Stalkers ruin early game

[Reverendhongry]

I know there's supposed to be some degree of challenge to any survival game but the stalkers really just turn it into a frustrating nopefest for the beginning of the game. Everywhere I want to be there's at least one, usually a group of 2-3. You can spend 20 minutes swimming around dodging their attacks and stabbing them with your knife and maybe "kill" one. More often than not you think you have it dead only to find out it's stunned and coming after you again. You have to go near them to get components for what you need to outrun them. No matter how much you stab and try to get away they'll follow you, undying, back to your pod and wait for you there so they can chew on you some more. I tried to cheat health and spend some time enjoying the early game but cheating health makes them invincible too. I hate stalkers.

[primobrainlet]

THEN DONT GO IN THE KELP BIOME!!! seriously, use your brain, you probally have one, just strafe while swimming up or dont engage them at all. simple. Aslo your 17 hours say that you know "so much" about subnautica

[Reverendhongry]

Thank you for your constructive comment. I'll stay away from kelp forests. I don't need rubber or mesh for anything anyway.

Edit: also wtf, You have less play time than I do. What's with the condescension?

[primobrainlet]

Messaggio originale di Reverendhongry:

Thank you for your constructive comment. I'll stay away from kelp forests. I don't need rubber or mesh for anything anyway.

Edit: also wtf, You have less play time than I do. What's with the condescension?

My original account got hijacked, totaling at 60 hours with both

[Reverendhongry]

Try strafing while logging in or just don't engage the hackers.

[primobrainlet]

Messaggio originale di Reverendhongry:

Try strafing while logging in or just don't engage the hackers.

Lol I wish id done that

[Team Vladof]

You can tame them with a fish (not sure if it has to be a peeper or if any fish can do). You get a fish, then equip it in your hand. Then they supposedly come up to you and nab it and will be friendly for a while, even bringing you wreck salvage in their mouths like pets.

I've never done this, though.

In the last update or two (one of them), they seemed to revamp the aggression of some species to make them more aggressive, have a larger sphere of aggression (area which they decided to go after you), and the distance at which they decide to keep pursuing.

Stalkers were already a bit annoying early on, but now they are quite aggressive. Sand sharks used to seem almost benign unless you go in their faces... now they come after you with a vengeance from a distance. Bone sharks are also more aggressive.

Both sand and bone sharks also seem to be faster.

Your best bet with stalkers is to just scout out areas and watch-n-wait. Then sneak in and get some kelp when you get a chance. With early trips out, you can leave the air tank at home and just equip fins in order to increase your swim speed.

You can actually be quite predatory of Stalkers (and other sharks) by just circle-strafing them then chasing them. If you stay put and circle-strafe, they come back at you. But, if you strafe to the side when they come in for the attack, then hit them, and then tail them to keep attacking them, you can wipe them out pretty fast (or at least damage them long enough to get them to flee for a while, giving you a chance to go about your business).

Unknown Worlds is sort of giving mixed-signals with the game in that they sort of push for pacifism, and early versions of the game had fairly passive creatures (you had to really be in their business to irk them). But, now they're making things more aggressive and adding more weapons.

I guess they're giving into peer pressure and just turning the game from exploration / creation and "natural creatures have a natural aggression" to "everything is going after you for no reason now, and everything must die".

I prefer to play pacifist, but I've found myself slaughtering more and more creatures lately.

If it's any consoloation, by the time you get Stasis Rifle you essentially turn into a big game hunter. Just freeze things, knife them to death, wash-rinse-repeat. With recharge fins, you can keep the stasis rifle going forever, and clear out whole areas... pretty much making you a genoice machine.

[Colonel Yum Yum]

You have to use stealth and quick snatch and grab. They won't usually follow you near the surface, grab what you need then surface. You might get bit once but the Life Pod makes medkits pretty fast. Air Tanks in invantory add to your total air also.

[Reverendhongry]

Thanks for the good advice Vladof and YumYum, I think I've been doing it wrong and trying to take a more aggressive path. I do have a few air tanks to keep under longer but they keep following me back to my pod. Once I get an underwater base or two built they follow me back to that and just hover until they find more scrap, if I haven't picked it up already.

Do you think part of it is that I'm grabbing up all the scrap I can and they don't have anything to play with now? I never considered this until now.

[IFIYGD]

!) Stalkers are attracted to shiny metal... especially a knife in your hand. DON"T swim into Stalker teritory with a knife in your hand unless you want one or more to go super aggro on you, come in fast and chase you beyond their mornal range as long as you have that knife out.

2) You can tame one with a Peeper or other small fish (I always use Peepers) or scrap metal. DROP the fish or metal just as they come up to you for them to take it and be tamed. Used to be they would take it from your hand, now they will take your hand off and you take a hit if you don;t drop it right before they hit. And taming wild Stalkers only asts a short time. They will go feral again.

I hear you though. When I first started playing I hated Stalkers too. Until I observed their behavior, learned their AI and learned how to work with them, by avoiding, strafing away, taming and breeding them in the alien containment to create a Stalker Totth farm. I am quite find of them now. Still cautious, andalways wary, but fond, nonetheless.:)

[Nanostrike]

Messaggio originale di Team Vladof:

In the last update or two (one of them), they seemed to revamp the aggression of some species to make them more aggressive, have a larger sphere of aggression (area which they decided to go after you), and the distance at which they decide to keep pursuing.

