finding thermal plant; overall comments on game

[Ichthyic]

this has been a great game. well worth the wait.

my ONLY big complaint is that finding the blue key card you need to get into the final precursor base (meaning, finding the thermal plant) is wayyyyy too hard. tiny entrance, dark dark area you can hardly see in, and NO guides or hints, unlike previous precursor bases. you have zero clue that the thing you are looking for is there, or even where the thernal power plant is.

I had to use an online guide to even know what I was looking for and where, AND get the coordinate location, and still took me forever to find it.

this needs fixing, badly.

other than that... minor physics glitches and the occasional random CTD aside, this is a good game. Being a scuba diver, I enjoeyed it immensely.

other ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ (several of which were 'fixed' by a mod I found on Nexus):

-needs higher defintion textures for most things; antialiasing just doesn't cut it really.
-I cannot access my prawn storage or upgrades when docked in the moonbay.
-sometimes the ladders in moonbays glitch out and won't let me climb them properly (keeps tossing me back in the water).
-storage area on person and in prawn/seamoth is too small.
-glider and seamoth speeds are too slow (increase by about 35%)
-inertia on prawn suit needs to be lowered by about 25% a tad too hard to control as is.
-base scanners should be able to always scan for ANYTHING you have found and scanned into the database. right now, it seems random which things it will allow you to scan.

[ImHelping]

Welcome to implementation favoring the EA players who have memorized the map after dozens of playthroughs, basically.

Some of us tried to make it more intuitive. But alas, so much has instead gone backwards. Time was every lifepod had a direct signal to it for example.

Except for the duplicate lifepod #3 back then, which had the compass, making the compass the single most commonly missed databox for players. Because of course you gotta lock the compass! They should learn landmarks in a game with next to no draw distance! Say the people who have the map memorized already for months.

And so on.

[Demon of Razgriz]

Yeah, this is my biggest issue with Subnautica. I get that they want to make you explore, but they need at least some hints as to where things are that you can get. There are animals,locations and even techonologies that you could easily never see in a playthrough and if your players can't even find the thing, why did you bother making it?

[Mansen]

But there are tonnes of clues to be had. Heck your first visit into an Alien "base" throws you pinpointed location data right into your tablet.

[Demon of Razgriz]

Originally posted by Mansen:

But there are tonnes of clues to be had. Heck your first visit into an Alien "base" throws you pinpointed location data right into your tablet.

Only for some things and only for some technologies. For example, I completed the entire game and never once saw a Sea Treader. I also completed the entire game without ever getting or seeing stillsuit or the cyclops repair module, if I hadn't played before I wouldn't have even known those things existed.

Heck, even the SCANNER room (which is a pretty vital technology) has no clues or even hints that that type of technology exists unless you stumble across it. As for the Alien thermal plant, no, there is no hint it is there, unless you count one line from the PDA which MAY not even happen (I didn't even get the line until I was done with the PCF and just driving my Cyclops back through the ILZ, so I could easily see a new player not even getting it, therefore having NO idea what to do.

[Mansen]

So your complaint is that the game is TOO open, and you want a NARROW, GUIDED (No forced actually) on rails experience?

Well.... uhh... I think you'll find you're in a minority on that end. The game mechanic for exploration is pretty simple - Your have a depth limit, go explore anywhere that has that depth.

There's a compass, you have beacons too - The only real thing missing is a proper map that shows you where you've been roughly.

[Thoinos]

Not to mention precourser bases indicate each out at least a little bit. Except for the base in the lava zone, there is a data download that says that it is at 1.4k depth in the lava zone. Although warpers tend to get annoying after they start to hunt you.

[Benzin]

I confess that after over an hour of looking for an entrance to the lava lakes without success, i too had to look online for some clues. Even if just to make sure i was correct in assuming in what biome the entrance was.
Yes, i agree this last step is very unintuitive & hard to find without reading online. More clues should be provided here.

[Mansen]

Originally posted by Thoinos:

Although warpers tend to get annoying after they start to hunt you.

Steer clear of them - Or use your Cyclops on silent running to move around the area slowly. Works like a charm (The hull is Warp field proof)

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by Mansen:

So your complaint is that the game is TOO open, and you want a NARROW, GUIDED (No forced actually) on rails experience?

Well.... uhh... I think you'll find you're in a minority on that end. The game mechanic for exploration is pretty simple - Your have a depth limit, go explore anywhere that has that depth.

There's a compass, you have beacons too - The only real thing missing is a proper map that shows you where you've been roughly.

