I think you underestimate things in the game that aren’t physical space. In terms of crafting, story, biome diversity, discoveries, logs, and flora/fauna documentation…. The remaining game after the lost river is reskinned fauna, lizards, kyanite, a two short alien facilities, sea dragons, and…. Yeah. It’s a lot of open space. But not much there to do or explore.

If 1 is early game, 3 is mid game, and 5 is late game, it’s about 4 on that scale. Kind of that transition from mid to late game in my opinion

Late game. People who say mid game are bonkers. There is like…. 5% of the game’s content after Lost River. It’s cool content. But it’s still very speedable. No voice logs. No pdas. No survivors.

No one else got as deep as you.

Late game.

It might be middling in how much more you're going to keep playing, but by the time you've explored the River you've already found most of the tools you can play with.

1 Is the shallows, kelp forest, and grassy plateau, 2 are things like the jelly caves, mushroom forests, and aurora, 3 are the other areas around the map you explore, 4 is lost river and finishing the deeper parts of the other areas, and 5 are the lava zones

in my opinion anyway

Yeah, the last two biomes are pretty big. Unless you've memorized the layout of the ILZ you could take a bit to make your way through.

bro that’s what i’m saying, that thought just makes the lost river that much cooler

By the time you have to go to the lost river, you should have the blueprints. There are some resources like nickel and, farther down, kyanite. But you should have the blueprints already. Keep exploring the areas you can reach. To recharge the Cyclops, you need to recharge its energy cells with a charger. You need blueprints for that.

there are no fragments in the lost river or deeper

Have you built a moon pool?  While people love to build extravagant bases, mine consisted of 2 rooms.  You will need some kind of base, but it doesn’t need ti be fancy.

All of the Aurora wreckage and fragments lands in places consistent with landing in the water and sinking to the bottom (perhaps rolling into a cave). If you want to find that wreckage, you'll have to go far and wide, not deep.

Just to clarify. When you say you cannot recharge Cyclops, while there is a module for charging, the materials can only be found much deeper. You have to rely on power cell chargers until you get that.

If you don’t have the blueprint for power cell chargers you should go find it. If you don’t have the materials for a power cell charger you should go find them.

The entrance by cto Yu's lifepod(2?). Hug the left wall of the cave and take the waterfall down.

I find the grand reef one easiest but that's the only entrance I know how to get to so..

Big hole between bulb zone and mountain biome.

Blood kelp trench.

Head west south west from the safe shallows until you find the blood kelp area. Follow that trench to the western entrance.

There’s a Blood Kelp zone north-northwest of your life pod, it borders the Dunes and a Mushroom Forest. It has a deep hole that’s bottom leads directly into the Lost River.

There's an entrance very close to the Degassi sea base nearest the Floating Island. Pretty much just find that and then keep going deeper. Other than that, there's always coordinates, since you've already been checking out spoilers. This map is spoiler-licious, but it's also super handy: https://subnauticamap.io/

About 1km north from your life pod, you're in the right spot when you passed a grassy plateau going down to a blood kelp zone. Room enough to get the cyclops thru (though it's a bit tricky to navigate through the "forest" to get deeper). There's also a venting system on a rock peak nearby (entrance is down the left flank, life pod in your back).

There's one directly south of lifepod 2

Underwater. You're always going to be going deep to get to the Lost River. I first found it right after finding the Degassi Seabase while searching for gelsacks.

Blood kelp entrance is lovely once you kill the ghost leviathan in there

Tbh, I'm kinda confused by your reference of "open grand reef" being separate from "deep grand reef"? The grand reef and deep grand reef have the same entrance, and it's in the deep grand reef. There's only 4 entrances: dgr, bkt, nbkf, and mc(bulb zone).

I’ve used the Blood Kelp entrance because if you stick to the left side of the cavern you can avoid dealing with the Ghost and it’s closer to the Giant cove Tree entrance down into the inactive lava zone.

Tbh I've used that as my main entrance a few times and only ever seen it once in a previous run. Latest run it was the only one I used, and I didn't see it at all, and the baby in the entrance there disappeared after I played leviathan rodeo for a bit.

