Travel Speed Tests

[Warc1]

After participating in a discussion on the relative merits of the Seatruck vs Subnautica's Seamoth and Cyclops, I undertook some speed tests of all of the vehicles and mobility gear from both games. I was looking to separate fact from opinion and it resulted in the list below.

All speeds are m/s.

Pilot Single Seatruck Module (no Seatruck) - Below Zero - 2.1
Seatruck w Power Mod and 10 Modules Attached - Below Zero - 2.5
Seatruck w Power Mod and 8 Modules Attached - Below Zero - 2.9
Swim w No Fins - Subnautica - 3.0
Seatruck w Power Mod and 6 Modules Attached - Below Zero - 3.7
Swim w No Fins - Below Zero - 4.2
Swim w Charging Fins - Below Zero - 4.2
Swim w Standard Fins - Subnautica - 4.2
Seatruck w Power Mod and 4 Modules Attached - Below Zero - 5.0
Swim w Charging Fins - Subnautica - 5.1
Swim w Standard Fins - Below Zero - 5.5
Seaglide w No Fins - Below Zero - 5.6
Swim w Ultraglide Fins - Subnautica - 6.4
Swim w Ultraglide Fins - Below Zero - 6.4
Cyclops Ahead Slow - Subnautica - 6.5
Seaglide w Standard Fins - Below Zero - 7.0
Seaglide w Ultraglide Fins - Below Zero - 7.8
Seatruck w Power Mod and 2 Modules Attached - Below Zero - 7.8
Cyclops Ahead Standard - Subnautica - 8.5
Seatruck w Power Mod and no Attached Modules - Below Zero - 9.0
Cyclops Ahead Flank (15 sec max before damage) - Subnautica - 10.0
Seaglide Subnautica - 10.3
Seamoth Subnautica - 11.2
Seatruck w Afterburner and no Modules (Peak speed in 8 sec boost) - Below Zero - 13.4
Boost Tank - Below Zero - 10.2-13.7 (see notes below)

Some analysis as follows:

• Boost tank speed is bizarre in that it varies with compass direction. Southbound, eastbound and westbound speeds are nominally 13.7 m/s, but northbound speed is at least 3m/s slower.
  
• No other vehicles or swimming gear appear to have this directional behaviour in either game
  
• Boost tank speed is variable through the 90 second run so the listed speeds are averaged estimates.
  
• Boost tank speeds are highly susceptible to slowdowns for very minor steering corrections and the numbers above are based on near perfectly straight travel near the surface.
  
• Swimming speeds in Below Zero have been bumped up as much as 40% compared to Subnautica depending on what fins are deployed.
  
• Seaglide speed in Below Zero is dependent on what fins are deployed with more powerful fins yielding faster Seaglide speeds.
  
• Seaglide speed in Subnautica is independent of fins and is considerably faster than all of the fin/Seaglide combos in Below Zero - as much as 100% faster.
  
• Subnatica Seaglide is incredibly fast even compared to vehicles - within 10% of Seamoth, faster than Cyclops, and significantly faster than stripped down Seatruck.
  
• Seamoth is considerably faster than Seatruck even when the latter is stripped down and modded. Peak speed on the Seatruck can momentarily exceed Seamoth with afterburners, but average speed is still lower.
  
• Cyclops is much faster than it appears due to its large size, with standard speed virtually as fast as a stripped down Seatruck and 70% faster than a power modded Seatruck with four attached modules.

[Cougarific]

İlk olarak Warc1 tarafından gönderildi:

The strangest part is that the speed is impacted by the direction of travel.

Ocean currents?

Thanks for the investigative work!

İlk olarak Warc1 tarafından gönderildi:

Not sure of the utility of the Boost Tank.

I've found it useful for getting from point A to point B near the surface before diving deep.

As long as you stay near the surface (for refills) it's basically a Seaglide but without taking up 6 inventory slots - good for gathering runs.

[Warc1]

İlk olarak Cougarific tarafından gönderildi:

Ocean currents?

That's what I thought, but why would currents just affect this piece of equipment and not vehicles or swim gear? Also, why doesn't the eastbound travel speed split the difference between northbound and southbound speeds? If northbound is against the current and southbound is with it, both eastbound and westbound speeds should be somewhere in between and they aren't.

I've found it useful for getting from point A to point B near the surface before diving deep. As long as you stay near the surface (for refills) it's basically a Seaglide but without taking up 6 inventory slots - good for gathering runs.

I can see that, especially early in the game. I don't think I would continue with that once I had the Seatruck. I'd rather have the nearly 2 times diving duration of the Ultra High Capacity Tank to be on station longer and use the Seatruck to get from place to place.

