Now that you’ve reached the Floating Island, it’s time to start exploring it. There a lot to see and do on the island, but this guide will focus on basic goals for your first visit that will enable you to build a more advanced Seabase and farm your own food.
Acquire New Blueprints for Seabase Components
The Floating Island is home to 3 rusty old Seabases that have been built on dry land. All of the Seabases have unique components that can be scanned to acquire their blueprints. Make sure to explore each of them thoroughly, scanning anything that can be scanned.
Get the blueprint for the Multipurpose Room
The Multipurpose Room is a Seabase component that provides a large, modular cylindrical room designed for holding larger installations. There are several base components that can only be built inside of a Multipurpose Room, and moreover it provides a much roomier interior space than any of the other base pieces.
Get the blueprints for the Indoor Growbed and the Composite Plant Pot
The Indoor Growbed and Composite Plant Pot all you to farm edible plants in your Seabase, allowing you to save your cured fish and bottled water for expeditions away from home.
The Indoor Growbed is a large square planter that provides a 4×4 slot growing space useful for growing crops in bulk. It can be found inside the Observatory at one of the two Seabases found at the tops of mountain peaks.
The Composite Plant Pot is found in the other mountaintop base. It only supplies a 2×2 grow space but because of its small size it can be placed in any spare corner.
Get the blueprint for the Exterior Growbed
While the Exterior Growbed can be used to farm terrestrial plants when placed on dry land, its real utility is that it give you the ability to farm aquatic plants when it’s placed underwater.
Collect Samples of Edible Plants
Now that you have growing containers for your plants, collect at least one sample from each of these edible plants before leaving the island. There are also some non-edible decorative plants on the island that can similarly be sampled and grown – feel free to grab samples of those as well if you have space leftover in your inventory.
Bulbo Tree
Harvesting samples from the Bulbo Tree requires the use of the Survival Knife, but the Bulbo Tree Samples that you receive replenish +8 Food and +10 H2O, making them an excellent low-effort food and water source. The samples can also be planted – make sure to bring back at least one sample to plant in your Seabase.
Marblemelon
Marblemelon can be harvested simply by picking it up, producing an edible fruit that occupies 4 inventory slots and supplies +12 Food and +14 H2O. Alternatively, you can use your Survival Knife on a Marblemelon to produce 4 Marblemelon Seeds, which are not edible but only occupy 1 inventory slot each.
Chinese Potato
The Chinese Potato can only be harvested by picking normally, not by using the Survival Knife. Although it doesn’t supply very much H2O, it can be nice to have around when you only need to replenish your food bar as it’s very easy to grow.
Lantern Fruit Tree
Lantern Fruit similarly supply only a small amount of H2O, but the tree produces tons of fruit constantly and it never has to be replanted so it can be a convenient way to top off your food/water bars without getting involved in farming work.
Valuable Loot
Besides the plant samples and Seabase blueprints, there are a couple of other items that you should make sure to grab while you’re here.
Ultra Glide Fins
You won’t be able to fabricate the Ultra Glide Fins until you have the Modification Station, but they are definitely worth having.
Purple Tablet
Make sure to grab this mysterious purple glowing thing. Take it home and put it somewhere safe, you’ll definitely want it later.
Other blueprints on the island
Observatory
More fun than functional, and it comes with a sizeable Hull Integrity penalty if you build it underwater.
Spotlight
An exterior Spotlight for your Seabase. It’s small and can be easy to miss if you’re not looking for it.
Bulkhead
The Bulkhead helps strengthen the Seabase by adding positive Hull Integrity – but it doesn’t add a whole lot.
Wall Planter
You can’t actually plant anything in the Wall Planter, it’s just for looks.
Desk and Chair
Two more decorative items for your Seabase.
Deploy the Beacon
Bind the Beacon to your hotbar when you’re ready to deploy it.
Activate it underwater to release the Beacon. It will hover at any depth that it’s placed. Give the beacon a descriptive name by hovering the cursor over its front face. If you don’t do this now you will have to come back to the Beacon in order to give it a name.
Now when looking at the beacon from a distance it will be easy to tell which beacon it is, even when you have several of them placed around the map. You can modify the color and visibility of each beacon in the Beacon Manager screen, which is 2 tabs to the right of your inventory screen.
Final Checklist Before Leaving the Island
Before returning from the Floating Island make sure that you have all of these items in your inventory:
- Bulbo Tree Sample
- Marblemelon Seed (or Marblemelon)
- Lantern Fruit
- Chinese Potato
- Purple Tablet