Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor News

We’ve reached the fourth and final Steam post about the core elements of DRG:S. In this one, it’s all about classes and class mods: What are they, why are they, and what do they do? Continue reading and you shall become an enlightened greybeard.

As most of you know, DRG features four classes, each with their own unique playstyle. We wanted to include all four in DRG: Survivor, but at the same time expand with a bit of class specialization.

Our approach is what we call ‘Class Mods’: A system that allows you to choose a specialization that will shape your playstyle and create unique combos.

The game will launch in Early Access with three mods for each class, and in this post we’ll reveal the first two for each class. The third mod, you will have to discover for yourself.

There are spoilers below, so if you want to go into DRG:S completely blind, you should probably stop reading now.

[h2]Scout[/h2]
In DRG you start with the gunner class, but in DRG:S you start with the scout. Why? I suppose it just makes sense to do recon work first when diving solo.
This red bundle of joy is known to be fast and agile, with easier access to long-range weapons and weapons that target bigger enemies.

[h3]Classic[/h3]
On your very first dive, you will have access to the Classic class mod. This mod will help you get used to the flow and basic mechanics of the game by giving you extra movement speed and HP so you can survive a little longer.

With the classic mod you receive the staple Deepcore GK2 weapon: A straightforward weapon that shoots in bursts at the nearest enemies.

[h3]Recon[/h3]
Are you a risk taker? Daredevil? Do you deploy directly to production? Pick the Recon class mod that gives you a solid, passive 25% chance to dodge attacks.

This class mod is all about exploring and allowing you to overextend and take risks to find more precious ore and minerals. Dodging attacks even gives you a short burst of movement and reload speed. A recon Scout starts his run with a pair of Zhukovs.


[h2]Driller[/h2]
Aaahh the Driller… Ol’ Edward Drillerhands. When you unlock this guy you know it's time to exploit Hoxxes for real. In DRG:S, the driller never takes off his drills, so he tunnels through rock and stone much faster than any other class, and his mods make for some very unique builds.

[h3]Foreman[/h3]
When you first unlock the driller, all you’ll want to do is drill, drill, and drill, so of course the first mod lets you do just that. The foreman gets 2% mining/drilling speed for 2 seconds when drilling, stacking up to 25 times.

To synergize with this drill-first playstyle you get the Subata 120 - a quick-firing weapon that shoots behind you so you can focus on your main obsession.

[h3]Interrogator[/h3]
The second driller class mod is called interrogator, and while you won’t be questioning glyphids about their ulterior motives or alibis, you will be grilling them with the CRSPR Flamethrower that emits a rotating beam of fire around you.

You also gain access to fire and acid type weapons, and a 100% status effect damage increase at the cost of a measly 30% overall damage decrease. The way to build an effective interrogator should be fairly obvious.


[h2]Gunner[/h2]
If all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail…. But if all you have is a minigun? You’ll probably enjoy the gunner playstyle. Let’s look at his mods.

[h3]Weapons Specialist[/h3]
The weapons specialist starts with the “Lead Storm” Powered Minigun that shoots a hail of bullets in the direction you are facing. This might make it a bit harder to do any mining objectives, but who cares? You have a minigun!

As an added bonus, for every 100 projectiles the weapons specialist fires, he shoots out eight high-powered projectiles in all directions. How quickly can you get to 100? Stack reload speed and find out.

[h3]Juggernaut[/h3]
There are no melee classes in DRG:S, but there is the juggernaut class mod for the gunner. You’ll start with more armor, more hp, less weapon range, and a special bonus that gives you 10% increased damage for 10 seconds when you take damage, stacking up to 5 times.

What better starter weapon for a juggernaut than the “Bulldog” Heavy Revolver that shoots big slugs at the closest nearby enemy. I’M THE JUGGERNAUT B… BOSCO!


[h2]Engineer[/h2]
If your speciality is specializing, then you were born to be an engineer. This mad lad brings some unique weapons to a dive, like turrets, shock fences, and drones that other classes have very limited access to. His class mods are:

[h3]Maintenance Worker[/h3]
Ahh yes, the traditional power fantasy of being a maintenance worker. Don’t let the name fool ya’, because this class mod gets access to some extremely potent construct weapons such as your starting weapon, the LMG Gun Platform turret.

