So you've just seen your space ship explode and crash, hopefully you've put out the fire in your life pod. If not, you should probably do that first, creating a safe working environment and all.

And when it all calms down and you get to catch your breath, you realise... You're screwed. Fortunately, not all hope is lost. You've got a Fabricator and a Medkit Fabricator. May not seem like much, but it's all you need to get started on your new life.

Oh, and check the locker too. You'll find two each of flares, water, and ration bars. You can just leave them in there for now. There's work to be done before it's time to eat.

The Medkit Fabricator regularly produces a Medkit, but only if you remove any that it already contains. Every time you return to your pod, pull out the Medkit, and drop it into the locker. They will be useful later, although you may want to get into the habit of carrying at least one at all times, more if you plan on going somewhere dangerous.

When you venture outside, to start exploring the vast ocean, there are a few items you'll want to pick up. They will take at least two trips, so I recommend getting as much as you can from the Safe Shallows and building what you can before venturing to the Kelp Forest.

Shopping List

• 2x Quartz - Use the Fabricator to convert it into Glass
  
• 6x Titanium
  
• 1x Cave Sulfur
  
• 2x Copper
  
• 4x Acid Mushroom - Combine with the Copper to create 2x Battery
  
• 2x Creepvine Seed Cluster - Convert into 4x Silicone Rubber

Acid Mushrooms you'll find all over the place. Collecting enough for this will not be a problem. Titanium is very easy too. You will find chunks of scrap metal all over the ocean floor. Each of these can be converted into 4 Titanium. In the early biomes, Quartz can be found in caves, but later on it is plentiful just lying on the ground. Salt is common enough in the Kelp Forest biome.

As you start exploring, I expect you will find a lot of Titanium and Quartz. Both of these resources come in very handy for constructing your base, so you may want to consider collecting some as you go. Note, lumps of scrap metal can just be dropped on the ocean floor beneath your life pod to save on storage space. They will stay there until you need them.

Note: Scrap Metal doesn't go anywhere (unless you are too close to a Stalker which steals them), so while you are restricted to your lifepod, you may find it easier to leave any you collect in a pile beneath your pod to save on the limited locker space within.

To find Copper, you will need to look for lumps of Limestone, which you can break. Each piece will drop either Titanium or Copper. Don't discard anything because you don't need it yet though, it will come in useful later.

Cave Sulfur comes from a small red plant found in the deeper reaches of Safe Shallows. Look for caves, and tunnels, and you will soon find some.

Watch out though, the plant is home to a tiny fish that will charge you and explode, causing quite a bit of damage if you don't manage to dodge.

Once the fish has exploded, find the plant and remove the Cave Sulphur from inside. Sometimes you may find an egg instead. In that case, unlucky. You'll need to find another.

The Creepvine Seed Clusters are found in the Kelp Forest, glowing yellow seeds on the creepvine strands growing up from the floor to the surface. Watch out for the wildlife though, they hurt, although they can be distracted using a piece of scrap metal.

These are the items you'll make with the ingredients you've just collected, in the order that I think makes most sense.

• Air Tank (3x Titanium)
  
• Scanner (1x Battery, 1x Titanium)
  
• Flashlight (1x Battery, 1x Glass)
  
• Repair Tool (1x Silicone Rubber, 1x Cave Sulfur, 1x Titanium)

After collecting the Creepvine Seeds and making it back to your pod, you can make these tools.

• Knife (1x Titanium, 1x Silicone Rubber)
  
• Fins (2x Silicone Rubber)

Now you have everything you need to start exploring this new world, and forging your own place in it. I would recommend though, that you upgrade your Air Tank to a High Capacity Air Tank as soon as possible. The schematic unlocks when you build your first Air Tank, so it is just a case of collecting the resources you need.

Ok, so fish isn't the only thing on the menu. There also a wide variety of plants out there that you can survive on. No, I'm not going to tell you which ones, you can figure out that for yourself. It's an exploration game, remember?

What I would like to mention is fishing. I found fishing annoying, until I got the knack of it. When you startle a fish, it will bolt. If you give chase, it will eventually slow down, and break either left or right. You've got a few seconds then when it is far easier to catch when it is trying to change direction.

Something else I found helped a lot to catch fish in the early game is a Grav Trap. Set it up somewhere near your lifepod, and it will collect any fish that gets too close. You still have to catch them, but they can't escape. You'll find that you won't need this so much once you've got the knack of catching fish though.

As you move into the midgame, and really get going, you'll want to include a few items in your base. The Water Filtration Machine requires constant power (so solar or thermal would be best), but produces bottled water and salt. I've got two of these in my current game, and even that has left me with a stockpile. If you empty them out when you leave your base, you can probably expect a bottle or two waiting for when you return.

Then there is the Alien Containment Tank. Release two fish of the same species into one of these, and they will reproduce, giving you the supply of fish you need to keep going. I keep a tank of Peepers, and a tank of Bladderfish for emergency water rations. Each tank requires its own Multipurpose Room (another blueprint you'll need to unlock, it's easy enough to get, you'll see). You can stack them though, which means there is more room in the tank, and therefore more fish. This is why you'll often see screenshots (if you pay attention to such things) of bases with towers in their construction.

