Salvage Wars - Let's make a game out of crashing the game.
WarpZone32
Join Date: 2016-12-13 Member: 224911Members
Join Date: 2016-12-13 Member: 224911Members
Subnautica: Salvage Wars!
I figured while we're waiting for Unknown Worlds to finish fixing the lag and crashes while maintaining their longstanding policy of adding new content instead of fixing the lag and crashes, it might be fun to play our own weird version of the game to pass the time.
(Note that you should always Report your Crashes! This game is just a fun way of generating the crashes while serving a secondary goal of letting us collectively discover the least crashy route through the game.)
How to play:
Save this map to your hard drvie. Boot up Subnautica.
Start a new game, and build your first base wherever you want. This is your hub. Your goal is to amass as much titanium as possible at your Hub. You may store it in lockers or as Base pieces, but never Ingots. (Only make an ingot if you're crafting something that needs ingots, such as a Moonpool.)
You can build smaller forward bases, but they must be equipped with a fabricator and a beacon. Every time you build a new base, mark its location on your map. (Also jot down the coordinates if you can.) Number each base sequentially so we always know what order you built them in. Add a beacon outside the base with the incremental base number in the label. ( "1 Spawn," "2 Kelp Forest," "3 South Island" are all great examples of becon names.) You can add and remove rooms and modules from these bases, but you can never remove the hatch or beacon.
Gather all the salvage scrap from the surrounding area, process it into blackened titanium balls, and stuff it into lockers. When you've depleted all the salvage wreckage in the area, or your run out of space for more lockers in your base, start hauling everything back to your hub. You can gather other loot too. Copper, silver and quartz will be especially useful, but remember that your goal is to suck all the titanium you can out of the environment.
As you swim back and forth from one base to another, you'll quickly notice which of your "trade routes" are more likely to lag and crash than other ones. In general, the faster you go, the worse the lag will get and the more likely you'll crash. Paddling on the surface is faster than deep swimming. Seaglide is faster still. Seamoth is the fastest you can get. (Remember, our theory is fast travel == map loading == crashes, so haul scrap as fast as you can to find those stasis mines!)
Take notes of where and when you lag and crash. Above all, make sure you know which routes can reliably trigger a crash. ( I.E. 1 - 7 is safe, and 1-4 is laggy, but 4-7 hits a stasis mine.)
Draw green, yellow and red lines between the numbered bases on your map. Green means you can go back and forth from point A to point B safely, with little or no lag (by your rig's standards.) Yellow means tractor beams-- you experience some noticeable lurches or stuttering on the way when you're running this route. (I.E. noticeably more than the background level of lag for your rig.) Red means the game crashed.
Example Map showing where crashes repeatedly occured during one playthrough:
Once you build a Seamoth, run all those routes again. You'll find that the yellow lines turn red, and the green lines turn yellow.
Try to make the first part of your line yellow and the last part of your line red, so we know which direction you were traveling when you hit the mine.
Upload your map, link to it from this thread and tell your story! You Win if you can discover a fast a network of routes that hits all the wrecks, pods, fragments, PDAs and story content without cheating to spawn any items in and despite crashes. (If you don't normally crash a lot during the Seamoth phase of the game, you can't play. Sorry. :P)
Honorable Mentions go to the most epic Tale of your struggling salvage venture!
Bonus points if you post an impressive screenshot of your massive Hub base!
When you've crashed enough times to give up, upload your saved game using the instructions in 0x6A7232's sig, so we can look at what you built and speculate about what led to your downfall.
Have fun salvaging out there!
Post your tips and maps and try to move fast without hitting those mines! And always dream of the day when we'll discover a fast, clean, crash-free route through the game.
Note: The map shown above is hosted on pasteall. It will remain online for ~ 5 months, which should be way longer than it will take for the map to get out of date.)
You're a filthy space pirate, down on your luck, hiding out on a literal backwater world. Then one day, the unthinkable happens. A capital ship crashes on your turf!
No survivors! This is the haul of a lifetime! Why, you could even buy your way back into legal society, if you play your cards right!
There's only one problem. A powerful competitor is lurking out there somewhere, trying to jump your claim.
And they've got Tractor Beams and Stasis Mines!
