Seamonkeys Suggestion (SPOILERS)

[maestro]

So....

Once you pick up Al-An, Seamonkeys will hand you items if you have a recipe pinned and they are no longer hostile.

Problem: How is the average player supposed to actually discover this?

I don't know about other players, but I never saw a reason to keep a recipe pinned while I'm out and about. Maybe while making multiple step recipes, such as ones that require CPU chips and such, I'll pin it during the crafting process, but I don't normally have recipes pinned while swimming around.

Thus, the only way I found about this, was some hours later browsing through wiki trying to figure out how the frick to get any usable amounts of lead when I saw that suggested.

So, here's my suggestion:

After meeting Al-An, and perhaps after one or two artifact scans, swimming near a Seamonkey, Al-An says something like this:

"These creatures you call Seamonkeys possess a small amount of intelligence. If you're thinking about a recipe you wish to craft, I can maybe convince them to help you with the materials."

This would also give the player a better understanding of why they suddenly act different. Maybe we could keep Robin's line in, maybe that plays if you hadn't scanned anything before Al-An mentions it, or something, I dunno.

[Coops]

You do not need to have a recipe pinned. They will give you titanium or quartz or maybe copper without a pinned recipe. This will happen when you are near one of them. After the initial surprise you get a PDA entry about it.

[maestro]

Originally posted by Coops:

You do not need to have a recipe pinned. They will give you titanium or quartz or maybe copper without a pinned recipe. This will happen when you are near one of them. After the initial surprise you get a PDA entry about it.

Strange, I've never seen it happen.

Swam around them I dunno how many times and they never did anything of the sort. Not until I pinned something.

[dragonbornzyra]

Originally posted by maestro:

Originally posted by Coops:

You do not need to have a recipe pinned. They will give you titanium or quartz or maybe copper without a pinned recipe. This will happen when you are near one of them. After the initial surprise you get a PDA entry about it.

Strange, I've never seen it happen.

Swam around them I dunno how many times and they never did anything of the sort. Not until I pinned something.

If you have AL-AN they will bring you Titanium, Copper or Quartz even if you don't have anything pinned. Just approach some and float there still. Observe them. When once of them notices you and decides to give you something, a resource will randomly spawn in its hands and it'll attempt to bring it to you.

Make sure you've roughly on the same level plane as it (it's ok to be a bit below it but not above the sea monkey) and facing it. It'll make the gesture to hold out the resource and chirp to get your attention. Robon will emote and vocalize her reaction to it from a list of possible responses.

Take the resource.

Do this a few times and Robin will get a new personal log, that says:

"ROBIN: The sea monkeys have changed their tune.
ROBIN: If only I could let them know what I need... maybe they could bring me something useful next time."

So you're given the incentive to figure out how to get them to know what you need. And that it's possible they can bring you something useful.

So if were you tasked with figuring out how to convey what you want to the Sea Monkey's, given the game's current options and what we can do, how would you do that?

[Arondil]

Originally posted by maestro:

So....

Once you pick up Al-An, Seamonkeys will hand you items if you have a recipe pinned and they are no longer hostile.

Problem: How is the average player supposed to actually discover this?

I don't know about other players, but I never saw a reason to keep a recipe pinned while I'm out and about. Maybe while making multiple step recipes, such as ones that require CPU chips and such, I'll pin it during the crafting process, but I don't normally have recipes pinned while swimming around.

Thus, the only way I found about this, was some hours later browsing through wiki trying to figure out how the frick to get any usable amounts of lead when I saw that suggested.

So, here's my suggestion:

After meeting Al-An, and perhaps after one or two artifact scans, swimming near a Seamonkey, Al-An says something like this:

"These creatures you call Seamonkeys possess a small amount of intelligence. If you're thinking about a recipe you wish to craft, I can maybe convince them to help you with the materials."

This would also give the player a better understanding of why they suddenly act different. Maybe we could keep Robin's line in, maybe that plays if you hadn't scanned anything before Al-An mentions it, or something, I dunno.

Given that the sea monkeys' behaviour change is not required to complete the game, I would say let players discover it at their own pace without being prompted. It's not necessary to find out everything there is, in the very first playthrough.

[Marvin]

How on 4546b are you meant to join the dots there? Why would a sea monkey know what recipe(s) you have pinned? a reflection in your HUD?

I've never needed to pin a recipe so would not have discovered this within the game. Surely it would be better if you could hold a material in your hand and they went off to find some more for you or reward them with some food item when they brought the right thing.

It's a nice mechanic if you need a bit of coral or something else that's biome specific but right now we just need more access to lead, even if that's late game down deep or in dangerous places (like ice-worm tunnels)

Hopefully this is just a development decision waiting to be made/implemented, if I can't build a large late-game base for lack of enameled glass and foundations then the map is going to feel a lot smaller than it already does.

