explore the world to find beautiful/ useful places.when you find the hints were to go(mostly info of pdas you find) the game will tell you the way.make use of beacons they are extremely helpful.always carry some water and cured fish with you.some people carry an extra oxygen tank with them but make sure to fill it with air before going for a long dive trip.if you stay close to the wall its harder for leviathans or reaper to grab you/vehicle.I used a printed map(one without any hints on it,just biome names) to explore the biomes. maybe this is helpful for you too.if you have any other questions fell free to ask.

Another quick hint ---- if you find yourself becoming too paralyzed with fear when entering a new area, turn the sound down a bit. You don't want it down all the way because sound does give you early warnings on bad creatures. But taking some of the intensity of sound away may just give you the courage to make it to the next biome.

The radio messages have grouped segments with some kind of soft triggers so that things kinda follow the same flow but not precisely the same all the time, depending how you play. That's a complicated way of saying: It's good to explore around any area you find a lifepod. It doesn't handhold you, but it is a rough progression guide.

Some general tips are to watch lifeforms, including the big ones. They have behaviors and once you understand them, you can get along with them (to a degree). For instance, the leviathan that ate your seamoth, I can swim around with using a seaglide with completely safety (I can give you the strategy if you want but it's kinda fun to figure it out 'cause like everything else in the game, it's a world happening and you happen to be in it: it doesn't revolve around you).

Everything has a bit of a personality, and the more you play with things, the more interesting things you find (e.g., if you hold out a garyfish in your hand near a few peepers, the noise it makes will make the peepers curious and they'll swim right up to you; or just spend time watching stalkers interact with your seamoth while you're treading water a few meters away).

So if you want to be safe, watch how things act. And watch for their moods, especially if it's as big as you. Not everything is out to get you, not everything that nibbles wants to eat you, and know that you only need to kill something to eat it, everything else you can work around once you understand it -- unless it's bonesharks, then go full Dalek on those bastards.)

Once you learn that patience, and get used to thinking with the mind of the things around you, you'll have the flexibility to not just handle situations w/o panic (well, some panic, but you won't have to change your pants...often) but to feel confident in the strategy you use to learn the next critter and the next and the next.

Subnautica doesn't require that you follow the narrative or the beacons in any order. The best way to "organically" discover it is to play the radio messages when you get them, and -- in my opinion -- don't have more than 2 unvisited beacons active (which sometimes can be a couple of messages). FOR ME this keeps me in the story rather "in the game", but don't ever let that hold you back from just exploring. "Hey that looks cool" and "I wonder what that is" are the best ways to organically find your way, and the game has a lot of replay factor b/c of that.

#Dancing with Leviathans (a safety guide)

Not really spoilers but it's something you might want to learn on your own. But, in case you want a few hints...

>!Leviathans are fairly agile when they are swimming around but when they decide to attack, they have a charge behavior. When charging, they have a very limited ability to alter their course laterally, meaning they can't turn their head quickly. While free swimming you need good timing but with a seamoth or seaglide you only need to strafe a few meters and it will blow right past you.!<

>!* When traveling, strafe left/right, up/down as you travel. Switch every 3-4 seconds. This constantly keeps you moving out of any target zone it may line up on. (left-up-right-down is easy to remember and never has you do an up-down int harms way)!< >!* When scanning, strafe+turn to create a wide circle.!<

>!You will never get nibbled by a leviathan if you follow this routine, and it's 100% effective with a seaglide behind the Aurora scanning cyclops parts, gathering scrap, and looting equipment boxes.!<

>!* You can dance with leviathans by using a wide strafe-turn pattern, being sure to keep their angle to you at an oblique (so you may have to change depth or move forward to correct a shallow circle). The leviathan will do a few attacks and get frustrated -- ghosts are more persistent than reapers.!<

