The main premise of Deep Rock Galactic may seem simple right off the bat, but there are a lot of hidden details and hilarious quirks that will allow you to never get bored.
Most dwarves stick to missions and beers without exploring any further. However, there are cosmetic secrets, hidden passages, and helpful tips you should know that will help you mine ore in a more fun and fast way. Deep Rock Galactic only came out one year ago, in 2020, so we can expect more things to be added to the game so that there's never an end.
Updated February 27, 2023 by Amanda Hurych: Deep Rock Galactic is seriously one of the most underappreciated service titles out there right now. More people need to discover the joys of rock and stone. As such, we've polished up this list of tips, tricks, and secrets to include better formatting. Happy digging, miners!
15 Make Questionable Grunts In The Space Rig
While in the Space Rig, your home base where you select missions, you can grunt and burp. By pressing X, your dwarf starts making these strange noises. Maybe you're waiting for a teammate to hurry up at the store so you guys can start the mission, or maybe someone is AFK. Either way, try clearing your throat and using those ostentatious sounds to get their attention.
14 Get Downed In The Space Rig
That's right, you can get downed in the Space Rig. Your teammate will have to revive you, much like during a mission in the caves. If you're by yourself when this happens, you'll simply have to respawn on your own.
Getting downed while in the Space Rig is a result of a seriously heavy craft beer. The Blackout Stout to be exact. This beer sticks true to its guns and will make you pass out shortly after drinking. You can craft beers using Lloyd at the Abyss Bar in the Space Rig.
License Cost To Make Blackout Stout In Deep Rock Galactic
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Blue rank five |
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250 credits |
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4 Yeast Cones |
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4 Malt Stars |
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12 Starch Nuts |
After purchasing the license, you can craft this beer for only three Starch Nut each time.
13 Control Gravity In The Space Rig
There's a special control panel within the Space Rig that removes gravity for all players. This is located above the Forge and Deep Dive terminals at the back of the Space Rig. While at the back, you can make a left and use a small elevator pad to get upstairs.
You can access this area by going up from different routes, like the elevator near the Equipment terminal, instead. This area will have a large control panel that says Danger, Gravity Recalibration. Interact with it to let it all hang loose.
12 Call For Help During A Mission
So you've learned how to make grunts, guffaws, and burps in the Space Rig. This same button, X, allows you to call for other players during missions. When you're downed, being carried away, or captured by a cave leech, it's best to spam this button. It makes your dwarf say things like "Hey, help me!"
Using this button is critical for when you're not using voice chat or text chat. It's quick and easy. If you use it while not downed, it will simply call your player friends or Bosco to come over to your location. This can also be helpful for escaping. If someone is lost trying to find the drop pod, call out to them!
11 Create Waypoints On The Map
This is a feature a lot of players perform by accident or are completely unaware of. Every biome and map in Deep Rock Galactic is procedurally generated. No mission ever looks the same. Because of this, you have to always use your wits and solve puzzles just to traverse through these caves with ease. You have to figure out how to reach certain areas and where special ores are.
By creating a waypoint, you can mark these important areas and ores and come back to them later. To create a waypoint, hold down CTRL to bring out your Laser Pointer. The Laser Pointer reveals the official name of ore or bugs when you point to them. It can also create a ping for other players by pressing left-click. To leave a waypoint, you must press E while the Laser Pointer is out.
By doing this, the waypoint will be visible on the map any time you press CTRL and when you look at your Terrain Scanner. No other players can see your waypoint except you.
10 Completing Machine Events During Missions
While doing missions, you may have stumbled upon weird machine-like contraptions in these alien caves. Perhaps you weren't able to interact with them. When you find random machines like this and strange ore you can't mine in caves, it's a part of a machine event.
Machine events are special side tasks that reward players with next-level cosmetics and gear. You can only interact with machine events if you're dwarf is promoted. A promoted dwarf is like prestige. Once you've maxed out your level for a dwarf, you can't go any further with them until you reset their base level and promote them. This gives you a nice star above your profile border in the game and allows you to keep leveling up that dwarf.
How To Promote Your Dwarf In Deep Rock Galactic:
- Reach red class rank 25
- Start and complete promotion assignments
- Purchase promotion from the Memorial Hall
When you promote your dwarf, you're rewarded with a Tritilyte Key, among many other things. The Tritilyte Key is a reusable item that activates machine events. Machine events reward players with a unique weapon and dwarf cosmetics if you insert a Matrix core after completing it. If you don't insert a core, you still get experience and credits for completing the event.
9 Let Frozen Bugs Kill Themselves
Both the Scout and Driller can freeze enemies with ease. The Driller starts off with a flamethrower but can upgrade to the complete opposite, a cryo cannon. The cryo cannon unleashes a piercing cold frost, freezing any enemy and ally in its way. The Scout starts off with a regular grenade, but while in the Equipment terminal you can upgrade to a cryo grenade.
Freezing enemies prevents them from doing harm and allows all players to breathe and instantly kill these enemies before they can do anything. The special tactic here is that if any enemy is flying and frozen while in the air, they instantly die by themselves. You don't have to shoot flying enemies if they are already frozen. They drop down and shatter like glass.
