I didn’t think the water and food thing added anything to the game. It was just a tedious requirement. It just sucked up inventory space more than anything else. There was no real challenge in getting food and water. I always recommend to my friend to skip that part of the game.
You can still garden in Freedom :-) I certainly did. Plants liven up a multipurpose room like nothing else.
I like the rhythm it adds. It’s not hard and doesn’t take much time. Early game - head back at night and fish a bit. Motivation to pick up salt and explore the islands. Without food and water motivation, just stay outside and put your crap in storage lockers for any amount of time until you find what you need. Food therefore adds a critical early game motivation to explore and return to base. Without it, less fun.
Mid-game - enjoy collecting plants and growing them, stuffing your backpack with food and water for a day out exploring. When you run out of inventory space eat some fruit.
Late game, food motivates you to build a water purifier and then you need more power for your base, motivating the thermal or nuclear plant. Without these you probably get by with say one bioreactor?
Fishing and water are A BIT annoying at first, yes, but part of the idea of an exploration game, where you are stranded in an indifferent but beautiful environment, is searching for those small quality of life improvements and celebrating them. Gravity fishing ball!
I forgot to mention, another cool thing about food (I’ll put it under spoiler tags, so don’t click if you’re not mid to late game):
If you put two of the same species of fish in a containment tank, they reproduce. It’s so satisfying to come home to your own grown fish meal.
Also, excellent bioreactor fuel.
One of the mods on the Nexus will automatically transfer extra for you, so you don’t have to do that busy work.
Starter base can be run off of solar power, and thermal powerplants work great in the late game if you build near a vent. (My exploration base was in the tree cove, which has vents nearby.) With enough power, it’s trivial to keep a water purifier running, and marble melons easily take care of food/water. And yeah, they can be grown on the Cyclops.
I got to the point where every new thing I can build was a part for a base. Which seemed weird. Like what the heck am I going to do with base parts? It just seemed weird.
The early game starts me off by giving me progressively useful things to build. But I built all the ones I could find except base parts. So I ran out of things to build. Obviously the game really wants me to build base parts next. Is it best to build the base right below my escape module or somewhere else?
The other thing I could do is to follow the story crumb about going to the next signal, but that seemed really far away. But maybe that’s a better option than building base parts that, as far as I can tell, won’t actually do anything except use up resources.
The base becomes necessary simply to store materials, grow food, and have a home base closer to where you want to be later in the game. You might be falling behind in the lifepod searching, maybe try that for awhile.
In terms of where to build your base, have fun picking a location. Don’t go too shallow but stay somewhere where there is light for solar panels. Find one of the holes that lead to scary black depths and build near there :).
I’m really struggling to find Magnetite. I had some once, so I’ve clearly found some. But now I can’t work out where that was!
If you can’t find something, look deeper. Magnetite is more common in the Jellyshroom Caves.
Not sure whether it’s actually better but I swear rotten plants and food made great bioreactor fuel compared to the fresh stuff. It always seemed to go much further.
I found a ton of magnetite in the Blood Kelp Zone, plus a bunch of lithium and diamond. Great location for a little resource gathering outpost.
You can build in/at the edge of the Safe Shallows and simultaneously be near thermal vents which will probably fill all your power needs. The neighbors in the kelp can be somewhat annoying, especially if you have scanner room camera drones.
For me it would’ve better to be on the west side of the Shallows for easier access to later game areas*. But it was too much trouble by the time I realized I should’ve been on that side. I’d already relocated my base three times by that point.
*You can get in from either side, but I found the western paths easier to navigate/dodge hazards.
I’m at a point now where pretty much everything scares me. Help.
I built my first real base just at the sand edge next to Aurora, just because of the constant resource of diamonds/gold/silver/lead.
I can’t imagine ever daring to build a deep sea base. Going down to the jelly caves for the first time I basically held my breath (in real life) and jumped in and out of my Seamoth to avoid the pink snake-thingies.
Jeebus creebus. Had to wind down with some Assasins Creed Odyssey afterwards.
Nice! I remember my first trip to the Jelly caves and I was a bit too deep, so I started swimming back to my Seamoth only to have it be floated away from me by 2 floaters that sucked on to its hull. Much panic ensued.
This is exactly why this game is so great. They do a fantastic job of making you believe this world is real. There is always that sense of having to keep your wits about you.
I can see how that is amazing and a triumph of world-building, but it may not be the best choice when the player wants to unwind and enjoy a more “chill” experience.
I was enjoying Subnautica when I played, but I was too stressed out at the time I tried to play, and the last thing I wanted was to play a game that made me even more stressed. Immersion can be good or bad depending on who is playing, and what the player wants.
Since I’m still way more tired and stressed than I should be, that means a game like No Man’s Sky is much more palatable for me, even if I recognize the brilliance of Subnautica. Perhaps I’ll enjoy it more when I’m at a different mental state (if that ever happens).
Save often, take risks lol. Playing Subnautica on hardcore…now that is actually pretty stressful.
There are more relaxing aspects to the game. Base building, collecting fish for aquariums, just exploring parts of safer areas you might have overlooked, etc.
Build a network of scanner bases on the periphery of scary zones. You get the benefit of being able to target resources so you can get in and out quick. Plus you can explore with the camera drones rather than in person. There are safe spots you can find in some areas to build a tiny scanner base.