Just remember to refill your empties between dives. :)
I was thinking a hardcore no-vehicle run (apart from the seagilde) would force you to build a lot more bases and keep oxygen management in play for the entire game.
This is basically what speed runs are. You have to build the cyclops to get the shield to build the rocket, but other than that, there is no reason to ever build another vehicle other than the glide. You don’t actually need any other bases either, just carry a few spare high cap oxygen tanks and you can complete the entire game. I did my last playthrough this way, the only base I had was at the starting area, and minimal buildings.
This is a really fun game to try and speed through.
As cool as speedrunning is, I am not really interested in it as a play style. I was thinking more of a challenge run to keep the oxygen management in play, because the vehicles really take that off the table outside of exploring underwater wrecks. I can’t imagine not building any bases though.
Playing it (hardcore) now, it adds just a tiny amount of extra danger. You could also go with NO extra tank on you if you want to have even more danger on your run. Either way, I need bases so, for me anyway, I need at least one or two with some lockers in them.
I’m about 2/3 through now but I’ve missed a clue somewhere because I’ve not gotten a critical link to a location yet. I’m also short on a couple of tech upgrades, and I’m sure I know where they are, I just can’t remember generally where those two points are.
I don’t have a map icon yet for the Degassi island. I’m also missing the drill and grapple arms for the prawn. Though I have a beacon down at the river already, exploring it without a decent prawn is close to suicide in hardcore mode. I know I’ve missed two major wrecks: one in the bulb zone that yo pass on the way to the Degassi undersea base near the crabsquid, another is that deep water wreck that is split in half slightly and hanging between two spires. Both of those usually have prawn and cyclops upgrades.
As for hardcore mode, I don’t think it adds more fauna nor more within an area. I had hoped it would, amping up the danger. As far as I can tell, that is not the case. Once I finish this run, I might try a modded game again. My last foray with mods was prior to the game being finished.
I’m also short on a couple of tech upgrades, and I’m sure I know where they are, I just can’t remember generally where those two points are.
IIRC if you head to the underwater Delgassi base, the Floating Island is ~1000 meters further in the same direction.
Generally, if you’re trying to orient yourself on the two islands from far away, they can can be identified on the distant horizon by looking for unique cloud formations.
Noted, good tips. I could have sworn:
You get a link to the island from either the jellyshroom cave base or the underwater Degassi base down near the crabsquid. But maybe I missed it.
Yeah, I’m almost certain the Floating Island Delgassi base coordinates are obtained before the underwater base coordinates.
Have you found the bioreactor yet? I think the fragments can be found slightly earlier than the thermal plant. It works quite well alongside a decent greenhouse.
Until you find something better, you can just keep adding more solar panels, as each one increases the total power you can have.
There are a lot of meaningful upgrades in SN, it really is quite rewarding when you open up new stuff.
It’s the scanner. Just turn it off when not actively looking for anything. There are two HUGE power draws in the game: scanner room and water filtration machine. Fortunately the scanner room can be turned off easily. The filtration, not so much. This game is begging for some NMS style switches.
The pylons are for extending your power run. Usually from a heat source for the thermal reactor. They link via a visual line, it’s pretty easy to set up a run. You could certainly separate the scanner room though. You’d just need a foundation, one small tube room, a hatch, the scanner room, and at least one solar panel. It would keep clicking on and off, but you’d get the benefit of the scanner room not taking power from any other base.
If I remember correctly, each different power source has an inherent capacity, that capacity is added every time another of that unit is added. So…if one solar panel is 75, 2 of them is 150 etc. It’s a smaller way to deal with things, as the bigger power sources have much bigger base capacity, but it’s a cheap way to get enough power to do what you need to do. My go to is really the bioreactor. A couple of planters in the same room, and you have infinite power.
Fish Overflow Distributor, if you want to get into modding at all. There’s some very handy QoL stuff like this one and auto-sorting items into lockers. And some plain neat-o ones like wall clocks and stuff. Plus all the usual “add more stuff!” and cheat-y things.
Wow, had an adventure for half the day. It’s pretty spoilerish though.
So I’m in what I consider the home stretch for this hardcore run. I have all three vehicles, found the major tech upgrades I needed, etc. So I gather up the cyclops and prawn and head to the underground river from the blood kelp side (my favorite.) And as I’m doing the thing I’ve done before, skirting around the ghost leviathan down there on the way to the tree, he attacks. No sweat, silent running, ahead slow. But I get stuck. Wait a sec, hes stuck underneath me and has pushed my sub into the wall and a tree. And hes continuing to attack. Oh crap. More damage, fires starting, crap. I have EVERYTHING stuff in this cyclops, if this pops I’m screwed. Time to jump in the prawn, so I do. And I drill and claw him a few times until he resets through the wall, i think.
