
Go to a Safe shallows - bloodgrass - kelp intersection, near the crash zone. (you'll find it) Find a pillar in the bloodgrass. Put your moonpool down. Build 4 solar panels on the mooniool roof. Don't build a medkit fab or comm link - if you need one use the one in the lifepod. Build a battery and powercell charger instead. Then build 3 multipurpose rooms - one on one end of the MP and 2 stacked on the other. Put alien containment in the stacked ones, and get a bunch or reginalds and breed them. In the other, put down 2 water filtration machines. Put all your lockers and bed and tools in the moonpool. You should be good. You have just made my base. If you need scrap, go to the crash zone with a seamoth with 3 storage and a perimiter def system. Get 12 scrap. Go back to base. Fill up a whole large locker with titanium. Start making a cyclops. When you have made a cyclops, recycle your base's alien containment rooms and use the titanium for the depth upgrade. If you get marblemelons from the floating island, and grow them in an indoor planter, you'll never need food again.
A lot depends on how quickly you built the habitat tool... After playing a lot, I know where to get silver and usually have a habitat builder before I ever have the blueprint for the Multi Purpose Room. As a result, my first base is usually just a cross section corridor that I plop down as a place to fill with storage lockers. I place this as close as possible to the starting lifepod so I don't have too far to go to use the fabricator. I usually put as many solar panels on top as I have quartz--up to about 4. You don't really need more than 1. But I like to have more so I don't run out of power if I'm doing a lot of fabricating.
Once I have the Multi Purpose room, the single best piece of base building advice I ever received was to stack several Multi Purpose Rooms on top of each other to create a super compact base. I like this tip a lot because you can instantly climb ladders versus how long it takes you to move from room to room. Using solar panels for power in either the Safe Shallows or the Crash Zone, you really don't need more than a couple of Multi Purpose rooms stacked on top of each other. But I like to make 5 of them so I can fill three of them with bioreactors. You'll want a TON more power when you eventually get the Moon Pool because it really eats through the power when you recharge the Seamoth. I stack five Multi Purpose rooms on top of each other. Then, I build a foundation just outside the Hatch as a landing platform for my Seamoth. Then, I build another foundation somewhere else attached to the base to use for External Growbeds. I put two Interior Growbeds in each of the three Multi Purpose rooms that have the bio reactors. Inside the grow beds, I usually plant marblemelons and that tree that gives you water.
I tend to build my bases like garath, with stacks of Multipurpose Rooms. My Centre Base is far enough from all possible locations of Lifepod 5 (about 300-500m) that I do build it with a Fab, a Medkit Fab, and a Comm Link. I also put in a Battery Charger and 2 Powercell Chargers.
Directions on the MPR stack are with respect to the initial single Glass Corridor.
On the first MPR attached to my initial single Glass Corridor, I will attach to the left my first Moonpool Room and then to the right the ladder going up. (Eventually on the far wall will be a 2nd MPR stack with a 2nd Moonpool Room to its left; two Moonpools for both Seamoth and PRAWN. Just wish the Cyclops had two stations.)
On the MPR's near 2 diagonal walls I put up 3 Lockers each (the large ones that go on the floor) for storage. I can also put a Reinforcement behind the Lockers and behind the Ladder. On the far 2 diagonal walls I put in 2 Water Filtration Plants, with 1 or 2 extra Lockers for even more storage. Prior to the WFPs, I up the number of Solar Panels on the extended Foundation to 12 or more to keep them going through the night. The base is also not far from a thermal vent and I eventually put in Thermal Plants on the vent and Power Transmission links back to my base. I also fit in several plant pots which can take 4 Marblemelon Seeds, a Bulbo Sample, a Chinese Potato, or a Lantern Tree Fruit to grow plants.
When I want to expand, I put in another MPR stack opposite the original Glass Corridor of the started base. That way I can put in 2 Moonpool Rooms both going to the left over the edge of the cliff. I build the 2 stacks of MPRs up for Alien Containment and eventually a Nuclear Reactor.
I always put Foundations under rooms before they are built (you can't put them in afterwards). I also put Solar Panels on a extra Foundation rather than a room or corridor. There was a bug that sometimes the panels on top would be destroyed if you extended the base. Don't know if that was fixed.
Big thing with the MPRs is that you will have stuff inside including lockers, so after the base is built or extended, it becomes hard to change the layout. Thus my suggestion of trying a build out in a separate Creative save.
