Oxygen Tanks in Voice of the Deep
Jacke
Calgary Join Date: 2017-03-20 Member: 229061Members
Calgary Join Date: 2017-03-20 Member: 229061Members
EDIT: Check the SAFETY NOTE below.
EDIT 2017 Jun 21: These changes are now in Stable with version Voice of the Deep.
EDIT: For exploring wrecks, I have used 2 HC Tanks/LW HC Tanks, 1 in the paperdoll model and 1 spare, and swapped between them. This still gets close to being too little in some case and perhaps I should have used 2 spare tanks. For single tank use, as I always have the 2x3 Seaglide, especially with the Swim Charge Fins, I have used a single Ultra HC Tank in the paperdoll just to get the extra 20s; but never for multitank use as its 9x9 size makes it far too awkward for that.
I got back on my Experimental game today (updated to May-2017 47805, later 47813). Besides some welcome changes (knives no longer have durability, Silicone Rubber and Lubricant now only need 1 Creepvine Seed Cluster to fabricate--actually 1 CSC gives 2 Silicone Rubber), there's the change from this Trello post:
This was implemented in Checkin 47799 and included by build May-2017 47805.
There's now 4 oxygen tanks. The first two blueprints are available on the Fabricator from game start. You can only draw oxygen from the tank on the paperdoll model. You can extend it but have to swap tanks manually.
[ 2017 Jun 18 my table info updated by @EkUl for Experimental (49687) ]
Speed penalties are doubled for tanks in the inventory.
As for Swimming Speed, the first two seem to have the same drag as the original tank and the last two as the previous Lightweight and High Capacity tanks from the Modification Station.
This is going to make extended swimouts more complex. You can't draw oxygen from tanks in the inventory directly; you need to manually swap and will need to either temporarily drop a tank or keep 6 or 9 spots empty in inventory. Yet a higher capacity tank will be easily fabricated earlier in a game. But the Modification Station tanks will need a lot more materials. The Ultra High Capacity Tank gives +110s, which is only 20s more than the Lightweight High Capacity Tank. I think the Lightweight Tank may be sufficient and the Ultra Tank only useful for paperdoll-single-tank swims using the Seaglide.
EDIT: SAFETY NOTE: Taking a tank out of a Wall Locker (and likely other storage) into Inventory without swapping into the Paperdoll leaves the tank empty.
BEFORE SWIMOUT, CHECK ALL SPARE TANKS FOR FILLING BY PUTTING THEM IN THE PAPERDOLL
Again, you need to leave 6 or 9 inventory spaces empty to swap tanks without dropping them.
Version: Experimental May-2017 47914
Just discovered this during a quick exploration of the Grand Reef after leaving the Floating Isle. While down at under 300m but fortunately close to the Cyclops.
I had 1 Lightweight High Capacity Tank in the Paperdoll. I'd taken a spare LHC Tank from a Wall Locker into Inventory. I'd explored close to the Cyclops.
Oxygen had gone down from 135s to under 45s. I swapped out my empty and put in the other. No extra oxygen. Tried swapping two more times. No extra oxygen.
Swam back to the Cyclops. Swapped tanks inside and saw the spare tank only fill in the Paperdoll.
Swam out again and ran oxygen down to under 45s. Swapped tanks this time and had a full LHC Tank now.
Posted this as a bug in the Bug Subforum.
EDIT 2017 Jun 21: These changes are now in Stable with version Voice of the Deep.
EDIT: For exploring wrecks, I have used 2 HC Tanks/LW HC Tanks, 1 in the paperdoll model and 1 spare, and swapped between them. This still gets close to being too little in some case and perhaps I should have used 2 spare tanks. For single tank use, as I always have the 2x3 Seaglide, especially with the Swim Charge Fins, I have used a single Ultra HC Tank in the paperdoll just to get the extra 20s; but never for multitank use as its 9x9 size makes it far too awkward for that.
I got back on my Experimental game today (updated to May-2017 47805, later 47813). Besides some welcome changes (knives no longer have durability, Silicone Rubber and Lubricant now only need 1 Creepvine Seed Cluster to fabricate--actually 1 CSC gives 2 Silicone Rubber), there's the change from this Trello post:
https://trello.com/c/9ReT8fmg/6377-add-double-tank-not-the-final-nameRemove stackable air tanks. Air tanks only fit in the paper doll slot. Having an extra tank in the inventory has no effect.