You mean the compass that's locked, and the beacons that went from a default blueprint to an unlock at the behest of faux hardcores like you?

Fragment spawns are still pretty ****ed. It's more luck than skill even if you got the map memorized. That's why you'll still see 3+ laser cutter fragments spawning inside a sealed room you need a laser cutter to open in the first place (Which has transitioned from "THE DEVS FIXED THAT! YOU'RE LYING!" during the EA period to "Well, uh, shut up I think it's fine!")

[Demon of Razgriz]

Originally posted by Thoinos:

Not to mention precourser bases indicate each out at least a little bit. Except for the base in the lava zone, there is a data download that says that it is at 1.4k depth in the lava zone. Although warpers tend to get annoying after they start to hunt you.

What about the 3 other bases that are not part of the story? Did you know those existed? There is no hint to their locations anywhere that I found and if you are going to make something so hard to find that VERY few of your players even know it exists, why dedicate time to making it?

[Mansen]

Originally posted by ImHelping:

You mean the compass that's locked, and the beacons that went from a default blueprint to an unlock at the behest of faux hardcores like you?

You are quite literally told where to go for the compass, very, very early on.

I am by no means hardcore. I skipped several biomes on my first run... which is why I am replaying the game and exploring everywhere for the experience (We call this replayability)

Originally posted by Demon_of_Razgriz:

What about the 3 other bases that are not part of the story? Did you know those existed? There is no hint to their locations anywhere that I found and if you are going to make something so hard to find that VERY few of your players even know it exists, why dedicate time to making it?

There are heavy hints about these and their locations - Not to mention rather obvious looking clues like massive pillars foreboding the prescence of alien tech.

[Ichthyic]

you literally are imagining these hints. really.

I have run though every radio communication and datapad store. there actually is not a single hint that you need to go to the thermal plant, or where it is.

none.

the thermal plant entrance is a tiny tiny cave, in the middle of a very large and dark cavern, full of things that can mess your day up. there are no giant pillars. just small ones, just INSIDE the cave entrance. I'm actually amazed people can find it without looking up the coordinates on the wiki (which were wrong, btw! I just changed them to be accurate) or youtube. most of the other bases have kinda "soft" pathways that lead to them, including the caches. example: the cache near the giant fossil skeleton that lies a few hundred meters below the last Degassi base. anyone just generally exploring the area is likely to make their way down to it eventually. But there is NOTHING like this for the thermal plant, and it's actually 100% critical to find this in order to finish the game (without using the console anyway).

run along and play now, you're bothering everyone here with your trolling.

[Ichthyic]

another thing I neglected to add but is significant:

at least in my game, it has a slow but consistent memory leak. starts causing glitches and ctds after about an hour or so of gameplay.

I can see the growing memory usage by using the F1 display in game.

The reason I didn't add this to the OP, is that I am unsure if this is a problem with the base game, or something that the mods I am using have done.

anyone running release version get constant increased memory usage?

[Demon of Razgriz]

Originally posted by Mansen:

Originally posted by ImHelping:

You mean the compass that's locked, and the beacons that went from a default blueprint to an unlock at the behest of faux hardcores like you?

You are quite literally told where to go for the compass, very, very early on.

I am by no means hardcore. I skipped several biomes on my first run... which is why I am replaying the game and exploring everywhere for the experience (We call this replayability)

Originally posted by Demon_of_Razgriz:

What about the 3 other bases that are not part of the story? Did you know those existed? There is no hint to their locations anywhere that I found and if you are going to make something so hard to find that VERY few of your players even know it exists, why dedicate time to making it?

There are heavy hints about these and their locations - Not to mention rather obvious looking clues like massive pillars foreboding the prescence of alien tech.

Please, show me some evidence about hints to where the bases are, I must have missed it. The pillars don't count because you have to be at the location to even see the pillars in the first place and there is no reason to go out there unless you know that something is there. Unless you think that people should divide the entire map of Subnautica into a grid and methodically drive in lines up and down each grid square just to make sure they see everything. Oh wait, you can't even do that because you can't get a map.

Don't get me wrong, I love the game, but this is a definite weak point.

[ImHelping]

Pfft, it says GO DEEPER. Gosh golly what a call of duty casual to not get all the need out of that amiright.

Clearly that's all the indication you need to know where the few specific tunnel entrances are, and then know to not drive past the nondescript fog hidden lava castle like countless players do, because I have that **** so memorized I parked my cyclops intending to look for the entry and dropped my prawn right onto the door by pure instinct.

(That last part actually happened, God I've put too much time into this game)