With an open world like that of Subnautica, it is no surprise that the game has hundreds of well-received mods. While a huge selection of mods is always positive, picking the best ones for your playthrough can often be overwhelming.
This list includes some of the best Subnautica mods available right now, ranging from mods that make quality-of-life improvements to ones that add whole new creatures to the game.
Subnautica Modding Resources
Modding Subnautica through the regular process can lead to various bugs and glitches. Using the following tools created for Subnautica mods can help you install them and make using them much easier.
Qmod Manager 4
As the most popular mod manager for Subnautica, Qmod Manager 4 is one of the most important tools you will need while modding the game.
Like most managers of its kind, Qmod lets you install mods into Subnautica in a way that easily lets them alter the game as you want them to. This will have to take priority out of all your Nexus mods downloads.
SMLHelper (Modding Helper)
A lot of mods that add new objects and textures to Subnautica can be incredibly troublesome to use. SMLHelper sets up a unique framework that helps you add new sprites, items, and more to the game through mods much more easily than you previously could.
The Best Mods for Subnautica
The following Subnautica mods make some of the best quality-of-life changes, and add a ton of new content to the game.
Map
A map is an essential feature for any game that includes exploration, and this mod adds it to Subnautica. Adding the ‘Map’ mod lets you easily return to areas without needing to relocate them.
Instead of giving players a map that reveals everything, Subnautica’s Map mod introduces one that is covered in fog. This fog is lifted in certain areas as soon as you travel to them, keeping the mystery of the world around you intact until you explore it yourself.
EasyCraft
Searching through various storage locations in and around your base just to find that one item you need to craft something can easily be one of the most annoying elements of Subnautica. The EasyCraft mod easily fixes this by using materials from surrounding storage to let you craft objects.
You can choose the distance from which you will be able to extract the required materials. You can go with the ‘Inside’ mode to use resources that are in the base or cyclops. InRange lets you pick items from 100 meters away. If you do not want a limit on your distance, you can use the AutoCraft mod to use materials stored anywhere.
MoreQuickSlots
Quick slots in Subnautaica are incredibly useful in letting you pick the tools you need without having to scroll through your entire inventory. However, its unnecessarily limited capacity can make switching to relatively lesser-used tools very annoying.
The ‘MoreQuickslots’ mod adds up to 12 quick slots to the game so you no longer have to spend your time finding the perfect tool when being attacked.
Slot Extender
The Slot Extender is essentially the ‘more quick slots’ mod for your vehicles. It adds extra upgrade module slots to the Seamoth and Prawn Suit, with up to eight slots.
White Lights
The light emitted from your devices in Subnautica can often not be the best one for you. This mod changes the color of light emitted from these tools to a clear white light by default so you can do a better job exploring the seemingly endless ocean.
Editing the configuration file of the mod lets you change this to your preferred color.
Improved Alien Containment
The Alien Containment in Subnautica lets you create an ecosystem with certain organisms. These tanks are often used to breed more fish of the same species and can be a handy tool to own to more organisms of rarer kinds.
This mod adds new features to the Alien Containment units by letting you harvest energy from certain species. It also makes them more realistic with environmental requirements for laying and hatching eggs.
Fish Overflow Distributor
Keeping track of the fish bred in the alien containment chamber can often feel a bit tedious. This mod will automatically move the bred fish to bioreactors if you have any of them present in the same base as the alien containment once it is at maximum capacity. The absence of a bioreactor will leave the production of new fish paused as it usually would be.
Autosort Lockers
The Autosortlockers mod for Subnautica brings a nice-to-have change to the game that lets you automatically sort your scavenged resources and place them in new lockers.
Installing this mod adds blueprints for an autosorter and two types of autosort receptacles to the game. Passing items through the autosorter filters them into various categories and places them into the autosort receptacles. The resources required for the new storage spaces can be configured to mirror those from the lockers in the game right now if needed.
Resource Monitor
With all the different spaces of storage, keeping track of your items can feel like a chore. The resource monitor mod for Sunautica fixes this issue by adding a new item that displays all your possessions to the game.
