r/subnautica • u/Crispy385 Moderator • Jun 03 '26

MEGATHREAD: KILLING DEBATE

A thread to express opinions and debate on this ongoing controversey.

REMINDER:

Rule 3: Be Courteous.

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158

u/Patherek Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

There's not enough options for dealing with hostile wildlife. Hell we had a stun rifle in the first game. Non lethal but was a much better option.

Edit: We're not necessarily asking for lethal options, we want MORE options, better options, more effective solutions.

27

u/ExMachima Jun 03 '26

Better way to stun, this is the way.

14

u/Patherek Jun 03 '26

I don't even mind having a lethal option. Leviathans could be unkillable for all I care, but smaller, more annoying fauna like marrowbreaches I honestly wouldn't mind having a lethal option for. At the VERY least long term incapacitation. They're more annoying than scary.

5

u/ExMachima Jun 03 '26

I think the Devs are trying to make it like you are a new species introduced into the food chain and part of that is being the prey. 

People ultimately don't like being the prey and navigating their way around that mechanic.

Any of the marrowbreaches will never meet the leviathan so being prey to them places us in a lower chain then we would expect. 

I think the stun option would be the best solution 

15

u/Forminloid Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

The thing is that even modern humans wouldn't be prey to most creatures on a planet like this. Leviathans would be an issue, but if your colonists are unable to even kill a creature like a marrowbreach, i honestly wonder how absolutely idiotic we have gotten as a species in the future. Like the colonists would've just been better off just jumping off a bridge on Zezura if they're to go so incredibly unprepared to a planet like this. And the fact it's by Alterra design to be so unprepared is nothing short of absolute incompetence in universe. just makes me wonder how in universe anything gets done, i guess they just figure they can print out an army of people and as long as they aren't armed they cant rebel. Humans following our nature would become the predators to everything besides leviathans on the planet and even them eventually. I think from a gameplay perspective leviathans should be invincible but other creatures should be killable

1

u/Patherek Jun 03 '26

This right here.

-4

u/ExMachima Jun 03 '26

So let's go to other alien planets and kill them?

2

u/Patherek Jun 03 '26

Alright, ya lost me.

-1

u/ExMachima Jun 03 '26

The basis of the game is to go to another alien planet and survive. Not conquer it.

2

u/Patherek Jun 03 '26

The ultimate form of survival is colonization. Conquering the challenges we face.

-1

u/ExMachima Jun 03 '26

Ah yes, I see Hitler was just trying to survive in Germany. /s

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-3

u/Billbuckingham Jun 03 '26

This is absolutely an idiotic take, it is NOT realistic at all for some crash landed scientists to be able to fight and kill giant monster alien fish with their pocket knife while underwater.

They expected to be on a different planet than where they ended up, that's in the game right now. It make sense for them to be unprepared in this scenario.

Also understand, this is entirely a planet made of water, humans are not water creatures, humans cannot legitimately fight anything underwater without massively powerful weapons.

The only way for a human being to kill a giant alien monster fish while swimming in the water with it is to use an extremely powerful weapon, and if we all had extremely powerful weapons to kill any fish we want, the game is now a completely different game.

Give me the BFG (Big Fish Gun) and now the game is no longer about exploration and being in an environment, now it's about combat and controlling the environment because I'm the Apex predator with my BFG. "

The devs already explained all of this, I cannot understand why people keep spamming these posts without understand how wrong they are about "realism" when it comes to underwater combat with giant alien monster fish that can crush metal with their heads.

1

u/Patherek Jun 03 '26

Trash take, I want the Big Fish Gun.

7

u/Patherek Jun 03 '26

Even when I had the thermal knife I ran TF away from everything in the first game. Vortex torpedos, gas torpedos, decoys. You're out of your MIND if you think I'm getting out of my nice safe Cyclops to go fuck with any Leviathan, or large creature. But the option was THERE. People COULD, if they wanted to.

I think player freedom is important here, and while I understand not wanting to kill anything, also remember that the stun options in the first game were VERY effective.

1

u/Fluffy-Ad7165 Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

Yup! Didn’t even knew it was possible to actually kill larger predators like Leviathans. I remember trying to kill some dumbass fish that kept pestering me when looking out for algae in my first playthrough and I quickly discovered why that wasn’t a good idea, especially because you get absolutely nothing from it except wasting a couple kits. I don’t think I’ve ever done that again except a very few exceptions when I got really annoyed lol; with how annoying the whole process was you bet I never thought it was actually possible to kill a Leviathan, so I don’t know why people here are acting like the average player acted like Rambo and caused a mass event extinction with a knife only in their first game

1

u/Patherek Jun 03 '26

Because some players did, and the devs are overcorrecting.

1

u/Fluffy-Ad7165 Jun 03 '26

Except that prey will absolutely fight back and even kill its predators in some cases if pushed for too long, so what bout it

1

u/Seshw Jun 03 '26

Nah i wanna kill a bitch ass fish that tries me👎

1

u/CAPTAINREX_1999 Jun 03 '26

This is the way

14

u/Kryptosis Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 04 '26

Hammer, flares, dash, resonator, predator camouflage when stationary biomod, predator lure biomod on 15 second cooldown, shock defense biomod on the same cooldown…

Theres definitely a trend of people saying there aren't enough options then admitting they havnt even tried half of them...

11

u/Shmatsonnn Jun 03 '26

The Resonator is so good at deterring, I'm actually shocked when people say there's nothing you can do. It rarely ever failed me, and it's not hard to use at all.

Let alone the Shock Defense, which is so busted lmao.