Eventually I equip my Cyclops as a moving base. I put in over 50 Wall Lockers and a bunch of wall (4 each side of the forward window) and floor plant pots to grow Marblemelons, Chinese Potato, Bulbo Trees, and even a Lantern Tree. I put the plants, about 6 or 7 lockers, a Battery Charger, and a Comm Link on the bridge to hold gear and rations. The lower deck gets most of the lockers as well as a Fab and a Medkit Fab. The engine room gets a Powercell Charger. When I get the Modification Station, it goes in behind the bridge with more lockers.
Just keep in mind that your base is to serve only a few key functions in the beginning:
1. Power supply
2. Oxygen supply
3. Storage space
So, when you first start out, you can build a "microbase" consisting of just a hallway tube or two and a hatch. Inside that hallway you can put lockers to store your salvage. For flexibility, you can use a T or + intersection tube for your first piece, which will allow you to expand your base without having to deconstruct it first.
When siting your first base, make sure you pick a place that has plenty of horizontal space, because you're going to want to expand. Many players site their first base very close to Lifepod 5 so they don't have to make long runs to use a Fabricator. It can be helpful to site your base near a cliff, so you can later build a moonpool over the deeper water (off the edge of the cliff) to make docking easier. Also, be sure to build foundations for your base pieces; while not particularly critical in early stages of construction, you'll be glad to have them later.
Early bases don't have to be cute - in fact, simple is better. Don't worry about windows and glass hallways to start; there's plenty of time for that later. You should be focusing on building only a handful of structures:
1. Foundations enough to fit your current construction
2. An intersection and an attached hallway for space
3. Solar panels on the roof for power
4. Lockers inside for storage
And that's it.
As you unlock new blueprints by scanning objects, you'll be able to expand your base. The multipurpose room is particularly useful, as it provides the layout flexibility of hallway intersections as well as large amounts of interior space. While you can get by in the shallows without multipurpose rooms, they are critical to deeper base construction as you'll need non-solar power generators.
When expanding from your initial microbase, widen your foundation and build at least one hallway length from the intersection that formed your first piece. At the ends of those hallways can go multipurpose rooms. What you use those rooms for and how you lay them out is entirely up to you; the jobs multipurpose rooms should do - and where they do it - should fit your play style. If you feel that there should be a room here as a living space with a bed, and one there with storage and a fabricator, do it! There are very few "wrong" ways to build a base.
Stacking multipurpose rooms can be particularly helpful. You'll want to start with an empty multipurpose room attached to your base. Select the Multipurpose Room in your Hab Builder's menu, and place the wireframe above the existing multipurpose room; when the wireframe "clicks" to the existing room and turns green, you're good to stack up. There's no limit to how many rooms you can stack, but you'll need to add interior ladders to connect one level to the next. (You can also add exterior hatches to multipurpose rooms, so if you want to be able to hop into your base, dump your inventory into a locker, and hop right back out, a hatch can be helpful.) Personally, I find it useful to build a "Workshop Stack," where the bottom layer has a few lockers, a fabricator and an upgrade station, and upper level(s) are filled with large storage lockers. As the lockers in the fabricator level are emptied, I can bring resources down from the upper level "pantry" to fill them back up.
As you begin to add multipurpose rooms and especially windows, your base integrity is going to fall. If it falls too far, the base ruptures, leaks, fills with water, and essentially does nothing until repaired. To avoid this, keep doing three things:
1. Always build on foundations
2. Add reinforcement panels whenever you can
3. Regularly install bulkheads inside hallways
You don't need to go nuts with 2 and 3; when base integrity starts dipping, knock on a few reinforcement panels or add a bulkhead, and you should be right as rain.
Build a scanner, Knife, and Seamoth or Seaglide and go to the Floater Island which is East of your Lifepod assuming that the Aurora is North of the Lifepod. Scan the various structures on the island and grab a few edible plants to plant in your base. There are 3 bases and a bunch of datapads to find on the island. The initial buildable structures are not good enough for most work.
What is this crazy talk about always building on foundations?? That's just silly. I only use foundations for two things:
1. You can't build Exterior Growbeds on the ocean floor; they must be built on foundations.
2. They make nice Seamoth landing pads before you get the Moon Pool
The cool thing about foundations is if you build them even remotely close to your base, they add to structural integrity--regardless if your buildings are actually on them or not.
I would never in a million years build on a foundation at any point in the game once I've found even one lithium. The cost versus structural integrity just doesn't make sense to me.
Ummm..., yeah you can build Exterior Growbeds on the seabed.
As long as it's a flat area, I do it all the time.
