The Habitat Builder is the tool you're looking for. Check the fabricator for the recipe and you should be able to craft it right away.

You need to do some exploring for fragments. Once you unlock the multipurpose room, the large room will also unlock.

The fragments for the multipurpose room are located in the vicinity of the rendezvous point you should have in your PDA (which the location is acquired by going to the fallen life pods).

However, if you build the habitat tool, it comes with some base components that can function as a small temporary base. Hope this helps :)

Just get the habitat builder first. You can live out of a T compartment while you look for a multipurpose room to scan

Multipurpose room is on >!the floating island!<

In order to build a base you need to use the fabricator in your pod to make the Habitat Builder tool. The blueprint is already given to you when you start the game, and you just need to collect the materials for it:

• 2 Silver to make the Wiring Kit - silver is found in Sandstone outcrops (darker chunks of rock that you break), usually found in deeper caves in the Shallows or on cliff walls in the Kelp Forests or Grassy Plateaus.

• Copper and acid mushrooms to make a battery.

• Copper, gold, and table coral to make a processor. The table coral requires a knife, so you can cut it off the rock walls where it grows.

Initially your base will have to be just a platform and some combination of T, X, and I shaped tubes, with a hatch to enter and some solar panels on top, for power. Those tubes have straight walls on the inside, perfect for installing lockers on them, a fabricator, a radio, etc. It's very useful to have A LOT more storage space and to sort it by materials. You'll consume a lot of titanium, copper, quartz, etc. during the game, so you need the space for it.

For "specialized" rooms, the moonpool room lets you dock a vehicle inside, and it's quite important for actually progressing the game. The multipurpose room is more along the lines of "nice to have", as it offers more space, and the ability to install a bioreactor inside for more power. But you can get "more power" with just more solar panels, or a thermal plant once you find it.

Anyway, to find the blueprints for these rooms, you generally just have to follow the radio signals and "go investigate" wherever they lead you. Don't just go to the pod or location that called for help, also swim around a little bit and look for wreckage; big chunks that exploded off of Aurora and sank to the bottom of the sea. Some of these wrecks are big, and may have doors or corridors you can enter through, to scan blueprints inside.

You will need a Scanner device to scan blueprints. You may need a Repair tool to jury-rig some of the panels to open some of these doors. And you may need a Laser Cutter device to cut through some of the doors.

So the knife, scanner, flashlight, repair tool, etc., all of these are critical tools to build early in the game. Also the sea gets deeper, so don't forget to build high capacity oxygen tanks (breathe longer) and fins (swim faster).

Anyway, here's a low-spoiler map, just has the zone names. The central zones all the way to Grassy Plateaus have a lot of the basic materials and tools, and the Mushroom Forests will probably have the Moonpool.

Like I said, you'll get radio calls from various pods to come help them, and they'll be in these zones, so explore around once you've helped them.

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.

• 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.

Habitat builder + blueprints you will find + raw materials = Ability to build things

You need to make the habitat builder than it’s simple from there

Read the subreddit posts and look at the wiki walkthrough. If you’ve seen it in some of the posts then you clearly have the ability to go look up more info in the posts. I was a new user a couple of months ago and did exactly that.

You need a habitat builder. To craft one you need a wiring kit. To craft that you need 2 silver. At first you have very limited blueprints. But you can get more by scanning fragments at wrecks and at abandoned bases

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"

You can build multiple bases. I built mine near my pod in the safe shallows, and then moved it to a nearby grassy plateau when I realized my Cyclops wouldn't be able to get all that close. It really just depends on what you like to look at and be near.

It matters if you want to get some materials faster or get to specific biomes faster

No, and you can dismantle and rebuild your base in a new location.

Build your base 1400 meters down in the active lava zone. For the lulz.

It's mostly just personal preference.

Early in the game I will build a small starter base in or near the safe shallows to give me a place to store all the resources I gather.

As I start being able to go further out, my favorite place to build my primary base in a spot on the edge of the safe shallows near a thermal vent and close to the jellyshroom caves. This spot gives me access to both solar and thermal power to keep a larger base running and a deeper area next to the base where I can park my cyclops and build my moon pools for the seamoth/prawn.

As I go into some of the deeper areas to explore I will build small base to act as outpost so I don't have to make frequent trips back to my primary base.

Took a while, but I found an ocean planet where I could put my base at the boundary between the deep water biome and the more shallow one - both very pretty. This also allows for a surface landing pad.

After mapping resources, my base is situated so it extracts lithium, quartzite, and oxygen with everything powered by EM generators. To do this, the base computer sits alone at a spot where extending the base boundary allowed for all those resources to be within 950u. The base building itself is placed for the view within that radius.

https://preview.redd.it/naftap1g9g4f1.png?width=3440&format=png&auto=webp&s=669de15ddf4c51b8085d0b3db87a2d1991f38134

I got a couple. Like with almost anything in NMS, half the point is just for shits and giggles, and I find the aesthetic of underwater bases have a certain kind of charm. A kind of calm beneath the waves?

Anyways, they can't do anything that an above-water base can't also do, but I still made quite a couple of them, especially when there'd be both a gas cloud and mineral mining nearby. I have one as my dedicated oxygen producer for that save, one producing nitrogen on a paradise planet, and one as my Activated Quartzite generator on a purple system.

I went a little wild with them on the fishing update. When fishing was introduced, I found it pretty viable to create one just beneath the waves where I could 'aim' my fishing rod upwards to the surface of the water for 'underwater fishing'.

But mostly? I think they're just neat.

https://preview.redd.it/m4183gl6hg4f1.jpeg?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=474b598da52e899dcec07f08ba1d7a8a9764ad1c

Interia cube rooms can be connected to underwater corridors without flooding when completely submerged , Remember to set up nautilus submarine spawning station above the base on water surface and second under water for easy access , If you have ship landing pad your space ship will still spawn under water when teleporting back to base.

I have found a portal underwater 1200+ down. Made a base at it. Was kinda surprised when I found it. Didn't think a portal would be under water.

https://preview.redd.it/gcbypob3ug4f1.jpeg?width=4032&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8e604f87cba3ab6b645c8fca4cd903aebbc505e4

I haven't built many underwear basses, but I'll take a crack at this. First, consider using electromagnetic generators as your power supply. After that, try assembling a small base using underwater prefabs. From there, you can expand outwards. You might not want to build too deep either. That'll let you build a landing pad for your ship, so it doesn't spawn underwater when you use your teleporter.

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

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

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

follow the waypoints you are given and you'll find the blueprints you need

Two ways:

1:Go to twisty bridges and find the single base piece, you will find a habitate builder there.

2: go to top of rocket island and find the Habitate builder there also

Note you can only do initial pieces, you need to scan the large rooms, and the smaller rooms also. So explore and scan everything new you find