I figured while we're waiting for Unknown Worlds to finish fixing the lag and crashes while maintaining their longstanding policy of adding new content instead of fixing the lag and crashes, it might be fun to play our own weird version of the game to pass the time.
If you lag, you're getting hit with a tractor beam. Your adversary is trying to slow you down. Go faster!
If you crash to desktop, you got hit by a Stasis Mine! Mark the mined route on your map, plan a different route, and try again.
(Note that you should always Report your Crashes! This game is just a fun way of generating the crashes while serving a secondary goal of letting us collectively discover the least crashy route through the game.)
How to play:
Save this map to your hard drvie. Boot up Subnautica.
Start a new game, and build your first base wherever you want. This is your hub. Your goal is to amass as much titanium as possible at your Hub. You may store it in lockers or as Base pieces, but never Ingots. (Only make an ingot if you're crafting something that needs ingots, such as a Moonpool.)
You can build smaller forward bases, but they must be equipped with a fabricator and a beacon. Every time you build a new base, mark its location on your map. (Also jot down the coordinates if you can.) Number each base sequentially so we always know what order you built them in. Add a beacon outside the base with the incremental base number in the label. ( "1 Spawn," "2 Kelp Forest," "3 South Island" are all great examples of becon names.) You can add and remove rooms and modules from these bases, but you can never remove the hatch or beacon.
Gather all the salvage scrap from the surrounding area, process it into blackened titanium balls, and stuff it into lockers. When you've depleted all the salvage wreckage in the area, or your run out of space for more lockers in your base, start hauling everything back to your hub. You can gather other loot too. Copper, silver and quartz will be especially useful, but remember that your goal is to suck all the titanium you can out of the environment.
As you swim back and forth from one base to another, you'll quickly notice which of your "trade routes" are more likely to lag and crash than other ones. In general, the faster you go, the worse the lag will get and the more likely you'll crash. Paddling on the surface is faster than deep swimming. Seaglide is faster still. Seamoth is the fastest you can get. (Remember, our theory is fast travel == map loading == crashes, so haul scrap as fast as you can to find those stasis mines!)
Take notes of where and when you lag and crash. Above all, make sure you know which routes can reliably trigger a crash. ( I.E. 1 - 7 is safe, and 1-4 is laggy, but 4-7 hits a stasis mine.)
Draw green, yellow and red lines between the numbered bases on your map. Green means you can go back and forth from point A to point B safely, with little or no lag (by your rig's standards.) Yellow means tractor beams-- you experience some noticeable lurches or stuttering on the way when you're running this route. (I.E. noticeably more than the background level of lag for your rig.) Red means the game crashed.
Example Map showing where crashes repeatedly occured during one playthrough:
Once you build a Seamoth, run all those routes again. You'll find that the yellow lines turn red, and the green lines turn yellow.
Try to make the first part of your line yellow and the last part of your line red, so we know which direction you were traveling when you hit the mine.
Upload your map, link to it from this thread and tell your story! You Win if you can discover a fast a network of routes that hits all the wrecks, pods, fragments, PDAs and story content without cheating to spawn any items in and despite crashes. (If you don't normally crash a lot during the Seamoth phase of the game, you can't play. Sorry. :P)
Honorable Mentions go to the most epic Tale of your struggling salvage venture!
Bonus points if you post an impressive screenshot of your massive Hub base!
When you've crashed enough times to give up, upload your saved game using the instructions in 0x6A7232's sig, so we can look at what you built and speculate about what led to your downfall.
Have fun salvaging out there!
Post your tips and maps and try to move fast without hitting those mines! And always dream of the day when we'll discover a fast, clean, crash-free route through the game.Note: The map shown above is hosted on pasteall. It will remain online for ~ 5 months, which should be way longer than it will take for the map to get out of date.)
Comments
Console Commands
list of Blueprints
list of Spawnable Items
For example, off the top of my head:
item compass
spawn seamoth
unlock powercellcharger (or better yet, unlockall)
resourcesfor locker
resourcesfor powercellcharger
Maybe you should do it. I don't even know for sure what crossposting actually means. Does it create a copy or just a reference to the thread? Do the conversations fork after the first post? If so, it might be easier to just move the thread. Your call. I wouldn't mind seeing this in Gen Disc, if you think the lag and crashes are common enough that it affects everybody, not just us.
