Deep Rock Galactic News

[h3]Hello, Miners!
[/h3]We’re back with a modest update for you! Work is proceeding apace for the longer-term goals included in the upcoming Update 35, but with Update 34 we want to sweeten the long waiting time a bit. We got new Elite Enemies for you, the possibility of double Warnings on missions, two brand new Warnings to add to the mix, a lot of weapon tweaks, and more to keep you busy! It’s time to dive back into the depths of Hoxxes and face the new dangers!

With Love,
The Ghost Ship Crew



[h2]--- PATCH NOTES ---[/h2]

[h3]ELITE ENEMIES [/h3]

Elite enemies are tougher, faster, more dangerous versions of the standard bugs that you already know and love (to kill). They have a small chance of appearing in regular missions at Hazard Level 3 and above, so consider it a special occasion when you encounter one!




[h3]NEW WARNINGS[/h3]

New dangers have been discovered in the caves!

ELITE THREAT
Missions with this Warning will have a sure-fire chance of you encountering elite enemies.

SWARMAGEDDON
A tsunami of swarmers awaits you in the mines. Bring plenty of pesticide and bullets!


[h3]DOUBLE WARNINGS - DOUBLE THE FUN[/h3]

An innovation committee assigned by management has tried to answer the following question: ‘What novel and unique new initiatives can we introduce to boost company profit?’ After many ideation sessions, workshops, and off-sites, they finally have the answer: Missions with two warnings instead of one!



Gather a team of fellow miners and try your hand at this extreme challenge. Prove that you are the toughest among all miners and that you eat regular Single Warning missions for breakfast. Rock and Stone!
NB! Missions with double warnings are deemed so challenging that they have been excluded from Deep Dives and Assignments.

[h3]CONTROLLER MAPPING[/h3]

Are you frustrated with the current controller bindings? Do you feel that your mining performance could improve if you could just map the actions differently? Do you want more from your controller experience? Have we got some news for you! With the new option to rebind actions on your controller, you can finally get the unique layout that is just right for you.


[h3]IMPROVED BULLET TRACING[/h3]

How shooting is handled in terms of networking has been remarkably optimized. The result should be a more instantaneous response when firing projectiles. And projectiles now use much less bandwidth!


[h3]SAVE GAME PROFILES[/h3]

Now you have the option to manage different save game profiles if you’re playing with mods (or for any other reason of your choosing) so you can have a separate save for messing around. This feature was originally planned as a part of a larger modding support solution for this update, but we decided to postpone it and release it separately later. We are planning a more comprehensive and improved solution for letting mods into the main game and we will reveal more details as this project progresses. Stay tuned!

Note: We discovered an issue with the save game profile feature right before launch, we have disabled the feature for now but will enable it as soon as we introduce a hotfix for this.




[h3]WEAPON TWEAKS[/h3]

The lads at R&D have been hard at work improving the balance of the weapons, overclocks, and mods in the game based on . Here are the changes:

BRT7 Burst Fire Gun

• Increased damage of base weapon
  
• Moved some of the bonus of the Disabled Safety mod to the base weapon
  
• Lowered the bonus of the Disabled Safety mod slightly
  
• Decreased the ammo penalty of the Experimental Rounds OC
  
• Changed the damage penalty of the Micro Flechettes OC from a percentage to a set value
  

BRT7 Electro Minelets OC

• Significantly extended the electrocution duration
  
• Decreased damage penalty
  
• Increased the magazine penalty
  
• Extended the minelet lifetime
  

Bulldog Heavy Revolver

• Moved some of the damage bonus of the Increased Caliber Rounds mod to the base weapon 5
  
• Moved some of the damage bonus of the High Velocity Rounds mod to the base weapon 5
  
• Moved some of the bonus of the Hollow-Point Bullets mod to the base weapon 0.15
  
• Greatly increased the chance of Chain-Hit OC triggering
  
• Significantly lowered the damage penalty of Volatile bullets OC
  
• Lowered the ammo bonus of Six Shooter OC
  
• Lowered the rate of fire bonus of Six Shooter OC
  
• Increased the max possible damage bonus of Homebrew Powder OC
  
• Lowered the min possible damage of Homebrew Powder OC
  
• Changed the Homebrew Powder OC classification from Clean to Balanced
  
• Slightly decreased the ammo penalty of Elephant Rounds OC
  

M1000 Classic

• Increased base weapon damage
  
• Decreased the base weakpoint damage bonus
  
• Decreased the bonus of the Hollow-Point Bullets mod
  
• Moved some of the bonus of the Fast-charging Coils mod to the base weapon
  
• Moved the Hardened Rounds mod from T4 to T2
  
• Increased the range and power of the Focus Fear mod
  
• Changed the ammo bonus of the Minimal Clips OC to a % clip size bonus
  
• Decreased slightly the ammo and charge speed penalties on the Supercooling Chamber OC
  