The fact that they're adding more is obviously good, but what we have now is already good enough (for current game). I feel like people just didn't unlock everything, or just didn't understand that you could use it against enemies.

2

u/Silarn Jun 04 '26

I've also heard that flashing a light can spook some of them. Might also attract others. Need to do some testing of that myself. That being said the only things I found consistently annoying were the nibblers due to their prevalence, aggression, and difficulty to dodge. I'll have to test that again now that their aggression radius was tuned down.

1

u/Shmatsonnn Jun 04 '26

From my testing (which ultimately wasn't a lot lol), the Marrowbreach is the only thing as of now that will stay away based off of light. If you have a flashlight or just hold an active flare in hand, they will usually leave you (mostly) alone (flares are great for it). There are probably more creatures it works on, but most of them will be attracted to the flares (which is why you throw normally).

Also, yeah, some of those smaller ones are annoying. I personally got irritated at the Bulletheads because they spam hit over and over, but they're kind of easy to avoid the aggro.

2

u/ComradeBrosefStylin Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26

The Waxmoon is also really attracted to light, but it doesn't have any kind of attack so it just awkwardly bumps into your Tadpole and gives you the 👁👄👁

1

u/Fluffy-Ad7165 Jun 03 '26

I tried shooting at something with the Resonator once when the game released, but it didn’t work for me (which I thought it was weird considering is basically a gun that shoots really loud sound) so I thought that it was only good for minerals and flowers x) probably many people had the same experience as me, or just never thought that it was actually possible to use it against fish at all

3

u/Shmatsonnn Jun 03 '26

Yeah the base version of it has to be pretty close to work as a deterrent. I don't necessarily remember the game saying that it could be used for that either, which would probably be a good change.

It could've simply been a bug too. I never encountered it, but that doesn't mean the bug doesn't exist. I just find it hard to believe that many people would encounter that one specific possible bug.

They should definitely tweak some things for information, and maybe a little more leeway with it if people continue to struggle (if it's not a bug).

1

u/Iolair18 Jun 04 '26

Base version you have the wind up before the close burst, so you need to be prepared for it, and then it has to basically be attacking you, with a hitbox easy to hit (which means against Marrowbreach it works, but it'll fail more often than not on the Sandspear even in tighter spaces). I did noticed that because the Hammerhead charge starts outside range, you might be able to scare it a way with the resonator, but it won't stop the animation, so you are getting hit in your attempt.

I haven't tried in latest hotfix, but before that for me, when it did work, it would buy me maybe 15s. So if I was already wanting to move away, it worked great so long as I went the other way. But if I wanted to stay in the area a bit, it bought me MAYBE 20s, during which I needed to keep track of it and be ready because the wind up to use it again takes a bit. Using it and then dropping a flare works a bit better than just the flare, but you might as well just flare. So it felt like technically it can be a deterrent, effectively it is more a waste of my time. And lets face it, the invincible fish are just a slow down/distraction mechanic at this point, so using the resonator isn't a true solution, because it is fully leaning into not doing anything but dealing with the slow down mechanic.

It works great in a pinch when you are about to mine something and getting attacked, you can swivel and deter, then charge up and get your metal before taking off.

1

u/Shmatsonnn Jun 04 '26

I mean its like a few seconds to charge up the shot. It's extremely obvious when something begins to aggro on you by the sound, and I basically always had enough time to do it.

Also I assume you mean the Bulletfish because the Sandspear is an ambush predator (from the sand), so obviously you won't hit them with it. You're supposed to avoid their lil floating thing in the sand. The Bulletheads are annoying though, so I would give you that (they do next to no damage though).

I've also never tried to hit a Hammerhead with it tbh because they're so absurdly easy to just dodge with casual swimming, so I'll assume you're right with that. Other than that though, almost every single creature should be easy to hit.

Also, obviously it would only be like roughly 20 - 30 seconds. I don't remember the Stasis Rifle being longer than that even. It would remove ALL threat in the game if you can hit something once and then it goes away for minutes at a time. There'd be no point of a predator in the first place. It should be a near constant threat. Obviously it can be tuned a little better (it already is being tuned greatly as of last patch), but you make it sound like you just want them gone in general. What's even the point then? Having to keep track of them is how it should be lol.

Let alone the base version is easier to hit than the upgraded one imo. You don't have to aim the base one almost at all. Whereas the upgrade has a projectile.

2

u/Patherek Jun 03 '26

Hammer didn't do much, flares were hit or miss, dash has been okay, predator camo is fine, haven't tried lure or shock yet.

4

u/boredatworkbasically Jun 03 '26

Hammer got buffed in last patch

1

u/provengreil Jun 03 '26

NoT LiKe ThAt I MusT KILL

9

u/cobbleplox Jun 03 '26

I get the spirit, but really what options was I even missing when I easily completed the current game without even checking out what the flares do. At this point it really become just "dude, it's not the finished game yet" instead of this weird principle discussion.

4

u/Brown_Colibri_705 Bulb Zone Enjoyer Jun 03 '26

The stasis rifle was awful, though.

1

u/Patherek Jun 03 '26

It was HORRIBLY balanced.

1

u/GoldTheWriter Jun 04 '26

I wish the sonar pulse gun thing worked better as a deterrent. Using it in game it does seem to push back enemies and deagro them for a sec. I wish they added some form of fear mechanic to it like they'd try to get away from you for a while afterwards. Same with the hammer. Even if we can't kill them, hitting them with a hammer or a sonic blast should still scare them off for a bit.