Why can't you people find silver?

[goblin]

Serious question. What is the difference between you and me that allows me to have built everything and still have a locker full of it, without having actively searched for it more than once or twice?

Exploration is a big part of this game. Are you guys sitting in the safe shallows expecting everything to come to you or what?

I think we need a rocket scientist for this one.

[Willi the Gifter of Chaos]

Quite the contrary, i've gone so as to have explored as deep as the bloodkelp and koosh zones for silver, acting like a new player would who hasn't combed through guides in order to play this open world exploration game the "right way" only to find out that silver only appears in one node and is rediculously rare.

Time to make a factorio comparrison:

Factorio: The two most needed resources in game from the beginning are iron and copper which on default spawn settings are plentiful and allow for quite easy progression without previous knowledge of the game.

Subnautica: The two most needed resources in from the beginning to the end are titanium and silver one of which (titanium) can be found plentifully while silver is unfairly rare and hidden for no explicable reason/logic besides padding without previous knowledge. Instead of exploring the other biomes (like i did) and enjoying the views they have to offer, i'm forced to immediatly make a b-line for caves only in specific biomes in order to progress and only cause i have previous knowledge and know that you shouldn't waste your time exploring other biomes for resources seeing how you won't need them until your farmed out silver.

[bobidog]

No wonder. The children are afraid to go far from home.
Claustrophobic. Silver in caves, and in caverns dark and scary.

[JP_Russell]

I don't have quite the hassle finding it that a lot of other people have, but it's certainly the hardest ore to get a good amount of. I think part of that is that sandstone is not often in places where you can take your time. You might find it on the seafloor where sandsharks like to party, which scares people away. You might find it in the thick of the kelp forest where stalkers abound and bleeders like to jump people, a place that scares people away. You might find it in kelp forest caves where mesmers lurk, which some people are terrified of, in addition to bleeders and the occasional stalker. There's a geyser in the safe shallows that connects to the kelp forest caves with a lot of sandstone, but that too is dangerous and laborious to go after (not as dangerous as it actually seems, but I can imagine a lot of players would look at the geyser eruption rate and just dismiss that as a place they don't want to mess with). And so on.

By comparison, limestone, basalt, and shale can all often be found in locations where you're not actively in danger (even if the general area has dangers). The sandstone that can be safely cherrypicked is not super common, in my experience. You frequently have to brave some danger or another, and just to add insult to injury, at least half the sandstone gives gold (it sometimes feels like more than half, and may well be). Now, I'm not saying the danger factor is a problem, but as someone who is willing to brave these things with adequate equipment and preparation, sandstone is definitely the most stressful stone to go find in abundance once you've gotten most of the easier ones.

[EzriAran]

The problem ive had with silver is just the random loot chance on sandstone. i typically end up with two to three times as much gold as i do silver, which is freaking annoying!, because there's 3 kinds of formations that drop an abundance of gold. the others are shale, and basalt. sandstone is the only one that drops silver and it should drop it MORE OFTEN.

The only other thing i should note is the only other place to find it, is in large formations. in the dunes, which is full of reapers. getting to those large formations is trecherous. but entirely worth it. you can find them in the jellyshroom caves, but it's damn near impossible to get OUT of it without the PRAWN thrustpack. and if you have that, then you probibly already have everything else.

[Zetachron]

130 hours on record - Experts shouldn't blame beginners!

As a 700 hour+ veteran I can say it's easy to find silver with my preknowledge. But if I would act like a beginner with no knowledge it would be hard to find much soon for simple reasons:

1) You only find them hidden in sandstones that look like limestones

2) If you go through all stones that your eye catches from afar in the proper sandstone regions the probability of getting a sandstone is less than 20%. A veteran with knowledge of where sandstones are, can screw that probability up to 100%.

3) The probability to find gold instead silver in a sandstone is high and there were times you had only a 25% chance to get silver.

4) Sandstones can be found in the more dangerous parts of the map. Usually you can expect stalkers, sandsharks, bleeders or mesmers to be near them, depending where you find them. There are of course unguarded sandstones, but these locations have to be found first and will be no longer unguarded in the final release probably.

Together it means that veterans like me can directly scan through the good sandstone places. And veterans know how to avoid the lurking predators. We can hoard dozens of silver in no time.

But beginners will need lots of time. There chance of finding silver in a stone is like 5% for each stone they look at, because they are so inexperienced. And they tend to avoid the predators or dangerous caves, lowering their chances of getting silver even more. Most of them stay in the safe shallows for a long time. Who would dare to seek in the creepvines for too long as a beginner? Who would dare to dive into dark deep caves as a beginner?

And then we have the casual players who are like eternal beginners. They might spend less than 50 hours on the game in total. All those players will have a problem with game / story progression if the silver problem won't change.

As far as I know the recipes for tech and resource placement is still changing. The scanner room is going to be made more useful. So in the end in a few updates the problem will be solved.

[Willi the Gifter of Chaos]

Originally posted by Zetachron:

As far as I know the recipes for tech and resource placement is still changing. The scanner room is going to be made more useful. So in the end in a few updates the problem will be solved.

here's hoping.

[Grim]

People that get lucky and exaggerate. Sandstone isn't too hard to find if you know where to look. And even then knowing where the sandstone is and getting Silver from it is a matter of luck that sometimes just doesn't work. Some people hit those thermal vents and find nothing but gold. Sometimes you can get them from reefback barnacles I hear. Still just a chance, though.

Aside from mining large silver deposits with the prawn suit drill arm, there's a good chance that even if you know where to look you still won't find any silver.

[margalus]

Because we aren't lucky like you. All I get is gold from sandstone.