• Changed the damage penalty of the Hipster OC from a % to a flat value to allow a high damage build to hit certain breakpoints and increased the ammo bonus a bit
  
• Tweaked the crosshair to help with focus shots and hipshots
  

Deepcore GK2

• Lowered the damage penalty of the Electric Reload OC and significantly extended the duration of the electrocution effect
  
• Lowered the recoil penalty of the Overclocked Firing Mechanism OC
  
• Increased base ammo slightly
  

Experimental Charge Blaster

• Rearranged some of the mods to provide more interesting choices
  
• Moved the Reactive Shockwave mod to T4
  
• Moved the Expanded Plasma Splash to T4
  
• Moved the Heat Shield mod to T2
  
• Improved recoil recovery a tiny bit (community request, you know who you are)
  
• Significantly lowered the heat generated when shooting charged projectiles on the base weapon
  
• Lowered the base charge speed slightly
  
• Cleaned up the weapon’s stats list in the equipment terminal
  
• Added a % damage bonus and increased the effect radius penalty on Flying Nightmare
  
• Heat Pipe OC now penalises charge shot heat instead of normal shots
  
• Lowered the charge shot ammo penalty on the Overcharger OC and changed it from a % to a flat value
  
• Lowered the damage penalty of the Persistent Plasma OC, increased the damage dealt by the plasma field and added a small slow effect to the field
  

Breach Cutter

• Increased the speed bonus of the Improved Case Ejector mod
  
• Increased the damage dealt by the plasma field from the Explosive Goodby mod and added a slight slow effect to any enemy caught in the field
  
• Removed the ammo penalty from the Inferno OC
  
• Reduced the damage penalty of the Spinning Death OC
  

Stubby Voltaic SMG

• Reduced the base recoil slightly
  

Stubby Turret Arc OC

• Increased the max distance allowed between turrets for the arc to connect
  
• Increased the damage of the arc
  
• Increased the slowdown of the arc
  
• Extended the duration of the arc
  
• Expanded the area around an electrocuted turret where enemies can get electrocuted
  
• Turret Arc now deals significantly less FF damage and no longer slows down players
  

Stubby EM Discharge OC

• Increased the discharge damage
  
• Extended the range before damage begins to fall off
  
• Lowered friendly fire damage significantly
  
• Reduced the damage penalty of the OC
  
• Changed the electrocute chance penalty to a small magazine size penalty
  

Subata 120

• Increased the spread per shot bonus of the Recoil Compensator mod
  
• Reduced the Rate of Fire penalty of the Tranq. Rounds OC
  
• Increased the proc chance of the Chain Hit OC
  

Zhukov NUK17

• Added a weakpoint damage bonus to the base weapon
  
• Moved some of the ammo bonus from the T4 Expanded Ammo Bags mod to the base weapon
  
• Reduced the base spread slightly
  
• Increased the spread reduction provided by the Better Weight Balance mod
  
• Changed the damage penalty on the Custom Casings OC to a RoF penalty
  
• Increased the chance to create a cryo minelet with the Cryo Minelets OC and reduced the particle system a bit, which should help with both performance and visibility
  

Jury-rigged Boomstick

• Upgraded the T3 Stun mod to also improve the chance to stun and add extend the stun duration even more
  
• Fixed the stats not displaying the stun chance as a “Per Pellet” value
  
• Lowered the penalty on the Shaped Shells OC and increased the accuracy bonus
  

Cryo Cannon

• Slightly increased the bonus provided by the Improved Pump mod
  
• Changed Perfectly Tuned Cooler OC to a balanced OC giving it small Chargeup Time and Pressure Regain penalties, also renamed it to “Tuned Cooler”.
  
• The Ice Storm OC now has an extra damage bonus against frozen targets but comes with a slightly larger ammo penalty
  

CRSPR Flamethrower

• Improved the chance of the “It Burns!” mod to cause fear.
  
