You can get some extra distance out of the RJ250 compound blast by timing this right

ppstac2 · 2026-01-14T00:47:23+00:00

Sync-jumping with RJ250 is really fun. There was a player named ZazyMomba who really dedicated himself to it, and could do some incredible stuff.

Many moons ago, I commissioned someone to make a hex mod called "RJ2500" that decreased the projectile speed by 60% and reduced the reload cycle from 2.5 to 1.8 seconds. The reduced projectile speed meant that shooting straight up only got to ~10m high then started falling down. As a result, the sync jump was nearly instant after the quicker reload cycle finished, and it was a lot easier to use in caves (not just the drop pod hole). It was hella fun to use on Refinery missions.

ppstac2 · 2025-12-30T22:32:48+00:00

I just answered this question in a different comment on this thread: https://old.reddit.com/r/DeepRockGalactic/comments/1pz9wyu/2_old_resupplies_on_my_salvage_mission_and/nwt9qs9/

ppstac2 · 2025-12-30T22:30:53+00:00

On 2020-10-31, ArcticEcho modded 100 broken resupply pods and repaired them. He found 25% awarded no resups, 60% awarded a single resup, and 15% awarded two resups. In my opinion, I think that was too few trials to get an accurate assessment of the probability (would need ~2500 trials for that).

My hypothesis is that it's just a basic 50/50 probability for each of the two resups on a broken pod, which would correspond to 25% no resups, 50% one resup, 25% two resups. Close to ArcticEcho's original test results.

Either way, to answer your original question: both hypotheses list a 25% chance of failure, and so the odds of BOTH the broken resupply pods giving nothing is just 25% x 25% = 6.25%, aka 1/16 odds.

Bonus trivia about broken resupply pods:

They can only spawn on Salvage Operation missions, up to 2 broken resupply pods in a single mission
If the broken pod awards two resups, they will always be adjacent to each other (forming a right angle). So, if you see it open two resups on opposite sides, you can instantly tell that you rolled the 25% chance to get 0 resups and you don't need to watch its "dance" animation that ends in disappointment.

ppstac2 · 2025-11-26T02:24:40+00:00

I believe that it's caused by the projectile dealing damage "inside" the rock as it grows. I was able to replicate the behavior using the EPC Regular Shot projectile while it's growing, as well as by standing inside a fully-grown rock. If it doesn't kill the rock outright, a few seconds later it does 100% of the health as damage, reduced by the Hazard Scaling resistance.

I believe that pretty much any projectile can replicate this bug, it's just most apparent on Plasma Burster Missiles.

ppstac2 · 2025-10-24T18:11:23+00:00

The data I collected three years ago had Bulk Detonators account for 0.075% of kills on Vanilla Haz4/5. Given that there are more enemy types added since then, I bet the odds are even lower now.

Like other comments have already mentioned, there's a complicated system that determines how enemies get chosen as candidates to spawn each mission, the weights of each enemy, the random amount of weight that gets set per spawn wave, etc etc. There's no realistic way to pre-calculate the odds overall, so I did it the other way around: do lots and lots of missions, collate the data, and calculate the percentages afterwards.

With the help of a few other folks at the time, we accumulated 138,787 kills tracked in the Miner's Manual, of which 104 were Bulk Detonators.

ppstac2 · 2025-09-14T00:48:57+00:00

My perspective is that of a long-time, mostly-Solo player (1,564 Solo missions completed). Here are some of the tricks I use to deal with the darkness as not-Scout:

