Is this a bug or am I a numpty? No Sea Emperor. SPOILERS EVERYWHERE

[Incendiary Snail]

This whole post is full of giant spoilers for the late-game story. Don't read it unless you've already got there. Really.


I got to the huge moonpool in the alien containment facility at the very bottom of the lava zone. There is one definite bug: the short-distance arch halfway up the back wall is missing the floor of its little room. It's easy enough to get in and feed the arch an ion cube by swimming up from below, but Riley then falls through the missing floor, which makes him treat all the water in the moonpool as air, walking around at the bottom (after a big fall) watching the fish swim by. Getting into the PRAWN turns the air back into water, but only while in the machine.

After I played around enough to figure that out, the sensible option seemed to be to load my save and ignore that arch. I got to the Sea Emperor eggs, fed the incubator machine an ion cube and it asked for hatching enzymes.

I don't have hatching enzymes.

After a lot more playing around, and a fruitless trip back to the surface to look for enzymes, I gave up and Googled it. Apparently the Sea Emperor is supposed to appear when you put the ion cube in the incubator machine and blast the sand away from the half-buried arch behind the incubator. Didn't happen to me.

Any ideas? Have I just missed some obvious button or is poor Riley doomed by a coding error?

[admiral1018]

You aren't given the enzymes, you're given a recipe for them that you construct at the fabricator. Did you check to make sure you don't have the recipe?

[Cheboygan]

A screenshot would be so helpful.

[dreamrider]

Did the Sea Emperor have any kind of a conversation with you after you entered the Aquarium Prison?

There is a whole explain-the-cure, get-the-cure interaction sequence that begins with you encountering the Sea Emperor AS YOU ENTER the Aquarium the first time.

[Incendiary Snail]

Definitely no enzyme recipe.

I'm trying to remember exactly what happened when I first went into the pool. There was definitely a psychic-type communication at some point which said something along the lines of "Come to me, I can help you." That actually led me on another wild goose chase all around the crater looking for the origin.

No other communications elsewhere, and definitely no physical Sea Emperor.

I'll try and post a screenshot tonight, but the only thing to see is the missing floor in the archway room, and possibly Riley walking around on the floor of the moonpool, though there may not be much to see. I can show the incubator machine with a tooltip asking for the enzymes.

(edited because my spoiler tags are playing up and anyone who's read this far knows what they're getting anyway)

[vinyblaster]

If you didn't meet the Sea Emperor when entering the moonpool then your run is seriously broken. Yes she is supposed to clear the sand for you to use a portal, but before that there is a conversation as soon as you enter the water. You would definitely remember it had it happened.

[Incendiary Snail]

Huh. I suspected as much.

That's ... annoying. Something like 32 hours put into that run, and I really don't have the motivation to do it again. It's tempting just to hop in the Neptune, fire it off and see what the defence platform does to me.

Could always use the console commands to cure Riley, but that would be cheating, and very unsatisfying.

[Incendiary Snail]

Yup, totally bugged.

I just watched a Youtube video of someone hopping into the alien moonpool for the first time. Completely different to my experience. Mine didn't have that platform dangling a few metres below the water surface, and there definitely wasn't a Sea Emperor on the way in.

Having said that, I did get the voice. I recognise the comment about swimming with the current. I just got it randomly while hopping about at the bottom of the moonpool.

Is there anything to be done?

[Cheboygan]

Originally posted by dunc_cap_tes:

Is there anything to be done?

Sounds to me like you're so close to the end, it wouldn't be worth a new full run, or even the effort required to repair the save. Your options seem to already be before you. 1. Try to take the rocket (I don't think it would let you anyway), 2. Use console to try to move forward (spawn the enzyme sequence? or just cure). 3. Speedrun to the finish again just to watch (or use console commands on a new save instead.)

[Just Chill]

Are you on experimental?

[admiral1018]

OP, assuming you can't find a fix to this, here's what I would suggest.

1. Press F3, hit F8 to enable mouse control, and click to enable the console
2. Press ~ to bring up the console
3. Type with no quotes "unlock hatchingenzymes"
4. Save game, exit, and reload

This will not allow you to see the Sea Emperor story, but it will allow you to craft the enzymes and possibly complete the game. The save and exit will preserve achievements if you're playing on the stable version.

[dreamrider]

You could try deleting the cell batch files for the Aquarium.

-Go to the egg platform.
-F1.
-Write down the Cell batch numbers for the cell you are in. (Unless someone here can just give them to you.) It is a 3-part string of numbers, similar to a coordinate. I think it is pretty clearly labeled something like "camera cell batch".
-Get out of the game.
-Go to install directory>subnautica>SNSppData>Saved Games>slot00xx (whatever; current game save folder)>CellsCache.
-In the CellsCache folder, delete the batch file with the number you recovered with F1.
-The Aquarium is pretty big, so you should probably also delete the cells all aroound it, too. Just subtract one, and then add one to each of the 3 number elements of the batch file name to create a list of the name/numbers of the 26 surrounding cells.
-Delete all those batch files, too. (You may not need to delete the cells below the level of the egg platform, but, just to be safe...)

Now go back in the game. The game engine will pull from the permanent game libraries to recreate the deleted cell batch files, in their intended initial condition (the terrain, seeded resources, and local creatures).

No guarantee that this fix will work for this particular glitch, since this is a complicated bit of location & story interaction, but there is at least a good chance that it will restore at least the presence of your Sea Emperor.

Many would say just delete the entire CellsCache folder. However, as you might figure out, that resets EVERY resource gathered, EVERY creature, and EVERY terrain change (if any). I don't think you really want that at this stage of the game.
(It won't remove anything you have built, however.)

Admiral, Ignis:
Did I get all that correct?

[admiral1018]

I don't think that will fix it. Deleting the CellsCache doesn't affect story elements. If something happened that bypasses the Sea Emperor scene, that's not going to do anything.

[dreamrider]

I understand. But the OP clearly has some missing cell elements as well. I thought perhaps the two things were interrelated.

[admiral1018]

Originally posted by dreamrider:

I understand. But the OP clearly has some missing cell elements as well. I thought perhaps the two things were interrelated.

True. Might be worth a try, but I would strongly suggest doing a backup of the original save folder first.

[dreamrider]

Excellent point!