You should build a base in the lost river. That way, you have a safe place nearby to help you feel safer about exploring. Plus, it has great spots for thermal plants.

You could make the moonpool your whole main base if you wanted and just put all your lockers, fabricator and stuff on the walls in it. The only thing you can’t put in there and would need a large room for is a Bio or Nuclear Reactor if you were using that for power, or an Alien Containment if you wanted an aquarium for feeshies. If you’re using solar or thermal power you can just put everything in the moonpool if you wanted. You could also have a few corridors on the moonpool walls to give yourself additional room for storage or whatever else.

Ok so start by building out foundation maybe 6 to 8 to make a big enough space then go from there . Start with the X Compartment  and do 1 multipurpose room, 1 for the scanner and 1 for your moon pool

play it in the creation mode. explore at your rythm. no death, no oxygen, no food.

this helped me with my thalassophobia. just don't forget about the oxygen when retuning in normal mode

I HIGHLY recommend going into Creative and playing around with base construction in the different areas you want to build in. Not only does it help you get a visual of what you want without having to worry about oxygen or battery/material consumption, you can also get used to being in whatever biome you choose and find ways to navigate around all our aquatic "friends"

I usually just make a cyclops into my base.

I normally build in the sw grassy plateaus or the nw mushroom forest

Edge of the BK Trench is my favorite spot.

Very easy access to all resources. Lost River and thermal power nearby.

Just… don’t go too far north.

Blood kelp trench (option 3) ftw

I’ve built at spot 2! Near the blood Kelp and those two mountains near the floating islands is a good outpost imo, but I struggled with materials a small bit. My main base was elsewhere. The locals are nice, you’re not far from the shallows, not far from the deep end.

It’s a good spot for later game play with quick access to relevant areas. >!The cyclops has a path into the LR!< near that area, but I’ve never personally >!driven my cyclops into the lost river through that tunnel thanks to the Friend outside it!<

I used to build in the safe shallows for base 1, but I've shifted to the entrance to the jellyshroom caves recently. Close to the beginning zone for resources, but you dont have to make an expedition for the jellyshroom resources.

Second base is usually at the lifepod in the bulb area. Thermal vent nearby for all your power needs,, and an entrance to the next tier down isnt that far away.

Mid/late game has to be the cove tree. It bridges the Lost River and deeper end game areas. It's a perfect depth to use the seamoth for one half and prawn suit for the other. It's scenic and surrounded by passive mobs. I almost exclusively build there when I have progressed far enough.

That spot is where I pretty much accidentally built my first base in my first playthrough before moving to a much worse location

Still cant really believe that I'd set up at one of the best starter base locations, by complete chance. I just wanted to build sort of near the lifepod

I think that objectively the best place for building the main base is the South-western grassy plateaus.

Reasons:

- Can use light as energy source in early game.

- Relatively safe place, sand sharks and biters are a joke.

- Very close to kelp forest, Jellysroom cave, sparse reef, blood kelp trench and sea trader's path. All are zones with valuable resources and even a entrance to the lost river in the blood kelp trench.

- Not too far away from the center of the map, so nothing is too far away.

The only drawback is the pressence of the reefback leviathans which are too noisy, haha.

My first base was right next to gasopods at the very edge of Safe Shallows. I liked the spot a lot. Close to the center of the map, lots of sunlight, lots of resources, chill, and shallow enough to have solar panels above the surface.

My other base was by the Great Cove Tree at around 900m and it was priceless for the endgame.

I put mine in the red grassy area next to the Jellyshroom caves. It's a reasonable distance from the starter area, kelp forest, and blood kelp forest. The Jellyshroom caves are loaded with magnetite, too. And they're pretty :)

There is a thermal vent off to the right of the aurora. It’s close to the escape pod at the beginning of the game. I built a grain silo type base right in the middle of the vent, and a moon pool off to the side. It’s probably like 200m away max from the escape pod. Great early base, and it’s near a lot of late game stuff if you know where the deep entrances are.

