Seriously, it is a perfect fit for exploration games. And a decent implementation would give you tons of attention by VR fans and Oculus themselves, since right now they are looking for the best experiences that prove to be a good fit for the consumer release.
Why not just order a Dev Kit and check it out? It's quite easy to implement in Unity.
Right now is the time to check it out. It will be worth it. People playing racing sims or stuff like Elite:Dangerous on the Rift Dev Kit won't go back to a monitor again.
I agree about the occulus being perfect for the game. That fact that view distances are relatively short and most of the models focus more on colour then fine details, probably would make the art style still look good even with the limited resolution of the occulus.
From what I have read they aren't confirming any occulus support for release, but they are trying not to design themselves into a corner where it would be very hard to implement.
Seriously, it is a perfect fit for exploration games. And a decent implementation would give you tons of attention by VR fans and Oculus themselves, since right now they are looking for the best experiences that prove to be a good fit for the consumer release.
Why not just order a Dev Kit and check it out? It's quite easy to implement in Unity.
Right now is the time to check it out. It will be worth it. People playing racing sims or stuff like Elite:Dangerous on the Rift Dev Kit won't go back to a monitor again.
Since the very beginning we've wanted Subnautica to be on oculus and have even done some limited testing with it, in an earlier development version of the game. We already have a dev kit, and this is very much on our radar, but first we need to just nail the core gameplay experience, which is no small task.
TrackIR support would be a really good idea, too as there are many more ppl using that than the Rift right now and, I'm guessing, far easier to implement.
TrackIR support would be a really good idea, too as there are many more ppl using that than the Rift right now and, I'm guessing, far easier to implement.
I know this is what I want to see, but let me just start by making one point to what I dont want to see.
I dont like the press e (or in this case m1) to collect mechanic of gathering resources. That's why I don't want to see classic survival elements implemented like that (gather food, energy, materials), and hope that the scrap metal and other resource gathering methods (at least most of them, I think catching fish can be a nice gameplay element, if done right) are just placeholders right now.
What I would like to see is a more automated system where for example you scan an area of ocean floor for resources and then construct a collector for that. Then create a transport method for this to the surface.
Maybe have solar collectors or wind wheels or water turbines to collect energy.
And if there has to be a food mechanic implemented, I think it should be crafting breeding places or maybe having a net on your submarine.
I'd like to see small islands and some above water vegetation and animal life. I think sea birds would fit in well.
I feel like there is this sense of mystery when you are on land looking at the waves, wondering what's below. I think itd be fun to jump off a cliff into the water as well.
Oh, and jetskies maybe? I don't know if you have any plans for surface vehicles. Maybe a glass bottom boat used as a base?
I'd really like there to be some good "research" gameplay involved, for example a full lab inside the Cyclops where you could study things like the behaivour, genetics and devlopement of the various lifeforms. For example, it'd be great to see how stalkers develop from their eggs (which I think I've seen in game!) into the adults, or to measure emissions from geothermal vents. You could even make it that you need to have found out enough information about the planet, lifeforms and ecosystems as part of the overall goal of the game, e.g. as a prerequisite or addition to the teraforming goal previously mentioned.
I dont think Id like to see a lot of abovewater stuff. Adding birds and land animals is all extra art and modeling work that needs to be done (and if they are going to add 20 more species, id rather they add them where im going to spend most of my time (underwater)).
Some amphibian creature types would be cool, but id still rather UWE focused on making the underwater environ kick ass. Having the land life be bland an boring fits the game theme more for me.
I'd really like there to be some good "research" gameplay involved, for example a full lab inside the Cyclops where you could study things like the behaivour, genetics and devlopement of the various lifeforms. For example, it'd be great to see how stalkers develop from their eggs (which I think I've seen in game!) into the adults, or to measure emissions from geothermal vents. You could even make it that you need to have found out enough information about the planet, lifeforms and ecosystems as part of the overall goal of the game, e.g. as a prerequisite or addition to the teraforming goal previously mentioned.
I'd prefer the Sub remained a deddicated exploration tool, complete with specimen tanks (aquariums).
This way you can construct an underwater research laboratory (which doubles as a resupply point for air, if you grow O2 producing plants )
and have you heared of the cloaked cloakfish yet ? Due to his complete invisibility, he´s most likely the hardest to catch for your collection,
sololy rocking the myth of the objective ;-)
I dont think Id like to see a lot of abovewater stuff. Adding birds and land animals is all extra art and modeling work that needs to be done (and if they are going to add 20 more species, id rather they add them where im going to spend most of my time (underwater)).
Some amphibian creature types would be cool, but id still rather UWE focused on making the underwater environ kick ass. Having the land life be bland an boring fits the game theme more for me.
I imagine that some sea-critters might use the land for spawning purposes like sea-turtles and some types of fish. The land would also be excellent sources of some types of resources, and new challenges like aggressive animals that makes establishing a base on land (or even hanging out) unfeasible. It could very well be land that was once covered by the ocean at some point but raised up for some reason so it looks like coral and winding caves with little to no flat/level ground. These rocky spires could be where birds nest.