• Moved some of the damage bonus of the Unfiltered Fuel mod to the base weapon
  
• Added an ammo bonus and a small reload penalty to the Compact Feed Valves OC
  
• Increased the damage and RoF bonuses of the Face Melter OC and replaced the ammo penalty with a range penalty and replaced the movement speed penalty with a tank capacity penalty
  

DeepCore PGL

• Extended the range at which damage fall off starts and reduced max damage falloff significantly
  
• Increased the damage bonus from the HE Compound mod
  
• Decreased the ammo bonus from the T2 Expanded Ammo Bags mod
  
• Moved the High Velocity Grenades mod from T2 to T3
  
• Added a small % explosion range bonus to the Proximity Trigger mod
  
• Increased the damage penalty from the RJ250 OC and added a high reload speed bonus and a large % ammo bonus
  
• Increased the ammo bonus of the Compact Rounds OC
  

Lead Storm Powered Minigun

• Reduced the cooling effect of the Cold as the Grave mod
  
• The Aggressive Venting mod now significantly reduces the time it takes to recover from an overheat
  
• Moved some of the bonus of the Improved Platform Stability mod to the base weapon
  
• The Magnetic Refrigeration mod now also significantly reduces the delay before cooling begins
  
• Fixed a bug where the small delay between shooting and cooling was not actually happening
  
• Reduced base stun chance
  
• Added a stun chance bonus and increased the stun duration bonus on the Stun Duration mod also renamed it to “Improved Stun”
  
• Shortened the base spin-down time and increased the bonus of the Magnetic Bearings mod, also the mod now properly affects how long the gun stays accurate
  
• Increased the ricochet chance significantly and extended the max ricochet distance a bit for the Bullet Hell OC
  
• Leadstorm OC no longer disables stun but instead just significantly reduces it’s viability so now the Improved Stun mod can actually affect it
  

Thunderhead Autocannon

• Reduced the damage bonus of the Feedback Loop mod
  
• Increased the RoF bonus of the Improved Gas System mod
  
• Moved some of the bonus of the Lighter Barrel Assembly mod to the base weapon
  
• Increased the direct damage penalty and slightly reduced the effect radius bonus on the Carpet Bomber OC
  
• Reduced the direct and area damage penalties slightly, extended the effect radius and increased the chance to apply the toxin effect for the Newutoroxin Payload OC
  
• Replaced the reload speed bonus with a “rate of fire growth speed” bonus on the Combat Mobility OC
  

Warthog Auto 120 Shotgun

• Reduced the bonus of the High Capacity Magazine mod
  
• Very slightly increased the bonus of the Expanded ammo bags mod
  

Warthog Turret Whip mod

• Reduced the ammo cost of triggering the effect
  
• Increased the projectile speed
  
• Increased damage
  
• Increased the damage radius
  
  
• Very slightly reduced the ammo bonus of the Minishells OC
  
• Reduced the ammo bonus of the Light-weight Magazines OC
  

Driller's HE Grenade

• Increased damage
  
• Reduced damage fall-off
  
• Expanded the max damage area a bit
  
• Increased the grenade count
  

[h3]MISC.[/h3]

• Fixed pathfinder related crashes
  
• Fixed crash when you join a game
  
• Fixed Promotion Terminal not always displaying the selected character
  
• Fixed issue with bosco terminal not closing correctly when using controller shortcut
  
• Fixed droppod can land too close to Machine events, prevent mission completion.
  
• Fixed being unable to unlock perks by pressing E
  
• Fixing a bug, where you could cancel the join process, even though you could not.
  
• Fixed case of tunnel not connecting correctly to the next cave.
  
• Fixed case where the escort oil canister moved to level start when client with bad ping picked it up
  
• Fixed a case where you could get extra secondary objective items with certain warnings (Shield Disruption).
  
• Attempt to fix gunkseed in 0,0,0
  
• Tried to fix a latejoin issue relating to bosco carrying gems.
  
• Tons of minor UI tweaks on fonts, spacing, and styling
  
• Space Rig mesh tweaks
  
• Wardrobe sound mix tweaks.
  
• Improved Well placement in Refinery Mission. Less chance to miss placing a well.
  
• Reduced how aggressively refueling requirements scale based on the number of players in Escort missions
  
• Increased the average DPS of the Fire DoT a bit and also made it a little more consistent.
  
• Slowed down slightly how quickly a player can change directions on the zipline
  
• Increased zipline base angle and the bonus of the Upgraded Connection Joint mod
  
• PGL grenades and Platform Gun projectiles now inherit the character’s velocity making it easier to use them while falling or otherwise moving at great speed
  
• Made walking enemies that can shoot more likely to target players on ziplines
  
• Grass now moves when the dwarves walk through it.
  
• DX12 enabled by default. If you have issues running DX12, you can still change it to DX11
  
• Made a large amount of strings easier to translate
  
• Fixed UI issues in bar order menu, added Unfreeze UI to HUD when frozen by Wormhole Special beer
  
• Minerals mined with explosions now get a distance proportionate force applied to them so they don’t just plop down.
  
