I have to say I haven’t had the same experience. When something can literally take my Seamoth and drag it and crush it in its jaws, I tend to get fairly paranoid. Stalkers, I pretty much run down. It is palpably different getting hit by a reaper.
Adding and subtracting from this list:
Repair tool
Laser cutter
Propulsion Cannon
Fire Extinguisher - No more than 1, just to clear the initial part (they are all over the place in there. If you need one badly. look around. Go through the other parts of the crash if needed, then circle back. DO NOT PUT OUT EVERY SINGLE FIRE. You don’t need to, you just need to clear a path, and in some cases, you can just avoid the fire by going around it.)
Code - yes and you’ll get more while there. Not every door can be opened.
Flashlight - It’s dark, this helps.
Extra batteries for the above - You will eat through at least a couple.
You do not need to bring:
Too much food - There is PLENTY onboard.
More than about 3 waters - There are also waters to be found onboard.
Having read this thread and reviews online, this seems like a game I’d a) love and play the heck out of or b) play and bounce off of, hard. So I have that going for me.
I cannot imagine playing it without VR. It’s incredibly immersive. I started playing in 2D but now there is no way back for me.
Drawbacks:
No touch controller support
UI sucks and is not optimized. Specifically I hope you don’t need reading glasses as the Inventory panel hangs about 1 cm in front of your face in VR. If you can cope with being cross eyed you’ll manage.
I am 43 and starting to experience short range focusing issues. Even then, I am prepared to overlook this because the overall VR experience is awesome.
No frame rate issues yet but I do have an overclocked i7 7700K and 1080 GTX SLI - no idea how it works on any lower spec.
Aghgghhhh I want to build a Moonpool but I only have 1 of 2 the fragment required! I went exploring the sea floor, caves and wrecks for some good 45 minutes and still nothing. Though now I can build a nuclear reactor and have 2 new Prawn upgrades (which I can’t use, without the freaking moonpool).
I need to build a new base. My old one right by the initial escape pod is no longer accepting new tubes lol.
I would like a location that is breathtakingly beautiful, yet convenient for gathering resources or for hitting points of interests. Where have you all made yours at?
I like where I built mine though I can’t say it’s beautiful it is very convenient. It’s on the edge of the mushroom forest where it meets a grassy plateau and creepvine biome. No predators to worry about and I’m close to the mountain islands. I’m thinking of making a second base with a second seamoth below the floating island since
I have a teleporter activated that moves me between the two islands
I had this same issue. I finally broke down and looked up on a wiki which biomes have the wrecks that contain moonpool fragments and searched those biomes until I was finally successful. The developers have definitely done a good job of sometimes hiding crafting fragments in places that make me feel stupid for having missed them the first time. There are some wrecks that I went through 3 times before I was confident I had found everything. Getting the moonpool is worth the effort though. Really made my base feel like a cool underwater base out of a movie or something.
Got my seamoth outfitted with the 500m depth upgrade and sonar. Makes a big difference in ease of exploring more of the map.
I had the same issue initially, and ended up with 4 bases (3 fairly unused) by the end. For what it’s worth, my most used one was just out of the shallows on an overhang above the drop off between a grassy plateau and a kelp forest. With the exception of a lot of copper, it had most anything needed for the base until late game when I needed rare materials for other items. By that point, the seamoth and later, the cyclops got me to those resources with room to carry back whatever I needed. Several of the grassy plateau areas are near caves, so they are good for things from those areas, too.
I can tell you the most wasted bases were on gun island and floating island. I disliked both, they were too close to nasties, and too far out for repetitive items needed. In my humble opinion, stay close to where you started, but deep enough you get a little more room to grow.
I’d hoped to find a spot that was over or near extensive cave system, with clear blue water, but kelp on another side so I could see the glowy seeds at night, plus plenty of school of fish to marvel at. I kinda want to use it as a screensaver at times. But it needs to be in a spot that doesn’t have the constant meeeeeeoooooooooooooooooooooooo of the reefbacks cause I get annoyed. I think I found a spot that is utilitarian but lacks all the stuff I wanted to see minus blue water. When facing the Aurora from your pod go to the left 460 meters. There are pedestals and some small floating boulders with those floaty things attached. One pedestal is taller than the rest and there is plenty of various types of metals and salt on the floor and on the sides of the pedestals. Plenty of room for a future mini-sub to be easily maneuvered around. I went to reddit and several people have made their base over the jelly caves, but that water is too green and kinda dark, and while it’s right next to kelp, it’s not a great view.
