In subnautica, you play as Riley Robinson, when the space ship Aurora mysteriously crash lands on an ocean-class planet named 4546B and manages to escape in a lifepod. on the way down, a panel in the life pod breaks off from the wall and hits Riley Robinson in the head, which makes him go unconcious for 3 hours. when the player wakes up, there is a fire that the player has to put out with a fire extinguisher, before then revealing that you have landed in a pretty safe and resourcefull biome. you are then introduced to the PDA, an item that acts as both your inventory and research guide to the planet's mysteries.
The player is now forced to exit the lifepod and discover all the fauna and flora in the biome dubbed ''safe shallows" and gather resources to craft items in their fabricator.
there are 6 main starting tools in Subnautica : The survival knife, the scanner, the repair tool, the habitat builder, the flashlight, and the pathfinder tool (although we should state the last two aren't essential, but can be usefull) and there are also some pieces of equipment like the oxygen tank, the rebreather and the fins. A table below will show you what the items purpose actually is, and also the ingredients needed to craft it
| Item/Tool | purpose | materials needed to craft |
|---|---|---|
| Scanner | used to scan flora, fauna and general structures to give you a databank entry in you PDA, or to scan fragments of items so you can unlock the recipe | Battery + titanium |
| Repair tool | used to repair buildings, hull breaches, submersibles, and also the lifepod | silicone rubber + cave sulfur + titanium |
| Flashlight | literally just a flashlight, it lights up dark areas or places at night time | battery + glass |
| Survival knife | used to cut fish or creatures, and can also get you samples of plants | silicone rubber + titanium |