You'll see the tower at the back. Granted it's a small tower, but you have to start somewhere.

With your tanks producing fish, and your filtration machines producing water and salt, you can now start to make travel food - cured fish. One fish, one salt, and you have food that won't go bad. You'll probably want to get into the habit of carrying a cured fish or two, and a couple of bottles of water at all times (along with a medkit or two, if you haven't already worked that part out).

While you've been out exploring, you have probably encountered a fragment. Now that you have a scanner, you can collect them. Some blueprints require more than one fragment before it is complete, for example, the seaglide require two fragments to be found. Others, like the Seamoth (we'll be looking at that later) require three.

As well as fragments, you will be able to find items of furniture dotted around, usually inside or around wrecks. These generally require only one scan to complete the blueprint, and most serve no purpose other than aesthetics for your base. Just as a side note, also in the wrecks, you will find data pads. Collecting these will provide information about the world, and back story.

Keep your eye out for anything you can scan. As well as collecting valuable equipment and other items, you can also collect encyclopedia entries for almost all forms of flora and fauna. If an object can be scanned, a small icon will appear in the bottom right corner of your screen when you hover over it.



For a lot of the smaller items, the Seaglide, Propulsion Cannon, and Stasis Rifle, for example, now have smaller fragments, often stored inside small cargo containers. Like this image is a Seaglide fragment.

If you can help it, I recommend avoiding this link, since it takes away a lot of the exploration aspect of the game, but if you really need to know where something can be found, this is a link to the Subnautica Wiki page containing a list of all the major wrecks, their locations, and what fragments you could potentially find there.[subnautica.wikia.com]

By this point, you've probably noticed that your lifepod has started picking up broadcasts. Some of them will give you a signal, which you'll soon see pop up on your HUD. These signals are located in the Beacon Manager page of your datapad. If you haven't started receiving messages yet, did you repair the communication array in your lifepod? If not, you should probably do so.

These will direct you to points of interest. This early in the game, these are other lifepods from the Aurora. Later, you will collect signals which will lead you to other places, but we'll get to those later. For now, the lifepods.

Some pods and wrecks will contain data pads - look for the glowing white light. Some of them will also contain what I call Data Pods. These are small boxes that contain upgrade blueprints, including the Compass, Ultra Glide Fins, Extra Capacity Tanks, and so on. A lot of the personal modifications that are possible at the Modification Station come from these pods. The Compass is incredibly useful, and makes navigation so much easier. You'll find it soon enough if you are following the radio signals.

Some lifepods you won't be able to reach until you have a Radiation Suit. You can make one of these with Silicone Rubber and Lead. Later on, you'll want to change into something better, but for now, the radiaiton suit is a lifesaver. Literally. It means you can get to the Aurora without dying of radiation poisoning.

Now that you have the basics, and know what you are looking for in the way of fragments, time to look at a few other tools, a little more specialized, which will help improve your life on this world.

Shopping List

• 5x Copper* - Convert 2x Copper into 1x Copper Wire
  
• 6x Acid Mushroom* - Combine with 3x Copper to make 3x Battery
  
• 2x Titanium
  
• 2x Lead
  
• 4x Creepvine Sample - Convert into 2x Fiber Mesh
  
• 1x Creepvine Seed Cluster - Convert into Lubricant
  
• 1x Quartz
  
• 2x Table Coral Sample
  
• 1x Diamond
  
• 2x Silver - Convert into Wiring Kit
  
• 1x Gold - Combine with Coral Samples and 1x Copper Wire to make 1x Computer Chip

* +1 Copper, +2 Acid Mushrooms per spare Battery
*Spare Batteries are incredibly useful. The trek to collect Silver and Diamond (see below) can use the Seaglide to drain a few batteries. Last time I did it, I spent a bit of time exploring the Blood Grass zone for fragments, and that, plus the journey to and from the Mountain Island, took up five batteries.

To collect Table Coral and Creepvine Samples, you need to use your knife. Find a Creepvine, and for each time you hit it, you will receive one sample. Table Coral falls off the wall when you hit it, so catch it or collect it at the bottom.

You may want to consider collecting everything that is easy, then building the Seaglide and Radiation Suit before continuing. The Seaglide becomes especially useful here. Before you go looking for Diamond, pick up however many Medkits you have stored. You'll probably need them.

Gold and Lead are like collecting Copper, only it comes from Sandstone deposits, instead of Limestone. You will find Sandstone in deeper areas, from around 75m down or below. Sandstone is slightly darker than Limestone, and spawns in the Kelp Forest (with the Creepvine), and the Blood Grass areas (dunes covered in red grass - looked at more later, but while looking for Sandstone, keep an eye out for scannable parts).

Diamond comes from Basalt deposits. Basalt spawns in the Mountain Island region, pretty much north of your life pod. I know, you don't have a compass, but to make your way to the Mountain Island, place the Aurora on your right, your pod behind you, and swim that way. Pretty soon, when you surface for air, you will see a peak sticking out of the water. That's Mountain Island.






Note, there have been a few updates since these images were taken, but they are still accurate in their directions.

Just to note, on your way there, you will likely cross over a Blood Grass zone. If you feel up to it, keep an eye out for fragments, there is the potential to gain a lot of useful blueprints. More on that later though.

