Ghost Update Evaluation
zetachron
Germany Join Date: 2014-11-14 Member: 199655Members
Germany Join Date: 2014-11-14 Member: 199655Members
Not reporting the obvious changes and official info about changes, rather my impression about handling and a few things I found useful or bad.
The signal management now is PDA and leads to all necessary tech if you actually follow the signals to the lifeboats and the wrecks or fragments nearby. There is also a small signal bug that doesn't display the correct distance to a vehicle. The rad suit tech magically appearing with the Aurora explosion is a bit weird, but as the rad zone is far smaller now, you don't need it any sooner. It's also rather difficult to find the abandoned outposts at DGR or Shroom Cave if not being veteran with knowledge. And the stasis rifle is too much hidden or just random luck finding it early, as I could get to the cure before finding a trace of it.
The Sunbeam events start a bit early and the rescue time definitely is far too early. It also collides with the rendevouz signal, as it would be stupid to not search the rendevous island for survivors before getting to the Sunbeam meeting. Yet the times are too close to each other. The Sunbeam rescue time could shift a few days ingame time. Also the first Emperor message is already coming at the surface. You wonder why the Degassi or Aurora crew did not get the Emperor contact if you get contact in open water. Best would be to tie it to inside Precursor facilities. Reading Degassi story you might wish to find some sunken Cyclops wreck in the acid waters of the Lost River or the lava pools of the Lava Zone.
The creatures new sounds are awesome. Especially the Warper will give you the creeps as you can hear them without knowing if he's far away or just behind you. The Warper sounds like some buzz saw and probably kills that way close contact, so you can't just ignore the sound. The leviathans sounds are good too, but you can spot them after hearing and thus veterans can stay cool. Of course the Ghost leviathan looks awesome and hits hard.
The thermometer has gone and was replaced by less good feedback in the small vehicles and a bit with thermal plants. But it got actually no fun anymore. And it doesn't make really sense in a scifi diver game to have no thermometer like every diver can have in real life. The Cyclops has no thermometer too. Good luck recharging the Cyclops in heat anywhere else than above a lava pool. The thermometer should come back integrated into the compass.
The Cyclops 4.0 should be enjoyed with a fresh restart as some code from the old savegame could cut you out of the full experience. Alternatively @0x6A7232 has a thread how to fix your Cyclops with the old savegame and the new game build. Also beware of the poster bug that can get your Cyclops movement locked.
The new 6 upgrade slots allow you to install almost all upgrades together. Probably leaves space for more upgrades to come. The shield, silent running and sonar are now togglable and run as long as power is available. The shield is bugged to draw no power. This allows you to toggle the effects and then drive the Cyclops in cam mode, which allows superior navigation if you face leviathans or need vertical movement. The driving of the Cyclops is not easy, needs a lot of training and there is no tutorial. So it sucks in the begin until you are trained. Especially vertical movement needs driving in cam mode, which is a bit more difficult and misses HUD info and cockpit menu buttons. The sight and sonar have gotten major improvements and should allow direct cockpit driving in the darker areas, but not tight and vertical bottlenecks. All in all Cyclops driving is almost good enough and managable now.
The Cyclops upgrades are mostly useful, though the thermal recharge upgrade should get reworked. It offers no thermometer feedback and recharges too slow even at max heat. The silent running is now dampening sound and togglable as it should be, but a bit too noisy compared to shield and decoy methods that allow to bypass with full speed. Especiall Ghost leviathans sticking too close to bottlenecks can't be crossed with silent running being this noisy. Sea Dragons ranges are wider and thus it works with them. Overall gameplay Cyclops fun is now 4/5 after you learned to drive it. The decoy size in this update is too big and would better be 2x2.
Now that the game is practically in beta, you might wish for more tech polishing. Like the water filtration needing 2 titanium only and other bad tech balances. Another story is the strange enzyme recipe. I wish it would include hunting for all eggs and including the transfuser extracting dna from raised juvenile creatures to create the super enzyme. This would additionally improve gameplay, as we would need to search the egg of all creatures and breed them in alien containments to get juvenile creature dna. Because when we get to the Emperor, there isn't much left to do for us without this chase. Maybe we could build the rocket meanwhile when we get it with release. But right now we just hunt down the rare Sea Crown and 3 other easy to get plant examples. Even just using the Sea Crown and the 3 leviathan eggs would be better.
