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The 10 Best Subnautica Mods (Ranked)

Published

9 months ago

July 28, 2023

Shawna Schofield

What are the best Subnautica mods?

Subnautica was a surprise hit that has since become one of the biggest modern survival titles.

However, once you’ve beaten the game a few times, you’ll probably start jonesing for something a little different.

Fortunately, the modding community has come up with no shortage of great ways to spice up your next playthrough!

The 10 Best Subnautica Mods

While there are a lot of Subnautica mods on the Nexus, we’ve made a point to find the ones that improve the game the most.

The mods that we’ve chosen have been selected based on their popularity, stability, and how they impact gameplay.

So, before you hop in your Seamoth, let’s dive into our list of the 10 best Subnautica mods:

10. Defabricator

Kicking off our list is the Defabricator mod, which is an addition we’re surprised wasn’t included in the vanilla game.

Like many of the best PS5 survival games, in Subnautica, you have to gather materials to use to craft basically everything.

However, if you’ve ever created the wrong thing by accident, then you’ll know how frustrating it can be not to be able to deconstruct items.

Well, this mod changes things by introducing a Defabricator to the game, which allows you to deconstruct items into their base components.

Not only is this great for when you make something by accident, but it can also be a good way to recycle the things you’re no longer using.

We definitely wish this feature had been included in the game from day one, and we definitely can no longer play without it!

9. AutosortLockers

If you’re anything like us, then your lockers in Subnautica probably look like the equivalent of that one drawer in your home that exists to collect all manner of junk.

Seriously, organizing in this game can be such a pain, and more often than not, you’re probably just stuffing anything in the nearest locker to clear your inventory.

While this is the easy way of dumping your load, it can make finding a specific item or material incredibly difficult later.

Thankfully, modder Randyknapp has decided to help all of us unorganized players by creating a mod that auto-sorts lockers.

With the AutosortLockers mod, all you have to do is place all the items you don’t want into a container which will then sort them into appropriate lockers.

You can even create a custom set of filtered lockers to store whatever combination of things you want them to contain.

This mod pairs well with Randyknapp’s other creation, the CustomizedStorage mod, which allows you to change the size of any container to store more or less.

We seriously suggest checking these mods out if you want to be more organized but don’t want to put in the manual effort!

8. SnapBuilder

Are you tired of trying to decorate your base only to end up spending ten minutes trying to get your lockers symmetrical before giving up?

Yeah, we are too, but fortunately, this mod makes base-building a whole lot easier for those of us who love symmetry!

With this mod installed, all of the items in Subautica will have a snap-to-grid ability that can finally allow you to line things up perfectly.

SnapBuilder also allows players to customize the snapping system by toggling fine snapping, rotation snapping, and extending the snap range.

We absolutely love this mod, and we wonder why the vanilla game lacked it, seeing as the rooms have this feature.

In any event, this mod is a must-have in our books, and we strongly recommend it if you love building aesthetically pleasing bases!

7. Map

Subnautica has one of the biggest open-world maps in video game history, yet strangely, it lacks an actual map.

While we suppose this makes sense since the world you land on is uncharted, there’s no real reason you can’t chart it while exploring!

With this mod installed, the map will be shrouded in fog when you begin a new game, and it will gradually fill out as you explore further from your escape pod.

You can pull up the map using the M key, and it also displays the location of signals, as well as the player’s position, direction, and coordinates.

What we absolutely love about this mod is that it really shows you where you’ve been and what is left to explore.

It also shows where the exit points are in certain biomes, which is incredibly useful if, like us, you have a propensity for getting lost!

If that wasn’t enough, this mod has a ton of settings that allow you to turn on and off certain icons and change the map’s transparency.

This Map mod makes getting around Subnautica a bit easier, especially as you can always tell where you’ve been before!

6. Resource Monitor

Resource Monitor is another mod that helps make locating the items you need just a little bit easier and we highly recommend it.

What this mod does is add a new item that can be constructed and placed anywhere in your base, and it looks a bit like a large TV screen.

Once placed, this monitor will allow you to see the items you have stored both inside your base and aboard your Cyclops.

This mod is literally invaluable for keeping track of the resources you have, and it displays an image of the items along with how many are stored.

Best of all, you can even interact with this monitor to grab the resources without having to track down what locker they’re in!

When you take an item from the monitor, it will be removed from its locker without you needing to do anything else.

