The Aurora

A comprehensive guide to exploring the Aurora in Subnautica, detailing essential items to bring, what to avoid, and key discoveries within the wreck.

You've probably been dying to do this for a while now. You've seen that big wreck of metal you used to call your ship with longing, wondering when it'd be okay to explore it. Now is that time.

BEFORE YOU LEAVE, here is a list of things you should bring with you onto the ship. Some are a strong suggestion, others are literally required to progress through the ship.

Do not bring more than you need. Okay, this is obviously less what you should bring and more what you SHOULDN'T, but it's important to note that there are a LOT of collectibles in the ship and that you will not have room for them all if you bring a ton of things that honestly weren't necessary for this. A big example of this is food and water. DO NOT BRING FOOD OR WATER. Or at the very least, bring only one of each if you feel you _really_ need them. But there are nutrient blocks and water all throughout the inside of the Aurora, so your hunger and hydration needs will be met and then some. Do not bring extra batteries, either. While you will probably use a lot of battery power between the various tools you will bring, there are also a lot of batteries in the Aurora.

Laser Cutter. You absolutely need this to get through a few doorways. Requirement.

Repair Tool. Important. Get to the drive core. If you repair all the damaged parts of the drive core, the radiation around the Aurora will dissipate after a few in-game days, making it safe to remove your radiation suit and wear other suits and masks. (only spoiling this because the game tells you the radiation levels will drop, but is not explicit in how this works in-game mechanically or how long it will take)

Propulsion Cannon. Requirement. There are parts of the ship completely blocked off by boxes and other debris that you will need to use the propulsion cannon to move. Keep in mind that dropping things with F will only use up as much energy as you use up over time to move the debris where you want to drop it, while launching things with the right click will cost you how much energy you used up as you were aiming plus a whopping 5% energy to launch the thing. So, generally, as fun as it is to launch things like crazy, if you do so, make sure you're swapping in fresh batteries when you run out of energy. There are fragments for this out in the world, but if you had the bad luck of not finding them, there are fragments of it early on in the Aurora. You'd simply need to scan them, go back to your base, craft it, then return to the Aurora to continue.

Seaglide: Optional. You can't bring your Seamoth in with you, so all your exploration is swimming. The Seaglide can help with getting you to air pockets quickly, but it also takes up a number of slots, limiting your room for loot.

Scanner: There are things to scan here, including broken down Prawn Suits. There are enough of them in the room you find them in to finish your blueprint in one go. Do not leave base without this.

Radiation Suit: If you've been exploring anywhere close to the Aurora, you are likely already wearing it, but make sure you wear all pieces of the suit with you on this trip.

An item of note is the Fire Extinguisher. You definitely need them in the Aurora and cannot progress without them, but while you can craft them, it's not recommended. There are fire extinguishers littered throughout the Aurora. If you want to bring some in case you miss one inside, I only suggest bringing one extra.

Exploring the Aurora is one of the more fun parts of the game, so I'm not going to tell you how to navigate it or where to go. I _will_ tell you a few things you shouldn't leave without experiencing or picking up though.

• There are some toys in there. I won't say what they are and they serve no function other than decoration, but they are fun. Check shelves, walls, floors, and lockers.
• Make sure you scan those Prawn Suits. The Prawn Suit is one of the only vehicles capable of super deep exploration.
• If you come across a door that is locked with a code, the code is likely in a PDA message somewhere in the Aurora, so search around and come back to it later. The exception to this is the Captain's Quarters, which I'll explain further down.
• Lots of story in here. Some of it trivial but entertaining, some of it giving you more insight as to what was going on with the Aurora prior to and during the crash. Read as much as you're willing, it's fun.

There is a VERY good chance you will not be able to enter the Captain's Quarters now or for a good while. The code for the Captain's Quarters is actually given to you via a radio transmission much later on. To be honest, I've never been able to figure out the timing myself and google searches didn't really help my case either. People have theories and guesses as to what caused them to get the radio signal, but the only things everyone seems to have in common is that it happened later on in their game after some indeterminate amount of time and/or progression. If you haven't gotten a radio message that gave you a PDA with the Captain's Quarters code, I will tell you to not worry about it. It will frustrate you to no end to just try to loiter around your radio or constantly wonder where this message is. You honestly don't need what is in the Captain's Quarters until the very, VERY end of the game anyway, so for now, try to put it out of your mind and let's just go explore the rest of the map for now. We can return later.