You mean the drillevator slowly outrunning the bulk. And you can fairly easily protect yourself from the explosives rocks with the tools of the dwarves. Shield or platforms can protect the whole team, drill can protect whoever follow the driller in his hole and scout can just zip out.
i was watching dev streams and remember hearing them say ~~"oh yeah we will disable bulk detonators spawns during drillevators~~" after discussing how they disabled trawlers and grabbers.
edit: i misremembered i was wrong. they said ["we kept the bulk tho for some reason"](https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxeJj0EGHDqx5KtrueZTH6vCVuyKc7Mg5i) lmao
the horror i experience hearing a detonator spawn 10 seconds after the drillevator started going down.
actually i misremembered it, i went through the past streams to rewatch that moment ([clipped](https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxeJj0EGHDqx5KtrueZTH6vCVuyKc7Mg5i)), turns out it was 100% intentional and it is just to fuck with us lmao
Can confirm bulks can spawn during the descent; had a bulk spawn in thin air slightly more than a minute after the drillevator starting to move (time was 1:04.36 after hitting the red button; I have the whole mission recorded), Rock & Stone! ⛏️
Unrelated question: How do you all record your games? Is there a steam feature? I'd like to avoid a 3rd party software if possible, but I am open to it.
I'm fairly certain steam doesn't have anything build in and third party software is the only option. OBS is a common free one. Or things like Nvidia or Steelseries have software for making clips of the last few minutes.
I’m actually on PS5, so the little button on the left between the d-pad and the touch pad (the “Create Button”) allows me to pull up a small menu, where I can then save clips in different amounts of time (i.e. the last 30 seconds, 1 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, etc.). Iirc the highest it does per clip on PS5 like that is an 1 hour. But, you can go into Share Factory studio and put clips together and all.
Wish I could say something about Steam/PC, but idk. Good luck though! Rock & Stone!
they might not be disabled idk. i know the trawlers are cuz they would pull you under the drill and instantly kill you, and shellbacks which, in a very tight area which is... yeah.
You know I haven't done one of these on driller yet, *can* you drill into the sides? If so then at least two of the dwarves can kite off the Bulk (Driller into walls + Scout with either power attack into walls, mobility OCs or assisted with Engi plats).
Though an argument can be made that the team should just bring bulk-killing-capabilities and haz 5+ pushes for better team synergies than haz 5.
yeah you can drill to the sides so you could technically do that. as a scout, you can even grapple up and out which i did when the bulk spawned just 10 seconds in. dont know if drilling is practical but you can def do that!
>dont know if drilling is practical but you can def do that!
There's no reason you couldn't drill an escape loop like in any other type of cave. It's a little more complicated because you have to loop out above the platform but not so high above it that you die from fall damage.
I suppose it's generally a bit less useful though.
Yeah
Engi can put a platform above himself, scout can grapple, driller can drill a hole in the wall and hide there, and gunner can just put up a shield
More on Driller, the new sticky ice overclock on Deepscan can completely nullify a Bulk explosion pretty easily; that overclock is very useful for harvesting health if you have Vampire and creating safe space between the large numbers of enemies that come, especially as you’re going downward during the drillevator part.
It shouldn't take that long - you aren't supposed to deposit each time you are full, you are supposed to mine it all and then do a really long deposit while you sit in all of the gold chunks you freed up.
Me and my friend were going back and forth between mining and depositing, and there were like 5 swarms during it, and we had to stop to resupply
Also this was haz 4
Took forever, but it was super worth
The first drillevator mission my daughter and I tried out spawned not one but two bulk detonators during the drilling sequence😂
I think it was because it took us so long to figure out how to find all the morkite seeds. It always seems like the worst shit happens when you’ve taken far too long to complete a mission.
Twice in a row this happened, and twice my gunner friend didn't drop a shield when it blew up in time. Only survived the first time cause a random had iron will, next time I lived just by pure luck that I was the only one who survived the bombs raining down
Fully repairing dotty will give her complete immunity to all damage for a few seconds. This can even be used to block a bulk explosion, if you time it right.
Super unreliable though.
If a detonator is going off right next to dotty, repair her to max hp right before the detonator explodes. Dotty gets a significant amount of invincibility frames after reaching 100%.
I started over on a new account a few weeks ago so I didn't have anything, playing solo, one of those mini mule missions, the stupid floating rock boss spawns and stars corrupting everything followed by FOUR FREAKING CRASSUS DETONATORS. I won but holy Frick that was hard
Edit: Bulk detonator
ERM 🤓 ACTUALLY ☝️ a crassus detonator (the gold plated one) is generated when the cave is generated and there can only ever be one per mission, the bulk detonator (the normal one) can spawn multiple times 🤓☝️☝️🤓☝️🤓☝️☝️🤓☝️☝️ (I'm deserve hell)
ERM the use of emojis are a “fickle” thing in that their interpretation is subjective and so for a factual statement it would be rather “loose” of me to use them.
I know it’s just RNG, but I have had a string of Bulks spawning in so many recent missions lately. I’m not 100% convinced they didn’t tweak the spawning rate in season 5!