Combine that with a 10% damage increase and reload speed on all construct-type weapons, and you’ve got yourself a classic engineer bunkering playstyle.

[h3]Tinkerer[/h3]
The tinkerer, on the other hand, has spent some extra time at the workbench. All weapons that the tinkerer picks up start at weapon level 3, which is dangerously close to their first overclock.

The level increase also counts for the tinkerer’s starting weapon, the “Warthog” Auto 210 which provides a steady rhythm of bullets and knocks back enemies. Last but not least, the tinkerer starts with a passive 10% xp gain.


…and that’s it for class mods. The rest you will have to discover for yourself.

We want to keep expanding this system as we develop the game to add more flavor and playstyles for you to unlock.

On February 14th, we are making our first touchdown on Hoxxes but there is so much more to explore and extract. We hope to see you then.

Rock and Stone The Funday Dwarves

Surprise, miners. Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, the Vampire Survivors-like spinoff that puts a bullet heaven twist on one of the PC's best co-op games, is launching into early access just a couple of weeks from now. It’ll be out on Steam from February 14th, incidentially gifting the possibility for all kinds of cheap Valentine’s Day slogan gags. You are my Rock and Stone? My Ommoran Heartstone belongs to you? Drill you be Mine? Hilarious. Also, there’s a trailer.

Read more

[h2]Hello Survivors,[/h2]

You probably already read the title, but let me have my fun and say: Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is going into Early Access on February 14th! 💘

We are very excited about our upcoming Early Access launch and to have you, our lovely community, together with us on this epic journey. Get your pickaxes ready, grab a gun, and let's dive into Hoxxes to get those precious minerals.

We’ve put together an awesome trailer for you, so make sure to check it out:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
All that and more, starting on February 14th!

Rock and Stone! :pickax:
The Funday Dwarves

Last week we talked about the problems you’ll be facing on your missions. This week, let’s talk about the solution.

[h2]How weapons work in DRG:S[/h2]
When we kicked off the project, a key focus was figuring out a process for translating the weapons of DRG from an FPS shooter to a top-down one, with no precision aiming, while still being faithful to the original versions. At the same time, we wanted to make DRG's extensive arsenal of weapons enjoyable in the survivor genre. The unique mining element in DRG:S also opened up interesting scenarios where weapons could excel or struggle.

Each class has its own unique pool of class weapons available to them. With the opportunity to choose class mods, you can add to these pools by using access tags such as light, heavy, kinetic, fire, acid, cold, and electric to create your own build and playstyle. If you decide to pick the Driller and choose the Interrogator class mod, you’ll start with the CRSPR Flamethrower and gain access to weapons with the tags: Fire & Acid.

To throw in an extra spicy ingredient to this weapon smoothie, each weapon also has overclocks. The first time you reach level 12 with a weapon in a dive you unlock the ability to overclock it, a way to upgrade and change the mechanics of the weapon. Once you unlock overclocking for a specific weapon you will be able to overclock it at levels 6, 12, and 18 in all your future dives.

While weapons start off balanced, reaching level 18 unlocks the unstable overclock. This changes the weapon drastically, by giving it significant boosts in damage, and range (sometimes at a cost), or altering its functionality entirely - e.g. the Zhukov going from shooting in 4 directions to becoming a Beyblade of death!



[h2]Adapting DRG weapons[/h2]
Our biggest challenge was adapting the weapons to be fun to play in the survivor genre while staying true to their original design.

In cases such as the Cryo Cannon, we kept the damage type of the weapon but changed the shooting style from a single beam to multiple rotating beams around the player to better suit the genre and support positional gameplay.

Another challenge was implementing directional weapons. Targeting in a survivor game can drastically change how you play. Weapons like the M1000 will auto-target based on enemy health (prioritizing highest first), while the Zhukov shoots in a pattern spraying bullets in 4 directions around you.



