All Tadpole Upgrades and Tool Modifications in Subnautica 2

Crafting Tadpole is one thing, but adding various upgrade modules to the vehicle to handle different situations is the next big step in Subnautica 2. The same goes for your initial tools like the Scanner and Sonic Resonator, both of which require meaningful upgrades later in the game.

As soon as you discover the Alien Ruins, it’s best to focus on upgrading the Tadpole to reach the deeper parts of the ocean. Without certain upgrades and modifications, your progression in the game will be halted, which makes it crucial to build a Modifications machine at your base and obtain the necessary recipes as soon as possible.

subnautica-2-all-biomods-how-to-get-them

All Biomods in Subnautica 2 & How to Get Them

Biomods are passive and active skills in Subnautica 2 that can provide you with essential buffs for exploration and survival. Here's all of them!

Posts

By Mehrdad Khayyat

Tool Modifications

These are upgrades that only target the personal tools at your disposal. For now, only two tools have upgraded variants.

Bioscanner

Blueprint Location: Move 540 meters towards 125 degrees from Alien Ruins. Blueprint is inside a crashed base.
Crafting Recipe: Scanner (1x), Enameled Glass (2x), and Conduit Crystal (3x)

The Bioscanner is the main tool to unlock new Biomods, the passive and active skills that provide access to various buffs to make your explorations more fruitful.

Regardless of whether you have already scanned all creatures or not, when you upgrade to a Bioscanner, you should scan certain creatures again to unlock their corresponding biomods.

The Bioscanner is also required to repair the broken turbine in the alien power plant, which is a campaign mission.

Feedback Resonator

Blueprint Location: The first instance is located near a pool in the Metal Farms. Move northeast from the Angel Comb in Alien Ruins’ region to find it. The second instance is also in Metal Farms. It’s located on a platform at the far end of the green pools.
Crafting Recipe: Sonic Resonator (1x), Enameled Glass (2x), Conduit Crystal (2x), and Strontium (2x)

The primary difference between the Feedback Resonator and its predecessor is the fact that it has a longer range.

With Sonic Resonator, you need to shoot at the resource nodes and Bloom Biofilms from a very close distance. But Feedback Resonator lets you shoot at them from afar. This is essential for cleansing the Angel Comb in the second region of the game.

Tadpole Upgrade Modules

Using the Tadpole, you can reach deeper parts of the ocean without worrying about your oxygen tank. However, the base version of Tadpole has limited abilities. If you want to get the most out of it, you need to find new blueprints, craft new modules, and add them to empty upgrade slots.

Depth Module Mk. 1

Blueprint Location: Move 268 meters to 155 degrees. You will spot a hole in the cliff below. Move downward through back-to-back holes until you find the blueprint next to a wrecked Tadpole.
Crafting Recipe: Celestine (3x), Enameled Glass (2x), System Chip (1x)

You need the Depth Module to access most of the advanced materials. Some of these resources spawn at depths over 400 meters. Even if you swim towards them, you won’t have enough oxygen to survive.

That’s why the Depth Module is the very first upgrade that you should focus on, as it will let you explore the Metal Farms and easily get rid of the Bloom Biofilm (with the Feedback Resonator) to obtain the buff inside Angel Comb.

Strike Armor

Blueprint Location: Move 203 meters towards 195 degrees from Alien Ruins while also going deeper into the ocean. You will find the blueprint on a platform with a bunch of boxes.
Crafting Recipe: Enameled Glass (2x) and Strontium (2x)

This is a totally optional upgrade. With Strike Armor, Tadpole will receive less damage whenever it’s hit, either by reckless driving or attacks from hostile creatures.

Knowing that you can quickly repair the Tadpole with the Repair Tool, Strike Armor is not really a game-changer. You can easily skip this one and focus on better, more useful upgrades.

Cavitation Muffler

Blueprint Location: Move northeast from Angel Comb in the Alien Ruins’ region until you reach Metal Farms. Hug the left cliffs, on top of which you will spot a platform with a part of it buried under the sand.
Crafting Recipe: Titanium (3x), Strontium (2x)

With the Cavitation Muffler, hostile creatures will not be notified of your presence unless you get too close to them.

This is better protection compared to Strike Armor. It’s better to deter hostile creatures by remaining in stealth than to prepare for dangerous encounters and unwanted attention.

Photovoltaic Charger

Blueprint Location: It is in the same crashed base where Bioscanner is located. Move 540 meters towards 125 degrees from Alien Ruins. The blueprint is inside the Cicada Wreck.
Crafting Recipe: Copper Ingot (1x), Strong Acid (1x), Troilite (1x)

Ideally, you need to have two charging docks for the Tadpole: one near Alien Ruins and one near the Lifepod. However, using a Photovoltaic Charger will let you extend your explorations in the daytime.

With this upgrade, the power cell inside the Tadpole will automatically charge itself as long as you are in shallow waters and as long as it’s daytime. This is more useful when exploring the game's first region. When you are in the deeper parts of Alien Ruins, you won’t get much from the Photovoltaic Charger, as that doesn’t count as shallow waters.

Engine Efficiency

Blueprint Location: It is inside the Alien Ruins’ base. Head inside through the hatch and take a right to find the blueprint.
Crafting Recipe: Titanium Ingot (1x), Glass (2x), System Chip (1x)

Engine Efficiency works a lot better than a Photovoltaic Charger. Instead of charging the power cell in certain conditions, Engine Efficiency lowers the power that Tadpole’s engines draw from the power cell by 20%.

The good news is that you can stack this upgrade. There are four module slots in the Tadpole, and you can put Engine Efficiency in all of them, reducing power usage by 80%.

Since the Depth Module is quite essential for deeper explorations, you should take out one of those Engine Efficiency modules and put it in the Depth Module. But still, you will have 60% more power available, which significantly extends the exploration duration.