Removed sand digging functionality.

[bobidog]

No. NO. NO!!! Please do not delete terraformer. Subnautica died. It's a pity. A good game was.

[ImHelping]

Considering how long ago they announed the planned removal of that feature, it's getting more and more iffy that they keep listing it as a sales point on the store page the more time goes by.

[Damos1212]

Removed from where?

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by Damos1212:

Removed from where?

It's not removed YET, but the Devs have announced that they are removing terraforming features alltogether (Which includes sand digging) quite some time ago.

But it's quite common for people to buy this game when they see the terraforming listed as one of the sales features on the store page, start having fun with the teraformer, and then find out that feature is actually slated for removal after the fact.

A common reaction sadly, is to blame those people for not sifting through the devblog to compare and contrast sales points before buying.

I still feel the game will be worth owning once terraforming is gone. But I still sympathize with anyone who got excited over it because the Devs continute to advertise the cool terraforming in their game, without so much as a disclaimer "Oh by the way we're removing that. But we don't have to explicitly tell you that because EA, or something"

Descend into the depths of an alien underwater world filled with wonder and peril. Craft equipment, pilot submarines, terraform voxel terrain, and out-smart wildlife to explore lush coral reefs, volcanoes, cave systems, and more - All while trying to survive.

[shponglefan]

One thing I'm wondering is how base building will work if they remove all terrain deformation. The moon pool in particular deforms the terrain for the required clearance underneath it.

Without modifying the terrain, base building is going to be more challenging.

[ChurlishCanadian]

I'd imagine that "automatic" terraforming that results from base building will still occur. I'll bet it's just the terraromer tool and sand digging that go away.

[Brittlebullet]

Originally posted by shponglefan:

One thing I'm wondering is how base building will work if they remove all terrain deformation. The moon pool in particular deforms the terrain for the required clearance underneath it.

Without modifying the terrain, base building is going to be more challenging.

idk I don't think it'll be particularly challening, I've played for a long time and never once used the terraformer. Finding the right place to build is part of the fun for me rather than terraforming wherever to fit my needs.

I'm pretty sure the main reason they are removing it is because they want players to find cave entrances naturally instead of terraforming a new entrance.

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by BrittleBullet:

Originally posted by shponglefan:

One thing I'm wondering is how base building will work if they remove all terrain deformation. The moon pool in particular deforms the terrain for the required clearance underneath it.

Without modifying the terrain, base building is going to be more challenging.

idk I don't think it'll be particularly challening, I've played for a long time and never once used the terraformer. Finding the right place to build is part of the fun for me rather than terraforming wherever to fit my needs.

I'm pretty sure the main reason they are removing it is because they want players to find cave entrances naturally instead of terraforming a new entrance.

I'm sure that is part of it, particularly with all the assorted alien bases and deep exosuit territory stuff coming.

But primarily it's the workload their small dev team would have to deal with to optimize terraforming terrain, particularly in a game with 3D movement so your line of sight can be quite massive. (Just swing by a jellyshroom cave again for how much of an impact that draw distance have without superman 64 fog or "must be too dark to see that far?" in play).

It's an understandable workload concern, particularly with the timetable they have given themselves. It's not even really a "Console cross platform" thing because we are still waiting on a load game button for stable without quitting the game first.

EDIT: To be clear, I understand why they are doing it, and that they have legit reasons to do it. Which would be happening even if this were a PC exclusive.

[ojakokko]

They removed it? How do I get the items out of those supply crates filled with sand?

[bobidog]

Originally posted by ojakokko:

They removed it? How do I get the items out of those supply crates filled with sand?

Try to pull out the supply crates using the pro-cannon

[JP_Russell]

I have to wonder if voxel terrain is even worth having in the game if it only gets used for automatic shaping of terrain from basebuilding. I imagine it's very expensive simply to have voxels in the scene at all, so if they're not being used for much, it seems to me like they'd be better off doing away with them to get way better performance.

[grandnovice]

Then they need to work on stuff not getting buried under sand if you can't move it.

[Holy Athena]

They needed to remove it. It was practically a built in cheat tool allowing you to just dig holes to end game instead of exploring the caverns, etc. Also the game is already extremely taxing in terms of load times and pop ins, removing the voxel, and terraforming will greatly enhance the load times and allow them to push the fog out more and allow more to load in.

[Kachiri_Beleza]

If the Terraformer is removed I'm not likely to play the game anymore.
It has made the difference in my building experience. It also helped me make a short route between an upper biome and one below it, which matters to me. I'm not gonna be doing that with the Habitat Builder. Will take way too long to make a long tunnel that way.

[ojakokko]

Originally posted by Holy Athena:

They needed to remove it. It was practically a built in cheat tool allowing you to just dig holes to end game instead of exploring the caverns, etc. Also the game is already extremely taxing in terms of load times and pop ins, removing the voxel, and terraforming will greatly enhance the load times and allow them to push the fog out more and allow more to load in.

The voxels are still there. And most games with terraformable terrain have unbreakable blocks. So maybe they should add the terraformer (and at least digging by hand so I can get the items from those supply crates filled with sand) back (for PC, it was removed because the XB1 couldn't handle it) and add an unbreakable material to be used for gating, so terraforming can't be used for cheating.