Yes, the HUD still needs work, but... I fail to see the issue with the floodlights. They were too dim in the past. Also, I don't think you're supposed to use floodlights alongside sonar - in fact, I think the reason sonar even exists is to use for when floodlights aren't a viable option, such as when in Silent Running.
...
They're maneuvering cameras; aren't they supposed to offer better ranges of sight for more accurate turns than normal viewing? Also, again, normal sonar seems to work just fine when the floodlights are off - you don't usually find situations where you need them both on at once.
The floodlights are a pain for pure cockpit sight other than viewing from close distance in total darkness, because the game's light physics of the engine renders the reflections and the glass shielding to a total useless cockpit sight. I think this is more of a unity rendering problem. Without the light there is still the glass shielding sight rendering making the view bad. The Seamoth and Prawn, as well as the divers view, are all without a glass rendering inbetween, like with the Cyclops. The Seamoth and Prawn lights are not rendered like the Cyclops lights. It might be more correct for the Cyclops, but it sucks in comparison to the "fake" Seamoth and Prawn lights.
Then the cam sight. If a sight is that good, any good engineer would display all HUD info at the best working sights. So it's not that much of a sight problem with the cams at hand. It's more the devs who forgot to display HUD into cam view. Let's face it. All veteran players probably navigate through cam mode. They only switch to cockpit sight if they either want HUD info or want it more challenging.
Now the sonar. It wasn't bad until the devs decided it was a bit too good. But with this new sonar I can just drive with the cams again. The old sonar gave me a reason to drive with sonar and cockpit sight. Now I'm all back to cam driving mode with unpleasantly switching back to cockpit occasionally.
In the end it all comes down to HUD availability in cam mode or a mini cam PiP window in cockpit sight if the cockpit sight stays that bad even with floodlights turned off. And a sonar that is that useless like now, isn't needed at all. I can't make use of it and I'm veteran. What are the devs expecting from the other players?
Most players seem to do the same with the Seamoth and PRAWN, though - reloading after loss is hardly unique to the Cyclops. It's not a waste so much as that people generally don't like losing stuff they put work into, regardless of if it is or isn't meant to be destroyed. Plus, having any point in-game where you're supposed to lose something like that feels like it'd be railroading the player's actions, having to build something purely for the sake of losing it in the endgame.
You don't need railroads like scripted events or something else to force loosing your Cyclops. All that is needed is turning the Sea Dragon into a submarine killer and allowing the player to escape with the Prawn while the Sea Dragon is busy tearing down the Cyclops wreck. That is full open world reaction freedom, yet still making it almost impossible to reach the major Precursor bases without losing a Cyclops.
But as you said, most players tend to reload bad game outcomes anyway. And my argument is that the Cyclops investment time is too large for most players not to cry in outrage. The devs could have eased it by allowing a 1:1 backup blueprint of a lost Cyclops, making rebuilding it really easy and thus encouring players to accept a Cyclops loss much better. Combine that with an easy wreck harvesting and you could offer vehicle losses as fun gameplay and not something to fear like hell.
narfblatUtah, USAJoin Date: 2016-05-15Member: 216799Members, Forum Moderators, Forum staff
Floodlights did get a lot better with ghost update. They used to make seeing anything impossible, but now most things in their range are illuminated more than the water itself.
I'm not sure if it came with ghost update, but Cyclops no longer gives me x-ray vision of my bases.
Real subs don't "strafe." Most submersibles can, but it's because they have thrusters pointing every whichaway so they can do oddball maneuvers. Trying to shove a few thousand tons of mass around sideways would be, well...pretty absurd.
Turning times on boats are poor. The bigger the boat, the worse the turn. Alvin can turn quickly because, as already mentioned, he's a submersible, and has thrusters to let him spin and twirl like a titanium ballerina. (Not quite, but he's pretty nimble.) An aircraft carrier has a turning radius of a quarter mile. A VLCC tanker, almost a half nautical mile on the rudder in deep water, and more than twice that in shallow. That a sub the size of the Cyclops can pull a 180 in only fifteen seconds is pretty frickin' amazing.
Haven't played the game for a while.
Is Cyclop still slower than SeaMoth?
That was ridiculous, big ships are usually much faster than small ones (e.g. look at the carrier).
...huh?
Okay, let's look at the carrier alongside other surface combatants of a CBG. Nimitz-class supercarrier: ~104,000 long tons, ~30 knots. (Exact classified.) Ticonderoga-class cruiser: 9,600 long tons, 32.5 knots Arleigh Burke-class destroyer: 9,800 long tons, ~30 knots (Exact classified, believed to be around 35 knots.)
Weird...they all hover around the same max speeds. Almost like someone designed it that way. But the smaller ships can go slightly faster. Maybe a smaller-but-still-large ship?
San Antonio-class ATD: 25,300 long tons, ~22 knots.
Huh...size and mass don't seem to be a determining factor. Okay, then let's make a more meaningful comparison: a big ship versus a small ship. Like our Cyclops against a Seamoth, let's make a carrier comparison.
Nimitz-class supercarrier: ~104,000 long tons, ~30 knots. (Exact classified.) Freedom-class LTC: 3,445 long tons, ~47 knots.
Let's go smaller. After all, a Seamoth isn't a ship; it's a boat. We won't take something designed purely for speed; the Seamoth is a general-purpose boat, so we'll use something roughly similar.
22-foot Runabout: ~1.5 long tons, ~45 knots.
(Wow...same speed as a ship almost 2,300 times larger. That's pretty impressive for the Freedom-class!)
What this tells us is that comparing big ships and little ships (or little boats) is comparing apples and anteaters. They're not the same thing, not meant to do the same thing, and not even effectively comparable as a result. But, when you factor out the reality that large naval ships are designed to keep pace with one another, big ships and little ships (and little boats) do have a significant speed difference - and it's that little guys are faster.
Real subs don't "strafe." Most submersibles can, but it's because they have thrusters pointing every whichaway so they can do oddball maneuvers. Trying to shove a few thousand tons of mass around sideways would be, well...pretty absurd.
Turning times on boats are poor. The bigger the boat, the worse the turn. Alvin can turn quickly because, as already mentioned, he's a submersible, and has thrusters to let him spin and twirl like a titanium ballerina. (Not quite, but he's pretty nimble.) An aircraft carrier has a turning radius of a quarter mile. A VLCC tanker, almost a half nautical mile on the rudder in deep water, and more than twice that in shallow. That a sub the size of the Cyclops can pull a 180 in only fifteen seconds is pretty frickin' amazing.
Haven't played the game for a while.
Is Cyclop still slower than SeaMoth?
That was ridiculous, big ships are usually much faster than small ones (e.g. look at the carrier).
...huh?
Okay, let's look at the carrier alongside other surface combatants of a CBG. Nimitz-class supercarrier: ~104,000 long tons, ~30 knots. (Exact classified.) Ticonderoga-class cruiser: 9,600 long tons, 32.5 knots Arleigh Burke-class destroyer: 9,800 long tons, ~30 knots (Exact classified, believed to be around 35 knots.)
Weird...they all hover around the same max speeds. Almost like someone designed it that way. But the smaller ships can go slightly faster. Maybe a smaller-but-still-large ship?
San Antonio-class ATD: 25,300 long tons, ~22 knots.
Huh...size and mass don't seem to be a determining factor. Okay, then let's make a more meaningful comparison: a big ship versus a small ship. Like our Cyclops against a Seamoth, let's make a carrier comparison.
Nimitz-class supercarrier: ~104,000 long tons, ~30 knots. (Exact classified.) Freedom-class LTC: 3,445 long tons, ~47 knots.
Let's go smaller. After all, a Seamoth isn't a ship; it's a boat. We won't take something designed purely for speed; the Seamoth is a general-purpose boat, so we'll use something roughly similar.
