I usually had it disappear when I
wasn't on the Cyclops, personally. Eventually it stopped.
Anyways.
I don't know what this means, but I'm pretty sure it should worry me.
I located this wreck, on the edge of Grand Reef, and deployed a beacon to mark its location. It's below the 200m maximum depth of my Seamoth, but visible from there, so I can use the Seamoth to transport to site and as a waystation below the surface, and use the Seaglide as propulsion to reach the wreck. There are a couple of things to take care of first, though.
Such as it being moving day. With the addition of the Multipurpose Room to my base, I can now finally, truly, move in. (Also pictured: my front door.)
I've set up a battery recharger and a fabricator in my base. I've not yet added a medikit fabricator, but I already had all my materials storage down here, and also enough medikits to do emergency triage on the whole crew of the Aurora. I am no longer dependent on Lifepod 5 to support my presence on this planet; instead I have made from my own hands the ability to survive here.
It's a surprisingly understated achievement. I don't feel as though I am conquering my environment, exactly.
I am, don't get me wrong. I've bent this planet to my will in a significant way by finally creating a base able to do everything I need. This is one of the larger milestones of the game in retrospect. At the time though? It was just part of the push to go deeper, significance lost in preparing to breach the 200m barrier.
One of the first things to do before entering a wreck, which I haven't touched on much, is figuring out how the **** you get in. This is not always trivial and I actually missed it on this one for almost a minute as I circled above and looked at different angles. Here you can spot the accessway I used for entry as a slightly darker area illuminated by the Seamoth's floodlights. (Curiously, they're the most powerful in the game, far exceeding the spotlights on the PRAWN or Cyclops.)
And then we take the plunge. The Seaglide does not operate at full efficiency below 200m, with the engine periodically seizing and kicking back in. This made for some unwelcome moments regarding my O
2 level, but in general I gave myself 45 seconds safety reserve to return to the Seamoth, which was enough.
Moonpool fragments. This is for the room I'd dock my Seamoth in for recharge and storage, rather than just leaving it hanging around outside the base.
Here at 244 meters there's a side room, with exosuit grappling arm bits. Well, that's half of what I need to make PRAWN Lagann. There's also a door that can be cut through, which I'm not going to open, having not yet explored the rest of the wreck.
Well. This is new. The wreck has an area of open sea under it. The world Scuba record is something like 331 meters. I'm getting awful close. That green crystal there? Unranite. I didn't pick any up, but there was also Aluminum Oxide around, which as I recall goes into PRAWN manufacture, so I grabbed a bunch.
An ascent to the Seamoth after that. You want to know what those things holding the big balls are?
I have no idea. I can't scan them!
There are actually two doors, one on the floor and one the ceiling of that sideroom. Note the difference of four meters in depth.
Jackpot.
Not sure what a Scanner Room does. I'll have to build one.
When I've been out on a deep water foray for days, whether in Seamoth or Cyclops, and it's time to return to base, my first act is always to reach the surface before I set course for home. It has navigational advantages, there's a lot less to run into up there and it's easier to spot the Lifepod 5 beacon which acts as the most convenient waypoint to my base, and safety ones, there's usually nothing nasty up there either. But I think it's mostly psychological; I am not a creature of the sea, but of the air, and without a reason to hold me to the depths to the air I return.
Helm, we're done here. Full ascent.
Fun fact: at a full ascent, given some run-up, it's quite possible to "leap" the Seamoth fully out of the water and several meters into the air. I don't know if this has any practical use (last-ditch Reaper avoidance?) but you can do it.
Set course for home.
Then I got sidetracked on the way home by going to visit my buddies the Reefbacks.
Things I saw on the way back; I finally bothered to scan one of these things.
This planet was not always flooded. I present evidence:
Over near the
Aurora, and...uh?
Well. That's the only other Lifepod besides 5 that actually
floated, so points for effort?
Interesting tidbit: there was a Reaper Leviathan near Lifepod 4. I fled in the direction of this pod of Reefbacks. It pursued me for several hundred meters...and broke off when I approached the Reefbacks. I'm told Leviathans will actually chase you all the way across the map in some cases. The Reefbacks really do mean safety.
Loot. Note that I've actually exchanged my radsuit helmet for a special rebreather one; you take a penalty to oxygen consumption below 200m without use of a rebreather.
Dawn out front of the seabase.
There's that weird hole in the ground again, not sure what's up with that...
I burned three batteries on the Seaglide while I was down there. The thing is murder on your battery supply. None are fully drained because I switched out around 20% battery, not wanting to find myself with a dead Seaglide on an ascent to the Seamoth while running out of oxygen.