There are two big pieces of Subnautica news today. The first is that we've got a whole bunch of work-in-progress seabase stuff to show you. The second is that we've just released a new Subnautica update - It doesn't contain seabases, but it makes lots of additions and improvements to the game. Read on to find out more!



Subnautica development is following rough cycles of several weeks each. Every few weeks, we want to bring you something really awesome to play with. Last time, it was the Cyclops submarine.

If all goes to plan, the next big thing will be seabases, arriving some time in early March. It's very probable that timing will change, as is the nature of game development, but we are far enough advanced with our work that we want to show off some of the progress now. To get notified as soon as they are released, sign up to the Subnautica mailing list.



Before we dive further into seabases, let's talk about Subnautica Update 10, which we released today. It does not contain bases, but it does contain lots of important, less headline-grabbing work. For example, Charlie's new loot system is present, and that drastically changes how much of the game works. You will get this update automatically if you have purchased Subnautica on Steam. Because our development process is so unstructured, it's very hard to give you a controlled, authoritative list of changes.

To see absolutely everything that changed in this update, go to the Subnautica checkins and changes list. That page publicly records every change anyone on the Subnautica development team makes to the game. You can also check out the Subnautica Trello Board for a rougher approximation of changes. Some examples of smaller but still exciting things in this update include a working Dive Reel.



Many cave systems in Subnautica are complex, deep down, dark, and downright scary. Getting lost inside one means almost certain death from asphyxiation. The dive reel is a great way to limit the risk of getting lost. Once attached to a surface, it will spool out a dive line behind you. You can explore a cave with the line playing out, attach it to a surface in an interesting area, and then follow the line in and out of the cave. The dive reel is available to craft at the Fabricator.

Back to bases. For the last few weeks we've been doing intense research, experimentation, and design work on seabase concepts. Earlier prototypes involved near-cubic construction of seabase compartments, which could be stuck together in any number. Compartments could have flush windows, hatches for ingress & egress, and internal hatches which allowed individual compartments to be cut off from flooding. Much of the art was ripped from the Cyclops, or was simply basic 3D primitives - Not the sort of thing we would want to ship in the final game, but more than adequate to get a feel for how gameplay was working.



Using this prototype system was a little bit surreal. Subnautica is a game in which most time is spent swimming, or using a vehicle in the water. Unless you manage to find a certain remote island, there's no standing or walking on solid surfaces. With the prototype, we found ourselves standing on a solid deck, looking out a window at the ocean life passing by outside. It was very cool!



Because each compartment is on a grid, we were able to tinker with a power system, and per-compartment flooding. There was something off about the ‘feel’ of the prototype though – Big cubes being stacked on top of each other didn’t seem like something appropriate for an underwater environment.



Cue Cory’s magnificent concept for extensible, cylindrical base compartments. These compartments can be attached in sequence, joined at perpendicular angles, and stacked on top of each other.



They feature viewports for observing the ocean outside, and attachment points for installing equipment. At the moment, 3D art for these modules is not quite finished, but work is progressing well. The compartments need to be carefully crafted to ensure they can fit together in a variety of configurations. For example, T, 90-bend, X, and singular shapes.



The flexibility afforded by these compartments means that bases will be highly customisable. You will be able to build structures that fit your particular objectives, adapted to the surrounding sea floor terrain.



The cylindrical compartments have rectangular interior spaces. Flat walls make the installation of equipment (such as Fabricators) much easier.



We’ve experimented with a few construction methods for bases. The original prototypes used the PDA, with the player needing to open and close it every time they wanted to build a module. That turned out to be a bit clunky, and after a few iterations we’ve started to settle on the use of a revamped Builder tool. Base construction requires the crafting of a builder tool. Then, with that tool equipped, right click brings up a construction menu, and left click places & builds components.



Because Dushan is a genius, it takes no effort to join together complex base structures. Components will rotate and morph between different junction and bend types to match up with the layout you have placed on a base foundation.