• Stay up to date with the brand new news feed ticker added to The Mineral Trade
  
• Steeve’s Healthbar now also shows the player name of the Beastmaster
  

[h3]Patch notes from builds on Experimental Branch[/h3]

• Build 52053
• Build 52112
• Build 52186
• Build 52313
• Build 52444

One last thing Deep Rock Galactic got nominated in the Webby awards for Best Game Design and Independent Creator. The awards are based on user voting so if you feel we deserved any of these then please click the links and cast your vote. Note that it requires a registrations so don't bother if you don't want to do that.

[h3]Hello, Miners!
[/h3]
Thanks for all your continued feedback on the planned modding support. We have followed all the discussions around this subject and had a lot of discussions ourselves.



We know that some of you were worried initially that needing a separate save game for mods would make playing with mods a frustrating experience. And when we removed that requirement, some of you were worried that the ranks and promotions you had worked so hard to achieve would be indistinguishable from those of players that just boosted their ranks through modding shortcuts.

We completely understand both these concerns. We also share them. The goal is still the same: Playing with mods should be a fun and safe experience, and not dilute the hard work and dedication that you have put into your ranks. That is why we have decided to postpone modding support from Update 34 and release it on its own in Update 34.5 later. We need some more time to strengthen our solution for modding support, and we believe giving the project this extra time will be best for everyone in the long run.



We completely understand if you are a bit disappointed, we were looking forward to this feature as well. But remember that all other features announced for Update 34 will still be released on April 22nd.

We are looking at multiple options for how we can have great modding support while keeping the integrity of the progression system intact. We will keep you updated as we get closer.

Rock and Stone!

With Love,
The Ghost Ship Crew

[h2]Hello Miners![/h2]
Thank you to everyone who has played Update 34 on the Experimental Branch and provided feedback on some of the new features. This has been incredibly helpful for us to better understand how these changes affect the game and your experience. We got a lot of feedback on the new modding system and want to let you know of some changes we’ll be making, and why.



We are making the following changes to how playing with mods in your game is going to work:

• The requirement to have a separate savegame for playing modded missions will be removed
  
• There will still be a savegame profile system available to you, so you can manually make a separate savegame just for your modded progress if you want to. But it won’t be a requirement.
  

Now, some background on why we made it a requirement initially, and why we’re changing it.



The goal for improving the modding experience with Update 34 was to make playing with mods as easy and safe as possible. We want the system we put in place to:

• Safeguard players from accidentally joining a modded game that will affect their savegame in ways they have no interest in.
  
• Place as few restrictions on modders as possible, while adhering to the point above, like removing the need to use a specific modded save to install and use mods - if you are using mods, you have made a conscious choice to do so
  
• Put in place filters that let you actively search for or hide modded servers.
  
• Make modding the game easier, not harder.
  

We also want to protect the integrity of the progression system. The ranks and promotions in-game showcase the hard work, skill, and dedication that so many of you have shown. And we don’t want that to be diluted by shortcuts provided by modding.



Thankfully, these concerns don’t seem to be an issue based on these first days of playtesting the new modding system. The mods that we see many of you include add new and more difficult challenges*, quality-of-life features, and visual changes to the game. And we love that.

The feedback from you guys is that you want to have these options in your main Deep Rock Galactic experience. And we totally understand that. So we’re changing the savegame requirements in order to let this happen. We are incredibly excited to see what kind of experiences this opens up.

IMPORTANT NOTE: We are letting you guys toy around for now, but we will be monitoring the situation - and we reserve the right to act if things get out of control. The goal is still the same, to make playing with mods as easy and safe as possible.

If you want to get in on all the new features in Update 34, including the new modding system, ahead of time you can play on the Experimental Branch.

Rock and Stone!

With Love,
The Ghost Ship Crew



*Despite our every effort to introduce more of these ourselves


Edit: Based on all the feedback, we have decided to postpone modding support and release it later in a separate Update 34.5. See this post for more details.

[h2]Hello, Miners![/h2]
We know that you’re all excited about Update 35, planned later for this year - but let’s not forget about Update 34! We’re proud to present the official name for this update: Modest Expectations.
It will be released on Steam April 22nd (and 1-2 weeks later on Xbox One/Win10).

Like we’ve mentioned before, this update will be a smaller update on our way to Update 35, which is much larger in scope. But there is still rather a lot to be modestly excited about:



[h3]Modding Support[/h3]

Playing with mods in your game will be a much better experience after this update! Firstly, Save Game Profiles are now a thing, so you can play with mods to your heart’s content without messing up your main save. When joining a game, the serverlist will warn you if it has mods enabled. And, you will have a dedicated menu for mods you play with, so you can easily see what you got installed, read descriptions of them, and enable and disable them with a click. We can’t wait to see what crazy/awesome/frightening/wonderful creations you guys will be cooking up!

