Subnautica 2

[technophile]

Huh, weird. We definitely tried building a ladder to allow climbing up into the moonpool and it would not let us. Maybe it was too small with the vehicle assembler and dock already attached.

 

[Kyuu]

Huh, weird. We definitely tried building a ladder to allow climbing up into the moonpool and it would not let us. Maybe it was too small with the vehicle assembler and dock already attached.

Yes, you need more room away from the dock/vehicle assembler than is obvious, though usually I have no issues using the sides of the moonpool that don't have any attachments.

 

[Ryan B.]

I'm 12 hours in and just visited the Tadpole Pens. I feel like the story is starting to take shape, and I now have a firmer notion of what the ultimate objective of my existence on this moon will be. I also feel like I'm heading into the home stretch of the EA game, which I think that, surely, that can't be right, right? Like, I haven't found any upgrades to slot into my Tadpole, and I just barely unlocked the scout ray chassis.

 

[Kyuu]

If you just hit the tadpole pens, you're definitely not in the home stretch.

 

[IceStorm]

Ugh, yes. There is no reason for a ladder to need its own dedicated space. Let us attach it to the wall.

Oh, that's not the problem.

In Subnautica The First, you could build vertical cylinders for two Titanium each that would go up one "floor". They had no lateral capability - you could not tie into them sideways. Build around 130 of these, stick a horizontal corridor section on the top, and you can extend a base from the northeast entrance of the Lost River to the surface, then install ONE ladder, and go from ~260m below to the surface in a single click.

We have no equivalents in Subnautica 2. Not only do we not have a strictly-vertical building unit, we do not have a single click option to go from the depths to the surface inside a structure. The base I have at the alien ruins still requires around 20-30 rooms to get to the surface. That's 20-30 "clicks" to go from the bottom to the top of the base. It's a big QoL downgrade if you liked building bases with extensive verticality.

I'm 12 hours in and just visited the Tadpole Pens. I feel like the story is starting to take shape, and I now have a firmer notion of what the ultimate objective of my existence on this moon will be. I also feel like I'm heading into the home stretch of the EA game.

Depending on how many biobed/biohacking labs you've discovered, you are, at best, halfway through the early access story.

 

[technophile]

In Subnautica The First, you could build vertical cylinders for two Titanium each that would go up one "floor". They had no lateral capability - you could not tie into them sideways. Build around 130 of these, stick a horizontal corridor section on the top, and you can extend a base from the northeast entrance of the Lost River to the surface, then install ONE ladder, and go from ~260m below to the surface in a single click.

We have no equivalents in Subnautica 2.

I feel like the dive elevator solves this problem, just not quite in the same way (different advantages/drawbacks - cheaper on materials, and you don't actually even need to build a full base if all you need is rapid ascend/descend ability at a location, but the bases won't necessarily be physically connected).

Depending on how many biobed/biohacking labs you've discovered, you are, at best, halfway through the early access story.

Meh. Neither all of the biobeds or the biohacking labs are strictly story-necessary. My son and I didn't find two of the biobeds until we'd finished the main story IIRC and we certainly hadn't unlocked all the abilities (unless you're including accessing all of the Angel Combs in that).

I think the whole story (so far) took us just under 15 hours, and we weren't speedrunning it.

 

[IceStorm]

I feel like the dive elevator solves this problem, just not quite in the same way (different advantages/drawbacks - cheaper on materials, and you don't actually even need to build a full base if all you need is rapid ascend/descend ability at a location, but the bases won't necessarily be physically connected).

I haven't tried the dive elevator yet. I'll test it out. I did test bridging bases with the power relays and that did not work.

Meh. Neither all of the biobeds or the biohacking labs are strictly story-necessary.

While they aren't, they speak to how much of the world you've explored.

I think the whole story (so far) took us just under 15 hours, and we weren't speedrunning it.

I agree, but I feel like I spent 50% of my time at the ruins. 12hrs without venturing to the ruins? They'd probably have to change the way they play to complete it quickly.

 

[Ryan B.]

I haven't tried the dive elevator yet. I'll test it out. I did test bridging bases with the power relays and that did not work.