Seabases are not yet ready for release: There are quite a few technical hurdles to clear, and more art to create, before they can be released. In the mean time, we hope you will enjoy playing with Update 10. It is a large and important update that touches on many aspects of gameplay, and fixes a few nasty crashes too. Find out when updates have been released by subscribing to the Subnautica mailing list, and see what the development team is up to with our wide variety of open development tools.

There are two big pieces of Subnautica news today. The first is that we've got a whole bunch of work-in-progress seabase stuff to show you. The second is that we've just released a new Subnautica update - It doesn't contain seabases, but it makes lots of additions and improvements to the game. Read on to find out more!



Subnautica development is following rough cycles of several weeks each. Every few weeks, we want to bring you something really awesome to play with. Last time, it was the Cyclops submarine.

If all goes to plan, the next big thing will be seabases, arriving some time in early March. It's very probable that timing will change, as is the nature of game development, but we are far enough advanced with our work that we want to show off some of the progress now. To get notified as soon as they are released, sign up to the Subnautica mailing list.



Before we dive further into seabases, let's talk about Subnautica Update 10, which we released today. It does not contain bases, but it does contain lots of important, less headline-grabbing work. For example, Charlie's new loot system is present, and that drastically changes how much of the game works. You will get this update automatically if you have purchased Subnautica on Steam. Because our development process is so unstructured, it's very hard to give you a controlled, authoritative list of changes.

To see absolutely everything that changed in this update, go to the Subnautica checkins and changes list. That page publicly records every change anyone on the Subnautica development team makes to the game. You can also check out the Subnautica Trello Board for a rougher approximation of changes. Some examples of smaller but still exciting things in this update include a working Dive Reel.



Many cave systems in Subnautica are complex, deep down, dark, and downright scary. Getting lost inside one means almost certain death from asphyxiation. The dive reel is a great way to limit the risk of getting lost. Once attached to a surface, it will spool out a dive line behind you. You can explore a cave with the line playing out, attach it to a surface in an interesting area, and then follow the line in and out of the cave. The dive reel is available to craft at the Fabricator.

Back to bases. For the last few weeks we've been doing intense research, experimentation, and design work on seabase concepts. Earlier prototypes involved near-cubic construction of seabase compartments, which could be stuck together in any number. Compartments could have flush windows, hatches for ingress & egress, and internal hatches which allowed individual compartments to be cut off from flooding. Much of the art was ripped from the Cyclops, or was simply basic 3D primitives - Not the sort of thing we would want to ship in the final game, but more than adequate to get a feel for how gameplay was working.



Using this prototype system was a little bit surreal. Subnautica is a game in which most time is spent swimming, or using a vehicle in the water. Unless you manage to find a certain remote island, there's no standing or walking on solid surfaces. With the prototype, we found ourselves standing on a solid deck, looking out a window at the ocean life passing by outside. It was very cool!



Because each compartment is on a grid, we were able to tinker with a power system, and per-compartment flooding. There was something off about the ‘feel’ of the prototype though – Big cubes being stacked on top of each other didn’t seem like something appropriate for an underwater environment.



Cue Cory’s magnificent concept for extensible, cylindrical base compartments. These compartments can be attached in sequence, joined at perpendicular angles, and stacked on top of each other.



They feature viewports for observing the ocean outside, and attachment points for installing equipment. At the moment, 3D art for these modules is not quite finished, but work is progressing well. The compartments need to be carefully crafted to ensure they can fit together in a variety of configurations. For example, T, 90-bend, X, and singular shapes.



The flexibility afforded by these compartments means that bases will be highly customisable. You will be able to build structures that fit your particular objectives, adapted to the surrounding sea floor terrain.



The cylindrical compartments have rectangular interior spaces. Flat walls make the installation of equipment (such as Fabricators) much easier.



