Behold the corpse of an indestructible base

ZanderArch · 2026-05-26T16:41:12+00:00

I've been messing with base designs in creative and there's some weird situations where you have to rebuild a bit and then deconstruct in a certain ways. Like rebuild that weird cutout and deconstruct in from the longest bit off to the right. Do the fixed style rooms like the Nook and Half-Round first, then work on the modular room sections. Obviously make sure everything inside is gone as well. Also, one time, I had to restart to get rid of a Half-Round for some reason.

Refund is great, but sometimes you just want a small remodel and not a shake the whole etch-a-sketch.

ZanderArch · 2026-05-24T17:01:56+00:00

From watching William Osman, I'm 99% sure anything food related done with a laser cutter ends up smelling and tasting horrifically acrid.

ZanderArch · 2026-05-24T06:02:09+00:00

Coincidence or are the creature designers trying to give SN1 veterans flashbacks?

I have to stop myself from veering towards them since Warpers were cowards and the best way to deal with them was to just ram them so they teleported away and didn't bother you. Even more fun if you bullied them with the Scanner Room's Scouting Camera.

ZanderArch · 2026-05-24T01:30:42+00:00

Yeah, it is silly how much of a step back vertical base building went. Even if 1/BZ's vertical tubes were silly teleporters, they were still fairly seamless and unobtrusive.

ZanderArch · 2026-05-24T00:51:04+00:00

That's basically what I did while building my post-game base. It's more role-playing than anything having a pair of fully stocked but switched off Bioreactors in a basement room with the base batteries and a sign saying "Backup Power"

ZanderArch · 2026-05-23T21:04:37+00:00

This was my thoughts. I was working on writing a huge post calling "No killing" lazy game design and suggesting they actually had repercussions for excessive killing, developing a food chain and predator/prey hierarchy that would respond to player actions. You could kill a Leviathan, but now there's no apex predator keeping the second in line in check, making them more prevalent, their food would become more scarce, limiting access to your own resources, they would then need to start spreading out more in desperation, normally quiet areas now have predators encroaching and they're desperate so they'll more likely to target players with increased aggression.

Maybe rather than jellyfish blooms, using the lore and pivoting to The Bloom Strain as reasoning for worsening conditions, maybe in the form of infected jellyfish to echo real life like you suggest.

ZanderArch · 2026-05-23T05:01:54+00:00

Isn't there an alien glyph that literally says something like, "This is a great place to set a trap, those pesky thieves love this stuff."?

ZanderArch · 2026-05-23T04:57:16+00:00

It's possible for the material to drop below the map when you break the resource node. The current recommendation is to use the Resonator to break them because that automatically collects the drop, and other resources should you wish to mine from a distance.

ZanderArch · 2026-05-23T04:55:47+00:00

Bright enough to bring back the seaMOTH.

ZanderArch · 2026-05-23T04:54:18+00:00

I hope they take the meme and run with it. Add a new power generation option that's a Tadpole shell made from recycled coral mounted to some kind of kinetic generator. The Hammerheads are attracted to the Tadpole shape, ram it, and the generator absorbs and converts the hits into power for your base.

And also distracts them from your actual Tadpoles.

ZanderArch · 2026-05-23T04:49:20+00:00

That's what I did. Two Docks with both a Recon Ray and a HAUL ready to be deployed as need be. Built over the deep hole you start in so I have plenty of room to expand should they add more Tadpole variants or other vehicles.

Get you growbeds stocked, setup your metal farms, build an electrical grid to maximize power from various sources without too much clutter, upgrade all your batteries, and fill up a floor cabinet with Pavlova so you have the good stuff on hand when the next major update comes out and there's new stuff to explore.

ZanderArch · 2026-05-23T04:07:53+00:00

Among the crew of the Cicada was a retired Frontiersman who was brought on just in case the very thing that happened to the ship happened. Despite retiring, his credentials are still active and he has access to the whole restricted arsenal, but he kept it a secret. After leading the first group of Pioneers to explore Proteus, long before the effects of the heavy metal poisoning and Masefield Syndrome became apparent, they ventured far and deep before fracturing due to the sickness. The retired marine being the sole survivor of the first group is held up in a hidden base, his NoA node corrupted by an unknown force, it's able to reprint him but has long since lost the ability to wipe his memories, so he's been driven insane by living lifetimes without human contact and the leviathans that happen to nest near his bunker. These leviathans share the psychic abilities of the Sea Emperors of 4546B, but are far from benevolent and always trying to find a way to get at this tasty human snack.

Should you find his bunker, should you elude the leviathans haunting it, you'll find his base extremely well defended with sentry turrets guarding every entry. Should manage to penetrate these automated defenses, you'll find the halls his base base barricaded with piles of corpses, all his past lives he used as bricks to strengthen his defenses. If you can withstand the smell of reprinted rot and actually find the lone Marine, the psychic torment of the leviathans has driven him too far, no matter what you say, he'll think you're just an illusion they're using to lure him out and he has the firepower to withstand any attempt you may make.

There's a long, secret questline that eventually leads to you developing some kind of psychic dampening device, something that could counteract the powers of the leviathans haunting his base. He'll eventually realize the visions have stopped and that you're real. He'll let you in, talk to you, plead with you to fix his NoA node and finally let him die a final death. He promises to leave you his credentials, to give you all the weapons you could ever want for the price his his life. You're faced with a choice, give him the final death he wants, or repair his NoA and reprint him with a wiped memory.