[Drakon]

in one of my games I encountered a bug in resource spawning:
there were no nodes (not a single one) outside of spawning area (literally 0). Scrap metal fragments were lying everywhere as normal, but the nodes did not spawn at all (both limestone and sandstone). Deleting save cache fixed this problem.

maybe people are experiencing this problem/bug? This would explain lack of silver for so many

[Whaky]

Imo 2 general problems here are that:

- Gold is more common (like 75/25%) than silver which makes no sense and at some point just spams you inventory and lockers (or the game if you don't pick it up);

- all the outcrops look the same when they should not. Ok, probably sandstone and limestone are similar in color and texture, and it does not mean it has no sollution. But basalt is freaking dark grey. And when I'm farming specific resources going around in my Seamoth, I have to get out of it all the time to check which outcrop I see. First 3 hrs of game I didn't even notice there are different outcrops so I kept mining all of them hoping to get silver before I refered to the forums and Wikia.

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by bobidog:

No wonder. The children are afraid to go far from home.
Claustrophobic. Silver in caves, and in caverns dark and scary.

Second posts talks about going as far as even the blood kelp.

Gets followed up by "LOL casuals are afraid to move away from their base or check deep scary places!"

Is there some kind of internet disease that makes faux hardcores only able to selectivly read anything BUT people pointing out their legitimate efforts?

Originally posted by EzriAran:

The problem ive had with silver is just the random loot chance on sandstone. i typically end up with two to three times as much gold as i do silver, which is freaking annoying!, because there's 3 kinds of formations that drop an abundance of gold. the others are shale, and basalt. sandstone is the only one that drops silver and it should drop it MORE OFTEN.

Also yes. the RNJesus is strong.

For every person going "LOL I've got 20 silver on the first try!"

Is some poor soul having visited multiple sandstone lined caves, cracked open 40+ sandstone nodes... and only got 7ish silver tops for their troubles.

And then after explaining they have spent hours cracking open nearly a hundred sandstone... They tend to just be told "LOL you just want things handed to you on a silver platter! You aren't trying at all!"

Because see above.

[Xautos]

Originally posted by goblin:

Serious question. What is the difference between you and me that allows me to have built everything and still have a locker full of it, without having actively searched for it more than once or twice?

Exploration is a big part of this game. Are you guys sitting in the safe shallows expecting everything to come to you or what?

I think we need a rocket scientist for this one.

if you are looking for a rocket scientist to tell you it's on a chance based system from resource deposit from to resourc deposit, then by all means. but if you seen for yourself and worked out yourself, you wouldn't need to make such a wild claim that not everyone can get silver in such amounts just like that.

so you are implying people are too stupid to get out of the safe zone to get more silver? and how long did it take you to figure that one up?

even better how long would it take for your to understand that this is a chance based system? oh right... you need a rocket scientist for that one.

such a self-destructive comment.. utterly needless.

[bobidog]

I started a new game. Search sandstone gave the result for every 5 gold 4 silver drop. 45% silver
Previously sandstone was in the plateaus grass, but has been removed. Too far it was. Silver moved to a safe shallow caves and kelp forest. They made it easy, but it's still difficult for some.
Sandstone containing silver is always in the same place! Always! Sorry, but I'm too lazy to outline the coordinates of each of sandstone.

[Zemecon]

Just a thought: Is it possible RNG is working differently for different people? Is this even possible?

I am finding silver but just barely enough for what I need and no more than that. And I have about 8 excess gold ore in a Cyclops locker. So I am not having as much trouble as some other people but then it looks like some other people are having more success than I am, too. Or maybe something else is going on, I dunno.

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by Zemecton:

Just a thought: Is it possible RNG is working differently for different people? Is this even possible?

I am finding silver but just barely enough for what I need and no more than that. And I have about 8 excess gold ore in a Cyclops locker. So I am not having as much trouble as some other people but then it looks like some other people are having more success than I am, too. Or maybe something else is going on, I dunno.

It's more that it's working the "Same", but Random Number Generator does not mean Consitent Result Generator.

Congradulations on being one of the more fortunate contestants in the guessing game!

As well, "In my Cyclops locker" is a clear indication you are already well past major bottleneck for silver. Even if you made a mad dash to build the Cyclops as early as possible. Those struggling the most with this, are the ones who still need to get enough silver for the big opening salvo of upgrade needs.

Your first builder. Your first fabficator for your base. maybe a communications relay for your base so you don't have to travel hundreds of meters back to your lifepod for messages.Your first modification station. Your first battery charger. your first power cell charger. your first moonpool. Your first vehichle modification station (which requires a moonpool). The actual Cyclops itself

(Advanced wiring kits need a chip that uses silver in the first place. So a lot of people discount those when thinking about silver)

Depth upgrades. The assorted physics guns. HUD Chips. Rebreather. Charge fins. medical kit fabricator.

And so on. and so on. Even if I forgot that a single one of the above items uses some other substitute (I initially forgot the mobile vehichle bay does not need silver in it's ingredients list, for example) that some faux hardcore will readily jump down my throat over as "Proof" silver isn't needed a lot, yeaaaaah.

So all the people saying stuff like "I don't understand, I just use my endgame exosuit with optional drill arm to mine for silver" are well, WELL past the point they can talk about any shortages.

I'm surprised in hindsight that the mobile vehichle bay, seamoth, and exosuit themselves don't use silver in their ingredients list.... Buuuut their assorted pretty much mandatory upgrades then make them eat up even more silver anyways.

"LOL Just use the drill arm you needed lots of silver to build to get more silver! Now, back to telling people having battery problems in the early game before battery chargers and modification stations to LOL just use the charge fins and battery chargers they don't have access to! Built with the silver they don't have."

It's not just that kind of sitcom grade bad opinion though. There is also a whole lot of blurred by hindsight and a wiki's worth of personal experience involved, from the more well meaning people.