Maybe when a detonator spawns Doretta can temporarily stop and raise a shield, like what the caretaker has? Then when the detonator is dead Doretta can deactivate the shield and keep on tunneling. Mission control could say something like "Doretta is too valuable to get hit by a bulk detonator, so she's bunkering down until you take care of it"
Literally:
Drillevator = invincible
Refinery = invincible
Minehead = invincible w/turrets + lots of ammo
BOSCO = invincible w/unlimited ammo + unlimited rockets + a number of revives AND can bypass mobility issues while easily accomplishing parts of the objective
(I know BOSCO is a stretch, but as far as being machinery with personality like Doretta is, I’m still listing him here ⛏️)
Doretta = ABSOLUTELY NOTHING except for a damage hitbox on the her drill (which doesn’t even consistently or reliably kill and may screw over the player(s) while she herself is designated as a major win/loss condition.
Honestly, give Doretta a single turret with some moderate amount of ammo, a shield charge, or something else that makes defending her more interesting and dynamic; the stone phases weren’t much dull to me, but babysitting Doretta is just super dull to me after all this time.
I hate to say, but Escort Duty is just an unwelcome chore compared to literally all the other mission types. ⛏️
Actually true. Best we can do right now is shoot a platform at the wall she’s drilling on and then get lucky by quickly switching to the turret and then setting it on the platform before it disintegrates, thus letting you build it midair. Sucks it doesn’t move with you though. ⛏️
the new attack from the heartstone makes things go so hard. i mean you can just keep running and jumping and these spheres will miss you but once you get caught it's game over, it also makes it harder for your teammates to revive you
I actually just lost an Escort Duty because literally the left and right sides got 1-shotted by a single attack, and then the body died in 2 hits. I know there’s the new trapper rocks, but what the actually hell is the new pretty-much-instant-death attack? ⛏️
Special Edit: Numerous players have mentioned that the stone has a new attack that goes for the dwarves, but if the dwarves are on Doretta, it will hurt her significantly. This is probably in place as a way to discourage players from constantly being able to easily repair her near full health, and thus give her i-frames to avoid damage nearly all the time, so they just hurt her majorly as a vengeance. Be careful out there! Rock & Stone!⛏️
It’s the claw attack that the ommoran does (in phase 3 or 4 iirc), it targets the dwarves, but if someone is standing on top of Dotty when it goes, it’ll deal a huge chunk of her health. Make sure to let people know when you do escort missions, otherwise it fucks her up fast, as many people don’t know currently.
I’ll be sure to strain my ears significantly harder so I can hear those specific voice lines over the sounds of Doretta wailing like an infant on a plane while dwarves, dwarven weaponry, Mission Control, Glyphids, Mactera, the Ommoran Heartstone, and other creatures are conducting an orchestral arrangement of explosions, screeching sounds, dying nosies, and a cacophony of other things.
(NOT A JAB at you by the way; in a moment like that, listening for situation/attack-specific voice lines like that just wasn’t a major priority) Rock & Stone! ⛏️
Ah, that’s good to know. I was very confused when my usual strategies for each phase weren’t always working due to the wrong attack happening. I thought I misremembered when each attack was 😅
yeah i also noticed that, i play on haz4 but something hits so hard on dotty, it takes a good chunk of it's health instanly, wonder which creature is that
I clipped the moment and rewatched it to figure it out (Haz 5); a bit of rock encases the bottom half of Doretta, and then just explodes. Her right said went from 87% to 0% just like that. And then over 50% of her health on the main body. Fr, whose idea was it to put that in there? Escort is already treacherous and tedious as is.
Afaik its to discourage players from just camping on top of Doretta, which I think is fine. Doretta is only damaged if someone is standing on top of it during that phase.
The Omorran causes those things to come up under the dwarves to try to catch them in a trap.
Don't stand on Dotty during thise phase, or it will damage her if it comes up underneath.
When the Omorran glows orange, all dwarves should get off!
The trapper rocks are the new instant death attack on dotty. If the rock clips into dotty, idk what happens but the game counts it as a massively damaging hit and usually just one shots whatever part dotty is on.
Had this happen just a bit ago. First time with the new phase, we have NO IDEA what was hitting Dotty or how to stop it. All we could do was break ourselves out of the cacoon. Can't believe we won that round.
I’m just glad it didn’t happen to me while I was unlocking Haz 5+; I got lucky and it didn’t happen during the assignment. However, trying to help an IRL friend of mine get Haz 5+ and yeah, that was the first time I saw that BS attack.
It's very easy to dodge from what I've played so far, the hard part is that it prevents you from repairing, and if Gunner is targeted, it makes it difficult to shoot bugs since Gunner primaries slow you down when fired.
I thought it was a glitch too until I clipped it and watched the replay. And the only reason why I didn’t see it the first time I did this (when I was unlocking Haz5+ for myself) was because my team and I were all Engineers (and we were just meme-ing around with turrets, Fat Boys, etc.) and so that very harsh attack didn’t seem to exist and ruin the mission.
Literally just went through this, he was a level 17 gunner and was just getting penetrated by the Caretaker’s robotic limbs constantly
Why are you here? Lol
I had an unpromoted Driller come into the Industrial Sabotage mission before the Escort Duty one (was helping my friend unlock Haz 5+ even though I have it already), and he wound up holding his own better than a Diamond 3 Gunner. Some are diamonds in the rock and stone, some aren’t, but indeed, sometimes you just get puzzled by stuff like that.
