Hello Miners,
When Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor goes into 1.0 on September 17th, we are adding a big new feature we are calling “Gear”. Occasionally, during your missions on Hoxxes, a piece of gear will drop, and picking it up adds it to your gear menu. There is a guaranteed gear drop when you kill a boss, and a smaller chance to get a piece by killing glyphids in regular combat. Between missions, you can access the gear menu where you can change loadouts.
This Heavy Gunner has yet to equip any gear - perhaps he’s ‘gunning’ for a new achievement?
All gear comes with stats, which are passive bonuses you are used to from meta upgrades. There are six different types of gear, each serving a different purpose:
Armor gives defensive stats such as max HP or health regeneration.
Weapon Mods have weapon stats like fire rate and critical chance.
Canisters change weapons with stats like explosion radius and potency.
Gadgets have stats for collecting and mining, like pickup radius and mining speed.
Tools primarily change reload speed and the range of weapons.
And finally, Chips, which is stats and quirks for everyone’s favorite sidekick: Bosco.
That being said, it is not uncommon to find gear with stats that cross into other categories, like a Gadget with armor or a Tool with max HP. Some gear also comes with what we call ‘quirks’. These are the sometimes, build-altering, unique effects of a gear piece. It could be something like the Strange Mixture epic canister that gives you more potency for every meta resource you collect in a run. Or the legendary Flathead Screwdriver that makes the drop pod wait for an additional 12 seconds. We want to highlight the Chips in particular, as these add a lot of cool abilities to Bosco. Some Chips add a new weapon to Bosco that has [TAGS], making sure it scales with your own build. Some excellent utility quirks on Chips can even make Bosco pick up XP or mine for you.
Strange Mixture smells like coins and Monster Energy
As you no doubt have noticed, gear comes in different rarities: Uncommon, Rare, Epic, and Legendary. The rarer the item, the more stats it will have - legendary items can even have two quirks on them.
Gear also drops at a certain level, which decides how powerful the stats are. The minimum level of all gear drops can be permanently upgraded by completing milestones. Once you have completed your first Hazard 2 run, all gear drops will be level 11 at minimum, but you might also have reached player rank 4, unlocking another +1 minimum gear level from a milestone completion.
Pictured: A fresh save, which is something every dwarf should do, as opposed to a fresh shave, which is to be avoided at all costs.
Items can be enhanced further in the Gear Upgrade menu. If you’ve fallen helplessly in love with a particular piece of gear (I’m looking at you, Hunters Harness that gives 200% pickup radius for two seconds when an elite is killed), you can upgrade it using your hard-earned credits and minerals. Higher-level and higher rarity items cost more to upgrade, and every piece of gear can be upgraded three times.
You thought catching them was hard? Try skinning them!
Now, you might be looking at some of these items and think the stats look a little low. Two things to bear in mind: All screenshots above are level 1 items - items go all the way to level 99. And most importantly, gear stats add up with other meta upgrades and are then multiplied by the build upgrades you select during a run. We do not doubt that some items and builds can scale into the game-breakingly ridiculous.
The addition of gear to Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is the solution to a whole lot of dreams we have had for the game for a long time. It makes milestones more meaningful, it makes crafting materials continue to serve a purpose, and it makes Bosco have a bigger impact on gameplay. We can’t wait for you to try it out.
It won’t be long until the team takes a much-needed summer break, but we will be back in August to finish up the big 1.0 update. We still have some very exciting, upcoming features to share with you all. Until then,
Rock and Stone!
The Funday Dwarves