Subnautica drops you into an alien ocean with almost no explanation. The game is deliberately cryptic — it wants you to discover things yourself, to feel the tension of not knowing what is in the water below you, and to experience genuine surprise when you find something extraordinary. But there are things the game never tells you that would have made your early hours significantly less frustrating if you knew them at the start. These are the twelve most valuable Subnautica tips for new players, drawn from hundreds of hours of experience with the game.
1. Your Scanner is Your Best Tool
The Scanner you build in the first hour is the foundation of everything else in Subnautica. Scan every creature, every piece of flora, every piece of wreckage you encounter. Scanning creatures unlocks their database entry, which sometimes reveals important information about threats, behaviours, and weaknesses. Scanning fragments — pieces of destroyed equipment scattered across the ocean floor — unlocks blueprints for vehicles and advanced equipment. If you see something glowing or looking like debris, swim to it and scan it.
2. Do Not Ignore the Radio
The radio in your Lifepod will occasionally crackle with messages. Do not ignore them. These messages mark locations on your map — Aurora crash sites, other Lifepod locations, emergency beacons. These marked locations are where the story and the best loot are concentrated. Follow the radio signals. They are not optional atmospheric flavour; they are the game’s quest system.
3. Build a Seaglide Immediately
Swimming without a Seaglide in Subnautica is painfully slow. The Seaglide — a handheld propulsion device — dramatically increases your underwater movement speed and displays a real-time map of your surrounding area. Building one is the highest-priority crafting task after your initial survival tools. The fragments for it are scattered throughout the shallow areas near the crash site. Gather and scan them as your first exploration goal.
4. Food and Water Management
Hunger and thirst drain faster than new players expect. Your first water source should be the Bladderfish — catching and processing them gives you water that sustains your thirst meter. For food, Peepers are abundant in the Safe Shallows and provide both food and water when eaten raw. Once you have a base with a Water Filtration Machine and an Alien Containment tank for breeding fish, your food and water situation stabilises completely.
5. The Safe Shallows Are Not as Safe as They Sound
The Safe Shallows biome — the bright, colourful area immediately around your Lifepod — contains Gas Lizards and Crashfish that can deal serious damage. More importantly, the edges of the Safe Shallows drop off into significantly deeper and more dangerous biomes. Know where the biome boundaries are before you venture close to them early in the game. The Kelp Forest is particularly dangerous for unprepared new players.
6. Radiation Is a Real Threat from the Aurora
The Aurora — the crashed spacecraft — emits radiation. If you swim too close without a Radiation Suit, your health will drop. Build the Radiation Suit before approaching the Aurora. The blueprints are scattered across the shallow areas and wreckage fields. The radiation also has a timer — at some point in the game, the radiation can be contained, but you need to go inside the Aurora first, which requires the Radiation Suit.
7. Biomes Have Different Resource Profiles
Different biomes contain different resources. The Mushroom Forest has excellent Magnetite deposits. The Blood Kelp Zone provides rare organic materials. The Mountains biome has significant Quartz and Gold deposits. Do not try to find every resource in one biome — explore deliberately into new biomes for specific resources you need. The Scanner Room’s map function helps identify where different resources are concentrated around your base.
8. Mark Everything Important
The ocean is enormous and disorienting. Mark anything important with a Beacon — wreckage locations, biome transition points, resource-rich areas, your base. Beacons are cheap to craft and an unmarked ocean becomes a nightmare of identical blue water very quickly. This is one of those things experienced players wish they had done more of in their first playthrough.
9. Vehicles Are Not Invincible
The Seamoth (your first submarine) can be damaged and destroyed. Leviathan-class creatures can grab and damage it. Running into terrain at speed deals hull damage. Always repair your vehicle before diving deep, and never assume it will survive an encounter with a Reaper or Ghost Leviathan. The vehicle repair tool is a Repair Tool that you should always carry.
10. The Cyclops Is Your Base in the Deep
The Cyclops — a massive mobile submarine you build mid-game — is one of the most exciting moments in Subnautica. It is large enough to park a Seamoth or Prawn Suit inside, has its own power system, a fabricator, and sleeping quarters. For deep exploration missions, the Cyclops serves as a mobile forward base. Learn to pilot it before you need it urgently.
11. The Story Rewards Curiosity
Subnautica’s narrative is revealed through exploration, scanning, and listening to audio logs. None of it is explained in cutscenes or dialogue dumps. If you are curious about the backstory of the planet, the crashed Aurora, and why you are there, the answers are in the wreckage, the alien structures, and the database entries your scanner unlocks. Take time to read the database — it is genuinely compelling writing.
12. Leviathans Have Fixed Patrol Routes
The terrifying Leviathan-class creatures — Reapers, Ghost Leviathans, Sea Dragon Leviathans — are not randomly patrolling the ocean. They have fixed locations and patrol patterns. Once you learn where they are, you can plan routes that avoid them. The game becomes significantly less stressful once you understand that the monsters are predictable rather than randomly spawning anywhere.
More Subnautica Tips from RicardoPlays
The RicardoPlays – Beyond RTS YouTube channel has extensive Subnautica content including full playthrough videos where Ricardo discovers and explains mechanics in real-time, and dedicated tip guides covering specific systems in depth. Subscribe to the channel for ongoing Subnautica and Subnautica 2 coverage from Early Access through full release.