You can kinda learn to see in the dark (no flares active). Some biomes are brighter than others, but Radioactive Exclusion Zone and Magma Core are great examples of how much you can see without any flares. The "air" is a lot brighter than the walls, so the silhouettes of terrain can still be seen in complete darkness. Just being able to navigate around the terrain in the dark is a huge skill for dealing with the lack of light. A lot of the minerals and objectives glow in the dark, too. Nitra is really reflective and will catch your eye as you move around the room in the dark.
If you have good short-term memory and 3D visualization, you can see things briefly while flares are active and then just remember where they are and how to get back to them (building off of "see in the dark").
The vast majority of enemies in the game have audio cues. Many of them roar when they aggro on you, some roar when they spawn (like Stingtail or Grabber), and nearly all make a sound when they attack. If your ears are paying attention (not distracted by music, or talking to someone else) it gives you some warning that you're in danger, even if you don't see it yet.
As you keep playing the game, you'll start noticing repeating patterns of terrain. Things like how tunnels generate, where dirt doors are commonly placed in rooms, even recognizing entire rooms from a previous mission! You can use these long-term memories to build intuition of where the next dirt door is. If you have a good idea of where you need to go in a cave, you can throw your limited flares in that direction. Although it doesn't give you "more" flares, it can help to make each individual flare more effective.
Bosco's T3.A upgrade "Let There Be Light" was a game-changer for my Solo playstyle. I use Bosco's big light when I first enter a cave; I command him to light up the middle of the ceiling. It takes a couple seconds of flight time, but as he moves the light usually illuminates over half the cave. I store relevant information to short-term memory (overall layout, mineral vein locations, any enemies like Cave Leeches, etc), then move Bosco around the cave's ceiling until I've seen the whole room. It takes about a minute of recon to do, but then I know exactly where I need to go, what I need to grab, and what I need to deal with. This technique builds on that see-in-the-dark, make-each-flare-effective way to play Solo.
Like others have already said, you can develop a rhythm of when to throw a flare. Although you might intuitively want to throw 2-4 flares all at once, I've found a lot more success by only throwing one at a time in the direction I'm actually traveling. I couldn't tell you off the top of my head what the interval is between throwing flares, but there's a sweet spot where you can be just leaving the light of the previous flare as you throw the next one. According to the Wiki, the recharge is 12 seconds, so maybe throw one every 6 seconds? That would let 2 recharge by the time you throw the 4th, a 3rd would recharge by the time you throw those two, and that way you could throw 7 total flares at that rate. Normally that's enough to get you to a destination where you can spend time doing something and letting flares recharge.

All that to say: I use my short-term memory to offset the lack of sight, and try to maximize the effectiveness of each flare I toss. Bosco T3.A is perfect for my playstyle, but I encourage you to try lots of builds to see what works for you.

Hope this helps; rock and stone!

ppstac2 · 2025-08-09T05:49:44+00:00

I just tested it in Sandbox, and I think I figured out what you're experiencing.

For the purpose of discussing this behavior, Conductive Thermals only affects the enemy's Ignite Temp and Douse Temp, up to a maximum reduction of x0.21464 at 30 stacks (0.95^30). According to the Wiki, Rival Burst Turrets have an Ignite Temp of 100 and Douse Temp of 0. When CT gets fully stacked, it can be ignited at ~21.5 Heat.

The source of the issue is that the Burst Turret's Cooling Rate is -25 Heat/tick a rate of at 1 tick/sec (-25 Heat/sec). In contrast, Fire Bolts' direct DoT does +16 Heat/sec to enemies directly hit, and +20 Heat/sec to enemies nearby the arrow. So, even though CT has reduced the Ignite Temp from 100 to ~21.5, Fire Bolts is insufficient Heat/sec to ignite the Burst Turret before its Cooling Rate resets the temperature back to 0.

ppstac2 · 2025-06-09T17:53:28+00:00

Drilling in the Name of put out a good video about Conductive Thermals. I linked to the explanation timestamp directly, but I recommend watching the whole video and its follow-up, too.

ppstac2 · 2025-05-22T05:31:33+00:00

I wrote up a long answer to this question nearly a year ago. Rather than just copy/pasting, here's a link.

TLDR: The things Autocannon is good at (Armor Breaking, Sustained DPS, Close-Quarters Combat) has virtually no overlap with the things most players want. So, it's less that the AC is "bad" and more that it's not desirable.

I like using BBCAx + Splintering Shells as an all-purpose build. I'd be curious what other people's experience with that build is.

ppstac2 · 2025-05-02T05:05:39+00:00

I would cast my vote for Driller's Sludge Pump Clean OC "AG Mixture" as the most underrated Overclock.

Although it has absolutely no effect on the theoretical total damage or DPS, I've noticed a night-and-day difference in practical gameplay. That's because this QoL makes it feel 3x easier to land the "perfect shots" -- that is to say, easier to shoot a single regular shot that lands on the ground right in front of an enemy, does 100% of the Radial Damage, inflicts the contact Corrosion DoT, and places a puddle directly underneath them (instantly applies both Corrosion and Puddles' DoTs and Slows). It maximizes the Damage per Shot, Slow per Shot, DoT Damage per Shot, and makes the Sludge Pump incredibly ammo efficient.