Ide like to see a cave in the game that once you get closer maybe even inside it turns out to be a very large creature with its mouth open. Where my star wars fans at
I'd really like there to be some good "research" gameplay involved, for example a full lab inside the Cyclops where you could study things like the behaivour, genetics and devlopement of the various lifeforms. For example, it'd be great to see how stalkers develop from their eggs (which I think I've seen in game!) into the adults, or to measure emissions from geothermal vents. You could even make it that you need to have found out enough information about the planet, lifeforms and ecosystems as part of the overall goal of the game, e.g. as a prerequisite or addition to the teraforming goal previously mentioned.
I'd prefer the Sub remained a deddicated exploration tool, complete with specimen tanks (aquariums).
This way you can construct an underwater research laboratory (which doubles as a resupply point for air, if you grow O2 producing plants )
I have to agree... after all this is a one-person-show. Even with all the technology at that person's disposition, the larger and more complex the vehicles become the less plausible it is that they could be effectively operated by one person. For immersion purposes I think the capability of the vehicles should be largely utilitarian (exploration, gathering/capturing, construction). Under the circumstances I think it would be more plausible for manufacturing & research equipment to be tied to stationary structures. That said, I believe some of the scientific capabilities Benson mentions could fall under the umbrella of 'exploration' (eg: measure emissions from geothermal vents) and therefore be within certain more advanced vehicles' capabilities.
1. Fully automatc harpoon cannons with laser sites and native team deathmatch support.
2. The ability to change the soundtrack to just "Holy Diver" by Dio on a loop.
Fawning statement:
I used to build underwater bases in Minecraft because such things are awesome. The fact there's now a game that's PURPOSE is building underwater things and it looks beautiful is so cool.
Ideas:
Topics
1. Bases
2. Modular Submarines
3. Things to find
1. Bases
a. For bases having some agency in building them would be awesome. Like if I just build "Sea Base: Small" and it all plopped out on the ocean floor, it'd still be cool! But I would like some control over the size of the base, and what it was made up of. If I want to build a deep sea location who's only point is to be a place for me to store food, and then twenty seamoth parking bays, then by god let me build it. Something minecraft-like is unattractive because it'll look dumb.
Like seriously, the game is beautiful, the architecture is cool, but in order to really have the rounded out, fully player constructed locations....yeah it's a lot of work to put in the game.
What would be better is modular construction. Having a series of different cylinders, connectors, and a few "special" things like sub docking bays, or fish-farms would be good. The advantage to having modules, is outside of the very specialized modules, is all you'd need is maybe 3-4 sizes (small, medium, large, very large), and let the player determine the interior contents much the way they already fill out the interior of the Cyclops. Also still having "construction" work done at depths adds something cool to do in the game.
b. Give us stupid junk to fill the base with. One of my gripes with a lot of survival/crafting games is you're really just fine with a smallish base, and anything bigger past a point simply means you have room for MORE CRATES. Being able to build a neat observation lounge with some couches, or a cool bedroom kind of setup would be enjoyable. Science tools are cool, but having a home with a view of the mushroom forest would be wicked.
c. Different style bases for different depths. Applies for both modules or a "finished" base setup. Stuff designed for the 50 M range for instance still has a lot of large windows, the way to exit the base is a sort of moonpool you can just hop into, etc. 100-200 meters windows are smaller, base exit is through a connecting tube to your submarine. 200+meters the windows are little portholes, and the submarine docking is some serious bulked up thing. Also perhaps limits on module size at depth (so very large would not work deeper than 100 meters, large would need upgrades to work deeper than 100 meters, but never deeper than 200 meters, etc etc).
2. Submarines
a. External add-ons. Right now we have lockers inside the cyclops. This is awesome. But what if I want to fit out my submarine for only the deepest dives, or exploring caves? Being able to add light arrays would go a long way in this regard. Also building additional protection (like armored bulges) would be cool for going deeper, or keeping collisions from causing as many leaks. Adding a manipulator arm would also be cool.
b. Modular Cyclops
Rather than having several different submarines, imagine the Cyclops coming without the ability to dock a Seamoth, but the ability to upgrade the former sub bay into several different functions. Here's some ideas:
i. Sub-bay: What the cyclops already does.
ii. ROV platform: It'd be sort of similar in concept to what the Cyclops-seamoth pairing with a few differences. You'd effectively exchange the safety of not leaving the Cyclops, for losing a lot of the travel range of the Seamoth. ROVs as I envision them would have good optics for seeing underwater, the ability to scoop things up/break rocks, and a small inventory for bringing things back to the mothership. They'd also be able to carry and deposit things (like flares, or some of the droppable tools). I think this will be a bigger deal if water pressure starts affecting the diver, or the Seamoth ever gets a max depth. Also having different ROVs for different purposes could be cool, like a recon one, or a fishing model
iii. Construction bay: for building bases
iv. Cargo bay: You can already fill the ship with lockers, but having a single large inventory that could transfer all the contents directly to a base or different cargo bay equipped submarines could be useful if you're doing something like transporting materials to a new construction site, or you're bringing home all the fish you've caught and cooked in the shallows to ensure you've got all the food and fresh water you need at your super-deep base.
v. Manipulator bay: Not just arms, but like whole array of tools, diggers, suction tubes for collecting lots of stuff from the bottom/digging, recovering large items, attaching things (like imagine putting large flotation bags on that Cyclops you sank back in beta so you can bring it back to depths where you can fix it).