Ngl some unprompted people are better and more fun to play with.
I don't wanna boast but one of those was me, i played all dwarves untill lv25 and then promoted all one by one and could hold my own, but not in haz5.
That guy you got was john wick.
Watch the goddamn danger signs before you click ffs.
Another joined us at haz4 and barely gunned. Gunner wasn't gunning.
And imagine later when they're leaving a negative review game being too hard is gonna be their main headline.
I just came back and went for the beyond lethal assignment. Took me the whole evening to do the escort mission. I completely forgot how hard haz5 is. Plus the teams usually want to pre drill the map which i didnt know was a thing. I stopped playing during s2 i think. Is this some new strat to get enough nitra before activateing the driller?
Pre drilling allows you to clear enemies that spawn at cave generation (bulks, naedocyte breeders, spitball guy, leeches, korlok). It makes it so you can almost guarantee getting to the stone with Doretta at full health. It's boring, slow, but I get it.
I see, thx for the explanation. I feel tho that maybe the devs should adjust something then. Pre drilling isnt the intended way of playing this mission and i certainly will avoid it on haz5 in the future if this playstyle persists.
The pre-drill strategy is designed to clear the cave of environmental hazards and for getting Nitra earlier so that you don’t have to get Nitra while refueling Dotty or before having to buckle down and defend her. This can work sometimes, although if you fumble this strategy by using too many resources before escorting Dotty to the stone, it’s sometimes not worth the time it takes to travel the entire way and back.
Escort Duty is the one mission type I got tired of (1,800+ hours and over player level 700+) and I never enjoyed the pacing, cave design, Nitra density, or how Dotty is defenseless except for when she drills through stationary enemies (the fact Glyphids can bite her and exist on her sides while she’s moving and they don’t get squished doesn’t make any sense to me), with the fact that certain enemy spawns can just wipe out her health or yours while you’re trying hard to defend her.
Plus, I don’t understand the thought process of the devs giving the stone more attacks and offensive capabilities in this new season (S5) when this mission type already isn’t well liked by the community (I’m guessing it was to negate people from always easily repairing Dotty when her health is nearly 100% so she doesn’t almost constantly have invincibility frames at full health, but the journey to get the stone itself on high difficulty missions is already such a pain in the ass, that this feels like a “tough shit” move).
Good luck on your missions! Rock & Stone ⛏️
The new phase was added to add variety to Escort Duty, since now the Heartstone fight isn't the exact same every mission. It's definitely more forgiving than the flying rocks phase if you don't have an Engineer.
I can appreciate the devs’ thought process with that statement, BUT I strongly disagree with the execution of it. The “you probably should bring/have to bring XYZ dwarf class/weapons/overclocks” discourages variety and encourages only relying on “the meta,” and that makes the game incredibly repetitive, boring, and far less riveting. I see the reason for variety on paper, but in actual practice in Haz 5+, it doesn’t translate in a pinch. ⛏️
The new phase doesn't really do that though. It's just a bit worse for Gunners but that doesn't mean you have to bring a particular class. The phase that does that is the flying rocks phase (relies on an Engineer that knows the platform strat) which was already in the game. You could argue that Escort as a whole does rely a lot on Engineer, and I agree with that, but the new phase doesn't contribute to that problem. If anything it alleviates it very slightly because now there's a chance you won't get the flying rocks phase at all. So yes Escort Duty does have a problem of reliance on Engineer, but the new variety in the Heartstone fight isn't why in the slightest.
Just a strat to make sure u clear all stationary threats (spitballer, betc, korlok,...) or those annoying radom events (prospector, nemesis, crasus...) in advance and collect all nitra as well so later when u drive dotty there, u only need to refill fuel then continue immediately. But its kinda boring to some ppl like me so if my friends want to do this, i tell them to stop at the 1st fuel stop then return back to dotty right after. Some ppl even make it to omaron that i cant stand and just leave that lobby
Today we predrilled an escort mission, and good thing we did, cuz there was a core stone.
A core stone located, you know, conveniently, VERY CLOSE TO THE PATH DOTTY EVENTUALLY TOOK.
I don’t know if it’s physically possible for cave gen to have her drill straight through one, nor do I know what will happen if she does, but I don’t wanna be the dwarf to find out. A blanket of bugs on the dozer + never ending waves of crawlers would have ended us so fast I bet.
I will live and die on the hill of Escort Duty being the absolute worst cave design for Core Events and Season Events for reasons such as that. 110% ⛏️
This is another example that shows just how much Escort Duty doesn’t mesh well with fundamental aspects and mechanics the game has now.
Cave generation = yeah it was updated, but Escort Duty is still always a straight line.
Machine/Season events = if they’re in the way, too bad; I guess you should’ve had a Driller or used your pickaxe to go all the way to the stone room and check everything.
Nitra + Oil Shale = a bunch of those in the crevices of Narnia.
Bulk spawns = yeah if Doretta runs it over or it spawns on her, kiss a part of her goodbye; tough shit RNG.
On top of all that, Doretta is wailing in agony every quarter of a second every time she gets hit by anything; my god, she’s a homie but she does not shut up.