22-foot Runabout: ~1.5 long tons, ~45 knots.
(Wow...same speed as a ship almost 2,300 times larger. That's pretty impressive for the Freedom-class!)
What this tells us is that comparing big ships and little ships (or little boats) is comparing apples and anteaters. They're not the same thing, not meant to do the same thing, and not even effectively comparable as a result. But, when you factor out the reality that large naval ships are designed to keep pace with one another, big ships and little ships (and little boats) do have a significant speed difference - and it's that little guys are faster.
Pretty sure somthing the size of a cyclops is not designed to navigate tight caves, so its still pretty impressive that it can piloted by a mere single crew member.
I wasn't pledging for making Cyclops driving as nimble as the Cyclops (as you can see my talk on mass laziness which I'm aware of). It's the way the controls are tied to navigation and the missing tilt axis control, which has nothing to do with the problems of navigating a massive sized ship or sub that suffers navigation possibilities (laziness) from its own physical mass.
Except that reference feels flawed since... well, honestly speaking, what you're describing doesn't show any such distinction - it doesn't illustrate precisely what statistic you think it's supposed to fit, let alone how and in what manner you think the Cyclops maneuverability should change. You're just saying "it needs to be faster and quicker" and you even said Seamoth-level responsiveness would be a plus.
Again, that kind of rotation would not necessarily be plausible for a ship that large with that kind of mass; the Seamoth has a far more spherical design for it's central chassis around the cockpit, so of course it can rotate on it's axis with far more ease. The Seamoth was designed for fast and swift exploration - the Cyclops was designed to reach deep-sea depths undetected; there's a difference in functionality and design purpose that you're not accounting for in your views.
The floodlights are a pain for pure cockpit sight other than viewing from close distance in total darkness, because the game's light physics of the engine renders the reflections and the glass shielding to a total useless cockpit sight. I think this is more of a unity rendering problem. Without the light there is still the glass shielding sight rendering making the view bad. The Seamoth and Prawn, as well as the divers view, are all without a glass rendering inbetween, like with the Cyclops. The Seamoth and Prawn lights are not rendered like the Cyclops lights. It might be more correct for the Cyclops, but it sucks in comparison to the "fake" Seamoth and Prawn lights.
... except that, again; that's the exact purpose and circumstances floodlights are meant to be used in during deep-sea exploration. When you're close to the sea floor in total darkness, you use floodlights; when you in a subterranean cave system, you use sonar. Also, doubt the "fake" lights are going to stay for the Seamoth and PRAWN - they'll probably unify the light mechanics at some point.
Then the cam sight. If a sight is that good, any good engineer would display all HUD info at the best working sights. So it's not that much of a sight problem with the cams at hand. It's more the devs who forgot to display HUD into cam view. Let's face it. All veteran players probably navigate through cam mode. They only switch to cockpit sight if they either want HUD info or want it more challenging.
Again I point out; the Cyclops is designed to be best operated by three separate people. Only skilled users, aka people good at multitasking, should try to use it solo according to the PDA. Under normal circumstances, cam-sight is probably supposed to be overseen from a different station by a different crew-member. Plus, it is still that much of a sight problem since the HUD is already pretty filled up at the edges - where, precisely, are they supposed to fit the camera-feeds into the HUD?
Now the sonar. It wasn't bad until the devs decided it was a bit too good. But with this new sonar I can just drive with the cams again. The old sonar gave me a reason to drive with sonar and cockpit sight. Now I'm all back to cam driving mode with unpleasantly switching back to cockpit occasionally.
In the end it all comes down to HUD availability in cam mode or a mini cam PiP window in cockpit sight if the cockpit sight stays that bad even with floodlights turned off. And a sonar that is that useless like now, isn't needed at all. I can't make use of it and I'm veteran. What are the devs expecting from the other players?
... I fail to get even half of that, since cams alone get me caught on outcroppings all the damn time - I often have to use the sonar in order to make sure I'm not hitting the side of a wall or catching on something in the dark. Especially when I'm in silent running and therefore have no bloody lights to see with - so personally, IDK how you can find the sonar useless. Unless it might just be another instance where you're simply more skilled than everybody else is and what you assume is easy, everyone else struggles with.
You don't need railroads like scripted events or something else to force loosing your Cyclops. All that is needed is turning the Sea Dragon into a submarine killer and allowing the player to escape with the Prawn while the Sea Dragon is busy tearing down the Cyclops wreck. That is full open world reaction freedom, yet still making it almost impossible to reach the major Precursor bases without losing a Cyclops.
But as you said, most players tend to reload bad game outcomes anyway. And my argument is that the Cyclops investment time is too large for most players not to cry in outrage. The devs could have eased it by allowing a 1:1 backup blueprint of a lost Cyclops, making rebuilding it really easy and thus encouring players to accept a Cyclops loss much better. Combine that with an easy wreck harvesting and you could offer vehicle losses as fun gameplay and not something to fear like hell.
You completely missed my point - which is that people hate feeling like they have built something purely for it to get a scripted death; what else can you call being forced to lose your Cyclops besides a scripted event? What you're suggesting would only frustrate people to the point of not building a Cyclops at all if any one single creature is guaranteed to destroy it.
It quite literally is forcing a railroad on the player's actions, in that it arbitrarily tells them they cannot ever have a Cyclops survive a Sea Dragon encounter - even though the much weaker Seamoth can survive against Reapers and Ghost Leviathans if upgraded properly. That is not "open world reaction freedom" - that feels more like a restriction. One that, honestly speaking, doesn't really address the simple fact that people just hate losing stuff they worked hard for, especially for abrupt or unfortunate reasons; people would still reload just to prevent the Cyclops from being destroyed with or without your method, so it wouldn't solve anything. Same with the "1:1 backup blueprint", because that would inspire the opposite extreme of not caring enough if the Cyclops is lost and thereby take away the risk factor.
Personally, I have no problem with the speed and maneuverability of the Cyclops. Using the cameras, I can get through to the Lava Zone without troubles due to that. On the other hand, I HATE how when you get attacked using camera mode (which I do almost exclusively), you have to quit driving entirely, click back, wait for it to get restarted, and only then can you do anything about it (activate Silent Running/Shield/Decoy - whatever). They are still working on UI issues though, so it's enough to say that this is annoying, probably for a lot of people.
This is weird. I remember I've read somewhere that carriers are one of the fastest ships in the navy and that the size of the ship usually mean faster speed because there is room to place bigger propulsion system and more powerful energy source (in case of carrier that is nuclear reactors).
Even if I'm mistaken about the current navy, that doesn't change my point though: Cyclops should be very fast but clumsy, SeaMoth agile but not so fast and fragile, and exosuit super protected but slow (and sea glide is a poor men SeaMoth). That would give each vehicle unique purpose and all of them plus sea bases would be needed late game.
@scifiwriterguy
Well a bit strafing and reducing the turning time was thought to be a minimal feature and not for reality, but more for gameplay relaxation, especially compared to maneuvering against a game leviathan which certainly doesn't appear in the real world like some fantasy godzilla. Not to speak about the Science Fiction setting of a future submarine. Of course a bit training and you don't need strafing. A turning time of 15 secs simply means that your sub is a sitting duck against the fantasy leviathans that have fantastic turning times and speed of rather 5 secs. Maybe the sub turning time could be a bit more SciFi like than real to match leviathan gameplay.
I think technicans agree that massive real world subs can't be as mobile, flexible and speedy as small vehicles, as well don't operate through strafing. I don't vote that bad for the Cyclops because it can't accelerate or turn superfast or have no strafing. The main impacts are the zero vertical axis control and the bad and uncustomizable control binding. And these parts could be real.
And secondary: the Cyclops 4.0 is fast enough and already incredible in accelerating (except turning). The acceleration is even that good, that you have to wonder why the rudder concept is that aweful to get only 15 secs turning time. A real ship might need ages to turn, but also needs ages to accelerate.