I tested it out yesterday and came away unimpressed. It's limited to 100m, so to get any sort of useful depth out of it you'd need to stack multiples. It has four hard points, so I'd imagine you would throw on an oxygen generator, maybe a work light if you are going somewhere dark, and a couple of portable lockers. Then you go down, swap all the things, go down, swap all the things...

Maybe it has uses in multiplayer, but for me as a solo player it seems like more trouble than it's worth.

While they aren't, they speak to how much of the world you've explored.

I think I've found five or six. I forget. I have two extra hotbar slots and a decently expanded inventory.

I agree, but I feel like I spent 50% of my time at the ruins. 12hrs without venturing to the ruins? They'd probably have to change the way they play to complete it quickly.

I tend to front load building up a stable of materials and a fully capable base, then the rest of the game goes more quickly as I stop having to search for blueprints. I also, in this game, failed to find a couple of big things early on (lead and the battery charger blueprint) and ultimately had to resort to googling.

 

[IceStorm]

I tend to front load building up a stable of materials and a fully capable base, then the rest of the game goes more quickly as I stop having to search for blueprints.

There is a significant QoL upgrade found in the Ruins that fundamentally alters the resource gathering part of the game.

I also, in this game, failed to find a couple of big things early on (lead and the battery charger blueprint)

That, to me, is more about memorizing the compass direction of wrecks and caves, or memorizing what is at/near/along the path to story beacons, same as Subnautica The First.

All it takes is approaching a story beacon from a direction other than in a straight line from the lifepod to miss certain materials. Silver was a bear for me in my first play through, but it turns out it's in a cave system just off the direct path from the lifepod to one of the habitats.

 

[Ryan B.]

There is a significant QoL upgrade found in the Ruins that fundamentally alters the resource gathering part of the game.

Luckily enough that is the next thing I'm planning to do.

That, to me, is more about memorizing the compass direction of wrecks and caves, or memorizing what is at/near/along the path to story beacons, same as Subnautica The First.

All it takes is approaching a story beacon from a direction other than in a straight line from the lifepod to miss certain materials. Silver was a bear for me in my first play through, but it turns out it's in a cave system just off the direct path from the lifepod to one of the habitats.

Silver wasn't too bad for me for whatever reason, even before they patched the game to add a whole lot more of it to more places. But as far as I can tell there is only one place in the entire early game that has lead, and I missed it entirely despite being pretty close on many occasions.

I think resources aren't very balanced at this point.

 

[Apteris]

I tested it out yesterday and came away unimpressed. It's limited to 100m, so to get any sort of useful depth out of it you'd need to stack multiples. It has four hard points, so I'd imagine you would throw on an oxygen generator, maybe a work light if you are going somewhere dark, and a couple of portable lockers. Then you go down, swap all the things, go down, swap all the things...

Maybe it has uses in multiplayer, but for me as a solo player it seems like more trouble than it's worth.

I think so too. There's only one place where it makes sense at the moment, and that's the abyss where you start the game (and to which you can return at any point, if you so wish). Its depth is greater than the maximum crush depth of the Tadpole, so either you build one of these or you suffocate. (Guess which one happened to me.) In all other places you can just use the Tadpole.

But as far as I can tell there is only one place in the entire early game that has lead, and I missed it entirely despite being pretty close on many occasions.

Same. I actually had some lead in my inventory, unused, and made it to the right half of the map (the non-shallows) without the upgrades which required it. The right half of the map has no lead whatsoever, I was tearing my hairs out. Eventually I looked up a map, headed back west, upgraded, and headed back east. Doesn't even take long once you have the Scout Ray Chassis and know how to avoid the, you know, thingy.

Do you know about https://mapgenie.io/subnautica-2/maps/world? Spoilers, obviously, but to hell with it, I have things to do. (Will play the full game without the map, once it's out.)

 

[IceStorm]

I think so too. There's only one place where it makes sense at the moment, and that's the abyss where you start the game (and to which you can return at any point, if you so wish). Its depth is greater than the maximum crush depth of the Tadpole, so either you build one of these or you suffocate. (Guess which one happened to me.) In all other places you can just use the Tadpole.

