GAMING
Loading
At the end of Session 03, we had learned our second word. FOOD.
So this time, we packed lunch.
Mr.Pendragon checked before we left. I had quite a lot of food. So did he. For once, we were prepared.
The plan was a modest one. We would take enough materials out to the Collector Leviathan's side of the map to build a small base, put a window in it so we could watch the thing and figure out how to get over to the rocky spire structures we saw previously, and maybe add a biobed so we could stop rushing back to Jenny every time something went wrong.
We did build the base. It even has a window.
We had not planned for the Collector Leviathan to have plans of its own.
Session 04 began the way most of our sessions begin, with the two of us counting titanium.
We needed a few more than we had. Four. Then six. Then eight.
Mr.Pendragon summed up our relationship with titanium better than I can. We can never find it when we need it.
The Scout Ray Chassis we found in Session 03 needs Strong Acid, and Strong Acid needs Necrolei Buds.
Neither of us could remember where we had seen them.
After some discussion about where we had actually been, we came to the conclusion that the map is, at the moment, more or less a big circle. We eventually found the buds out past the Angel Comb, looking a bit like cabbages.
On the way, titanium, which we can never find when we need it, suddenly turned up everywhere. Mr.Pendragon described this more colourfully than I am going to.
I also got hammerheaded, which naturally happened at the one moment nobody was recording.
Back at Jenny, the buds were worth the trip. Somehow we found an Advanced Wiring Kit in our posession, one of us must have picked it up somewhere. It needs gold. We don't have any gold, so we definitely didnt make it ourselves. After acquiring a Dedicated Core and a System Chip,we then worked out that we needed rather more wiring kits than we could currently make. Once again the Scout Ray Chassis would have to wait.
We also sorted out the lighting. Mr.Pendragon asked why the room had gone so dark. I asked whether he would like it to be brighter. He would. The new lights bounce off the walls, which was a pleasant surprise.
Then we packed for the trip: titanium for the build, glass for the windows, some power, a medkit, water and food. Mostly food. We have learned.
By the end neither of us had room to carry anything else.
We also set off in a Tadpole on 78% health, which is always a good way to start a journey. Mr.Pendragon likes to live on that side of danger. I made sure he had the repair tool.
Before we left, Mr.Pendragon made a prediction. Every time he goes out there, he feels like something is going to eat him. After the clam in Session 03, it is not a question of if. It is a question of when.
I would like to say he was being dramatic, however it turns out he was right. More on that below.
The route out means keeping to the side and not going too high, so the Collector Leviathan doesn't get you.
The last time we came out this way, it had been night-time.
On the way, we decided to find out what happens if you go into the out-of-bounds area, past the red boundary wall. I would record. Mr.Pendragon would be the bait.
Within seconds, the Shiver Leviathan guarding that area came for him and wrapped its jaws around his Tadpole.
Mr.Pendragon was not recording at the time, which he regretted, because from his side it apparently looked quite something before it went dark. I will have to take his word for it.
It cost us a Tadpole we were not getting back.
We did find it quite amusing. Which is just as well, because it was only the start of a session in which quite a lot of things were going to want to eat us.
And, well, I was recording, so I did get footage of him being eaten. You can view the clip on YouTube below:
At the end of Session 03, somebody said "Leviathan" and there was nothing there.
This time there was.
What we had really come out here for were the rocky, tower-like structures we had seen across the canyon last time. The idea was to take a proper look at them, and to build another base near where the Collector Leviathan hangs out, so we would have somewhere to regroup.
I decided the quickest way over was straight across the canyon.
The Collector Leviathan chased me the whole way.
I raced for the rock structures, but every bit of shelter over there was below 250 metres, which is deeper than the Tadpole can safely go. There was no escaping it.
So I stopped trying to escape it. I danced the Tadpole around the rock structures and kept it facing the Leviathan, so that it stayed on camera. Its markings were glowing purple. Neither of us knew what that meant. We assumed nothing good.
It was a choice between running and filming. I chose filming. You can view that clip on YouTube below too:
Then I tried to make it back across to Mr.Pendragon on the other side.
The Collector Leviathan tried to eat me, and threw my Tadpole about 200 metres for good measure.
That made it one each. I however, made it back to safely, just.
On top of all that, there was a Marrowbreach hanging about as well. I recognised it as the one that broke my Tadpole and killed me in Session 03, shortly before I died of starvation.