End of story. Hope you liked it.
The signal management now is PDA and leads to all necessary tech if you actually follow the signals to the lifeboats and the wrecks or fragments nearby. There is also a small signal bug that doesn't display the correct distance to a vehicle. The rad suit tech magically appearing with the Aurora explosion is a bit weird, but as the rad zone is far smaller now, you don't need it any sooner. It's also rather difficult to find the abandoned outposts at DGR or Shroom Cave if not being veteran with knowledge. And the stasis rifle is too much hidden or just random luck finding it early, as I could get to the cure before finding a trace of it.
The Sunbeam events start a bit early and the rescue time definitely is far too early. It also collides with the rendevouz signal, as it would be stupid to not search the rendevous island for survivors before getting to the Sunbeam meeting. Yet the times are too close to each other. The Sunbeam rescue time could shift a few days ingame time. Also the first Emperor message is already coming at the surface. You wonder why the Degassi or Aurora crew did not get the Emperor contact if you get contact in open water. Best would be to tie it to inside Precursor facilities. Reading Degassi story you might wish to find some sunken Cyclops wreck in the acid waters of the Lost River or the lava pools of the Lava Zone.
The creatures new sounds are awesome. Especially the Warper will give you the creeps as you can hear them without knowing if he's far away or just behind you. The Warper sounds like some buzz saw and probably kills that way close contact, so you can't just ignore the sound. The leviathans sounds are good too, but you can spot them after hearing and thus veterans can stay cool. Of course the Ghost leviathan looks awesome and hits hard.
The thermometer has gone and was replaced by less good feedback in the small vehicles and a bit with thermal plants. But it got actually no fun anymore. And it doesn't make really sense in a scifi diver game to have no thermometer like every diver can have in real life. The Cyclops has no thermometer too. Good luck recharging the Cyclops in heat anywhere else than above a lava pool. The thermometer should come back integrated into the compass.
The Cyclops 4.0 should be enjoyed with a fresh restart as some code from the old savegame could cut you out of the full experience. Alternatively @0x6A7232 has a thread how to fix your Cyclops with the old savegame and the new game build. Also beware of the poster bug that can get your Cyclops movement locked.
The new 6 upgrade slots allow you to install almost all upgrades together. Probably leaves space for more upgrades to come. The shield, silent running and sonar are now togglable and run as long as power is available. The shield is bugged to draw no power. This allows you to toggle the effects and then drive the Cyclops in cam mode, which allows superior navigation if you face leviathans or need vertical movement. The driving of the Cyclops is not easy, needs a lot of training and there is no tutorial. So it sucks in the begin until you are trained. Especially vertical movement needs driving in cam mode, which is a bit more difficult and misses HUD info and cockpit menu buttons. The sight and sonar have gotten major improvements and should allow direct cockpit driving in the darker areas, but not tight and vertical bottlenecks. All in all Cyclops driving is almost good enough and managable now.
The Cyclops upgrades are mostly useful, though the thermal recharge upgrade should get reworked. It offers no thermometer feedback and recharges too slow even at max heat. The silent running is now dampening sound and togglable as it should be, but a bit too noisy compared to shield and decoy methods that allow to bypass with full speed. Especiall Ghost leviathans sticking too close to bottlenecks can't be crossed with silent running being this noisy. Sea Dragons ranges are wider and thus it works with them. Overall gameplay Cyclops fun is now 4/5 after you learned to drive it. The decoy size in this update is too big and would better be 2x2.
