Depth and Vehicles
Orka
Join Date: 2007-06-07 Member: 61157Members
Join Date: 2007-06-07 Member: 61157Members
Right now, the Cyclops serves no real purpose, the Seamoth is a fast taxi and the Seaglide is a fast taxi with hands. In terms of depth, you yourself can go infinitely deep, the Seamoth to 500+ (with upgrades, I think) and the Cyclops not very deep at all. This seems odd to me, because other than speed, the vehicles are pretty useless.
Wouldn't it make more sense if it was vice versa?
You, in your swimsuit can't go very deep, maybe 250m, beyond that you start getting crushed by pressure and slowly die.
Then the Seamoth, deeper (to 500-750m), but you can't exit it beyond 250m. (maybe requires robotic grabbers)
The Cyclops could go the deepest of all, say 500-750m+. Obviously you nor the Seamoth can leave the Cyclops, but you could exit with the Exosuit. The Exosuit would be attached to the Cyclops via a Divereel (yay useful!) and would also supply you with air. You can only walk and possibly jump/climb in the Exosuit, not swim. When done, you can reel yourself in.
With this order, all vehicles are much more useful and the actual sense of pressure and danger increases the deeper you go. A lone Exosuit wandering in the pitch dark, connected to a Cyclops hovering some 100m higher is much more atmospheric than a dude in a wetsuit zooming around with his Seaglide at 1 km depth. Furthermore, you actually have to plan voyages down to the deep careful by bringing enough supplies, because the lower you go, the slower the exploration goes.
What do you think?
Wouldn't it make more sense if it was vice versa?
You, in your swimsuit can't go very deep, maybe 250m, beyond that you start getting crushed by pressure and slowly die.
Then the Seamoth, deeper (to 500-750m), but you can't exit it beyond 250m. (maybe requires robotic grabbers)
The Cyclops could go the deepest of all, say 500-750m+. Obviously you nor the Seamoth can leave the Cyclops, but you could exit with the Exosuit. The Exosuit would be attached to the Cyclops via a Divereel (yay useful!) and would also supply you with air. You can only walk and possibly jump/climb in the Exosuit, not swim. When done, you can reel yourself in.
With this order, all vehicles are much more useful and the actual sense of pressure and danger increases the deeper you go. A lone Exosuit wandering in the pitch dark, connected to a Cyclops hovering some 100m higher is much more atmospheric than a dude in a wetsuit zooming around with his Seaglide at 1 km depth. Furthermore, you actually have to plan voyages down to the deep careful by bringing enough supplies, because the lower you go, the slower the exploration goes.
What do you think?
Comments
Ah, I haven't bothered with the Cyclops lately, didn't know that. Still, I'd rather see the Cyclops being able to go deeper than the Seamoth per definition to make it more useful and necessary compared to the Seamoth. Normally you'd get the Cyclops after the Seamoth for quite some resources, so that would make it "unlock" the deepest parts of the map.
It is ridiculous the dude in his wetsuit can go deeper than the Cyclops (which gets crushed) like it currently is, anyway.
You two realize that the Cyclops is bigger, right?
Bigger submarine means more surface area. More surface area means more water pushing on you. If the Cyclops has thicker plates than the SeaMoth, it would have about the same depth. The Cyclops' use is in its ability to act as a mobile base, not to dive to the Challenger Deep. In contrast, the SeaMoth's smaller size and spherical cabin shape would allow it to dive substantially deeper.
That means the cyclops and exosuit is planned for deep exploration beyond 500m, while the seamoth will not get deeper than the ILZ, but perfect for lower depths and early map exploration.
In reality those depth could not be handled by glass hulls. Maybe futuristic with transparent metals or diving suits with liquid breathing. In real life subs need a thick metal hull for deep dives. So I don't think enameled glass could do the trick, but rather the transparent metals. I also think the material or appearance of the sub should reflect its depth upgrade, but this is more work. I saw 2D sub games, where an upgraded sub looked different and better suited for pressure. It's too much work here though. The best you could do is to reconstruct the sub instead use upgrade modules. That means different sub items at the sub constructor menu. For the cyclops something like:
And that would mean 4 different cyclops recipes, maybe 2-3 different seamoth recipes and the same with the exosuit, only that the exosuit starts with Tier 3.
The point is you can't go very deep with just a wetsuit, so you'd need either. I'd argue you'd need a mobile base more so when going vertical than horizontal, so I disagree that the Cyclops would not be fit for deep exploration. Maybe both, one as a base and one as an exploration vehicle. I just think it would add immensely to the atmosphere if you can't leave your vehicles beyond a certain depth.