Not that reality would matter the devs. A carrier usually has range advantage, like lots of air and energy supply for its smaller vehicles. Not in this game, where the Seamoth and Prawn have infinite air and almost infinite energy to travel across the map without stocking up supplies. These small vehicles have no disadvantages of reality, yet the Cyclops wants to stay real in maneuvering and even worse controlable than that with the bad keybindings. So I consider the Seamoth and Prawn overpowered fantasy subs and the Cyclops worse than reality.
With these issues I don't think I can give the Cyclops some better maneuvering rating than 3/5, even considering being the only sub that wants to feel real.
@The08MetroidMan
The light handling of the Cyclops is far from good. And if they unify the light mechanics without improving it will cause an outrage of all Seamoth fans, like the last one when the control mechanics was changed.
Also I'm one of the skilled users that can drive the Cyclops with these bad HUD configurations. I can, but it doesn't feel good. It's a game. I shouldn't feel frustrated by driving. Reminds me of bad car driving games. In reality driving is easy and fun. Even racing with cars in reality is fun. Just some bad driving games don't get the controls.
The old sonar was good, the new is mainly useless. Are you playing an old save?
Personally, I have no problem with the speed and maneuverability of the Cyclops. Using the cameras, I can get through to the Lava Zone without troubles due to that. On the other hand, I HATE how when you get attacked using camera mode (which I do almost exclusively), you have to quit driving entirely, click back, wait for it to get restarted, and only then can you do anything about it (activate Silent Running/Shield/Decoy - whatever). They are still working on UI issues though, so it's enough to say that this is annoying, probably for a lot of people.
I think technicans agree that massive real world subs can't be as mobile, flexible and speedy as small vehicles
Strongly disagree. Counterintuitively, it is easier to make large naval vehicle fast than small one.
As for turning speed, it is not hard to imagine side motors on the sub like RCS thrusters on space ships / satellites. In real life nobody ever bothered creating large submarine for civilian purposes, and military ones are optimized for their task - for stealth and durability.
I think technicans agree that massive real world subs can't be as mobile, flexible and speedy as small vehicles
Strongly disagree. Counterintuitively, it is easier to make large naval vehicle fast than small one.
As for turning speed, it is not hard to imagine side motors on the sub like RCS thrusters on space ships / satellites. In real life nobody ever bothered creating large submarine for civilian purposes, and military ones are optimized for their task - for stealth and durability.
The strength of big vehicles is rather long range support for smaller vehicles (carrier concept) or the ability to carry cargo or lots of weapons. Subnautica unfortunately made the Seamoth and Prawn too powerful for long range purposes.
If you look at small racing vehicles you can see them break the world speed records. Usually it goes the other way round: The smaller the vehicle is, the faster it can be (down to a critical minimal size - if it's too small it fails). With acceleration and turning time its usually even better.
Pretty sure somthing the size of a cyclops is not designed to navigate tight caves, so its still pretty impressive that it can piloted by a mere single crew member.
The problem I have with this is that I think it's a failed concept. Good game controls are essential for a game and shouldn't be sacrificed to simulate a navigation multiplayer problem or to show how to make a sub too big to navigate through small caves. There are too many game companies that can't do good controls and would use every excuse to explain their failure. So UWE, who can do good controls shouldn't try that "multiplayer-hard-to-drive-a-too-massive-sub-through-tiny-spaces-simulation". It's too fun breaking.
And besides, why introduce a 3-man-crew sub in a single player game that denies multiplayer development so strongly? Just to let us feel how hard it is to drive a real submarine? The Cyclops could be made easy to navigate. We are going towards the age of autonomous driving and piloting with advanced AI, yet some sub fans think we should be reminded how difficult it should be made to navigate with a real world sub. This is as nostalgic as the manual bulkheads in this game (with missing vertical bulkheads too).
As long as I can beat the game without building a Cyclops I will not build another. If the Cyclops becomes compulsory for winning then I will quit playing. That boat represents everything I hate about video games and the attitude of developers.
I don't care that it's slow and clumsy. That's perfectly believable. The problem is that instead of giving some bonus in return for that clumsiness the devs decided that it has to be demonstrably weaker than the other vessels in every category.
1) No storage. This is actually my biggest gripe. Here's a boat the size of a locomotive, with two decks and enough floorspace for a tennis court yet the five built-in lockers combined barely hold more than the tiny footlocker in the lifepod. I know this has been marginally improved with the recent update, but it's still a joke.
2) The lights reduce visibility instead of enhancing it. Park the three boats next to each other in a dark area and jump from one cockpit to the next. The Seamoth and exosuit do a believable job of lighting the area while the Cyclops looks like the glass has been frosted. It isn't a physics issue, it's a deliberate move to gimp the boat.
3) No boat in naval history has ever caught fire from running at flank speed for 7.3 seconds.
4) The Seamoth can fly along at warp speed... the exosuit can stomp in the mud like a drunken rhino... and neither draws any real attention from the nearby critters. But the Cyclops can't even coast along at normal speed without rousing every monster on the map.
5) Seamoth and exosuit both get torpedoes... Cyclops gets decoys.
6) While the upgrades for the other two add functionality, the upgrades for the Cyclops are almost exclusively patches to fix flaws in the basic design.
It's as if adding an MP room to your base suddenly caused critters to swarm your base or your base to catch fire if you used the fabricator while you had batteries charging. It doesn't add challenge, it's just a nuisance. It takes me out of the game because I can't help but notice how arbitrary and nonsensical it is.
@SouthernGorilla
You must be playing an older version or older save of the game. Because with the Ghost leviathan stable update only the leviathans and some mid sized ones like the Crabsquid or Ampeel attack the Cyclops.
The silent running system now works in some way (purely based on noise only), so it can happen that leviathans chase your Seamoth or Prawn, but ignore a Cyclops running silent enough. The system is inconsistent (only works with the Cyclops, the other vehicles have no noise level indicator and will always be attacked on distance only) for all vehicles and the diver, but at least its consistent within the Cyclops tech now.
Your other remarks:
a carrier sub with almost less implemented storage than the vehicles IS stupid ... I think the devs want to force the players to build lockers inside the Cyclops
you are correct about the bad light and cockpit sight compared to the small vehicles ... only the Cyclops cam sight is better, but without proper HUD
I wouldn't say that most Cyclops upgrades are there to fix design flaws, but the only advantage of the Cyclops is its ability to park unharmed right near the worst creatures and serve as a mobile crafting base. The noise system isn't even part of the upgrades. Only the shield and decoy system is. But the decoy system is partially useless.
If you look at small racing vehicles you can see them break the world speed records. Usually it goes the other way round: The smaller the vehicle is, the faster it can be (down to a critical minimal size - if it's too small it fails). With acceleration and turning time its usually even better.
Ground and naval vehicles are different beasts. Just look at living creatures (although the elephant is pretty quick as well). It is easier to pack more propulsion system and bigger energy source into bigger vehicle.
With turning times - yes - bigger vehicle will be more clumsy because it has bigger momentum. Unless you have side motors that will help you make the turn.
Btw it could be very cool upgrade for Cyclops: imagine building some pods mounted on her side that when completed would vastly improve her maneuverability=)
@zetachron
The last time I used a Cyclops was, indeed, before the update. Mostly because my wife threatens me with bodily harm if I try to wrest the controls from her. In fact, she's glaring at me now telling me I better type fast because she has things to do.
Semi-joking aside, the last time I used it was after they did a minor change to stop the smaller critters from hurting the Cyclops. They didn't destroy it, but they did still attack it. Those alarms are incredibly distracting when all you're trying to do is carry an exosuit somewhere to deploy it. And I found it ludicrous that critters would even think of attacking something so vastly larger than themselves.