Stalkers were already a bit annoying early on, but now they are quite aggressive. Sand sharks used to seem almost benign unless you go in their faces... now they come after you with a vengeance from a distance. Bone sharks are also more aggressive.

Both sand and bone sharks also seem to be faster.

Yeah, I'm not sure why they did this. I noticed right after the update that Sandsharks went from being what they're described as (Ambush predators who stay near the bottom) to thinking they're Reaper Leviathans. They aggro from a HUGE range and will follow you almost to the surface. Bonesharks, Jellyshroom Snakes, and Stalkers also got this aggro-boost and I'm not really sure why.

Stalkers used to only mess with you if you got REALLY close or took their metal. And they'd break off an attack on you if you dropped some metal. Now they'll ignore metal to dash straight at you for a bite with no provocation.

I really wish they'd undo these changes. It makes them feel less like actual creatures and more like mindless attack-bots.

[or0b0ur0s]

Messaggio originale di Reverendhongry:

Thanks for the good advice Vladof and YumYum, I think I've been doing it wrong and trying to take a more aggressive path. I do have a few air tanks to keep under longer but they keep following me back to my pod. Once I get an underwater base or two built they follow me back to that and just hover until they find more scrap, if I haven't picked it up already.

Do you think part of it is that I'm grabbing up all the scrap I can and they don't have anything to play with now? I never considered this until now.

Mmm, the Stalkers got to me for a long time, too. There are at least 2 different pod spawning locations, maybe more, that are just plain non-viable due to Stalkers. The spot under the pod hatch itself is a potential patrol area in these spawns, even in daylight, and that's just nonviable no matter what. "I've been playing for 30 seconds and I am just about to go for my very first swim and - " INSTANT TEETH. I don't care if you don't lose any items and just go back inside the pod. Not cool.

Personally, I tend to abandon spawns that are even close to a kelp forest due to the way they range outside of it at night. No matter what, I always avoid the kelp forest at night, including a wide area around it. I HAVE found that there's a spawn location near a Kelp Forest that has a ridge with a small wreck and a thermal vent just outside it, right under the pod. THAT forest is almost always Stalker-free, or at least Stalker-very-light-during-the-day, unlike virtually every other one I've seen, and should be cherished, even though it's all the way to the far west side of the Safe Shallows.

Unfortunately, I think the "bring you scrap" mechanic is now gone, as I can't find a way to get Stalkers to do it anymore. Any scrap they pick up, they take to a designated "nest" spot. If you mess with a "nest" - an obvious pile of more than 1 piece of scrap deep inside a Kelp Forest - they will definitely get "angry". They do that to each other, even. If you pick up scrap around the edges of a Kelp Forest, you're just more likely to run into one diving to the same piece you want, that's all.

My main problem with this is that it's SUPER difficult to catch any fish at all anymore by hand since everything evades like a Peeper. Especially without fins, it's darned hard. So you basically end up wasting your entire first day so you can go fish-hunting at night (when they're more sluggish and easier to catch), so you can have enough safety to get seeds for rubber for your fins and knife on Day 2. That seems a bit harsh and roundabout to me. Oh, yeah, and then there's the fact that a new player wouldn't have the first CLUE how to get past the Stalkers, and just ragequit. You shouldn't need a strategy guide to get through the first 5 minutes and make the lowest item on the tech tree, IMO.

[IFIYGD]

Kelp Forests surround the Safe Shallows, pretty much. So, I swim around until I find an area with seedpods, no Stalkers patrolling and no schools of suspicious-might-be-bleeders, dash in, grab seed pods and dash back out, lather-rinse-repeat. And honestly, the bleeders aren't that big of a deal as long as I have a med kit or 2 in inventory. I get what I need for my knife and fins pretty quickly and easily. And I actually prefer a spawn point near the kelp forest, since I usually build my first base at the edge of the Kelp Forest/Shallows/Grassy Plateaus. Makes building that first base easier having the LP and it's fabber and med kit fabber close by.
But yeah, that one spawn point that puts you right on top of Stalkers and Gasopods does suck, lol!

[primobrainlet]

OK heres a tactic i found to avoid stalkers:

Peepers. stalkers are peeper addicts, and seem to go for them more than you (I play experimental, so idk regular), but just drop a peeper in its face, it turns to the peeper for a few seconds, giving you time to get out of aggro range, then swims off living its life. If you must kill one, stasis rifle and knife its ass

[IFIYGD]

Messaggio originale di lonemushroom:

If you must kill one, stasis rifle and knife its ass

Yeah, but... stasis rifle is not early game. The OP is newer to the game and has issues with them in early game. So while the stasis rofle os great fr stopping predators, it's not applicable to an early game scneario.

[primobrainlet]

Messaggio originale di I Fart In Your General Direction:

Messaggio originale di lonemushroom:

If you must kill one, stasis rifle and knife its ass

Yeah, but... stasis rifle is not early game. The OP is newer to the game and has issues with them in early game. So while the stasis rofle os great fr stopping predators, it's not applicable to an early game scneario.

I know, thats what the peeper method is for