Now that the game is practically in beta, you might wish for more tech polishing. Like the water filtration needing 2 titanium only and other bad tech balances. Another story is the strange enzyme recipe. I wish it would include hunting for all eggs and including the transfuser extracting dna from raised juvenile creatures to create the super enzyme. This would additionally improve gameplay, as we would need to search the egg of all creatures and breed them in alien containments to get juvenile creature dna. Because when we get to the Emperor, there isn't much left to do for us without this chase. Maybe we could build the rocket meanwhile when we get it with release. But right now we just hunt down the rare Sea Crown and 3 other easy to get plant examples. Even just using the Sea Crown and the 3 leviathan eggs would be better.
End of story. Hope you liked it.
Comments
Is this what you meant by "Degrassi?"
Sorry, had to.
1- i do agree the rad suit appearing just before the ship explosion is wierd but it might not be a wrong move, what if after the aroura explosion the pda recives a transmission or something that has the rad suit blueprint that will be a good improvement
2-to be honest you don't really need the thermometer to find heat spots, you'll immediately identify one when you see it
I do agree the cyclops should have a way to locate heat areas so what I suggeste is
-adding the heat areas to cyclops sonar instead of a thermometer like other vehicles (also the seaglide map will be reworked soon)
That's what I have about the ghost update otherwise everything else is going for the better (in my opinion)
I haven't messed with trying to get it past leviathans yet, though. (Autocorrect on my phone tried to make that "lesbians"). I had thought of using decoys to lure out reapers hiding in terrain so I could kill them, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
I really should test this stuff.
This can lead to a strange and complicated strategy. You can extract an ion power cell from the Cyclops and put it into the Seamoth at the moonpool. Thus recharging it much faster and then put it back into the Cyclops. But you will always feel like an idiot achieving your goal in a such a roundabout way. Even if it serves the purpose, you'd ask why the devs have forced you the roundabout way.
I suggest the devs find a medium recharge rate for all systems that are neither overpowered nor agonizing lame. I could understand that onboard vehicle rechargers are not so fast recharging than through a base with stored mass power available. But it's unacceptable to have different base recharging times with recharge devices at walls or through the moonpool. And certainly it's stupid to force the player to put a power cell in a vehicle to recharge it through the moonpool. So all base rechargers that draw power from the habitat's mass energy storage, should have the same fast recharge rate.
I was watching a Geltaz gameplay video and he mentioned time in the game, and I have to agree with him....the time speed in the game is obscene.
We are both The Long Dark veterans and their scale of 12 times faster is pretty much perfect....
One hour of real life = 12 hours in the game, but they have accelerated time and the ability to sleep...which also speeds up time, so maybe double that or, 24 times natural time.
So one hour in real life equals a full 24 hour day in the game....
Subnautica seems like it's even twice that speed or more. It seems like it's nighttime every 15 minutes.....that's waaaaay too fast....
Anyways I joined to start a thread about that in your forums, but I can't because you have to wait a day to start a thread because this is the worst forum ever....
PS The Subnautica team are SUPER lucky to have Geltaz posting gameplay videos on YouTube....he has a huge fan base. I bet he's already gotten hundreds to thousands of people to try your game on Steam, just because he plays it and likes it....
Unlike idk, Markiplier who's only got a tiny fanbase in comparison or any other massive youtuber who does this game.
I'm here specifically because of Markiplier. Never heard of that other guy.
Subnautica's day speed is the same as Minecraft's. Seems ok to me as I don't want to spend an entire play session in the dark.
While I too think it's weird that the rad suit blueprint magically appears just before the Aurora explodes (actually, I hate this change, as it adds time to my speedruns), to absolutely no one's surprise I have some minor quibbles:
- Finding the DGR base is not necessarily a matter of veteran knowledge. There's always exploring, or the wiki, or Google.
- Stasis rifle (and MVB) fragments are all over the place now, but this may be because of post-Ghost Update changes.
- The Lifepod 19 message and the arrival of the Sunbeam are not chronologically tied. You have to construct things to get Lifepod messages.
- The Sea Emperor doesn't contact you until Day 15 regardless of your progress in the game.