We’ve experimented with a few construction methods for bases. The original prototypes used the PDA, with the player needing to open and close it every time they wanted to build a module. That turned out to be a bit clunky, and after a few iterations we’ve started to settle on the use of a revamped Builder tool. Base construction requires the crafting of a builder tool. Then, with that tool equipped, right click brings up a construction menu, and left click places & builds components.



Because Dushan is a genius, it takes no effort to join together complex base structures. Components will rotate and morph between different junction and bend types to match up with the layout you have placed on a base foundation.



Seabases are not yet ready for release: There are quite a few technical hurdles to clear, and more art to create, before they can be released. In the mean time, we hope you will enjoy playing with Update 10. It is a large and important update that touches on many aspects of gameplay, and fixes a few nasty crashes too. Find out when updates have been released by subscribing to the Subnautica mailing list, and see what the development team is up to with our wide variety of open development tools.

Originally posted by Charlie (Flayra) on the Subnautica development blog.

If you’ve been playing the Experimental branch of Subnautica on Steam Early Access this week, you may have noticed that the entire loot system and crafting tech tree have been reworked. I wanted to write something quick detailing the what and why of these big changes.

There were a few basic problems I wanted to solve:

• It wasn’t clear for players where to find a particular type of loot. Sometimes this was due to the loot being in too many different places or because the loot element itself was abstract or overly-scientific (Carbon, Membrane, Rutile, etc.). Players would see what elements they need in the crafting menu, but then have no idea where to find it.
  
• Many recipes were very similar or even exactly the same.
  
• Loot was too plentiful, making the loot not feel particularly “special”. It also didn’t feel as much like you were really looking for loot, it was more like you were stumbling upon it.
  
• The tech tree wasn’t very scaleable to very big recipes like the Cyclops. In order to build a Cyclops, you had to very carefully juggle your inventory or drop everything that wasn’t directly used for it in order to build it. It was clumsy and it didn’t scale to even bigger recipes for the future. It also made storage more necessary and a bit tedious.
  
• There tech tree didn’t go very deep, so there weren’t enough advanced elements. This meant that deeper areas wouldn’t have special elements or rewards for dealing with the increased light, oxygen and creature danger therein.
  
• Many of the intermediate craftable elements had only one use, which tried to justify how ingredients transformed, but added extra busy work and no choices for the player.
  
• We want to support buried or embedded loot as well, which means we need a design that allows drilling for advanced materials.
  
• Creature loot (and therefore, creatures) weren’t very relevant.

All of these problems have existing pretty much since the first prototype, but it was just good enough to keep going forward with. But now, after we’ve ironed out so many of the game’s other bigger problems, it was time to do a proper design pass on the whole tree holistically.

I know this looks/is complicated, but a Gliffy diagram is the best I could come up with:


Full image available on Gliffy

Here’s a summary of the biggest changes:

• I removed as many “abstract” elements that I could. These are elements that are generally not clear to players where they could be found. This includes Carbon, Membrane, Rutile, Zinc, Calcite, Dolomite, Flint, Emery and Calcium, among others.
  
• Loot elements are now put in the world primarily in one and only one place (“coral walls in safe shallows”) to make it clear to players where they must go if they want something. This also means that old areas won’t become obsolete as the player plunges downward. Precious minerals are always found “inside” something else: limestone chunks, sandstone chunks, shale chunks, etc. Anything that’s a chunk can be broken open to find a random mineral inside. Along the same lines, larger lodes of ore will be found inside the terrain in the future.
  
• I removed as many of the intermediate elements as possible. For instance, instead of making “battery acid”, you can use acid mushrooms directly to make batteries.
  
• Each piece of scrap metal can now be refined down into 2 1×1 pieces of titanium. This keeps the inventory/time cost of scrap, but lays the groundwork for “condensing” of materials. 10 1×1 pieces of Titanium can be further crafted into a Titanium ingot, which allows the loot to scale, to allow building of very big things.
  
• I added many more “advanced” intermediate loot ingredients to keep the progression unfolding but also to open up new branches. Wiring kits and computer chips are examples of opening new groups of tech.
  