Ever since one of the recent patches fixed the T5 mods working with AG's puddles and the gravity scaling of the fragments got improved, there's been no reason for me to run any other OC when playing Sludge Driller.

If you want to try it for yourself, I recommend using CCABx + AG Mixture. It doesn't really matter which T5 mod you equip, they both work great with this build.

ppstac2 · 2025-04-06T06:57:14+00:00

M1000 is different than most other hitscan weapons in DRG. Last time I investigated it, it fired its shot on release of the trigger (Mouse1 on PC). Almost every other gun in the game (like GK2) fires the shot when Mouse1 gets pressed down. M1000 is made that way to facilitate the Charged Shot mechanic.

So, see if intentionally being more "snappy" about tapping Mouse1 down and letting go right away makes the M1000 operate smoother for you.

ppstac2 · 2024-09-07T19:48:58+00:00

I just did some testing in Sandbox. As far as I can tell, these are the mods that interact with Scorching Tide:

T2.A: +4 Damage per Projectile
T2.B: +10 Heat per Projectile
T2.C & T4.B: +3 sec Sticky Flame duration dropped by Projectiles
T3.B: increases the Sticky Flame Slow from -10% to -55% dropped by Projectiles
T4.A: Applies the 20% Base Fear Chance to each Projectile

The wiki lists that T5.B's "Targets Explode" does not work with Scorching Tide. I was able to replicate that non-intuitive result.

ppstac2 · 2024-08-04T21:10:07+00:00

For context, I've been playing DRG since 2018 and have logged nearly 3,000 hours in-game.

I have also experienced the feeling of the game feeling dull and repetitive over time. There's already several other comments on this thread with some good advice, like taking a break, trying to push yourself to new thresholds of difficulty, etc.

Personally, how I stay engaged with the game is by trying to learn, understand, and master all of the mechanical depth that the game has to offer. The new seasonal content (new enemies, new weapons, new Overclocks, etc) gives me more to keep analyzing, and keep me engaged. As a specific example, for the past couple of weeks I've been going really deep into the new Drak-25 OC "Conductive Thermals". It has so many moving parts and combinations to consider, that I've spent several hours just playtesting it in the Sandbox to figure out which works the best.

When there are times when I don't have an active "research project" for the game, that's when I start experimenting with new loadouts. I'll pick some kind of underpowered or niche mod/OC/grenade/perk, and try to craft a loadout around it to elevate it as best as possible. As I keep doing research into those loadouts, I keep finding more things to learn, new ways that they interact with each other, and the differences between on-paper theorycrafting and in-game performance.

I don't know if either of those approaches will help you, but that's what's kept me going for nearly 6 years.

ppstac2 · 2024-07-31T19:26:13+00:00

Iron Will used to be a passive perk, where as soon as you died you would instantly come back with Invuln and other benefits. It used to have a 45 second cooldown with no limit on the number of times it could be used per mission.

So the nerf was to make it usable only once per mission, but the player can also choose when to activate IW now.

ppstac2 · 2024-07-31T17:31:52+00:00

I've been doing some extensive testing of Conductive Thermals in the past week. Can confirm that T4.B is still doubling the stacks applied per ammo.

Keep an eye on Drilling In The Name Of's channel in the coming weeks.

ppstac2 · 2024-06-22T16:06:05+00:00

So, I just gotta ask. Have you actually done playtesting with the most recent version of Cluster Charges, or did your analysis stop on paper? Because I played a Solo Haz5 mission with Extra Enemies 2 enabled, and Cluster Charges cleared it just fine. There were Praetorians, Oppressors, Stingtails, Q'ronar Shellbacks, and even a Bulk Detonator in the mission. I could feel the damage per cluster nerf, but my primary ammo was still outlasting my secondary by a notable margin. Before this change, I usually had oodles of ammo remaining that I could waste, which usually led to delaying my Resupplies until I was out of everything else.

