So I’m finally starting with this game! Yeah, took me long enough, I know it. It’s one of those games I’ve kind of held in my back pocket because I knew it would be totally up my alley, with the ocean-based environment and the wide open exploration and discovery. And so far, that’s how it’s worked out. Funny, but whenever I see a video or someone streaming about this, they’re wandering around or building or adding onto their base, and at about 6 hours I can’t even start one! I mean I guess I could start one but the only blueprints they seem to start you out with are connectors. Looks like I need to find blueprints for a multi-purpose room, but no go just yet. I’m getting antsy.
But I have found some really cool stuff! I managed to get into the Aurora and clear up its little reactor problem. In fact, I’ve been back a few times because the first time I didn’t have a laser cutter for getting through locked doors, and then the second time I didn’t have a passcode to enter the captain’s room and literally as I was swimming back I got a radio call where they just flat out told me the code, so back I went.
I found a cool alien tower that’s, uh, also a really big gun so there went my shot at a rescue I guess. Still even with the tragedy and loss of life it looked really cool. And it would have been kind of a bummer to leave the planet with so much unexplored stuff lying out there in the depths! Except now I’ve got some kind of infection and I guess that’s my next ticking clock? Figure out what the heck is going on and how to clear it up?
Anyway, all I can do is continue to explore and hope for the best and lucky for me that’s pretty fun, so back into the deep I go.
This game has base building? I saw hints of it in some of the descriptions of items, eventually, like they’re supposed to go in a base. But I also played for a long time and never came across any kind of base building or how to start one. Not yet anyway.
It sounds like you got a lot farther than me in your 6 hours though so I’m trying not to read the rest of your post.
If you look at your starter blueprint set you already have a set of things you can build for a base from the beginning of the game. Not a lot, as I mentioned, and some of them don’t tell you how to make them - you have to get out there and scan stuff to put them together. But I can’t imagine any of that is spoiler material.
Is that right? You can make a base out of only connectors? I see that I’ve got a placeholder blueprint for a multi-purpose room that reads like it would be a base hub, and I figured it was a pretty important part of building a base. But ok, I could use battery chargers and especially storage. You guys should see how many floating lockers I have surrounding my life pod already just for all the crap I’ve found. I’m assuming I’ll be able to do something with all those creature eggs I keep finding? Maybe make a kickass omelet?
Haha, yeah. You can. A couple of X-corridors, a Hatch or two to get in. Then you can fill out with lots of storage lockers (floor or wall mounted), and there’s plenty of wall space for the mentioned rechargers, etc. The multu-purpose rooms are needed for reactors, but really that’s about it- the other ‘needed’ rooms are specific - the scanner, the moon pool.
I probably went just as long as @divedivedive without building a base and only using the lifeboat.
I finally built one after the rescue ship was shot down though. This was also after I explored the ship ruins and repaired the reactor leak to avert the mass extinction event. (which AFAIK doesn’t actually happen in game but is just allured to as an eventuality if you don’t repair it)
That’s about the point that I’m at. It isn’t really that I was expecting the game to tell me ‘hey, now you should build a base!’ but that I would at least have confidence that I had all the pieces together to do so. But knowing that I can kind of build a kind of proto-base until I have all the parts and blueprints to make a ‘real’ base is helpful. I can see that there’s a lot more stuff out there and it’s in much deeper water and I’m just not going to be able to get there under my own locomotion. So – I guess that’s the game telling me ‘hey, now you should build a base!’
I would recommend having a main base near the shallows edge and then making small outposts in key areas. I ended up making mine next to one of the adjacent kelp forests.
From what i recall i only ever made 2 bases, a big one in the shallows where i kept everything and a small outpost really deep near a thermal vent to recharge my vehicles.
I only made two bases also in my first playthrough, but the second deep base was more than just a small outpost with a moonpool and everything.
I loaded the Cyclops with materials from the main base and built a sizable second base deep down near the end game area. It was nuclear powered.
During a second playthough I made little one room outposts everywhere. Some with a scanner room. I really mapped out the ocean. You don’t really need to do this but it was kinda fun.
Good call on the ‘mini-base’ option. I’ve now got a battery charger, which is pretty huge since I now have several battery-powered tools. Also the extra storage is going to be really helpful. Also, another dumb thing I just discovered - my ability to create submersible vehicles is not tied to having a base, it’s just a free-floating apparatus. Yeah, all I had to do was read the description a little more carefully to know that wasn’t a room but its own thing. But I did at least eventually figure it out so I should be on my way to having my own little submarine which is going to be super helpful because I found a huge cave that I unfortunately got lost and drowned in.
Building a base offers a lot more than just vehicle upgrades also. Much more easier ways to sustain hunger and thirst. Storage. Scanning the area for items you may need, etc
I have a seamoth! I feel like a teenager who’s just been handed the keys to the family car. And like said teenager, I proceeded to thoroughly trash and nearly lose my new means of locomotion: first running headfirst into a reaper leviathan, and then learning firsthand what the words ‘crush depth’ mean. Lucky I’ve got that handy tool that magically repairs all damage for the cost of a new battery!
I’ve also got a much more complete and self-sufficient home base now - I stumbled across an island with a couple of land structures that I was able to scan and integrate into my own base, including some farming plots so now I can grow those handy baobab (or whatever they’re called) trees for food. I am clawing my way toward self-sufficiency, feels good man!
So. Now I need to think ahead to the future a bit, figure out where to go next. I can’t really explore too far into that weird pink jellyfish cave because of the aforementioned ‘crush depth’ problem. But that does still leave a lot of territory above the 200m danger line for me to check out. Just got to steer clear of those reapers, they’re faster than they look.
