The (hopefully), ultimate starter guide

[SzzPS]

Hello everyone, I’ve had quite a few messages on PSN and discord asking about this game and various questions, so I figured why not make a hub of sorts where most of them can answered and just a general place for tips to get people started! A lot of this will be from a playing solo perspective which is essentially what I’ve done for most of the game relating to anything to do with difficulty I have played a decent of co op so I will offer so I will offer advice from that POV wherever I can. Most of what works in solo works in co op you just have more people to account for.

 

I will list some of my tips and experiences with the game so far and hopefully you can find something here useful so here goes let’s start with the class I’m personally using and my tips and how I play him everything listed below will be from my perspective, if anyone has anything to add or information they want to add please comment.

 

Gunner - The class I’m using, I would use him if you’re going for a tank/DPS build , his traversal tool is a grappling hook. The gunner has a LMG and a shotgun pistol as his 2 starting weapons (IMO the best from any weapons you unlock later). Gunners an all around class and personally doesn’t feel like he’s hindered anywhere except for crowd control it’s not very good multiple enemies coming at you at once you can really see the weakness at times when on hazard 4 difficulty you get really easily overwhelmed often having to use a shield and grenade to take control of the situation. When you’re playing co op the gunner works super well with a driller using cryogenic rounds because they will freeze enemies in place and the gunner can then use the shotgun pistol with damage attachments and ammo to pump as many powerful shots as possible super quick in a short amount of time dealing crazy good damage even to dreadnoughts and other armoured enemies.
 

Weapon attachments -

I personally used extra ammo, stun and more damage armour piercing could be another good choice depending what area your mission is in the what works for me may not work for you so play around and see what you can get to work with! ( I would suggest if you wanna test builds out stick any mission on hazard 3/4 difficulty and see how it fares for you try out different combo with ammo types perhaps pairing stun rounds with explosive or using the scare rounds to scare enemies away). Just have fun and test a few different things out you have plenty of time on that way to 500 missions competed!

 

Understanding missions -

So this is something that confused the heck out me, first of all I’ll talk about “hazard level”. This is the difficulty the way I see it is level 1 is “very very easy”, level 2 is “very easy, level 3 is easy”, then all of a sudden IMO level 4 takes a bit of a jump to very hard and level 5 is really damn hard. 
What’s different between these 5 levels of hazard is the enemies health, the lower the level the less health enemies have and less damage you’ll take (playing co op scales this on all difficulties), you then will have probably noticed the triangles whenever you’re choosing a mission, 1 orange triangle is a simple cave, 2 is a fairly complex cave and 3 is a really complex cave system (although a lot of the times they really aren’t too bad). This was something that confused me a lot and can hopefully bring clarity to some people. Next to is the footstep symbol indicating the distance 1, low walking/distance required all the way up to 3 which is a fair amount of distance while in mission to complete the objective. Lastly you’ll have either red or yellow triangles on missions sometimes hover over them to find out what effect each one has.

 

A few quick solo tips 

1. Your friendly AI robot companion can be directed to mine objectives items for you, for example on an egg hunt? Is there any egg really far up and it’s a risky fall well no problem pull out that laser pointer and aim at the egg tag it with R2 and Boscos will fetch the egg for you and will keep a hold of it for you same with other items like jazdiz or aquaros!!! (But be beware commanding him to do something will prompt him to drop the item so wait for him to come to you and take it off him or get him to drop it close by).

 

2. You can customise Boscos, remember how I said gunner paired with cryogenic works a treat well equip some cryogenic rockets onto Boscos and pair with the gunners pistol shotgun for a treat.

 

3. Use the terminal in your station to equip the thorns perk to damage back anyone who attacks you automatically this works an absolute treat. 

 

Some general tips - 

1. Keep an eye out for gems in the walls or on the ground, bittergem is a sort of super bright magenta colour you can also find golden gems which will lead to a compressed golden chunk (gems are the super small ones you’ll notice them in the dark easily as they shine really bright), finally spikey grey bits with a glitching effect for alien artefacts! KEEP AN EYE OUT FOR THEM! Finding them as you go along will save you so much time during the end game grind.

 

2. Craft dark morkite beer and drink it, using this before a mining mission will allow you to quickly and effectively finish it as you every-time you farm morkite under the effects of this beer you will get more for every piece you farm, this is extremely useful on harder difficulties.