Mainly because I grow my own assortment of mushrooms, and if you harvest them for spores they tend to "Blow Up" in yer face and damage any base parts nearby.
So it's a waste of Titanium to use Foundations under their growbeds.
...go to the Floater Island which is East of your Lifepod assuming that the Aurora is North of the Lifepod. Scan the various structures on the island and grab a few edible plants to plant in your base. There are 3 bases and a bunch of datapads to find on the island. The initial buildable structures are not good enough for most work.
When you get a compass, you'll see that the direction that Floater Island bears from where Lifepod 5 lands is closer to being south. It's a good place with lots of structures to scan for blueprints, several PDAs, and interesting plants, some of them edible. Be sure to cut some Bulbo Tree Samples as well as pick Lantern Tree Fruit and Chinese Potato. Reap the Marblemelon with a Knife to get them to split into 4 seeds.
In my last 2 games, I now hold off going to the Floating Island until I get the Cyclops, partly to make it easier to haul back all the plants. In one excursion in the Seamoth (to Lifepod 19) I was actually at the island, but I didn't explore it at that time. I find it's better to explore towards the Aurora and north towards Volcano Island and northwest into the Mushroom Forest and Floating Islands. (Watch out for Reapers.) You get a Diamond from cracking Basalt Outcroppings to make the Laser Cutter, so when you explore, you can be thorough going through wrecks.
Otherwise, I focus on setting up a small single Glass Corridor base under Lifepod 5 and then a similar Centre Base near the centre of of the map just over one of the shafts going down to the Jelly Shroom Caves. I later expand Centre Base when I get the blueprints for the Multipurpose Room and the Moonpool. Bases are first to hold some lockers to allow stockpiling mats. Then I add in Comm Link, Fab, Medkit Fab, and later the Battery and Powercell Chargers. When I get the Cyclops, I fully kit it out to be as much as possible a floating mobile base.
1. You can't build Exterior Growbeds on the ocean floor; they must be built on foundations.
2. [ Foundations ] make nice Seamoth landing pads before you get the Moon Pool
They do make nice landing pads. However, currently it's hard to put Exterior Growbeds directly on the ocean floor, but possible if it's flat enough.
I think Foundations are very helpful, although it might be tougher to use them in some places, now that they have a greater standoff from the ocean floor. I save the Lithium for reinforcements on Multipurpose Room diagonals, perhaps behind Floor Lockers. You can even fit one behind a Ladder. I put Foundations under everything except the Moonpool Rooms and the Scanner Room. They're only 4 Ti each and make things regular, but be sure to practice setting up, perhaps in a Creative Save, to be sure you can align them with the rooms properly.
Because of earlier bugs destroying Solar Panels on Corridors and Rooms when new rooms were added nearby, I also put my Solar Panels at a bit of distance on an extra Foundation. 2 Foundations also make it easy to add a base to a near vertical cliff when making small bases at Floater and Volcano Islands.
My bases start with a single Glass Corridor (so I can see out all around), so put down 2 Foundations and there's plenty of room for the Corridor, the Solar Panels, and parking the Seamoth.
Comments
My first base ( all all other bases due to save/load issues ) was right under my life pod.
Close enough to the surface for solar power. Deep enough but not on the bottom for my moon pool. It grew to a size not really necessary but i liked to have a mansion with a room for every item. My grow room produced enough food i didnt need a water filter but i had one anyway. I had a bio/nuclear power as well as solar. A nice bed room area with coffee vending machine ( never used ) alien containment room and scanner room ( wasted in the shallows near the kelp biom ) it was a nice base but completely over the top. You just need some storage and food/water
Then spawn a reaper.
When you go with your Survival game, you won't have to worry about Lithium and reinforcement for a while if you build at a shallow depth, keep the base small, and put Foundations under most everything. I start off with 2 Foundations and put down a Glass Corridor and a Hatch. At the far end of the platform, I put in 4 and later more Solar Panels. (Between them I can park the Seamoth.) In that one corridor, I can stuff 2 wall lockers, 2 floor lockers, a Fabricator, a Medkit Fabricator, a Comm Link, and later a Battery Charger and 2 Powercell Chargers. I keep the wall opposite the hatch clear as I add in a Multifunction Room there when I get its blueprint. The only rooms you don't want Foundations under are the Moonpool and the Scanner Room; put the Foundations in first before the rooms that go on top. I expand from that 1st MFR both sideways and up.