The issue with making weapons that are restricted by direction is giving them a natural feel during gameplay, and after several iterations, we finally landed on a solution.

We decided that directional weapons should be build-defining and at the same time still feel impactful when the screen is cluttered with VFX from the other 4 weapons that are potentially fully leveled up and overclocked.

We made most of the directional weapons into starter weapons. When the threat level is still low, you can use the beginning of a mission to get used to a directional weapon playstyle. From there, you can create a build with weapons you feel synergize well together.

The Subata, one of the Driller’s starting weapons, fires in bursts behind you. This is a perfect match for the driller since he spends most of his time between rocks instead of the enemies.



[h2]Weapon R&D[/h2]
Management was kind enough to give us some budget for weapon R&D, thus we were able to make some new additions to your arsenal, such as defensive and offensive drones, multiple types of turrets like the Krakatoa Sentinel, Voltaic Shock Fences, and TH-0R Bug Taser.



In close collaboration with Ghost Ship Games, we playtested all the new changes and additions to make sure they keep the feel of the original weapons while also adding a new gameplay element.

Our goal was to provide a fun and unique way to complete missions, with variety and depth of weapons, allowing you to try many different playstyles. Expect more weapons to be added during Early Access.

That's a wrap for weapons. We don't want to spoil too much, so we’ll let you discover some things on your own. We look forward to hearing about all your epic dives as soon as you get your hands on the game. Stay tuned for next week’s post where we give you a glimpse at class mods.

Rock and Stone!
The Funday Dwarves

[h3]Hello Survivors,[/h3]

Another week, another spicy subject to cover. In this one, let’s take a look at some of the enemies you’ll be facing in your dives. Spoilers below if you want to be entirely surprised on your first playthrough!

Starting with the small boys, Grunts. Weak while alone, but a force to be reckoned with once they grow in numbers. Their approach is straightforward: Attack everything that moves, head-on.



The older cousin of the grunt is the Grunt Slasher. This critter is also a one-trick glyphid - it can attack, but it can just do it a little better thanks to its claws.

Moving on to the more beefy boys, we have the Praetorian: A glyphid that has more health points and can destroy rocks and stones (couldn’t help myself) to carve a path directly towards you.



Speaking of destruction, an iconic member of the glyphid family is the Exploder. Faster than other glyphids, it will try to get close to you and detonate. You can either take them out as soon as you spot them from a safe distance, or herd them together with a huge horde of glyphids for an epic chain reaction of destruction.



During your run, if you look further in the back of the horde of bugs, you’ll notice a rather timid glyphid that likes to keep its distance: The Acid Spitter. During development, we stumbled on some visibility issues where the green spit projectile would be too hard to see with hundreds of enemies surrounding you. The solution? We changed the acid’s color to bright pink.



We also have Macteras that can quickly ruin your bunkering strategy by flying over the environment to get to you, Stabber Vines that sprout from the ground ready to stab you when you run past, and Spitball Infectors ready to…well…spit at you.



In our humble opinion, you can’t have a DRG game without the infamous Loot Bug, the fan-favorite, two-time winner of Hoxxes’ Cutest Little Bug Award™. I just wanna pet it…with my pickaxe, till it bursts and gives me all that sweet loot.



To finish a mission you’ll have to deal with the final boss, the one and only Dreadnought. Towering over the other enemies, this bad boy is hard to miss. With a healthy amount of HP and an aggressive demeanor, it should give you a challenge to brag about at the Abyss Bar.



During Early Access we plan on adding more types of enemies, maybe a Warden or a Huuli Hoarder, and come up with variants of enemies that are biome specific.

Adding completely new enemies that are unique to DRG: Survivor is not out of the question down the line. We already added unique weapons like Drones and the Th-OR Bug Taser (more on that in another post), so we will keep evaluating if we are missing some enemy mechanics that could make for interesting gameplay.

That’s all for now! Stay tuned for next week’s post where we will cover all the fun gadgets you can use to cull the natural inhabitants of Hoxxes. That’s right: It’s time to show off our GUNS!

Rock and Stone! :pickax:
The Funday Dwarves