Subnautica, and its sequel, Subnautica: Below Zero are great games. They offer intriguing storylines, beautiful landscapes, terrifying monsters, and great pace. What both Below Zero and Subnautica are missing, however, is multiplayer. Base building competitions, teaming up on Reaper Leviathans, and tons of other cool stuff that couldn't even have been dreamed of in solo mode can be accomplished with multiplayer.
The Mod That Makes It Happen
While I don’t think multiplayer would be a great idea for your first playthrough, because part of the beauty of Subnautica is discovering new places out of the blue and experiencing the monsters firsthand, playing with your friends could make a second playthrough or a server just for building cool bases very entertaining.
Even though Subnautica is not made for multiplayer, some genius fans have developed a multiplayer mod called Nitrox.
Downloading Nitrox and Habachi
The first thing to do once you decide you want to start a multiplayer server is to download the actual mod. To do this, head on over to this link and click the download button on the right of your screen. Then you’ll want to find your way over here and download Hamachi. Both of these installs are perfectly safe.
Running the Programs
Once both of those are downloaded, you should open the Hamachi installer. Once that is up and running, you can create a Hamachi account using the button on the top left called System. Once that is done, navigate to the tab called Network, click “Create New Network”, and then enter a name and a password for your server.
Run Nitrox
The next thing you need to do is run Nitrox. Nitrox will likely come in a zipped folder so you will need some program to open it like Winrar. Extract the files back onto your desktop, then click on the “Nitrox Launcher” file that will be in the folder.
Creating A Server With Nitrox
Once the launcher is open, click on Server on the left, and then hit the Large blue button that says “Start Server”. The program will run for a little while, then spit a bunch of code at you, but you can basically disregard all of that. After it is finished, navigate to the main tab and click Play Multiplayer.
Getting An IPV4 Address
Once Subnautica has actually opened, the next step will be to make your server joinable. To do this, you are going to need your IPV4 address, which is a lot easier to find then you would think.
In the bottom left corner of your screen, there should be a search bar. Click on that and then type, “Command Prompt” or “CMD”. Once you have the command prompt open, all you have to do is type, “ipconfig”. This will give you a lot of information that you may or may not understand, but the important bit is the IPV4 address.
Give Your Friends The Server IP
Don’t worry, folks, we are on the final stretch. The next thing to do is copy that IPV4 address somewhere and give it to whoever you want to join the server. What they should do is go into the Subnautica launcher, click on “Add Server IP” and then type in that IPV4 address. Once that is done, all they need to do is run the server.
WHAT DOES THE GAMEPLAY LOOK LIKE
Changes To The Gameplay
The gameplay itself is going to look very similar to the single-player game. You will start with a lifepod in the shallows, but this time you will have other survivors with you. The mechanics and gameplay remain the same.
Conceptual Gameplay
However, there are a few conceptual factors to playing multiplayer that will change how you play. For one, food and water are going to be a lot more important. The more people you put into the same ocean, the harder it's going to be to keep everyone's inventory stocked with fish.
Resources
Resources are also going to be a lot more scarce. Usually, the map is meant to be played with one person, and resources are set up for one person making the basic tools. This means that resources are cleverly set so that you have to explore farther out to find them more plentifully as the game decides you need them.
Tools
However, if you have four people who all need scanners, habitat builders, propulsion guns, and seaglides, you are going to need to look much harder for all of those materials. For example, the sea glide requires 3 Copper, 4 Acid Shrooms, 1 Titanium, and 5 Creep Vine Seed Clusters. Usually, a quick scan of the shallows will allow you to find these rather quickly, but in multiplayer, these numbers go up very quickly.
Sunbeam
Another point is that the server will be running full time, even if the host is not on it, meaning that time passes in the world. This usually isn’t too big of a deal, except when you trigger the Sunbeam landing. If the thirty-minute timer starts and everyone leaves, the timer will still keep going and you will miss the Sunbeam landing.
Conclusion
As of right now, Nitrox is the only way to play Subnautica with your friends. However, the Nitrox modis developer approved and will likely continue to get updated. It's one of the best mods for Subnautica and allows a couple dozen or more extra hours of gameplay from Subnautica.
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- [Top 15] Subnautica Best Mods (2020 Edition)
- [Top 5] Subnautica Below Zero Best Base Locations (2020 Edition)
- [Top 5] Subnautica: Below Zero Best Bioreactor Fuels (2020 Edition)
- [Top 10] Subnautica Best Food
- Subnautica Multiplayer -How it Works