You just start a new thread in the other board (say, Gen Disc) and copy the contents word for word, but put [x-post] or [x-post from xyz board] in the title so people know it's a dupe. I always put a link to the original in the first line of the OP as well.
EDIT: and, done.
Gen Disc
Ideas and Suggestions
I linked to this thread in the OPs, so hopefully discussion stays in this thread to keep it simple.
The only problem is getting an accurate base map to start from... any ideas?
Map:
Construction log:
~ 0 hrs, 00 min: Set up Base 1 @ -71, 7, 320; Primary hub
- 3 hrs, 47 min: Set up Base 2 @ 487, -12, 192; Ore-processing micro-base
- 6 hrs, 53 min: Set up Base 3 @ 89, 3, 313; Above-water micro-base
- 9hrs, 38 min: Set up Base 4 @ -279, -46, -625; Grand1 micro-base
Playstyle Notes:
- I'm doing my map in photoshop, so I'm planning to give "swimming," "seamoth" and "seaglide" paths each their own layer.
- So far, looks like it only chugs when I cross the Grassy Plateaus. ~Groooooooooooooan!
- In fact, just exiting Base 2 (the hatch faces south) causes a 4-second frame delay bordering on crashtastic.; Changed hatch to North side.
- I've only spawned in a compass, and I'm deliberately not teching up just yet. This is because I hate the aesthetic changes that occur when the game decides you're done with the Safe Shallows, and I don't know what form of progress triggers it. So I'm not making fins or o2 tanks or welder or cutter unless I need them.
- This means I won't be entering most wrecks. I did make trips out to them, mostly to calibrate my understanding of how to use the compass and map and to verify that my starting base was when I thought it was.
- Explored edges of the Kelp forest north of 2. Surprisingly little salvage. Found most of it in a big pile-- won't say where.
- Explored the smaller Safe Shallows region 2 is in. Plenty of quartz. A little salvage. Again, mostly concentrated in one spot.
- Picked clean the large corral tube running under my base of limestone deposits... up to the emergency exit hole in the middle, anyway.
- Tried to go from the Kelp Forest West of base to the Wreck in the Grassy Plateaus , and got a sudden lag spike of about 3 seconds for one frame as I was cresting a Ridge. Touched Wreck and went back to base. Glanced behind me, and it lagged again. Consequently, both lines of that triangle that touches the Wreck from 2 get a yellow end.
- Went northwest and was surprisingly little lag. I expected more from the "big sea floor" biomes. Went northeast, then back to 2. No lag. I wonder why. Kept glancing back at the Grassy Plateaus on the way back to base, trying to make it choke, but it was rock solid FPS. Weird.
- Nothing really groundbreaking happened when I was looting the area around 3. I picked clean the large corral tube you can swim all the way through south of 2. That was fun. Although looking at the map now, there's a huge swath of Safe Shallows north of 1 I haven't done yet.
- Mopped up the rest of 1, including more creepvine seedpods than I probably need.
- Had a lot of trouble swimming towards that Grassy Plateus Wreck at 1.
- Pushed south to the Grand Reef. Passed lots of valuable debris en route. :P Will absorb all the titanium I can, then probably head towards the Floating Island. I could push deeper if I keep slapping Platforms on my shitty corridor bases, but food will become a problem. Might as well grab the Multipurpose Room while I'm at it and kill two birds with one stone. This means I finally have to build the Scanner. :P
- Swam out from base 4 a few times in various directions to make sure I'd plotted it correctly on the map. You can see where I zig-zagged around a little to find the area where 4 biomes meet.
- Finally made the Floating Island run. Stalkers and Sandsharks haven't gone haywire yet, but the Safe Shallows are strangely quiet. Not as many fish. Not as much optimistic music when I dive. The water seems like it might be a little cloudier and a little more yellow. Sadly, it's that time again. I held out for as long as I could, this playthrough, but now there's no going back. Unknown Worlds, right on schedule, has once again pissed in my ocean. (They must love my bug reports.)
- Applied the Precursor Update.
- Console unlockall.
