[Spoilers] I finally found the key to saving the sunbeam!

[Elana]

One of the critical things that was missing from ALL of the guides I have read to saving the ship involves not answering ANY of the hails before you've found the cure. If even the FIRST of three normal messages have been transmitted, the sunbeam WILL get shot down.

As revealing as this is, it seems like there should be some way to avert the normal event if you deactivate the platform before the message that starts the count down.


Here's a breakdown of how things are currently laid out (copied from wiki), with what I wish they would do to give you a second chance to save it.:

Originally posted by Subnautica Wiki:

First Contact:

1A: "This is Avery Quinn, of trading ship Sunbeam. Aurora, do you read? Over. Still nothing. These Alterra ships. They run out of engine grease, they send an SOS: you offer to help, they don't pick up. Aurora, I'm on the far side of the system, it's going to take more than a week to reach your position, do you still need our assistance? Over. I'll try them again tomorrow. See what the long-range scans pick up in the meantime. Damn charter's going to have us wasting our profit margin running errands for Alterra."

1B, Canceled Rescue Attempt: "Aurora survivors, this is trading ship Sunbeam. We've tracked your distress signal, but your ship's left a giant debris field up in orbit, we can't attempt a landing. We're gonna have to head home. We'll send our data to Alterra as soon as we can. Hold on in there. Sunbeam, out."


On the way:

"Aurora, this is Sunbeam again. We just picked up a massive debris field at your location. I didn't know how bad... how many of you..... I didn't know. We are now en route to your location. We're going to bring you home. Sunbeam out." *talking to crew* "What else can I say? We're a six seater and we aren't even slightly equipped to handle this? Our pilot last attempted a planet landing in the academy simulator? It's a bad situation, but so are all the alternatives."


Halfway there:

"Sunbeam, broadcasting to all survivors of the Aurora. We've covered more than half the distance, so hold on in there. We're scanning the planet for dry land as we speak. You couldn't have picked a less convenient parking spot, but we'll be in touch as soon as we have a landing spot for you. Sunbeam out."


Two Days Away:

"Aurora, it's Sunbeam. We've made orbit, and scans have found a landing site on the planet that's only rated hazardous. It's our best shot. We've sent you the coordinates. We'll be there in two day's time. Cross your fingers the weather holds, and don't leave us waiting. Sunbeam out."


Breaking Atmosphere:

"I don't believe it, there's someone down there! Aurora survivor, we have your PDA signature! I don't know how you walked away from that wreck, let alone survived since then, but we'll be happy to bring you onboard and hightail back to federation space. Stand back, we're approaching the landing site now. Breaking atmosphere in 5... 4... 3... What is that? No the RED spike. From the planet?!
*Static*

My thought is that there should be a second "Canceled Rescue Attempt" message that plays instead of, or before the "Two Days Away" message, something along the lines of "We've gotten a better look at the debris field, and it's too dangerous to risk a landing, so we're gonna have to head home. We'll send our data to Alterra as soon as we can. Hold on in there. Sunbeam, out."

[Demolition414]

Avery's lines were changed prior to release so the lines you copied are the old ones, alot of players more than likely dont bother fixing or building a radio, plus the Sunbeam is sort of sidequest / optional to add a bit more excitement to the game, there are already 3 outcomes to the Sunbeam, 2 are certain death and 1 is the sunbeam survives ( not sure if this one is implemented, last i saw sunbeam goes boom even if the gun is turned off )

[Elana]

Read my post again, I just gave you confirmation of being able to save it.

Edit: It doesn't matter if the in-game dialog has changed, the point of the messages are the same, and the end result is the same.

[Ceejay]

Originally posted by Elana:

Read my post again, I just gave you confirmation of being able to save it.

Edit: It doesn't matter if the in-game dialog has changed, the point of the messages are the same, and the end result is the same.

It does matter, as those lines of dialog are no longer in the game, there is no longer a way to save the sunbeam as is.

Whether they change it again in a future patch who knows.