Mods and Modding are currently exclusive to Steam and will require a separate savegame. The currently planned implementation will not be based on Steamworks



[h3]Weapon Rebalancing[/h3]

The lads at R&D have been hard at work improving the balance and competitiveness of the weapons, overclocks, and mods in the game. We have gone through lots of player feedback and testing in order to do this rebalancing.

Again, management advises you to keep your expectations modest - we do expect the experience around weapons to improve with this change, but do not expect every weapon build to be changed. We do hope, however, that this change will make the combat feel more fresh and interesting, and we’ll of course be keeping a keen eye on what impact these changes have to the game.

[h3]Controller Rebinding[/h3]
Are you frustrated with the current controller bindings? Do you feel that your mining performance could improve if you could just map the actions differently? Do you want more from your controller experience? Have we got some news for you! With the new option to rebind actions on your controller, you can finally get the unique layout that is just right for you!


We know we asked you to keep your expectations modest, as we did not want to overpromise. However, a couple unannounced surprises have managed to squeeze their way into this update.



[h3]Elite Enemies and new Elite Threat Warning[/h3]
Elite enemies are tougher, faster, more dangerous versions of the standard bugs that you already know and love (to kill). They have a chance of appearing in regular missions at Hazard Level 2 and above. Look forward to having these new, more deadly threats invade your expeditions to Hoxxes!
We have also found new opportunities for you to increase company earnings! It involves missions with a new warning: Elite Threat! Missions with this warning will have a sure-fire chance of you encountering elite enemies. Risk-reward, right?

[h3]Double Warnings[/h3]
An innovation committee assigned by management has tried to answer the following question: ‘What novel and unique new initiatives can we introduce to boost company profit?’ After many ideation sessions, workshops, and off-sites, they finally have the answer: Missions with two Warnings instead of one!
Gather a team of fellow miners and try your hand at this extreme challenge. Prove that you are the toughest among all miners and that you eat regular Single Warning missions for breakfast. Rock and Stone!

Be advised: Missions with double warnings are deemed so challenging that they have been excluded from Deep Dives and Assignments.



[h3]Improved Bullet Tracing[/h3]
How shooting is handled in terms of networking has been remarkably optimized. The result should be a more instantaneous response when firing projectiles. And projectiles now use much less network bandwidth!

We hope that you’ll enjoy this modest collection of new features once Update 34: Modest Expectations lands on April 22nd.

[h3]Experimental Branch and Dev-streams[/h3]

If you want to get in on the fun early, under less stable conditions of course, we will release Update 34 onto the Experimental Branch on Steam April 13th. And If you want to see the new update in action, join our developer streams on the 14th, 15th, and 16th, where we'll dive into the experimental version.

Edit: We updated the planned time for the release of the Xbox One/Win 10 to be 1-2 weeks following the Steam version. We previously communicated one week.

Hello Miners,

The last hotfix of update 33 is upon us, and it will change the Scale Brigade Assignment to now require Player Rank 100, as well as the completion of the earlier Prestige assignments you get at Rank 70 & 80. This path also includes a couple of fixes as well as some tweaks to the Scale Brigade armor and Improved Bosco digging.

With Love,
Ghost Ship Games

--- PATCH NOTES ---
- The Scale Brigade Assignment now requires Player Rank 100 and completion of all previous Prestige Assignments
- Improved landing animation handling in first person when landing and shooting.
- Added a pop-up that explains all currently available loot has been claimed from the Cargo Crate and Lost Pack if the player has collected everything
- Tweaked the shininess of the Scale Brigade armor material
- Tweaked the insignia on the Scale Brigade armor
- Tweaked the icon of the Scale Brigade paint job
- Squashed a bug that caused character turns to not be synced between client and host while seated in the Drop Pod
- Squashed a bug that caused the Hoverclock overclock to often fail to activate when using Focus Mode in the air
- Squashed a bug in the tutorial that caused the game to crash
- Squashed a bug that enabled Glyphid Guards to attack while stunned
- Squashed a bug with most shooting animations in first person resulting in less smooth transitions between moving and shooting
- Squashed a bug in the head turn animations while seated in the Drop Pod
- Squashed a bug that caused dwarves to grow when jumping in the Drop Pod after mission completion
- Squashed a bug that caused the Employee of the Month Terminal to not work
- Squashed a bug that sometimes enabled Bosco to refuse to pick up a gem after digging it out…. Management disapproved.
- Squashed a bug that caused weird dirt digging behavior for Bosco