[Tresh]

Actually, I find the seamonkeys to be one of the worst changes to the game. If you need a resource, especially from the lower biomes that are hard to reach, figure out how to get there instead of having the local wildlife just hand it to you.

While I was crafting some modules for my vehicles that needed endgame materials, I kept their recipes pinned while out and exploring before knowing the seamonkeys brought you stuff based on the recipe you have pinned. All of the sudden, they started bringing me nickel ore (I already had enough for the modules before getting any from the seamonkeys) and even knowing I had already gathered that ingredient, taking it from the seamonkeys felt like encouraged cheating.

I made sure after that to not have recipes with uncommon materials pinned when leaving the habitat, but looking at it from a logical perspective: Why leave the save areas, if you can just pin what you need and wait for it to be handed to you? Why work for anything at all?
Imo, the seamonkeys, if that mechanic is left in the game, should be limited to quartz, copper and titanium to encourage exploration and progression

[maestro]

Originally posted by Dunathon:

Actually, I find the seamonkeys to be one of the worst changes to the game. If you need a resource, especially from the lower biomes that are hard to reach, figure out how to get there instead of having the local wildlife just hand it to you.

While I was crafting some modules for my vehicles that needed endgame materials, I kept their recipes pinned while out and exploring before knowing the seamonkeys brought you stuff based on the recipe you have pinned. All of the sudden, they started bringing me nickel ore (I already had enough for the modules before getting any from the seamonkeys) and even knowing I had already gathered that ingredient, taking it from the seamonkeys felt like encouraged cheating.

I made sure after that to not have recipes with uncommon materials pinned when leaving the habitat, but looking at it from a logical perspective: Why leave the save areas, if you can just pin what you need and wait for it to be handed to you? Why work for anything at all?
Imo, the seamonkeys, if that mechanic is left in the game, should be limited to quartz, copper and titanium to encourage exploration and progression

Add lead to that.

Seriously.

Lead is ridiculous. Need tons and tons and tons of lead to get anything done, because ALL of the recipes take it. Enameled Glass. Plasteel, IIRC. Foundations. Just so friggin much lead needed for everything.

IMO, the Seamonkey List should be something like:

-Copper (common)
-Quartz (common)
-Titanium (common)
-Lead (common)
-Silver (uncommon)
-Gold (rarely)
-Lithium (rarely)

As these are all materials you can find in, or near the Kelp Caves (Lithium is found nearby in the Purple Vents) so it would make sense that Seamonkeys would have access to these materials.

IMO, Nickel, Rubies, and Diamonds are a definite No. These materials aren't even anywhere near their spawns, and it doesn't make any sense that they'd have them.

[Tresh]

Originally posted by maestro:

Originally posted by Dunathon:

Actually, I find the seamonkeys to be one of the worst changes to the game. If you need a resource, especially from the lower biomes that are hard to reach, figure out how to get there instead of having the local wildlife just hand it to you.

While I was crafting some modules for my vehicles that needed endgame materials, I kept their recipes pinned while out and exploring before knowing the seamonkeys brought you stuff based on the recipe you have pinned. All of the sudden, they started bringing me nickel ore (I already had enough for the modules before getting any from the seamonkeys) and even knowing I had already gathered that ingredient, taking it from the seamonkeys felt like encouraged cheating.

I made sure after that to not have recipes with uncommon materials pinned when leaving the habitat, but looking at it from a logical perspective: Why leave the save areas, if you can just pin what you need and wait for it to be handed to you? Why work for anything at all?
Imo, the seamonkeys, if that mechanic is left in the game, should be limited to quartz, copper and titanium to encourage exploration and progression

Add lead to that.

Seriously.

Lead is ridiculous. Need tons and tons and tons of lead to get anything done, because ALL of the recipes take it. Enameled Glass. Plasteel, IIRC. Foundations. Just so friggin much lead needed for everything.

IMO, the Seamonkey List should be something like:

-Copper (common)
-Quartz (common)
-Titanium (common)
-Lead (common)
-Silver (uncommon)
-Gold (rarely)
-Lithium (rarely)

As these are all materials you can find in, or near the Kelp Caves (Lithium is found nearby in the Purple Vents) so it would make sense that Seamonkeys would have access to these materials.

IMO, Nickel, Rubies, and Diamonds are a definite No. These materials aren't even anywhere near their spawns, and it doesn't make any sense that they'd have them.

Okay, yeah, I see your point. Personally, I tend to explore and farm a lot, so I never really had problems with Lead, but yeah, it is not that uncommon of a material that having seamonkey delivery would feel like cheating.
But the fact that seamonkeys seem to have ample access to almost all minerals and metals and bring it to you at the push of a button just was a huge turn-off from the game in general for me.