I only use the one under the floating island, because it saves me a beacon

Preference originally was near the last lifepod where I think most of us first find lost river.

Now, it just depends on where I am in the game. After a certain point when I have most of the schematics unlocked, I’m looking for homestead locations and I’m probably not coming back up for air until time to go.

Or…. Until I run out of brain corral.

One in the blood kelp and one in the Grand reef. I prefer the one in the blood kelp it’s by the life pod that can be found in the blood kelp.

Theres also one in the bulb zone but the blood kelp entrance is the best for nickel

To partially avoid spoilers, I will give advice in the form of riddles.

> Where can you get both reaped and shocked?

> Spheres, Squids, and Seabases

> An open wound that breaks the skin

> Are squids hematophobic?

Hope this helps!

The entrances to lost river are in both blood kelp zones the deep grand reef and the bulb zone

lukewarm ngl, I think the lack of darkness makes the lost river lose its scare factor.

You shouldn't be able to kill or stasis leviathans

Also, Ben prunty is the best composer by leaps and bounds, and as long as subnautica 2 doesn't use AI for anything, and keeps him as the composer... It will probably be worth it.

Ya, one of the coolest areas ever, the juxtaposition of the blood kelp right before makes it even better.

This is SUPER important to me. Seriously. Its like the game design was at odds with itself. You can't build everything until just before the point where you no longer need it. I often find myself wishing the designers would have allowed me to build early and the base hub and cyclops become a longer part of the game. I get why they did it: You don't spend time in the water as much once you get the cyclops, which changes the experience from fear of the unknown to fear of hitting things.

I think the solution is this: make exploring more rewarding. That way if you are enjoying your base building you don't get done just as you finish the game. "side content" and DLC where there is another story that starts from your base would be fun.
Also:
Why didn't people like the sea truck? Cyclops is largely a mobile base. Customize! Among other things. I liked the seatruck but didn't like "trucking" back and forth and HATED the warp box implementation.

If not more. Base building/housekeeping are fun as hell and I like the seatruck/module idea.

I also like having all the stuff to do on land. I do wish there were reasons to HAVE to build a terrestrial base, and that the prawn suit didn't make the land-based stuff so easy.

I'd say it was on track to be a very good game. Now post-Krapton takeover? Not so sure. Part of the magic of the subnautica series was that the leadership knew how to do early access. The suit's propaganda appears to suggest that they are unfamiliar with the concept of early access.

Best case scenario: Subnautica 2 is fun, and this is the beginning of the end of UW and the IP.

Worst-case scenario: This is the end. At least we will always have Subnautica, on mobile, even!

Either way, the crown is going to be there for the taking for Subnautica's "spiritual successor".

Its always my deep base build spot. I build just outside of the waterfall. I use a large room and then at the end I throw an observation room with a bed in it s I can watch the ghostie swim around.

plus it adds a bit of danger to build right net to that ghostie.

Stasis rifle can be found on the main island

I recomend bringing a melon farm or ALOT of water, as far as I know theres no source of it down there, also extra Cyclops power crlls

I mean, you don't need the stasis rifle, I didn't even use it until after I'd beaten the game. Propulsion is technically optional but it's convenient for getting your Prawn unstuck and for exploring somewhere else.

So what's in the lost river? Basically everything. Nearly every material is available down there and it is awesome, but you're going to need the Prawn's drill to access most of it. It's also the only biome with nickel, which will eventually be important. Oh, there's also ghost leviathans, so yeah, be ready to dodge those.

As for what to bring? Prawn with a drill at minimum, but it's a lot more convenient if you shuttle it around in a Cyclops. You just need to get that Cyclops past the ghost. A shield generator helps a lot. Sonar isn't needed but it's real nice for the upcoming areas. You'll also want material to do some building, all the stuff down there will need to go in lockers. Once you start going deeper than the lost river, carry that propulsion cannon around, just in case.

Yep, it's there. Thanks! (god i hate the grand reef)

Behind the Degassi base in the Grand reef. It's the one deep down with all the blue spheres.

It's directly below the floating Island.

A little bit north of the Degassi base, the one 500m deep.

I think you enter through the grand reef but because it's underground and benath the sparse reef it shows the entrance on the sparse reef part of the map.