Industrial Update
Hythemous
USA Join Date: 2016-01-09 Member: 211122Members
USA Join Date: 2016-01-09 Member: 211122Members
I'm writing this post to inspire our developers and community.
Preface:
After playing around 20 hours of this game, I realized that I had spent 2 days doing absolutely nothing else and couldn't be more satisfied with purchase for $20. That said, there was a tipping point for my game where I realized I ultimately had no further challenge. Once I strip-farmed the shallower regions for resources and neatly organized them in my base, I was able to build pretty much anything I wanted; though the strip farming took a couple hours. I built a base in the Grand Reef, which I used to mine minerals that I cannot currently use, loaded them onto my cyclops, and then drove my cyclops like a cargo ship back to my main base in one of the grassy plateaus. While it was hugely fun to collect all of these resources, one of my issues was that as I progressed, I felt the need to streamline more and more processes, which would make my life easier and the strip-farming faster. To my frustration, however, this wasn't possible and I had to take about 6 trips back and forth from the Cyclops to my sea base, while meticulously organizing my quartz, titanium, copper, silver, aluminum, etc. into separate compartments. I know that ultimately, most of this stuff I can't use right now because there isn't a proper end-game, but for my first run I was very satisfied to know that I had hauled in a large cache of resources to solve any future endeavors.
In that moment when I finished unloading my cyclops, I felt a need. I need to go back and collect more stuff to ship back to my base. I realized though that there was no point, because this would take a long time just to unload my cyclops and load up my base (not to mention all the time collecting resources) and even if I did collect all of these resources what would I do with them? At the point of the game where I put it down, I realized I wanted more, and I realized exactly what more meant.
My main points:
-The stated mission of humanity in this game is colonization.
-Colonization requires a massive amount of resources to implement.
-Resources on this scale must be collected and processed in a streamlined fashion.
If these three arguments hold true, then the next logical step is to create an industrial update, which serves the purpose of harvesting and processing the resources that will be used for end-game content.
Ideally this will:
-Allow for new and exciting ways to collect resources.
-Provide a deeper dimension of the game: resource management
-Introduce a component of challenge to reaching end-game content
My recommendations:
The sea base ultimately serves the purpose of the manufacturer and warehouse of resources. To this end, I would recommend adding to the sea base the following:
-"Automated" Storage Room. Massive amounts of storage, around the size of the basic rooms as they are right now. A player would be able to access all resources in the room through a central interface in the room, which would display the resources in the room and the quantities of the respective resources.
-Industrial Fabrication Room. Syncs with automated storage room. Able to fabricate raw resources into more advanced components very quickly.
-Docking Bay. A sea base port that allows the cyclops to dock to the base itself and transfer resources from the cyclops to an automated storage room.
-Cyclops Cargo Bay. A massive drop box storage in the cyclops that can be used to store resources before being transferred into a docking bay.
-Large Resource Nodes. In order to actually feed the demand for resources, larger nodes of titanium, quartz, copper, etc. could be implemented, this will also open the possibility of adding industrial mining operations through either equipment or stationary mining bases.
-Vehicle Resource Collection One of the practical issues of the game is that even with modern technology today, it isn't recommended that one dive beyond 40m. At 400m, I'm quite sure my character's skull would have been crushed, if his organs didn't give out first. For this reason, I think although we can forgive a 100m threshold, it would make a lot more sense to have vehicles do the resource collection. I do recognize the exosuit may solve some of these problems though.
Concluding points:
The point of any game is to provide a constant challenge and new exploration of possibilities. One of the issues that the game struggles with is that many of the early game challenges become late game chores. The core concept of this idea is that, while the need to collect titanium and other basic resources might not go away, the process becomes streamlined in a manner that allows for easier construction of basic items earlier on, while providing the infrastructure to build larger, better, sexier things as the needs of the game progress.
One of the things I want to see in the end game is exceedingly challenging vehicles and structures that need to be built, which could potentially be built by hand over a very long time, but would be made easier by the introduction of streamlined processes. Personally, I want a military-grade seamoth with heavy armor and lasers to kill off a leviathan when I finally collect enough silver, copper, titanium, etc, but I'll leave it up to the devs to decide what the actual end game content will be.
Let me know what you think!
Preface:
After playing around 20 hours of this game, I realized that I had spent 2 days doing absolutely nothing else and couldn't be more satisfied with purchase for $20. That said, there was a tipping point for my game where I realized I ultimately had no further challenge. Once I strip-farmed the shallower regions for resources and neatly organized them in my base, I was able to build pretty much anything I wanted; though the strip farming took a couple hours. I built a base in the Grand Reef, which I used to mine minerals that I cannot currently use, loaded them onto my cyclops, and then drove my cyclops like a cargo ship back to my main base in one of the grassy plateaus. While it was hugely fun to collect all of these resources, one of my issues was that as I progressed, I felt the need to streamline more and more processes, which would make my life easier and the strip-farming faster. To my frustration, however, this wasn't possible and I had to take about 6 trips back and forth from the Cyclops to my sea base, while meticulously organizing my quartz, titanium, copper, silver, aluminum, etc. into separate compartments. I know that ultimately, most of this stuff I can't use right now because there isn't a proper end-game, but for my first run I was very satisfied to know that I had hauled in a large cache of resources to solve any future endeavors.
In that moment when I finished unloading my cyclops, I felt a need. I need to go back and collect more stuff to ship back to my base. I realized though that there was no point, because this would take a long time just to unload my cyclops and load up my base (not to mention all the time collecting resources) and even if I did collect all of these resources what would I do with them? At the point of the game where I put it down, I realized I wanted more, and I realized exactly what more meant.