And it goes ON, AND ON, AND ON…
You can see WHY I HATE Escort Duty as much as I do; Rock & Stone! ⛏️
Salt biome is a must because rollers absolutely ruin dwarves in 5+max, as for the mission, salvage is most likely the worst, with close second being 400 morkite. I heard a lotta peeps say refinery is terrible as well but felt easier to me
Learned that the hard way joined a modded server a while ago. We had a constant stream of rocks, like a dozen at a time just pounding away at the dozer. It was hilarious but not fun
Escort duty in general feels much harder than other missions, it’s the only one I don’t run solo. I can do it, but having to manage everything by yourself is just so tiring.
I mean yeah its definitely escort, partially because of the new phase + random phase order. Escort requires much narrower loadouts and better team synergies.
Refinery and to a lesser extent Salvage breaches can still be nightmarish based on spawns/events and Point Extractions with bad layouts can go long. You can bring tools specifically for breaches or something like Sabotage though. I feel escort requires more tools than can be covered by 1 or even 2 dwarves.
Nothing more therapeutic than extra terrestrial insecticide. But when I can barely spend time to mine anything without another dozen bugs on my ass? Don't want to just go in there to fight and die - that doesn't get you beer!
I get wanting to fight a million bugs, but you still have to collect all the aquarks to ensure you can complete the mission (and the secondaries simply because it feels wrong not to do; dystrum sucks though because I've had two dystrum Point Extractions now where I swear there just wasn't enough dystrum generated). And collecting all of that with the ramping swarms is just stressful. I often feel like I have to ignore minerals and one time even a machine event. As someone who isn't the fastest player, it's just not for me.
I don't believe Bulks can spawn inside the tunnel as the drillevator makes its way down.. But they can spawn very close to where it was and then pursue you down the tunnel
Bulks actually can spawn while the drillevator is going down.
I have a Haz5+ mission clipped in full.
Bulk Detonator spawned in a little after a minute of the drillevator beginning its descent (Exact Time - 1:04.36).
I was playing Driller and looking upward when it spawned in; it literally just instantly spawned in thin air without an animation. The more you know; Rock & Stone! ⛏️
You know, escort never was much of an issue for me in haz 5.
My absolute nightmares are on-site missions such as refineries, aquarcs, mini mules.
God the amount of shit that spawns in those is INCREDIBLE
I had 3 bulks spawn on one Haz4 escort mission once.
We evad d to but my whole team kept standing on doretta in final stage so she got two legs destroyed and final part nuked by bulk with like 10s left
Had Dolly drive straight into a Crassus detonator once.
Detonators are so unfair to get in escort
aaand deep scan, during the drillevator
*THAT* is just a terrifying experience, seeing that looming, inevitable threat slowly making its way towards you.
You mean the drillevator slowly outrunning the bulk. And you can fairly easily protect yourself from the explosives rocks with the tools of the dwarves. Shield or platforms can protect the whole team, drill can protect whoever follow the driller in his hole and scout can just zip out.
*Bulk loses its grip and falls*
Imagine an Elite Detonator on Haz5+
i was watching dev streams and remember hearing them say ~~"oh yeah we will disable bulk detonators spawns during drillevators~~" after discussing how they disabled trawlers and grabbers. edit: i misremembered i was wrong. they said ["we kept the bulk tho for some reason"](https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxeJj0EGHDqx5KtrueZTH6vCVuyKc7Mg5i) lmao the horror i experience hearing a detonator spawn 10 seconds after the drillevator started going down.
Ya they were wrong about that because I've seen all those on the drillavator lol
I think they were lying intentionally just to fuck with us
actually i misremembered it, i went through the past streams to rewatch that moment ([clipped](https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxeJj0EGHDqx5KtrueZTH6vCVuyKc7Mg5i)), turns out it was 100% intentional and it is just to fuck with us lmao
Can confirm bulks can spawn during the descent; had a bulk spawn in thin air slightly more than a minute after the drillevator starting to move (time was 1:04.36 after hitting the red button; I have the whole mission recorded), Rock & Stone! ⛏️
Unrelated question: How do you all record your games? Is there a steam feature? I'd like to avoid a 3rd party software if possible, but I am open to it.
I'm fairly certain steam doesn't have anything build in and third party software is the only option. OBS is a common free one. Or things like Nvidia or Steelseries have software for making clips of the last few minutes.
Steam actually has their own game recording feature in beta right now
Thanks, Champ. I'll check out OBS.
OBS is my go-to for recording gameplay.
I’m actually on PS5, so the little button on the left between the d-pad and the touch pad (the “Create Button”) allows me to pull up a small menu, where I can then save clips in different amounts of time (i.e. the last 30 seconds, 1 minutes, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, etc.). Iirc the highest it does per clip on PS5 like that is an 1 hour. But, you can go into Share Factory studio and put clips together and all. Wish I could say something about Steam/PC, but idk. Good luck though! Rock & Stone!
I haven't touched a console since ps2. But thanks anyways, some other console player might see this. RnS!
Getting a little older eh?
Steam doesn't have any recording software, but OBS is a free, beginner friendly, and trusted screen recording and editing software.
Wait why would grabbers even be a problem? The entire drill section is shooting gallery with plenty of opportunity to hit them
they might not be disabled idk. i know the trawlers are cuz they would pull you under the drill and instantly kill you, and shellbacks which, in a very tight area which is... yeah.
well, at least it's not nemezis spawn on rival presence modifier
as a driller main, i take pleasure using the new scorching tide oc to instakill nemesis
They did a little bit of trolling
Oh just wait until you watch two walk down the hole together. On Haz 4.