• Whenever possible, I incorporated more creature loot into the tree. You can make enameled glass from Stalker teeth, Flares from “crash meal” (ewww?), etc. This is an ongoing goal, and a tricky one, but keeping the elements as specific as possible is helping.

The full tech tree and details can be found here. This is a live tech tree that I will keep updating for awhile at least).

I hope this explains some of the reasoning that went into some of the sweeping changes! Please let me know what you think here or via Twitter.

Editors note: This new system will be released to the normal, stable branch in the next major update. We're not sure when that will be just yet, sign up to the dev update mailing list to be notified when it is live.

Originally posted by Charlie (Flayra) on the Subnautica development blog.

If you’ve been playing the Experimental branch of Subnautica on Steam Early Access this week, you may have noticed that the entire loot system and crafting tech tree have been reworked. I wanted to write something quick detailing the what and why of these big changes.

There were a few basic problems I wanted to solve:

• It wasn’t clear for players where to find a particular type of loot. Sometimes this was due to the loot being in too many different places or because the loot element itself was abstract or overly-scientific (Carbon, Membrane, Rutile, etc.). Players would see what elements they need in the crafting menu, but then have no idea where to find it.
  
• Many recipes were very similar or even exactly the same.
  
• Loot was too plentiful, making the loot not feel particularly “special”. It also didn’t feel as much like you were really looking for loot, it was more like you were stumbling upon it.
  
• The tech tree wasn’t very scaleable to very big recipes like the Cyclops. In order to build a Cyclops, you had to very carefully juggle your inventory or drop everything that wasn’t directly used for it in order to build it. It was clumsy and it didn’t scale to even bigger recipes for the future. It also made storage more necessary and a bit tedious.
  
• There tech tree didn’t go very deep, so there weren’t enough advanced elements. This meant that deeper areas wouldn’t have special elements or rewards for dealing with the increased light, oxygen and creature danger therein.
  
• Many of the intermediate craftable elements had only one use, which tried to justify how ingredients transformed, but added extra busy work and no choices for the player.
  
• We want to support buried or embedded loot as well, which means we need a design that allows drilling for advanced materials.
  
• Creature loot (and therefore, creatures) weren’t very relevant.

All of these problems have existing pretty much since the first prototype, but it was just good enough to keep going forward with. But now, after we’ve ironed out so many of the game’s other bigger problems, it was time to do a proper design pass on the whole tree holistically.

I know this looks/is complicated, but a Gliffy diagram is the best I could come up with:


Full image available on Gliffy

Here’s a summary of the biggest changes:

• I removed as many “abstract” elements that I could. These are elements that are generally not clear to players where they could be found. This includes Carbon, Membrane, Rutile, Zinc, Calcite, Dolomite, Flint, Emery and Calcium, among others.
  
• Loot elements are now put in the world primarily in one and only one place (“coral walls in safe shallows”) to make it clear to players where they must go if they want something. This also means that old areas won’t become obsolete as the player plunges downward. Precious minerals are always found “inside” something else: limestone chunks, sandstone chunks, shale chunks, etc. Anything that’s a chunk can be broken open to find a random mineral inside. Along the same lines, larger lodes of ore will be found inside the terrain in the future.
  
• I removed as many of the intermediate elements as possible. For instance, instead of making “battery acid”, you can use acid mushrooms directly to make batteries.
  
• Each piece of scrap metal can now be refined down into 2 1×1 pieces of titanium. This keeps the inventory/time cost of scrap, but lays the groundwork for “condensing” of materials. 10 1×1 pieces of Titanium can be further crafted into a Titanium ingot, which allows the loot to scale, to allow building of very big things.
  
• I added many more “advanced” intermediate loot ingredients to keep the progression unfolding but also to open up new branches. Wiring kits and computer chips are examples of opening new groups of tech.
  
• Whenever possible, I incorporated more creature loot into the tree. You can make enameled glass from Stalker teeth, Flares from “crash meal” (ewww?), etc. This is an ongoing goal, and a tricky one, but keeping the elements as specific as possible is helping.

