Nightime....

[Fast Johnny]

So, I haven't been all to keen on being in the water at night and usually diddy back to the escape pod as soon as I get the nightime approaching warning. My question is: can I swim around at night without ending up like the cover picture on the book, "Jaws"? Or is it deathly to swim at night? What about if I just stay on the surface, am I going to get treated like a Jitterbug surface lure by a hungry Largemouth?

[Cougarific]

All predators are more aggressive at night. They have a larger aggro radius and will pursue you for longer before giving up.

That said, there are plenty of activities you can do at night without risking too much - light gathering (quartz, titanium, salt, etc.), base building/sprucing up, crafted materials stockpiling (batteries, fresh water, foodstuffs), etc.

I never let nighttime keep me inside my base or lifepod, I just modify my activities to minimize the risk that a Stalker or Sandshark is going to bite my testicles off.

You can also use the darkness as a transit time - say you want to visit the Island but don't have a Seamoth yet - start swimming toward it when the sun goes down and you'll have all the next day to explore the Island.

[tran_fors]

Originally posted by Cougarific:

You can also use the darkness as a transit time - say you want to visit the Island but don't have a Seamoth yet - start swimming toward it when the sun goes down and you'll have all the next day to explore the Island.

This. Plus, once you get the SeaMoth and a Moon Pool you'll find that you can generally gather at night, because you'll mostly roam around safely and only pop out long enough to gather stuff.

[Fast Johnny]

So, in other words, it is safe to swim on the surface at night?

[Frank T Hack]

I swim on the surface at night ...usually i go on nightime to North Isle .....u see Lithium much better at night

[or0b0ur0s]

It's not the predators that keep me in my base at night. It's the utter inability to see more than your hand in front of your face, even with the most powerful lights. Seamoth headlights are the closest to useful, but even they don't have as wide an effect as they should, AND they don't help you find the thing at night, either. If I had a nickel for every time I almost drowned trying to find my Seamoth because I got close enough that the beacon shut off and I still couldn't see it AT ALL in the pitch blackness, I'd have paid for the game several times over.

Lights need an overhaul, and nights in general could be less dark and still feel spooky / atmospheric / natural without utterly stopping any and all exploration and gathering in their tracks, aside from things that actually glow (fish, quartz).

[MaddMatt]

I find that staying close to the surface is pretty safe from predators. The one exception is near the mountain where the shallow waters are filled with biters.

[Dala]

You can truly feel the difference in fear level between night and day 0_0

[broken condom]

with me, the only threat at nighttime that's different than daytime are the stalkers are more active, but every food fish except for the peeper move slower.

[Cougarific]

One more thing - people tend to ignore Flares but they can come in handy if you want to continue your gathering activities at night. Sandsharks in particular hate these things and will swim away from them if you drop one nearby.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=740980686

[Alkpaz]

Is there a mod that limits the day/night cycles? :P Or an ENB that is not overly dark, preferably with the newest binaries?

[Fast Johnny]

Originally posted by MaddMatt:

I find that staying close to the surface is pretty safe from predators. The one exception is near the mountain where the shallow waters are filled with biters.

Yes, I found that out the hard way. Pain the rearend aren't they?

[or0b0ur0s]

Originally posted by Cougarific:

One more thing - people tend to ignore Flares but they can come in handy if you want to continue your gathering activities at night. Sandsharks in particular hate these things and will swim away from them if you drop one nearby.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=740980686

If this is correct, I have to seriously question the Lifepod 17 PDA hint. It EXPLICITLY and at some length describes that flares do nothing against Sandsharks, and, in fact, "the only defense is to outrun them", all but word-for-word. If that's a deliberately misleading hint, I have a serious problem with that. Almost as big of a problem as I have with a predator that comes in 4x as many numbers as it should, doesn't stay where it's supposed to, doesn't behave like it's supposed to, and has pretty much no gimmick to avoid or drop aggro like virtually all the other large predators.

Maybe I don't play enough games, but I've never HEARD of an in-game hint that was the exact opposite of what you're supposed to do. If it's a subtle hint that the guy was peeled out of his pod by Warpers rather than Sandsharks, then I have to say it's a bit TOO subtle.

[Fast Johnny]

Maybe the advice from the destroyed lifepod was wrong...I mean look where it got them.