These all should be at least partly exclusive. Having to build specialist submarines vs just having the one mastersub gives the player more things to do.
3. Things to explore
Giving the player things to explore, or have to push themselves to reach gives a purpose for people looking for one.
a. Wrecks. I actually got interested in submarines and deep ocean stuff thanks to reading about the hunt for the wreck of the Titanic when I was a little kid. Some man-made things to dive on would make for cool variety. Here's some additional ideas:
Having maybe a half dozen or so wrecks would be more than enough. There's nothing saying you're the first ship to ever reach this planet, and having more victims of whatever brought you down makes sense. Having a few small wrecks (like modern day fighter jet sized) in the shallows, and then some larger multi-room ones in the depths would be wicked. Diving the ship you came in on is cool too, but there's less mystery to the ship itself. Swimming along early game and seeing the outlines of another ship in the deeper waters would be a heck of a hook to find ways to go deeper. It'd also provide an "anchor" for fragments, right now they're sort of scattered. Finding a stasis fragment in the wreckage of a long lost starfighter adds that really cool exploration aspect vs just eyeballing the bottom for boxes. Recovering logs, or data from the ships and analyzing it gives you something else to "Science" without needing to add anything more than some text telling the last hours of the starship Minnow, or exposition about what shot down your ship. Salvaging the ship for rarer materials could also be just the thing to give a player something to work on. Like building a small base to help you better salvage all the unobtanium from a wrecked ship would be a fun timesink.
b. "Epic" discoveries. I'm less certain about this, but something like finding the source of the Nile. There's already the sense of wonder, but unique environmental features or finding a school of massive creatures would further push players to go everywhere.
From what I've seen the devs are on track to delive an awesome game. So happy to be a supporter, I'm impressed with the updates so far.
I only really have 2 things to add:
- Peaceful Explorer mode. I'm a big chicken and hate scary games. I can only imagine the horror of playing them with an Oculus (which I'm SO looking forward to trying for other types of experiences!). I'm absolutely adoring the world of Subnautica so far, but without a peaceful mode, I have a feeling I'd never leave the capsule! What gameplay (if any, outside of exploration) that entails is up to you, as long as there's some way of swimming around, taking in the beautiful views, with mob aggression turned off. Don't remove the enemies, just make them passive.
- Oculus support. I know it's been mentioned, but I'm really hoping for some support to be ready for the release of CV1.
Hey I see so much potential for this game. Already It looks really cool, but a little repetitive and bland. I think that there should be alot of different creatures and tons of biomes. I also think that the ocean should be more menacing and challenging to survive in, or at least a mode where spawn rates of agressive wildlife is upped and everything is more challenging. There should be a large variety as I already said, but in things like size, dominance, color, biome, depth, and whether it is territorial. I believe that if the game was more challenging it would be more interesting. Also there should be a fishopedia that you can fill up like a pokedex kinda that logs different things about the things you encounter in your journey. Also there has to be multiplayer and mega monster fish that you can encount( they all dont have to be out to get you, but most should). Lastly there needs to be more things to craft and do, like cameras you can set up to watch certain areas, defense systems( If you make the game more hostile, which I highly reccomend), more subs, more gadgets, actual guns and weapons, automated farms/fishing, bases(not to big though, or you lose that "I actually have to go into the ocean" feel, and last is tanks so you can keep fish. I see so much potential, I think that with the right support and right addons for the game it could become a massive game at the top of everyones wish list. Thanks for listenening and keep up the great work.
I'd love to see an equipment inventory section, for things like the air tank, flippers, knife, etc: things that you would actually wear on your person (thereby opening up the inventory space, rather than having to use half of it for stuff that you would be wearing).
I'd like to see some more cosmetic stuff like pets and displayable artifacts. Maybe a blueprint to create a fish tank and let us capture some of those adorable peeperfish or hoverfish and keep them as pets. And if a larger sub is added or we can get on the ship in a future update, let us display larger fish and ancient treasures/artifacts. Nothing too major or in depth, would be a cool way to appreciate our exploratory efforts by displaying stuff like remnants from a lost civilization to rare breeds of fish (I.E. a red peeperfish) to precious gemstones.
I don't really know how to elaborate on my idea here, and I have no idea if it's already been suggested, but I'm going to attempt to convey it through a scenario.
I am assuming that Multiplayer will be a thing, preferably with as little "cleanup" of entities as possible. That is the only way this could really work methinks, especially if it's a single, massive world, which would be awesome.