Build extra high capacity oxygen tanks. This is the biggest bad habit from Subnautica The First that I've run into - not building extra O2 tanks. You can put five high capacity tanks in your inventory and they only take up one row. That's over six minutes of air.

The right half of the map has no lead whatsoever

There is a bunch of lead in the chamber right across from the Ruins abandoned base. There's also lead in at least two other chambers in the Ruins area.

There's a map that shows resources if you don't have what is needed to build a Scanner.

 

[Apteris]

Build extra high capacity oxygen tanks. This is the biggest bad habit from Subnautica The First that I've run into - not building extra O2 tanks. You can put five high capacity tanks in your inventory and they only take up one row. That's over six minutes of air.


There is a bunch of lead in the chamber right across from the Ruins abandoned base. There's also lead in at least two other chambers in the Ruins area.

I misspoke; I meant lithium.

 

[Ryan B.]

I took the PDA voice's advice and am building a second base next to the research outpost. I normally wouldn't. It ain't the boss of me, and my original base under the lifepod isn't that far away. In Subnautica 1, I built a second base in the tree cove, which ultimately turned out to largely be a waste of time. In Below Zero, I built my one and only base in the spot that seemed designed for it, right next to the drop pod, and never felt the need for another.

But, well...this game seems kind of linear compared to those, at least in its current state, and I feel like I'm pretty much done with the western half of the map. I'm planning one trip back for plants and to stock up on expedition-grade foodstuffs, but other than that I don't see myself needing to return. Which I find kind of wild, considering I had no such plans when I set out towards this place. I looked around, saw every resource I could possibly need ready at hand, and said, "You know what? Yeah. This is my home now."

 

[technophile]

I think the linearity of the map makes sense given the tree is (IIRC) to the north of everything we can access, so we'll likely be headed that way after the events of the story we've seen so far. Given a roughly circular eventual map for the full game, we're kicking around the southern third or so of it (or less, potentially). Presumably EA 2 will include another slice of map (possibly with some more vertical variety like the OG's Lost River, Jellyshroom Caves, etc.) where the red barrier and the Shiver Leviathans are currently. It's also possible the tree will be at one edge of the full map kind of like the crashed ship was in 1, but that still leaves quite a lot of space between the northern edge of the current map and where the tree's location is.

 

[IceStorm]

I misspoke; I meant lithium.

That makes more sense. I shuttled some over at some point, and then the metal farms took care of the rest.

 

[ferzerp]

Linear except the little turn of death at the end of the map. That safe area that ends in a somewhat sharp point is easy to get confused at if you're not paying a ton of attention.

 

[Ryan B.]

20 hours in, and I am pretty sure I now have all of the pieces needed to complete the current story. I'd estimate everything I want to do will take another five hours or so. Not bad for an unfinished game.

I'd have spent less time if I had known ahead of time that the first base is a burner. Oh well.

I am glad that I ran across the "Invincible Tadpole" exploit. The creature aggression is currently unbalanced and leans way too far into obnoxious territory IMHO, especially since they very transparently cluster the aggressive fauna around the places you want to spend lots of time (and mostly only around those places). In the early game this was mostly fine, because most things did so little damage you could just ignore them. In the later game that is less true, and having an invulnerable haven to retreat to is making it all more bearable.

 

[Ryan B.]

the "Invincible Tadpole" exploit

Well, that comment sure aged well. When I loaded up the game tonight, a patch installed first which, among other things, closed that loophole.

They also made a bunch of changes to creature aggression, and I’m not sure they are all improvements. Critically, they didn’t touch the late game creatures, which were the most in need of attention.

 

[technophile]

I didn't find most of the late game creatures all that difficult to deal with. Which ones are aggravating you?

