I ended up starting a new game in survival, and about an hour in I was glad I did. One reason I was hesitant to do that was, as hinted at in my post above, the fishing. I’m using an X-Box controller, since my computer is set up where it’s awkward to do keyboard/mouse. Well, I had gotten frustrated in my previous attempt because it was so hard to catch fish. Two things made it all ok: figuring out that the left trigger works the same as the A, and getting my technique down. Turns out I was swimming too fast and kept passing the fish up or they’d cut to the side and I’d miss them. Now, I sprint toward them and then lay off right when I get in range and coast in to them mashing the trigger.
True story: Towards the end of my session, I realized that even though I had plenty of fish stored I had been swimming around in the dark through the night chasing bladderfish and peepers. Wonderfully mesmerizing and relaxing.
There’s a mod that will take the (non-egg) breeding overflow from an alien containment, and autofeed them into the bioreactor. Which makes it a set-up-and-forget system.
Hunger & thirst (along with battery/powercell charge) are functionally just an additional timer on your explorations. IME, it was a non-issue most of the time, because I’d had to return to base to empty my pockets before I could hit the three-quarters point on the gauges.
Holy cow, I know I’m not telling you guys anything you don’t already know, but this game is freaking crack. 20 hours in and I can only think of a couple other games that have sunk their claws in to me this hard.
So I am very deep now – I’ve been building bases all around mostly for the purpose of having a place to recharge power cells and powering a scanner room. I’ll dive to a new area with the Cyclops, jump out and gather resources with the PRAWN, build a scanner and small base, and eventually move on.
I’m about to go real deep. So deep that I need to upgrade my PRAWN suit. Not sure what I’ll find down there… wish me luck.
I don’t know if this still works, but I built a power cell recharger on the Cyclops. In the future they’ve solved the second law of thermodynamics, and recharging power cells takes less energy than a power cell generates; you can have an infinite charge this way. It’s an exploit that I didn’t really realize was an exploit until I stopped to think about high school physics :).
As for what you’ll find down there, it’s all kittens and happy puppies. Very relaxing!
Indeed, one of the most beautiful, serene locales in the game is in the deeps. As long as you don’t think about the Cove Tree being full of ghost leviathan eggs.
Yes, but you can make the Cyclops Thermal Generator, which is nearly as good…but which involves the aforementioned cursing of kyanite deposits.
More than once, I’ve stood there in the PRAWN, drilling away in the midst of large hurty things, only to have the whole thing yield no kyanite. (Or only one piece, which promptly rolled away into some inaccessible place.)
Oh gah I hate that. Like when I just need one more of a rare item and I finally find it and it slips away and I search and search the sea bed… I really need to count to ten to not smash something.
Today I lost a Seamoth when I ventured a little too far over the dunes east of the lifepod. I figured I was safe as long as I was on the ridge, but nope, a reaper popped right up over the top of them and put the gotcha on me. Fortunately I escaped with all of my fancy tools, but for a while I needed someone here to hold me and tell me that I am ok, and that’s all that matters.
So I am 24 hours in and just got the Cyclops. I have a base at the lifepod and another on the island to the north. I still have a few things to do in the main area, and maybe explore a little more, but besides that I think I need to hit the depths. It’s just been, mostly, such a laid back experience so far that I’m suuuuper apprehensive it’s going to get more stressful.
I can also see a lot of the upgrades require materials that I haven’t even seen yet, so I also need to venture deeper if I want to play with those.
Here’s a thought…if a reaper tears up your Seamoth, can you retrieve the upgrades from the sea floor? Whattabout equipment that was in the storage locker?
You’ll be fine, once you get back on the seahorse. As long as you’re using the Seamoth, you can kind of nose around reaper territory, learn how far away they take notice, and use that to sneak by them. The Seamoth is fast enough to get away from them, and can survive the first grab if it’s fully repaired, so if one does grab it, keep your head and make a straight-line break for it when you get loose. However: it may actually be easier to park the Seamoth safely out of range, and go in without it, because the Seamoth noise tends to aggro reapers farther away than you do swimming or using the seaglide.
Later on, you’ll find yourself sitting pretty in a PRAWN. Then you can indulge in an activity I call the Reaper Rodeo. It’s very cathartic.
I don’t think you can retrieve any of it, unfortunately; when the Seamoth is destroyed, it’s just gone. It doesn’t spawn pieces you can interact with.
I had a Seamoth eaten by a Reaper once. Luckily I hadn’t upgraded it yet. I found that it wasn’t hard to make a new one; the components are easy to get. It’s the upgrades that are pricey.
I really like the sonar upgrade, it’s annoying to have to keep pinging the thing but it has alerted me to Reapers that were too far away to see normally, but I often run into them before I can see them. I have stayed out of a lot of trouble thanks to that tool. And I never lost a second Seamoth.
I recently built my first Cyclops, and I was simultaneously excited and overwhelmed. Enough so that I’ve taken a break from the game before I feel ready to tackle it again. And I was playing it too much (again, addictive).
Yeah, losing your first seamoth to a reaper seems to be a rite of passage in this game. Best not to name your first seamoth. And no, nothing is retrievable, upgrades or stuff from the storage locker. But the electric shock upgrade for the seamoth seems to be able to give you a chance to escape if you use it before you get grabbed.
I am intrigued by your ideas, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Seriously, can you expound on this? Does it involve the grappling arm?
AFAIK, there’s 3 ways of permanently dealing with reapers:
stasis rifle + knife + a lot of spare batteries
vehicle with lots of gas torpedoes (vortex torps are non-lethal)
a prawn suit with a repulsion arm, and a cargo bay full of tamed crashfish
Honestly, aside from the early jump-scares, I had a much worse time with the warpers. There’s only like 3, maybe 4 reapers you have to get close enough to, to risk aggro.
Yes, the Reaper Rodeo consists of latching onto a reaper’s head from behind with the grappling arm and reeling yourself in close, then punching it repeatedly in the back of the head with the other arm as it thrashes and drags you all over the place. It takes a while to kill one this way, but it’s probably quicker than the stasis/knife route, and definitely more exciting.
I’ve also used it to kill warpers and ghost leviathans, but I had to keep re-grappling the warpers, and my PRAWN needed repair breaks with the ghost leviathans. (I’ve ridden the Sea Dragon as well, but didn’t bother to kill it.)