I agree that, in theory, the Cyclops should be an awesome temporary base. I'll start another save to check it out. But I'm not overly optimistic. I think it's still broken by design. It's pretty, it's fun to trick it out, I'd genuinely love to have a use for it. I'm not hating on it just for giggles. I just think they went too far with "balancing" it. (I hate the concept of "balance" as applied to video games. It's like putting square wheels on a Lamborghini to make sure it isn't OP compared to a Honda Accord.)
@SouthernGorilla
Yes, start a new game with the Ghost leviathan stable update. Too much things were rebalanced. If they didn't fix it - the shields are now infinite, so if you don't like the other defense systems you can always turn on shields after installing them and let them run forever without using energy, thus getting ignored from every creature while driving. But in any case the devs have seemed to cancel the concept of cooldowns in favor of upgrades drawing energy while running.
The rebalancing has improved. The leviathans were strengthened and the standart creatures don't even attack the Cyclops or can hurt it anymore. So in leviathan or warper territory you are far better off with the Cyclops than without it.
Now if I only had HUD info & toggles while driving in cam mode ...
@zetachron
I have a game going. I just haven't gotten to the point of building a Cyclops yet. Haven't started a "cheat" game yet. That's where I do my experimenting. If I ever get a turn to play again I'll spawn one to see. Infinite shields is a bit much. I'd actually be content with a zapper like the Seamoth has.
All of you who hate how the Cyclops handles, just out of curiosity, do you use a controller?
If you use a mouse, do you have mouse acceleration turned off? (It's deceptively labeled "enhance pointer precision" in Windows Mouse settings, it makes a mouse less sensitive if moved a slowly, and a lot more sensitive if moved quickly. Handy on the Desktop, not so much in games.)
Well a bit strafing and reducing the turning time was thought to be a minimal feature and not for reality, but more for gameplay relaxation, especially compared to maneuvering against a game leviathan which certainly doesn't appear in the real world like some fantasy godzilla. Not to speak about the Science Fiction setting of a future submarine. Of course a bit training and you don't need strafing. A turning time of 15 secs simply means that your sub is a sitting duck against the fantasy leviathans that have fantastic turning times and speed of rather 5 secs. Maybe the sub turning time could be a bit more SciFi like than real to match leviathan gameplay.
But... than you're basically admitting there's no in-game reason for it's existence other than as a luxury. Even though vehicles like the Seamoth already provide such a feature. Not to mention that the creatures in-game are more comparable to whales and giant squids in size than Godzilla - and therefore size-wise, there shouldn't be that big a disconnect. And again I point out; that's what the silent running is for - to avoid dangerous wildlife that you cannot effectively combat. Something else that is also taken from standard sub design.
I think technicans agree that massive real world subs can't be as mobile, flexible and speedy as small vehicles, as well don't operate through strafing. I don't vote that bad for the Cyclops because it can't accelerate or turn superfast or have no strafing. The main impacts are the zero vertical axis control and the bad and uncustomizable control binding. And these parts could be real.
And secondary: the Cyclops 4.0 is fast enough and already incredible in accelerating (except turning). The acceleration is even that good, that you have to wonder why the rudder concept is that aweful to get only 15 secs turning time. A real ship might need ages to turn, but also needs ages to accelerate.
But again, you're seemingly ignoring that the Seamoth's rounder, more compacted design is far more geared towards free-range movement along it's axis than a vehicle with a large, oblong shape like the Cyclops would. Even modern-day subs aren't built for anything resembling "zero vertical axis control" - they're built as flat-earth decks. These aren't space shuttles, you know - they have gravity to deal with that makes "zero vertical axis control" much more realistic a feat for larger, denser vessels.
Not that reality would matter the devs. A carrier usually has range advantage, like lots of air and energy supply for its smaller vehicles. Not in this game, where the Seamoth and Prawn have infinite air and almost infinite energy to travel across the map without stocking up supplies. These small vehicles have no disadvantages of reality, yet the Cyclops wants to stay real in maneuvering and even worse controlable than that with the bad keybindings. So I consider the Seamoth and Prawn overpowered fantasy subs and the Cyclops worse than reality.
You were the one talking about sci-fi tech; the Seamoth and Prawn probably filter oxygen out of the water like the fish do. However, to say they have "no disadvantages of reality" is... well, in my opinion, a complete falsehood; the Seamoth is only so agile and maneuverable because it has a semi-spherical design and a comparatively thin, light and subsequently more fragile hull, while the PRAWN's tough armor makes it capable of surviving greater depths but at the cost of speed and the Seamoth's free-range maneuverability. All of those are explicit disadvantages of reality, so it feels like they're not quite the "overpowered fantasy subs" you're claiming them to be - and by extension, the incredibly dense and equipment/machinery-packed Cyclops, with it's large oblong-shaped hull and focus over safe transport rather than speed, doesn't feel at all "worse than reality".
The light handling of the Cyclops is far from good. And if they unify the light mechanics without improving it will cause an outrage of all Seamoth fans, like the last one when the control mechanics was changed.
Also I'm one of the skilled users that can drive the Cyclops with these bad HUD configurations. I can, but it doesn't feel good. It's a game. I shouldn't feel frustrated by driving. Reminds me of bad car driving games. In reality driving is easy and fun. Even racing with cars in reality is fun. Just some bad driving games don't get the controls.
The old sonar was good, the new is mainly useless. Are you playing an old save?
Only if you're trying to force it in a situation it's not suited for. I leave the lights for surface-exploration or at night in safe-zones or any time I'm not in Silent Running; things like tunnels are what I use the sonar for. Again, I don't mean to be rude... but maybe you're confusing limitation of light with being a degrade.
Again I point out; I honestly don't think it's supposed to feel good driving a 3-man vehicle single-handedly - more likely than not, it's supposed to feel like a challenge to make do on your own. "It's a game, so I shouldn't feel frustrated by driving" is something that would probably cause outrage all of it's own among realism fans, as it's taking a realistic difficulty (operating a three-man ship solo) and reducing it simply because it makes the game easier to do overall. Especially since driving in reality really is not "easy and fun" if you're taking something that needs multiple people to operate (tanks, ships, etc) and trying to do it all on your own; this isn't conventional driving, anymore than operating a space-shuttle is conventional flying, and this isn't a submersible race-car like the Seamoth is. So again, it feels like your perspective on how this sub is supposed to drive is... well, for lack of a better description, inherently skewed by desires of easy-access rather than any consideration for the logistics of mass, physics and force for the way these subs were built and what purpose it was for. .
And no, I'm not playing an old save; I simply haven't had the same experiences as you with the new sonar and in fact have found it incredibly useful in finding my way through caverns - it was how I navigated the new LZ passage beneath the Mountain Island when the spotlights didn't do a damn for me.
All of you who hate how the Cyclops handles, just out of curiosity, do you use a controller?
If you use a mouse, do you have mouse acceleration turned off? (It's deceptively labeled "enhance pointer precision" in Windows Mouse settings, it makes a mouse less sensitive if moved a slowly, and a lot more sensitive if moved quickly. Handy on the Desktop, not so much in games.)
I'm playing without VR and Keyboard + Mouse. Works fine and there are settings and keyboard mappings. Unfortunately the main vehicle controls are not individually configurable, so my mouse is tied to looking around only, while the maneuvering is tied to the keyboard.
Now I assume you play with VR headset and thus your head movement with the Cyclops is tied to the head movement in the cockpit, so you are free to have the mouse to steer the Cyclops, possibly even allowing a vertical tilt. But I don't know.
Unfortunately the Subnautica Wiki offers no page to explain vehicle or diving controls for each system (XBox, PC, VR Sets, ...).
So maybe it's just a pain to drive the Cyclops for non VR players? Maybe the devs just ignored the vertical tilt for non VR players? Without some control scheme for VR Subnautica vehicles made public I don't know.