- Built a moonpool and a Seamoth. Started making the rounds. (Thick lines are Seamoth, thin lines are swimming, dark lines are Bones update.) Jury's still out on whether this is an improvement or not, but several times it felt like it was going to crash but didn't. Procedure was to drive the Seamoth to a base, exit the seamoth, enter the base via hatch, exit the base via hatch, enter the Seamoth, and then drive to the next base. The ultimate test will be to hit every Wreck from the Floating Island without a crash. I noticed the new version doesn't crash on "Quit to Desktop" like it used to, a promising touch.
= CRASH! = Awww, and it was going so well, too. I didn't even get a chance to start stress-testing it as outlined above. It crashed while I was distracted tying up some loose titanium ends in the southern Kelp Forest. The weird part is I was swimming when it happened. Apparently turning your head in this area is just as dangerous as traveling at fast speeds. I may start future playthroughs setting up my Base 2 in this area. It's not like there are any Stalkers around.
- As an experiment, I ran the Seamoth West from Base 1, all the way to the Undefined biome on the edge of the map, keeping the Seamoth level just below the surface. Aside form some lag when approaching/entering new biomes (Reefback moan herralds lag spikes, BloodKelp less so to load the mesh areas, you know the drill,) it was pretty smooth sailing. Enough that I upgraded this line to green, as if to encourage the rest of the lines on my map that they have something to aspire to.
= CRASH! = I then tried to drive all the way back East, hugging the sea floor (up to 200m since I don't have the depth upgrade yet.) I know I messed up a little and drifted North because I could see myself pass the world origin with F1. I know I didn't hit the radioactive zone because I don't have the radiation suit yet. What's interesting is it didn't seem to crash when I was in the deep areas, which is where it usually fails. I suppose it might have been caching the western Grassy Plateaus. I think I was hearing a reefback when it crashed, but by this point the association between crashing and reefback noises is practically Pavlovian for me, so who knows?
- Went as far North as I could, following the ocean floor when possible in an unmodded Seamoth, then turned around and went all the way South. Actually made it, though things got a little sketchy around -363, -500. I was sure it was gonna crash, but it didn't. Headed Northwest from there, and sure enough...
= CRASH! = Crashed somewhere in the Grand Reef heading northwest. Not sure where, which it why the red line is so long.
- Marine Biologist's note: I'm pretty sure the reefback cry isn't a mating call or an attempt at communication. It's just the biggest creature in the game moaning "laaaaaaaaag!"
- Seems like I can crash pretty reliably in a lot of the southern parts of the map, but what about the north? I drove Northwest to the very edge to try. (Smashing into a giant mushroom because I wasn't looking where I was going doesn't count, lol.) Long story short, a Reaper got me first. YOU LIED TO ME, BLUE OYSTER CULT!
- Funny story: I've been fudging some of this because it's not always possible to glance up at the coordinates before a crash or a death, or remember all three of them until I tab over into photoshop. That's why it's so important to get more than one person's perspective on this. (Crowdsourcing FTW!) While editing version 12 of the map, I realized I caught a glimpse of the Mountain Island itself, with an underwater precursor cable, and had to move the top line south a bit... ending with my little death marker RIGHT on the bright red Reaper Spawn warning. "Ohhhhhhhhh."
- Went North by Northwest from Spawn. Reaper got me again. Looks like the Northwest is relatively safe. I guess the Reapers are so badass they scared away my claim-jumper before he could lay any Stasis Mines? :P
- Decided to take another pass at that pesky Floating Island area. Went West-by-Southwest from base 2, not base 1, because I thought it would let me pass through more new territory. When I hit Undefined, I turned Southeast and did it again. I was gazing at the sea floor this entire time, though for a lot of the Grand Reef there wasn't a whole lot to see, even with the lights on. I thought I would crash around the floating island again, triggered by the island or that Wreck or something, but it didn't happen. Guess I wasn't facing the right direction or turning my head enough or whatever the mysterious criteria are for triggering Stasis Mines! (I think they must be pinging off my wetsuit's Active Scanning or something. Probably the sensor array's in the goggles so it scans for AR signatures whatever direction I'm looking. How should I know? I ain't no Aurora passenger. I got this wetsuit off a dead guy!) Unfortunately, I crashed again, back in that damned Kelp Forest, this time after literally banging into the cliff face just south of where the biome started. I ascended quickly with spacebar and...
= CRASH! = What is it about this biome that detonates Stasis Mines with so little warning? Is my Adversary holed up here, sniping me? Turning my head seems to trigger it, more than movement.