.
So now I assess the damage, it’s bad. I get out to start repairing the cyclops, only to hear him making a run on me again, three, now 4 times. Now I need to repair the prawn. Crap. Time to bolt, so I head to the lower river (where the giant skeleton is.) I hop out and repair the prawn. Whew. Time to head back. Wait, where’s my grapple arm(aka spidey arm.) Crap!! It’s way above on the cyclops. Carefully and frustratingly I jump a million times it feels like, trying to get back to the upper river over the waterfalls. Finally I do. Whew! I head back to the cyclops. Homie seems engaged elsewhere so I begin to repair all the damage I can see on it. Cool, cool. What the heck, the underdoors arent opening for me to reload the prawn into the bay. No prob, let’s hop out and swim in. Homie decides to rush right at that moment. My heart is pounding but I make it in the cyclops. But the power isnt on. There isnt an air exchange. What the hell. I go check things out and every single power cell is at 0%. My stomach drops a bit. Uh, crap, now what. In my rush to get down there in my absolutely packed and decked out cyclops I neglected one important item: backup power cells. CRAP! Now what? Wait!!! I’ll just build a base on a vent down at the lower river. (Narrator: Skipper isn’t thinking this through, yet.)
.
So I hop back in the prawn and head to the lower river. I’m so wound up I only remember to grab some titanium and lead, and my grapple arm. And I get down there and find a spot near a thermal vent. Boom, two foundations and a tube room. No power, so I’m not gaining air except in the prawn since all of this started. Wait, crap, I forgot quartz for the hatch. Off I go exploring. I’m still positive at the point. Make the hatch, get inside, make two lockers. Now just need power. Look up the mats I need for a thermal reactor. Off I go again. I come back and think, wait a sec, I need a fabricator, back out I go. I get back again and realize, wait, I have no power. I cant fabricate ANYTHING. Heart and stomach sink at this point. Oh crap. I have no power, no replacement power cells, dwindling food and water and my prawn is at 38%. I thought, this game was not going to end well. My only option at this point was heading up and out of the river and back to the cyclops. I picked up my seaglide and the last of the food and water spares I had. I grabbed every power cell from the cyclops. And I headed back up the river, then up the blood kelp hole, 1000 meters from home base, which seemed like across the globe when I’ve dwindled to 25%.
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Cont: Off I go. If you’ve never taken a prawn a good distance underwater in this game, it’s an exercise in frustration. The bottom is rapidly up and down, making the prawn need to do the same just to get a short distance away. I get maybe halfway before the power cells are shot. Not good. Now I’m powering up from the bottom and headed home via seaglide. Only there are bone sharks all over and the distant sounds of a reaper. Crap! I get bitten by one bone shark but make it back to the base … which is completely cleaned out from my journey. Ugh. At least I have a seamoth there.
So i saved my hardcore run, but I have a TON of rebuilding to do now. I have nothing in the base, literally. I need a full set of power cells for two vehicles before heading back, plus base parts. My victory is not a given. That was the best and most tense 4 hour gameplay session I’ve had in a long time.
That sounds like quite the trip. Lol. I’ve played something like 15 times all the way through and never hardcore because something ALWAYS gets me.
I’m going to laugh when you’re 10 meters from the deep base and you get pasted with a fireball. (Happened to me one exciting run all the way with a seaglide)
I fully expect that. Especially after today. Things seem e-z mode but then … crap.
Also, still not sure what drained the batteries. I was coasting into the river at around 60%. Maybe I bailed with the engine on silent running?
Eeps that was not cool.
Silent ruining and shields both eat batteries so that was likely it.
Was the Cyclops still there when u got back or haven’t you been back to retrieve it yet?
I installed a crap ton of mods. Mostly QoL and fixes, like being able to craft from components in base storage (cuts down on a fuck ton of mind numbing inventory management/shuffling) and preventing the scanner room from marking already looted caches.
But one of the more interesting gameplay mods I installed adds crush depth and decompression mechanics. No clue how it works but I noticed I took some damage, not a lot, after surfacing while being deep for a while (about 200m) It also apparently causes crush damage going too deep until you upgrade your suit. (it adds a bunch of suits for this progression). Lead suit allows 500m. I don’t think it affects vehicles though.
Looking forward to the Cyclops nuclear reactor upgrade.
I haven’t been back yet. God let’s hope so.
Any other recommendations beyond the crush depth mod? I’m interested.