User blog comment:IzumiP/A few words on weapons in Subnautica./@comment-64.71.89.15-20160106155246

The colonists probably had no need of weapons because they had the materials to colonize aboard the ship: batteries, buttloads of titanium, stuff like that (all of which you can find in and around the wreckage). The only reason you, the player, are out in the elements is because you were jetisoned in an escape pod with minimal resources, creating a need to go out. Collecting/ farming equals survival in your case. To the colonists, the dangerous predators might have been a none-issue if everything had gone according to plan.

That being said, being a part of a terraforming mission, it makes sense that the tools you would bring along would be those that can be used in collecting and crafting things from the environment. Terraforming, I assume, takes into consideration the established ecosystem of the planet which would need to be sustainable to maintain the population. It wouldn't make sense then to kill/ destroy all the local flora and fauna (including the bigger predators) because this would upset the system.

Anyways, I think it's smart not having weapons in the game (at least the kind that are for the express purpose of killing sea-monsters). It creates a certain kind of atmosphere for the player. It's the feeling of being at a complete disadvantage, on an unfamiliar, alien planet, pressured by the need to survive. You get creative in situations like that. But it also adds an element of exploration; your need for survival compels you beyond the confines of your escape pod. You are an explorer and an adventurer. You learn to adapt and move around the environment and work with it. Adding weapons would bypass this, I think. And that's not cool because I think the whole point of the game is to explore.

Now, taking all this into account, I think it would be nice, as some have said, to maybe have the option to craft a tool that could better deter predators so that it was easier to move around environments to explore. But that would be the extent of it.