The portable oxygen generator and work search light are the worst offender of useless deployables, why would I need either one when the tadpole offers nearly instant full oxygen and light? Even the wavemaker and spare tanks do the jobs just fine. I never see myself picking any current deployable over a storage container.
I think a good solution is adding an extra powered hardpoint to tadpoles (maybe as a build able hard point extender) that recharged these deployables, or tools, and didn’t allow non electronic deployables like the storage container - so you don’t have to sacrifice storage to bring them and using them isn’t a hassle.
Buffs could also be a good alternative, such as making the oxygen generator create a large air bubble you can go in to regen instead of having to click it, and making it available much earlier (like in the first habitat), and the search light could could make resources sparkle to make them more visible, maybe even make large deposits have a chance of giving extra since we can mine them more efficiently with visibility.
Beacons should go back to being an in-inventory tool as well, no point in that change imo, I’m never gonna need a beacon bad enough to go around and find a piece of titanium and copper
And the dive elevator is an awesome idea, but needs to be moveable like other deployables, maybe allow it to be towed by the tadpole, and it needs go further than 100m for sure, it could scale to certain blueprints we have unlocked (base is 100m, unlocking tadpole unlocks 250m, depth module mk.1 unlocks 450m etc.)
Subnautica 1 and BZ had several things that were only really useful before you unlock certain things. The floating lockers have been tremendously buffed in 2; in 1 and BZ, they were just a stopgap until the player unlocked more tools (in this case, the habitat builder).
In Subnautica 2, the generator and worklight are stopgaps that can bridge to a vehicle. (Except the portable O2 generator is still quite powerful for caves and wrecks where a vehicle doesn’t fit…)