Gameplay Feedback & Ideas from Today's Playtest! 17th March 2015

Obraxis · March 2015

This topic will contain thoughts, ideas and feedback (non-bugs) from today's Public Playtest!

Konjux · March 2015

Research branches, Like, research in better energy / power for your base, solar power, hydro power, maybe something from special fish species?

DNA-infusions, player enhancements.

Plant-researching / biology addition to the base, research new plants, grow salt deposits and quartz, research plants for better oxygen generation, get more self-sustaining and self-providing.

Rough cut, will edit with further additions.

As written by William_Hawk

# 3 - new wall-mounted base-furniture
Like a water-dispenser for filtered water, so there would still be a need for bleach to create disinfected water.

My Addition: I really like this idea, so maybe add a wall mounted water dispenser that takes water from the outside ocean and filters it and makes it drinkable, with replaceable something something, so if you don't replace the necessary part, you get undrinkable water.

# 4 - Dock for a submersible
Maybe a tube that just goes up so the lower dockingport of the Cyclops could be attached to the upper end, on the inside there would be just a ladder and the hatch on the top.

My Addition: I was thinking like a charging station for your Seamoth, and then have the back mounted power cell for replacing if you are on the go, but when you are back at your place, dock your moth and let it recharge / repair?

# 5 - Changes to the food / cooking

My Addition: I really like the idea of having an aquarium where you can not only breed fish, for "food farming" but also use the aquarium for "storage" to keep fish fresh.

-Konjux

McAtomica · March 2015

use of current gen. to generate energy from turbine generators, agressive fish in tanks producing energy, solar panels etc.

Comprox · March 2015

Ok, I mostly just listened in and took notes of what people said. These are just short form notes and I definitely missed a few things but it should be a good summary. Some of these ideas and suggestions are already known of or are being worked on, but I just wrote everything down:

Suggestions:
Using hydro currents to recharge cells
Research component - study the fish and other animals
In game wiki as you play / library tied to the research above
More storage and storage options (Feature in common with minecraft)
Medicine recipes to heal yourself
Spooky, dark world as you go down very deep. A sense of more to the world.
Biology lab addon for your base which can be used to grow resources for late game (instead of hunting for them)
Plants could provide oxygen for a base (Right now oxygen is "free")
Different strengths of glass to be used in different builds. ie: Could use weaker glass on a seamoth but it can only go down to 'x' meters
Pets. And Naming of your pets.
Weather systems that can affect the ocean.
Partially submerged caves, So you swim into them, and then they have air pockets.
NPCs on the crashed ship (ie: An Android or AI to help you out)
New technology on the crashed ship
Hints or direct story on what has happened on the crashed ship
Lava creatures that burst out of the lava
Better fishing, ie: fishing nets for the schools of fish ** People said this was possible already because of grav sphere
Using the fish in a tank to power cells
Charlie asked if people wanted more subs: The consensus was yes.

Feedback:
Quartz and salt can be depleted quickly as they are in need so much
Using pipes is difficult as you bounce around when trying to use them

Vaniteux · March 2015

Since i've mostly listened in on this i actually think i heard something about this but this is my ideas.

1: Instead of just making the base of tubes you should have a lounge / room. And also put a limit to this.
Since the lockers take to have much space to be in place they are mainly in the way in the tubes so you can have thoose as dividers in the rooms.

2: As of the "waterwork" (in lack of better words) you can have a limitation to this so only 1 water per day can be "recycled" or farmed.

3: For the research part i've heard. Why not use a mechanized mini-sub which you can control from the research center. This aswell with limitiation but upgradeable.
Like first upgrade 100m radius. The second 200, 3rd 500, 4th 1000. And that is final.

4: Related to 1;2. Oxygen center that takes up halv a room and has to be "fed" with seaweed to work.

McAtomica · March 2015

As of my idea of modular ship but only inside, it was used partially in Warframe: "Devstream 27 has a mention of the Liset being larger on the inside than it is on the outside due to Void technologies." that's mean that when special module is on the sub, if powered correctly it can create room even if the module is, for example, in tiny box. I know it is dificult to do, but:

1. When player enters his sub he can spawn in special area which do not have to be on the ship, thus can be modular.

2. Player can have "void locker" which upon use [like using ladder] will teleport him to mentioned location.

McAtomica · March 2015

And as those "torpedoes", i meant stasis type of defense for ships, not weapon of destruction.

Jackalope · March 2015

Sounds like a solid list of new features to consider. Wish i could have made it for the testing session. Sadly i'm a 9 to 5 working stiff. Maybe you could hold one session on a Saturday and just take a day off on Monday instead?

I would really like a renewable source of power. It would be great to be able to recharge spent energy cells off a floating wind turbine or sunken geothermal generator.