Spoiler

• The Collector Leviathan you can trivially avoid by sticking close to the north red border when going back and forth across the canyon
• The Needlers are annoying but are terrible at hitting moving targets, and honestly you don't need that much creature enamel
• The Epicureans are pretty slow and while they seemed fascinated by my Tadpole, they didn't actually attack it when I wasn't in it. Maybe this was a random bug, but they consistently would stare at it but not attack it when it was empty, and just chase me around. But again they're much slower than the wakemakers and advanced fins, so I never really had a hard time avoiding them.
• The weird ones that kind of look like the teleporty aggressive ones from the first game seem nonviolent.
• The bullet squids or whatever they're called are annoying but don't do a ton of damage; I just took the hits and continued what I was doing, since by that point you should be quite capable of making plenty of medkits and/or food that also heals you.

Am I missing any?

Also - one of the active biomods you can get might be useful if you're struggling with creatures attacking you - the one that electrifies any nearby creatures. that seemed to drive off the Epicureans pretty effectively if they got too close.

 

[Ryan B.]

I didn't find most of the late game creatures all that difficult to deal with. Which ones are aggravating you?

Spoiler

• The Collector Leviathan you can trivially avoid by sticking close to the north red border when going back and forth across the canyon
• The Needlers are annoying but are terrible at hitting moving targets, and honestly you don't need that much creature enamel
• The Epicureans are pretty slow and while they seemed fascinated by my Tadpole, they didn't actually attack it when I wasn't in it. Maybe this was a random bug, but they consistently would stare at it but not attack it when it was empty, and just chase me around. But again they're much slower than the wakemakers and advanced fins, so I never really had a hard time avoiding them.
• The weird ones that kind of look like the teleporty aggressive ones from the first game seem nonviolent.
• The bullet squids or whatever they're called are annoying but don't do a ton of damage; I just took the hits and continued what I was doing, since by that point you should be quite capable of making plenty of medkits and/or food that also heals you.

Am I missing any?

Also - one of the active biomods you can get might be useful if you're struggling with creatures attacking you - the one that electrifies any nearby creatures. that seemed to drive off the Epicureans pretty effectively if they got too close.

You’re missing one, and it’s the biggest issue:

Spoiler

The electric eel thingies that loiter around points of interest in the power plant ruins. They both ram and bzap both you and your tadpole incessantly on a loop. Not even the invincible tadpole was immune to the electric damage, but at least it could tank the rams. And, of course, they are immune to your biomod bzaps.

The epicureans are fine. I don't think I've ever been attacked by one, especially since I can just zap them and they scram for a bit.

Speaking of medkits, I've only made like three during my entire play through. The game is pretty generous with doling them out in crates throughout the world. So while I complain, it's not that I've ever been in any sort of real danger (except for that one time I tried to scan the collector; that did not go well). It's mostly just that I feel harried and annoyed when I'm just trying to explore something interesting, and there isn't a whole lot that the game will allow me to do about it.

 

[technophile]

Yeah, that's fair, I did forget those and they are pretty aggravating/hard to deal with - I don't think I spent a ton of time in the area where those are and I just accepted the pain I definitely think there is room for creature behavior to be adjusted (and additional tools/biomods to mediate predator interaction), but I'm sure they're looking at all of that given they're already making related hotfixes.

The upgraded ranged pulse tool also seems to work scaring off (some) predators, so that might be worth trying with respect to the stupid electric eels if you haven't.

Scanning the collector is definitely not easy, although easier if you have a coop buddy to help so it can't just focus on one person. If you're solo I wonder if the camouflage biomod might work, if you can get in front of where he's swimming without aggroing him.

 

[Ryan B.]

Scanning the collector is definitely not easy, although easier if you have a coop buddy to help so it can't just focus on one person. If you're solo I wonder if the camouflage biomod might work, if you can get in front of where he's swimming without aggroing him.

Spoiler: Biomod

I don't have that mod unlocked, but I've heard it only works when you're stationary. And also, that you can't de-aggro a creature that has seen you by standing still. My current thought is to build a small respawn-point-setting base near the tadpole pens, then repeatedly heading out without inventory to lose and scanning the beastie a little bit at a time.

 

[technophile]

Spoiler: Biomod

I don't have that mod unlocked, but I've heard it only works when you're stationary. And also, that you can't de-aggro a creature that has seen you by standing still. My current thought is to build a small respawn-point-setting base near the tadpole pens, then repeatedly heading out without inventory to lose and scanning the beastie a little bit at a time.

