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Preview of the February Maintenance Update

[h2]Hello Miners,[/h2]

Holy Hoxxes, how the months fly by! It’s nearly time for the next maintenance update for Deep Rock Galactic.

When we published our roadmap update in October 2023, we scheduled this second maintenance update for March 2024. But it’s done early! So we’re launching it here in February instead. And in a stroke of unprecedented creative genius, we’re calling it the February Maintenance Update.

We’ve been monitoring the bug reports on our PleaseFix portal, and for this update we've prioritized the issues that had the most community upvotes in there. Just like last time, we’re looking to fix and improve some features in the game – but we also couldn’t resist throwing in a fun little something extra. :)

The February Maintenance Update goes live on Monday, February 19th at 13:00 CET.

In this post, we'll take a look at some of the update's highlights!

We're also doing a live preview of the update, including a read-through of the complete patch notes, on our official Twitch channel on Thursday, February 15th starting at 13:00 CET. The recording will be available after, in case you're not able to tune in. We'll also share the full patch notes here on Steam when the update lands on the 19th.

Please keep in mind: this is not an exhaustive list of everything that's coming. There will be plenty more smaller tweaks and fixes beyond what we're mentioning here. This is just some of the bigger stuff.


[h3]Revisiting Heavy Armor and armor breaking[/h3]
One big focus for this update is enemy armor properties, and the armor breaking mechanic.
Don’t tell anybody, but this hasn’t actually worked quite as we intended since the game launched. hehe



This is a fix in two parts:
  1. We're making it so the strength of Heavy Armor (like that on Praetorians) now scales properly with Hazard level. It never used to do this -- so the Heavy Armor on a Haz 2 Praetorian would be just as strong as it is on a Haz 5 Praetorian, for example. Light Armor has always scaled properly, though. But now the same works for Heavy Armor, so the beefy boys are getting a bit of beef back.
  2. We've taken a look at the 'Armor Breaking' modification, as it's been inconsistent on some weapons. This mostly affected projectile weapons like the Deepcore 40mm PGL, or the Hurricane Guided Rocket System (which fire an actual physical object, unlike most other weapons in DRG, which are just hitscan). Now, when those projectiles strike a piece of armor and deal enough damage to destroy it, they will do so -- and, they will also deal full damage to the squishy bug meat underneath. This wasn't the case previously, and projectile weapons without the 'Armor Breaking' mod won't get that same advantage.
TL;DR - This will make it so Heavy Armor is a little more difficult to break on higher Hazard levels, but it will also mean that it behaves more consistently across all difficulties, and in response to different weapons. Plus, it creates more of an incentive to pick 'Armor Breaking' modifications on your weapons.


[h3]No more teleporting Dreadnoughts[/h3]
Another thing we've seen quite often on our PleaseFix portal is the issue with teleporting Dreadnoughts. Basically, a Dreadnought can sometimes zap to another location during a fight, making you miss your shots or teleporting the thing right in your face without warning. Either way, not ideal.

It basically only happens on the client end, and often depends on your latency with the host. So while this issue may have been rare for some of you, it's been aggravatingly frequent for others.

Anyway, we've spent a good chunk of time addressing this, so the days of the Surprise Dreadnought will soon be a thing of the past. Hopefully.


[h3]Improving how the Weapon Maintenance terminal tracks XP progress[/h3]
When we added the Weapon Maintenance system in November, the XP tracker would only reset to the next unlock level once you went in and claimed the weapon skin reward that you earned.

Some miners pointed out that this creates some possibilities to "waste" or miss out on earned XP that should otherwise have counted toward further progress. Fair point! We're fixing it.


We're making it so that the Weapon Maintenance system will count XP up to the maximum of what it'd take to claim all paintjobs for all weapons. This means that in theory, you'll now be able to unlock every single paintjob for every weapon, without ever checking the terminal, then go in and claim them all in one go. If you earned enough XP for that, of course.

A note here - The terminal will only track XP up to what's needed to unlock all existing paintjobs. So if you unlock everything, you can't "bank" all the XP you earn after that. When Season 05 arrives and the new Weapon Maintenance paintjobs come with it, you'll still need to earn those like usual.


[h3]Fixing the Miner Community terminal
[/h3]
For some time now, the Miner Community terminal on the Space Rig hasn't really worked so well. This made it very difficult to join the a chapter of the Interplanetary Miner’s Union, organize with other unionized miners on Discord, and collect union benefits.

While Management was very pleased with this situation, the Interplanetary Miner’s Union has threatened to strike. To avoid this, we've rolled up our sleeves to get the machine working again. We actually did this a few weeks ago, but it seemed relevant to mention it here.



Now, the terminal should more reliably allow you to join a union chapter, receive the chapter tag on our Discord, and check in to collect rewards for completing community milestones. You’ll need to have Discord running while you’re playing, though.

The terminal may still run into a hiccup now and again, because when we set it up, we didn't expect several hundred thousand people joining our Discord. It's a good problem to have, though. If your terminal still isn't working, please reach out to your union chapter representative.


[h3]Better access to Steam voice settings from in-game
[/h3]
For those who want more communication options than the ‘V’ key (though we can’t imagine why), we’re making it easier to access Steam’s general settings from within DRG’s own settings menu. That'll make it easier to get to the voice options and tinker with them.