Alternative food recipes that didn't use salt would be appreciated too. Maybe fish combined with creeper or some other farmable vegetable for variety?

Plant based oxygen systems for bases is a must

Also really like the idea of more places to find silicone

I would love to have a pet stalker named Mr Teeth

BradM73 · March 2015

Someone had mentioned that caught fish or other foods would deteriorate over time if not eaten. I suggested a refrigerator or freezer.

I know Devs mentioned that the radiation was to keep players away from the ship in the short term, however I think it could be made into a game mechanic.

For example, the player might need to develop a radiation suit to withstand the radiation in the crashed ship. Some kind of tech tree might be needed, special items to be found or made in order to craft the suit. I'd say at least a fair amount of difficulty to build the suit so that the player has something to work toward.

As far as my ideas for the crashed ship...

1) It looks huge, so I would think there would be a lot to explore. I can imagine a bunch of decks internally. Lots of nooks and crannies to find things in. Locks to unlock, safes, storage compartments, doors, etc.
2) New technologies or recipes/blueprints in crashed ship. (other subs recipes, or maybe even a large sea base recipe, with places to dock all your subs either inside or outside)
3) Stronger materials for subs or creature defense. Maybe stronger stasis weapons? (I know the devs don't want to concentrate on combat).
4) More advanced power sources (Fusion reactors - can use water as fuel which would also generate hydrogen and oxygen (plenty of H2O after all)).
5) Maybe some kind of minor story component. Why ship crashed? How does it affect the player? Hints of intelligent life on planet? Some kind of possible link to endgame.

I'm sure lots of other ideas can come out of the crashed ship.

I also thought about more subs, maybe ones with roles for deeper diving. Hard to make, deeper they can dive, or maybe have a sub for mining. Fast sub for getting places, well, faster. Lots of possibilities here.

I think eventually surface bases would be pretty cool too. Bases for both underwater and surface. I know you can build underwater bases on the islands currently, and that they leak/flood.

I'll try to update as I think of new ideas.

Vaniteux · March 2015

I remembered i mention the Harpoon yesterday but never got to finish saying what i meant it should be for.
Yes it can be used as a tool to catch bigger fish from medium-range.
However, my idea was to attach the harpoon to a sub and use it to move rocks.
So you have a "tow-sub".

dendais1 · March 2015

I'd like to see in game ways to recharge your batterys as well. But I think that good think might be more customisations for seabases. I mean changing colors of lights arround, colors of hull, colors of lights inside, bigger rooms and aquariums with your trophys from hunting.

William_Hawk · March 2015

Unfortunately I didn't make it in time for the testing, but maybe I can share a few ideas.
I didn' read all the comments so please excuse if some things are already planned or mentioned above.

# 1 - alternate/secondary power-generator.
I thougt of some kind of fuel-cell-powered generator or water-powered (electrolysis).
Materials needed: Titanium 2 Copper 1
Like the common one is needed to power the constructor etc. inside the base and the basic water-powered generator just keeps the energy at 1% (like in the cyclops at the moment) so the oxygen-supply and light stays on but tech with a higher demand of electricity won't work without the power-cells.

# 2 - need of sleep / base-upgrade bunk-bed (ground-mountable version for Cyclops)
maybe you could add it to the walls of the base or to the end of a tunnel so maybe a third of the "i-Tube" is filled with the bed. So there wouldn't be a need for new forms of rooms.

# 3 - new wall-mounted base-furniture
Like a water-dispenser for filtered water, so there would still be a need for bleach to create disinfected water.

Small Lockers (I personaly use the T- or X-tube to store my lockers in the unused sections, but) I think there should be some smaller wall-mounted version maybe the size of the constructor (when unused) so you can place them everywhere without getting in the way Storage then maybe reduced to the amount of the small storage-container you can already construct.

# 4 - Dock for a submersible
Maybe a tube that just goes up so the lower dockingport of the Cyclops could be attached to the upper end, on the inside there would be just a ladder and the hatch on the top.

# 5 - Changes to the food / cooking
I think the salt should be removed from the recipes for cooked fishes.
Instead there should be some decay for food.
Like the cooked fish would be rotten after two days
(it's fish after all in real life nobody would eat two days old fish that wasn't in a freezer the whole time)
The salt should be used for dried-fish- or salted-fish-recipes that are edible for longer durations like 5-6 days maybe. If there will be a degrading of food added to survival-gameplay that would make more sense. Right now I think that fished catched in salt-water aren't in need to be salted before cooking anymore.