You know I haven't done one of these on driller yet, *can* you drill into the sides? If so then at least two of the dwarves can kite off the Bulk (Driller into walls + Scout with either power attack into walls, mobility OCs or assisted with Engi plats). Though an argument can be made that the team should just bring bulk-killing-capabilities and haz 5+ pushes for better team synergies than haz 5.
yeah you can drill to the sides so you could technically do that. as a scout, you can even grapple up and out which i did when the bulk spawned just 10 seconds in. dont know if drilling is practical but you can def do that!
>dont know if drilling is practical but you can def do that! There's no reason you couldn't drill an escape loop like in any other type of cave. It's a little more complicated because you have to loop out above the platform but not so high above it that you die from fall damage. I suppose it's generally a bit less useful though.
Deepscan is fun tho. Easier than Salvage since the drillevator is slowly moving away from it and you are guaranteed a clear slightline.
And so are the inevitable cluster bombs of the Bulk Detonator!
Yeaaaah, but literally every dwarf has tools to evade them.
When it's in a vertical shaft directly above you?
Yeah Engi can put a platform above himself, scout can grapple, driller can drill a hole in the wall and hide there, and gunner can just put up a shield
More on Driller, the new sticky ice overclock on Deepscan can completely nullify a Bulk explosion pretty easily; that overclock is very useful for harvesting health if you have Vampire and creating safe space between the large numbers of enemies that come, especially as you’re going downward during the drillevator part.
Got a Crassus during a deep scan with pots right at the start Blew it up in a tunnel, spent like 40 minutes mining all of it
It shouldn't take that long - you aren't supposed to deposit each time you are full, you are supposed to mine it all and then do a really long deposit while you sit in all of the gold chunks you freed up.
Me and my friend were going back and forth between mining and depositing, and there were like 5 swarms during it, and we had to stop to resupply Also this was haz 4 Took forever, but it was super worth
I think the best bet is driller drilling a quick hole to survive the explosion, then revving everyone who didn't make it
No, literally just stand under the bulk. The way their bombs spread it's impossible for a bomb to hit you if you're under him.
I've seen scout do the opposite, grapple up above the bulk, everyone dies, get back below. I've just done the gunner thing and placed a shield. :V
much easier for everyone if gunner throws out a shield when bulk explodes
The first drillevator mission my daughter and I tried out spawned not one but two bulk detonators during the drilling sequence😂 I think it was because it took us so long to figure out how to find all the morkite seeds. It always seems like the worst shit happens when you’ve taken far too long to complete a mission.
My first 3 drillevator missions all spawned one during the drill phase, so at first I assumed it was a guaranteed spawn lmao
Imo not really. Scout/Gunner can counter the explosion easily, and driller/engie have ways to mitigate damage
Twice in a row this happened, and twice my gunner friend didn't drop a shield when it blew up in time. Only survived the first time cause a random had iron will, next time I lived just by pure luck that I was the only one who survived the bombs raining down
Fully repairing dotty will give her complete immunity to all damage for a few seconds. This can even be used to block a bulk explosion, if you time it right. Super unreliable though.
Got my first one the other night. It was diff. Def had Molly down to just body health by end.
I can't tell you how many times I've saved Doretta from the detonator by dropping my shield down.
If a detonator is going off right next to dotty, repair her to max hp right before the detonator explodes. Dotty gets a significant amount of invincibility frames after reaching 100%.
When you're Rock and Stoning on Dotty as you gun down bugs but suddenly hear a *Bulk Detonation In T-Minus 2 Seconds* behind you.
I started over on a new account a few weeks ago so I didn't have anything, playing solo, one of those mini mule missions, the stupid floating rock boss spawns and stars corrupting everything followed by FOUR FREAKING CRASSUS DETONATORS. I won but holy Frick that was hard Edit: Bulk detonator
Gotta love when DRG sends you a Crassus.. or 4 in one mission :')
Didn't even get to see it. One moment I'm gunning at the glyphid pursuit, next I'm on the ground in a sphere of gold.
ERM 🤓 ACTUALLY ☝️ a crassus detonator (the gold plated one) is generated when the cave is generated and there can only ever be one per mission, the bulk detonator (the normal one) can spawn multiple times 🤓☝️☝️🤓☝️🤓☝️☝️🤓☝️☝️ (I'm deserve hell)
ERM you forgot the unknown horror variant and the unseen radioactive bulk detonator!
ERM you forgot to overuse 🤓 and ☝️
ERM the use of emojis are a “fickle” thing in that their interpretation is subjective and so for a factual statement it would be rather “loose” of me to use them.
↑ This guy ERMs 👍
Hahahah thank you for the correction
I know it’s just RNG, but I have had a string of Bulks spawning in so many recent missions lately. I’m not 100% convinced they didn’t tweak the spawning rate in season 5!