- Actually, now that I think about it... you can see 7 different biomes from that attractive little spire in the Kelp Forest. Maybe it's not loading terrain that's the problem. Maybe it's loading biome-specific flora and fauna? That would certainly explain the Reefback lag... they're basically a sudden injection of Safe Shallows sea life into a Reef or Plateaus biome. And I'd imagine a lot of the undersea caves and vents are the same thing. Suddenly Different Assets Syndrome.
- Got a lot done this time! This time, when I left Base 2, I took some precious, precious titanium with me, because why not? Maybe I'll survive the trip and bank it. Went a little more due Southwest this time around. Hit the edge, bounced back to 1. Managed to dock and unload the cargo. Good times.
- Left Base 1 and went even more southwest. (Didn't go pure southwest because I basically already did that when landing at the beach on Floating Island.) Hit the edge, headed back towards the Island. I was targeting my beacon under the beach, but I stopped when I hit the edge. Turned south, hoping to hit that Wreck, but you can't even see it from 200m depth. I know I was close, though, because the music changed! I'm thinking this miiiight have been the reason for that vague rough patch on the big diagonal line doing southeast above the Wreck. I know the orange is nowhere near the wreck on my map, but it occurs before the wreck if you follow the arrows on that line. You have to assume a certain margin of error in my map. I'm not a cartographer. I'm a fugitive hacker on the run from the law! But I guess my degree was in UI and Shell Design, so it almost makes a vague sort of sense that I'd be able to figure out how to make and use some sort of sextant... BUT I DIGRESS! Rounded out this trip by heading back towards that wrecked capital ship. (How the hell is that thing still on fire? It's been weeks. Do you have any idea how hard it is to set a spaceship on fire in the first place? What are they using at Alterran these days, sodium-based lighting?) Sure enough...
= CRASH! = A Stasis Mine got me before the radiation could. What is it about that Southeastern Grassy Plateau? (Or is it something to do with proximity to the ship? Maybe there's one particular Stasis Mine patched into an antenna array on that ship for extra precision/range hunting me down?)
- I've pretty much been all over the place, except for the radioactive zone. And we all know what that means. Nothing causes a horrible ecological disaster quite like stopping a radiation leak. Unknown Worlds's urine in my ocean is about to increase vastly, and then the ocean will start biting me and rolling around in the sands underneath my bases. Reluctantly, I build myself a radiation suit.
- Might as well do the quests, while I'm at it. I hit Lifepod 4 and Lifepod 7, and then the radio straight-up stopped giving me quests. Why? Because I'm been in the general vicinity but didn't pick up any PDAs? That hardly seems like a reason to silently mark a quest as already completed. Something to do with the Fragments I cheated my way past? TALK to me, game!
- Started derping around Base 4, thinking about looking for diamonds. Saw some salvage literally right behind the base in the sands. Tried to Seamoth up to it. Crash. I think the only reason I was capable of eastablishing Base 4 in the first place was the fact that I was swimming at the time.
- Finally got a diamond. I had to do it carefully because...
- = CRASH! = Looking down into the trench just West of 4 and turning your head quickly is a death sentence. Must be all the... uh... uranium deposits... combined with my... diving helmet's... I got nothing, guys. I can't wrap this one in lore. My kayfabe is kaput. Bugged game is just BUGGED.
- Getting the diamond triggered me to get another quest. I just noticed there's a little radio icon that pops up to tell you when you get new space email. That's a nice touch! Of course, I'd still rather have a game that doesn't commit seppeku halfway through playing it, both in- and out-of-universe... But still. Nice touch.
- Unfortunately, said message was just the ancient precursor artifacts running this planet speaking in perfect english on our communication channel about how our life-signatures (hah! As if there are any NPCs in this game!) had been "shared with all agents." What the actual hell? I thought it would be one that involves, oh, I dunno, the cutter you need the diamond to get. I got all these quests in the first 3 hours last time I played this. It's because I did something crazy and counter-intuitive that time, like making the the radiation suit just because I had the materials to make a radiation suit and there was radiation nearby, wasn't it? Oh, us wacky, unpredictable players! Always playing it wrong! If only there were some way to anticipate our crazy expectations that are rooted in our understanding of the real world and then design around them!