Silveressa · March 2015

William_Hawk wrote: »

Instead there should be some decay for food.
Like the cooked fish would be rotten after two days
(it's fish after all in real life nobody would eat two days old fish that wasn't in a freezer the whole time)
The salt should be used for dried-fish- or salted-fish-recipes that are edible for longer duration's like 5-6 days maybe. If there will be a degrading of food added to survival-gameplay that would make more sense. Right now I think that fished caught in salt-water aren't in need to be salted before cooking anymore.

With how quickly days pass in game I'm a bit hesitant on the time being so short, perhaps more of a real time value (2 hours maybe?)
Adding in some more preparation options would be nice for this as well, such as by using salt we can "cure" the fish and have it keep fresh indefinitely but no longer provide any H20 bonus from eating. (or give a small -1or 2 H2O penalty)

Adding in some more fish we can eat raw without serous h20 penalties (sushi style) would be nice too.

Being able to set up lobster style traps near our sea base would also be pretty neat in giving us a way to acquire food without having to hunt for it ourselves.

While we're on the subject of food I do find it a little weird we can eat while swimming underwater at 200 meters. For survival mode it might make more sense to require us to be on the surface or inside a vehicle/building before being able to eat?

Shovel_Fighter · March 2015

hi, i posted this on steam aswell, but i thought it might be of interesst in the Forum to. ^^

One thing that would be awesome to link NS2 and Subnautica! And that would be a great fanfavour!
I found this on the NS2 wiki. maybe here is the link we are searching for:

"Like all the other Kharaa structures, TSF scientists speculate that hives are actually creatures that have been evolved into this form over an incredibly long time, and have observed that Kharaa structures in general tend to resemble aquatic forms of life, contrary to the Kharaa lifeforms that clearly originated from mammals and other similar creatures."

- add some of the Kharaa lifeforms BEFORE they where changed by the Kharaa! like the Hive, shade, veil, spure, cocoon, drifter,... underwater AND skulk, gorge, lerk, onos, ... on island and above water! it would be so AWESOME to see these creatures BEFORE they get mutated to hostile lifeforms by the Kharaa! so they will be more friendly in apperance! no long claws, spikes, ... storywise it would make perfect sense!
- add a random Kharaa investation somewehere on the map that will slowly grow by passing gametime. changing the biom and the creatures living in it into more hostile forms! to counter it, add a feature to fight the Kharaa grow. this investation can be triggered by a worldevent like a meteor hitting the ocean or ...!
- add a NS2 (TSF) skinpack for suit, base, tools, vehicles, ...[/list]

Other things i had in mind:
- make animals of same species vary slightly in size and color, so they don’l look like clones
- dead and alive fish should have a different animation when hold in hand
- grabed fish should thrash around and escape after a few sec when not killed (like real fish do)
- animation for fishes on dryland and surfaces
- unique boss-fish, like larger version of the common ones, maybee added through radiation > mutation...
- shouldn’t the hoverfish actually hover on the watersurface?
- day and night should change the animal spawn, night should by more dangerous and scary (beautiful aswell) > something like anglerfish in dark and/or deepwater
- fish should be attracted or scarded by light, movement, etc
- the helm or divegoggle feels to flat, maybe it can be more sperical like the one seen in the cutscene and bend the light slightly at it corners (like the bigdaddy-helm in bioshock!)
- light in submarine should turn dark when u are driving it, or maybe give a option to turn in on or off, so u can see better what is on the outside
- maybe add a bit more of lore by collectable datadisk or something else that can be discovered between the debris
- more real unique places to discover, like a really giant skelleton of some extinkt seacreature
- bigger rooms for seabases, maybe two floors high like livingrooms, sciencelab, hyrocultures, aquarium, trophieroom, restroom, sleepingearea, workshop...
- ability to sleep and restore health, rest and pass time!
- what’s the point in repairing the escape pod? It should do something!
- getting food and water is becoming tedious lategame, so there should be a option to make it more easy later on. Like building crabcages, hydrocultures, waterdistiller, ...
- add a radiationsuit so we can get to the crashed ship! Everybody wants to do that!

- add more rooms to the submarine, at least one more where u can rest, change outfits, look in ur ingame computer and so on, so u feel more at home in ur sub!
- a sonar on ur sub that charts the earea and tracks animals in close proxomity > ability to have a map that u need to fill urself
- research lab or something similar where u can research new food (buffs), materials (stronger sub, new suit or armor)... from plants and animals
- add weather effect: rain, wind, thunder,clouds,... [/list]
- aggressive fish grab/bite ur flippers when ur swimming backwars/away from them

great game so far, i love it allready. keep up the good work!
sry for my bad-english ^^

Shovel_Fighter · March 2015

ups, i realised i may be wrong here... better post it in suggestions!?

Gameplay Feedback & Ideas from Today's Playtest! 17th March 2015

Comments