WARNING: TL:DR SITUATION BELOW, VIEW AT OWN RISK.
So let's say that you're in your Cyclops, puttering back to your home base after a profitable run exploring some caves and loading up your modular cargo hold(s) with various raw materials you can use to finally build your Panther-class racing submersible. On the way back, you decide to take a shortcut through a deep oceanic trench that has been rumored to be home to a particularly nasty species of Bonefish. You have equipped your Cyclops with a beefed-up engine and a Caterpillar drive however (Hunt for the Red October anyone?), so you aren't all that afraid of the wildlife. On your way through the trench, your sensor suite picks up a beacon weakly transmitting a partial distress call, lost amidst the rock walls of the trench. You check your depth and find that you are only travelling at about 600 meters, barely below the walls of the trench. On your sensors display (which would look a LOT like the one out of the Battlezone games, the wireframe at the bottom left), the signal appears to be emanating from the larger of several shelves that are scattered throughout the trench (think the USS Montana from Abyss), about 700 meters below you. You think about this for a second, and remember hearing about a player who had lost his submarine in this area a little while back. Rumor had it that he had been on his way back to the colonial trading port with a massive load of valuable ores, the kind that could fetch someone a brand new aerial submersible (think the helicopters that are capable of underwater travel from the movie A.I.) plus a mothership to carry it. You take a look at your consumables and decide to see if it's the sunken treasure ship. Descending to the shelf, the light quickly disappears, and you activate your floodlights, though they only penetrate a short distance through the gloom.
Your sensor display begins to go crazy, the sonar bouncing back faster and faster returns as you get closer to the wreck. Before you even see it though, your sensors have already mapped the hull and displayed a reconstruction of the sunken sub on your holotank. What you see is evidence of a creature attack, with several rents torn in the hull along the Starboard side, though the engine room appears clear of any damage. The nose of the sub is completely caved in however, most likely a result of the sudden stop as the sub nosedived straight onto the shelf. Taking every precaution, you shut down all systems on the boat except for the internal lights and backup life support. You then make your way to the diving locker and fit yourself in the deep-dive gear you've had stored for this kind of salvage job. Exiting your Cyclops, you make for the wreck, your own lights on maximum power. As your own sonar goes nuts with a near constant tone, the ghostly form of the shelf materializes out of the darkness, along with the Bow of the sub hanging precariously over it. As you travel along the length of the sub, it looks more and more like the ship was attacked by a rare species of deep-sea predator, the kind that makes the Cyclops look like a toy in comparison to their own bulk.
You enter through one of the rents in the hull, and emerge in the primary cargo hold. Due to the sub settling at a steep Portside list, all of the cargo in the hold has tumbled into the Portside bulkhead, blocking one of the hatches leading out of the hold but creating an open area to move around in. Moving aft, you head towards the engine room, hoping that the engines might be intact enough to result in an assisted tow to shallower waters. Upon reaching the engine room, you find the slight forward pitch of of sub (thanks to the slight downward slope of the shelf) has caused an air pocket to form in the compartment, thus leaving the engines fairly dry despite the mostly flooded nature of the sub. As you are examining the engines, a sudden and EXTREMELY loud "Clang" resounds though the confined space as something large hits the hull of the sub. Startled, you make for the cargo hold and exit the derelict post haste. Outside of the wreck, you look forward towards your Cyclops just in time to see a shape flash in front of the spotlights, making for the sunken vessel with obvious hostile intent. Activating your thrusters, you manage to get to your Cyclops before the creature can see you, and you get to the bridge as quickly as possible. Upon getting there, you see that the AI has already identified and tagged to creature attacking, a smaller predator that is no less deadly.
This species of deep-sea predator is well-known, mostly because it tends to go between deep water and the thermal layer, thus making it the more frequent attacker of commercial shipping. There is no way this creature will stop attacking, it is far to hostile and will doggedly pursue your Cyclops until it's destroyed. Knowing this, you arm torpedoes (yes, I am talking about weapons. The way I see it, if there is going to be hostile sealife, especially larger varieties of it, it only makes sense to have weapons to defend against them.) and acquire target.
The aftermath basically results in you and a few buddies gathering for a salvage op. while someone keeps watch for hostile sealife, then splitting the profits while one of you gets the fun job of fixing up the new sub they've just acquired. I am hoping this game, since it's primary environment will be underwater, will feature an absurd amount of submersibles for players to buy, build, and "Acquire" through less then legitimate means. I'm hoping to see various sizes of submersibles, and perhaps even surface vessels that can function as faster transportation from point A to point B. I'm hoping to see submarines as small as the Seamoth, and large enough to be equivalent in size to a Los Angeles class submarine, perhaps even large enough to have a small hanger capable of housing a small air vehicle (think the I-400 class Japanese submarine from WWII).
This is just an idea, I hope it meets with approval.
While doing some exploring in an old build, I found something that might have been a map generation error; the resulting biome was just a huge absolutely terrifying plummet downwards into a seemingly infinite abyss.