The full tech tree and details can be found here. This is a live tech tree that I will keep updating for awhile at least).

I hope this explains some of the reasoning that went into some of the sweeping changes! Please let me know what you think here or via Twitter.

Editors note: This new system will be released to the normal, stable branch in the next major update. We're not sure when that will be just yet, sign up to the dev update mailing list to be notified when it is live.

A giant drive-able submarine featuring a submersible launch bay, dive chamber, and more is now available in Subnautica. Play with it now by purchasing Subnautica on Steam. The Cyclops is over 50 meters long, has multiple decks, and enables you to explore the ocean further and deeper than ever before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgAh5FTcF-E

Build a Cyclops submarine using the Constructor. Craft a Constructor at the Fabricator on your Lifepod, and then feed the required resources into the Constructor. The Cyclops will form above the water surface, before crashing down ready for you to board.



The Cyclops has two decks. The lower deck houses the dive chamber, a modular storage compartment, a Seamoth submersible docking bay and a companionway in the stern that leads to the engine room on the main deck. The main deck includes the bridge with helm station, a large compartment ready for the installation of modules, the entry hatch for docked Seamoth submersibles, and the engine room with main engine and propshaft.



Inside the Cyclops you will find quite a bit of space that is not currently used. This is deliberate, and allows you to customize the submarine with your own desired fit-out of modular components. At the moment, the only module available is the Fabricator. As Subnautica Early Access progresses, more modules will become available.



Despite all that, there is so much fun to be had with this massive underwater machine. Below a depth of 100 meters, collisions may cause hull breaches, causing the submarine to flood and forcing you to repair damage using a Welder. This race against time, with sirens blaring and warning lights flashing, can be seriously intense.



Deep and remote areas are much more accessible with the help of a Cyclops submarine. It currently features an infinite oxygen supply, allowing you to use it as a home base for crafting and repair during adventures in caves, canyons and plateaus far from the Lifepod fabricator and oxygen from the ocean surface.



If you purchased Subnautica Special Edition, you may now place your Special Edition hull plate, complete with unique hull number and date of purchase. If you encounter issues with your Special Edition hull plate, please post them in this thread and Hugh and Lukas will help you out.



Of all the features so far added to Subnautica Early Access, the Cyclops is probably the most exciting and complex. It is brimming with gameplay potential and is open to all sorts of expansion as Subnautica develops. We hope you have a blast playing with it as it is developed! Sign up to the development mailing list to receive word on updates, get a copy of Subnautica on Steam, and check up on development team progress by visiting the Subnautica Trello board.

A giant drive-able submarine featuring a submersible launch bay, dive chamber, and more is now available in Subnautica. Play with it now by purchasing Subnautica on Steam. The Cyclops is over 50 meters long, has multiple decks, and enables you to explore the ocean further and deeper than ever before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgAh5FTcF-E

Build a Cyclops submarine using the Constructor. Craft a Constructor at the Fabricator on your Lifepod, and then feed the required resources into the Constructor. The Cyclops will form above the water surface, before crashing down ready for you to board.



The Cyclops has two decks. The lower deck houses the dive chamber, a modular storage compartment, a Seamoth submersible docking bay and a companionway in the stern that leads to the engine room on the main deck. The main deck includes the bridge with helm station, a large compartment ready for the installation of modules, the entry hatch for docked Seamoth submersibles, and the engine room with main engine and propshaft.



Inside the Cyclops you will find quite a bit of space that is not currently used. This is deliberate, and allows you to customize the submarine with your own desired fit-out of modular components. At the moment, the only module available is the Fabricator. As Subnautica Early Access progresses, more modules will become available.



Despite all that, there is so much fun to be had with this massive underwater machine. Below a depth of 100 meters, collisions may cause hull breaches, causing the submarine to flood and forcing you to repair damage using a Welder. This race against time, with sirens blaring and warning lights flashing, can be seriously intense.