To compensate there are two craftable tanks; a basic normal tank we have now with maybe a bit more capacity and an intermediary higher capacity tank that consumes the first to be created and is the equivalent of 3 original tanks.
This was implemented in Checkin 47799 and included by build May-2017 47805.
There's now 4 oxygen tanks. The first two blueprints are available on the Fabricator from game start. You can only draw oxygen from the tank on the paperdoll model. You can extend it but have to swap tanks manually.
[ 2017 Jun 18 my table info updated by @EkUl for Experimental (49687) ]
O2 Tank Oxygen Speed Made With Components Size CPI No tank 45s 5.7m/s - - - - Standard +30s -0.4m/s Fabricator 1xGlass, 2xTitanium 2x3 5.0 High Capacity +90s -0.4m/s Fabricator 1xStandard O2 Tank, 2xGlass, 4xTitanium, 1xSilver 2x3 15.0 Lightweight High Capacity +90s -0.1m/s Mod Station 1xHigh Capacity O2 Tank, 1xPlasteel Ingot 2x3 15.0 Ultra High Capacity +110s -0.6m/s Mod Station 1xHigh Capacity O2 Tank, 4xLithium 3x3 12.2 CPI = Capacity Per Inventory-slot.
Speed penalties are doubled for tanks in the inventory.
As for Swimming Speed, the first two seem to have the same drag as the original tank and the last two as the previous Lightweight and High Capacity tanks from the Modification Station.
This is going to make extended swimouts more complex. You can't draw oxygen from tanks in the inventory directly; you need to manually swap and will need to either temporarily drop a tank or keep 6 or 9 spots empty in inventory. Yet a higher capacity tank will be easily fabricated earlier in a game. But the Modification Station tanks will need a lot more materials. The Ultra High Capacity Tank gives +110s, which is only 20s more than the Lightweight High Capacity Tank. I think the Lightweight Tank may be sufficient and the Ultra Tank only useful for paperdoll-single-tank swims using the Seaglide.
EDIT: SAFETY NOTE: Taking a tank out of a Wall Locker (and likely other storage) into Inventory without swapping into the Paperdoll leaves the tank empty.
BEFORE SWIMOUT, CHECK ALL SPARE TANKS FOR FILLING BY PUTTING THEM IN THE PAPERDOLL
Again, you need to leave 6 or 9 inventory spaces empty to swap tanks without dropping them.
Version: Experimental May-2017 47914
Just discovered this during a quick exploration of the Grand Reef after leaving the Floating Isle. While down at under 300m but fortunately close to the Cyclops.
I had 1 Lightweight High Capacity Tank in the Paperdoll. I'd taken a spare LHC Tank from a Wall Locker into Inventory. I'd explored close to the Cyclops.
Oxygen had gone down from 135s to under 45s. I swapped out my empty and put in the other. No extra oxygen. Tried swapping two more times. No extra oxygen.
Swam back to the Cyclops. Swapped tanks inside and saw the spare tank only fill in the Paperdoll.
Swam out again and ran oxygen down to under 45s. Swapped tanks this time and had a full LHC Tank now.
Posted this as a bug in the Bug Subforum.
Comments
Stacking tanks always seemed goofy and even OP. You either need to gimp the Seaglide to force players to plan their dives more carefully, or eliminate the stacking and force them to manage their O2 supply. I prefer it this way as I get more air AND can move faster.
And swapping tanks in your inventory isn't a really big deal for people who'd rather do that, though a hotkey to quick swap them would be useful.
IMO, with many of the recent changes, the game is now going from a fun somewhat scary adventure, to a more labor intensive ordeal.
It seems that They are catering more to the hardcore players at this point, I hope that doesn't backfire on Them with lower player numbers.
They already have my money, so I know my protests are likely falling on deaf ears and my opinions are probably in the minority, but I'll most likely move on to something else if this trend continues.
< shrug >
I agree 100%. Changing the game so that you have to swap an oxygen tank from your inventory to the paper doll slot seems like a huge step backwards.
I've always been using 135 seconds of oxygen myself and that is plenty with ultra glide fins. You can roam around half a mile like this. Not sure what you would need 5+ minutes of oxygen for tbh.
And I also agree that the Ultra High Capacity Tank needs to have more than 110s of capacity to be worth using over the 90s of the HC Tank and the Lightweight HC Tank. Even 120s I don't think is enough. I would suggest 150s or 180s.