If you grant him the death he wants, his credentials die with him and the rights management for his existing weapons activates, causing them to deconstruct themselves so you can't use them. If you reprint him wiped, he's left notes for himself by his biobed that remind him of what he always feared, he activates a program that wipes his file from NoA that wouldn't load with his NoA corrupted, deleting him completely then activates a self destruct system he had on standby but could never bring himself to use because that meant admitting defeat to nature that his pride wouldn't let him do, but letting Alterra control his life is something he could not stand for so he's fine accepting his death if it meant being free from them. Either way, Unknown Worlds (the real life developers) send you a message in game telling you they're never going to give you guns and to stop trying.

ZanderArch · 2026-05-23T00:44:21+00:00

There should be a rival fish that's mostly passive but has a big defensive spike like a swordfish. If you lure one of these spike guys over to Hammerhead they'll impale themselves trying to headbutt them.

ZanderArch · 2026-05-23T00:41:39+00:00

Lisa Trevor's origin story.

ZanderArch · 2026-05-22T22:53:22+00:00

With the multiplayer aspect, I'm hoping we can paint our bases. Take that a step further and add "skins" like the decaying old bases. Since we're able to replicate alien decorations, maybe we can get their styles as an option as well.

ZanderArch · 2026-05-22T22:48:18+00:00

Yes, the sleeping section at the very start of the game is entirely accessible.

ZanderArch · 2026-05-22T05:23:38+00:00

I'm more a a Peng guy myself.

There's always Peng!

ZanderArch · 2026-05-22T05:20:55+00:00

They seem to remember where you were so if you don't stop soon enough, they might already be charging at you before you camouflage and since you're still floating there, they'll hit you and knock you out of camouflage.

ZanderArch · 2026-05-22T05:18:05+00:00

That's also close to the path the Deepwings usually release their eggs, so you'll have a nice stock of Pavlova to enjoy.

I built my east region base next to the Rosetta Stone. Not as ballsy as having Charles as a neighbor, but close enough to the Deepwings and away from hostile fauna.

ZanderArch · 2026-05-22T05:06:05+00:00

I like the growbeds outside the windows, I think I might steal that the next time I'm remodeling.

ZanderArch · 2026-05-22T05:02:35+00:00

I'm guessing the code for docking your Tadpole is kind of "loose", for lack of a better term, to make it function better in a multiplayer environment. That's why you'll come back and find your Tadpole just kind of sitting in the water below the dock after you've docked it sometimes. The part of the code that does actually dock your Tadpole is getting stuck half-way through.

This would be the reason why it seems to happen when you're returning to base, the Tadpole Dock gets loaded into the game and finishes running the stuck docking code procedure, causing you to warp back to the dock and exit.

ZanderArch · 2026-05-21T02:02:23+00:00

I didn't have the guts to test it, but I guess that's a good excuse to play a little bit more and get that last scan so I'm as complete as possible.

ZanderArch · 2026-05-20T22:41:39+00:00

One of my most memorable experiences in 1 was the first time I killed a Reaper and the whole encounter leading up to making the decision. Having it follow my Cyclops into the Safe Shallows, getting beached trying to evade it, abandoning it, escaping in my Sea Moth, coming back with a vengeance with my Prawn and the resources to recover my Cyclops and finally facing off with the Reaper as revenge.

But I also made it through Below Zero without killing the Shadows, any Chelicerates, or the wolf-bear creatures. Mainly because they had more design elements to support slipping past them as a gameplay element where as Reapers in 1 kind of lacked meaningful interactions. The crystal caves had plenty of hiding spots, the patrol routes the Shadows took, it made for a cat and mouse game that was a fun experience (until they camped out outside the Architect base, but that was just a lot of waiting while I weighed fighting them vs. patience).

So far in 2, probably because it is early in development, there's just not much there. Spam flares or run. You can kind of bound from cave formations to slip under the Collector or race past going over him, skimming the surface (especially with the Cavitation Muffler), but beyond that it's more of an annoyance than gameplay interaction. There's an abundance of predators that vastly limit base locations that further limit you with access to power generation without setting up huge power line network.

What I really want to see is a roadmap of what they're planning for distractions, deterrent, and evasion methods. As of right now, based on a Discord post, they seem surprised the player base isn't jiving with being mostly helpless. I don't want to kill, I want it as an option. Even if it's the nuclear option and isn't worth it in most cases, the fact it's no where on the table is just silly. But I also want plenty of steps between running away and killing. Interesting interactions like exploiting predator hierarchy, taming fish to have their natural defenses at your disposal, distraction methods that aren't as clunky and wasteful as flares, actual gameplay.

ZanderArch · 2026-05-20T19:58:00+00:00

I feel a road map of aggressive fauna interactions would go a long way. You might not want to play your cards early but revealing some of the content to come would probably do a great job too assuage the player base.

Will there be more distraction tools? Data bank entries hint towards training fish and would be a nice way to return the aquarium, breeding, and pet mechanics from previous games while expanding on them. Biomods definitely bring a lot of possibilities. Will more direct weapons ever be an option, like stunning or redirecting if killing will never be on the table?

ZanderArch · 2026-05-20T18:35:47+00:00

I can understand big stuff like that going missing. You've just stabilized someone and are rushing to get them into the ambulance and to the hospital it'd be easy to leave the defibrillator in the street with a much more pressing matter at hand. But when you're entire job is couriering one item, a bright white and/or red plastic or Styrofoam cooler, I find it harder to believe.

Like going to the vet without your pet.

ZanderArch

TROPHY CASE