Down. Straight down. Honestly, even though there was nothing there, it was genuinely very terrifying. I kept imagining a hand of something reaching up at me, a tentacle...anything could be lurking in the dark abyss below.
This lead me to have a few ideas:
1. Imagine finding a cave. A normal cave full of mushrooms, although there is a seamoth sized hole in the ground leading further downwards. You drive through and start to descend.
You start to head deeper and deeper into the depths, when suddenly, the perfect darkness is interrupted. You hear a groan. Below you, the abyss splits in two; an ominous orange light spills out. You realize that below, filling the size of the cave, an eye is opening. And after opening completely the pupil fixes itself on you.
From a gameplay perspective a glowing eye could provide light that would directly indicate the monsters field of vision, allowing for a type of stealth cat and mouse gameplay as the player gets closer and closer to try to snag a DNA sample.
2. A cliff like biome like the one I probably stumbled upon by accident, where it is just a huge sheer drop into the abyss. The enemies in this biome would take advantage of the fact that you can only see so far down. So maybe a hand reaching up, a tentacle reaching out of a cave in this huge cliff face- as the depths get deeper I think the enemies should get bigger and more alien. Also, they could hide from you and then knock rocks down on top of you once you zoom past.
I love the idea of the gigantic and the unknowable. It could really be achieved to great effect here because when 3000m down in a seamoth with little oxygen remaining and no weapons to fight with, each encounter is already terrifying. Why not really fuel the nightmares by making some huge monsters.
The best part is due to the obscuring nature of the water, you could only have to render a single body part at a time. As in a grasping hand reaching up from the depths, or an eye seeking the player in the darkness.
Does anyone else want to see some massive creatures in this game?
i would like to see some form of giant deep water walking creature. And a form of mining drone, light military drone ( fires the stasis beam), and a repair craft to repair/ build while your in the blue deep. Also i would call the Giga-goldie a large goldfish found deep in the water that glows gold but goes dark if spooked and instead of eyes it has sensors and feelers.
We absolutely need a mechanical arm that you can attach to your seamoth. This arm gives you the ability to grab things when you are inside your seamoth. Cyclops could use one too. I know alot of people annoyed by the fact, that you need to get out of your seamoth every time you want to pick up something. Someone said that the upcoming exosuit is supossed to pick up things, and that sea moth is only for fast exploring. That makes no sense, cause when you are exploring you find stuff. Do you know what slows down exploring? That you need to get in and out every time you see something you like.
A searchlight on the Seamoth and Cyclops that can turn 90 degrees in each direction left/right/up/down. Coupled with the removal of the obstruction under your feet in the Cyclops when you stand in the drivers position, (make it a bubble rather than having a solid base, this would help when navigating large caves. The light can follow your head movement so it illuminates the area you are looking at.
In addition, a heads up display showing the Cyclops in relation to the area around it. It only needs to be a basic shape from the rear with wire mesh terrain to show how close you are to the seabed and walls beside and above. It gives no indication of terrain forward or behind the Cyclops.
Ok, I myself am extremely hyped for that, especially cause the original series is my favourite thing to have ever aired on tv, and I do agree that the real thing is beautifully amazing; but seriously, what was the point of sharing that in a flipping 2 year-old thread that's supposed to be dead?
I've heard of thread necromancy but this just takes it to a new level.
Comments
I agree about the occulus being perfect for the game. That fact that view distances are relatively short and most of the models focus more on colour then fine details, probably would make the art style still look good even with the limited resolution of the occulus.
From what I have read they aren't confirming any occulus support for release, but they are trying not to design themselves into a corner where it would be very hard to implement.
I dont like the press e (or in this case m1) to collect mechanic of gathering resources. That's why I don't want to see classic survival elements implemented like that (gather food, energy, materials), and hope that the scrap metal and other resource gathering methods (at least most of them, I think catching fish can be a nice gameplay element, if done right) are just placeholders right now.
What I would like to see is a more automated system where for example you scan an area of ocean floor for resources and then construct a collector for that. Then create a transport method for this to the surface.
Maybe have solar collectors or wind wheels or water turbines to collect energy.
And if there has to be a food mechanic implemented, I think it should be crafting breeding places or maybe having a net on your submarine.
I feel like there is this sense of mystery when you are on land looking at the waves, wondering what's below. I think itd be fun to jump off a cliff into the water as well.
Oh, and jetskies maybe? I don't know if you have any plans for surface vehicles. Maybe a glass bottom boat used as a base?
Some amphibian creature types would be cool, but id still rather UWE focused on making the underwater environ kick ass. Having the land life be bland an boring fits the game theme more for me.
I'd prefer the Sub remained a deddicated exploration tool, complete with specimen tanks (aquariums).
