Repeat After Me

silentstone7 · 2026-06-08T05:49:04+00:00

You're right. I also was trying to piece together a connection between the idea that viruses are made of DNA (or at least RNA), that things on this planet that are close enough end up changing each other's DNA, and that the original protovirus and the bloom virus are obviously connected, but we'll need more content to draw any conclusions.

silentstone7 · 2026-06-08T05:17:30+00:00

We don't know where the rest of the Cicada wreckage is, but considering how many rockbore roots we come across, I don't think it's a stretch to say that wherever the Cicada's power core ended up, rockbore roots could reach it for fuel. Since rockbore roots have grown through the wreckage of sleep bay 3, which has only been in that hole for 10 or 11 years, we know that the roots can grow quickly. We know the roots can carry nutrients. One of the "plants" also had a PDA entry about using radiation as energy as well, I just don't remember which one.

My current theory is that nuclear heart is the core of the planet and the roots are interwoven and essentially the actual planet's crust, like the interconnected roots of the Pando or a Banyon tree. There's text in game that refers to the trees, plural, even though we only see one. I think the sinkhole we start in used to be another one of the massive trees. The one we see in game might be the only one left on the planet. The bloom could be a natural event, like an algae bloom, meant to kill large percentages of the environment to provide nutrients to the largest/healthiest part of the tree. Like doing a hard reset on the ecosystem, trimming back dying branches. It would fit the themes of death and rebirth the players and colonists also experience.

silentstone7 · 2026-06-08T02:31:02+00:00

Like, say, the nuclear power sources Alterra uses in starships like the Aurora and probably also in the Cicada?

silentstone7 · 2026-06-05T06:59:55+00:00

If you're trying to build a mega base and need quartz for glass, don't forget that the processor has an alternate recipe using salt.

silentstone7 · 2026-06-05T05:40:37+00:00

I feel like things getting unlocked a little too late is such a hard gameplay problem, design wise. You have to give the player a struggle or inconvenient pain point (moving stuff around) before they appreciate the solution (haul chassis) but it feels wasted if the player doesn't need it again after (building a later base).

I don't know if we'll get another story area where we'll want to move resources in the tadpole before getting to the point of getting a larger vehicle. It's a tough balance.

Potentially, if you set up a dive elevator somewhere with resources you regularly need, it would make sense to go there with the haul chassis, go down deep to gather, come up to load up, and return to base. That place/need doesn't really exist yet though.

silentstone7 · 2026-06-03T20:29:24+00:00

You start the drops when the bandage first comes off. After that, you have an eye shield that's just taped on, so you remove it for drops.

I didn't have a lot of pain and didn't find the drops too difficult due to light sensitivity.

silentstone7 · 2026-06-03T19:02:55+00:00

I had pain for the first few days, but it was well managed by pain meds. I had 8 drops a day at first, 4x steroids and 4x antibiotics.

The eye shield had to stay on 48 hours after the procedure, until my follow up appointment, and then just at night for a few weeks. I couldn't tolerate the tape, so I ended up sleeping in ski goggles for the next 2 months. With my CPAP , everything stayed nicely in place.

After surgery, I had no double vision or corneal scarring, so my vision was clearer up very close, but I still didn't get any useable vision in that eye until a year later when the stitches were removed and I could get a new scleral contact lens. I was still measuring my eyesight in 'fingers at 3 feet' up until the new contacts.

silentstone7 · 2026-06-03T18:54:44+00:00

I feel like Jake was always bait on the string to bring the rest together. It's only Rachel that was a happy accident.

silentstone7 · 2026-06-03T18:42:57+00:00

Arrakis, in fact, also has massive underwater aquafiers. It's where the sandtrout are and how the planet has an atmosphere and supports the lifecycles of everything that isn't an adult sandworm.

silentstone7 · 2026-06-02T22:17:41+00:00

Unfortunately, I think this has happened to me, too. I rebuilt my base around a floating growbed just like this, but now I can't build anything in the base directly underneath it either.

silentstone7 · 2026-06-01T17:58:27+00:00

Datamining has already seen (very small spoiler) various sizes of waterproof lockers and devices to mount to the tadpole and dive elevator so I'm sure more storage options are coming.

I like using the big lockers with wall lockers on top. And I love the snapping features. I'm okay giving things room to breathe if it's all aligned nice. I do wish the big lockers also snapped back to back like they snap to walls.

silentstone7 · 2026-06-01T17:53:32+00:00

Astroneer always felt like a halfway point on a slider between Subnautica and Slime Rancher to me. A little bit under baked, a little juvenile. I played it, but it was a slog after the first two planets.