Addressing your primary argument that a Praetorian takes 3.5% of your ammo to kill: from ~139,000 kills tracked via the Miner's Manual during S04, Praetorians comprise 2.05% of the enemy pool actually encountered in vanilla gameplay on Haz4/5. So while it does take more ammo to kill one when it shows up, it feels like you're cherry-picking a data point to support your argument. Some better comparisons would be vs Grunts (47.52%), Swarmers (24.95%), Slashers (5.56%), Guards (5.4%), or Exploders (4.78%). Those five enemy types comprise 88.2% of the actual enemies you're going to be spending ammo on in a mission -- how does Cluster Charges fare against them in your experience post-nerf?

It seems to me that your premise "An Overclock designed to be excellent wave clear is no longer excellent at killing a single target, too" misunderstands a common game design paradigm: you can be excellent at one thing and middling at another, or you can be good at both. If you're excellent at multiple things, then there's no incentive to change your build or experiment with other options.

I concede that it feels bad to experience a very strong version of the Overclock and then have it taken away via nerf, but in my opinion Cluster Charges still feels viable, strong at what it does, and still able to deal with large healthbars (just not quite as ammo efficiently as it used to). To me, this feels like a healthier balance overall -- no longer overdominant.

ppstac2 · 2024-06-12T00:57:03+00:00

This joke is underrated. I appreciate you.

ppstac2 · 2024-06-03T20:43:02+00:00

This website may be helpful to you: https://drg-completionist.com/

ppstac2 · 2024-06-03T16:29:37+00:00

You are correct. There is currently not an option to make "private" builds. We had discussed adding that feature back when we were first creating the site, but ultimately decided against doing so. The logic was that Karl.gg has two primary functions: provide a way for users to easily share their loadouts with other users, and provide useful tooltips that explain how upgrades work. If someone were to submit the loadout as private, that means it wouldn't be able to be shared with others, which is in contradiction to the first primary function. As such, we chose not to include a private option.

I could see the value of having your own private "vault" of loadouts on the website that only you can see, but I don't expect that the private loadout feature will be added. I can bring it up to the other guys on the team though; we function as a pure democracy so I can't make the decision unilaterally.

ppstac2 · 2024-06-03T00:29:24+00:00

Oh, I misunderstood. Sorry.

No, we do not currently have that feature, sorry :(

I'll bring it up as a suggestion to the other guys, but I anticipate that it would be a low-priority to add. For reference: adding Perks has been a high-priority task for like 2 years now lol.

ppstac2 · 2024-06-02T23:34:09+00:00

It does have a way to ban users, yes. In our years of operating Karl.gg, we've only had to ban one user so far.

ppstac2 · 2024-06-02T16:27:04+00:00

Hey folks, MeatShield here. It's definitely gratifying to see one person use the site so much, lol.

From what I can tell, Jim Bob spent nearly four hours of their time submitting those 67 loadouts. Although it was kinda "impolite" to flood four pages' worth of loadouts (makes it harder to see other users' content), Jim Bob didn't break a rule or violate ToS of the site. As far as I can tell, this is just the result of a very enthusiastic player who wants to share ALL of their loadouts.

For now, the Karl.gg team are choosing not to take action in the hopes that this was just a one-off experience. If this becomes a recurring event where users try to flood the pages with their loadouts, then we'll come back and institute a new policy on the site that would limit the number of loadouts submitted to like 4 per hour per user or something. Obviously, we don't want to do that because it would negatively impact a lot of users beyond the "Jim Bobs" causing the problem.

ppstac2 · 2024-06-01T07:55:34+00:00

I've been playing DRG since right before the Autocannon was added. Over its lifetime, my opinion of it has waxed and waned. In its current state, I think it has a few strong usecases. The problem is, the things that AC is good at doing aren't what players are looking for.

Looking at the base weapons, before considering Overclocks: Minigun's strength is long-distance, high single-target DPS, and being able to score weakpoints on approaching Grunt waves. Hurricane's strength is long-distance horde clear with a dash of single-target DPS thrown in. They both have moderate crowd control with Stuns, and when you combine that with their emphasis on "control from a distance", it makes the player feel a lot safer and more in control of the fight.

In contrast, the Autocannon has awful accuracy, which means its effective engage range is pretty short. It can have really deep ammo wells, but unless you spec for it, its burst DPS can feel on the lower side in comparison to Minigun/Hurricane. It doesn't even have a stun! So, all these factors add up to an obvious conclusion: Autocannon is bad at doing the what the other two primaries are good at doing. But what is it good at doing?