This way you can construct an underwater research laboratory (which doubles as a resupply point for air, if you grow O2 producing plants
but apparently cobalt is required to build oxygen crystals, that can potentially allow diving without tanks:
rt.com/news/193280-crystal-breathe-underwater-oxygen/
and have you heared of the cloaked cloakfish yet ? Due to his complete invisibility, he´s most likely the hardest to catch for your collection,
sololy rocking the myth of the objective ;-)
I imagine that some sea-critters might use the land for spawning purposes like sea-turtles and some types of fish. The land would also be excellent sources of some types of resources, and new challenges like aggressive animals that makes establishing a base on land (or even hanging out) unfeasible. It could very well be land that was once covered by the ocean at some point but raised up for some reason so it looks like coral and winding caves with little to no flat/level ground. These rocky spires could be where birds nest.
go check out the yellowed, the jelly shroom caves are finally getting creatures and loot
This, being able to roll via Q and E when swimming and at least in seamoth would be great.
I have to agree... after all this is a one-person-show. Even with all the technology at that person's disposition, the larger and more complex the vehicles become the less plausible it is that they could be effectively operated by one person. For immersion purposes I think the capability of the vehicles should be largely utilitarian (exploration, gathering/capturing, construction). Under the circumstances I think it would be more plausible for manufacturing & research equipment to be tied to stationary structures. That said, I believe some of the scientific capabilities Benson mentions could fall under the umbrella of 'exploration' (eg: measure emissions from geothermal vents) and therefore be within certain more advanced vehicles' capabilities.
1. Fully automatc harpoon cannons with laser sites and native team deathmatch support.
2. The ability to change the soundtrack to just "Holy Diver" by Dio on a loop.
Fawning statement:
I used to build underwater bases in Minecraft because such things are awesome. The fact there's now a game that's PURPOSE is building underwater things and it looks beautiful is so cool.
Ideas:
Topics
1. Bases
2. Modular Submarines
3. Things to find
1. Bases
a. For bases having some agency in building them would be awesome. Like if I just build "Sea Base: Small" and it all plopped out on the ocean floor, it'd still be cool! But I would like some control over the size of the base, and what it was made up of. If I want to build a deep sea location who's only point is to be a place for me to store food, and then twenty seamoth parking bays, then by god let me build it. Something minecraft-like is unattractive because it'll look dumb.
Like seriously, the game is beautiful, the architecture is cool, but in order to really have the rounded out, fully player constructed locations....yeah it's a lot of work to put in the game.
What would be better is modular construction. Having a series of different cylinders, connectors, and a few "special" things like sub docking bays, or fish-farms would be good. The advantage to having modules, is outside of the very specialized modules, is all you'd need is maybe 3-4 sizes (small, medium, large, very large), and let the player determine the interior contents much the way they already fill out the interior of the Cyclops. Also still having "construction" work done at depths adds something cool to do in the game.
b. Give us stupid junk to fill the base with. One of my gripes with a lot of survival/crafting games is you're really just fine with a smallish base, and anything bigger past a point simply means you have room for MORE CRATES. Being able to build a neat observation lounge with some couches, or a cool bedroom kind of setup would be enjoyable. Science tools are cool, but having a home with a view of the mushroom forest would be wicked.
c. Different style bases for different depths. Applies for both modules or a "finished" base setup. Stuff designed for the 50 M range for instance still has a lot of large windows, the way to exit the base is a sort of moonpool you can just hop into, etc. 100-200 meters windows are smaller, base exit is through a connecting tube to your submarine. 200+meters the windows are little portholes, and the submarine docking is some serious bulked up thing. Also perhaps limits on module size at depth (so very large would not work deeper than 100 meters, large would need upgrades to work deeper than 100 meters, but never deeper than 200 meters, etc etc).
2. Submarines
a. External add-ons. Right now we have lockers inside the cyclops. This is awesome. But what if I want to fit out my submarine for only the deepest dives, or exploring caves? Being able to add light arrays would go a long way in this regard. Also building additional protection (like armored bulges) would be cool for going deeper, or keeping collisions from causing as many leaks. Adding a manipulator arm would also be cool.
b. Modular Cyclops
Rather than having several different submarines, imagine the Cyclops coming without the ability to dock a Seamoth, but the ability to upgrade the former sub bay into several different functions. Here's some ideas:
i. Sub-bay: What the cyclops already does.
ii. ROV platform: It'd be sort of similar in concept to what the Cyclops-seamoth pairing with a few differences. You'd effectively exchange the safety of not leaving the Cyclops, for losing a lot of the travel range of the Seamoth. ROVs as I envision them would have good optics for seeing underwater, the ability to scoop things up/break rocks, and a small inventory for bringing things back to the mothership. They'd also be able to carry and deposit things (like flares, or some of the droppable tools). I think this will be a bigger deal if water pressure starts affecting the diver, or the Seamoth ever gets a max depth. Also having different ROVs for different purposes could be cool, like a recon one, or a fishing model
iii. Construction bay: for building bases
iv. Cargo bay: You can already fill the ship with lockers, but having a single large inventory that could transfer all the contents directly to a base or different cargo bay equipped submarines could be useful if you're doing something like transporting materials to a new construction site, or you're bringing home all the fish you've caught and cooked in the shallows to ensure you've got all the food and fresh water you need at your super-deep base.
v. Manipulator bay: Not just arms, but like whole array of tools, diggers, suction tubes for collecting lots of stuff from the bottom/digging, recovering large items, attaching things (like imagine putting large flotation bags on that Cyclops you sank back in beta so you can bring it back to depths where you can fix it).