On your approach to the island, loop around to the left, and you'll find a beach. If you run along the beach, or maybe swim along, just in the water, you'll find Basalt deposits. As an added bonus, you will see some small grey blocky looking rocks. This is Lithium. No use right now, but grab some anyway. It is good for reinforcing your base, and is required for crafting later vehicles.

Once you've got your Diamond and Lithium, head back to your pod and start crafting.

Items to Make
Radiation Suit (2x Lead, 2x Fiber Mesh)
Seaglide (Battery, Titanium, Lubricant, Copper Wire)
Laser Cutter (Diamond, Titanium, Battery, Cave Sulphur)
Habitat Builder (Wiring Kit, Computer Chip, Battery)

The Habitat Builder is the tool you use to construct your base. If you are anything like me, this tool will see a lot of use. The Laser Cutter may not be immediately useful, but when you come to start exploring wrecks, it is used to open sealed doors (you get about 2 and a half doors opened per battery, so for some of the larger wrecks it's a good idea to carry spares). The Radiation Suit is essential if you want to explore the Aurora.

Finally, the Seaglide. You've probably already seen/collected one of the required fragments, or maybe even already unlocked it, but if not, have a scout around the Safe Shallows area for fragments in cargo boxes, and you should soon find the other. The Seaglide is a battery powered propulsion unit that speeds up your travel considerably. It eats battery power though, if you use it constantly, so you may want to make a few spares.

So while at Mountain Island, you probably noticed the giant black alien structure jutting out from the beach into the ocean. If you scout around the area where it reaches the beach, you'll find a Purple Artifact, and a destroyed artifact which you can scan for a blueprint to learn how to make more of them.

A second Purple Artifact is located underwater, in the cave near the one of the underwater alien structures. Go for a swim from the beach near the structure on the surface and you'll see what I mean.

Inside the facility, you'll find some data, some stuff to scan for more data, and some green cubes called Ion Crystals. These are used in the manufacture of Purple Artifacts (and later on, Orange and Blue Artifacts). Oh, and yet more bad news. I'll not spoil the surprise.

If you take one of these Ion Crystals into the network of tunnels on the island, you will eventually find an archway similar to one inside the alien structure. This time though, there is a place to put the Ion Crystal into the device, which powers a portal between here and the Floating Island.

By now you're probably starting to run out of space, but that's ok. Now you have the Habitat Builder, you can make your first base. Don't expect anything special yet - you need to find fragments to gain other rooms and items before you get the good stuff - but you'll at least have somewhere to put your stuff.

For this sample base, I'm going to keep it simple. You will need to build 1 corridor segment, 1 solar panel, and 1 hatch. The corridor segment will be the main structure of the base. The hatch goes on either end, and the solar panel on the roof. Voila. Your first base.


You can enter your base via the hatch, which thanks to the solar panel, is now powered and has air. Inside the base, you want to build lockers. or wall lockers, your preference. I prefer the wall lockers as I think it makes the place feel less crowded.

So, rather than give you a shopping list here, I'm instead going to tell you what parts of the base require which materials so you can go and experiment.

• Corridor parts - Corner pieces require 2x Titanium to construct, the rest require 3x Titanium.
  
• A Hatch requires 2x Titanium, and 1x Quartz.
  
• Solar Panels each require 2x Titanium, 1x Copper and 2x Quartz.
  
• Lockers - Free standing are larger and require 2x Titanium and 1x Quartz. Wall Lockers require 2x Titanium.
  
• Reinforced Structure requires 3x Titanium, 1x Lithium. Each reinforcement will increase base structural integrity by 7.

Your base will get better later, as you find new rooms to add, and give it new functionality.

Now that you have a base of operations, it's time to start thinking about expanding your range. By now, you've probably already found some, if not all, of the Seamoth and Mobile Vehicle Bay fragments.

If you don't have them all, you'll find them in the areas with the red grass, where you were looking to find Silver and Gold earlier. Scout those areas for wrecks. You'll find more fragments around and inside them. I had to visit large wrecks in two different Blood Grass zones before I found the fragments for both.

Somewhere along the way, I also found the fragments for the Battery Recharge Station, my first bit of functional base tech. Keep your eyes open for both the Power Cell Recharge Station and the Battery Charger.

The last thing I'll mention here is the Compass. If you haven't already unlocked and made it, now is the time to do it. It comes from one of the Data Pods mentioned earlier, so you'll probably find it in one of the crashed life pods.

Shopping List

• 24x Titanium - Convert 20x Titanium into 2x Titanium Ingots
  
• 3x Creepvine Seed Cluster - Convert into 2x Lubricant and 2x Silicone Rubber. Combine 2x Silicone Rubber with 4x Battery to make 2x Power Cell.
  
• 4x Quartz - Convert into 2x Glass
  
• 6x Copper - Convert 2x Copper into 1x Copper Wire
  
• 8x Acid Mushroom - Combine with 4x Copper to produce 4x Battery
  
• 2x Table Coral Sample
  
• 6x Silver - Convert into 3x Wiring Kit
  
• 3x Gold - Combine 1x Gold with 1x Copper Wire and Coral Samples into 1x Computer Chip. Combine 2x Gold with the Computer Chip and 1x Wiring Kit to make 1x Advanced Wiring Kit.
  