Once I have the Multi Purpose room, the single best piece of base building advice I ever received was to stack several Multi Purpose Rooms on top of each other to create a super compact base. I like this tip a lot because you can instantly climb ladders versus how long it takes you to move from room to room. Using solar panels for power in either the Safe Shallows or the Crash Zone, you really don't need more than a couple of Multi Purpose rooms stacked on top of each other. But I like to make 5 of them so I can fill three of them with bioreactors. You'll want a TON more power when you eventually get the Moon Pool because it really eats through the power when you recharge the Seamoth. I stack five Multi Purpose rooms on top of each other. Then, I build a foundation just outside the Hatch as a landing platform for my Seamoth. Then, I build another foundation somewhere else attached to the base to use for External Growbeds. I put two Interior Growbeds in each of the three Multi Purpose rooms that have the bio reactors. Inside the grow beds, I usually plant marblemelons and that tree that gives you water.
Directions on the MPR stack are with respect to the initial single Glass Corridor.
On the first MPR attached to my initial single Glass Corridor, I will attach to the left my first Moonpool Room and then to the right the ladder going up. (Eventually on the far wall will be a 2nd MPR stack with a 2nd Moonpool Room to its left; two Moonpools for both Seamoth and PRAWN. Just wish the Cyclops had two stations.)
On the MPR's near 2 diagonal walls I put up 3 Lockers each (the large ones that go on the floor) for storage. I can also put a Reinforcement behind the Lockers and behind the Ladder. On the far 2 diagonal walls I put in 2 Water Filtration Plants, with 1 or 2 extra Lockers for even more storage. Prior to the WFPs, I up the number of Solar Panels on the extended Foundation to 12 or more to keep them going through the night. The base is also not far from a thermal vent and I eventually put in Thermal Plants on the vent and Power Transmission links back to my base. I also fit in several plant pots which can take 4 Marblemelon Seeds, a Bulbo Sample, a Chinese Potato, or a Lantern Tree Fruit to grow plants.
When I want to expand, I put in another MPR stack opposite the original Glass Corridor of the started base. That way I can put in 2 Moonpool Rooms both going to the left over the edge of the cliff. I build the 2 stacks of MPRs up for Alien Containment and eventually a Nuclear Reactor.
I always put Foundations under rooms before they are built (you can't put them in afterwards). I also put Solar Panels on a extra Foundation rather than a room or corridor. There was a bug that sometimes the panels on top would be destroyed if you extended the base. Don't know if that was fixed.
Big thing with the MPRs is that you will have stuff inside including lockers, so after the base is built or extended, it becomes hard to change the layout. Thus my suggestion of trying a build out in a separate Creative save.
Eventually I equip my Cyclops as a moving base. I put in over 50 Wall Lockers and a bunch of wall (4 each side of the forward window) and floor plant pots to grow Marblemelons, Chinese Potato, Bulbo Trees, and even a Lantern Tree. I put the plants, about 6 or 7 lockers, a Battery Charger, and a Comm Link on the bridge to hold gear and rations. The lower deck gets most of the lockers as well as a Fab and a Medkit Fab. The engine room gets a Powercell Charger. When I get the Modification Station, it goes in behind the bridge with more lockers.
1. Power supply
2. Oxygen supply
3. Storage space
So, when you first start out, you can build a "microbase" consisting of just a hallway tube or two and a hatch. Inside that hallway you can put lockers to store your salvage. For flexibility, you can use a T or + intersection tube for your first piece, which will allow you to expand your base without having to deconstruct it first.
When siting your first base, make sure you pick a place that has plenty of horizontal space, because you're going to want to expand. Many players site their first base very close to Lifepod 5 so they don't have to make long runs to use a Fabricator. It can be helpful to site your base near a cliff, so you can later build a moonpool over the deeper water (off the edge of the cliff) to make docking easier. Also, be sure to build foundations for your base pieces; while not particularly critical in early stages of construction, you'll be glad to have them later.
Early bases don't have to be cute - in fact, simple is better. Don't worry about windows and glass hallways to start; there's plenty of time for that later. You should be focusing on building only a handful of structures:
1. Foundations enough to fit your current construction
2. An intersection and an attached hallway for space
3. Solar panels on the roof for power
4. Lockers inside for storage
And that's it.
As you unlock new blueprints by scanning objects, you'll be able to expand your base. The multipurpose room is particularly useful, as it provides the layout flexibility of hallway intersections as well as large amounts of interior space. While you can get by in the shallows without multipurpose rooms, they are critical to deeper base construction as you'll need non-solar power generators.
