Devs finnaly explained The Void

[Nicco (The singing Neco Arc)]

So Aurora crushed on the edge of ancient vulcanic crater. That means that Subnautica's ocean is more then 10000 meters deep ! ( I wanted arctic biome as border of the world but ok)

[「wew」]

Called Void for a reason; it's void of anything
Gameplay decision eventually take priority and ending the content at the void with the explanation of the volcano/caldera works nicely

[Moose]

yeah I went past 7000m, nothing but darkness

[TheGraveDigger]

Originally posted by MegaMoose:

yeah I went past 7000m, nothing but darkness

Did you see atleast 1 ghost leviathan?

[Zemecon]

Originally posted by Davy Jones:

I would actually really like to see the arctic biome take a chunk out of the void at least, maybe have new fauna there?

whale like creatures that are peacful, and give you insulation (otherwise you take more damage on being hit because its cold and your suits torn), maybe a leviathan that feeds through breach feeding and poses as a constant threat. There is alot of potential there, and you could say something along the lines of "this biome has no water in it, vents below seem to pump out a lighter than water solution with a much higher freezing point, causing an ice sheet to form and the water beneath to recieve less sun and be much colder. The fauna here seem to be all carnivorous or filter feeders. no flora is present here"

Except there really is no "lighter-than-water" solution that freezes at the temperature range required to keep water in a liquid state. The only other "ice" out there is Dry Ice which is made up of carbon dioxide and that freezes at much lower temperatures. On the opposite end we have mercury that is liquid at room temperature but mercury is very toxic in larger quantities.

Keeping in mind this "lighter-than-water solution" would come from the bottom of the ocean, the current game world is apparently set on a dormant volcano which is thousands of meters higher than the true bottom of Planet 4546B's ocean. There are no areas in the current game world that do this. Nor would there be on other dormant volcanoes in other parts of the planet, either, because they would form in pretty much the same way - molten rock at extremely high temperatures pushing planet crust up - and at that temperature nothing really freezes that I am aware of. The only other place to find vents would be at the very bottom of the ocean, presumably near the planet's core.

If this "lighter-than-water solution" had a freezing point lower than water at that depth then you have two scenarios: 1) it freezes upon contact with the water outside of the crust and forms a secondary crust of ice, or 2) it rises and freezes at the surface - if that is even possible, because whatever doesn't make a substance freeze at the bottom of an ocean is less likely to freeze near the surface where temperatures are as much as 35°C / 65°F higher, or much more, given the depths of Planet 4546B's oceans. It could still freeze at the bottom but - as I said when I addressed Tewa's post - you wouldn't get anything like an "arctic" biome. See my other response below.

What would happen to such a solution on its way up? It wouldn't freeze, that is for sure. It would dilute in the water and then if it did freeze near the surface (which is unlikely because lighter elements and compounds have lower freezing points) it would sink back down to the bottom or float on the surface in miniscule amounts.

The main problem here is that the temperature gradient in the ocean is the opposite of what you would need in order to get what you want with the kind of substance you are suggesting. The solution in question needs to be lighter than water in order to rise and it needs colder temperatures in order to freeze. You just won't get that on a planet like 4546B which has a surface warm enough to keep water liquid all the time, and which is ironically where you want that ice to go in the first place.

Originally posted by Tewa:

Originally posted by Salinité:

Are we really going to send the player thousands of meters down toward Planet 4546B's core, to a pitch black environment so alien and so sclerophillic, and call that an "Arctic Biome?"

The "Lost River" is in a cave at the bottom of the ocean.

So... yeah, why not?

The Lost River is not freezing. There is no ice in the Lost River. And the Lost River is not at the bottom of Planet 4546's ocean if it is inside a huge dormant volcano that supposedly rises thousands of meters above the planet's true ocean bottom. And as I've said before, conditions at the true bottom of Planet 4546's ocean would be too alien and too inhospitable to life to come anywhere close to what we could call an "arctic" biome.

EDIT 1 & 2: Changed and added to response.

[Moose]

Originally posted by TemmieTheGraveDigger:

Originally posted by MegaMoose:

yeah I went past 7000m, nothing but darkness

Did you see atleast 1 ghost leviathan?

I fell so fast the 3 ghostys couldnt keep up I never got touched

[Moose]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1150756554

[Officer of Martyrdom]

Originally posted by KoolSkeleton82:

THEY SERIOUSLY NEED TO EXPAND THE VOID!!!!! AN ARCTIC BIOME WOULD DO NICELY
DOWN IN THE VOID, ITS THE PERFECT TEMPARETURE TO SUPPORT AN ICY WORLD. THE FURTHER UNDERGROUND, THE COLDER IT IS.

Due to immense pressure, water won't freeze at that depth...baring like...absoute zero, but then the whole planet would be ice.