• 1x Lead
  
• 2x Ruby

Ruby can be tricky to find. It is located far to the south or north east, in the zone with the giant glowing blue golf ball trees, and small trees growing brains in bubbles. You will find it as small red and white crystals attached to walls down at 100m+.

Items to Produce
Compass (1x Copper Wire, 1x Wiring Kit)
Battery Recharge Station (1x Wiring Kit, 1x Copper Wire, 1x Titanium)
Power Cell Recharger (1x Advanced Wiring Kit, 2x Ruby, 2x Titanium)
Mobile Vehicle Bay (1x Titanium Ingot, 1x Lubricant, 1x Power Cell)
Seamoth (1x Titanium Ingot, 1x Power Cell, 2x Glass, 1x Lubricant, 1x Lead)


The Mobile Vehicle Bay must be constructed before the Seamoth. It is a deployable station that floats to the surface. Once it is released, you can swim up to the surface and climb on board. This is where you build vehicles, including the Seamoth. Note, it is also possible to deploy the MVB, and climb onto it while it is underwater, therefore riding it to the surface.

I recommend placing your Mobile Vehicle Bay somewhere with deep water (at least 30m, ideally deeper). This isn't to accommodate the Seamoth, but later on, you get the Cyclops, a much larger vessel. Deploying your Mobile Vehicle Bay in shallow water just leads to wasted resources and funny screenshots.


Image courtesy of Tanker751.

That said, it is possible to collapse your MVB and turn it back into a portable item, so there is no need to deploy it and leave it there, hoping it doesn't float away on the tides.

Anyway, once your Mobile Vehicle Bay is set up, climb on board and make your Seamoth. Congratulations, you are now mobile.

Now you've got the Seamoth, your range has expanded considerably. Not just in distance, but also in depth. At the moment, the seamoth can handle a depth of 200m. That will change later on, but for now it means you can get a start on the larger rooms for your base.

You should haver upgraded your oxygen tank by now, to a High Capacity Oxygen Tank. If you haven't, do so now.

A short distance west of the Aurora's engines, and a short distance east of a thermal vent (in Safe Shallows, very close to a wreck on the border between Safe Shallows and Kelp Forest zones), there is a cave located just on the border between Forest Kelp and Grassy Plateau (with the blood grass) zones that will take you down into a huge underwater cave.

This is populated with giant glowing mushrooms, and eel creatures that live inside them (they hurt, by the way, so be wary of them). There are other ways into the cave, but this one will, if you've got the right place, bring you down directly above a wrecked and abandoned base.

You will not be able to get the seamoth all the way down, so keep an eye on your depth. Once you pass 180m, it's time to get out and swim. Be careful with your oxygen, you'll probably have to come back up to the Seamoth from time to time, but you can collect all of the fragments that you can access on the outside of the base, including the circular Multipurpose Room, the Water Filtration Plant, Observatory, and loose fragments. It will be far easier to wait for the blueprints from the interior of the base until after you visit the Aurora.

You can get a few blueprints from here, including the Multipurpose Room, the Water Filtration Plant, and the Observatory, plus a couple of others, and some fragments. My last few games, I've found the Modification Station fragments, plus one other. Once it was the Moonpool (I couldn't believe my luck), and once was Battery Charger.

Note, a lot of these blueprints are also available on the Floating Island (if you followed the portal through from Mountain Island). The key difference is that, while the Floating Island bases give you the Growbeds, this one gives you the Water Filtration Plant.

There's just one more item to collect before you go off to visit the Aurora - the Propulsion Cannon.

It sounds like fun, and it is. We'll also cover in this section another weapon, the Stasis Rifle. While less fun than the Propulsion Cannon, it does come in handy for slowing down the larger fish trying to eat you.

I know, some of you will be wondering 'But where's my minigun? Or laser rifle? Or plasma cannon? If you pay attention pretty early on, one of the text boxes that pops up will tell you.

When you make your first knife (maybe later ones too, I've not tried yet), a text box pops up, telling of a massacre that happened on another world or ship, leading to the ban of weapon blueprints in the ship's database. It even apologises to you at the end. Lovely touch.

Anyway, tangent over, so where do you get these non-lethal weapons?

Head to the Mountain Island, and loop around to the west. When you reach the edge of the beach, turn west and head out. Dive to about 100m or so, and you'll soon see floating islands. On one of them is a wreck. I found enough fragments for both weapons in this one wreck.

Alternatively, if you check the stretch of sand just before you reach the Aurora, you find lots of smaller pieces of the wrecked ship. Among these will be crates containing pieces of the Propulsion Cannon. This is certainly the safer option.

Shopping List

• 4x Copper - Convert 2x Copper into Copper Wire
  
• 4x Acid Mushroom - Combine with the Copper to create 2x Battery
  
• 2x Titanium
  
• 2x Table Coral
  
• 1x Gold - Combine Gold with the Coral Samples and Copper Wire to make Computer Chip.
  
• 1x Magnetite

Items to Build
Propulsion Cannon (1x Wiring Kit, 1x Battery, 1x Titanium)
Stasis Rifle (1x Computer Chip, 1x Magnetite, 1x Battery, 1x Titanium)

The Propulsion Cannon is used to pick up small objects and creatures, and move them. Once you have hold of something, pressing F will cancel the beam, releasing the item/creature, and pressing the right hand mouse button will launch whatever you've got grabbed into the distance. Comes in very handy for the first part of Aurora.