Nothing groundbreaking here, just some simple QoL stuff. We hope it’ll be helpful for those of you that like to use it.


[h3]An intriguing new beer
[/h3]
There’s a new beer coming to the Abyss Bar!

It’s called Hidden Dwarf Double IPA. We haven’t got the kegs shipped up to the Space Rig quite yet, so we haven’t had a chance to taste it. But we’re able to share a picture of the label, plus a description from the vendor:



[h3]Two Ghost Ship Publishing projects launching this week!
[/h3]
Side note: this week also marks the Early Access launch of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor and SpellRogue!

These were developed by Funday Games and Guidelight Games respectively, and published via Ghost Ship Publishing. We’re very proud to help bring these games out into the world, and we’re super excited to hear what you think.

You can check out both games down below:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2321470/Deep_Rock_Galactic_Survivor/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1990110/SpellRogue/

Both games' developers will be joining us live on Twitch this week! Funday Games will join us on Thursday the 15th, and Guidelight Games will be there on Friday the 16th. We'll go live at 13:00 CET on both days.

That’s all for now! Hope everybody’s doing well.
We’ll be back real soon with the full patch notes, plus some more fun stuff to share. :)

With Love,
-The Ghost Ship Crew

Two Ghost Ship Publishing games are launching this month!

[h2]Hello Miners,[/h2]

We’re here with a quick cross-promotional spotlight: two new games are launching to Early Access this month via Ghost Ship Publishing!

Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is coming out on February 14th, and SpellRogue is coming two days earlier on February 12th.

Granted, we’re a bit of a biased source here, but we think both games are super cool. We’ve got both trailers down below, plus links to each game’s Steam page. Check ‘em out!


[h2]Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Made by: Funday Games (Aarhus, Denmark)
For fans of: Vampire Survivors, Brotato, Soulstone Survivors

Welcome to Deep Rock Galactic’s roguelike auto-shooter spinoff! Like always, you’re going down to Hoxxess to mine minerals and blast bugs. But this time, you’re going solo. Become a one-dwarf army, wield four guns at once and stack overclocks on top of each other, so you can survive the worst that Hoxxes throws at you.

Anders, founder & CCO of Funday Games, says: "We wanted to make a version of DRG without everyone's favorite part – the co-op multiplayer. It's risky business mining Hoxxes alone, but it's a risk we're willing to bet your life on."

Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor launches to Early Access on February 14th.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2321470/Deep_Rock_Galactic_Survivor

--

[h2]SpellRogue[/h2]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Made by: Guidelight Games (Copenhagen, Denmark)
For fans of: Slay the Spire, Dicey Dungeon, Monster Train

Fan of roguelikes? Have a gambler’s brain? Love casting spells? Meet SpellRogue. It’s a deck-building roguelike with turn-based combat, where you roll (and re-roll) your Mana Dice to power spells and take down the vicious Voidwalkers. Build up a beefy deck of spells and luck out with powerful Artifacts and Rituals, and you might just get strong enough to take out the big bad space squid at the end.

Here's from Tim, co-founder of Guidelight Games: "SpellRogue is for all the dice lovers out there, and anyone who loves a roguelike with a big focus on a variety of intricate builds. If your brain lights up when you string together crazy combos, or when you get lucky with an unstoppable class build, you'll like this one!"

SpellRogue hits Early Access on February 12th.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1990110/SpellRogue/


That's all for now. Rock and Stone, you beautiful dwarves!

With Love,
-The Ghost Ship Crew

Steam bullied into adding a dwarf tag by the short king tag team of Deep Rock Galactic and Dwarf Fortress




By rock and stone, they did it: Dwarf Fortress publisher Kitfox Games and Deep Rock Galactic developer Ghost Ship Studios have managed to convince Valve to add an official 'dwarf' tag to Steam. But not without a little confusion leading up to the big triumph...
Read more.

Deep Rock Galactic and Dwarf Fortress call on their fans for a Steam revolution: a new dwarf tag to unite the games under one label




Game genres are a bit of an ossified thing. You've got strategy, FPS, RPG, and something called action-adventure for when you don't actually know where else to categorise a game. It's always been that way and feels like it'll always be that way. But it doesn't have to be...
Read more.

Lunar Festival 2024

[h2]Hello Miners,[/h2]

The Lunar Festival is now live in Deep Rock Galactic! We're bringing it back for the Year of the Dragon. We look forward to a peaceful coexistence between dragons, dwarves, and caves full of gold.

You'll find some new assignments (and their fashionable rewards) now live in the Mission Terminal, and Management worked through the night to decorate the Space Rig for the occasion. Do you have any idea how expensive it is to get fresh persimmons in space?

All Deep Rock Galactic employees are encouraged to partake in this optional company event. Failure to attend will be noted in next year's salary negotiations.

Here's what's on the menu for the Festival:
  • Earn the new Enter the Dragon hat! It's both draconic and iconic.
  • Collect previous exclusive headgear with the Last Year's Blessings assignment!
  • Rescue the lost Lunar Festival Dragons! We'll give you an XP bonus for your troubles.
  • Throw fireworks at your friends! In the game. Please don't do this in real life

The Festival ends on Thursday, February 15th at 13:00 CET.
So don't go dragon your feet on this one!

[HOLD FOR APPLAUSE]

Ah, another perfect joke. Thanks everyone.
Have fun!

With Love,
-The Ghost Ship Crew