Well that's why you would need to get ahead of it (without getting aggroed) and let it swim past you.

Just suiciding into it multiple times absolutely works (that's how we did it) as well, of course. After all, dying repeatedly is part of the story!

 

[Visigoth]

Scanning the collector is definitely not easy, although easier if you have a coop buddy to help so it can't just focus on one person. If you're solo I wonder if the camouflage biomod might work, if you can get in front of where he's swimming without aggroing him.

Not sure if it was the biomod or just being careful but was able to scan the collector without dying as a solo. As soon as I heard it approaching I bailed out of the tadpole and didn't move. Once it was focused on the tadpole I was able to get in behind and do the scanning. Now, trying to repair the tadpole and escape after that was way harder and lead to my "death" since it never got far enough away for me to repair and try to get in before it would attach the tadpole. I put death in quotes since instead of reprinting back at the base I ended up in the tadpole but not really since I couldn't see myself in it. And when I got back to my base it was like it didn't recognize I was there. Perhaps a mistake, but making a save and reloading seemed to fix things.

 

[Ryan B.]

I finished the EA story last night. It was good. I am left wanting more.

Spoiler: Some Favorite Moments

• First binary sunrise. The interacting binary is so pretty.
• First time seeing the gorgeous aurora on the Saturn analog.
• Loading into my save and exiting my base to find the world carpeted with mysterious eggs. It felt like waking up to the creepiest snow day, and it actually made me wonder what sort of world event was about to occur (until I found the source of the eggs of course).

Spoiler: Story Thoughts

• They've done a really good job properly framing the body printing mechanism. The effects of this false immortality are well explored, even in the current incomplete state.
• They've done a poor job explaining why Kharaa is a threat to humanity when humanity should have access to the cure. It could be a bit of social critique given that on contemporary Earth, people die every day of curable diseases. There are some oblique references to conflicts with a Kharaa alien race, which was never mentioned in previous games. I want more of that backstory, and I doubt I'm going to get it.
• I love how high the stakes are. You don't just need to save yourself. You have to save the 40k colonists who were never printed. You have to save the biosphere. You might even need to save the Axum.
• BUT! The planet may be doomed anyway. Its interacting binary star looks pretty unstable, especially if the pulsar referenced in the observatory is the smaller of the two stars. It would be kind of interesting if you end up building an ark to evacuate the biosphere and the colonists both to a different place.
• Calling the AI master of the ark that is the Cicada "NoA" is a bit on the nose, but whatever.

Given how big they went with this opening act, I do have some concerns about their ability to follow through and pay off their grandiose setup. We'll see...in 2-3 years...

 

[technophile]

Yeah the skybox (for lack of a better word, my understanding is that it's actually a simulated star system but I could be wrong) is gorgeous. The auroras and the rings in particular are so pretty.

I definitely hope there will be more moments like coming across the Sea Treaders in Subnautica 1 or the source of those huge numbers of eggs in Subnautica 2 EA, those are moments that really make it feel like a vast and unknowable new world.

Spoiler: Story Spoilers

• They've done a poor job explaining why Kharaa is a threat to humanity when humanity should have access to the cure. It could be a bit of social critique given that on contemporary Earth, people die every day of curable diseases. There are some oblique references to conflicts with a Kharaa alien race, which was never mentioned in previous games. I want more of that backstory, and I doubt I'm going to get it.

Yeah I am curious about this one as well. Of course since the cure was only on 4546B it's possible that either a) canonically we never got the cure off-planet, or b) kharaa had already spread so far so fast that the existence of the cure didn't come early enough to save the vast majority of humanity. (The latter seems especially likely given that the Natural Selection games are canonically part of the same universe and IIRC the enemies in those games are also called the kharaa.)

Maybe that storyline will intersect back in S2 (hopefully).

• BUT! The planet may be doomed anyway. Its interacting binary star looks pretty unstable, especially if the pulsar referenced in the observatory is the smaller of the two stars. It would be kind of interesting if you end up building an ark to evacuate the biosphere and the colonists both to a different place.

I mean even if so things like stellar collisions/stellar system instabilities generally happen on universe-scale timelines, not human-scale ones. We could be millions or even billions of years from any kind of system issue that makes Proteas uninhabitable.