Talk me out of this location (or say it’s nice) before I waste my whole day making a base I’m unsatisfied with - lol. Cause I totally did that yesterday!
Do resources respawn? Or can I deplete a zone?
OK, sorry for annoying. Here are my 3 candidates for the megabase. Ever watch one of “the Dating Game” type shows? I feel like I’m parlaying these base locations like potential dates lol.
Date #1 - I mean location #1. While not the prettiest of views, it’s quiet, serene, sunny, long view distances, and tons of easy access to all kinds of metals and salt. Would be the easiest place to do sub stuff from (I have never had the sub so not sure how hard it is to pilot).
Location #2. More colorful. Also fairly centrally located, but a bit further away from Aurora than location 1. I didn’t realize til taking screenshot there is a thermal vent right here too with what could be a large cave system. Can almost see glow fruits at night, but the area is not flat (behind looks like the front shot)
Location #3
This might be nearly over the jellyshroom cavern I think? It is off to the right of the Aurora and escape pod so not as centrally located. Closer to floating island. But I think it is near this one place that has a bunch of stuff that killed me in the beta when the game ran as a slideshow. I guess it’s not as green as I thought. Green water reminds me off bad pond water we struggle with sometimes in the backyard. Have nightmares about our fish dying. At any rate, the nice thing about this location is night-time seeing those yellow glow fruit. Not many fish though.
Most (not quite everything) respawns so don’t worry about depletion.
Ok, got what I wanted. I found the moonpool fragment near the entrance of the cave with a brine river at 600mts of depth, after 15 minutes more searching. All solved!!!.. not, because then I needed the datapad for the vehicle upgrade console. Sigh. Cue 30 minutes more of play, until in the Mushroom forest part I found a big wreck. Actually I have to return to that area, I still have to explore it more.
Now after some juggling with my stored crafting materials, I have a fully upgraded Seamoth.
Although the Prawn is another story. I need super rare crafting materials for that. Hell, I didn’t know there was nickel mineral in the game, and at this point I thought I knew all the minerals, lol.
Seems a good place, a better vista than #1, still with space enough for a decent base, and if you can get part of the base in a hot vent you could do a thermal generator.
I like location 2 also. :)
While if was playing my last run, I made several small bases- mostly just so I could build scanner rooms and find stuff easier. Crank the range up x3 and one speed chip and you can find anything relatively quickly.
The first was directly south of the starting pod. Right at the edge of the starting shoals on a rocky point just under the waterline- in fact, the top of the capsules stuck over the waterline. Just to the west was the thermal vent, almost directly underneath was the entrance to the mushroom caves with the first underwater abandoned station. Kelp forests with no stalkers were nearby, and red grass, not too far away from the Aurora, etc. This was my base for most of the game, though I never got around to building a moon pool there.
The second was almost due west. At the edge of the red grass plateaus and the sand dunes, just to the north of the entrance to the really deep caves/canyons. This one was on the edge of another rocky outcrop, but also right next to a canyon/valley thing that I built the moon pool over. This was my second base for exploring the middle section of the game and accessing the deeps.
The others were just about convenience, one to the northeast of the starting capsule on top of an arch leading to the mushroom forest. The volcanic area was nearby, but I didn’t explore that too much yet. I mostly built it for resource gathering.
The last was super deep, in the brine river area.
I needed nickel and other rare resources, so I managed to pilot the Cyclops all the way down there and build a base. It was a pretty harrowing trip, but fun. . I don’t really see it being a lot of use in the future, but it was needed.
Man, I need to get back to this. Waiting for 1.0 on Xbox is terrible.
When I was playing in the beta, my main base was near location #1. I recommend going further out. And deeper.
I think @Don_Quixote and I followed the same path of bases. Build when you need to for what you need. A spot to refill batteries, etc.
@jpinard, I like 2 as well for the power. Be wary of the depth, however. Pulling a Cyclops into shallow areas suuuuucks. So keep that in mind if that vent is shallow. A bioreactor can be decent as well, late game. The way those work is if/when the base power depletes, THEN the bioreactor kicks in. So solar, followed by bio, if you aren’t near a thermal gradient or vent.
I always built near the life pod. There is a thermal vent that isn’t very far away either. It is very colorful in that area and most underwater windows have a nice view.