1. Mountain and the QEP.

2. Lifepod 19. Grab PDA that gives you a new waypoint.

3. Aurora Rendezvous Point. Find hidden PDA that gives you a new waypoint.

4. Proposed Base Location (250m). Find hidden PDA that gives you a new waypoint.

5. Dunes, Deep Sparse Reef, and Northern Bloodkelp. These are not necessary but recommended.

6. Proposed Base Location (500m)

7. To the Lost River, and beyond!

Order of exploration = shallowest to deepest

(Lost river, inactive lava zone, then active lava zone)

Look lime they have it covered but you should mark this as spoilers for those who haven't gotten this far and don't want spoilers

(Spoiler below)

If you have the seamoth and MK.3 depth module I would recommend exploring the lost river you can find an Alien Base down there and find the entrance to the inactive lava zone. Watch out for the ghost leviathans and bring plenty of beacons, food/water, and battery’s/power cells.

The fact that this game has no map is part of the intemded experience. I personally hope Subnautica2 won't have one either.

If you need guidance search Chemical Apes on Youtube. Dude is awesome in guiding.

Look at the clouds and you’ll see a change. One island is behind and a little to the left of the ship. One is in front and a little to the left. You’ll be fine. Stick the game out. Use a guide at any point don’t worry about spoilers too much. Follow a spoiler free guide.

If you face front of aurora, you will see a big cloud that doesn't move. That is one island. If you turn around, you will see a second big cloud, then doesn't move. That is the second island. More than that, I will not say😉

Here's what I do to find the islands: Go to the surface, and look closely at the sky near the water. Somewhere, there should be a lump of clouds. If the clouds are in front of the Aurora, it's the alien island. If they're behind the Aurora, it's the floating island. For just ocean exploration, I would recommend using an online map like https://subnauticamap.io and your compass. Up on the website is north, so you can use that to figure out orientation.

The sea moth is also good for this kind of stuff too. But the prawn suit is like intended for resource gathering

Would be nice if you could freelook downwards with the moth.

TIP PART 2: Beware of deep chasms. Especially with crab squid inside. You do not want to get caught in a hole with multiple crab squid after you.

I mainly spider-prawn everywhere I go as it is

personally i love the tree spires. i believe that’s what their called, they’re home to two chalicerates and a ventgarden and it is a phenomenal view. you cannot build inside of the ventgarden sadly, i tried.

For now, the starting area, twisty bridges, deep twisty bridges, bloodroot caves, the rocket island. The tree spires are unfinished but you can find ventgardens there. Also, explore the sea floor around the rocket island. You may find the entrance to some unfinished but... interesting areas ;)

If it's more than a couple minutes away, I just fly there in my ship and then call the Nautilon if I need it.

I did a baseless run similar to this, and what I did was just farm resources to build a ton of Beacons and Sensor Rooms and try to spread them out evenly or at various landmarks. Use the Beacon names to describe its location, and the Beacon distance indicator to space them evenly. Downloading a beacon mod would probably help simplify this process and improve how to keep track of them.

I'm actually currently doing exactly what you are tallikg about. I'm hardcore and I havent built radio but I have built a fuckton of beacons. Really becaons are gonna be your friend. Also expect to go on a lot of tangent explorations. I only used wiki once or twice to find a specific mod

Have you found the lost river? Major story parts there. You’ll need a few things though: depth mods on cyclops and prawn suit (items of interest are at 800m and 1200m deep roughly) to properly explore the place, you’ll also need a few of the purple tablets. To access stuff too

easiest way to say it without spoiling too much? go deeper.

Build a prawn suit and go explore the deep down dark deep down.

Build a prawn suit, get depth modules, take the prawn and the Cyclops down to the Lost River. Lots of story there.

Also, when you're ready to go even deeper, go to the Bulb Zone and search for the entrance

I've got a base at around 1300 and I've found a few planets that hit that depth, not seen anything at 1400 or 1500 or deeper

My deepest so far is 1494.3 units. Congrats these are fairly rare. My coldest was also a deep water world -164.5 °C.

I've been to dozens of purple systems and still never found a water planet. About the deepest I've gotten is 100 units. I've done the nautiloid missions too. Bad luck I think

I was happy to find a 1000u deep ocean planet for my deep-sea hydroponic NipNip operation. 1500 is crazy.