Overview
Tired of relying on your knife or expensive torpedoes as a means of defense? Try SubNautica’s unauthorized improvised RPG Solution today!
Introduction
This is my first guide ever made for any game I’ve played. However, it is one that I have noticed is conspicuously absent from all of the other guides.
A quick disclaimer – I did not come up with the concept of using Crashfish as “torpedoes”, but rather, it was shared with me by some of the craftier members of the community. I am not claiming this tactic as an invention of my own, but rather, I am publishing this as something for all newbies to read and enjoy. Without further ado, let’s begin by explaining what crashfish are.
Crashfish are red and white-yellow, cyclop (one-eyed) fish that reside in a brownish pod that somewhat resembles the facehugger eggs from the Aliens series/franchise (all rights are belong to them). When you, the diver, approach one of these pods by swimming up to them or by driving a vehicle, the pod opens up and the crashfish make a sound. If you get too close, they will launch out of their pods and literally try to blow you up. They can hit hard, and what’s worse is they’re capable of blowing up both your seamoth and your Prawn suit in one direct hit.
There are some guides on how to avoid getting blown up by them (youtube included). However, there’s only three reasons you would need to go near a crashfish in the first place (luckily, they’re only found in a few caves). The first is to get Crashfish powder for making some of your beginner tools (repair tool and flares), the second is to gather resources in the beginning that’s near to one or more of these pods. and the third is to collect their eggs for use in a bio-reactor and for putting into an aquarium; this is where my guide comes in.
The Path to the Crashfish Torpedo!
Once you have unlocked the Alien Containment and Propulsion Cannon, you can proceed to get the crashfish eggs. Each stack of alien containment gives you 10 to your total capacity (or so I’ve been told), but you also need to stack a multi-purpose room to make this stacking possible. You will go through titanium and glass (quartz), so it’s really best to have this after you get the stasis rifle and other pertinent/critical upgrades first (such as all of the cyclops and prawn suit’s depth upgrades – you don’t need quartz for the depth upgrades, but you will easily require more than 100 units [1 unit = 1 square tile in your inventory] of titanium). However, the benefit of the cost is well worth it as crashfish function as the only viable form of high-damage ranged attack that the diver can use himself without being in a vehicle. One direct hit from a crashfish against small-medium predators will send them running (bonesharks will try to get away from you once hit by a single crashfish- have not tested against stalkers and sandsharks).
There are two ways you can go about collecting those crashfish eggs – the cheap and hard way, or the expensive and easy way. The cheap and hard way is you try to evade the crashfish as they come out, while still leaving their pods intact (if those pods get destroyed in the explosion, or you knife them, the crashfish will permanently cease to spawn at that spot).
The easy, expensive way entails building the scanner room after you’ve unlocked it, and then using the drone to ram into the crashfish pod – he will “explode” without killing the pod, and the pod will open up revealing any powder or eggs inside (just be careful not to ram the eggs as well). It takes three hits from your colliding drone to neutralize the crashfish without blowing up the pod.
What you are looking for is a translucent sphere with an eyeball inside – that’s your prize (above). Collect it, and deposit it into your Alien Containment.
The camera drone method is really the most ideal because you only lose about 1% of health per collision with the pod, and that damage is easily repaired. There’s not much of a point in building a scanner room in the safe shallows other than to scout for crashfish pods, eggs, or resources you might have missed. Note in the screenshot that my drone is right in the crashfish’s face and he hasn’t opened up – this is because the crashfish does not see your drone as a legitimate threat, even when you’re colliding into it (as of my writing this, devs may change it).
USING your Crashfish “Torpedoes”! (TM)
Once they hatch, you can swim inside your alien containment to pick up any crashfish (ideally, you want to leave at least 2 behind so they can breed and make more) that has hatched. Note: Crashfish are harmless and docile when they are outside of the pods they shoot out of, and this is true in both the alien containment as well as in the wild on rare occasions). As of this writing, they only take up one slot in your inventory (although I have played earlier versions where they took 4 slots, and that may be reasserted if the devs determine that it is unethical and unintended to be able to utilize their creation as improvised R.P.G.s [Rocket Propelled Grenades]). Update: Crashfish now take four slots instead of 1. This means that you can no longer stockpile as many crashfish in your inventory.
Now, the fun part – to load a crashfish into the propulsion cannon, hit F (default key – and you can do this with any lootable item – resources and other fish in particular) and select the crashfish. You must be careful from here because the propulsion cannon actively uses energy holding the crashfish in place. Also, if you run out of power, or you accidentally cancel, the crashfish will be free and will swim off VERY quickly (before randomly blowing someplace in the wild). Right click to shoot.