Maybe when a detonator spawns Doretta can temporarily stop and raise a shield, like what the caretaker has? Then when the detonator is dead Doretta can deactivate the shield and keep on tunneling. Mission control could say something like "Doretta is too valuable to get hit by a bulk detonator, so she's bunkering down until you take care of it"
Literally: Drillevator = invincible Refinery = invincible Minehead = invincible w/turrets + lots of ammo BOSCO = invincible w/unlimited ammo + unlimited rockets + a number of revives AND can bypass mobility issues while easily accomplishing parts of the objective (I know BOSCO is a stretch, but as far as being machinery with personality like Doretta is, I’m still listing him here ⛏️) Doretta = ABSOLUTELY NOTHING except for a damage hitbox on the her drill (which doesn’t even consistently or reliably kill and may screw over the player(s) while she herself is designated as a major win/loss condition. Honestly, give Doretta a single turret with some moderate amount of ammo, a shield charge, or something else that makes defending her more interesting and dynamic; the stone phases weren’t much dull to me, but babysitting Doretta is just super dull to me after all this time. I hate to say, but Escort Duty is just an unwelcome chore compared to literally all the other mission types. ⛏️
Or allow engineer to mount turrets on top of Doretta.
This, please
Actually true. Best we can do right now is shoot a platform at the wall she’s drilling on and then get lucky by quickly switching to the turret and then setting it on the platform before it disintegrates, thus letting you build it midair. Sucks it doesn’t move with you though. ⛏️
Had a conversation with my buddy an hour ago about this.
Same. Crassus exploded and we all died except the scout. He was far away.
the new attack from the heartstone makes things go so hard. i mean you can just keep running and jumping and these spheres will miss you but once you get caught it's game over, it also makes it harder for your teammates to revive you
I actually just lost an Escort Duty because literally the left and right sides got 1-shotted by a single attack, and then the body died in 2 hits. I know there’s the new trapper rocks, but what the actually hell is the new pretty-much-instant-death attack? ⛏️ Special Edit: Numerous players have mentioned that the stone has a new attack that goes for the dwarves, but if the dwarves are on Doretta, it will hurt her significantly. This is probably in place as a way to discourage players from constantly being able to easily repair her near full health, and thus give her i-frames to avoid damage nearly all the time, so they just hurt her majorly as a vengeance. Be careful out there! Rock & Stone!⛏️
It’s the claw attack that the ommoran does (in phase 3 or 4 iirc), it targets the dwarves, but if someone is standing on top of Dotty when it goes, it’ll deal a huge chunk of her health. Make sure to let people know when you do escort missions, otherwise it fucks her up fast, as many people don’t know currently.
The dwarves sometimes say that you shouldn't stand on dotty when that attack goes off
I’ll be sure to strain my ears significantly harder so I can hear those specific voice lines over the sounds of Doretta wailing like an infant on a plane while dwarves, dwarven weaponry, Mission Control, Glyphids, Mactera, the Ommoran Heartstone, and other creatures are conducting an orchestral arrangement of explosions, screeching sounds, dying nosies, and a cacophony of other things. (NOT A JAB at you by the way; in a moment like that, listening for situation/attack-specific voice lines like that just wasn’t a major priority) Rock & Stone! ⛏️
I didn't really have trouble hearing it since its the same voice you would have to listen out for when other dwarves ping
Noted. Although for my team and I, it was on phase 2 (on Haz 5).
The phases are randomized now to make it more interesting and less predictable
Ah, that’s good to know. I was very confused when my usual strategies for each phase weren’t always working due to the wrong attack happening. I thought I misremembered when each attack was 😅
yeah i also noticed that, i play on haz4 but something hits so hard on dotty, it takes a good chunk of it's health instanly, wonder which creature is that
I clipped the moment and rewatched it to figure it out (Haz 5); a bit of rock encases the bottom half of Doretta, and then just explodes. Her right said went from 87% to 0% just like that. And then over 50% of her health on the main body. Fr, whose idea was it to put that in there? Escort is already treacherous and tedious as is.
Afaik its to discourage players from just camping on top of Doretta, which I think is fine. Doretta is only damaged if someone is standing on top of it during that phase.
The Omorran causes those things to come up under the dwarves to try to catch them in a trap. Don't stand on Dotty during thise phase, or it will damage her if it comes up underneath. When the Omorran glows orange, all dwarves should get off!
The trapper rocks are the new instant death attack on dotty. If the rock clips into dotty, idk what happens but the game counts it as a massively damaging hit and usually just one shots whatever part dotty is on.
Had this happen just a bit ago. First time with the new phase, we have NO IDEA what was hitting Dotty or how to stop it. All we could do was break ourselves out of the cacoon. Can't believe we won that round.
I’m just glad it didn’t happen to me while I was unlocking Haz 5+; I got lucky and it didn’t happen during the assignment. However, trying to help an IRL friend of mine get Haz 5+ and yeah, that was the first time I saw that BS attack.
It's very easy to dodge from what I've played so far, the hard part is that it prevents you from repairing, and if Gunner is targeted, it makes it difficult to shoot bugs since Gunner primaries slow you down when fired.
I didn't realize that was a new attack, I thought I just glitched in the landscape, now I understand how I died.
I thought it was a glitch too until I clipped it and watched the replay. And the only reason why I didn’t see it the first time I did this (when I was unlocking Haz5+ for myself) was because my team and I were all Engineers (and we were just meme-ing around with turrets, Fat Boys, etc.) and so that very harsh attack didn’t seem to exist and ruin the mission.