[Leo]

thanks!

to compare to

"Seatruck w 2 Modules Attached and Power Mod - Below Zero - 7.8 m/s"

i did also some tests:

Seatruck w 2 Modules Attached - Below Zero - 6.06 m/s
Seatruck w 2 Modules Attached and Afterburner - Below Zero - 10.55 m/s

[Coops]

Boost tank speed is bizarre in that it varies with compass direction. Southbound, eastbound and westbound speeds are nominally 13.7 m/s, but northbound speed is at least 3m/s slower.

No other vehicles or swimming gear appear to have this directional behaviour in either game.

Subnautica EA had directional differences in where you placed base reinforcement panels. Some directions (NSEW) gave more strength improvement. This was fixed by release time.

edit: and I wanted to bump this.

[Cougarific]

İlk olarak Coops tarafından gönderildi:

edit: and I wanted to bump this.

I was just thinking about this thread and was going to go looking for it, you saved me the effort, thanks for the bump!

Right now Boost Tank is the fastest "vehicle" in the game (tho of limited usefulness when not near the surface).

It's also just incredibly fun to use.

I took it all the way from the pod to the Rocket Island the other day and was just laughing the whole way at the tremendous feeling of speed when skimming the surface.

[HSuke]

Thanks for doing this.

However, I know nearly all your values are quite inaccurate (at least the ones for the original Subnautica). There must be something wrong with your methodology.

Please take a look at https://subnautica.fandom.com/wiki/Swimming_Speed

In original Subnautica:

• Seaglide speed is a constant 11 m/s, not 10.3 m/s
  
• The base swim speed is 5.7 m/s (no fins, on tanks, no tools, no suits), not 3.0 m/s
  
• Swiming with standard fins is faster than swimming with charge fins (which don't affect swim speed). It should've increased the speed by 1.4 m/s, not 2.1 m/s
  
• When swimming with ultraglide fins with nothing else, you should've hit the maximum 7.6 m/s

Some things to keep in mind when doing your tests:

• The reinforced suit slows you down
  
• Surface swim speed is not the same as underwater swim speed
  
• Hunger and thirst can slow your speed
  
• Holding multiple air tanks can slow you down. Holding a tool will slow you down.
  
• Speed seems to vary randomly every 10 seconds or so by up to 0.3 m/s. You need to do about 10 test trials for every setup and then pick the maximum average speed over 5 seconds.

[Biderbeck]

İlk olarak HSuke tarafından gönderildi:

Thanks for doing this.

However, I know nearly all your values are quite inaccurate (at least the ones for the original Subnautica). There must be something wrong with your methodology.

Please take a look at https://subnautica.fandom.com/wiki/Swimming_Speed

In original Subnautica:

• Seaglide speed is a constant 11 m/s, not 10.3 m/s
  
• The base swim speed is 5.7 m/s (no fins, on tanks, no tools, no suits), not 3.0 m/s
  
• Swiming with standard fins is faster than swimming with charge fins (which don't affect swim speed). It should've increased the speed by 1.4 m/s, not 2.1 m/s
  
• When swimming with ultraglide fins with nothing else, you should've hit the maximum 7.6 m/s

Some things to keep in mind when doing your tests:

• The reinforced suit slows you down
  
• Surface swim speed is not the same as underwater swim speed
  
• Hunger and thirst can slow your speed
  
• Holding multiple air tanks can slow you down. Holding a tool will slow you down.
  
• Speed seems to vary randomly every 10 seconds or so by up to 0.3 m/s. You need to do about 10 test trials for every setup and then pick the maximum average speed over 5 seconds.

there was an update to subnautica with some minor fixes and such.... if he tested in the most recent subnautica version then the numbers would come out different to the wiki page...which has a lot of outdated info

[HSuke]

İlk olarak biderbeck tarafından gönderildi:

there was an update to subnautica with some minor fixes and such.... if he tested in the most recent subnautica version then the numbers would come out different to the wiki page...which has a lot of outdated info

That is incorrect. The recent Big Little[unknownworlds.com] update did not change movement speeds.

1) No speed changes were listed in the changelog
2) OP is still wrong even when compared to the Early Access movement speeds for the original Subnautica.
3) Those figures on the Wiki are updated. I know because I'm the one who updated it. I'm quite familiar with both the pre-release and current movement values.

[Cougarific]

İlk olarak HSuke tarafından gönderildi:

The recent Big Little[unknownworlds.com] update did not change movement speeds.

Deep Dive is the latest update for BZ. Big Little happened before Deep Dive and was mostly aimed at the original game.

[HSuke]

İlk olarak Cougarific tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak HSuke tarafından gönderildi:

The recent Big Little[unknownworlds.com] update did not change movement speeds.

Deep Dive is the latest update for BZ. Big Little happened before Deep Dive and was mostly aimed at the original game.

I'm guessing you missed my first post. I'm disputing his methodology because his movement values for the original Subnautica are incorrect. (The BZ ones are irrelevant. I haven't tested them yet and don't plan to until much closer to the actual release. They change all the time.)