I thought about a hardcore run but wandered off to new games. Maybe at some point I will. I didn’t see any achievement from it though so beyond just my own satisfaction, I was let down there wasn’t anything else. :(
Do you still get the 10 second air reminder (but not the 30 second) or do you get none at all?
Oddly enough, I’m getting both of the air warnings in hardcore. Not sure if it’s a bug or?
I could have sworn it reads as, “no warnings,” but others have mentioned there is one warning. Enough time for a tank change if needed. It might also depend if you’re set for the Experimental branch of code on Steam or if you’re on the live, stable version.
I wish one could outfit the aquarium with ornaments. I built an aquarium in my Cyclops and I think it would be fitting if I could have a model of the Cyclops in it.
So. I’ve found the area I now know to be called Lost River. And it took me around two hours of play time to get my cyclops inside, past giant translucent hammerhead snakes that took my cyclops to 84% in one hit. Thank god for shield mods and it wandering off once I shut everything down. Ended up in an area where there’s a big glowing tree. Where I promptly built a refeuling/scanning base, since it seems to be a safe spot. I’m finding maneuvering down there rather difficult. Granted there’s a few large caverns, but passing between them seems to be… challenging. Am I just a really terrible pilot or is it actually difficult? Or did I pick a terrible entrance? (Northern Blood Kelp.)
I may have set some sort of record in my game. I’ve replaced two rods in the reactor for the base posted above. (I’ve also tweaked the base design a bit, so that’s a few more real hours racked up!)
That blood kelp entrance is a pretty tight fit for the Cyclops, but all entrances have the Ghost Leviathan’s. More than a tight fit, I recall that it’s pretty vertical. Are you using the camera to guide you instead of looking out the front? I found that I can maneuver much faster with the camera (there are 3 cameras BTW, you can cycle between them).
For the Ghost Leviathans, you have a few options:
Right there nearby that tree are a couple of hot vents that you can use for small base power as needed, or for the cyclops and/or prawn if you have those modded for thermal recharge. You’re in a pretty safe spot with mostly quick prawn access to several late game interest points, the biggest 2 below you and in the lava area. However, there are more dangers lurking there, so again, you picked about the most favorite spot for a late game base.
This game needs that arctic biome expansion. Get on it dev’s!
I would also add Silent Running to this list. It’s a battery killer but extremely effective at getting past the baddies. If I’m spotted or I invoked it too late, I use a Decoy then.
I only tried it once and was attacked ruthlessly, so I wasn’t sure if I did something wrong or if it just doesn’t work very well.
I’ll have to retry it!
Just launched my rocket… totally going to go back and keep playing though. It’s fun building little outposts in scenic locations. Wonderful game.
Would love to see an expansion come for this one. Have thought many times about firing it back up and doing another play through.
They are working on a Arctic DLC / biome.
I would love to see even more base building parts added in. It was so peaceful coming back from a run in the cyclops to your underwater fortress of solitude.
I’ve built the rocket but I’m delaying launching until I finish building my grand aquarium. I think I’ve now collected every egg type in the game and I’m working on building individual two story alien containments for each type of creature, with windows all around so the exhibit can be enjoyed from inside or outside. A few more quartz runs and I should have it complete.
My only regret is initially building so many ugly foundations before I realized I could get by with a single foundation by using bulkheads and reinforcement panels to strengthen the base. In order to get so many windows in my base, I added on another multi purpose room beneath some of the existing rooms just so I could put reinforcing panels on all the walls.
Isn’t that the truth! I loved coming back, sorting through my spoils, planning another trip, distributing all the progeny that had accumulated in my containment areas, and whatnot. It’s why I started my 4th playthrough (gasp!).
Dammit. Every time this thread is bumped after a few days, I start hoping the final Xbox release is actually happening. 3 long months so far. Argh.
So this weekend, in my latest run, I decided to try & give a more focused effort on getting to the end. Not exactly speedrunning per se.
I still got the seamoth, the cyclops and the prawn suit (with drill arm / grappling arm / jump jets), but I didn’t go to the floating island - the jellyshroom cave with the degassi base has most of what I needed. I still got my trusty stasis rifle - I find this thing so effective against the biting crabs on the island and on the aurora, it’s worth it for that alone.
I only built 3 bases - my main base, a scanner to get the cyclops in the mushroom forest, and a 3rd over by a blood forest trench.
I still did the full search of the Aurora - getting all the posters, PDA’s and the stuffed toy & Aurora models.
It was all going swimmingly until I was building the launch platform and needed the cyclops shield and then I realized this was a databox item and not onboard. So I had to go to two wrecks and try to find it. I also neglected to get the ion battery tech in the thermal plant, but that was only a 15 min mistake as the portal was active on the island to get back down there by this point.
So I finished in 11 hrs 37 min. Still a long time compared to speed runs, but 1/2 the time of my fastest run to date. It really did seem to go by fast.
I was pretty beat last night when I finished it, so tonight I’m going to look at my inventory and see where I overcollected and got more than I needed. I just can’t stop picking things up & scanning. A lot of time wasted scanning items - but I admit I can’t swim by something that can be scanned ;-)
I seem to be in the minority for not using the stasis rifle. I did so a little on my first play through. The last two, I didn’t even build one. Those crabs for example? A quick slash of the thermoblade and they die. Hell, I even run up to them to do so. Also surprisingly, once killed they don’t seem to come back in any large number.
Probably the only progression of my play style between early and late runs was disinterest in worrying about any fauna: Escape if in the Seamoth, drill/claw arm if in the Prawn, silent run if in the Cyclops. The spots where they push you into encounters are mostly late game, and at that point the Prawn suit will get you through most encounters pretty easily.
But then I see screenshots from you guys where you kill a reaper or similar and I strongly think I really missed out on the beauty of the stasis rifle.