Deep and remote areas are much more accessible with the help of a Cyclops submarine. It currently features an infinite oxygen supply, allowing you to use it as a home base for crafting and repair during adventures in caves, canyons and plateaus far from the Lifepod fabricator and oxygen from the ocean surface.



If you purchased Subnautica Special Edition, you may now place your Special Edition hull plate, complete with unique hull number and date of purchase. If you encounter issues with your Special Edition hull plate, please post them in this thread and Hugh and Lukas will help you out.



Of all the features so far added to Subnautica Early Access, the Cyclops is probably the most exciting and complex. It is brimming with gameplay potential and is open to all sorts of expansion as Subnautica develops. We hope you have a blast playing with it as it is developed! Sign up to the development mailing list to receive word on updates, get a copy of Subnautica on Steam, and check up on development team progress by visiting the Subnautica Trello board.

Setting ambitious objectives is a great way to push yourself harder. Even if a high-jumper hits a high bar, they are likely to have jumped to a greater height than if they had set a conservative goal. That’s a good analogy for where the Subnautica development team is with the Cyclops today. We originally wanted to deliver you a massive submarine this week, but we haven’t quite completed sea trials yet. We’re not sure when it will be finished, but we think it’s very likely that the Cyclops will arrive in-game next week.



The Cyclops is a beast. Multiple decks, compartments, a docking bay for the Seamoth submersible: This is the big daddy of underwater transportation. At the moment, it is very close to being ready for prime time release. The 3d model is substantially ready, many animations are in and working, many gameplay elements work… But not all of it. We’re having some trouble with the damage system – Small collisions are causing complete flooding, and some components, like the Seamoth retrieval manoeuvre, are not working well enough yet.



Speaking of damage – Dealing with a hull breach on the Cyclops is… Well it’s just awesome. Hit something too hard, like the seabed, a rock formation or a large creature, and you risk bringing the ocean onto the wrong side of your hull. Alarms sound, warning lights activate, and the vessel AI gets quite upset. Only quick action to find and weld all the leaks can save the Cyclops from becoming a new reef for fish to explore.



Pretty much 100% of the team’s effort is going into the Cyclops right now, but some other stuff is being worked on too. Not all of it will make it into Update 9, but you can rest assured that lots of goodness is waiting in the wings. For example, there’s a new main menu coming, environmental hazards such as the Geyser have been improved, and huge new cave systems are almost ready for you to explore.



You can see exactly what we’re working on to get the Cyclops ready by visiting the development tracker on Trello. If you want to tinker with the Cyclops now, in its unfinished state, switch to Experimental branch on Steam. Get a newsletter when the Cyclops is ready to dive by signing up to the Subnautica mailing list.

Setting ambitious objectives is a great way to push yourself harder. Even if a high-jumper hits a high bar, they are likely to have jumped to a greater height than if they had set a conservative goal. That’s a good analogy for where the Subnautica development team is with the Cyclops today. We originally wanted to deliver you a massive submarine this week, but we haven’t quite completed sea trials yet. We’re not sure when it will be finished, but we think it’s very likely that the Cyclops will arrive in-game next week.



The Cyclops is a beast. Multiple decks, compartments, a docking bay for the Seamoth submersible: This is the big daddy of underwater transportation. At the moment, it is very close to being ready for prime time release. The 3d model is substantially ready, many animations are in and working, many gameplay elements work… But not all of it. We’re having some trouble with the damage system – Small collisions are causing complete flooding, and some components, like the Seamoth retrieval manoeuvre, are not working well enough yet.



Speaking of damage – Dealing with a hull breach on the Cyclops is… Well it’s just awesome. Hit something too hard, like the seabed, a rock formation or a large creature, and you risk bringing the ocean onto the wrong side of your hull. Alarms sound, warning lights activate, and the vessel AI gets quite upset. Only quick action to find and weld all the leaks can save the Cyclops from becoming a new reef for fish to explore.