 

[Lt_Storm]

Spoiler

• They've done a poor job explaining why Kharaa is a threat to humanity when humanity should have access to the cure. It could be a bit of social critique given that on contemporary Earth, people die every day of curable diseases. There are some oblique references to conflicts with a Kharaa alien race, which was never mentioned in previous games. I want more of that backstory, and I doubt I'm going to get it.

Yeah I am curious about this one as well. Of course since the cure was only on 4546B it's possible that either a) canonically we never got the cure off-planet, or b) kharaa had already spread so far so fast that the existence of the cure didn't come early enough to save the vast majority of humanity. (The latter seems especially likely given that the Natural Selection games are canonically part of the same universe and IIRC the enemies in those games are also called the kharaa.)

Spoiler

Reading between the lines in some journal entries, politics. One faction got their hands on it and decided to use it as a bioweapon against Alterra.

 

[Ryan B.]

Spoiler

Reading between the lines in some journal entries, politics. One faction got their hands on it and decided to use it as a bioweapon against Alterra.

That's not the impression I got.

Spoiler

It seemed like the infection first broke out in the Mongolian Independent States, which is not part of the Trans-System Federation (but Alterra is). The Mongols decided to settle the Ariadne Arm, which is where 4546b is, so I assume they stumbled onto an old Architect site that didn't have the cure already on it.

One of the logs mentioned the official explanation for how it spread was that it hitchhiked on the outside of their hulls. That seemed dubious to the author, who mentioned a rumor that the TSF let it spread so they could take over the steppes. "...I don't know about that," he said, seeming to reject the notion that the TSF is that evil.

Meanwhile, I don't have a lot of trouble believing that Alterra would try that. They're only one trans-gov, of course, but they are the first to have access to Kharaa as well as the cure.

Another entry talks about how Kharaa will kill you "unless you have nanites." Maybe it really is just that the wealthy and privileged get access to immunity while the poor and underprivileged are left to die. It would be exactly the sort of social commentary that UK has always put into these games.

 

[Lt_Storm]

That's not the impression I got.

Spoiler

It seemed like the infection first broke out in the Mongolian Independent States, which is not part of the Trans-System Federation (but Alterra is). The Mongols decided to settle the Ariadne Arm, which is where 4546b is, so I assume they stumbled onto an old Architect site that didn't have the cure already on it.

One of the logs mentioned the official explanation for how it spread was that it hitchhiked on the outside of their hulls. That seemed dubious to the author, who mentioned a rumor that the TSF let it spread so they could take over the steppes. "...I don't know about that," he said, seeming to reject the notion that the TSF is that evil.

Meanwhile, I don't have a lot of trouble believing that Alterra would try that. They're only one trans-gov, of course, but they are the first to have access to Kharaa as well as the cure.

Another entry talks about how Kharaa will kill you "unless you have nanites." Maybe it really is just that the wealthy and privileged get access to immunity while the poor and underprivileged are left to die. It would be exactly the sort of social commentary that UK has always put into these games.

I stand corrected on who used it as a bioweapon

 

[IceStorm]

So about the antagonists...

Spoiler

Did no one come across the logs that indicate humanity was under attack by the Kharaa, and that they're viscous adversaries (a children's rhyme about if you hear hissing, only soldiers come back).

The bacteria wasn't the primary motivator for the colony ships to be thrown out into deep space.

 

[Ryan B.]

So about the antagonists...

Spoiler

Did no one come across the logs that indicate humanity was under attack by the Kharaa, and that they're viscous adversaries (a children's rhyme about if you hear hissing, only soldiers come back).

The bacteria wasn't the primary motivator for the colony ships to be thrown out into deep space.

Spoiler

Yeah, that was one of the oblique references to the Kharaa being an alien species and not just a bacterium. A couple of recordings made it seem like maybe the bacterium suborns humans into enemy soldiers somehow, but that very much has never been part of the lore so that would be a major retcon.

More backstory is needed, but again, I am not sure we are going to get it. The situation on Proteus is understandably the priority when it comes to backstory.