These all should be at least partly exclusive. Having to build specialist submarines vs just having the one mastersub gives the player more things to do.
3. Things to explore
Giving the player things to explore, or have to push themselves to reach gives a purpose for people looking for one.
a. Wrecks. I actually got interested in submarines and deep ocean stuff thanks to reading about the hunt for the wreck of the Titanic when I was a little kid. Some man-made things to dive on would make for cool variety. Here's some additional ideas:
Having maybe a half dozen or so wrecks would be more than enough. There's nothing saying you're the first ship to ever reach this planet, and having more victims of whatever brought you down makes sense. Having a few small wrecks (like modern day fighter jet sized) in the shallows, and then some larger multi-room ones in the depths would be wicked. Diving the ship you came in on is cool too, but there's less mystery to the ship itself. Swimming along early game and seeing the outlines of another ship in the deeper waters would be a heck of a hook to find ways to go deeper. It'd also provide an "anchor" for fragments, right now they're sort of scattered. Finding a stasis fragment in the wreckage of a long lost starfighter adds that really cool exploration aspect vs just eyeballing the bottom for boxes. Recovering logs, or data from the ships and analyzing it gives you something else to "Science" without needing to add anything more than some text telling the last hours of the starship Minnow, or exposition about what shot down your ship. Salvaging the ship for rarer materials could also be just the thing to give a player something to work on. Like building a small base to help you better salvage all the unobtanium from a wrecked ship would be a fun timesink.
b. "Epic" discoveries. I'm less certain about this, but something like finding the source of the Nile. There's already the sense of wonder, but unique environmental features or finding a school of massive creatures would further push players to go everywhere.
I only really have 2 things to add:
- Peaceful Explorer mode. I'm a big chicken and hate scary games. I can only imagine the horror of playing them with an Oculus (which I'm SO looking forward to trying for other types of experiences!). I'm absolutely adoring the world of Subnautica so far, but without a peaceful mode, I have a feeling I'd never leave the capsule! What gameplay (if any, outside of exploration) that entails is up to you, as long as there's some way of swimming around, taking in the beautiful views, with mob aggression turned off. Don't remove the enemies, just make them passive.
- Oculus support. I know it's been mentioned, but I'm really hoping for some support to be ready for the release of CV1.
I am assuming that Multiplayer will be a thing, preferably with as little "cleanup" of entities as possible. That is the only way this could really work methinks, especially if it's a single, massive world, which would be awesome.
WARNING: TL:DR SITUATION BELOW, VIEW AT OWN RISK.
So let's say that you're in your Cyclops, puttering back to your home base after a profitable run exploring some caves and loading up your modular cargo hold(s) with various raw materials you can use to finally build your Panther-class racing submersible. On the way back, you decide to take a shortcut through a deep oceanic trench that has been rumored to be home to a particularly nasty species of Bonefish. You have equipped your Cyclops with a beefed-up engine and a Caterpillar drive however (Hunt for the Red October anyone?), so you aren't all that afraid of the wildlife. On your way through the trench, your sensor suite picks up a beacon weakly transmitting a partial distress call, lost amidst the rock walls of the trench. You check your depth and find that you are only travelling at about 600 meters, barely below the walls of the trench. On your sensors display (which would look a LOT like the one out of the Battlezone games, the wireframe at the bottom left), the signal appears to be emanating from the larger of several shelves that are scattered throughout the trench (think the USS Montana from Abyss), about 700 meters below you. You think about this for a second, and remember hearing about a player who had lost his submarine in this area a little while back. Rumor had it that he had been on his way back to the colonial trading port with a massive load of valuable ores, the kind that could fetch someone a brand new aerial submersible (think the helicopters that are capable of underwater travel from the movie A.I.) plus a mothership to carry it. You take a look at your consumables and decide to see if it's the sunken treasure ship. Descending to the shelf, the light quickly disappears, and you activate your floodlights, though they only penetrate a short distance through the gloom.
Your sensor display begins to go crazy, the sonar bouncing back faster and faster returns as you get closer to the wreck. Before you even see it though, your sensors have already mapped the hull and displayed a reconstruction of the sunken sub on your holotank. What you see is evidence of a creature attack, with several rents torn in the hull along the Starboard side, though the engine room appears clear of any damage. The nose of the sub is completely caved in however, most likely a result of the sudden stop as the sub nosedived straight onto the shelf. Taking every precaution, you shut down all systems on the boat except for the internal lights and backup life support. You then make your way to the diving locker and fit yourself in the deep-dive gear you've had stored for this kind of salvage job. Exiting your Cyclops, you make for the wreck, your own lights on maximum power. As your own sonar goes nuts with a near constant tone, the ghostly form of the shelf materializes out of the darkness, along with the Bow of the sub hanging precariously over it. As you travel along the length of the sub, it looks more and more like the ship was attacked by a rare species of deep-sea predator, the kind that makes the Cyclops look like a toy in comparison to their own bulk.
