I think there are a few lakes and water areas outside of the great river, that are deep enough to prevent NPC’s from being able to melee a “floating” base.
A base with pillars reaching down to the Seabed.
Has anyone tested this?
That being said, I bet FC has given melee attackers some ranged skills too, that are even more devastating than their melee skills. lol.
Upon further reading, I realized that maybe this causes the Purge to spawn right inside of the base.
You cannot hide from the Purge!
An underwater base might be invulnerable, as NPCs can’t really move underwater. Underwater bases are very interesting, now that you bring it up.
I was messing around the other day with an ‘Atlantean’ build. Quickly getting Vitality 10 for the underwater breathing, and you can actually mine (small) amounts of stone and harvest minimal amounts of fiber from the seaweed now. Not a competitive build, but you’re very safe while harvesting underwater. You just need to come up for air every 40 seconds or so.
A major perk of water is that you don’t swim slower while overencumbered. You can navigate the water to help you move large stockpiles faster than you could otherwise, without getting Encumbrance 50.
So long as you build your ‘Atlantean’ base without reaching the top of the water, I’d say that you’re being very clever with the game mechanics. I’d love to test out an Atlantean build further on PvP. Especially at that deep lake in the North, just below the Black Keep.
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
I’m having a hard time understanding the issues with water… can’t identify with repair hammer, cannot equip or use a weapon. Are these intended? Doesn’t seem like it would be. I hope not…
Cannot equip and use weapon is intended except javelin. You can equip and use javelin in water.
Wow, that’s surprising, but ok! 
I guess they don’t want water fights, lol.
Also cant placed benches under water like you could previously. Underwater basing is essentially storage to hide stuff … or reduce the way it can be destroyed.
Hey Biggins I did some testing on this the other day and discovered:
Last night someone gave me a run for my money with the repair hammer and I was actually shocked how much damage it was doing in the water… I was like hmmm not sure if that is working properly.
Now that’s funny!! I’m gonna have to remember to make me the star metal repair hammer
Funny in deed. I saw the hammer and was like… gurl pls what is that going to do. Then whack! whack! whack! wishing there was a sprint swim.
Emergent game-play at it’s best (worst?)
I’m curious if siege weapons can blow something out of the water.
But as for PvE, that’s definitly a good tactic for building a “bank” for valuables, especially off the swungle coast.
“Atlantean” build. I love that.
I built a floating base and no Purge. A bit after building House for my wheel nearby, there was a purge on the land based building.
A floating base has some advantages if you use pillars and build a bit above the water level.
People can not climb your walls. This is the first base where I have windows and feel safe.
If you build far enough from shore, Orbs cant reach you.
Underwater weapons can damage your pillars, but as long as you build multiple supports, it will take a lot of work to bring down your base.
Gods will destroy you.
Jars still can take down Pillars, but as with weapons, it will take quite a few jars.
Trebs can wreck your base.
Also, taking out pillars/walls is useless to gain entrance to the base since it still gives them no way to actually enter your base. The only real way in is to take out the floor while leaving the pillars intact. Again, Treb is your answer to do that. Mainly though, they will have to destroy almost your entire base to get your goods. That could be a good thing or a bad thing…
Basically, you will make them work a bit for your goods. Not impervious, just hopefully enough work that raiders move to another target.
I think building a deep “skirt” over the pillars in form of foundations and walls will force the attackers to use even more resources to damage the base. As for trebuchets. Trebuchets can be destroyed by other trebuchets, so building a counter-trebuchet on the roof is the ultimate defence… especially if the base is built so far off the shore, that only trebuchets are in range. It becomes an Artillery Duel.
The only weakness to the Atlantean build I can think of are hammers. Apparantly repair hammers can damage structures in PvP. In PvE tho… Atlantean + Trebuchet is the way to go. Very very cool.
Back in the golden days, the clan I was in built an “oil rig” underwater, a 3x5 shell packed to the brim with fish traps, which we would process into oil and ichor. It worked really well, just hop down, and pull as much fish / rotten meat as you need. Nobody ever attacked it, because it was never worth much to raid. The advantage was having that “oil rig” running, and being able to use it day-after-day.
Hopefully we’ll get some sea creatures that can attack our underwater bases, because right now with the Purge, it seems like underwater bases might be immune, so long as they are outside of orb-lobbing range from shore.