@The08MetroidMan
Everything you are telling me is defending the devs ways of Cyclops implementation. Yet you earlier said in other posts you have more troubles with the game than me.
So I'm telling I can live with the game and drive the Cyclops through leviathans and here and there it seems flawed to me, which you defend being good enough.
You were telling me in the past that you couldn't drive the Cyclops past leviathans, but with your defense you are practically saying that the devs should leave the Cyclops as bad as is and weaken the leviathans instead.
I don't get it. I'm just trying to stress the weaknesses in Cyclops gameplay, which I can handle, unlike you, who told me you couldn't. But it's okay for you?
Please give me all your Cyclops complaints you have, so I can see what's bothering you with the Cyclops. That is - all you would need to make Cyclops gameplay good for you.
All of you who hate how the Cyclops handles, just out of curiosity, do you use a controller?
If you use a mouse, do you have mouse acceleration turned off? (It's deceptively labeled "enhance pointer precision" in Windows Mouse settings, it makes a mouse less sensitive if moved a slowly, and a lot more sensitive if moved quickly. Handy on the Desktop, not so much in games.)
The only real use for the Cyclops was that reapers left it alone. Now to them it looks like a giant leviathan class bone to chew. On top of this the leviathans have been buffed, when they could already tear the thing a part in a few hits so if they do notice you, you are done.
So what's the point of this thing now? To drop off out prawn with even though the prawn can go from the safe shallows to the primary containment facility and back without running out of juice on it's own?
So fuck the cyclops, it's optional anyway, costly to make, and arduous to maintain. My issues with this update is that I have to use consol commands to unlock prawn blueprint because scanning 5 of them didn't unlock it, and nearly all the laser cutter fragments spawned behind doors I couldn't open with the laser cutter.
Real subs don't "strafe." Most submersibles can, but it's because they have thrusters pointing every whichaway so they can do oddball maneuvers. Trying to shove a few thousand tons of mass around sideways would be, well...pretty absurd.
I don't agree. The Cyclops and everything else made in this universe is far more advance than current Earth tech. So you shouldn't put the same restrictions of real life, onto the Cyclops. There are improvements that should be allowed on it. Such as 3D space movement. Upgrades that are difficult, but satisfying. You don't know what the hull is made out of. It also has shields which can dampen hull stress. Also, if this was real life. The character would of jury-rigged a system to operate the systems that are meant for the other 2 people. Like monitors for the cameras, mechanical hands and pistons to operate the side console light controls etc. Or convert things to voice control. The PDA has an AI. So the Cyclops has to as well. Hell, even with the limitations that the game gives so that you can't directly shoot anything. I know an easy way to kill a Leviathan with what the Cyclops has. When the Leviathan clamps onto the hull, activate the shield. Slice it in half. Second: create multiple cyclops. Rig them to blow up. By making a ton of batteries. Exploding them on the subs engine. Good Bye Leviathan's.
-.- "Welcome aboard, Captain. All systems online."
The Cyclops DOES have an AI, bud. One that sounds a bit like JARVIS, IMO. Which I love. It's just not THAT independent.
-.- "Welcome aboard, Captain. All systems online."
The Cyclops DOES have an AI, bud. One that sounds a bit like JARVIS, IMO. Which I love.
Yes. But that hasn't proven to be intelligent that's equal to the PDA's. I'd dump a copy of the PDA into the Cyclops. There's a ton of those PDA's laying around.
Everything you are telling me is defending the devs ways of Cyclops implementation. Yet you earlier said in other posts you have more troubles with the game than me.
Yes - because I'm not a very good gamer and you, by all accounts, are far more skilled than most people to the point of thinking difficult feats are easy. And the things I did have genuine faults with (smaller creatures damaging the ship, for one) were addressed. In it's current state, I have far less problems with it than I did in earlier posts.
So I'm telling I can live with the game and drive the Cyclops through leviathans and here and there it seems flawed to me, which you defend being good enough.
Only because you're not considering the hows and whys, such as that Reapers hunt with echolocation - you treat them as if they should be able to see the Cyclops the same ways a human would. You act like eye-to-eye line-of-sight identification is universal to creatures on an alien planet.
You were telling me in the past that you couldn't drive the Cyclops past leviathans, but with your defense you are practically saying that the devs should leave the Cyclops as bad as is and weaken the leviathans instead.
Back than, I did. But that was over a month ago - are you telling me that the fact my opinion changed as the Cyclops was tweaked and re-adjusted somehow doesn't make sense? On top of that, we're not even talking about the entire ship - this disagreement is specifically focused on the limits of the ship's maneuverability.
I don't get it. I'm just trying to stress the weaknesses in Cyclops gameplay, which I can handle, unlike you, who told me you couldn't. But it's okay for you?
Please give me all your Cyclops complaints you have, so I can see what's bothering you with the Cyclops. That is - all you would need to make Cyclops gameplay good for you.
Except that what you consider "weaknesses in Cyclops gameplay" feel more like personal viewpoint rather than factual complaint. That you can handle them and I can't doesn't mean it's because of a flaw - it's just that you're a better gamer than I am; something I've stressed repeatedly in the past. If anything, I should be the one who's confused here - it's okay for me because that kind of difficulty is realistic for a 3-man vehicle... and yet, you have an easier time of it than everyone else and yet you for some reason are the one complaining about something you're doing easier than everyone else.
The major complaints I had with the Cyclops are largely gone now, what with the latest updates. My only real issues remain with decoy deployment still being vertically-manned at close range rather than having omnidirectional launch tubes, but everything else is something I can live with in manning a 3-person sub.
The only real use for the Cyclops was that reapers left it alone. Now to them it looks like a giant leviathan class bone to chew. On top of this the leviathans have been buffed, when they could already tear the thing a part in a few hits so if they do notice you, you are done.
So what's the point of this thing now? To drop off out prawn with even though the prawn can go from the safe shallows to the primary containment facility and back without running out of juice on it's own?
So fuck the cyclops, it's optional anyway, costly to make, and arduous to maintain. My issues with this update is that I have to use consol commands to unlock prawn blueprint because scanning 5 of them didn't unlock it, and nearly all the laser cutter fragments spawned behind doors I couldn't open with the laser cutter.
You do realize that the Cyclops shield is now togglable and just running until your power is down? (And due to a bug it runs infinite at the moment, drawing no power at all)
And of course the Cyclops can't be damaged/attacked during shield use as far as I know.
So if you hate silent running (which has been changed too with the ghost leviathan update), you can try the shield alternative now.
I strongly advise you to restart the game to avoid old Cyclops code running with your old save. The Cyclops 4.0 has changed drastically with the ghost leviathan update.
On the other side if you mention that the leviathans only need a few hits to sink the Cyclops:
That would contradict my experience with a leviathan needing 3 hits to kill a diver if he wears a reinforced diving suit. Although that was just a week before the ghost leviathan update, so could be different now ... have to test it again. But if confirmed that would mean the reinforced diving suit is godlike against the Cyclops.
Comments
The floodlights are a pain for pure cockpit sight other than viewing from close distance in total darkness, because the game's light physics of the engine renders the reflections and the glass shielding to a total useless cockpit sight. I think this is more of a unity rendering problem. Without the light there is still the glass shielding sight rendering making the view bad. The Seamoth and Prawn, as well as the divers view, are all without a glass rendering inbetween, like with the Cyclops. The Seamoth and Prawn lights are not rendered like the Cyclops lights. It might be more correct for the Cyclops, but it sucks in comparison to the "fake" Seamoth and Prawn lights.
Then the cam sight. If a sight is that good, any good engineer would display all HUD info at the best working sights. So it's not that much of a sight problem with the cams at hand. It's more the devs who forgot to display HUD into cam view. Let's face it. All veteran players probably navigate through cam mode. They only switch to cockpit sight if they either want HUD info or want it more challenging.
