The Great Wishlist for Subnautica 2.

[Doug Dimmadong]

Well boys and girls, we have a long time to wait so why not take that time and post some of the things we'd like to see returning, added, removed or expanded upon in Subnautica 2. Of course this is exactly what it is, a wish list, and I of course don't expect anything I say to be added to the game nor am I knowledgeable enough about game design to know how difficult these things may be to incorporate so it's mostly just for fun and conversation. Who knows, perhaps some devs would have a peruse and like some of the ideas?! And if not, at least we can fantasise.

- First and foremost, a LARGE submarine. I believe this is what annoyed a lot of people being missing from Below Zero, it certainly annoyed me. I'm thinking something like Cyclops but even bigger and somewhat modular, perhaps blank compartments inside of it that can be used to build room templates such as a fabricator room that would contain a fabricator, storage, etc. A full storage room, pretty simple. A living room possibly? Perhaps with a bed and other cozy things. An extra reactor room if you wanted to increase energy capacity. But also allow free building in sections that allow it.

- Visible changes to upgrades. I absolutely love this stuff in games, it just really helps cement the fact you're progressing. Subnautica did already have some of these, such as storage becoming visible on the Prawn and Seamoth, the toasty knife and visibly different suits but I'd also like to see it expanded with all others like engine upgrades, depth upgrades, etc. Perhaps with engine upgrades the look of the turbines will change. With depth the panelling on your vehicles would look more sturdy. With things like the thermo reactors it would add vents to the outside of the craft that would be where it takes in heat. Solar panels on the hull of craft, etc.

- Upgrades to base building schematics. Another thing I enjoy in survival games is getting better equipment over time. Take Raft for example, you start with a terrible water purifier and then you slowly get better versions of it over time. Now this could be something like the normal solar panel. You could have the base version at first but then be able to upgrade it into having two extra panels on it and so increasing efficiency. Water purifier could be upgraded to having extra slots to be able to hold two bottles of water at once and working faster or perhaps it's own clean water storage you could take from. All of course with visual updates along the line. Now these wouldn't be needed but they would add nice bonuses for those really taking their time to explore.

- Some deeper survival aspects. Now I like how simplistic the survival is in Subnautica, basic food and water is good but maybe flesh it out slightly? I don't want complicated recipes or anything but maybe simple things like if you eat something particularly filling or nutritious then you have a status modifier for 30 minutes or so that makes your hunger drop slower. Perhaps if you drink a coffee you swim slightly faster for a while? Maybe if you sleep you gain modifiers that lower your food and drink needs for the next day. Just simple things like that. Something that isn't needed but if you choose to do it, you get benefits for.

- This one I pretty much expect as I believe it's literally a crime all modern survival games don't have this feature. In Grounded there's a proximity system to storage where as long as you're in radius of your storage, you can craft from all the material that is held in them and not need them on your person. Unbelievable quality of life with this. You can also press one key, which was N in that game, to take anything from your inventory and it will automatically put it into storage in your proximity that already has that item in it; an auto-sorting system. This is a must, I can not express how essential to quality of life this is in ANY survival game. It saves so much time and annoyance. Please Unknown Worlds, if there is one singular thing you can take from this, IT HAS TO BE THIS ONE!

- For the Prawn if it is returning. Make it so you can switch modules while piloting it. It's just annoying having to exit and swap around which arms you want at any given time. Perhaps a design where it has 4 arms but two are tucked away behind and can be switched out like switching tools.

- A more complex sealife/world AI system. Now I know they mentioned that they have a separate team for creatures now and that they are expanding on the AI system which is great. I would love to see the creatures interacting more with each other and the world. There was a limited one in the previous games, sometimes you'd see some fish chasing others, Stalkers collecting metal, etc. Just expand upon it, it'll really makes the world feel more alive. Nothing is as immersive as a game that feels as though it exists without you and you are part of the living world, not the 'main character'.

- Keep the land sections basic and short. I hate the land sections of Below Zero. I recently replayed it and for me, the game is over soon as you have to do that part. There's a million other survival games I can play if I want to run around on land (And aren't as janky where land is involved). This is the only one to my knowledge that takes place underwater and that's why I love it so.

- Leviathan attacks? Now this one I'm not sure about. I would like leviathans to be more than an obstacle in only specific sections of the world, perhaps some kind of roaming behaviour. I also however don't want them to just become annoying so this would need to be carefully considered. With this I could see something fun such as a leviathan randomly happening upon your base and attacking it, of course this would mean needing some way of defending it. Absolutely no offensive means however, soon as gets to the point where you can just murder them they lose all fear. Perhaps some sort of buildings for defence such as a sonic emitter that deters them, a base shield, etc. Just a thought.

- A teleportation system. Now I've heard Below Zero has this with a Seatruck module? I've actually never seen it myself. This would function much like that I expect or the portals from Sub 1, however they would be buildable in your base; perhaps as its own separate compartment which would require a lot of power. This is just a quality of life thing also. I enjoy exploring but less so the backtracking. Being able to have smaller separate bases built at locations of your choice, perhaps because they have specific resources or because they're at important locations, would save so much boring backtracking time. There's nothing worse than getting to a place that is very far from your base, realising you need one little thing that isn't in that biome and having to travel all the way back to your base for 10 minutes. This would be specifically more useful considering the map is supposedly going to be larger.