But also, multiple bases works. And the big submarine is excellent.

I always build my first base right at the escape pod. Then I build mini bases the deeper I go.

My favorite spot down below is at the gargantuan leviathan skeleton, it’s kind of a cross roads where you can go anywhere down there.

Bulb zone is pretty good for many different resources.

Jellyshroom caves for specialist resources like Magnetite and Lithium

Subnautica is the only survival game that has ever gotten underwater base building right imo. I don’t know how they would do it in Rust but it would be fun. I wish we had more reasons to go into the ocean.

Underwater free building would be really hard to implement in a way that doesn’t just result in a bunch of underwater bunkers 6 grids off the map.

What would be really cool IMO and a bit more realistic is some sort of prebaked geometry with buildable areas, basically how caves work.   Just instead of a big silo cave or whatever it’s some mega-underwater labs-style structure that has big halls and silos that the player can build in. 

Ya vac bases are pretty lame, spent hours on tusos looking for bitches that decided to build and maintain them.

Usually I make bases on the far mushroom forest near the kelp forest because it has lots of resources and fragments and has a good way in the lost river in the blood kelp forest and it's super safe at least until you get near the dunes or the far blood kelp

If you find one of the entrances to the lost river those are good mid game places that usually have a few dangerous creatures

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Popular one is by the cove tree. Very scenic. Lots of resources available.

If you want to look at danger, maybe somewhere on the east side of Gun Island.

I built my base at the border between the Grassy Plateau and Floating Islands, and right near the drop-down to the Blood Kelp Trench, which leads to the Lost River.

Grassy Plateau has many materials. Not only with Outcrops, but has titanium, fragments, entrance to the Jellyshrooms, and the legendary Sea Crown.

Dunes, while less resource-full, have wrecks with good fragments. And actually not as dangerous as some people say. Just stay close to the seabed.

The Blood Kelp is obvious. For the Lost River entrance. But I also use the Blood Oil as bioreactor fuel. That’s why I built my base there.

Or you could just go vanilla and make one at the Shallows

You need the "Habitat Builder" tool. It lets you build structures and most things in your base. Unsure where you find the recipe.

The “Habitat Builder” is one of the blueprints you start the game with. You make it in the fabricator. It’s one of the more complex recipes for early-game, though.

You have to build the Habitat Builder tool. After that you use the tool to place base components with the resources in your inventory.

Simplest base to start I think is a foundation with a multipurpose room on top, plus hatch to get in and out.

Upgrading items is done by building the modification station in your habitat.

Spend less time on building a base right now, and more time looking for wreckages and things to scan in the world.

There are many blueprints that will make building much, much easier, and they are only found by scanning parts or wreckages. If you need more storage space, just build a couple tubes in a line and fill them with storage and essentials, to act as a storage unit.

You said "life pod". If that's what you meant, then you should know that you can't add or build onto the starter life pod. You need to find and scan other base parts (like the basic room or large room) and build a base from that.

Try building in the red grass biome, its open its beautiful its safe, all you need is a tube a hatch and a solar panel and you are ready to go

There’s a base piece you can find and scan that makes building much better. Pretty rough to do much of anything when you just have the tubes

Keep it simple. Don’t overthink stuff. A simple base is a happy base.

• with a hatch on the underside and some solar panels on top will last you for a bit. Build some wall lockers and a fabricator and a radio and whatever else on the walls. Follow thru the story normally following the locations you get from the radio and the PDAs and make sure you explore the surrounding areas thoroughly and Scan Everything and by the time you have a need for the bigger rooms you’ll have found the blueprints for them.

You don't need the big rooms to make a starter base, almost everything can be built in the corridors

The first base I ever built was a 4-way with a hatch. It's all I needed for a while.

You have to scan the structures first in order to be able to build them. Explore the map to find them, or just follow the storyline and it will eventually lead you to them.