The Stasis Rifle is for larger targets. To be honest, I don't know the specifics about the Stasis Rifle as I don't use it much, but when you fire, a sphere in front of you is frozen for a short time. Useful for things like escaping Bonesharks, I guess.

So, you know that giant wrecked spaceship parked on your doorstep? The one that's been sitting burning for days, that had the dark matter engine core explode? Yeah, that one. That's where you're going next.

You will need:

• Laser Cutter
  
• Propulsion Cannon
  
• Repair Tool
  
• Scanner
  
• Torch
  
• Radiation Suit
  
• Fire Extinguisher

The Radiation Suit you should already be wearing. If not, put it on, or you will die horribly of radiation poisoning.

You'll want to bring along a spare Battery or two as well. Not many though, as you'll be collecting loads.

As you explore, watch out for Fire Extinguishers. You will need more than one to get through Aurora, but you will find others as you go through the wrecked ship. Last time I did this, I took the one from the tutorial, used that up, and came home with two others, one full, one mostly full.

The main entrance to the Aurora is at the front of the ship. I typically just follow the hull along towards the nose until it breaks apart, and I can get in under the wreckage. If you have trouble with this though (I did until I got the hang of it), head to the Mountain Island, and loop around towards the front of the Aurora from there. That should bring you into the pleasant little burning harbour they have there.

You'll be attacked by little crab-like things as you explore. Just pick them up with the Propulsion Cannon, and launch them off into the air, away from the wreck. The Propulsion Cannon can also be used to move crates. As you explore, you'll find a few doorways blocked with crates and furniture. Use the Propulsion Cannon to clear them.

There are two entrances to the Aurora. The lower of the two takes you into a section of the ship containing a Science Lab where you'll find the Propulsion Cannon upgrade to turn it into the Repulsion Cannon. The upper entrance to the ship grants access to everything else.

These include living quarters (more supplies, blueprints, posters, a cuddly toy, and a locked door, see later in this section) the PRAWN and Seamoth bays (where you can unlock the entire PRAWN suit, and pick up some upgrades for the Seamoth/PRAWN), the Engine Room (where you can fix the leaks in the dark matter core, and collect a Cyclops upgrade).

Also while you explore, you'll find supply crates. Most will contain a Battery, a Power Cell, and Medkit, or a Bottle of Water. You'll probably not be able to get everything in one visit, so don't worry about dropping drained batteries, or empty extinguishers, and when you find the bags, you can fill the bags before you pick them up, if you choose to take them with you.

There are a few doorways in the Aurora that require codes to open. The data pads in the area contain the codes to open three of the four doors. The fourth code, for the Captain's Quarters, is not available during this visit. After you have left, however, you will receive a communication from Alterra, which includes the code to the Captain's Quarters.

Once you've found the upgrades for the Seamoth, you can immediately use them. The access panel is on the left side of the Seamoth, and you will be able to see where the upgrades go. For now, you've got the Pressure Compensator, and a Storage Module. Fill up the storage module with your loot, and go collect the rest of it.

There are a few things you should keep your eyes open for, while you're looking around.

• Posters, on the wall. There are 5 in total, although 2 are the same.
  
• Seamoth Upgrade Modules - Pressure Regulator and Storage.
  
• Cyclops Power Regulator.
  
• PRAWN Exosuit - Comes as four fragments to be scanned in the Exosuit workshop. Just scan the ones that are hanging around the room. Note, you don't actually need to put out the fires to get close enough.

Also, grab any data from pads or terminals you can. Some give additional blueprints, others give codes to access locked doors, others fill in more information on what happened to the Aurora.

Finally, when you find it, don't forget to repair the damage to the dark matter core, to stop it spreading radiation. It's the room with the Cyclops upgrade module.

Have fun. Come home with lots of loot.

Once all of your Aurora loot is safely back at your base, it's time to think about expanding. Take your standard gear, spare batteries, and a spare power cell or two for the Seamoth. You may be gone a while. Don't forget you've got 16 extra storage spaces on the Seamoth too, and your safe pressure depth is now 300m, instead of 200.

If you haven't already, upgrade your oxygen tank before you move on. You'll need it. You might want to think about making a Rebreather and the Reinforced Diving Suit here too. They are invaluable when exploring the deeper, or larger wrecks. Be careful though. For a few days after you've repaired the Aurora, there is still radiation in the area surrounding the wreck, so if you start taking random damage, that's probably why. It clears up pretty quickly though, and after that, or if you are exploring further away from the wreck of the Aurora, switching to the Rebreather and Reinforced Diving Suit makes sense.

If you haven't already visited the glowing mushroom caves, and the wrecked base down there, or if you didn't collect all the blueprints the first time round, now is a good time to do it.

Your second port of call is to the south west. Roughly. Head in that direction, near the surface, but keep your eyes open to both the south and west, and you'll eventually see land. This is an island with three ruined bases built by survivors of an earlier crash. There are a lot of different plants to scan, as well as planters (interior and exterior). The best things here though, are the base upgrades and rooms.