Now the sonar. It wasn't bad until the devs decided it was a bit too good. But with this new sonar I can just drive with the cams again. The old sonar gave me a reason to drive with sonar and cockpit sight. Now I'm all back to cam driving mode with unpleasantly switching back to cockpit occasionally.
In the end it all comes down to HUD availability in cam mode or a mini cam PiP window in cockpit sight if the cockpit sight stays that bad even with floodlights turned off. And a sonar that is that useless like now, isn't needed at all. I can't make use of it and I'm veteran. What are the devs expecting from the other players?
You don't need railroads like scripted events or something else to force loosing your Cyclops. All that is needed is turning the Sea Dragon into a submarine killer and allowing the player to escape with the Prawn while the Sea Dragon is busy tearing down the Cyclops wreck. That is full open world reaction freedom, yet still making it almost impossible to reach the major Precursor bases without losing a Cyclops.
But as you said, most players tend to reload bad game outcomes anyway. And my argument is that the Cyclops investment time is too large for most players not to cry in outrage. The devs could have eased it by allowing a 1:1 backup blueprint of a lost Cyclops, making rebuilding it really easy and thus encouring players to accept a Cyclops loss much better. Combine that with an easy wreck harvesting and you could offer vehicle losses as fun gameplay and not something to fear like hell.
I'm not sure if it came with ghost update, but Cyclops no longer gives me x-ray vision of my bases.
Real subs don't "strafe." Most submersibles can, but it's because they have thrusters pointing every whichaway so they can do oddball maneuvers. Trying to shove a few thousand tons of mass around sideways would be, well...pretty absurd.
Turning times on boats are poor. The bigger the boat, the worse the turn. Alvin can turn quickly because, as already mentioned, he's a submersible, and has thrusters to let him spin and twirl like a titanium ballerina. (Not quite, but he's pretty nimble.) An aircraft carrier has a turning radius of a quarter mile. A VLCC tanker, almost a half nautical mile on the rudder in deep water, and more than twice that in shallow. That a sub the size of the Cyclops can pull a 180 in only fifteen seconds is pretty frickin' amazing.
...huh?
Okay, let's look at the carrier alongside other surface combatants of a CBG.
Nimitz-class supercarrier: ~104,000 long tons, ~30 knots. (Exact classified.)
Ticonderoga-class cruiser: 9,600 long tons, 32.5 knots
Arleigh Burke-class destroyer: 9,800 long tons, ~30 knots (Exact classified, believed to be around 35 knots.)
Weird...they all hover around the same max speeds. Almost like someone designed it that way. But the smaller ships can go slightly faster. Maybe a smaller-but-still-large ship?
San Antonio-class ATD: 25,300 long tons, ~22 knots.
Huh...size and mass don't seem to be a determining factor. Okay, then let's make a more meaningful comparison: a big ship versus a small ship. Like our Cyclops against a Seamoth, let's make a carrier comparison.
Nimitz-class supercarrier: ~104,000 long tons, ~30 knots. (Exact classified.)
Freedom-class LTC: 3,445 long tons, ~47 knots.
Let's go smaller. After all, a Seamoth isn't a ship; it's a boat. We won't take something designed purely for speed; the Seamoth is a general-purpose boat, so we'll use something roughly similar.
22-foot Runabout: ~1.5 long tons, ~45 knots.
(Wow...same speed as a ship almost 2,300 times larger. That's pretty impressive for the Freedom-class!)
What this tells us is that comparing big ships and little ships (or little boats) is comparing apples and anteaters. They're not the same thing, not meant to do the same thing, and not even effectively comparable as a result. But, when you factor out the reality that large naval ships are designed to keep pace with one another, big ships and little ships (and little boats) do have a significant speed difference - and it's that little guys are faster.
Pretty sure somthing the size of a cyclops is not designed to navigate tight caves, so its still pretty impressive that it can piloted by a mere single crew member.
Except that reference feels flawed since... well, honestly speaking, what you're describing doesn't show any such distinction - it doesn't illustrate precisely what statistic you think it's supposed to fit, let alone how and in what manner you think the Cyclops maneuverability should change. You're just saying "it needs to be faster and quicker" and you even said Seamoth-level responsiveness would be a plus.
Again, that kind of rotation would not necessarily be plausible for a ship that large with that kind of mass; the Seamoth has a far more spherical design for it's central chassis around the cockpit, so of course it can rotate on it's axis with far more ease. The Seamoth was designed for fast and swift exploration - the Cyclops was designed to reach deep-sea depths undetected; there's a difference in functionality and design purpose that you're not accounting for in your views.
... except that, again; that's the exact purpose and circumstances floodlights are meant to be used in during deep-sea exploration. When you're close to the sea floor in total darkness, you use floodlights; when you in a subterranean cave system, you use sonar. Also, doubt the "fake" lights are going to stay for the Seamoth and PRAWN - they'll probably unify the light mechanics at some point.
Again I point out; the Cyclops is designed to be best operated by three separate people. Only skilled users, aka people good at multitasking, should try to use it solo according to the PDA. Under normal circumstances, cam-sight is probably supposed to be overseen from a different station by a different crew-member. Plus, it is still that much of a sight problem since the HUD is already pretty filled up at the edges - where, precisely, are they supposed to fit the camera-feeds into the HUD?
... I fail to get even half of that, since cams alone get me caught on outcroppings all the damn time - I often have to use the sonar in order to make sure I'm not hitting the side of a wall or catching on something in the dark. Especially when I'm in silent running and therefore have no bloody lights to see with - so personally, IDK how you can find the sonar useless. Unless it might just be another instance where you're simply more skilled than everybody else is and what you assume is easy, everyone else struggles with.
You completely missed my point - which is that people hate feeling like they have built something purely for it to get a scripted death; what else can you call being forced to lose your Cyclops besides a scripted event? What you're suggesting would only frustrate people to the point of not building a Cyclops at all if any one single creature is guaranteed to destroy it.
It quite literally is forcing a railroad on the player's actions, in that it arbitrarily tells them they cannot ever have a Cyclops survive a Sea Dragon encounter - even though the much weaker Seamoth can survive against Reapers and Ghost Leviathans if upgraded properly. That is not "open world reaction freedom" - that feels more like a restriction. One that, honestly speaking, doesn't really address the simple fact that people just hate losing stuff they worked hard for, especially for abrupt or unfortunate reasons; people would still reload just to prevent the Cyclops from being destroyed with or without your method, so it wouldn't solve anything. Same with the "1:1 backup blueprint", because that would inspire the opposite extreme of not caring enough if the Cyclops is lost and thereby take away the risk factor.
Even if I'm mistaken about the current navy, that doesn't change my point though: Cyclops should be very fast but clumsy, SeaMoth agile but not so fast and fragile, and exosuit super protected but slow (and sea glide is a poor men SeaMoth). That would give each vehicle unique purpose and all of them plus sea bases would be needed late game.
Well a bit strafing and reducing the turning time was thought to be a minimal feature and not for reality, but more for gameplay relaxation, especially compared to maneuvering against a game leviathan which certainly doesn't appear in the real world like some fantasy godzilla. Not to speak about the Science Fiction setting of a future submarine. Of course a bit training and you don't need strafing. A turning time of 15 secs simply means that your sub is a sitting duck against the fantasy leviathans that have fantastic turning times and speed of rather 5 secs. Maybe the sub turning time could be a bit more SciFi like than real to match leviathan gameplay.
I think technicans agree that massive real world subs can't be as mobile, flexible and speedy as small vehicles, as well don't operate through strafing. I don't vote that bad for the Cyclops because it can't accelerate or turn superfast or have no strafing. The main impacts are the zero vertical axis control and the bad and uncustomizable control binding. And these parts could be real.
