Antimatter said:
Oh, so thats why it rocketed up the twitch viewership counts, didn't realize it wa sin early access. I scored it ages ago from a humble bundle, have not yet played it though, despite having it installed. I'll have to find the time to play it.
As for what i'm playing, Well, Finished episode four of Life is Strange.
Well damn, didn't expect some of those twists, nor having to make a few of those choices. One more episode to go, then it's all about prepping for Monster Hunter World Friday.
I'm a good ways into it now, definitely give Subnautica a shot. The later part of the game is a lot more interesting than the starting part.
It's been lauded as one of the best examples of how to do early access right. I've got to agree, they were very open about production, updated regularly, and interacted with the community a lot. I was keeping up with it fairly regularly even though I wasn't playing it all that frequently.
The final product is extremely impressive for the price point.
It is a bit grindy in the beginning. Things go much faster if you use your scanning tool a lot on any odd looking debris and check inside open cargo containers. You'll get better energy production and the first vehicle pretty early on if you're doing that.
The deep areas are definitely much more interesting than the shallows, which you'll continuously use to gather food and water if you're playing survival, but otherwise won't send much time in. Build a base near them, but not in them, and further away from the big ship wreckage rather than towards it.
In fact, you'll probably want to just work out of the escape pod for quite a while. That's entirely doable if you build several floating containers.
Focus on fixing the big ship first. You need a fire extinguisher and the physics gun.
A cutting tool as well if you want to fully explore and loot everything. Though you don't need one to fix the ship and you can always come back later. Bring food and water if you're playing survival, and extra batteries. You should be able to swim there early on, there's nothing that isn't easily avoided between you and it. Be sure to scan all the furniture and equipment you can while you're there. The same goes for any abandoned bases you come across.
You don't have to fix the ship, but if you don't the radiation hazard area becomes pretty big and can be a pain to deal with. It explodes twice, once is hard scripted and can't be avoided, the second time you can avoid by fixing it.
After that, focus on going deeper, which is where all the more interesting areas are.
Also, aside from small fish that you use for food and water, don't bother trying to kill anything. It's not worth the effort. Usually just a swipe from your knife will drive most medium sized threats away, and you can punch stuff with the prawn or use the electric upgrade with the seamoth to drive most other stuff away. Once you injure something and it swims off, it won't bother you again for a while
You can kill anything, but it's not worth it unless there is something particularly aggressive that hangs out right outside the door to your base or something.
I've not tried it, but as I understand it you can wipe out species if you're not careful. They require a certain number for breeding and you can literally fish them out of existence. You'd basically have to be actively trying to do this really. The only thing I'd advise caution with are the fish you get water from. There are other ways to get it, but early on these will be your primary source.
The game was literally designed to discourage killing. The Prawn is your best offensive option, and even it is more defensive than offensive.
You'll need the teeth of one of the medium predator fish to build some stuff, but you can't get them by killing them anyway. You'll notice these fish like to pick up and play with scrap metal, they drop teeth when they do this. So just leave some around nearby to them and wait for one to drop. It doesn't take long and there's no limit to how many you can get from the same one. You only need like five of them to build the thing you need the most of them for anyway.
I only mention this because it took me a while to figure this out and I wasted a lot of time trying to kill the stupid things to try and harvest this resource.
Also, don't waste time or resources on torpedoes. They are hard to use and not very effective. Both vehicles that can use them have more effective defensive options. Do invest in decoys for the big sub, you'll need them. Also, be aware that lights and sound are a liability in the deep, go into silent mode and turn off your lights if anything nasty enough to be a threat is swimming around you. Even if it means sitting in the dark for a bit.
Turn your big subs into mobile bases once you make them. You can build all the crafting stuff, a radio, and extra storage into it.
One final tip, keep your home base compact.
Two reasons, one is that if you make it too large without reinforcing it, it will spring leaks, which is a pain. You can fix them with the repair tool, but if you're coming in from outside and nearly out of air only to find your base is full of water it's a pain. Also, windows weaken your base, so none of those until you get what you need to build reinforcement walls and bulkheads.
Secondly, a huge base eats up frames obviously, and it can be a pain to navigate a larger one just due to the size and the way the pieces fit together. I recommend finding an old abandoned base before you start your own base so you can get the blueprints for the all purpose room before you start building. It's the best foundation for starting a base, and all you have to start with are hall sections.
I keep mine down to one cosmetic room with various items in it, and the rest of my base is entirely functional and only as large as it needs to be, save for the occasional window.