Markiplier, 18.3 million
jacksepticeye, 16.5 million
Thinknoodles, 2.4 million
CoryxKenshin, 1.9 million
Duncan, 1.8 million
JT Machinima, 1.4 million
Neebs Gaming, 1.3 million
8-Bit Ryan, 0.99 million
IGP, 0.5 million
Anthomnia, 0.2 million
EnterElysium, 0.2 million
A few others I didn't mention that are 0.17 - 0.19 million
NOT that I'm trying to knock anyone with "only" a few thousand subscribers - quantity of followers is no indication of quality, all of the above YouTubers started from the bottom like everyone else. Just an eye-opener is all. Subnautica has had a lot of exposure, which is good, or we might not be so lucky to be getting as much of a high quality game as we are.
Degasi criticism
Agreed, it is crazy faster to put your power cells in Seamoth/Prawn than Power cell charger. Then again the Moonpool is significantly bigger and more costly.
My solution would be a Cyclops dock, which charges at the same rate as the Moonpool. So, the Powercell charger would just be a stop-gap until you can afford Moonpool/Dock.
I am, ... knocking.
Does this Geltaz person have his own "Player Obtainable Item" in the game?
Oh ..., No ?? ...
Well, I guess he's not as "famous" as one would be led to believe.
If you approach the Aurora before the explosion, radiation is still high enough to make the screen go fuzzy and eventually kill you.
And the loss-of-frag progress bug when saving and reloading a game still exists for at least the Seamoth and the Bioreactor, maybe the Multipurpose Room too (but not apparently the Moonpool nor the Scanner Room).
As I've pointed out in other threads, no it definitely doesn't.
That's disappointing to hear. It's bad enough as is. Someone had reported that the copper situation had improved too.
Mobile vehicle bay fragments also have that problem.
Spoiler'ed "just in case".
I never even heard the thing coming, unlike the Reaper and Warper which I can hear from quite a distance (Usually. Sometimes the reaper's in a sneaky mood himself!)
So I was then stuck 287 meters below the surface with an angry leviathan and no battery in my seaglide. Surprisingly I wasn't as panicked as I was with the reapers, but still in quite a rush, I pull out a battery from my flashlight only to see its at 2%, so I pull it out of my scanner and jam it into my seaglide and dash to the surface.
Thankfully the Leviathan didn't follow me, and I escaped - reaching the surface with 24 oxygen left.
I never even heard the guy coming xD I've seen it three times so far and it always seems.... Like it's all stealthy and hushed. Which I suppose makes sense given its name - never hear them coming, never see them until its too late..
EDIT:
I've followed your threads. You should have given me a link, though now it doesn't matter anymore.
It's true that the devs made some terrible mistake in tying the signals to crafting certain things (but strangely not the Sunbeam events, so you could get the Sunbeam signal while having no Seaglide or Seamoth to get there). If, like you, drop to craft things that you consider useless, you will miss signals.
I think the devs should rework their signal triggering to make sure everyone gets the signals in a good order. Like this:
Also it's not good to trigger events to crafting non-essential stuff like the Seaglide, Bioreactor, etc. As @Halios mentioned some players really don't consider every stuff the devs like as useful. And therefore would loose important signals. Tying signals to crafting a necessary tech like the builder could be ok, but certainly some signals use unnecessary triggers.
My story.
So I was in the Seamoth somewhere in the Grand Reef around 250m. Then there was a flash of something white and translucent from behind visible to the upper left and the sub's health went from 100% to 58% in one attack. Can't remember if there was any noise, but don't think so before the attack. I went to full ahead and rising NOW. If I'd been smart, I would have gone full left or right as well, as that used to move the Seamoth faster.
I guess the Seamoth's just over 12m/s is enough to outrun a Ghost Leviathan.
I just wonder how the hell I'm going to explore the Deep Grand Reef. Or anyplace with those Translucent Beasts. With at least the Hull Upgrade and the Defence Module for sure.
I think I needed to search more widely for Copper early game. You want to find at least 2 of the 3 large coral tubes in the Safe Shallows--and watch out for Crashfish in them. I was near one and thought that it along with what other Limestone I could find would be enough. While I was setting up my main base just north of the Grand Reef, I did a lot of Limestone sweeps and had to find a 2nd large coral tube and loot it.