And secondary: the Cyclops 4.0 is fast enough and already incredible in accelerating (except turning). The acceleration is even that good, that you have to wonder why the rudder concept is that aweful to get only 15 secs turning time. A real ship might need ages to turn, but also needs ages to accelerate.
Not that reality would matter the devs. A carrier usually has range advantage, like lots of air and energy supply for its smaller vehicles. Not in this game, where the Seamoth and Prawn have infinite air and almost infinite energy to travel across the map without stocking up supplies. These small vehicles have no disadvantages of reality, yet the Cyclops wants to stay real in maneuvering and even worse controlable than that with the bad keybindings. So I consider the Seamoth and Prawn overpowered fantasy subs and the Cyclops worse than reality.
With these issues I don't think I can give the Cyclops some better maneuvering rating than 3/5, even considering being the only sub that wants to feel real.
@The08MetroidMan
The light handling of the Cyclops is far from good. And if they unify the light mechanics without improving it will cause an outrage of all Seamoth fans, like the last one when the control mechanics was changed.
Also I'm one of the skilled users that can drive the Cyclops with these bad HUD configurations. I can, but it doesn't feel good. It's a game. I shouldn't feel frustrated by driving. Reminds me of bad car driving games. In reality driving is easy and fun. Even racing with cars in reality is fun. Just some bad driving games don't get the controls.
The old sonar was good, the new is mainly useless. Are you playing an old save?
Use the Esc key instead of the 'E' key.
As for turning speed, it is not hard to imagine side motors on the sub like RCS thrusters on space ships / satellites. In real life nobody ever bothered creating large submarine for civilian purposes, and military ones are optimized for their task - for stealth and durability.
The strength of big vehicles is rather long range support for smaller vehicles (carrier concept) or the ability to carry cargo or lots of weapons. Subnautica unfortunately made the Seamoth and Prawn too powerful for long range purposes.
If you look at small racing vehicles you can see them break the world speed records. Usually it goes the other way round: The smaller the vehicle is, the faster it can be (down to a critical minimal size - if it's too small it fails). With acceleration and turning time its usually even better.
The problem I have with this is that I think it's a failed concept. Good game controls are essential for a game and shouldn't be sacrificed to simulate a navigation multiplayer problem or to show how to make a sub too big to navigate through small caves. There are too many game companies that can't do good controls and would use every excuse to explain their failure. So UWE, who can do good controls shouldn't try that "multiplayer-hard-to-drive-a-too-massive-sub-through-tiny-spaces-simulation". It's too fun breaking.
And besides, why introduce a 3-man-crew sub in a single player game that denies multiplayer development so strongly? Just to let us feel how hard it is to drive a real submarine? The Cyclops could be made easy to navigate. We are going towards the age of autonomous driving and piloting with advanced AI, yet some sub fans think we should be reminded how difficult it should be made to navigate with a real world sub. This is as nostalgic as the manual bulkheads in this game (with missing vertical bulkheads too).
I don't care that it's slow and clumsy. That's perfectly believable. The problem is that instead of giving some bonus in return for that clumsiness the devs decided that it has to be demonstrably weaker than the other vessels in every category.
1) No storage. This is actually my biggest gripe. Here's a boat the size of a locomotive, with two decks and enough floorspace for a tennis court yet the five built-in lockers combined barely hold more than the tiny footlocker in the lifepod. I know this has been marginally improved with the recent update, but it's still a joke.
2) The lights reduce visibility instead of enhancing it. Park the three boats next to each other in a dark area and jump from one cockpit to the next. The Seamoth and exosuit do a believable job of lighting the area while the Cyclops looks like the glass has been frosted. It isn't a physics issue, it's a deliberate move to gimp the boat.
3) No boat in naval history has ever caught fire from running at flank speed for 7.3 seconds.
4) The Seamoth can fly along at warp speed... the exosuit can stomp in the mud like a drunken rhino... and neither draws any real attention from the nearby critters. But the Cyclops can't even coast along at normal speed without rousing every monster on the map.
5) Seamoth and exosuit both get torpedoes... Cyclops gets decoys.
6) While the upgrades for the other two add functionality, the upgrades for the Cyclops are almost exclusively patches to fix flaws in the basic design.
It's as if adding an MP room to your base suddenly caused critters to swarm your base or your base to catch fire if you used the fabricator while you had batteries charging. It doesn't add challenge, it's just a nuisance. It takes me out of the game because I can't help but notice how arbitrary and nonsensical it is.
You must be playing an older version or older save of the game. Because with the Ghost leviathan stable update only the leviathans and some mid sized ones like the Crabsquid or Ampeel attack the Cyclops.
The silent running system now works in some way (purely based on noise only), so it can happen that leviathans chase your Seamoth or Prawn, but ignore a Cyclops running silent enough. The system is inconsistent (only works with the Cyclops, the other vehicles have no noise level indicator and will always be attacked on distance only) for all vehicles and the diver, but at least its consistent within the Cyclops tech now.
Your other remarks:
With turning times - yes - bigger vehicle will be more clumsy because it has bigger momentum. Unless you have side motors that will help you make the turn.
Btw it could be very cool upgrade for Cyclops: imagine building some pods mounted on her side that when completed would vastly improve her maneuverability=)
The last time I used a Cyclops was, indeed, before the update. Mostly because my wife threatens me with bodily harm if I try to wrest the controls from her. In fact, she's glaring at me now telling me I better type fast because she has things to do.
Semi-joking aside, the last time I used it was after they did a minor change to stop the smaller critters from hurting the Cyclops. They didn't destroy it, but they did still attack it. Those alarms are incredibly distracting when all you're trying to do is carry an exosuit somewhere to deploy it. And I found it ludicrous that critters would even think of attacking something so vastly larger than themselves.
I agree that, in theory, the Cyclops should be an awesome temporary base. I'll start another save to check it out. But I'm not overly optimistic. I think it's still broken by design. It's pretty, it's fun to trick it out, I'd genuinely love to have a use for it. I'm not hating on it just for giggles. I just think they went too far with "balancing" it. (I hate the concept of "balance" as applied to video games. It's like putting square wheels on a Lamborghini to make sure it isn't OP compared to a Honda Accord.)
Yes, start a new game with the Ghost leviathan stable update. Too much things were rebalanced. If they didn't fix it - the shields are now infinite, so if you don't like the other defense systems you can always turn on shields after installing them and let them run forever without using energy, thus getting ignored from every creature while driving. But in any case the devs have seemed to cancel the concept of cooldowns in favor of upgrades drawing energy while running.
The rebalancing has improved. The leviathans were strengthened and the standart creatures don't even attack the Cyclops or can hurt it anymore. So in leviathan or warper territory you are far better off with the Cyclops than without it.
Now if I only had HUD info & toggles while driving in cam mode ...
I have a game going. I just haven't gotten to the point of building a Cyclops yet. Haven't started a "cheat" game yet. That's where I do my experimenting. If I ever get a turn to play again I'll spawn one to see. Infinite shields is a bit much. I'd actually be content with a zapper like the Seamoth has.
If you use a mouse, do you have mouse acceleration turned off? (It's deceptively labeled "enhance pointer precision" in Windows Mouse settings, it makes a mouse less sensitive if moved a slowly, and a lot more sensitive if moved quickly. Handy on the Desktop, not so much in games.)
But... than you're basically admitting there's no in-game reason for it's existence other than as a luxury. Even though vehicles like the Seamoth already provide such a feature. Not to mention that the creatures in-game are more comparable to whales and giant squids in size than Godzilla - and therefore size-wise, there shouldn't be that big a disconnect. And again I point out; that's what the silent running is for - to avoid dangerous wildlife that you cannot effectively combat. Something else that is also taken from standard sub design.