[Elana]

Do you people not listen? You CAN save it, I just tested it. You need to turn the gun off BEFORE the opening hail!

TL;DR

These are the events as they currently are:

#1. Sun beam hails you, even if you turn off the gun, the gun REACTIVATES and shoots it down.
#2. You turn off the gun BEFORE the sunbeam hails you for the first time, you get the message there is too much debris.

I want a #3:
The gun will ONLY shoot the sunbeam if it has not been shut down, and if it has, the sunbeam has some excuse why they cannot pick you up. This will also fix the gun magically reactivating at the end of the timer if it's already shut off.

[Ceejay]

Originally posted by Elana:

Do you people not listen? You CAN save it, I just tested it. You need to turn the gun off BEFORE the opening hail!

My apologies.

Its the way you worded your description, it sounded like you were basically guessing from the wiki entry, not that you actually played and saved it :p

Thats the problem with text, it can be mis-interpreted depending on how you individually take certain things. :)

Glad we know, I shall have to try and save it on my next play through :)

[Elana]

Simple reproducible way to check using debug:

1. Start a new game
2. Input into the console: playerinfection 5. This cures you, and puts you in the correct state to turn off the weapon.
3. Turn off the gun
4. Wait for the Sunbeam to hail. They will imediately give the "Canceled Rescue Attempt" message.

I am doing additional runthroughs to verify, but so far the results have revealed that this ONLY works if you get everything done before the opening hail.

[kwong20287]

Oh I was wondering if that message was in yet.

[Teratus]

But if I save it then I don't get the awesome fireworks..

[Phaota]

The gun shooting down the ship even after it is powered down is a bug that oddly hasn't been fixed yet.

[scorpion22374]

So basically you have to use a console command in order to not have the Sunbeam shot down LOL

[Elana]

Theoretically, if you just don't use the radio, you should be able to complete the prerequisite normally, that just means finishing most of the story first.

[General Idea]

If you have managed to disable the quarantine enforcement platform before the Sunbeam arrival you should get this radio message and no landing attempt. As Phaota mentions a bug activation occurs when you are present on the island to witness the non event.

"Aurora survivors, this is trading ship Sunbeam. We've tracked your distress signal, but your ship's left a giant debris field up in orbit, we can't attempt a landing. We're gonna have to head home. We'll send our data to Alterra as soon as we can. Hold on in there. Sunbeam, out."

[Ceejay]

Of course that also implies that another rescue mission may infact happen at some point so maybe they need a 2nd ending where if you survive for long enough, thats what happens :p

[Elana]

Originally posted by General Idea:

If you have managed to disable the quarantine enforcement platform before the Sunbeam arrival you should get this radio message and no landing attempt. As Phaota mentions a bug activation occurs when you are present on the island to witness the non event.

"Aurora survivors, this is trading ship Sunbeam. We've tracked your distress signal, but your ship's left a giant debris field up in orbit, we can't attempt a landing. We're gonna have to head home. We'll send our data to Alterra as soon as we can. Hold on in there. Sunbeam, out."

As I said in the opening post, this only seems to work IF they have not previously contacted you.

[General Idea]

Originally posted by Elana:

Originally posted by General Idea:

If you have managed to disable the quarantine enforcement platform before the Sunbeam arrival you should get this radio message and no landing attempt. As Phaota mentions a bug activation occurs when you are present on the island to witness the non event.

"Aurora survivors, this is trading ship Sunbeam. We've tracked your distress signal, but your ship's left a giant debris field up in orbit, we can't attempt a landing. We're gonna have to head home. We'll send our data to Alterra as soon as we can. Hold on in there. Sunbeam, out."

As I said in the opening post, this only seems to work IF they have not previously contacted you.

Yes. In other words the radio had not been repaired or activated prior to finding the cure and disabling the quarantine enforcement platform. Why did you feel it necessary to tell the rest of us that already know about this as you are not the first to have reported on this? You should check the archives.