8 Keep Your Empty Mug For A Secret Achievement
There's a hidden achievement you can get in the Space Rig. Many, actually. One of them involves a mug of beer and the barrel minigame. There's a minigame to the right of the Abyss Bar where you have to kick a barrel into a ring of fire to score points. If you throw your empty beer mug into the ring instead, you get a cool achievement.
7 Become Eggman Or Rob Swanson
Many of the cosmetics in Deep Rock Galactic give a friendly nod and cultural reference to other popular media. If you read the descriptions of hairstyles and mustaches carefully, some of them may sound familiar to you.
There's a big long mustache, like the one in the photo above, with the description "For some reason, you have an urge to dream up maniac machines and colorful contraptions." This is a clear nod to Eggman, the villain from the Sonic The Hedgehog franchise.
You can find other references like a mustache called The Swanson. Its description reads "A classic display of subtle, raw power." This is a reference to Rob Swanson, a beloved character from the comedy show Parks and Recreation.
6 Enter A Forbidden Area In The Space Rig
The Space Rig can feel like a maze if you really start exploring it. There are many tunnels and elevators and hallways to find. But there's one area that triggers Mission Control to stop you in your tracks. Upon entering a certain area, Mission Control gets on communication and tells you that you're trespassing and to turn back immediately. This leads one to think, what could be here?
The location that triggers this Mission Control dialogue is directly above the drop pod. When you go up the elevator to the left of the Deep Dives terminal, turn right instead of walking forward. This will lead you to two entrances. One is the Memorial Hall, the other is titled Top Hanger. If you go into the left entrance that says Top Hanger, you'll find another elevator and eventually reach the top of the Space Rig and drop pod.
Currently, there is nothing actually here even though you're asked to leave. Mission Control being adamant about you turning back immediately leaves players to wonder if there will be something special added to that location in the future. It's definitely something to look out for.
5 Tricks For Taking No Fall Damage
One of the most common killers in Deep Rock Galactic is not the bugs, it’s gravity. The game has a lot of verticality to it, especially when you find huge caverns and if you’re not watching your step it’s easy to plummet to your doom. But there are some tricks to make that landing a little softer.
For example, jumping on top of another dwarf that’s either alive or downed will cushion your fall. The same applies to large enemies as you’ll harmlessly glide off them, slowing your descent no matter how fast it was. Another neat trick folks have found is that standing on top of an item affected by gravity, such as Lost Packs can also negate any drop damage. So if you find yourself stranded up high or suddenly falling at speed, try to find one of these things to aim for as it might just save your stubby-legged life.
4 Frozen Enemies Don’t Have Death Effects
Similar to how flying enemies fall when frozen, enemies that pop nasty effects upon expiring can be bypassed by putting them on ice. This is incredibly helpful when the swarms start to get extremely dense with big exploding bugs, or you’re trapped in a tunnel with no way to escape any unfortunate area of effect insect goop.
As an example, Praetorians don't release toxic gas if they shatter after being frozen, whilst Detonators won’t burst all over your crew. So it’s always worth packing some Cryo gear as it can save you in a pinch if you get boxed in by big bugs. Although, this freezing effect also applies to the Gliphid Crassus Detonator, so be careful with your cryo shots if you don’t want to miss out on extra gold.
3 Satchel Charges Don’t Perma-Kill
If gravity doesn’t get you and the bugs don’t tear your team to pieces, the only other thing that could put an end to a good run is friendly fire, which happens pretty often in Deep Rock Galactic. It’s easy to get overzealous or panicky when the swarms get heavy and Satchel Charges are handy for clearing out big clumps of bugs, but they sadly also do a lot of damage to teammates.
But, there is a way to use this to your advantage as a Satchel Charge can down but not permanently kill friendly players. So for example, have someone take the full brunt of a bug charge, then after they do some damage and eventually drop, just carpet them with charges then revive them from underneath the huge pile of dead space insects. It’s a simple little trick that can pull a doomed run back from the brink in the right circumstances.
2 The Zipline Speed Cancel
Ziplines in Deep Rock Galactic are both your mode of transport and the best route of escape. Fired from the Zipline Launcher of the Gunner, these tensile ropes can carry you effortlessly over deep chasms and up rocky cliff faces in seconds and there’s no such thing as too many Ziplines.
But, if you’re flying down a line or using a speed boost, and you spot something nasty waiting at the end of the line then you can quickly cancel out your momentum with a simple trick to avoid danger. To do this just drop from the line then quickly press the grab button again to re-attach, this will set your speed back to zero, and it’s a great way to slam the brakes if you need to stop or jump to another Zipline.
1 Put Proximity Mines Anywhere But The Floor
An unlockable for the Engineer, Proximity Mines are fun to use and great for laying traps for big swarms, but please on behalf of every mining group out there, put them anywhere but the floor. Literally anywhere will do but there, please.
They’re not like normal mines which go off when something walks over them, instead they have a wide detection radius that will cause them to detonate when something comes near. Unfortunately, they also do a good deal of friendly fire damage. Keep them on the walls or ceilings away from friendly feet where they’ll catch bugs sneaking around the sides.