I just about get rescued and am then almost killed again by the same Marrowbreach from before.
We still needed somewhere to build.
Our first choice was a ledge with a good view. The game told us that part of the world is under construction and would not let us build on it. We were not near the red boundary wall so not sure why you cannot build everywhere yet in the hot zone area where the Collector Leviathan hangs out.
To the side a little, it let us. We put the base as high up as we could, somewhere we could see the Collector Leviathan swim back and forth past us.
Then we realised nobody had thought about a hatch which meant our materials calculations were short.
We sorted that out, got the power connected and heard the base announce that all systems were online. The windows went in, along with a biobed, some storage and a scanner platform.
Leaving the building meant swimming out with the Leviathan roaring somewhere nearby. Mr.Pendragon said it gave him goosebumps. He hates it.
He also decided I should drive from then on, because I am better at navigating. I am choosing to take that as a compliment too.
The Jelly Rings from Session 03 live out here too, in the hot zone near the Collector Leviathan.
Last time, one of them started pulsing and closed up behind me as I went through the middle of it. This time I wanted that on camera, so I drove straight through one.
It did nothing. Not a single pulse. Boring.
Then we found something far more interesting. One of the Jelly Rings was sitting over a lava vent, as if it were stuck there. It looked exactly as though a child had thrown it over the vent in a game of ring toss.
We got a screenshot.
The new base needed a name.
There was an opening at the end of a current in that area where - if you were not paying attention - you would end up straight into the Collector Leviathan's jaws. From there, the name more or less wrote itself.
Belly of the Beast.
BOTB for short. Mr.Pendragon liked it immediately.
Jenny got her name from too many Forrest Gump references. BOTB got hers from being next door to a Leviathan. I think both are fair.
With the base built, somebody needed oxygen.
"OXYGEN!"
Mr.Pendragon wanted to know whether I had learned my lesson. I had not. Definitely not.
I was running low on food as well. Fortunately, we had packed lunch.
Our new scanner platform picked up Celestine across at the rocky spire / tower structures. Which is, of course, right where I almost got eaten.
We decided to build a tunnel towards it and see what the Collector Leviathan thought of that. If it ignored the tunnel, we had a way across.
It ignored the tunnel.
Mostly. At one point the whole building shook. I could see the Leviathan through a window, and as far as we could tell it was blasting us with some sort of sound wave. Then it went out of view, and the tunnel was still there.
It is a long tunnel. We ran out of quartz for windows along it, and outside it is pitch black, at night, so you cannot see very much from inside anyway.
I did go out for a look. At about 160 metres out, I found some food, which I could not go after, because I would have been eaten.
A long tunnel needs a lot of titanium, so we spent a good while out gathering more, topping up on water from the Water Slugs as we went.
On one of those runs, we found salt.
We had gone out looking for it in Session 03 without any luck, so this was a welcome find. Salt means decent food, and a few other recipes need it too.
We can both build at the same time too, which was satisfying. building pieces go up remarkably fast when you ar eboth using the building tool.
Out here, getting a Tadpole in and out of the water was a problem, so we built a room with a moonpool in it. Pop down, pop back in again. Simple. Or was it?
The moonpool was at the end of our very long tunnel stretching across the canyon. We needed to get the tadpole there without the Collector Leviathan noticing.
I tried driving it behind the tunnel, out of it's eyeline. It worked. I made it to the moon pool.
But, just as I swung down to pop up in the moon pool, where Mr.Pendragon was waiting to welcome me back and celebrate, I was spotted.
The Collector Leviathan then came and took our last Tadpole and started throwing it around.
It was his now.
Up until then, I don't think he knew we were there. Now he did. It seemed like a good idea at the time.
It was then almost 200 metres away. I will admit that part was quite funny.
Mr.Pendragon did briefly consider going out to fight it. He thought about it. That is as far as it got.
You can check out a clip from the session showing what actually happened below.
For a while after that, it kept coming back. At one point it looked to be clipping through the wall. It knew exactly where we were.
We have a theory. It might be the Tadpoles it is drawn to, not us. Given that it had just ignored a whole tunnel while we were running up and down it and extending it further out, it's not a bad theory. We have no way of proving it yet.
We took the moonpool back out again. It wasn't needed considering we just lost three Tadpoles and had no way of replacing them yet at BOTB.