You might have already been here, from the portal at Mountain Island, if so, feel free to move on.

You'll likely arrive at the centre base first, since the other two require climbing mountains. Here you can pick up the Multipurpose Room (the round room at one end), a Spotlight (by the door), a Bulkhead (the door itself), and maybe a few other items you haven't picked up elsewhere. Don't forget to collect the datapads too, for a bit of back story.

The other two bases are each up a mountain. It's more of the same, but don't miss the Living Wall and the Observatory. Once all three bases have been looted and scanned to death, head back to your Seamoth.

Head in a generally east-northeast direction, and make your way down to about 230-250m deep. The Seamoth can handle this depth with the Pressure Regulator module from the Aurora. When you reach a zone dominated by giant glowing blue golf ball trees, and smaller trees growing glowing brains, start looking for a wreck. It is very close to the maximum depth for the Seamoth, so be careful you don't stray over 300m and not notice, otherwise farewell Seamoth.

The wreck is pretty big, so should be pretty easy to locate. It's near the bottom of a long hill reaching south from a zone of Kelp Forest (with the Creepvine). When you find it, spend a bit of time searching the nearby area. You should find plenty of fragments. When you are done collecting outside the wreck, head inside. It's worth clearing out completely, since there are a number of furniture pieces, and more fragment boxes. Be careful though, your air runs out quicker at this kind of depth, so keep an eye on it, and make sure you lave yourself enough time to make it back to the Seamoth before you die.

I came out of that wreck with blueprints for the Thermal Generator, Moonpool, Cyclops Pressure Regulator, and something else which has slipped my mind.

The last stop on our tour is somewhere we've been before, the Mountain Island, so you may well already have some fragments from there already. Either way, spend some time exploring in the water all around the mountain from surface height down as far as you can go, as well as the Mushroom Forest area nearby. Watch out for the Reaper Leviathans though.

You should end up with a complete blueprint for the Cyclops (all three pieces of each of the three parts of the Cyclops to make up the full blueprint), the Vehicle Modification Station, a Power Relay Node, and maybe one or two other items.

Once you think you've milked the area dry of fragments, it's time to head home.

By now you've picked up blueprints for a number of different rooms, so maybe it's time to think about upgrading your home, or even buidling a new one. Even moving the one you've got. You'll need lots of Titanium, lots of Quartz, and lots more Titanium. Maybe a few other items, depending on the room. Don't forget you'll need to power them all too. I find that 6 solar panels keeps everything running smoothly, so long as I'm close enough to the surface for them to work. They stop being effective, I believe, at about 100m. If you want to run a Water Filtration Plant or two, you'll want to add more solar panels, or a Bioreactor, to ensure you have enough power to get through the night without running out - solar panels don't work when there is no sun.

If you choose to build an Observatory, you will need Enameled Glass. One of the required ingredients is a Stalker Tooth. Stalkers are the fish with lots of teeth that play in the Kelp Forests. You've no doubt seen them trying to eat you, your Seamoth, and pieces of scrap metal.

Every time they pick up some metal, there is a chance they will lose a tooth. You will be able to find them lying around on the floor. They can be tricky to spot though, so you're better off watching the Stalkers themselves, or looking for multiple pieces of scrap metal.

Note, if you buid a base near a section of Kelp Forest, you can leave a few pieces of scrap metal outside your base, and you'll probably attract a Stalker to generate broken teeth for you. Later on, once you've found the Alien Containment Tank, you can hatch a tame Stalker which will happily live near your base, regardless of terrain type (so far as I can tell), which will remain friendly towards you (but may occasionally take a swipe at you if you get between it and some metal, say, your Seamoth, seems more accident than anything else), and will continuously generate Stalker Teeth in a specific patch of land, to save you searching.

I have noticed that, if you already have a larger predator living in the area around your base, they might drive out your tame Stalker, so it's best to do this in a predator-free place.

For the shopping list, I'm looking at one specific room, and one specific upgrade to that room. The Moonpool, and the Vehicle Modification Station.

The moonpool is a docking bay that is built as part of your base, which will automatically refuel the Seamoth when you dock. The Modification Station allows you to rename your Seamoth, change it's colours, and make modifications such as the Pressure Regulator and Storage Module looted earlier from the Aurora.

Shopping List

• 22x Titanium - Convert 20 of these into 2x Titanium Ingots.
  
• 1x Creepvine Cluster Seeds - Convert these into Lubricant.
  
• 6x Table Coral.
  
• 2x Lead
  
• 2x Quartz - Convert into 1x Glass.
  
• 4x Copper - Convert into 2x Copper Wire
  
• 2x Gold - Combine Gold with Coral Samples and Copper Wire to make 2x Computer Chip.

Items to Build
Moonpool (2x Titanium Ingot, 1x Lubricant, 1x Lead)
Vehicle Modification Station (1x Glass, 2x Computer Chip, 2x Titanium)

When placing the Moonpool, bear in mind that the Seamoth docks into it from below, so you will need a clear space to get into and, when departing, be dropped from. Somewhere you're not going to continuously damage your hull from being dropped onto rocks while launching, or having to make such tight turns to get into the dock, that crashes are inevitable.

In other words, learn from my mistakes.

