How do you navigate?

[76561198046838937]

After hearing so many good things about the game, I decided to purchase it. About 6 hours in and I really am not enjoying myself (when usually I would have). The obstacle that's getting in the way is I have no clue where I'm going half the time. I've made 4 beacons to label key places, but I would need 100+ to accurately know where I'm going (which seems quite absurd).

So because I don't know where i'm going (except for the 4 places I have marked) and I don't know which direction to go for a new area I realised I tend to swim around in a very small area (500-600 radius).

Also, I know there's a map mod but I really would like to play how the game was intended. Is there a portable map bluebrint somewhere? Something to show me where I'm going while I'm in the middle of nowhere?

One last thing: I've been looking at youtube videos to find blueprints for basic things like water purifier and such. People give directions like "Turn east from this green plant and keep swimming for 500 M"... There's Green plants everywhere! How do people distinctly navigate themselves. I understand there's different biomes but I can't tell which direction is which biome. Most times its not even noticeable that you've entered a new biome unless you swim deeper.

[Willow Rivers]

There is no map blueprint. No map in the game at all unelss you use the map mod.

You can make a compass to know which direction you are heading.

People use the life pod you start at as a middle point. You can also press F1 to open the ifo box to shoe your current co ordinate. You cna look up wreck co ordinates and use that to navigate ot get to a specicifi one if you wnat.

As you play more you will start getting the map down and the different biomes and will be able to navigate easier. Took me a bit but I am getting the hang of it.

[kwong20287]

There isn't a map blueprint in the game. I mostly navigate myself using the lifepod beacons, other radio beacons, beacons that i placed down, the aurora (if you're behind it or in front), and the wiki.
Yeah, navigating and finding stuff is sometimes a chore.
Oh, and the two clouds that mark the islands help too.

[Amanoob105]

Early game you use the big ship itself and your lifepod beacon to figure out where you are and where you're going.
After that you want to figure out where the (dam) compass is. Once you have that, make a beacon somewhere important (home base maybe?) and between that one, the lifepod one and the compass you should be able to get an idea where you are.

If all else fails, put one beacon somewhere in or above in each biome you want to go back to, you will not(/shouldn't) need 100s of them.

Exploration also gets a bit easier once you build a cyclops. It can act as a mobile base (you can even grow plants in it) with your only real limit being how long it takes to drain the power cells (always pack extra. Always) and need to head back to base to recharge them.

There's no in game map, but the game world itself isn't as big as it feels (for better or worse....) so in time you will soon start to recognize what's near and next to what with the different biomes.


A few words of warning about using other peoples videos.
Anything made before 23 January 2018 might well have out of date info as when in EA any number of things could change over the months, including the shape of parts of the map.

What fragments you can find in wrecks is semi-random. While the higher levels of tech will always be found in the deeper wrecks and the lower but still needed stuff in the shallower ones, which wrecks you find them in is randomised.

Same goes for all the resources, what biome you can find them in is fixed. Where you find them is not.

[DeFragged]

Beacons. I always pack 2-3 beacons with me/my vehicles and drop one down every time I find something interesting. (You can turn them on and off on your HUD as well, don't forget!)

I also drop at least one at certain landmarks of the map in my new playthroughs so I can navigate quickly.

[Nyello]

Make sure you have repaired the comms station in your lifepod. It will start spitting out random points of interest at you. The aurora is northeast of you so there’s a good directional clue.

[Ryvaken Tadrya]

The lack of a map is really confusing from a design standpoint, I agree.

A good way to tell one biome from another is the shader the game puts on your screen. The crash zone is brown, the kelp forest is a rather putrid green, so on. The transition is NOT subtle and is visible from just below the surface.

[Splattergutz]

It's called a compass.

We use them because they work. :)

[AMadManWithABox]

LOTS OF BEACONS...... you can turn them off and on so you dont have all them all over your screen

[Cougarific]

If you don't want to use the map mod you can also find an up-to-date map online and copy the map .jpg into your Screenshots folder (in the Save folder) and pull up a static map on your PDA when you need it.

It doesn't show your location (like the map mod does) so it's less cheaty-feeling and it's how we used to do it before the map mod was available.

[76561198046838937]

Nguyên văn bởi Splattergutz:

It's called a compass.

We use them because they work. :)

Compass doesn't tell you where a specific region is, it just gives overall direction (which is useless).

Nguyên văn bởi Cougarific:

It doesn't show your location (like the map mod does) so it's less cheaty-feeling and it's how we used to do it before the map mod was available.

I've been doing this already but I find it difficult to tell where I am in comparison to all the different regions. I could be in Safe Shallows region, bump into kelp forest region and not know which part of kelp forest i'm entering (since there's 3 different areas of Kelp forest that surround Safe Shallows). And its all east of the Araura so there's no way of telling.



Overall I just find it dumb that you can create all this high level tech like nuclear reactor and Vehicle Docking systems, yet you can't create a simple map.

[Cougarific]

Everything you're describing is available via the mod or subnautica.io online map.

Not sure why you're resisting using those - you keep saying I want this, that and the other thing. Well, they're all available to you. You just have to spend two minutes downloading and installing the mod.

Many players feel the map mod should have been a part of the base game. There are options available to have the whole map fogged over so it only reveals areas you have visited.

Why don't you at least try it out - if you don't like using it, you don't have to.

[General Idea]

You don't get out much as a rambler do you? Were you asking for directions to the garden party? Set down some beacons name them and move on.

[Splattergutz]

Nguyên văn bởi General Idea:

You don't get out much as a rambler do you? Were you asking for directions to the garden party? Set down some beacons name them and move on.

hahaha good one.

@Jon Snow the compass combined with the pod location, base beacon or whatever else you want to use tells you exactly where you are, simply turn around and look in the direction of the icons to obtain distance. The rest is simply learning the biomes, and that will take time.
Some biomes are singular and there are multiple of some others.
The distance and the compass reading tell you exactly where you are, people have been doing that for many years.

[Gjeaneman]

Nguyên văn bởi Jon Snow:

After hearing so many good things about the game, I decided to purchase it. About 6 hours in and I really am not enjoying myself (when usually I would have). The obstacle that's getting in the way is I have no clue where I'm going half the time. I've made 4 beacons to label key places, but I would need 100+ to accurately know where I'm going (which seems quite absurd).

So because I don't know where i'm going (except for the 4 places I have marked) and I don't know which direction to go for a new area I realised I tend to swim around in a very small area (500-600 radius).

Also, I know there's a map mod but I really would like to play how the game was intended. Is there a portable map bluebrint somewhere? Something to show me where I'm going while I'm in the middle of nowhere?

One last thing: I've been looking at youtube videos to find blueprints for basic things like water purifier and such. People give directions like "Turn east from this green plant and keep swimming for 500 M"... There's Green plants everywhere! How do people distinctly navigate themselves. I understand there's different biomes but I can't tell which direction is which biome. Most times its not even noticeable that you've entered a new biome unless you swim deeper.

install the map mod

also press F1 then player biome, you see wich biome you're in

[Linio]

I concur. Install the map mod.
Definitely changed my whole perspective of the game.
Without it it was just a pain in the ass!