This mod also gives you the ability to move items from their respective storage units through the resource monitor, which can drastically improve your ability to easily craft new items.
Nitrox Multiplayer Mod
As the title suggests, the Nitrox Multiplayer Mod brings multiplayer functions to Subnautica. It may not be perfect as it is still in development, but it does more than most other mods of its kind do. It lets you invite friends to visit the world you have worked on in the game and visit theirs.
Defabricator
The process of recycling items can feel a bit tedious when done over and over again. Defabricator is a quality-of-life improvement mod that fixes this by letting you recycle items with a single click.
Blueprint Tracker
Keeping track of the materials you need to craft an item while looking for them can be troublesome in the base game. The Blueprint tracker lets you place an indicator of the required items to HUD so you no longer have to keep going back to remember the list.
It lets you alter the position of the material icons, the font size and color of the text, and the maximum number of items it can display (Max 13).
Decorations Mod
If the interior of your base in the game feels like it needs more customization, this might be the mod for you. The Decorations mod for Subnautica adds a Fabricator that allows you to craft over a hundred new items that you can add to your base.
The fabricator will allow you to add items like computers, leviathan dolls, alien relics, and more Subnautica while also letting you craft seeds for various kinds of plants including tropical and amphibious ones,
Cyclops Laser Cannon
The Cyclops Laser Cannon transforms the cyclops into a weapon that will obliterate enemies. It boasts a maximum distance of 100 meters and has and has modifiable damage options.
Unlocking, crafting, and installing this module may take a while but considering how much firepower it gives you, the investment is easily justified. The module can be unlocked by analyzing the alien rifle and crafted with Ion cubes, Advanced Wiring kits, Computer Chips, and Prawn Torpedo arms.
Cyclops Nuclear Reactor
Keeping the cyclops running with all the additional items from new mods can soon become bothersome. Fortunately, the Cyclops Nuclear Reactor enhances the reactors of your base to give you enough energy to run the place easily.
The Cyclops Nuclear Reactor is powered by reactor rods that can be crafted without much cost.
The mod also adds new upgrade modules in the form of the Cyclops Nuclear reactors Mk1 and Mk2.
De-Extinction
If the wide variety of creatures you can find in Subnautica were not enough for you, the De-Extinction mod could add 15 more for you. These new life forms range from tiny organisms to gigantic ones and are inspired by unused concept art from the game.
Most of the smaller creatures added through this mod are edible while a few larger ones are not. However, they are all great additions to the game and only improve your experience exploring the world around you.
Base Clocks
This simple mod adds new custom clocks to the game. One clock displays the in-game time of Subnautica so you can keep track of daily cycles while the other shows you the system time (The time set on your PC)
Clicking on a clock added through this mod lets you easily switch between both the normal and system clock.
Performance Booster
Subnautica’s environment is often full of beautiful objects and unique textures on them. Unfortunately, rendering all this can often put a lot of pressure on your system when some of it may not even be visible to you.
The performance booster mod for Subnautica can help you deal with some of these issues by giving you more advanced controls on the game’s graphics. It lets you choose how much of the game environment you would like rendered at any point, preventing unnecessary load on your PC.
Terraforming Ability
Terraforming in Subnautica used to be a regular part of the base game. The ability to terraform was removed by developers due to its negative effects on the performance of the game. This mod re-adds this function to Subnautica in a way that does cause the problems it previously did.
The new Terraforming ability lets you make minor adjustments to the terrain of the game with the help of tools like the Repulsion cannon and the Terraformer. The alterations may take a little bit longer to render than they previously did, but this is to ensure that it no longers comes with its older issues.
Color Tools
This simple quality-of-life mod for Subnautica lets you alter the colors of various tools you use in the game. This may not change any major mechanics of the game, but it does improve the visual appeal of the game by letting your tools have a fun color scheme of your choice.
Did you find this list of Subnautica mods helpful? What are some of your favorite mods? Let us know in the comment section below.
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