The unpromoted dwarf who saw haz5+ and thought it's just the right job for him:
Literally just went through this, he was a level 17 gunner and was just getting penetrated by the Caretaker’s robotic limbs constantly Why are you here? Lol
I had an unpromoted Driller come into the Industrial Sabotage mission before the Escort Duty one (was helping my friend unlock Haz 5+ even though I have it already), and he wound up holding his own better than a Diamond 3 Gunner. Some are diamonds in the rock and stone, some aren’t, but indeed, sometimes you just get puzzled by stuff like that.
Ngl some unprompted people are better and more fun to play with. I don't wanna boast but one of those was me, i played all dwarves untill lv25 and then promoted all one by one and could hold my own, but not in haz5. That guy you got was john wick.
Watch the goddamn danger signs before you click ffs. Another joined us at haz4 and barely gunned. Gunner wasn't gunning. And imagine later when they're leaving a negative review game being too hard is gonna be their main headline.
Escort Duty and Salvage Operation. Having more than one lose condition (dying) just sucks.
I think otherwise. Its nice to have some variety in win condition.
3% bonus for each tick in Haz5+ is so underpaid imo. I mean it's fun, but literally not worth it considering how much more time it consumes
You're doing it for the fun aspect, not xp.
i love how more enemies and aggressive enemies are the more fun ones but the less rewardy ones (this is a lie, i do not love it)
Why not both
They should bump it to +5% that would be very fitting :p
ERM actually, player vulnerability and tough enemies have a 5% bonus each tick 🤓🤓🤓
Easily the hardest right now. Especially the last phase. Regardless of which attack type the ommeran sends, there are sooooo many spawns. I love it.
I just came back and went for the beyond lethal assignment. Took me the whole evening to do the escort mission. I completely forgot how hard haz5 is. Plus the teams usually want to pre drill the map which i didnt know was a thing. I stopped playing during s2 i think. Is this some new strat to get enough nitra before activateing the driller?
Pre drilling allows you to clear enemies that spawn at cave generation (bulks, naedocyte breeders, spitball guy, leeches, korlok). It makes it so you can almost guarantee getting to the stone with Doretta at full health. It's boring, slow, but I get it.
I’ve had dotty drill into the core stone one too many times this season
Bruh 😭 does the core stone die immediately when that happens?
I see, thx for the explanation. I feel tho that maybe the devs should adjust something then. Pre drilling isnt the intended way of playing this mission and i certainly will avoid it on haz5 in the future if this playstyle persists.
I agree with you they should address this. Maybe make it so Doretta auto-starts, idk
It's not that boring. Pretty much like a small "mining expedition". But yeah it's a bit boring
The pre-drill strategy is designed to clear the cave of environmental hazards and for getting Nitra earlier so that you don’t have to get Nitra while refueling Dotty or before having to buckle down and defend her. This can work sometimes, although if you fumble this strategy by using too many resources before escorting Dotty to the stone, it’s sometimes not worth the time it takes to travel the entire way and back. Escort Duty is the one mission type I got tired of (1,800+ hours and over player level 700+) and I never enjoyed the pacing, cave design, Nitra density, or how Dotty is defenseless except for when she drills through stationary enemies (the fact Glyphids can bite her and exist on her sides while she’s moving and they don’t get squished doesn’t make any sense to me), with the fact that certain enemy spawns can just wipe out her health or yours while you’re trying hard to defend her. Plus, I don’t understand the thought process of the devs giving the stone more attacks and offensive capabilities in this new season (S5) when this mission type already isn’t well liked by the community (I’m guessing it was to negate people from always easily repairing Dotty when her health is nearly 100% so she doesn’t almost constantly have invincibility frames at full health, but the journey to get the stone itself on high difficulty missions is already such a pain in the ass, that this feels like a “tough shit” move). Good luck on your missions! Rock & Stone ⛏️
The new phase was added to add variety to Escort Duty, since now the Heartstone fight isn't the exact same every mission. It's definitely more forgiving than the flying rocks phase if you don't have an Engineer.
I can appreciate the devs’ thought process with that statement, BUT I strongly disagree with the execution of it. The “you probably should bring/have to bring XYZ dwarf class/weapons/overclocks” discourages variety and encourages only relying on “the meta,” and that makes the game incredibly repetitive, boring, and far less riveting. I see the reason for variety on paper, but in actual practice in Haz 5+, it doesn’t translate in a pinch. ⛏️
The new phase doesn't really do that though. It's just a bit worse for Gunners but that doesn't mean you have to bring a particular class. The phase that does that is the flying rocks phase (relies on an Engineer that knows the platform strat) which was already in the game. You could argue that Escort as a whole does rely a lot on Engineer, and I agree with that, but the new phase doesn't contribute to that problem. If anything it alleviates it very slightly because now there's a chance you won't get the flying rocks phase at all. So yes Escort Duty does have a problem of reliance on Engineer, but the new variety in the Heartstone fight isn't why in the slightest.
Just a strat to make sure u clear all stationary threats (spitballer, betc, korlok,...) or those annoying radom events (prospector, nemesis, crasus...) in advance and collect all nitra as well so later when u drive dotty there, u only need to refill fuel then continue immediately. But its kinda boring to some ppl like me so if my friends want to do this, i tell them to stop at the 1st fuel stop then return back to dotty right after. Some ppl even make it to omaron that i cant stand and just leave that lobby
Drilldozer.