Meanwhile, our inventories were full, because nothing stacks in this game, so the next thing we built was some storage.
We already knew about the Dive Elevator. The game describes it as an "Underwater elevator. Ideal for establishing work sites."
This looked like a good place to find out what it actually does. We needed a quick way down to the bottom of this canyon that did not involve the Collector Leviathan eating us, and did not involve the Tadpoles, partly because they cannot go that deep, and partly because the Leviathan seems far more interested in them than in us.
As far as we can work out, you grab hold of it and it zooms you straight down. Mr.Pendragon's plan was to put another base at the bottom with oxygen in it. I liked that plan.
There is one catch with building downwards. As far as I can tell, ladders only go up, so the way down would be to place room, build a hatch and then build the ladder up to the room above, take the hatch away and repeat for the next room below.
We had also run out of titanium, so none of that was happening tonight.
A few things worth knowing if you are planning to build near it yourself.
It left our tunnel alone, but it did not leave the Tadpoles alone. If you are building near it, it may be worth leaving the Tadpole somewhere else until the base is up.
Do not count on shelter. Around the rock structures, everything that might hide you sits below 250 metres, deeper than the Tadpole can safely go.
So where did that leave us?
In a nice new base with a view of the Collector Leviathan. With no Tadpole we could reach.
There were two ways forward. Build down with hatches and ladders, or use the Dive Elevator, if it does what we think it does, and put a base at the bottom with oxygen in it. Both need materials we did not have, and the Strong Acid also means going back for more Necrolei Buds.
Jenny is about 900 metres away.
That is going to be a long swim.
We checked supplies. We have loads of water.
We have no food.
We called it there so we could regroup.
For a session in which both of us nearly got eaten, Session 04 got a surprising amount done.
We found Necrolei Buds, made Strong Acid, a Dedicated Core and a System Chip, even though we still hadn't managed to built a Scout Ray Chassis. We built Belly of the Beast next door to the Collector Leviathan, with a biobed, storage and a scanner platform. We ran a tunnel towards the rocky towers, found the salt we needed earlier and found a Jelly Ring playing ring toss over a lava vent.
We also fed Mr.Pendragon to the Shiver Leviathan - I mean I did - guarding the red boundary wall, almost fed myself to the Collector Leviathan, lost more Tadpoles than we would like to admit, and are now about 900 metres from home.
I'd call that a successful session. Technically.
Session 05 starts where this one stopped. We need to get back to Jenny, pick up more Necrolei Buds, find enough titanium to try the Dive Elevator and, at some point, get our Tadpoles back off the Leviathan, if that is even remotely possible. Otherwise, we need to build more, again.
Session 01 taught us OXYGEN.
Session 03 taught us FOOD.
Session 04 was mostly revision.
At least we have loads of water.
We go back to Jenny for two new Tadpoles, build a moonpool at BOTB Gateway, and explore a research outpost before revisiting the observatory. There are blueprints to scan, biomods to try, and a useful discovery: charging two vehicles leaves very little power for dinner.
Read More
Session 06 rebuilds our tunnel to the previously discovered Gateway Spire. The game stole our titanium and throws DancingCoder into the path of the Collector Leviathan. We get lost in a hot cave & explore a new biome.
Read More
Session 05 was meant to be the long swim back to Jenny. We never set off. Instead we watch the Collector Leviathan play with our Tadpoles, dive deeper into the canyon, discover a Gateway Spire, then drown in a cave hunting for two bits of copper.
Read More
Session 03 starts with Mr.Pendragon inside a giant clam and ends with a death by starvation. In between, we reach the Tadpole Pens, go down into the Graveyard Caves, fix Jenny's power, find a face in a rock and crash into our SEED logo for a second time.
Read More
In Subnautica 2 Session 02, our room block idea from the previous session becomes something rather more ambitious: a giant floating SEED logo. Built beside our cliff-edge base, Jenny, the logo pays tribute to the game that inspired AnvilGaming. We also expand Jenny, add a viewing platform, move the moonpool, build two Tadpoles and attempt an underwater fly-by, with the usual amount of accidental crashing.
Read More
In our first AnvilPlays session of Subnautica 2, we race through the early objectives, build our cliff edge base before reaching Camp One. There are resources to gather, alien creatures to investigate, a surprisingly effective face-chomping and several completely avoidable deaths caused by forgetting that oxygen is rather important underwater.
Read More
