The issue of having uranium and not getting poisoned
LookAtMe
Join Date: 2016-10-11 Member: 223053Members
Join Date: 2016-10-11 Member: 223053Members
First off let me say that I love Subnautica to death. Some issues here and there but it's still one of my favorite games. The issue I want to talk about is the problem of radiation and how we aren't going mutant from holding uranium. The games is getting very realistic since the silent running update, including the new models that make resources look more real. And I (and probably many others) are wondering the use of the radiation suit and it's one time use for the aurora. So maybe, you can make it so you have to have your radiation suit when handling nuclear rods, and uranium. Just a thought. Like I said, fricken love this game and can't wait for its full release.
Comments
You can hold uranium ore with your bare hands irl and suffer no ill effects, and radiation does not cause mutation in the way that I presume you are using the word.
EDIT: Nuclear rods, on the other hand, should require a rad suit yes.
...That said, that's not a bad idea gameplay-wise. I always build a bulkhead leading into my reactor room just for looks; would be cool if I actually needed a bulkhead for it.
That's an idea too, bulkheads could maybe get a new feature where you have to have one of them or more to block out radiation, but that leads to the question of the cyclops maybe having a nuclear reactor, would we have to wear a radiation suit in order to drive the cyclops?
Yeah that would make sense.
Power leading right to the engine.
To provide more uses for the rad suit, maybe some of the precursor bases could have radioactive areas. Radiation doesn't come exclusively from radioactive materials (technically light is radiation), and it would be believable that some of their tech (especially in the power room in the thermal plant) could emit enough radiation to be dangerous. The destroyed base could be an opportunity for this as well, with the damage causing radioactive substances to be released out of containment.
Don't you need a reinforced dive suit to go down to the lava zone; you'd be a swimming peeper on fire. That idea though would may go to ion crystals. If I'm not mistaken, they do say they are nuclear. Maybe a rad suit for them? It would add a difficulty to getting them.
I know that the reinforced dive suit is necessary to swim outside a vehicle in the lava zones, which is why I specifically mentioned the power room. A new player would likely need to leave and come back with the artifact to open the door anyways, so if the PDA mentioned that the room beyond contained radiation, the player could make sure to bring a radsuit. I've brought the Prawn into the facility before, so technically the reinforced dive suit isn't even required to reach the thermal facility.
Thanks for clearing that up.
Even though they aren't nuclear, something that small that contains that much energy is very likely going to leak some radiation. This is supported by the fact that they glow. The glow, though, is just the visible part of the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation it's emitting. It's very possible that it's also emitting tons of X-rays and gamma radiation that's slowly killing us.
But a bit more rad handling would at least make the rad suit make more reusable. The game has a lot of items that suffer from being used only once and then never again. So some rad handling for uranite and the rods could help.
Thorium needs to be breed into U 233 before it can be used as fission fuel. Natural uranium could be used in a heavy water reactor, like Canada's CANDU, directly. The rad suit would be sufficient for handling new fuel rods, but after use in a reactor, it likely wouldn't be enough to handle used rods.
However, I don't think this would add a lot to the game besides another frustration for the player. What should be done is significantly improve the Nuclear Reactor as a power source, else it's likely just to be avoided.
The game simulates radiation well enough with the Aurora. Radioactive sources are properly shielded in real life for when the radioactive source is not in operation and there is proper procedures for when it is in operation. Only when something goes horribly wrong like a vehicle running over your radioactive source which can happen in my line of work does it become a major concern. Therefore, the Nuclear Reactor and Nuclear Rods don't need a radiation mechanic unless every base piece gets a health bar. So if the Nuclear Reactor is at full health, then there is no need for a Radiation Suit, but if it is at 25%, then there is a need for one. Of course, adding additional radiation hazards is a possibility for future development.
You can't close a radiation leak like the Aurora after a meltdown comparable to Chernobyl with only your suit and stop radiation from existing, although water can pretty much reduce radiation distance. But we aren't flooding the reactor to reduce radiation to work in the room and the radiation radius underwater is the same as above water. Because it's a game with the most simple radiation mechanic.
We might accept 100% rad shielding from reactors of that small size in a scifi game. And we can acccept that uranite and unused rods don't need a rad suit. In RL you can't just open a reactor, take out the burned rods by hand and drop them anywhere. As it's a game we can.
But the game could give the rad suit a bit more purpose. At least with used rod handling. Opening a reactor and taking the burned rods should need a suit, though not handling uranite or unused rods. Also the nuclear waste disposal should better use a slighly reworked alien containment unit with a tech container bottom to store the burned rods there until cooled by the water.
