A brand-spanking new Subnautica update has been released: Seamoth! It is available right now on Steam, and will automatically download to your Steam Library if you have Subnautica installed. The best place to see what’s inside is the Seamoth Update page, where you find all sorts of juicy details! Hint: Torpedoes, electromagnetic pulses, armour plating…

The Seamoth Update brings gobs of love to the Seamoth Submersible. Almost everything in the update is centered around making the Seamoth more useful, interesting, and fun to play with. At the heart of all the goodness is the Seamoth upgrade panel, which may be found on the port side of the hull.

This panel facilitates the installation of various new upgrades. For example, Vortex Torpedoes. The Seamoth may now be configured with up to four torpedo tubes, each of which can hold four torpedoes. The ordinance is non-lethal, and designed to trap a dangerous life-form in a vortex of swirling water long enough for our intrepid protagonist to escape, pass, or do whatever needs to be done in the area.

Vortex Torpedoes are effective against lone or closely clustered lifeforms. They’re not much use if your Seamoth is surrounded by predators. Enter the electromagnetic perimeter defense module. Activating this module sends a non-lethal burst of electromagnetic radiation into the surrounding water, scaring off all but the largest ocean predators. Be cautious though, every activation drains the Seamoth battery to a significant degree.

These defensive capabilities will come in handy when exploring deep-ocean cave systems. Finding such cave systems just got a whole lot easier, thanks to the Seamoth Sonar module. This module sends out a sonic pulse, and displays the returned echo as a three dimensional mesh on the Seamoth head-up-display.

The Seamoth is good for getting a diver from place to place. It can now move a diver’s stuff from place to place too! Storage modules may be installed to facilitate the carriage of supplies, equipment, and material.

Also available are hull re-reinforcement, battery expansion, solar array, and armour plating modules. All these modules allow the Seamoth to be configured for a wide variety of different missions. Going cave exploring? Pack food in a storage compartment, sonar, electromagnetic defense, and an extended battery. Searching for resources in an area with lots of hostile creatures? Load torpedoes, and fit empty storage compartments to carry the loot.

It gets better. Seamoths can now be customised using the new Upgrade Console. Install the console in a Moon Pool attachment point, and then use it to modify your Seamoth colour scheme and name.

A fancy, upgraded Seamoth will be a very useful companion for exploring the newly re-worked ‘Jellyshroom’ cave system. This striking network of caverns is teeming with life and exudes eeriness.

There’s so much more to the Seamoth Update than is contained in this post. Check out the Seamoth Update Site to see more goodies like birds, mountain ranges, and some really creepy new caves.

To receive a newsletter when the next Subnautica update is released, sign up to the development mailing list. Keep tabs on what the development team is up to by visiting the production tracker. See every little change we’ve made to Subnautica by visiting the checkin and changes list. Most of the development team is on Twitter, and we are always happy to chat. Find our @handles on the Subnautica dev-team list.

– Hugh