Otherwise, I think getting higher capacity tanks sooner is a big advantage. It cuts down having to decide whether to stick to one tank on the paperdoll for fishing and inventory swims or go for a lot of tanks in inventory for wreck swims. But even +110s giving 155s total swim time is barely enough for proper wreck exploration. And a lot of wrecks will have to be explored with +90s tanks.
On top of the innate 45s, I previously explored wrecks with 150s or 210s of tanks, so that can be done with 90s tanks using 1 or maybe 2 spares for 180s or 270s. I will have to manually swap tanks once or twice per swim and keep 4 free inventory slots free to make it easy to swap. That will be an improvement for inventory over carrying 4 or 6 tanks over the 1 on the paperdoll. And I would likely just upgrade to the Lightweight HC Tanks because they will need less Lithium and the rare times I swim without using the Seaglide, I'll swim faster.
What I'm more concerned about is balancing the O2 system. I've always thought it was pretty ridiculous that your character can hold their breath for 45s, but a full diving tank only holds 30s. Depending on whether you factor in the accelerated timescale, either your character has superhuman lungs, or O2 tanks in the future are just sad.
A better balance IMHO would be to have the player breath holding be shorter (>30s, just long enough to dive for titanium and quartz in the safe shallows to craft a proper tank) and have the tanks hold significantly more air (maybe +90s per tank). The top tier tank should give a full 5 minutes, there are plenty of wrecks and tight cave systems that could use this kind of endurance so we're not having to rush through.
Maybe also make oxygen usage dependent on activity (and add a "sprint" function for a temporary burst of speed underwater).
Even so, that still doesn't make sense given the internal volume of the suit to store oxygen vs an external tank.
Which gives me another idea: a battery powered portable oxygen generator that can be placed like the current floodlights (before they become base powered).
I fully agree. I'm not a dive expert but i figure even a hand pumped tank could hold more thank 30-90sec.
I think the 45s was set long ago to give the player enough time with padding to scavenge Titanium and Quartz in the Safe Shallows to make the initial tools and equipment including Oxygen Tanks.
I realize that They put a lot of work into that particular part of the game, but it should remain a choice for the player, not be a requirement based on development time.
< shrug >
If they want to have players use pipes, then stick a battery in the floating air pump, and have the entire pipe chain lit like an LED light stick the whole way down, but with much less intensity (to avoid making the flashlight, floodlight, and LED stick obsolete). That'd make it more worthwhile to use.
I haven't used any of those items in my play through's since the very first time playing the game.
I don't find them necessary for me.
< shrug >
I'm trying to find a way to do what the developers want (make players find the O2 pipes worthwhile) so that they leave what you want (O2 tanks the way they are) alone. Do you find that agreeable? :rolleyes: (perhaps I misread you there)
A quick google search has informed me that the average tank allows for an hour of air at 10m and a few minutes at 40m. We're talking roughly a 10-20 times difference before we even reach the average depth of the kelp forest. By default you also should be able to hold your breath for a minute or two, which is way more than 45 seconds. These facts are completely different than the rules Subnautica puts forth and so I don't think you can bring real-world logic into play as concretely.
That leaves us with game logic, i.e. how the numbers affect gameplay. If we reduce no tank time that's going to begin to limit what the player can do without tanks. This would typically only apply before the player is able to build any tanks, i.e. very early game. Probably wouldn't be too much fun to dive for a single item and resurface every time because your air is so limited. If we increase the duration of bottom tier tanks then that's going to reduce the value of higher tier tanks because you can do more with the bare minimum.
Lastly, tank upgrades would probably matter more if there weren't so many sources of free oxygen underwater. Depending on location you have brain coral, I just learned airsacks refill air on consumption so you can use them anywhere, using some supplies allows you to pipe oxygen just about anywhere, bases give you oxygen as well, and you pretty much don't even have to care about air at all once you get into vehicles. Only reason for tanks in mid-late game at all I can see is for wrecks. At that point in the game you might as well go tankless for all the good they'll do you.
All in all I think tankless vs tanked air is balanced well enough as-is.
Yeah, I was just putting it out there as part of my particular playstyle, didn't mean for it to seem snarky.
At this point, though your suggestion is interesting and I would approve, I highly doubt there's anything that's going to change Their mindset on this particular subject.
I guess I now know how the Multiplayer Advocates feel.
That seems crazy.
I rarely went with more than 2 tanks because I hated how much it slowed me down and I hated having to commit even more space to the seaglide to compensate. 105 total O2 is usually plenty for exploring wrecks. There's a couple larger ones were a third tank will help but any more always seemed horribly gratuitous.