IMPORTANT: DO NOT CATCH THE CRASHFISH IF YOU ACCIDENTALLY RELEASE IT (via propulsion cannon once loaded)! IF YOU DO, THE CRASHFISH WILL DETONATE IN YOUR PANTS (literally, it blows up toward the waist area), AND YOU WILL HAVE A DEAD CRASHFISH!!! The dead crashfish can be stuffed in your bioreactor, but you do not want to be low on health when this event happens.
A word of warning about Reaper Leviathans: You can use the crashfish “torpedoes” to blow up the Reaper – they can be harmed and possibly even killed if enough rounds are pumped into them. Here’s the problem, you HAVE to have a stasis rifle to stun those reapers or you are DEAD. I say this because unlike most predators in the game, Leviathans are NOT deterred by pain and will not be driven off, even if you launch a bunch of crashfish directly at their faces. I observed the Reaper swimming extra fast after being hit with about 10 crashfish. Later, I armed my Prawn suit with two torpedo arms stocked with four gas torpedos each (and six more torpedoes loaded in the back), and brought about 26 crashfish (missed with one – tiny hit box means that only the broad chest and the head are hittable, the rest of the body cannot be harmed or affected). After hitting the Reaper with 25 crashfish torpedos, he was still kicking, and was in a mad rush to start eating other critters in the nearby kelp forest (which apparently is how it heals). However, if you keep him held, hit him with the 25 crashfish torpedos, and then unload about 8-10 gas torps on him, he will die, as seen above. This method is much faster than hitting him with knives all day, but here’s the thing – gasopod toxins are meant to rapidly drain the health of anything it comes into contact with, and it took 8 of those torpedos to take him out of the picture.
Sea Dragon Leviathans (now that I’ve played and beaten the game) have less health than the Reaper Leviathans. This is because you’re meant to fight at least one by the end of the story.
Ghost Leviathans: Ghost Leviathans have about as much health (if not more) than the Reaper Leviathans. Unlike the Reapers, however, you can repel a Ghost Leviathan with a single crashfish (or other fish, really) when it starts to charge at you. The Ghost Leviathan will eat the crashfish (taking no damage), but it will also satisfy its attack trigger (causing it to swim off for a little while until it decides to attack you (if you are within range, still).
Oh, and one important note – when you load each item, you need to provide a 1 second delay between hitting the F key to load and left clicking the crashfish, and then another 1 second between loading and then firing. The reason for this is if you do this too soon, the propulsion cannon will “jam” (you won’t be able to load anything from inventory no matter how many times you left click or what delays you have. Remedy is to reload to the point before you loaded and fired the first shot, so save after you leave the base with your crashfish “torpedoes”.
The PRAWN suit, its Propulsion Cannon Arm, and You!
Let me start by crediting Elzaquiem for making an insightful forum post about being able to load and fire items from the prawn suit’s inventory. This led to me testing Crashfish torpedoes in the Prawn Suit, and sure enough, it works.
So as with the regular Propulsion Cannon, you can fire items from the PRAWN suit’s inventory at enemies. This includes the Crashfish, and with the inventory upgrade, you can carry way more crashfish than you can torpedoes (Torpedoes are 2×2’s eating up four slots a piece, whereas the crashfish take up just one slot). This means you can carry up to 24 crashfish with the Prawn Suit’s cannon.
Best of all, at least with the energy efficiency mod, each shot only eats up 1% of the prawn suit’s battery, and every couple seconds that you hold something will also only eat up 1% of the battery. Now, with the thermal upgrade, you can fire your cannon all day with impunity without fear of running out of juice as long as you’re in sufficiently hot enough areas to charge the power cell.
Please Note: Crashfish can damage your prawn suit (or even destroy it) if they explode too close to you. But with the Prawn suit, most threats can be driven off with a claw/drill arm (and they cannot really harm your prawn suit). Now, if you WANT, you could bring a torpedo arm alongside this one and fill it up with 4 gas torpedoes, and use the stasis rifle to freeze a reaper while you blast at it with both your personal propulsion cannon (and crashfish) and the prawn suit’s armaments of gas and crashfish torpedos.
Additionally, the Prawn suit’s propulsion cannon arm is also susceptible to the bug that renders your loading ability unusable if you fire too fast. So as with the handheld version, load and fire with a brief delay to prevent “jamming”.
Have fun, and I hope this guide helps!