When expanding from your initial microbase, widen your foundation and build at least one hallway length from the intersection that formed your first piece. At the ends of those hallways can go multipurpose rooms. What you use those rooms for and how you lay them out is entirely up to you; the jobs multipurpose rooms should do - and where they do it - should fit your play style. If you feel that there should be a room here as a living space with a bed, and one there with storage and a fabricator, do it! There are very few "wrong" ways to build a base.
Stacking multipurpose rooms can be particularly helpful. You'll want to start with an empty multipurpose room attached to your base. Select the Multipurpose Room in your Hab Builder's menu, and place the wireframe above the existing multipurpose room; when the wireframe "clicks" to the existing room and turns green, you're good to stack up. There's no limit to how many rooms you can stack, but you'll need to add interior ladders to connect one level to the next. (You can also add exterior hatches to multipurpose rooms, so if you want to be able to hop into your base, dump your inventory into a locker, and hop right back out, a hatch can be helpful.) Personally, I find it useful to build a "Workshop Stack," where the bottom layer has a few lockers, a fabricator and an upgrade station, and upper level(s) are filled with large storage lockers. As the lockers in the fabricator level are emptied, I can bring resources down from the upper level "pantry" to fill them back up.
As you begin to add multipurpose rooms and especially windows, your base integrity is going to fall. If it falls too far, the base ruptures, leaks, fills with water, and essentially does nothing until repaired. To avoid this, keep doing three things:
1. Always build on foundations
2. Add reinforcement panels whenever you can
3. Regularly install bulkheads inside hallways
You don't need to go nuts with 2 and 3; when base integrity starts dipping, knock on a few reinforcement panels or add a bulkhead, and you should be right as rain.
And when you have more questions, ask 'em!
1. You can't build Exterior Growbeds on the ocean floor; they must be built on foundations.
2. They make nice Seamoth landing pads before you get the Moon Pool
The cool thing about foundations is if you build them even remotely close to your base, they add to structural integrity--regardless if your buildings are actually on them or not.
I would never in a million years build on a foundation at any point in the game once I've found even one lithium. The cost versus structural integrity just doesn't make sense to me.
As long as it's a flat area, I do it all the time.
Mainly because I grow my own assortment of mushrooms, and if you harvest them for spores they tend to "Blow Up" in yer face and damage any base parts nearby.
So it's a waste of Titanium to use Foundations under their growbeds.
In my last 2 games, I now hold off going to the Floating Island until I get the Cyclops, partly to make it easier to haul back all the plants. In one excursion in the Seamoth (to Lifepod 19) I was actually at the island, but I didn't explore it at that time. I find it's better to explore towards the Aurora and north towards Volcano Island and northwest into the Mushroom Forest and Floating Islands. (Watch out for Reapers.) You get a Diamond from cracking Basalt Outcroppings to make the Laser Cutter, so when you explore, you can be thorough going through wrecks.
Otherwise, I focus on setting up a small single Glass Corridor base under Lifepod 5 and then a similar Centre Base near the centre of of the map just over one of the shafts going down to the Jelly Shroom Caves. I later expand Centre Base when I get the blueprints for the Multipurpose Room and the Moonpool. Bases are first to hold some lockers to allow stockpiling mats. Then I add in Comm Link, Fab, Medkit Fab, and later the Battery and Powercell Chargers. When I get the Cyclops, I fully kit it out to be as much as possible a floating mobile base.
They do make nice landing pads. However, currently it's hard to put Exterior Growbeds directly on the ocean floor, but possible if it's flat enough.
I think Foundations are very helpful, although it might be tougher to use them in some places, now that they have a greater standoff from the ocean floor. I save the Lithium for reinforcements on Multipurpose Room diagonals, perhaps behind Floor Lockers. You can even fit one behind a Ladder. I put Foundations under everything except the Moonpool Rooms and the Scanner Room. They're only 4 Ti each and make things regular, but be sure to practice setting up, perhaps in a Creative Save, to be sure you can align them with the rooms properly.
Because of earlier bugs destroying Solar Panels on Corridors and Rooms when new rooms were added nearby, I also put my Solar Panels at a bit of distance on an extra Foundation. 2 Foundations also make it easy to add a base to a near vertical cliff when making small bases at Floater and Volcano Islands.
My bases start with a single Glass Corridor (so I can see out all around), so put down 2 Foundations and there's plenty of room for the Corridor, the Solar Panels, and parking the Seamoth.
https://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/138992/seabase-showcase/p1
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