You're going to have a lot of excess other mats; I had a pile of Titanium and Lead in a low-ground dip outside my starter base near Lifepod 5 (just finished moving it to my main base) and with more thorough searching you'll have more. Never leave out Gold or Silver 'cause it'll attract Stalkers and they'll steal some. And be absolutely sure in using each piece of Copper, Silver, and Gold. I've found that any of them can and will become the pacing mat early and mid game.
Damn. Got lucky with the MVB and unlocked it in one play session.
I started a new Experimental game this week. I've mostly stuck to searching around the storyline signal locations and that's gotten me most tech, including Plant Pots, Plant Shelves, and the Stasis Rifle (near Lifepod 19 and on the Floating Isle).
Biggest extra I did was the Degasis abandonned base in the Jelly Shroom Caves, which is a gold-mine for tech early game and one I do as soon as I get a Seamoth, primarily for QoL. Even that could be found by regular exploring in the early game areas, especially after getting to the Floating Isle and reading the PDAs there.
Especially this location is not found through signals. In fact I doubt any newcomer would have any other chances than by luck to find this location. It's too deep to find it before having advanced stuff and even then you can easily get lost in the caves, so you would have to descend at the opening above the base to find it.
It might be good to get a signal through reading the proper Degasi PDA logs. Even if such a signal would only locate the Jelly Shroom Cave biome center. So a newcomer knows that there must be an abondoned base there. Then he could search for it specifically. In fact it would be good to get a signal in the Jelly shroom caves far away from the abondoned base to encourage the cave exploration a bit.
Knife
Scanner
Repair Tool
Seaglide
Fins
Rad Suit 3-piece
Rebreather
2x High Capacity Oxygen Tank
Spare Battery
Seamoth
6x empty inventory slots to swap tanks
EDIT: Big change! Don't need empty inventory slots to swap, can drag items between inventory and the paperdoll to swap without any empty slots.
Prior to this, should have filled the spare tank by mounting it in the paperdoll on the PDA and mastered swapping tanks, perhaps in a shallow water swimout.
The area above the shaft and the upper part of the shaft are in the Aurora Rad Zone. Once half-way down or lower, can switch the Rad Helmet out and put on the Rebreather. Then park the Seamoth at the top of the cave just when the base is visible. Exit and Seaglide down to it. Explore at leisure. Watch out for the Drooping Stingers and the Crab Snakes. Even with a spare tank, I usually do 2 swimouts from the Seamoth. Once done, be sure to put the Rad Helmet back on before going back up.
However, it's very tough to explore the Jelly Shroom Caves without a Seamoth and at least a Pressure Compensator MK 1. And I say this as someone who used to Seaglide down the centre shaft to explore a bit. That was back when I could carry 6 or 7 30-second oxygen tanks, didn't need to swap tanks, and took advantage of a Brain Coral outside the cave to the shaft at about 80m to recharge oxygen before going down and when coming back up. But free swimming I never went very far and barely explored the middle section of the caves. I stopped doing so when the MPR frags were removed.
The tops of the caves are about 190m and most of the passages between them are well below 200m. With just a stock Seamoth, each shaft can be explored and the caves beneath it via swimouts, but the player can't really move between the cave clusters. And that then requires finding each shaft. I can readily find the 2 shafts I've used a lot, but there's at least 4.
EDIT: According to the Wiki map from last March, there's 5 shafts into the Jelly Shroom Caves
To properly explore the caves really needs a Seamoth and a PC MK 1. Without a PC MK 1 to discover outside of the Aurora, that means that won't happen before either the Aurora or both the Moonpool and the Vehicle Modification Station are unlocked.
As you suggested, it could be added into the storyline by having one of the Floating Isle's PDA's give better reference to the Jelly Shroom Cave base and include a signal and a PC MK 1 there to be picked up. There's a PC MK1 in the Aurora, but having it on the Floating Isle with a PDA pointing to the Jelly Shroom Caves would be better.
Unfortunately, I don't think this sort of change will happen before game release.