Then again, in SN1 you had the cyclops, which you could deck out with a ton of lockers to transport goods, so going on a huge mining trip and just gathering all the materials you would need for a very long time is viable; whereas the seatruck can only have up to 4 ridiculously small storage modules.
Seriously, I'm currently replaying SN1 and just made my cyclops and I cannot believe how much storage space I can cram into that thing. xD

[maestro]

Originally posted by Dunathon:

Originally posted by maestro:

Add lead to that.

Seriously.

Lead is ridiculous. Need tons and tons and tons of lead to get anything done, because ALL of the recipes take it. Enameled Glass. Plasteel, IIRC. Foundations. Just so friggin much lead needed for everything.

IMO, the Seamonkey List should be something like:

-Copper (common)
-Quartz (common)
-Titanium (common)
-Lead (common)
-Silver (uncommon)
-Gold (rarely)
-Lithium (rarely)

As these are all materials you can find in, or near the Kelp Caves (Lithium is found nearby in the Purple Vents) so it would make sense that Seamonkeys would have access to these materials.

IMO, Nickel, Rubies, and Diamonds are a definite No. These materials aren't even anywhere near their spawns, and it doesn't make any sense that they'd have them.

Okay, yeah, I see your point. Personally, I tend to explore and farm a lot, so I never really had problems with Lead, but yeah, it is not that uncommon of a material that having seamonkey delivery would feel like cheating.
But the fact that seamonkeys seem to have ample access to almost all minerals and metals and bring it to you at the push of a button just was a huge turn-off from the game in general for me.

Then again, in SN1 you had the cyclops, which you could deck out with a ton of lockers to transport goods, so going on a huge mining trip and just gathering all the materials you would need for a very long time is viable; whereas the seatruck can only have up to 4 ridiculously small storage modules.
Seriously, I'm currently replaying SN1 and just made my cyclops and I cannot believe how much storage space I can cram into that thing. xD

The thing about the Cyclops though, is how hard it is to fit it anywhere, heck even going past the safe shallows where I normally build my base, gotta carefully wiggle around those coral tubes and such. It's just so farking huge that it is impractical other than travelling to just a few places. What I end up doing, is just using it for a delivery system to get my prawn down to the last two facilities and also to deliver the materials to build a 2nd base near "the tree" (using the geyser next to it for a thermal power plant) from which I launch the two expeditions to go to the last two places in the game and then the Cyclops gets one more run to deliver all of the nickel and kyanite back to the shallows to the first base. Make rocket, then blast off.

Being smaller and easier to use is where the Seatruck really shines. Sure, it doesn't offer as much storage, but yet with it + prawn suit, you can go out and gather some stuff, and since the underwater area is smaller, you don't really need to go on long voyages really.

Also, it's awesome that the Seatruck is both the Cyclops and the Seamoth in one. With the Seatruck carrying the Prawn, you effectively have *all three* of your vehicles. Haul your compartments to a site, detach, go out for materials, come back to the compartments, store stuff, go back out. Use prawn if there's any drilling nodes, etc. Haul whole thing back to main base.

[Tresh]

Well, that's where our opinions differ; I never really had issues fitting the cyclops anywhere and I prefer having multiple vehicle types that you have to use for different endevours, having to decide which one to take along.
A lot of games give you pretty much unlimited resources and don't ask you to decide what equipment to take along while leaving the rest behind and I enjoy having that limitation placed on me.

[dragonbornzyra]

Originally posted by Marvin:

How on 4546b are you meant to join the dots there? Why would a sea monkey know what recipe(s) you have pinned? a reflection in your HUD?

I've never needed to pin a recipe so would not have discovered this within the game. Surely it would be better if you could hold a material in your hand and they went off to find some more for you or reward them with some food item when they brought the right thing.

It's a nice mechanic if you need a bit of coral or something else that's biome specific but right now we just need more access to lead, even if that's late game down deep or in dangerous places (like ice-worm tunnels)

Hopefully this is just a development decision waiting to be made/implemented, if I can't build a large late-game base for lack of enameled glass and foundations then the map is going to feel a lot smaller than it already does.

Maybe that alien in your brain that can communicate in ways we don't understand has something to do with it.

Also, using the Cyclops feels epic. It feels FUN. It feels like an adventure.

Using the Sea Truck I feel like Fred: I feel like I'm doing boring work, that no one appreciates, and it feels like a dead end job with no joy or satisfaction. Thanks UWE!

[Andreas]

Originally posted by maestro:

The thing about the Cyclops though, is how hard it is to fit it anywhere, heck even going past the safe shallows where I normally build my base, gotta carefully wiggle around those coral tubes and such. It's just so farking huge that it is impractical other than travelling to just a few places.

That's just you. I have no problems taking the Cyclops almost anywhere.