- Did you know I'm on Windows 7? Tried switching the theme to Aero, because I heard this actually improves the frame-rate on ALL games! (I know, it's fucked up, but it's still better than Windows 10's mobile-style interface bullshit.) Unfortunately, it still doesn't make terrain load any faster on the CPU, therefore it didn't actually improve the consistency of the frame rate in Subnautica. The title screen looks glorious, though. Oh, and the loading screen! You can actually watch the individual parts of a second ticking down!
- Apparently when I crashed I lost credit for those two lifepod quests, because in this save they aren't in the "done" locker yet. But the radio started giving me new quests anyway. I suddenly realized it unlocks quests when you start up the game, not when you complete old quests, which means crashing the game is actually giving me more options! Vidja Games!
- Well, shit. I somehow triggered the first message from the Sunbeam. Now I've got their blood on my hands, too. Fantastic.
- Managed to make it to one of the Pods. The Pod isn't shown on the map, cuz the map is from Bones update, but it's near that wreck and Cave Entrrance. It's the yellow line West-By_northwest from 1. But I cheated. The only reason that's orange and not red is because I took my finger off the W key. I think I'm getting burned out on this playthrough. I'm gonna take a break from this save, start a different approach, different gameplay style. Because, you see, once upon a time, Unknown Worlds realized that crashing was a problem. And they added content to the game so that you could explore the wrecks without a Seamoth, while also allowing the world to load much slower. The only problem is they don't do a fucking thing within the game to communicate that to the player. Next time, on Salvage Wars...
And remember, keeping your eyes glued to the compass and depth indicators can sometimes lead to a different kind of crash.
Take a look at my map. By any chance, did you build your base near the southern end of the Kelp Forest South of 1? A little northwest of 4? There's this one really inviting stone spire, shaped like a wedding cake. Comes up to just below the surface. No Stalkers. It looks like the perfect place to build. But that entire area is crashbait. Build somewhere else, like 1, 2 or 3, and you might have better luck.
Your problem also might be there's an area near your base that crashes you if you look at it. You can test this by putting your Hatch on the opposite side of your base. Base 2 was really really yellow, bordering on orange, until I moved my hatch to the opposite side.
That's just a guess. Either move your base, move your hatch, or both. You might have to start a new playthrough to test this. Hopefully it's one of those two things and it's not just your rig. The fact that you have to establish a base first before the performance turns to shit was what got me thinking along these lines.
Good luck!
Map:
Construction Log:
Base 1 at 1 hrs: 13 min
Base 2 @ 13hrs, 19 min
Gameplay Log:
- Departed from Drop Pod, armed with TSA-issue knife. Gathered resources to create a radiation suit and a habitat builder. Proceded south, looking for a trench deep enough to possibly find diamonds.
- Located Grand Reef biome. Constructed Emergency Shelter 1 for air. Broke a few mineral deposits until I found a diamond. Returned to Drop Pod.
- Swam all around the Drop Pod. Found three Crashfish. All three of them exploded in their shells without even bothering to chase me.
- Explored the Safe Shallows north of Drop Pod, across the Kelp Forest. FINALLY managed to get my hands on Crashfish powder after 2 hours of searching and one more dud explosion that had nothing to do with the crash fish trying to blow me up. Nothing about the Crashfish mechanic makes any sense. Frankly, this is bullshit.
- Found the 3 salts needed to make busyworkium.
- At 3 Hrs, 4 minutes, I now have a radiation suit, fire extinguisher, welder and laser cutter. I've seen Seamoths in action before, and frankly, I have drunk from more durable coffee cups while on active duty. Commencing Operation: Sardine Can
- Operation: Sardine Can completed. Encountered light resistance. All hostiles neutralized. Aurora Drive Core containment reestablished. Returned to Drop Pod at 9Hrs, 17 Min
- Aurora computer contained coordinates for the origin of the blast that took her down. I'm gonna need some serious firepower before I face something like that...
- Also, I'm tired of biting the heads off raw fish. Gonna go recon that island to the south that thinks it's hiding.
- Resource acquisition complete. Finally built Base 2, literally in the shadow of my Drop Pod. Centralized farming will happen there. No fabricator; that's what the Drop Pod is for. No storage; that's what the ocean is for.