Why is the Grand Reef so popular for a base location?
elfcrisis
Join Date: 2017-05-13 Member: 230466Members
Join Date: 2017-05-13 Member: 230466Members
I've seen several people mention that they relocate to the Grand Reef ASAP, but I'm not entirely sure why. To me, the place is both terrifying and difficult to navigate. I know there's plenty of thermal power sources down there, but there are also plenty of crab squids and warpers. Also there's those weird floating bulb lamps everywhere that look like they came from the impulse aisle at Ikea. For just about every play-through, I've built one base in the Shallows and that has served my needs.
So tell me, Subnauticans, what's so grand about the Grand Reef?
So tell me, Subnauticans, what's so grand about the Grand Reef?
Comments
2) It's quite pretty.
3) Once upon a time, it used to be free of any aggressive fishies. That's changed but many may have just gotten into the habit of making a reef base back then and habits stick.
Ohhhhh, I see. So it used to be a safer place, and with the plentiful thermal sources, that makes a lot of sense.
Thanks!
All within 200 m. of you, you can find: gold, silver, copper, lead, titanium, uraninite, salt, diamond, lithium, creepvine and seeds, Spadefish, Airsacks (Bladderfish), Reginald, blood oil, and Sea Teader poop (I assume that it will serve a more important role later into development.)
Not to mention it contains several wrecks and multiple other wrecks in the surrounding biomes.
The only downside is the Phantom Leviathan. But even he can be easily avoided if you build in the right place.
I usually build my base in a caddy-corner below a TS across from the vertical Wreck, which lets me either exploit free Moonpool, Thermal Plant, Scanner Room and Exosuit arm unlocks... or free Titanium, depending on my Blueprint unlock progress. Then there's the Degasi base in the DGR which gives the Swim Charge Fins unlock; and once I'm ready to progress the story with the Cyclops, I'm right there near the Lost River to continue.
Honestly, I've never built a permanent base anywhere else once I found this spot over a year ago. I'd be curious to find out why players don't build here, and why they prefer other biomes instead.
1. Close to blueprints
2. Close thermal vents
3. Close to the edge of the other biomes
4. Close-ish to Deep Grand Reef and thus the way into the far deeper places on the map.
I build my first large base to the SW of the Aurora because it is even closer to the Titanium you need to gather for the Cyclops depth modifications. But I could just as easily build my first large base in the DGR. I'll have to think about what I want to do in my latest game once they fix the spazz Seaglide issues.
Now, of course, that's far closer to the warpers that hunt you than anything, but... its still really pretty down there. It's almost like you aren't underwater anymore as it has a distinct space-like vibe mixed with the slight spookiness of poor LoS except for the reefball things, which are absolutely beautiful with the ambience of the grand reef.
I ran into that problem myself yesterday - I'm assuming you play on Experimental? My Seaglide and Peeper models are wigged out, I I switched back over to Stable but was disappointed that SN stated my Experimental savefile was too far ahead to play on Stable. But there's a solution! I started to post it here, but it got long and I decided to just make it a new thread:
Is the new Experimental Mode causing visual issues? Here's how to remedy it!
I have a feeling that UWE is aware of the problem, but I'm sure they'll get it working again soon.
1) Very close to some heat vents
2) All the aggressives were below me or above me; in the middle, where the heat vents were, there was nothing that wanted to eat me (although admittedly I was fairly close to warper spawns, so it was a *little* intimidating).
3) It had a nice deep drop so there was no fear of hitting the ground when I took my seamoth out, yet enough ledges I could put another moonpool separately for my PRAWN suit.
4) Between one thermal plant and two bioreactors, it had tons of power for almost anything I wanted to do in it. Had I wanted more, there was plenty more space for thermals, which pumped out power like no one's business.
5) The orbs made for a very pretty view out the window. The only prettier place for me would have been in the mushroom forest (I love watching the Jellyrays; I had an aquarium full of them just to enjoy).
6) The closeness to the base and tech shards made it a good place to dive down and still be near enough to get to safety.
I actually didn't know Markiplier had said it was a good area. I just knew that for me, I was looking for somewhere with thermal vents, that had lots of space, and plenty of materials around, and the Grand Reef supplied all of the above, along with 'nothing that tried to eat me' (unlike my disasterous attempt to build in the islands; did you know Bone Sharks will eat your ship through the moonpool? I didn't until then).
Huh? I've always gotten my Thermal Plant fragments from the Grand Reef, most times they used to be scattered throughout the tunnels. But after this Stable update, those fragments along with many others are usually clustered around the vertical Wreck at -284 -250 -850. I mean, why risk death when you can upgrade without worry?
They fixed the Seamoth last night. Whoop!
Because I don't know where that is. I can't view coordinates on Xbox.
It's around where the Kelp Forest meets with the Grand Reef.
@LAZYNOOB2017
You can, actually. It's like, uh, hold down LB + RB and then hit A. Or X. Something like that, they do different things and are kind of a pain to use, but it is possible to see.
Alternately, to find the Vertical Wreck in the Grand Reef, you want to head south from Lifepod 5 to the southern kelp forest. Once there, bear southwest until you find a deep trench leading south-ish. Follow that and not far along it will lead you right smack into the Vertical Wreck. At least, that's one of two Alterra wrecks in the Grand Reef. The other one is at the far southern end.
Usually my main base in the starting area is where I put all the fancy stuff like huge multistory aquariums full of local flora and fauna, moonpools, etc. Generally my only other base much larger than a single MPR is near the tree-of-life, which is just above the border of the maximum seamoth depth (it's around 860-870m iirc). This is so I can shuttle stuff between "upstairs" and "downstairs" easily in the seamoth then switch to either seaglide or PRAWN to get shipments of materials to my cyclops which is usually parked along the big lava tube just before you get to the inactive lava region where the precursor geothermal plant is.
A is the debug console, X is the coordinates
Easiest way to find the Grand Reef is to swim to the Floating Island (head toward the cloudy area behind the Aurora's engines), and then descend straight down at the coast. By the time you hit 100 meters, you'll be there! And, if you head back in the direction of the Aurora following along the left side of the wall, you'll find the Large Wreck (around 240 meters deep) with delicious fragments all around it and inside it.
That's how I relocate my ultimate base for every save, it's pretty helpful info to have on fresh games. I mean, if the game doesn't randomize the terrain or location of landmarks for new games, you might as well take advantage of it.