Should the ocean become darker at night and with greater depth (e.g. 300+)?

Tysohal

When I watched a documentary about glowing fish, it was said that at ca. 250 meters the ocean gets real dark because just around 1% sunlight gets through. After this depth most of the fish (ca. 90%) developed some kind of bioluminescence which is either used to catch prey, divert predators or make larger predators notice the predators that are eating you.
I generally think that most games do not do the night justice because they have some kind of base lighting. Furthermore Subnautica could implement meaning to the darkness via the ecosystem (so that it is not just scaling down the gamma).

Ideas:
- make nights darker so that predators won't be easy to spot coming for you - this could be made less extreme by adding more glowing lifeforms
- make caves and deeper ocean darker for more realism
- using artificial light sources in otherwise dark biomes should attract the attention of the locals (like it already does with bonesharks) or drive them away since you could be a predator in their eyes
- put in a helmet with a flashlight - it would make total sense to have a light source which allows the use of tools at night or in caves

Linfoma

i dont even know how to vote in this one...if you look at it from a realistic point ...yes it should be darker at night in great depth...but from a player´s point a view i dont like that idea because your actions would be restricted at night time maby ppl wouldnt even go out at night time unless you give a bust to the subs lights...in fact if you look at those deep sea subs they have lights all over not just in front....or make the sonar/fishfinder that gives u a picture of everything in proximity

Tysohal

Sure the lights would have to be boosted. The not going out at night could be circumvented when sleeping in a bed can change day/night like in minecraft. So it would only be an issue during exploration. In addition to that there could be lifeforms to not make everything fully dark like there already is -> jelly shroom cave.

Racer1

Nights are already darker...aren't they? At least they used to be.

Also, why would caves be darker? They are already effectively pitch black, except for bio-lumanescence/flashlights/etc.

P.S. Nights are only ~1/4 of the full-day period (as if it was summer near the arctic circle) -- so having darker nights would have less of an effect than a "regular" night.

Marut

Great depth being 1000+ of course.

TotallyLemon

Info on light in the water column:

http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/light_travel.html

Luitjens

If you wanna play the game darker for now, see this thread http://forums.unknownworlds.com/discussion/137518/sweetfx-2-0-shader-for-a-darker-vibrant-subnautica-v1-0

There are two shaders, one super hardcore dark and a light version, see how it feels at greater depths !

Captain_Pyro

I often thought the light at night needs to be more realistic. Eats up a lot of atmosphere right now.

But no luring big fish to the player for me please ... at least as long as the general aggro behaviour isn't changed in any way.

Tysohal

Luitjens wrote: »

There are two shaders, one super hardcore dark and a light version, see how it feels at greater depths !

Nicely done! I will check them out.

Captain_Pyro wrote: »

I often thought the light at night needs to be more realistic. Eats up a lot of atmosphere right now.

But no luring big fish to the player for me please ... at least as long as the general aggro behaviour isn't changed in any way.

Oh yes. Since Biter-Fish is out there the aggressiveness got really annoying. Them being hard to spot and pursue over great length is so frustrating.
I wish for upcoming updates to bring more peaceful fish. As it is now nearly every fish aside the smallest ones are out to kill. That seems rather unlikely for a healthy ecosystem.