Once the Moonpool is up, climb up into it using one of the ladders in the pool, and decide where you want to place the Modification Station. Now, so long as the base has power, your Seamoth will be recharged every time you dock, and you have access to most of the available upgrades to the Seamoth and the Exosuit. Any missing upgrades will be found in Data Pods.

So, you can now make modifications for your Seamoth, but which ones are worth making?

Right now, I recommend only making one of them (well, two of them, but both are the same thing) - the storage module. For 6 Titanium, you can make two of them, which will fill up your Seamoth modification slots (2x crafted storage, 1x storage and 1x pressure regulator from the Aurora). That will give your Seamoth a new storage capacity of 48 items.

We'll come back to this later, but there are other resources we'll need first, not to mention the ability to go deeper than 300m.

This is where my guide deviates from my plan. Mostly because I had to deviate from my plan to make it work. I was looking for the fragments for the Modification Station, a device that allows you to take some of your existing items, and make them better.

But, I eventually discovered that, to get the Mod Station, I would need the Cyclops first. So, I decided to make both the Cyclops and the Exosuit.

Note, in my most recent game, I got the Modification Station Fragments far earlier, so this section actually came later, but that's the nature of the game.

Shopping List

• 70x Titanium - Convert into 7x Titanium Ingots.
  
• 7x Lithium - Combine with the Titanium Ingots to make 7x Plasteel Ingots.
  
• 6x Quartz - Convert 6x Quartx into 3x Glass.
  
• 2x Copper - Convert into 1x Copper Wire
  
• 2x Silver - Convert into 1x Wiring Kit.
  
• 2x Table Coral - Combine with 1x Gold and 1x Copper Wire to make 1x Computer Chip.
  
• 3x Stalker Teeth - Combine with 3x Glass to make 3x Enamelled Glass.
  
• 3x Gold - Combine with Computer Chip and Wiring Kit to make Advanced Wiring Kit.
  
• 4x Creepvine Seed Cluster - Convert into 4x Lubricant.
  
• 2x Ruby.
  
• 2x Gel Sack - Combine with 2x Ruby to make 2x Aerogel.

I mentioned in an earlier chapter where you get Stalker Teeth from, but for those of you who skipped it, take some scrap metal into Kelp Forest. Drop the scrap metal near a Stalker. Watch it play and wait for the teeth to fall.

Gel Sacks I've seen in a few zones, usually in areas populated by Ghost Rays, large, translucent fish, lovely to watch playing from your Observatory. You'll find these, and the Gel Sacks in zones like the Grand Reef down at the south end of the map, and the Mushroom Forest, to the north east, and north west.

Items to Build
Cyclops (3x Plasteel Ingot, 3x Enameled Glass, 1x Lubricant, Advanced Wiring Kit, 3x Lead)
P.R.A.W.N. Exosuit (2x Plasteel Ingot, 2x Aerogel, 2x Diamond, 2x Lead, 1x Enameled Glass)

Note, both of these items are made from the Mobile Vehicle Bay. The Exosuit will fall in and float a short distance down. The Cyclops will float at about 30m down, although it is a pretty big submarine, so make sure you've got plenty of room.

Now that you have the capability to go deeper than 300m, it's time to finishing pimping your Seamoth. Before you can do that though, you'll need the Modification Station, and for that, you need the Cyclops. The Exosuit comes in pretty handy here too. For ease of travel, you can dock the Exosuit in the Cyclops (like you can with the Seamoth - it works with the moonpool too).

Just quickly, before you leave here, if you haven't already made one, build yourself a rebreather. It makes your oxygen last considerably longer when you're deep down.

Once your Cyclops is ready, head north to your favourite island, Mountain Island. This time though, loop around to the east. When you are approximately at the north east corner of the island, start diving. At about 350m down, you'll find a huge wreck.

Go, break inside, find fragments, scan them. There were so many fragments in here that I came out with all of the Cyclops lockers filled with Titanium, plus three new blueprints. The one we are interested in though is, you've guessed it, the Modification Station. Once you've got the blueprints for that, you can start thinking about the shopping list.

Now is also a good time to change your outfit. Instead of the Radiation Suit, you should think about making either the Reinforced Diving Suit, or the Still Suit. I prefer the Reinforced Suit. I'll not put these onto the shopping list, you can decide for yourself what you want to use.

Shopping List

• 52x Titanium - Convert 50x Titanium into 5x Titanium Ingots.
  
• 3x Deep Shroom
  
• 4x Copper - Convert into 2x Copper Wire
  
• 2x Silver - Convert into 1x Wiring Kit.
  
• 2x Table Coral - Combine with 1x Gold and 1x Copper Wire to make 1x Computer Chip.
  
• 2x Magnetite
  
• 1x Salt - Combine with Deep Shrooms to make 1x Hydrochloric Acid.
  
• 2x Gold - Combine 1x Gold with Hydrochloric Acid to make 1x Polyaniline.
  
• 4x Lithium - Combine with 2x Titanium Ingots to make 2x Plasteel Ingots.
  
• 3x Ruby

You'll see a few new recipes in there, that you can't make yet. Don't worry, you'll get the recipes when you scan a Deep Shroom. Note, you need to scan the mushroom, not just collect it.