Additionally base items could get a health bar if creature attacks are implemented.
Well, everything we build in the game is makeshift, isn't it? They may look fancy so we forget it, but it is. The thought of a makeshift nuclear reactor is just.... scary
How about a precursor backup power plant? A massive fission (the precursors never found fusion or antimatter annihilation or in the SN universe dark matter reactors and we also need heavy radiation to the plant) power plant to essentially act as an UPS in case the sea dragon gets angry to the thermal plant. Basically it would be heavily radiated and also dangerous. Besides being damaged (that's why there's radiation), there are sentry laser turrets (basically the same for tiger plants as the bots are for cave cravlers, fire a less powerful version of the QEP laser) to prevent fuel theft. It's one of the most dangerous places in the game, but it has loads of loot and schematics for a precursor fission reactor and it's fuel rods.
I do like how the radiation field affects the player, with gradual damage (and eventual death if you linger too long unprotected) and the hazy filter effect. However there is one thing that bothers me after the recent update: when you approach the Aurora after the dark matter drive blows up, the PDA notes that the radiation will drastically affect the wildlife if it's not contained soon. Except... even if you don't fix the leaks for 100+ days, there's no change at all in the creatures or wildlife.
It's probably a lot to expect other wildlife to react to radiation, especially since it's a one-time deal. But I feel there should be an effect where you either find all the fish in the radiation field floating dead in the water. Or they could just force fish and plants to despawn until it's fixed, as they've died due to the excessive radiation poisoning. But it's a weird thing to explicitly mention creatures dying from radiation poisoning, yet nothing happens in game at all.
It's like Fallout 3's FEV water poisoning the Wasteland, but you never see any effects. Because all game companies have failed so far in creating a dynamic world with massive environment changes. Bethesda is a AAA company with lots of devs and other major AAA couldn't do it either. So I never expect UWE to get such kind of job done.
The only things that would need to be changed are PDA notes, no rad damage while in a vehicle, and maybe some fuel cloud graphics to show where the edge of the radiation is.
Some sort of damage falloff based on the distance from the Aurora, rad damage to creatures, and dispersion time after the leak has been fixed (instead of the radiation instantly disappearing) would be nice as well.
I wouldn't be surprised if one day poor kids will say that I dunno Earth is flat.
1 meter of water should be enough to stop radiation from harming anything. That's why spent fuel rods are stored in the pools you know. And fish can live in such pools (it will die almost immediately if it will move very close to the rods (less than 1m) but it will be absolutely fine otherwise)
In case there is some radioactive particles leaking into environment...
Behold, Chernobyl, site of the worst nuclear accident possible:
http://factor-e.ru/udivitelnoe/priroda/kamery-fotolovushek-v-chernobyle-fiksiruyut-neveroyatnye-veshhi.html
(its in Russian but you can see the photos of decimated mutated dead wildlife... except Chernobyl area today is thriving with wildlife, including huge animals like bear that don't live anywhere else in that part of Europe)
Exactly. Tell that the devs who allow radiation underwater of the Aurora and tell them why we don't flood the engine core room before repairing it. And ask them why we drop burned rods that don't seem to radiate anyway into a tiny nuclear waste bin ...
Because it's a game with science level zero. I love the game, but it's not for science education or correctness. So rad handling should be focused on gameplay, not on a non existing science inside the game. I'd like to see the rad suit more than having a one time use with the Aurora. And one way would be to need it to handle burned rods or fix nuclear reactor leaks after health loss of the reactor, like with the Aurora fixes.
They aren't radioactive in any meaningful way, but they are still poisonous.
Showing radiation in a way that is completely wrong is very bad by itself. I mean, if one game portrayed people of some race as always evil greedy aggressive and untrustworthy, and say "it's just game" I'll doubt anybody would be fine with that. Defaming everything nuclear is just as wrong. Devs should be ashamed of themselves.
As for gameplay, just think of something better. I believe in devs game designers.
PS. In middle ages, plague wiped out entire cities. Plague was spread by rats (technically by insects that lived on rats), and the only thing that could stop rat infestation at that time were cats. However, people believed that cats are "creatures of evil" and murdered cats, thus rats could spread and more and more people were infected and died.
Today, we have an energy and environmental crisis. And the only realistic way of how we could solve it before we destroy environment, is to phase out fossil fuels and replace them with nuclear plants ASAP. Yet everybody is scared to death of anything nuclear; simply because people don't understand anything about it. Promoting fear of nuclear is the same thing as murdering cats during the plague.