But again, you're seemingly ignoring that the Seamoth's rounder, more compacted design is far more geared towards free-range movement along it's axis than a vehicle with a large, oblong shape like the Cyclops would. Even modern-day subs aren't built for anything resembling "zero vertical axis control" - they're built as flat-earth decks. These aren't space shuttles, you know - they have gravity to deal with that makes "zero vertical axis control" much more realistic a feat for larger, denser vessels.
You were the one talking about sci-fi tech; the Seamoth and Prawn probably filter oxygen out of the water like the fish do. However, to say they have "no disadvantages of reality" is... well, in my opinion, a complete falsehood; the Seamoth is only so agile and maneuverable because it has a semi-spherical design and a comparatively thin, light and subsequently more fragile hull, while the PRAWN's tough armor makes it capable of surviving greater depths but at the cost of speed and the Seamoth's free-range maneuverability. All of those are explicit disadvantages of reality, so it feels like they're not quite the "overpowered fantasy subs" you're claiming them to be - and by extension, the incredibly dense and equipment/machinery-packed Cyclops, with it's large oblong-shaped hull and focus over safe transport rather than speed, doesn't feel at all "worse than reality".
Only if you're trying to force it in a situation it's not suited for. I leave the lights for surface-exploration or at night in safe-zones or any time I'm not in Silent Running; things like tunnels are what I use the sonar for. Again, I don't mean to be rude... but maybe you're confusing limitation of light with being a degrade.
Again I point out; I honestly don't think it's supposed to feel good driving a 3-man vehicle single-handedly - more likely than not, it's supposed to feel like a challenge to make do on your own. "It's a game, so I shouldn't feel frustrated by driving" is something that would probably cause outrage all of it's own among realism fans, as it's taking a realistic difficulty (operating a three-man ship solo) and reducing it simply because it makes the game easier to do overall. Especially since driving in reality really is not "easy and fun" if you're taking something that needs multiple people to operate (tanks, ships, etc) and trying to do it all on your own; this isn't conventional driving, anymore than operating a space-shuttle is conventional flying, and this isn't a submersible race-car like the Seamoth is. So again, it feels like your perspective on how this sub is supposed to drive is... well, for lack of a better description, inherently skewed by desires of easy-access rather than any consideration for the logistics of mass, physics and force for the way these subs were built and what purpose it was for. .
And no, I'm not playing an old save; I simply haven't had the same experiences as you with the new sonar and in fact have found it incredibly useful in finding my way through caverns - it was how I navigated the new LZ passage beneath the Mountain Island when the spotlights didn't do a damn for me.
I'm playing without VR and Keyboard + Mouse. Works fine and there are settings and keyboard mappings. Unfortunately the main vehicle controls are not individually configurable, so my mouse is tied to looking around only, while the maneuvering is tied to the keyboard.
Now I assume you play with VR headset and thus your head movement with the Cyclops is tied to the head movement in the cockpit, so you are free to have the mouse to steer the Cyclops, possibly even allowing a vertical tilt. But I don't know.
Unfortunately the Subnautica Wiki offers no page to explain vehicle or diving controls for each system (XBox, PC, VR Sets, ...).
So maybe it's just a pain to drive the Cyclops for non VR players? Maybe the devs just ignored the vertical tilt for non VR players? Without some control scheme for VR Subnautica vehicles made public I don't know.
Everything you are telling me is defending the devs ways of Cyclops implementation. Yet you earlier said in other posts you have more troubles with the game than me.
So I'm telling I can live with the game and drive the Cyclops through leviathans and here and there it seems flawed to me, which you defend being good enough.
You were telling me in the past that you couldn't drive the Cyclops past leviathans, but with your defense you are practically saying that the devs should leave the Cyclops as bad as is and weaken the leviathans instead.
I don't get it. I'm just trying to stress the weaknesses in Cyclops gameplay, which I can handle, unlike you, who told me you couldn't. But it's okay for you?
Please give me all your Cyclops complaints you have, so I can see what's bothering you with the Cyclops. That is - all you would need to make Cyclops gameplay good for you.
controller
So what's the point of this thing now? To drop off out prawn with even though the prawn can go from the safe shallows to the primary containment facility and back without running out of juice on it's own?
So fuck the cyclops, it's optional anyway, costly to make, and arduous to maintain. My issues with this update is that I have to use consol commands to unlock prawn blueprint because scanning 5 of them didn't unlock it, and nearly all the laser cutter fragments spawned behind doors I couldn't open with the laser cutter.
I don't agree. The Cyclops and everything else made in this universe is far more advance than current Earth tech. So you shouldn't put the same restrictions of real life, onto the Cyclops. There are improvements that should be allowed on it. Such as 3D space movement. Upgrades that are difficult, but satisfying. You don't know what the hull is made out of. It also has shields which can dampen hull stress. Also, if this was real life. The character would of jury-rigged a system to operate the systems that are meant for the other 2 people. Like monitors for the cameras, mechanical hands and pistons to operate the side console light controls etc. Or convert things to voice control. The PDA has an AI. So the Cyclops has to as well. Hell, even with the limitations that the game gives so that you can't directly shoot anything. I know an easy way to kill a Leviathan with what the Cyclops has. When the Leviathan clamps onto the hull, activate the shield. Slice it in half. Second: create multiple cyclops. Rig them to blow up. By making a ton of batteries. Exploding them on the subs engine. Good Bye Leviathan's.
-.-
"Welcome aboard, Captain. All systems online."
The Cyclops DOES have an AI, bud. One that sounds a bit like JARVIS, IMO. Which I love. It's just not THAT independent.
Yes. But that hasn't proven to be intelligent that's equal to the PDA's. I'd dump a copy of the PDA into the Cyclops. There's a ton of those PDA's laying around.
Yes - because I'm not a very good gamer and you, by all accounts, are far more skilled than most people to the point of thinking difficult feats are easy. And the things I did have genuine faults with (smaller creatures damaging the ship, for one) were addressed. In it's current state, I have far less problems with it than I did in earlier posts.
Only because you're not considering the hows and whys, such as that Reapers hunt with echolocation - you treat them as if they should be able to see the Cyclops the same ways a human would. You act like eye-to-eye line-of-sight identification is universal to creatures on an alien planet.
Back than, I did. But that was over a month ago - are you telling me that the fact my opinion changed as the Cyclops was tweaked and re-adjusted somehow doesn't make sense? On top of that, we're not even talking about the entire ship - this disagreement is specifically focused on the limits of the ship's maneuverability.
Except that what you consider "weaknesses in Cyclops gameplay" feel more like personal viewpoint rather than factual complaint. That you can handle them and I can't doesn't mean it's because of a flaw - it's just that you're a better gamer than I am; something I've stressed repeatedly in the past. If anything, I should be the one who's confused here - it's okay for me because that kind of difficulty is realistic for a 3-man vehicle... and yet, you have an easier time of it than everyone else and yet you for some reason are the one complaining about something you're doing easier than everyone else.
The major complaints I had with the Cyclops are largely gone now, what with the latest updates. My only real issues remain with decoy deployment still being vertically-manned at close range rather than having omnidirectional launch tubes, but everything else is something I can live with in manning a 3-person sub.
You do realize that the Cyclops shield is now togglable and just running until your power is down? (And due to a bug it runs infinite at the moment, drawing no power at all)
And of course the Cyclops can't be damaged/attacked during shield use as far as I know.
So if you hate silent running (which has been changed too with the ghost leviathan update), you can try the shield alternative now.
I strongly advise you to restart the game to avoid old Cyclops code running with your old save. The Cyclops 4.0 has changed drastically with the ghost leviathan update.
On the other side if you mention that the leviathans only need a few hits to sink the Cyclops:
That would contradict my experience with a leviathan needing 3 hits to kill a diver if he wears a reinforced diving suit. Although that was just a week before the ghost leviathan update, so could be different now ... have to test it again. But if confirmed that would mean the reinforced diving suit is godlike against the Cyclops.
What in the hell, the cyclops is nowhere near that big.