Islands

There are two above-water islands in Subnautica: the mountain island and the floating island.

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Mountain Island

Getting There
The Mountain Island is located N/NE of lifepod 5 (your starting pod). One of the easiest ways to locate the island is to stand on lifepod 5 with the Aurora (downed ship on fire) to your right. In the distance, there’s a rounded cloud on the surface of the water marking where the mountain island is located. It’s approximately 900-1,000 meters from lifepod 5 so it’s helpful to travel by Seamoth vehicle there.

One of the creatures you’ll encounter here is the cave crawler which are little crab guys that are fairly aggressive. If you find yourself being attacked on land, they are the likely culprit. Cave crawlers can be defeated by hitting them with your knife. Be cautious in the waters around the mountain island.

What’s There

• Bulbo Tree
• Cave Crawler
• Diamond
• Gold
• Large Lead Deposit
• Lithium
• Pink Cap
• Purple Tablet Fragment
• Salt Deposit
• Skyray
• Speckled Rattler

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Floating Island

Getting There
The floating island is located SW of lifepod 5 (your starting pod). If you don’t have a compass, you can find SW by standing on pod 5 with the Aurora to your left and the ladder on the pod is headed just slightly west of SW, so head that direction for about 1,200m.

Overall, it seems to be a quite safe island to be on with plenty of food options. if you want to set up a base there, be sure to bring plenty of supplies such as titanium which doesn’t seem to be a readily available resource here. There are gardens on the east (Aurora-facing) side of the island and in the wall behind the garden area is the opening to a cave with some alien stuff inside. This island feels safer than the mountain island, at least in my initial hours into gameplay.

What’s There

• Ancient Floater
• Bulbo Tree
• Bulkhead
• Cave Crawler
• Chinese Potato
• Composite Plant Pot
• Degasi storyline
• Desk
• Disinfected Water
• Exterior Growbed
• Grub Basket
• Interior Growbed
• Jaffa Cup
• Lantern Fruit
• Marblemelon
• Ming Plant
• Multipurpose Room
• Observatory
• Pink Caps
• Purple Tablet
• Shoal of Fish
• Skyray
• Speckled Rattler
• Spotlight
• Stasis Rifle Fragment
• Swivel Chair
• Veined Shell Plate
• Voxel Shrub
• Wall Planter

Tips

• Before leaving the island to head back to your base, grab a clipping of the Bulbo tree (hit it with your knife) and pick a Chinese potato and marblemelon to take back with you and plant ASAP in a garden so you can grow these regularly. You can continue growing these by hitting the Bulbo tree and marblemelon with your knife to get clippings that can be planted and picking potatoes (just don’t pick ALL of them or the plant will disappear, but if you have pieces of the plant you can plant them in a garden). These are fantastic food sources that keep you hydrated and you can also feed them to a bioractor for power. I recommend keeping an indoor garden by the bioreactor so you always have something to feed it.

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Helpful Links

• https://subnautica.fandom.com/wiki/Mountain_Island
• https://subnautica.fandom.com/wiki/Floating_Island
• https://subnautica.fandom.com/wiki/Degasi_Seabases

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Spoilers

• There’s an alien warp device (“alien arch”) that can transport you between the two islands – https://subnautica.fandom.com/wiki/Alien_Arches
• The Quarantine Enforcement Platform is on the mountain island – https://subnautica.fandom.com/wiki/Quarantine_Enforcement_Platform
• Warpers can be found in the waters around the mountain island and can be aggressive, especially if you’re infected – https://subnautica.fandom.com/wiki/Warper