Subnautica Dev Update 4 - Subnautica

System · November 2014

Subnautica Dev Update 4 - Subnautica

Some people say ‘better late than never’ – But in the case of Subnautica, that’s not true. Right now is better, earlier is better. So much is happening so fast...

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Hugh · November 2014

Bump to wake up forum robot

Sir_zino · November 2014

Looks good! Thank god you added the radiation thing on the screen. It took me for ever to figure out why i was taking damage all the time.

aeroripper · November 2014

The day/night addition looks great! Some suggestions for later on in development:

1) Add the moon rising as the sun sets (similar to minecraft's system)
2) Add birds in the air during the day (i'm assuming there is birds flying in the middle of the ocean)
3) Make the underwater light rays less bright, or look different in moonlight. They look out of place during nighttime in the current build.
4) Reflect moonlight off the bottom in the shallow depths.
5) I like how some things glow biolumensciently at night. Not sure how much of this should appear in the shallow depths though, as that seems to be more of a evolutionary adaptation in the deep ocean here on earth. Maybe have the moonlight shimmer off fish in the shallows? Not sure if that would look more practical.

A general question:

Should the diving suit be more high tech? I keep looking for a heads up display beyond what's there for oxygen and depth. The suit itself could stay looking normal, but the hud would provide status upgrades on oxygen, depth, time of day, surface weather etc... Through the course of the game you could find materials to upgrade it to have thermal imaging, threat detection, visual waypoint system, and a robot voice to alert you to dangerous conditions.

Some of these features could be added to certain subs instead.

zetachron · November 2014

I don't know if the engine can do stormy surface waves at all, but before you consider including more surface elements like birds, I'd really like to see stormy surface waves and surface storms.

Everytime I surface right now I can just see the same plain still water surface with its tiny waves. I would ask how much waves are possible and how big could they get? Could you change the surface waves and simulate surface weather?

Gunnie · December 2014

I see a lot of comments about waves and moonlight and weather patterns, something for you guys to think about:- although settling on a new planet would require a lot of simularities, what kind of atmosphere does this planet have? how many moons does it have? what colour is the sun? which leads to what colour are/is the moon(s)?

As I'm sure your aware when you think about it...the moons gravitational pull is what gives us our tides, the distance from the planet of the moon and its gravitational properties gives us the severity and range of those tides, the gravity of our planet and the thickness of our atmosphere gives us our specific wind patterns and severity of our winds which in turn effect the ocean and sea waves.

Lots of variables there guys, and lots of scope to 'play'