Pretty much 100% of the team’s effort is going into the Cyclops right now, but some other stuff is being worked on too. Not all of it will make it into Update 9, but you can rest assured that lots of goodness is waiting in the wings. For example, there’s a new main menu coming, environmental hazards such as the Geyser have been improved, and huge new cave systems are almost ready for you to explore.



You can see exactly what we’re working on to get the Cyclops ready by visiting the development tracker on Trello. If you want to tinker with the Cyclops now, in its unfinished state, switch to Experimental branch on Steam. Get a newsletter when the Cyclops is ready to dive by signing up to the Subnautica mailing list.

Until now, the only way to brave Subnautica’s ocean depths has been in a divesuit, a Seaglide personal-water-craft, or a Seamoth submersible. None of those are very big. Soon, that will all change. The Cyclops submarine is a massive underwater machine: It is capable of diving to great depths, providing on-board supply replenishment, construction, and repair, and the launch and retrieval of smaller vehicles like the Seamoth.

To get an idea of the scale of the Cyclops, look at the screenshot above. The Seamoth submersible, itself much bigger than a diver, is visible about 30 metres in front of the Cyclops. At the heart of the submarine is the propulsion unit, housed on the upper deck towards the stern. Here is a screenshot taken from a work-in-progress model a few weeks ago:



At the moment, we are planning on having the Cyclops available in game in an update within two weeks. When ready, the Cyclops will be available for creation at the Constructor. It will require significant resources to build one. Here’s a concept piece for the construction process:



The ample on-board space means there is plenty of room for the storage of equipment, supplies, and installing new machinery to enhance the Cyclops’ capabilities. In the concept piece below, you can see a compartment on the upper deck, with the space marked out for an upgrade allowing the launch and retrieval of a Seamoth submersible:



Of course, we can’t be sure that the Cyclops will be ready within two weeks. It’s a huge and complex task. Outside the deeper technical systems underlying the game, like the voxel terrain engine, the Cyclops is probably the most complex discrete gameplay element we’ve yet tackled. To give you an idea of the scale of the work, here is a task tree that shows many of the things we need to do:



(Full interactive version here)

Follow the development of the Cyclops submarine on the Subnautica Trello board[url], and subscribe to the [url]development mailing list to be notified when it is released. We can’t wait to bring it to you!

Until now, the only way to brave Subnautica’s ocean depths has been in a divesuit, a Seaglide personal-water-craft, or a Seamoth submersible. None of those are very big. Soon, that will all change. The Cyclops submarine is a massive underwater machine: It is capable of diving to great depths, providing on-board supply replenishment, construction, and repair, and the launch and retrieval of smaller vehicles like the Seamoth.

To get an idea of the scale of the Cyclops, look at the screenshot above. The Seamoth submersible, itself much bigger than a diver, is visible about 30 metres in front of the Cyclops. At the heart of the submarine is the propulsion unit, housed on the upper deck towards the stern. Here is a screenshot taken from a work-in-progress model a few weeks ago:



At the moment, we are planning on having the Cyclops available in game in an update within two weeks. When ready, the Cyclops will be available for creation at the Constructor. It will require significant resources to build one. Here’s a concept piece for the construction process:



The ample on-board space means there is plenty of room for the storage of equipment, supplies, and installing new machinery to enhance the Cyclops’ capabilities. In the concept piece below, you can see a compartment on the upper deck, with the space marked out for an upgrade allowing the launch and retrieval of a Seamoth submersible:



Of course, we can’t be sure that the Cyclops will be ready within two weeks. It’s a huge and complex task. Outside the deeper technical systems underlying the game, like the voxel terrain engine, the Cyclops is probably the most complex discrete gameplay element we’ve yet tackled. To give you an idea of the scale of the work, here is a task tree that shows many of the things we need to do:



(Full interactive version here)

Follow the development of the Cyclops submarine on the Subnautica Trello board[url], and subscribe to the [url]development mailing list to be notified when it is released. We can’t wait to bring it to you!