 

3. XP gains from minerals, that’s right every minerals you farm gives you bonus XP, I would  try to get as much nitra during missions as I can or any other useful mineral used for crafting for crazy XP bonuses at the end from 1K - 3K XP depending how much you get during the mission not to mention XP is shared in co op so if you as a team get a bunch of minerals mined the whole team gets that’s nice bonus no matter how much you individually contribute. 

4. The drillers flamethrower can damage enemies such as the dreadnought even without hitting its weak spot same with the cryogenic weapon. 
 

5. Use the terminal in your room to check milestones which you get stars from completing then turn them into perks which you can equip at the equipment station. 
 

6. Resupply drops also fill a generous portion of your health! Keep an eye on this next time you use one to see.

7. All your equipment can be upgraded including shields if you’re playing co op with friends co ordinate upgrades to get longer shields but also more overall shields (one upgrade each). 

 

That is most of the information I have at the moment from my experience I did manage to finish the deep dive solo but I feel that information wouldn’t help at this point as practically no one has gotten that far, feel to message me here or PSN if anyone has any questions and hopefully once I have the plat I can make my first ever guide and hopefully a good one at that for this game!
 

Thanks for reading.

 

Edited January 6, 2022 by SzzPS

[Helyx]

@DysectorZA posted some videos which I found really helpful.

 

 

[DysectorZA]

Thanks for the tips @SzzPS - The game is quite confusing and still getting used to it. But quite enjoying it with some friends.

[HuntingFever]

Have you got any tips for the Deep Dives?

[SzzPS]

41 minutes ago, HuntingFever said:

Have you got any tips for the Deep Dives?

Hey, the deep dives can be made pretty easy because they’re the exact same every-time minus where enemies might spawn and how many might spawn (enemy spawner locations are concrete). The normal deep dives are on hazard 3-4 so I feel they don’t need any explaining but the elite deep dive is much more difficult. Level 1 is hazard 4.5, 2 is 5 and 3 is 5.5. 
 

Now because it’s a set seed what I would do is do some “throwaway games”, by this I mean id solely play a few games to learn the spawns of the enemy spawners, nitra and the mission objective items. I feel this is crucial because the longer you wait the more enemies you’ll have to fight and possibly multiple bulk detonaters which happened to me. Once I felt I had stage one down I’d go to stage 2 and do the same figure out the best strategy and have a path ready to be as quick and efficient as possible.

 

Finally I feel the elite deep dive solo is really hard without the correct overclocks atm, so what I did was wait until I had the beer which gives you 30% extra health, wait for randoms to join my lobby and tell them all to drink it. 3/4 of us had mics and this was crucial, once the game started we all go to our own tasks. Me playing the gunner I was controlling the crowds of enemies and  spawners. 1 engineer was grabbing the aquaroq and the other engineer was grabbing the morkite and the other gunner was getting nitra. Delegating tasks allowed us to clear the stages with little to no problems because it meant rather than taking forever and dealing with 5 plus swarms in a stage we dealt with 2 max.

 

That’s all there is to It I feel like grab a team with mics suitable classes (this will change depending on the dives every week which is why I’ve gave general tips) That 30% extra health beer is a game changer. Other than that just take a few games to learn the stage and have a plan which you and your team stick too.

On 09/01/2022 at 4:44 PM, DysectorZA said:

Thanks for the tips @SzzPS - The game is quite confusing and still getting used to it. But quite enjoying it with some friends.

No worries I’m glad you’re enjoying it.

[HuntingFever]

4 hours ago, SzzPS said:

Hey, the deep dives can be made pretty easy because they’re the exact same every-time minus where enemies might spawn and how many might spawn (enemy spawner locations are concrete). The normal deep dives are on hazard 3-4 so I feel they don’t need any explaining but the elite deep dive is much more difficult. Level 1 is hazard 4.5, 2 is 5 and 3 is 5.5. 
 

Now because it’s a set seed what I would do is do some “throwaway games”, by this I mean id solely play a few games to learn the spawns of the enemy spawners, nitra and the mission objective items. I feel this is crucial because the longer you wait the more enemies you’ll have to fight and possibly multiple bulk detonaters which happened to me. Once I felt I had stage one down I’d go to stage 2 and do the same figure out the best strategy and have a path ready to be as quick and efficient as possible.