- A map. At first you wouldn't have one, it would pretty much be like a fog of war and as you explore, you also fill out that map. It would make sense that someone who is trying to survive would also be mapping out locations, especially with the tech they have in the Subnautica universe. Perhaps a radar or satellite would be a base building you could build exactly for this or depending on the story, maybe one you can find and repair in the world. You'd be rewarded for exploration and also wouldn't have to place beacons everywhere that clutter the UI. Also be able to place waypoints on that map which would show up on the HUD, another quality of life thing.

- Lights. Now I know it's more realistic that lights don't work too well in water but I find lights in the game to be pretty much worse than not using them at all, specifically on vehicles. If you're in open water then they pretty much only add a fog/glare in front of you that makes it harder to see and the only time they do help is if you're 2 meters away from whatever you're looking at, in which case you don't even need the light anyway.

Well, that's all I can think of right now. I'm sure more will come to me and I'll add to it later. What about you guys? What would you like?

[admiral1018]

A few thoughts on what you mentioned above:

Submarines - While I really loved the functionality of the Cyclops in SN, the ship is very ugly. It's gray, cold, and almost too "realistic" for its own good. I'd love to see more windows on the new submarine replacement so we can get some natural light and appreciate the world. My dream would be for the upper deck to have a giant glass dome to see the outer biomes. Maybe that level is a lounge or dining area, but it's a peaceful spot that just lets the players sit down and appreciate the beautiful world when the ship is parked.

Inventory Management - This is the biggest area for improvement, by far. I'd actually be fine if the game started out with a system similar to the lockers we have now, and maybe better inventory management can be part of the tech tree. This game needs better ways to move large amounts of resources, organize them better, store larger quantities, and cut down on the need to gather them when crafting. Again, each of those would be great tech additions.

Upgrades - I would totally be down for a system where scanning flora and fauna in the world allows you to enhance blueprints for the base items. Imagine scanning a creature like the Sea Treader, and its hard carapace would upgrade the wall reinforcement formula to make them stronger. Or some highly efficient, photosynthetic plant that would allow you to upgrade the solar panel generation rates. This would be one of the best and most interesting ways to encourage exploring the world and interacting with the various creatures.

Teleportation - I kind of hated the way this worked in Below Zero. In my opinion, the only type that I would really hope for would be teleportation between bases, where it's again integrated into the tech tree. I don't really want this game to go down the path of traditional fast travel systems, as that tends to break immersion. The current teleporters are about the limit of what I think actually works in a game like this.

Map - I am very much against a map screen or any HUD-based mini-map. I would personally prefer no map at all, but if the game does have one, I want it to be diegetic. In other words, we're not taken to a magical map screen like in most open-world games (*cough* Far Cry series *cough*). Whatever we see is the same map the player-character sees, exactly as they see it.

[Enter the Wang]

Faster movement - It doesn't need to be the sea moth, but I'd like to see an upgrade for MUCH faster travel. Heck it could be a surface vessel (or even seaplane) to make faster movement more realistic if necessary. This could be a late game tech.

Cave diving - I think this concept could be expanded and make the pathfinder tool (or equivalent) mandatory. Creating some sort of dynamic where you don't have oxygen refresh from vehicles and need to travel through a maze of tight tunnels to get a reward (like alien tech, or some crazy difficult to find sea creature/mineral that could be researched for a tech gain). This could create many horror opportunities. You could create checkpoints with brain coral or the like.

[AndyH]

Honestly? There isn't really much I can think of from Subnautica.
I'd like the option to co-op with 2-3 friends. Maybe a larger map area, or other maps to go to with the submarine if there are technical limitations governing map area.

I'd mostly like them to take the lessons learned from BZ and not doing those instead of doubling down like a lot of people try to do. Let us be the character and let our actions tell the story. I think that was Subnautica's strength and why BZ's fell short. That story was laid out for us instead, but it was also poorly stitched together, not well executed and was a big turn off for many.

Sometimes less is more, so it would be good to go back to the basics there.

[Arondil]

1 - Better beacon management.

I tend to use beacons a lot, which means that I never can find the one I'm looking for because I have to scroll through a long list. Something like a tag system and a search function would be very welcome!

2 - Better food/drink implementation

I don't like the SN food/drink implementation where there are only three states: well-fed (recovering health over time), not well-fed (not recovering health but no other ill effects), and dying-within-seconds.

I'd like malnutrition to have in general more gradual effects. Possible effects of malnutrition could be
- reduced swimming speed or a limit on how long you can exert yourself
- reduced carrying capacity
- vision impairment, reduced hand-eye coordination, or the game responding slower to user input?

(These should be noticeable but not crippling. The purpose is to indicate that you're not taking care of yourself, just like "Please seek fluid intake" PDA messages.)

3 - Better base building.