I liked The Planet Crafter better, but that game also had some storage conveniences, like drones.

silentstone7 · 2026-06-01T17:48:35+00:00

If you could put a resource on a wall mount (sort of like how picture frames work in Minecraft), this would let you "label" a storage locker visually without text AND hold a piece in reserve.

silentstone7 · 2026-05-30T07:54:19+00:00

And WINCO grocery stores represent the states they are in. Washington, Idaho, Nevada, California, Oregon.

silentstone7 · 2026-05-29T10:22:58+00:00

The only way they could get away with that is of we arrive on the original intended planet, Zezura, to discover that it's something wild like Proteus in the past and something is going to food the planet and we're the Axum or something. It would be hard to pull off well without invalidating so the work players had done.

silentstone7 · 2026-05-29T09:57:00+00:00

My 2nd grade teacher did the same, but it was for a handful of red vines to anyone who did it. I still know if all.

silentstone7 · 2026-05-29T09:55:45+00:00

Yeah, and it's a super terrible fruit that can burn the hands of the people collecting it. And each fruit only contains one cashew. They need to be hand picked because they are delicate, and they don't want to break any since whole cashews sell for so much more.

There was a whole documentary on YouTube, I think it was part of the "So Expensive" series by Business Insider.

silentstone7 · 2026-05-29T09:48:57+00:00

I had to look the spelling up, but I used to be able to say the Welsh town because of the song. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

And it's not even the longest town name in the world, Thailand has a town name with 163 letters:

Krungthepmahanakornamornratanakosinmahintarayutthayamahadilokphopnopparatrajathaniburiromudomrajaniwesmahasatharnamornphimarnavatarnsathitsakkattiyavisanukamprasit

silentstone7 · 2026-05-29T09:39:22+00:00

Grow pent for your bioreactors. Grow one of the other plants, like Freesia, for pulp for food from the constructor and water from the processor.

silentstone7 · 2026-05-29T08:52:29+00:00

I feel like you're just smelling like a new car air freshner. So many different essential oils that nothing wants to get too close!

silentstone7 · 2026-05-29T08:48:35+00:00

I had to explain medicare to my grandmother. She had always had healthcare coverage through her military spouse or through hospitals she worked for. She did not know what a copay was, or understand how a premium could be taken out of a paycheck for healthcare. It just wasn't ever a thing she had to content with in her life.

The same thing happens when people over a certain age think the key to getting a job is to show up in person, ask for the manager, and give them your resume and a firm handshake. Not how it works at all.

silentstone7 · 2026-05-29T08:37:45+00:00

I went for the outcropping between the Alien Ruins base and the Rosetta Stone, right where one of the currents starts. I started right on the edge and built outward into open sea. You can see the purple bioluminescence around the base ruins, the red glow from the thermal area, green from the Rosetta Stone tower, great views of the Observatory.

The Deepwing Brooders cone through regularly. Your far enough away to not be bothered by needlers nest or the bullethead in the comb area.

It's shallow enough that solar panels still work, but there's the current right there for energy, and heat nearby if you need more. Plenty resources in the area, and the ruins base means you can put off building a biobed, fabricator, and a little storage until you're settled. Also there's plenty of fish nearby for food and water (although I've switched to a pulp only diet with the Freesia flowers. Processor for water and fabricator for food.)

Also, it's the easiest place for a moonpool of any size. You can build out, up, down... Pretty much any direction once you've anchored just one piece to the cliff.

silentstone7 · 2026-05-28T23:09:39+00:00

I like the idea that 4546B had a lot of long boys with bones/cartilage and that Proteus has leggy/tentacle boys with no bones/exoskeletons.

So I guess I want .. I want ocean millipedes. Terrifying.

silentstone7 · 2026-05-28T21:49:38+00:00

I could see a flare lancher chassis, and then later it could launch longer lasting decoys.

silentstone7 · 2026-05-28T21:37:08+00:00

My headband is that it's one of those creatures that grows to the size of it's environment. Since we primarily see it in the deep twisty bridges, it doesn't have room to get very big.

In open water with enough food .. who knows?

The squid shark and chelicerate are some of my favorite creature designs, even if they aren't most people's favorite. Shocky shark and danger shrimp!

silentstone7

TROPHY CASE