You enter through one of the rents in the hull, and emerge in the primary cargo hold. Due to the sub settling at a steep Portside list, all of the cargo in the hold has tumbled into the Portside bulkhead, blocking one of the hatches leading out of the hold but creating an open area to move around in. Moving aft, you head towards the engine room, hoping that the engines might be intact enough to result in an assisted tow to shallower waters. Upon reaching the engine room, you find the slight forward pitch of of sub (thanks to the slight downward slope of the shelf) has caused an air pocket to form in the compartment, thus leaving the engines fairly dry despite the mostly flooded nature of the sub. As you are examining the engines, a sudden and EXTREMELY loud "Clang" resounds though the confined space as something large hits the hull of the sub. Startled, you make for the cargo hold and exit the derelict post haste. Outside of the wreck, you look forward towards your Cyclops just in time to see a shape flash in front of the spotlights, making for the sunken vessel with obvious hostile intent. Activating your thrusters, you manage to get to your Cyclops before the creature can see you, and you get to the bridge as quickly as possible. Upon getting there, you see that the AI has already identified and tagged to creature attacking, a smaller predator that is no less deadly.
This species of deep-sea predator is well-known, mostly because it tends to go between deep water and the thermal layer, thus making it the more frequent attacker of commercial shipping. There is no way this creature will stop attacking, it is far to hostile and will doggedly pursue your Cyclops until it's destroyed. Knowing this, you arm torpedoes (yes, I am talking about weapons. The way I see it, if there is going to be hostile sealife, especially larger varieties of it, it only makes sense to have weapons to defend against them.) and acquire target.
The aftermath basically results in you and a few buddies gathering for a salvage op. while someone keeps watch for hostile sealife, then splitting the profits while one of you gets the fun job of fixing up the new sub they've just acquired. I am hoping this game, since it's primary environment will be underwater, will feature an absurd amount of submersibles for players to buy, build, and "Acquire" through less then legitimate means. I'm hoping to see various sizes of submersibles, and perhaps even surface vessels that can function as faster transportation from point A to point B. I'm hoping to see submarines as small as the Seamoth, and large enough to be equivalent in size to a Los Angeles class submarine, perhaps even large enough to have a small hanger capable of housing a small air vehicle (think the I-400 class Japanese submarine from WWII).
This is just an idea, I hope it meets with approval.
Down. Straight down. Honestly, even though there was nothing there, it was genuinely very terrifying. I kept imagining a hand of something reaching up at me, a tentacle...anything could be lurking in the dark abyss below.
This lead me to have a few ideas:
1. Imagine finding a cave. A normal cave full of mushrooms, although there is a seamoth sized hole in the ground leading further downwards. You drive through and start to descend.
You start to head deeper and deeper into the depths, when suddenly, the perfect darkness is interrupted. You hear a groan. Below you, the abyss splits in two; an ominous orange light spills out. You realize that below, filling the size of the cave, an eye is opening. And after opening completely the pupil fixes itself on you.
From a gameplay perspective a glowing eye could provide light that would directly indicate the monsters field of vision, allowing for a type of stealth cat and mouse gameplay as the player gets closer and closer to try to snag a DNA sample.
2. A cliff like biome like the one I probably stumbled upon by accident, where it is just a huge sheer drop into the abyss. The enemies in this biome would take advantage of the fact that you can only see so far down. So maybe a hand reaching up, a tentacle reaching out of a cave in this huge cliff face- as the depths get deeper I think the enemies should get bigger and more alien. Also, they could hide from you and then knock rocks down on top of you once you zoom past.
I love the idea of the gigantic and the unknowable. It could really be achieved to great effect here because when 3000m down in a seamoth with little oxygen remaining and no weapons to fight with, each encounter is already terrifying. Why not really fuel the nightmares by making some huge monsters.
The best part is due to the obscuring nature of the water, you could only have to render a single body part at a time. As in a grasping hand reaching up from the depths, or an eye seeking the player in the darkness.
Does anyone else want to see some massive creatures in this game?
In addition, a heads up display showing the Cyclops in relation to the area around it. It only needs to be a basic shape from the rear with wire mesh terrain to show how close you are to the seabed and walls beside and above. It gives no indication of terrain forward or behind the Cyclops.
and Flying Vehicles........... XD
The real thing is unbelievably beatiful.
Ok, I myself am extremely hyped for that, especially cause the original series is my favourite thing to have ever aired on tv, and I do agree that the real thing is beautifully amazing; but seriously, what was the point of sharing that in a flipping 2 year-old thread that's supposed to be dead?
I've heard of thread necromancy but this just takes it to a new level.