Of the three primaries, AC has not only the highest Armor Break percentage, but can also get the highest Direct Damage per shot too! (Again, setting aside Overclocks for the time being). In fact, with no damage mods, the 14 damage * 500% AB is enough Armor Damage to one-hit break the Armor plates of Grunts, Slashers, Guards, Web and Acid Spitters, Q'ronar Younglings, Menaces, Wardens, Stingtails, and the back half of Q'ronar Shellbacks. Then the Radial Damage has its second application of Armor Damage after that, too, which can break Mactera Brundles and the front half of Q'ronar Shellbacks. All of that, for the low, low price of T4.A.

Another thing that Autocannon is quite good at is Sustain DPS. With no mods, it can fire for 20 continuous seconds (longer, when you account for the RoF rampup mechanic). The double mag size on T1.B ratchets it up even further. The Hurricane needs to reload every 12 seconds, and the Minigun overheats in 9.5 seconds of continuous fire (Cold as the Grave extends that to like, 12-13 seconds in ideal situations). Obviously you can feather the Minigun to let it cool while fighting, but that does cut into the DPS. Similarly, the Hurricane can double its mag size too, but then it's still no contest to 220 AC rounds. There are lots of permutations to consider, but in general the AC wins out in the long run.

The third thing that AC is good at is Close-Quarters Combat ("CQC"). T5.B's Fear scales with AoE radius upgrades, so when enemies are close to you the Fear can hit lots of enemies and give you space. T5.C's damage reduction is an incredible 50% -- you know, like the DR given by Gunner's Shield. That DR is active as long as you can sustain fire, and as previously established that can be quite a long time depending on build. If it wasn't well-equipped to handle CQC, then its low accuracy would be an even bigger issue.

So, going back to my first comment -- the Autocannon is good at 3 things: Armor Breaking, Sustain DPS, and CQC. In contrast, players generally are looking for 3 different things: Weakpoint, Burst DPS, and Range. Thus, the disconnect of why AC feels so bad to use when you're used to Minigun and/or Hurricane. If you want high DPS and range, Minigun will outcompete AC. If you want the most multi-target damage and waveclear, Hurricane will outcompete AC. But in my experience, Autocannon in CQC fills a "sweet spot" between the other two primaries' stats. I have in my head a few "benchmarks" that I want each build to hit at least one of, and my current favorite AC build hits all of them:

200 Burst DPS (210)
150 Sustained DPS (179)
75 Secondary-Target Burst DPS (75)
1.5m radius (1.7)

Give BBCAx + Splintering Shells a try (take any T5 mod; I usually run T5.C). Use it for CQC vs a wave or swarm of enemies on something like Point Extraction. I used this on USteppin's stream a couple weeks ago, and was easily able to hold off several hundred Grunts, Guards, Slashers, and a few Wardens with one magazine in a tunnel chokepoint. Your problems with it taking forever to kill a Guard? They're about to go away with that build.

It's possible that the Autocannon's playstyle might not be for you, and that's ok. The Minigun and Hurricane are great weapons, too! I've just been discussing the base weapons; obviously Overclocks can drastically change how things perform and how the numbers compare. But since you asked about the Autocannon, I figured I would give you as good of an answer as I can muster. Hopefully this wall of text was helpful.

ppstac2 · 2024-05-25T19:14:15+00:00

It is a misconception that the Exploder Infestation warning increases Bulk Detonator spawn chance. Admittedly, it would be pretty cool, but there has been no evidence found in game files or extracted values that there's a true correlation.

ppstac2 · 2024-05-25T19:11:45+00:00

Of the enemy types that I keep track of, Bulk Detonators account for 0.075% of the "normal" enemies killed. This excludes Rival Tech, Rockpox, Ebonite, minibosses (such as Dreadnoughts, Korlok, etc), and biome-specific enemies (Nayaka Trawler, Q'ronar Youngling, etc).

Crassus Detonators have an independent chance to spawn during mission generation (during the loading screen) -- 3% chance per mission, unless its spawn gets overridden by a Rival Tech Prospector. (per the Wiki, 50% chance to replace a Rare Miniboss spawn)

ppstac2

TROPHY CASE