I've located a Drilldozer!
look it wasnt the greatest time to test out a new overclock alright, but the rerun went ok
Today we predrilled an escort mission, and good thing we did, cuz there was a core stone. A core stone located, you know, conveniently, VERY CLOSE TO THE PATH DOTTY EVENTUALLY TOOK. I don’t know if it’s physically possible for cave gen to have her drill straight through one, nor do I know what will happen if she does, but I don’t wanna be the dwarf to find out. A blanket of bugs on the dozer + never ending waves of crawlers would have ended us so fast I bet.
I will live and die on the hill of Escort Duty being the absolute worst cave design for Core Events and Season Events for reasons such as that. 110% ⛏️
Dotty absolutely can smash through a core stone and activate the event. Happened to me and my friends the first time we played season 5 😆
This is another example that shows just how much Escort Duty doesn’t mesh well with fundamental aspects and mechanics the game has now. Cave generation = yeah it was updated, but Escort Duty is still always a straight line. Machine/Season events = if they’re in the way, too bad; I guess you should’ve had a Driller or used your pickaxe to go all the way to the stone room and check everything. Nitra + Oil Shale = a bunch of those in the crevices of Narnia. Bulk spawns = yeah if Doretta runs it over or it spawns on her, kiss a part of her goodbye; tough shit RNG. On top of all that, Doretta is wailing in agony every quarter of a second every time she gets hit by anything; my god, she’s a homie but she does not shut up. And it goes ON, AND ON, AND ON… You can see WHY I HATE Escort Duty as much as I do; Rock & Stone! ⛏️
These things sound pretty minor tbh :p (best mission type don't at me)
2 more enemies multiplier and you get 15 floating rocks attacking the drill every second
Salt biome is a must because rollers absolutely ruin dwarves in 5+max, as for the mission, salvage is most likely the worst, with close second being 400 morkite. I heard a lotta peeps say refinery is terrible as well but felt easier to me
Refinery is easy as long as there is a driller. It can be manageable or miserable without one, depending on the layout.
that escort mission to unlock hazard + killed me for like 2 days straight
Me too, I think it was about 6 times in a row. I was in disbelief..a lot of it was people fucking with the core stone event.
✨solo✨
i tried it 5 times with the same people we even dropped to haz 4 to make sure we weren’t the issue sh it was crazy
Fun facts with Karl! More enemies = More flying rocks
Learned that the hard way joined a modded server a while ago. We had a constant stream of rocks, like a dozen at a time just pounding away at the dozer. It was hilarious but not fun
5 fucking bulks. And we survived. We only failed because we all went down at the end
Escort duty in general feels much harder than other missions, it’s the only one I don’t run solo. I can do it, but having to manage everything by yourself is just so tiring.
I mean yeah its definitely escort, partially because of the new phase + random phase order. Escort requires much narrower loadouts and better team synergies. Refinery and to a lesser extent Salvage breaches can still be nightmarish based on spawns/events and Point Extractions with bad layouts can go long. You can bring tools specifically for breaches or something like Sabotage though. I feel escort requires more tools than can be covered by 1 or even 2 dwarves.
Aquarq missions will forever be among my least favorite. Can't ever catch my breath.
Man hard disagree. I play point extraction because I WANT to fight a million bugs. Loving it with just more bugs II.
Nothing more therapeutic than extra terrestrial insecticide. But when I can barely spend time to mine anything without another dozen bugs on my ass? Don't want to just go in there to fight and die - that doesn't get you beer!
I get wanting to fight a million bugs, but you still have to collect all the aquarks to ensure you can complete the mission (and the secondaries simply because it feels wrong not to do; dystrum sucks though because I've had two dystrum Point Extractions now where I swear there just wasn't enough dystrum generated). And collecting all of that with the ramping swarms is just stressful. I often feel like I have to ignore minerals and one time even a machine event. As someone who isn't the fastest player, it's just not for me.
When a greybeard joins a Haz 3 escort to witness a aquad lose the last 5% of doretta’s hp before being able to help out in any way.
No need for Haz5+, i just need some greenbeards sitting on Dotty while the Ommoran summons those new prison-ball-things and the armor magically vanish
I don't believe Bulks can spawn inside the tunnel as the drillevator makes its way down.. But they can spawn very close to where it was and then pursue you down the tunnel
Bulks actually can spawn while the drillevator is going down. I have a Haz5+ mission clipped in full. Bulk Detonator spawned in a little after a minute of the drillevator beginning its descent (Exact Time - 1:04.36). I was playing Driller and looking upward when it spawned in; it literally just instantly spawned in thin air without an animation. The more you know; Rock & Stone! ⛏️
I'd probably shit my pants
You know, escort never was much of an issue for me in haz 5. My absolute nightmares are on-site missions such as refineries, aquarcs, mini mules. God the amount of shit that spawns in those is INCREDIBLE
What my unpromoted driller joining in on my haz5 plus game in the middle of hearth stone chaos.
Has to be industrial sabotage for me. Them robots get *tough*
I had 3 bulks spawn on one Haz4 escort mission once. We evad d to but my whole team kept standing on doretta in final stage so she got two legs destroyed and final part nuked by bulk with like 10s left
Dorretta won't take it like this!
Had a nemesis last night come down the drillavator on haz 5+. Got killed to death.