I'm not too sure about this one because I don't know the premise of the game. Blueprints for a spa complex with bay windows are not really suited if we crash-landed on an empty planet and the goal is to save our skin until we can escape.

But there are other possible scenarios where we could find/salvage/reconstruct technology like in SN ("build what you find"), or even could have the skill set to modify base components like the multi-purpose room ourselves ("find the basic version, then customize the hell out of it").

4 - A diary.

Just a page on the PDA where we can jot down free-form notes within the game. Or at least the option to annotate screenshots.

[DrLamp]

I wish for:
No microtransactions of any kind.
Actually listen to your players this time during early access (if you choose to go that route).
No online connection required for play (unless you doing COOP of course)
No DRM.
No voiced protagonist.
No PvP.
Grief protection for bases and vehicles.

[Doug Dimmadong]

Publicado originalmente por admiral1018:

Snip.

I really like the idea of scanning the local flora and fauna in order to upgrade, didn't think of that. Very thematic and adds another reason other than lore to scan everything you can. Can also reserve the particularly high tier upgrades from scanning leviathans. Also with the map I don't want a mini map. I'd prefer it much like Below Zero where it's in the PDA but it's also dynamic. Again, it just makes sense to me given a survival point and the technology available, we already have maps in Sub 1 and Below Zero that give real-time 3D scans of the environment as with the Seaglide map and the Scanner room.

Publicado originalmente por Arondil:

3 - Better base building.

I'm not too sure about this one because I don't know the premise of the game. Blueprints for a spa complex with bay windows are not really suited if we crash-landed on an empty planet and the goal is to save our skin until we can escape.

But there are other possible scenarios where we could find/salvage/reconstruct technology like in SN ("build what you find"), or even could have the skill set to modify base components like the multi-purpose room ourselves ("find the basic version, then customize the hell out of it").

Base building actually has it's own dedicated development team now so we should see some good improvements to it.

[TheGraveDigger]

Publicado originalmente por Doug Dimmadong:

Publicado originalmente por admiral1018:

Snip.

I really like the idea of scanning the local flora and fauna in order to upgrade, didn't think of that. Very thematic and adds another reason other than lore to scan everything you can. Can also reserve the particularly high tier upgrades from scanning leviathans. Also with the map I don't want a mini map. I'd prefer it much like Below Zero where it's in the PDA but it's also dynamic. Again, it just makes sense to me given a survival point and the technology available, we already have maps in Sub 1 and Below Zero that give real-time 3D scans of the environment as with the Seaglide map and the Scanner room.

Publicado originalmente por Arondil:

3 - Better base building.

I'm not too sure about this one because I don't know the premise of the game. Blueprints for a spa complex with bay windows are not really suited if we crash-landed on an empty planet and the goal is to save our skin until we can escape.

But there are other possible scenarios where we could find/salvage/reconstruct technology like in SN ("build what you find"), or even could have the skill set to modify base components like the multi-purpose room ourselves ("find the basic version, then customize the hell out of it").

Base building actually has it's own dedicated development team now so we should see some good improvements to it.

Same with creatures too

[Cursed Hawkins]

Publicado originalmente por DrLamp:

I wish for:
No microtransactions of any kind.

This is something that I can see even the most hardest of anti-microtransaction individuals would rather support COSMETIC microtransactions versus GAMEPLAY microtransactions.

[Sputnik]

Or a really GOOD pay-to-win micro. That way I can cut straight to 100% achievement completion without all the hassle of gaming.

[Sifer2]

Given it's going to be 4 player co-op I imagine a bigger Submarine where you actually need different crew slots filled is a given. I hope there is like some automation modules though you could use that let you run the other seats as one person if you still play in single player.

Deeper survival mechanics, and more complex recipe's might also happen since it's designed for co-op.

[splash34]

Ich wünsche mir das alles begrenzte Haltbarkeit hat. Basis teile müssen mit Ressourcen in stand gesetzt werden . Einrichtungen ebenfalls aber nur begrenzt. Nach paar Reparaturen müssen ersetzt werden. Upgrades kann man nicht reparieren sondern nach einer Weile ersetzen. Das gleiche für persönliche Ausstattung und Werkzeug.

[Sputnik]

Well, I'll take this opportunity to indulge myself

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3014411924

[Barcheil]

The obvious, tweaking of hunger and thirst to suit player preferences, I don't want to spend too much time on hunger and thirst but do want to spend some time on it, a player preference. Same with tank size, it runs out to fast and disrupts immersion, a player choice to tweak tank life. A tow able container and of course a compressed air spear gun, even if the computer blocks it you could still assemble it from parts (slow reload so not really a weapon). A floating tow able mini base.

[Sputnik]

Yes, add "press to win" button

[HuskyDynamics]

If surface weather becomes a more significant element (high waves, storms, etc.), I'd love to see something with a similar concept of the Hyper-Sub FBS or SubSea Victa, with the ability to operate both as a submarine and a fast surface craft. This would give the option of traveling underwater or cruising along the surface, which would be faster but more dangerous in violent weather conditions.