Ideas for the Dunes
Jamezorg
United Kingdom Join Date: 2016-05-15 Member: 216788Members
United Kingdom Join Date: 2016-05-15 Member: 216788Members
I don't know about you, but the Dunes is REALLY lackluster at the moment. You don't need to go there for anything, it doesn't even look that exciting, it is only meant to be a place that you can accidentally stumble into and get your ass handed to you by a Reaper. So I have a couple of ideas to make this biome a bit more vibrant and lovely and somewhere I'd actually want to spend my time.
Firstly, it might be worth baring in mind that a biome doesn't need some important material to make people want to go to it; if it looks good and is different then people will be drawn to it. So I'm not putting any important materials in the Dunes, just some design ideas I'm throwing out there.
1: Pocket Reefs
So it's safe to assume the Dunes isn't a very nice place. There are Reapers and dangerous things there and it isn't all that nice. So I was thinking that, along the sea floor, were some small pocket reefs that Safe Shallows fish swim around on, like reef boats on a sea of sand. Sandsharks are swimming around these little pockets, as are bonesharks and such, whilst there are boomerangs and bladderfish and brain corals here just having a good time. Being on these little reefs would protect you from Bonesharks and Sandsharks, but Reapers... not so much...
2: Reaper Graveyard
This idea kind of gives the Reaper a little bit of a twist, and if this was what the Dunes became it would be a sweet little addition to the world. Upon entering the biome, your PDA tells you that there are multiple leviathan-class lifeforms in the area, though scans indicate they are not too hostile. You find the Reapers and they are moving fairly slowly around the place. If you get too close they might snap at you, but in general they aren't looking in too great a shape. Then if you head downwards you find that there are hundreds of reaper fossils and skeletons laying across the ground, and the PDA talks about how elephants go to the same place to die on Earth, and how Repaers might share the same characteristics. It would be a kind of twist on the creature, and I'd like it.
3: Precursor City
I get this might take a hell of a lot of time and effort, more so than the other two ideas, but imagine Precursor cubes anchored to the bottom of the ocean by those pipes all across the Dunes. Some of them are shattered and their fragments still float close by in the water (I mean little, ALZ-type cubes, not enormous ones by the way). These destroyed ones could be close to Reapers above, and perhaps they could be accessible and give you some PDA entries regarding Precursors or Reaper studies. It would just look so ominous; the two most evil things in Subnautica complimenting each other so well. The Precursors across the ground and the Reapers above.
4: Complete revamp/Exclusion
I hate to include this, but it's something to think about. If they're going to stuff the void full of Reapers and Reefbacks anyway, and the Dunes are there only for Reapers what's the point in having it at all? They could slice it off of the map completely, or absolutely replace it with another biome. I hope they don't, however. The Dunes has such potential and these ideas are just the start of what the Dunes could be. So I hope they don't do either of these things.
Share what you think the Dunes could be
Firstly, it might be worth baring in mind that a biome doesn't need some important material to make people want to go to it; if it looks good and is different then people will be drawn to it. So I'm not putting any important materials in the Dunes, just some design ideas I'm throwing out there.
1: Pocket Reefs
So it's safe to assume the Dunes isn't a very nice place. There are Reapers and dangerous things there and it isn't all that nice. So I was thinking that, along the sea floor, were some small pocket reefs that Safe Shallows fish swim around on, like reef boats on a sea of sand. Sandsharks are swimming around these little pockets, as are bonesharks and such, whilst there are boomerangs and bladderfish and brain corals here just having a good time. Being on these little reefs would protect you from Bonesharks and Sandsharks, but Reapers... not so much...
2: Reaper Graveyard
This idea kind of gives the Reaper a little bit of a twist, and if this was what the Dunes became it would be a sweet little addition to the world. Upon entering the biome, your PDA tells you that there are multiple leviathan-class lifeforms in the area, though scans indicate they are not too hostile. You find the Reapers and they are moving fairly slowly around the place. If you get too close they might snap at you, but in general they aren't looking in too great a shape. Then if you head downwards you find that there are hundreds of reaper fossils and skeletons laying across the ground, and the PDA talks about how elephants go to the same place to die on Earth, and how Repaers might share the same characteristics. It would be a kind of twist on the creature, and I'd like it.
3: Precursor City
I get this might take a hell of a lot of time and effort, more so than the other two ideas, but imagine Precursor cubes anchored to the bottom of the ocean by those pipes all across the Dunes. Some of them are shattered and their fragments still float close by in the water (I mean little, ALZ-type cubes, not enormous ones by the way). These destroyed ones could be close to Reapers above, and perhaps they could be accessible and give you some PDA entries regarding Precursors or Reaper studies. It would just look so ominous; the two most evil things in Subnautica complimenting each other so well. The Precursors across the ground and the Reapers above.
4: Complete revamp/Exclusion
I hate to include this, but it's something to think about. If they're going to stuff the void full of Reapers and Reefbacks anyway, and the Dunes are there only for Reapers what's the point in having it at all? They could slice it off of the map completely, or absolutely replace it with another biome. I hope they don't, however. The Dunes has such potential and these ideas are just the start of what the Dunes could be. So I hope they don't do either of these things.
Share what you think the Dunes could be
Comments
Several of the near empty biomes act as like a spooky zone, where the absence of things feels really uncomforting.
I personally found the dunes to be REALLY scary to be in, considering all it is is sand slanting towards the end of the map, and theres Reapers everywhere.
The wreckage however is the only one that carries the Thermal Plant fragments, far as I have found.
Several wrecks dont spawn in my build.
There could also quite easily be a Precursor Development there, maybe have it operate as an Ion Crystal refinery, with plenty of them to be found and picked up by the player.