 

Finally I feel the elite deep dive solo is really hard without the correct overclocks atm, so what I did was wait until I had the beer which gives you 30% extra health, wait for randoms to join my lobby and tell them all to drink it. 3/4 of us had mics and this was crucial, once the game started we all go to our own tasks. Me playing the gunner I was controlling the crowds of enemies and  spawners. 1 engineer was grabbing the aquaroq and the other engineer was grabbing the morkite and the other gunner was getting nitra. Delegating tasks allowed us to clear the stages with little to no problems because it meant rather than taking forever and dealing with 5 plus swarms in a stage we dealt with 2 max.

 

That’s all there is to It I feel like grab a team with mics suitable classes (this will change depending on the dives every week which is why I’ve gave general tips) That 30% extra health beer is a game changer. Other than that just take a few games to learn the stage and have a plan which you and your team stick too.

No worries I’m glad you’re enjoying it.

Thank you for the info .

[HusKy]

How are the promotions going? Seems like reaching 4x Gold takes more time than 500 missions?

[SzzPS]

56 minutes ago, HusKy said:

How are the promotions going? Seems like reaching 4x Gold takes more time than 500 missions?

Hit my first silver promotion last night so what’s that only 22 more total to go? ? But in all seriousness the game is fun so it hurts less and yep 10000% you’ll end up doing way more than 500 missions before 4 gold promos, I hit silver 1 with I think 188 missions so you do the maths ?

[rdhight]

Start with driller or gunner because you have a strong primary to help you through the initial learning period. Un-upgraded engineer shotgun is hideously weak, and he's got almost no secondary ammo. Grab those initial levels with a stronger gun.

 

Your early focus should be on completing missions, not chopping every possible mineral out of each cave. Perk points, unlocking higher difficulties, getting new weapons — all of those things trigger from completed missions. Five quick in-and-out strikes will power you up much more than three marathons — and if you fail one of those marathons, it's awful. Miss a machine event, a secret room, a secondary objective, leave a man behind, leave treasure behind, whatever it takes, but get those completions!

 

There are advanced challenges in some caves that you can't activate until you promote a dwarf at level 25. So after grabbing initial subsistence-level upgrades (ammo, damage, faster reload etc. etc.), your intermediate goal is to reach 25 with someone. If you're new and a level-25 teammate turns one of these things on, it'll probably just wipe you anyway. Another reason to head for the escape pod quick and get a completion in the bank rather than scouring the cave for machines you can't profit from yet.

 

Mine nitra diligently, and coordinate resupply with your team. Taking someone's ammo box at the wrong time can kill him. Remember, tools need ammo too, so hogging resupplies may mean more bullets for you, but also fewer platforms/ziplines/tunnels provided by others.

 

Hold L1 to see outlines of your team through the ground.

 

Haz 4 games with a couple minutes on the clock are death traps right now. Your pod opens directly into a swarm, and the mission has already been lost. Late joining works just fine on 3, but above that, you really want everyone to drop together at the beginning. This will probably improve later as we all learn the ropes.

 

All resources are shared, so don't worry about who mined what. You will get those crafting materials, beer ingredients, etc. no matter who physically turned them in.

 

It's OK to die a lot if you die near your team. Revives are free, unlimited, and fast — it's the time spent reaching the downed dwarf that gets you. Scouts are the worst, because they go off somewhere by themselves and die in another county.

 

Run the perk Awareness to survive being grabbed.

 

Watch out for spitball infectors! They're big green plant stalks with a powerful ranged attack, and when a tunnel opens into a big room, they're often positioned to gun you down right as you enter. Engineer's secondaries are good for killing them, because you can get that quick pop of damage on one trigger pull instead of having to wait for many shots to land.

 

Frozen enemies take triple damage. It can be a godsend in hard fights.

[OrionsOdyssey]

The 4 Dwarves to Gold 1 is the ultimate grind in this game but I’m gonna go for it, as far as I can while enjoying it anyway. 
 

I have my engineer at bronze 2 so far just by doing all assignments, focusing on Double XP missions and joining some late game missions nearing completion.