My main points:
-The stated mission of humanity in this game is colonization.
-Colonization requires a massive amount of resources to implement.
-Resources on this scale must be collected and processed in a streamlined fashion.
If these three arguments hold true, then the next logical step is to create an industrial update, which serves the purpose of harvesting and processing the resources that will be used for end-game content.
Ideally this will:
-Allow for new and exciting ways to collect resources.
-Provide a deeper dimension of the game: resource management
-Introduce a component of challenge to reaching end-game content
My recommendations:
The sea base ultimately serves the purpose of the manufacturer and warehouse of resources. To this end, I would recommend adding to the sea base the following:
-"Automated" Storage Room. Massive amounts of storage, around the size of the basic rooms as they are right now. A player would be able to access all resources in the room through a central interface in the room, which would display the resources in the room and the quantities of the respective resources.
-Industrial Fabrication Room. Syncs with automated storage room. Able to fabricate raw resources into more advanced components very quickly.
-Docking Bay. A sea base port that allows the cyclops to dock to the base itself and transfer resources from the cyclops to an automated storage room.
-Cyclops Cargo Bay. A massive drop box storage in the cyclops that can be used to store resources before being transferred into a docking bay.
-Large Resource Nodes. In order to actually feed the demand for resources, larger nodes of titanium, quartz, copper, etc. could be implemented, this will also open the possibility of adding industrial mining operations through either equipment or stationary mining bases.
-Vehicle Resource Collection One of the practical issues of the game is that even with modern technology today, it isn't recommended that one dive beyond 40m. At 400m, I'm quite sure my character's skull would have been crushed, if his organs didn't give out first. For this reason, I think although we can forgive a 100m threshold, it would make a lot more sense to have vehicles do the resource collection. I do recognize the exosuit may solve some of these problems though.
Concluding points:
The point of any game is to provide a constant challenge and new exploration of possibilities. One of the issues that the game struggles with is that many of the early game challenges become late game chores. The core concept of this idea is that, while the need to collect titanium and other basic resources might not go away, the process becomes streamlined in a manner that allows for easier construction of basic items earlier on, while providing the infrastructure to build larger, better, sexier things as the needs of the game progress.
One of the things I want to see in the end game is exceedingly challenging vehicles and structures that need to be built, which could potentially be built by hand over a very long time, but would be made easier by the introduction of streamlined processes. Personally, I want a military-grade seamoth with heavy armor and lasers to kill off a leviathan when I finally collect enough silver, copper, titanium, etc, but I'll leave it up to the devs to decide what the actual end game content will be.
Let me know what you think!
Comments
Disagreements:
A. Subnautica is really a game about exploration, not massive colonization.
B. I don't think the game will benefit from weapons. That would take the fun and uncertainty and cautiousness out of the game.
Agreements:
A. I agree with you that seabases need to be expanded.
B. Definitely more vehicles (subs, etc), but not militarized.
C. 400m is a little extreme. There are depth restrictions on the Seamoth and the Cyclops, but character is fine that deep. Doesn't make sense.
Closing:
I think that what Subnautica really needs is a story. I totally agree that it seems a little shallow on content/goals. However, there are plenty of places to explore. I know that the devs are working on a story, and I hope it will be implemented soon b/c that would help a lot. Maybe getting a couple of AI players that we can order around might be nice, but a large scale industrial colonization I think would ruin the game. At its heart, Subnautica is an open world survival, and I hope that the devs will preserve that.
The Issue Remains However:
Once you've explored a region for a short while, that's it. That's all. For me the mushroom forest was a 15 minute trip to collect an inventory of lithium and then I moved on and never needed to return. For me, I think the biome was interesting, terrifying, and an overall fun experience but the problem that I had with it was that there was no reason for me to be there after those 15 minutes.
I think one of the necessary steps for the game as a whole is to expand the depth of exploration, meaning that there has to be key objectives in biomes that are intensive rather than shallow. What colonization allows for is a requirement to really dive in (pun intended) and master an area. What resource nodes have the potential to do is provide a dangerous, but valuable objective that poses a challenge for the player and provides a learning curve to give the experience of mastering an aspect of this universe.
While I think that exploration should continue to be the bread and butter, I think industrialization will add much needed depth to the infrastructure and crafting of the game, allow for the mundane early-game chores to become much more straightforward (and thus allow for more time to explore instead of strip farming for hours), and ultimately give the player a fleeting sense of mastery as they progress through the biomes, which will need increasingly more challenging solutions to explore without becoming fish food.
The issue with the game as it is right now is that it takes just as long to obtain basic resources in the early-game as it does the late-game, meaning that repetition effectively gets in the way of exploration. Automation seems like the logical solution, both from a story-line and a development perspective.
Industrialization, along with a more fleshed out story-line, more biodiversity, proper end-game content, among other things I think will come together in the end to make this a truly awesome game.
As far as depth issues, no. The human body can actually withstand incredible pressure, with the current record being held by Ahmed Gabr at 1,090 feet (around 33 atmospheres of pressure.) The real issues come from the breath gases themselves, namely gas toxicity, as well as decompression issues if you ascend too quickly (nitrogen saturation in body tissues under pressure over time; decrease pressure too quickly and the nitrogen leaving the tissues can form bubbles, resulting in "the bends," so named for the excruciating pain that can occur when such bubbles form in joints.) (EDIT: should probably mention that I'm a diver, though admittedly I only have an open water cert and haven't gone below about 60 metres.)
Such issues are not currently planned and do not appear to be planned. That said, A lower limit around 1500 feet might make sense, especially once the exosuit is implemented. The suit could then be used to explore below 1500 feet safely.