Was Subnautica originally or at any time about free diving?

BenkyoBenkyo Join Date: 2019-02-04 Member: 250356Members
edited February 2019 in Subnautica General Discussion
I missed Early Access, and any discussions about the game at that time. It seems to me that the game systems are well-suited to a game about (futuristic) free diving, but don't make sense when trying to fit them to diving with air tanks.

Of course, any way you look at it, you need some kind of internal blood/tissue filtering, forcefields, etc., but at a very basic level, having X seconds of air to work with seems like it is an idea based on free diving, not tank diving. Your dive times are so short, you "refill" almost instantly, and depth makes little difference. Improvements to your dive time could have represented superior implants.

Am I totally off base?
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Comments

  • MaxAstroMaxAstro Join Date: 2005-07-07 Member: 55451Members
    My impression is rather that oxygen in Subnautica is a game mechanic first and foremost, with any pass at realism being a distant second.
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  • layzorclayzorc Join Date: 2011-06-18 Member: 105198Members
    edited February 2019
    I think they tried their best to balance Story/gameplay/immersion. The game isn't just for divers but for all sorts of people, children included. It is a diverse game not a diver game :P
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  • BenkyoBenkyo Join Date: 2019-02-04 Member: 250356Members
    Sure, I agree that the game mechanic came first - a beautiful 3D space to explore, but you can only dive into it, and not remain there for an hour, otherwise, without complex pressure calculations, it might not feel much different from space/flight games. So you have the mechanism, it maps well to free diving so it's relatable and understandable. Then, during playtesting, someone pipes up and says "I can make all this cool stuff, why can't I make SCUBA gear?" or even just "underwater breathing sounds so much more evocative, lets do that".

    Then everything gets retrofitted to SCUBA gear, but you can still see all the stitching - short dive times, instant refills, instant unconsciousness when you run out of oxygen...

    Eh, just a theory. I thought there might actually have been a public design period or an early access period when such a change was made. If there wasn't, it will probably never be more than speculation on my part.
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  • 0x6A72320x6A7232 US Join Date: 2016-10-06 Member: 222906Members
    They had nitrogen narcosis but removed it. Might still be in the debug commands; I'm not sure.
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  • RequiemfangRequiemfang Join Date: 2015-02-22 Member: 201492Members
    0x6A7232 wrote: »
    They had nitrogen narcosis but removed it. Might still be in the debug commands; I'm not sure.

    yeah it's still a command in the console, typing in nitrogen in the command console will toggle it on and allow for longer dives but adds decompression sickness.
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