If that wasn’t helpful enough, it also supports AutosortLockers, so you can still keep your lockers in order while using this mod!

Do yourself a favor and download this mod before your next playthrough. We promise you’ll absolutely love it!

5. White Lights

In the vanilla game, the lights on the Seamoth, Cyclops, and Prawnsuit are all incredibly dim, which isn’t helpful when you’re venturing into the dark depths.

Thankfully, Randyknapp has come to the rescue once more with his White Lights mod that both changes the light’s color and makes it brighter!

While white is now the default color, using this mod, you can also change the color to whatever you want using the configuration file.

Although we’ve only played using the white light mode, we’re sure you can make things really creepy by using green or red light colors.

White Lights is a relatively simple mod, like the best State of Decay mods; it really helps improve gameplay.

Once you see the difference for yourself, you’ll never want to play without having this mod enabled!

4. Easy Craft

If you’re someone who hates having to grab items and have them in your inventory for crafting, Easy Craft is the mod for you!

Easy Craft is a mod that works with fabricators, vehicle constructors, and building tools, and it does a few very cool things.

There are three modes to choose from; Inside, InRange, and AutoCraft, each of which provides a different way of crafting.

With Inside mode, anytime you want to craft something, materials will be automatically gathered from neighboring storage containers.

Likewise, InRange mode will take resources from any storage containers within 100 meters of the base or Cyclops.

Meanwhile, the AutoCraft mod allows you to automatically create missing ingredients, though materials and energy are still required.

We love this mod because, so long as you have the resources in nearby storage units, you don’t have to run around collecting them for crafting.

Subnautica may be one of the best survival games of all time, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make some tasks a little bit easier!

3. Fish Overflow Distributor

If you’ve been playing Subnautica for a while, chances are you have an alien containment unit that functions as your own personal fish tank.

Unfortunately, as the fish you catch breed, this tank can quickly reach capacity, causing you to either stop adding things or manually remove the fish.

However, modder Snowrabbit007 has found a better solution that automatically takes care of the problem!

When you have a containment unit that reaches capacity with this mod installed, the extra baby fish will be removed and distributed into your bioreactors.

While it may not seem like the most humane option, let’s face it, you were probably going to eat them anyway!

At least now, these fish can help keep your base powered and serve a functional purpose instead of just swimming around like living decorations.

Moreover, if you’re currently lacking a bioreactor, this mod will simply stop fish from breeding until a reactor has been built.

This mod definitely makes having an alien containment unit more useful, and we highly recommend trying it out for yourself!

2. Base Clocks

Keeping time on an ocean planet can be difficult, and the last thing you want is to be caught out when the sun sets.

Literally, it is terrifying to be swimming around far from the base, only to realize the water around you is getting worryingly dark!

Subnautica may not be one of the best horror games of all time, but when you’re in the dark and a Reaper Leviathan comes out of nowhere, it plays the part well enough!

Thankfully, this mod is perfect for keeping track of time, and it adds two new buildable clocks to the habitat builder.

In normal mode, these clocks will display the in-game time, and in System mode, they will display the time on your current system.

So, if you’re not too concerned about the time in-game, you can still have a good reminder of just how long you’ve been playing every time you go back to base!

These modes can be easily switched between by clicking on any of the clocks you’ve built, so you can always see either time.

Base Clocks also has a ton of settings that allow you to change the clock’s display color or change the time format.

Overall, this mod is a really great addition, and it fits perfectly into the game, so you can’t even tell it’s a modded item!

1. Nitrox – Multiplayer Mod

Taking our number one spot is a mod so incredible that we can’t believe it wasn’t a feature in the vanilla version of the game!

The Nitrox -Multiplayer mod allows you to play Subnautica with your friends, and it can even support large events of up to 100 players.

Playing with this mod is like experiencing Subnautica for the first time, as it reacts to players interacting with the environment.

This means that if your friend drops something, you will be able to see it in real-time and pick it up!

Even the Cyclops reacts to having more than one passenger, which is incredibly cool and surprisingly immersive.

Better yet, it works across platforms, so if you have Subnautica on Steam, you can still play on a server with players who bought the game from the Epic Store.

However, what we love most about this mod is that you can join a server at any time and connect with other players using the in-game messaging system.

It really makes Subnautica feel like a totally different game, and we’ve had a ton of fun exploring the depths with other players!

Now, here’s hoping Subnautica 3 comes with its own multiplayer because it definitely adds a ton of replayability!