Deep Shroom's grow in a biome called Blood Kelp. It is pretty deep, so you'll need to make at least the mark two Pressure Compensator for your Seamoth to get there. Or you could take the PRAWN for a walk. If you head west from your life pod, then turn south when you reach the dunes, you will come to a chasm. At the bottom, you will be able to see white tendrils growing up (like an albino creepvine). The Deep Shrooms are located here.

The Magnetite, if you haven't already got some, will be easy enough to find. It is underwater, at Mountain Island. It looks like a silver, crystalline rock on the walls of Mountain Island, at about 100m down.

Items to Build
Modification Station (1x Computer Chip, 1x Titanium, 1x Diamond, 1x Lead)
Seamoth Sonar Module (1x Copper Wire, 2x Magnetite)
Seamoth Perimeter Defense Module (1x Polyaniline, 1x Wiring Kit)
Pressure Regulator, version 2 and 3 (2x Magnetite, 1x Enamled Glass, 3x Ruby, 2x Plasteel Ingot)

The Pressure Regulator in the list above is not a crafted item, but rather an upgrade (or two upgrades, actually) to the Pressure Regulator you are currently using in your Seamoth. Note, you will need to remove it from the Seamoth before you can upgrade it. All upgrades like this are done at the Modification Station. The other upgrades are made at the Fabricator in the Vehicle Modification Station in your Moonpool.

You will also want to look at crafting a Pressure Regulator for the PRAWN suit too, but the materials for that are only available from the depths, so I'm not looking at this in this guide. Take a look at the final chapter here for a link to my Lost River guide.

Now that you can go everywhere, it's time to visit the rest of the wrecks and collect the last of the blueprints you're missing. While you're out there, and maybe you've already got some of them, look out for arms for the PRAWN suit. They come in four varieties - a propulsion cannon, a grappler, a torpedo launcher, and a mining arm. Each of these can be fitted to the PRAWN, giving it a bit of extra functionality, to a maximum of two arms at a time.

The propulsion cannon works just like the handheld version, and the torpedo launcher is just like the one you can make for the Seamoth. The grappler and mining arm are both new though. Both do just what they sound like.

Using the grappler, if you are careful, you can get a Tarzan effect going and cover great distances quickly.

The mining arm can be used to harvest large quantities of resources from the larger nodes you've no doubt seen about. It also doubles as a highly effective deterrent when you are attacked in your PRAWN.

It is even possible to use the grappler to attach yourself to a creature, and use the mining arm to cause them some damage, even kill them if you really want to, although I feel that goes against the spirit of the game.

No doubt you've noticed that some resources are more difficult to come by than others (silver, looking at you), but once you've got the PRAWN mining arm, all your problems are solved. A single mining node will net you somewhere between 6 and 12 of a resource, depending on what you are mining, of course.

If you are looking for something specific, take a look at this page of the Subnautica wiki. It will tell you which zones these large deposits are found in.

http://subnautica.wikia.com/wiki/Large_Resource_Deposits

The resources you mine should automatically be collected into the PRAWN's inventory.

Now, before you think about going deeper into the planet, and discovering more of the story, there are a couple of final places you should visit up here first. Namely, a series of Precursor caches that they have hidden about the place. 'Precursor' is the name of the alien race that used to live here, by the way.

There are three to find (well, four really, but one isn't until you've started going deeper, in the Lost River), plus the final Degasi base (Degasi base, meaning those places constructed by the survivors from the Degasi, in particular, the bases on the Floating Island, and the one in the Jellyshroom Cave).

So, where will you find the three amigos caches? Keeping with the exploration aspect of Subnautica, I'm not going to tell you. Not exactly. I will give you a biome, and a clue though.

Cache 1: Dunes. Look for the meteorite.
Cache 2: Northernmost Blood Kelp zone. It's not far from the way down.
Cache 3: Sparse Reef. In some caves.

That should help you find them, yet be vague enough that you still need to go looking for them.

When you get close enough, you will see a doorway, blocked by a green forcefield, with one of those purple artifact consoles nearby. Place an artifact on the console, and the forcefield will drop. Be careful though, the doorways tend to be hidden down tunnels, but keep your eyes open for small alien pedestals - they will probably lead you the way you want to go.

The last base is deep underwater in the Grand Reef, south of the Floating Island, and not far from one of the routes you can take to go deeper into the planet. By the time you find the base, you've probably already got all of the blueprints, so you are just here looking for datapads, but don't forget to grab that orange artifact while you are here. It will come in handy later.

The fourth hidden cache is underground, in the Lost River, and is where you will need the orange artifact. But, since I'm leaving below ground alone for you to explore, I'm not going to tell you where. You can find it for yourself.

I said I'm not going to cover Lost River in this guide, and I am not. But, if you would like to know a bit more about Lost River and the latter half of the game, please refer to my other Subnautica guide.

http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1137920585

So, that's it for now. I will be adding more information (or making edits) as and when it is required, but I don't think I want to cover anything else in the game. Enough information is contained in this guide that you shouldn't have any major problems getting yourself established, and after that, it's all about the exploration. So go and explore.

If you have any questions about specifics (I've tried to keep this guide relatively spoiler free), then feel free to ask below. I'll do my best to answer you. It would probably be worth checking through the comments first though. Your question may already have been asked.

All comments welcome, thanks for reading.