[Moose]

The void should have a bottom @ 3000m. When you reach the bottom the ghost leviathans run away and a giant cuddlefish appears and eats you :o

[straykaiya]

ANY biome is technically pretty easy to "Explain". Teleporters.

[Zemecon]

Originally posted by straykaiya:

ANY biome is technically pretty easy to "Explain". Teleporters.

If the teleporter takes you very far away from the current game world then you would either need to drastically expand the size of the map or create a new one and have the game use both simultaneously. I am not saying that is impossible but it would be a stretch when you think of current game software resources and performance.

That aside, I am still very skeptical that Planet 4546B could ever have an "arctic" biome whatsoever that could characterized as a clearcut arctic biome. It would be easier to either put a stray iceberg into the current world map or have a Precursor portal take you to an underground cold biome with maybe some ice in it. That still wouldn't be an "arctic" biome but it would be close enough.

[RubinMuslake]

Originally posted by Salinité:

Originally posted by TemmieTheGraveDigger:

Too bad the devs are doing one anyways

Well, I don't think anyone knows that for sure. Unless you see a Trello card maked as "Doing" or "Done" there is always the chance they will change their minds.

I personally cannot see any possibility of an "arctic" biome ever happening on a planet covered entirely by ocean, free of ice, that can support life anywhere near the surface. And, believe me, there are times when I want to. I could run you by over a dozen possible scenarios that might say otherwise and it would still always seem like a stretch.

Of course you could always excuse it as being just a game (I.e. "It doesn't need to berealistic!"). However, when you try to bend any set of rules - made-up or not - to a certain extent where it just raises more questions than answers wherever you go with it, that goes nowhere. After a while it becomes difficult to take seriously by anyone. How far do you go? That is what I mean - I keep wanting to know why and the game won't give me the means to find out why, meanwhile at the same time I have more things telling me why not. It makes the game and whatever happens in it more difficult to understand and just kinda ruins the experience.

That's my take on it, anyway. That is what I think.

EDIT: Fixed an issue with the quote.

The poles of 4546B could just be cold enough to support frozen water. plus Subnautica: Below Zero is in the process and it's already been confirmed in canon that it all takes place on 4546B, the same planet we play on in Subnautica.

[Alkpaz]

Oct 3, 2017 pre-rocket. https://unknownworlds.com/subnautica/blog/page/3/

[Zemecon]

Originally posted by PhoenixFeather22:

The poles of 4546B could just be cold enough to support frozen water. plus Subnautica: Below Zero is in the process and it's already been confirmed in canon that it all takes place on 4546B, the same planet we play on in Subnautica.

I am aware of the expansion. You replied to a thread that was made way before that was made certain to anyone so please read the thread's post date next time.

Unfortunately, when you have a planet almost entirely covered by water (we actually don't know this yet but I am working off this premise right now) that is cold enough to form ice on the surface of open ocean without the aid of a large landmass, it means that planet is beyond its "Goldilocks Zone" (range from the sun to have liquid water on its surface) and cannot support carbon-based life. And I am pretty sure the developers at UWE intended for the animals on Planet 4546 B to be carbon-based. See, if you have frozen water in open ocean as a result of the climate itself, you kinda have it everywhere on the surface. Not just in an isolated spot in the middle of the ocean. Everywhere. We have ice in the poles on Earth due to nearby landmasses, not due to Earth being cold enough to form ice in the water all on its own.

EDIT: Fixed a typo and added two sentences.

[TheGraveDigger]

Originally posted by PhoenixFeather22:

Originally posted by Salinité:

Well, I don't think anyone knows that for sure. Unless you see a Trello card maked as "Doing" or "Done" there is always the chance they will change their minds.

I personally cannot see any possibility of an "arctic" biome ever happening on a planet covered entirely by ocean, free of ice, that can support life anywhere near the surface. And, believe me, there are times when I want to. I could run you by over a dozen possible scenarios that might say otherwise and it would still always seem like a stretch.

Of course you could always excuse it as being just a game (I.e. "It doesn't need to berealistic!"). However, when you try to bend any set of rules - made-up or not - to a certain extent where it just raises more questions than answers wherever you go with it, that goes nowhere. After a while it becomes difficult to take seriously by anyone. How far do you go? That is what I mean - I keep wanting to know why and the game won't give me the means to find out why, meanwhile at the same time I have more things telling me why not. It makes the game and whatever happens in it more difficult to understand and just kinda ruins the experience.

That's my take on it, anyway. That is what I think.

EDIT: Fixed an issue with the quote.

The poles of 4546B could just be cold enough to support frozen water. plus Subnautica: Below Zero is in the process and it's already been confirmed in canon that it all takes place on 4546B, the same planet we play on in Subnautica.

Read the date buddy