I always preferred moving faster over having more O2 as I usually need the speed to avoid getting eaten anyway. Having to have seperate loadouts so I can fill my inventory with Tanks, the Seaglide, and batteries or otherwise fill it with piping just for looking for fragments, meaning I usually can't collect anything I stumble across while out seems like a much bigger waste of time compared to just swapping tanks, if you can't be bothered to stop from time to time and hit your seamoth/prawn for more air.
With this I can have three tanks worth of air and it will only slow me down as much as a single plasteel tank (only -1 speed) that is so much better.
When searching wrecks most of the time I'm not going to be hauling back materials so I don't need a lot of available inventory. The wrecks quickly become sufficiently large that I need extra tanks to completely explore them, even requiring several swimouts from the Seamoth to do so. Once beyond the simple small ones in the shallows, I used between 4 and 6 extra 30s tank to give me 195s to 255s of breathing. I can't see how the larger wrecks can be explored completely and safely without that much time. That includes the wreck in the Koosh Bulb Zone that's down about 200m in the Aurora rad zone, which means time will run out twice as fast without being able to use a Rebreather.
I have Lockers at the hatch of my bases and on the bridge of my Cyclops just so I can adjust my inventory (and later dive suit) right before swimming out or deploying in the Seamoth or PRAWN. I don't carry more than 1 or 2 space Batteries for all my tools and after getting the Battery Charger and especially the Swim Charge Fins often none. I separate my swimouts for fishing, gathering, and wreck investigation. Even when loaded with the Seaglide and 4 to 6 extra tanks (for deep diving and going for wrecks and fragments and data boxes), I have space for gathering a few vital items which is all I'll want to take back.
If I'm scavenging for fish or materials in shallow waters, I often don't bother with the Seamoth but just use the Seaglide for its speed, which isn't slowed by tanks in the inventory. I don't use it for long distances but instead swim on the surface prior to getting the Seamoth. And the Seaglide is vital on initial deep dives to get down from the surface in short order. I also use the Air Bladder to quickly ascend when I need more oxygen. The 9 spaces the Seaglide takes up are just the overhead (less that 20% of inventory) needed to get that speed. It's worth it for what the Seaglide gives me, including a Flashlight replacement as well as Battery recharging once I have the Swim Charge Fins.
As far a I know, there is *NO* slow down when using the Seaglide. Before getting the Seaglide, I only use the one tank in the paper doll. But once I get the Seaglide and don't have to worry about swimming slower, I usually carry 2-3 tanks in my inventory.
Damn, just carry your seaglide. Yes its a big inventory space also but its fast. You can also ditch the flashlight.
It also makes it quite easy to adjust to this experimental change.
Yep, they've done it once way back when (though I can't recall the exact times now) and they backed out due to popular demand and a flood of polls... I was actually quite surprised to see this particular change back.
I agree, although the low amount of spare tanks (likely only 1 or 2) and their singular nature (unlike Batteries and Powercells in many devices) makes this a bit less of a necessity and more of convenience. Still would like the convenience.
Ideally, players should be able to see the air charge on tanks in the inventory, same as they can with charge on Batteries and Powercells. And there should be a tank swap mechanism like there's a batteries/powercell swap mechanism. You don't know exactly how many empty inventory slots you have have without opening your PDA until you try to pick up something that doesn't fit. Go under 4 open spots that can be shifted into a square 2x2 and you can't swap tanks without having to drop and pick up tanks twice.
Adjust the values to give us more tank variety. That's cool. But having to enter the inventory each time we wanna use the 2nd tank and maybe even having to repeat that process to refill on the surface/or in a sub would just be tedious.
Iirc you can even bridge several tanks to a combined air reserve today but even If I am wrong here, we are talking Sci-Fi space-travel future tech. It really should not be necessary to manually switch them.
Right...I would even go so far as to say even a hotkey is too much compared to the setting. It really can't be impossible to add a kind of bridge or automated valve to do the job.
Maybe change the paperdoll to allow us to fit a second tank, that connects with the first one. Those two should then give you a really decent dive time. Imo for big wrecks that should be something between 180-240 seconds(180 for the best lightweight version and 240 for the max. capacity version).
If you still need more air then that you could take additional tanks with you but then you'd have to switch them out via hotkey. That would be a middleground between having always to switch manually and never. Additionally it would avoid situations where you start to fade out if you don't switch quick enough, Because you would switch bottles one by one so that you always have one with air fitted to the paperdoll.