BASE POWER ORDERING / HEIRARCHY - Subnautica Tips & Tricks

How does your base use up its power in Subnautica? Today’s video comes from a request to do a breakdown on how power gets used in your bases, or specifically in which order does it get drawn from your power sources. Maybe you want to extend the longevity of your current Bioreactor fuel stock or reduce the power drained from your Nuclear Reactor because of a limited supply of Reactor Rods. If so, then this video will show you how to track in which order your power production will be drained.

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Here is what Steam has to say about Subnautica:

Subnautica is an underwater adventure game set on an alien ocean planet. A massive, open world full of wonder and peril awaits you!

You have crash-landed on alien ocean world, and the only way to go is down. Subnautica's oceans range from sun drenched shallow coral reefs to treacherous deep-sea trenches, lava fields, and bio-luminescent underwater rivers. Manage your oxygen supply as you explore kelp forests, plateaus, reefs, and winding cave systems. The water teems with life: Some of it helpful, much of it harmful.

After crash landing in your Life Pod, the clock is ticking to find water, food, and to develop the equipment you need to explore. Collect resources from the ocean around you. Craft knives, lights, diving gear, and personal water craft. Venture deeper and further form to find rarer resources, allowing you to craft more advanced items.

Build bases on the sea floor. Choose layouts and components, and manage hull-integrity as depth and pressure increase. Use your base to store resources, park vehicles, and replenish oxygen supplies as you explore the vast ocean.

What happened to this planet? Signs abound that something is not right. What caused you to crash? What is infecting the sea life? Who built the mysterious structures scattered around the ocean? Can you find a way to make it off the planet alive?

The ocean teems with life: Use the ecosystem to help you. Lure and distract a threatening creature with a fresh fish, or simply swim as fast as you can to avoid gnashing jaws of roaming predators.

Build a Pressure Re-Active Waterproof Nanosuit, or PRAWN Suit, and explore extreme depth and heat. Modify the suit with mining drills, torpedo launchers, propulsion cannons, grappling hooks and more.

As the sun goes down, the predators come out. The ocean is unforgiving of those caught unprepared in the darkness. Areas that are safe to explore during the day become treacherous at night, but also reveal a beauty that those who hide from the darkness will never see.

Cave systems wind below the sea bed, from dark claustrophobic passages to caverns lit by bio-luminescent life and burning-hot lava flows. Explore the world below the ocean floor, but watch your oxygen levels, and take care to avoid the threats lurking in the darkness.

[JohnDoe-omho]

Now I just realized I need to restructure my whole power system

[salenstormwing]

That explains why I didn't need to refuel the Bioreactor often, since I had quite a few solar panels installed and they were being used mostly for the power first. Useful information to know for my next playthrough.

[albertjordan]

This is actually extremely interesting to me. I have very variable power needs. When I'm out exploring my main base uses almost no power. However when I come back from a long expedition in my cyclops I use a ton of power, recharging power cells, making more water in the water filtration machine, and scanning for titanium/metal salvage while I wait. My main base is in the safe shallows right at the surface, so I have plenty of solar panels providing energy, and a backup bioreactor to cover shortfalls and night-time power. I wasn't sure how to prioritize the solar panels (instead of sacrificing my tasty Reginalds) so that the bio reactor wouldn't lose power until I ran out of solar. Now I know all I have to do is deconstruct and replace my bio reactor which will make it the most recently added reactor and give it the lowest priority. Thanks MSG, you've earned a sub :D

[elvampir]

The devs *really* need to balance & tweak the energy system in this game. It is just ridiculous that a single light bulb needs an entire thermal reactor to power it.
A floodlight or search light sucks 60 energy per minute, a thermal reactor placed on a 70º area, produces 60.1 per minute. Its just ridiculous!

[Matt]

Thanks for running with my suggestion Mr. Spicy! Really appreciate your time spent and thorough explanations!

[elmateo]

I find it a bit disappointing that the game uses this seemingly arbitrary system instead of having a set heirarchy where generators that don't have consumable fuel (solar panels and thermal plants) are always used first or giving you some way to manually set the ordering without having to tear down and rebuild everything (which with a nuclear reactor results in the loss of all the fuel rods you had already put in it). Thanks for the explanation though, it's definitely helpful to know.

[AntonioBarba_TheKaneB]

Thank you for testing this feature! So basically, if you want to have a nuclear reactor for backup, and you are not sure in which order you built the other sources, just destroy and rebuild it so it becomes automatically the last in the chain.

[Blueice]

Yeap, made complete sense to me. I fully understand how the que works now.

[ryanhernandez]

Seems to me like it would make more sense to always have renewable energy sources be drained first by default. Something like Solar Panel > Thermal > Bio > Nuclear would make the most sense IMO. The flexibility is nice, but as a new player I didn't figure this out until I burned through most of my uranium and it took me so long to find more I just scrapped nuclear power altogether. I can't really think of any instances where you would want your Bio or Nuclear fuel to be used first before your renewable sources so I feel like this would be a good change to make to the game.

[SuperGamerzHell]

WOW man, this video taught and helped me ALOT, thank you very much for these helpful information, I hope you keep making awesome videos for Subnautica
Keep up the good working, you`ve just earned a new subscriber :)

[StyxAnnihilator]

Thanks for checking this out, good to know. Just that this way the power order works, is yet a reason I see this game as v0.8. It should have been easy to add what priority you wanted, or use first those that do not require manual refilling, giving the order: Thermal, Solar, Nuclear, Bio. Also should be able to select that battery type chargers could be set to "output mode".

[justandy]

great video. really clear and concise explanations. good job buddy

[AstralCourierReal]

Potential minor












Could you test and see if there is any way to use power transmitters to send power to multiple bases. The application could allow one to set up a large solar/thermal farm on/in the floating island/lava lakes.

[themightycrixus]

Been looking for a video like this. I had always just done solar and thermal reactor. I needed a new one for my cove tree and decided on my first nuclear reactor. Ill have to finally build my bio reactor in my next base

[tinabenham]

Hey thanks man. Very good explaining. Answered a lot of my questions at once very good video. please stay safe happy and healthy.

[cho]

I've just started building my first base as I'm new to the game. This was very helpful! Thanks so much!

[TheHermit_md]

Like your videos - good stuff and informative

[panzersevennine]

Thanks MSG...I thought it was based on the order of potential charge (solar-75, thermal-250, bio-500, nuke-2500)...I stand corrected!

[PashaGamingYT]

In my experience, the biofuel reactor appears to be the best. In the early game it can last for real life hours lasting on just acid mushrooms, and for even longer on gel sacks.

Although I do recommend a few solar panels for the daytime in the later game, solar panels are expensive, but biofuel reactors are not.

[kensavage]

Very interesting, thanks for testing!

I always want my renewable energy sources (thermal/solar) being hit first - so looks like I should remember to dismantle/reassamble bioreactors after adding renewables to my bases!