Farming - alternative motivation/bigger picture

Racer1

There has been some discussion about farming, but I was hoping for a bit more on *why* farming is necessary.

The obvious first answer is to provide a reliable food source for the player. That is a good first motivation, but I am hoping that there can be some more depth. I was hoping there could be an outside reason for farming.

The one that comes to mind is:
The Subnautica world is dying. Maybe it has been going downhill for thousands of years. Maybe the crash of the ship and explosion of the gravity drive set in motion some cascading failure of the ecosystem.

Whatever the case, if the biosphere dies, it will cause the planet to be uninhabitable in the next X years, with some severe short-term effects as well. So, rather than just farming for food, the player could be farming and releasing back into the ocean to help repopulate.

Feel free to offer other suggestions.

ShuryCZ

It makes sense and you kind of opened my eyes. The world of SN is DYING?! Wut? Now, the whole subject needs this mechanism, I agree with you. And ehm... By dying, we mean what exactly? No re-spawn and so on? I am sorry for dumb questions

Chris1217

In this game. survival is just a challenge for the beginnings of the game. the point in this game is to explore and to understand this new world (im not in dev head but i think so)
Added a ecologic reason for farming is complex and take time for the dev: to creat, and for the player: to play. + one person cant save a entire ecosystem alone. ++ one atomic explosion cannot destroy a entire planet or Earth will be done by now.

Racer1

@ShuryCZ Dying can mean whatever you want. Maybe the water is not nutrient rich enough to support the microorganisms, which will cause the entire ecosystem to collapse.

@Chris1217 This thread is mainly a response to UWE preparing to add farming to the game. There is otherwise no reason to farm as a single person - as the player could easily live off of a sustainable ecosystem without needing to farm.

Chris1217

@Racer1 preparing this world (and your base) to host "settler's" so they dont have to destroy the entire ecosytem to live.

lorcogoth

the world doesn't really seem like dying if the entire ecosystem is disrupted then you would notice. something like that is really hard on a ecosystem and there would be way less fish and nothing the size of the reaper or the reefback and those are only some of the smaller large creatures that will be in the game.

although, something did cause the aurora to get down to the surface and the reapers are unusually attracted to the wreckage so something might be trying to save the planet.

Chris1217

@lorcogoth i agree with you on the ecosystem part but not on the second part.
We dont know what cause the crash, it may be microsingularity or a ancient defance system from an long gone alien civilization or a solar flare and a lot of fish are attracted by shiny stuff.

crane476

I don't know if the ecosystem is dying, but Subnautica was always going to be about you as a scientist surviving and then eventually having your actions affect the surrounding ecosystem. When the farming update drops, you will be able to find eggs, hatch them in your aquarium, and then release the fish back into the wild. The fish you keep will then breed and produce more eggs and the cycle will repeat. The same thing can be done with plants and seeds as well. You as the player will have the option to cultivate the ecosystem and help it thrive should you so choose.

IronHorse

Maybe this will tie into the eggs that are being developed.. for both research and an ecosystem

lorcogoth

@Chris1217
although fis are indeed atracted by shiny this there is a diffrence with shiny thing and gaint hunk of steel that fell from the sky. and for so far i know is only human kind stupid enough to go and check out objects of mass destruction shortly after said destroction.(just saying that most creatures stay away from those things especially since molten metal is still dripping from the wreckage)

but maybe they are intrested because of the sound of impact since they might feed on corpes of unknown giant creatueres that inhabit the planet (with the sound of a gaint corpse being similair to that of the crash)

Luitjens

In regards to Racer1 original post if this 'ecosystem' was dying, or just a better system

Aquaponics, feed fish and plants at the same time... And its sciency.. and you can eat both or propagate them back into the environment ecosystem

We can worry about other nutrients later, but this is a good start-- I'm not a fan of the current system in experimental, its too-crude and not very 'post-information era' way of growing food







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