DRG 6x2ι: Refinery - iota difficulty testing (true solo engineer)
Channel: ojb
Date: 2023-07-30

No deaths, no bosco. Featuring executioner lok-1 + inferno breach cutter + proximity mines in Dense Biozone. Obligatory low framerate potato pc warning :(

More tests of my new offshoot of 6x2! If you haven't seen it yet, 6x2ι ("iota") is the same 6x2 you know and fear, but with one major change: much longer timers between waves and swarms. It's designed for true solo players such as myself as a way to make true solos less tedious without losing any of the challenge or fun of 6x2. It's brand new and in heavy testing, so I still need to work out some kinks!

As you'll maybe see in this video, it's not any easier lol. The hot drop is actually WORSE than 6x2 due to the 8% increased encounter spawns; you still are forced to gather 40 nitra before the first swarm while dealing with the same number of stationaries, but now you get a little bit more time to secure that nitra and gain some footing. That extra time isn't really free, as the additional bugs on the ground at the start are really brutal, and I didn't have any downtime before the first swarm like I was hoping the tweaks would give me.

More tests are definitely needed, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I may need to boost the wave and swarm timers more based on how the scout iota EDD went the other day too. I do have a slight worry that my original iota goal of "iota EDD max ~70 minutes as any class" is infeasible, given that this refinery with no secondaries took 45 minutes and was quite intense, and a lot of that time went into clearing the initial spawns and gaining the foothold. 

I don't really want to diminish the massive battle entry of 6x2 because it's really fun, but I may have to nerf encounter or stationary strength to find the right balance. I'm not sure what I'm looking for exactly, but probably a 30 minute 2-2 refinery is the ballpark I want to hit. That's like 15 minutes to shave off though, and I'm not sure if that's doable without screwing up the wave timers too much for other map types. This will be a long iterative process, and it's very possible that my original goal is just not really something that's doable without losing the soul of 6x2.

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Anyway, let's talk the map itself for a wee bit, for those that want insight into my engineer play. I chose my main hold position because it was flat with a lowish roof (but not too low that bugs could hit me from the ceiling), and which had two choices of escape routes, should I need them (left and right of the refinery head). There was a slight incline at the back as well so it had just the tiniest bit of highground advantage in a pinch. In hindsight, it wasn't great, and I royally screwed up the bug repellent by late game. A better spot may be the cliff on the elevated leftmost pump jack (from the perspective of my hold). There's a lot of stuff to work with there, with better escape routes built in. Tighter pathing angles would make bug repellent really pop off in comparison to the mess I made in my main hold.

I would not have survived this map at 6x2, which would have spawned the first swarm about 3 minutes earlier. The timing was too tight I think, and my current skill level at engineer is weak enough that I don't think I would have made it. So in that sense, iota is easier. I don't think the 8% increased encounter spawns would have accounted for the gains in 3 minutes of delayed swarm without easy nitra access (this map's nitra was hidden away or higher up - nothing obvious and easy).

I really have been turned around on the necessity of born ready on this particular loadout. As much as I value strong arm's ability to see ceilings, high up nitra, and leeches - the only thing I need for leech safety really is executioner's auto aim. That ability is broken OP, and in the future when I run the lok-1 I will be swapping that out. On warthog shotty + PGL builds, I think I stick with strong arm because I don't think they need it, but for breach I've definitely been convinced.

I will say that when my hold was strong and my bug repellent did its thing, born ready wouldn't really be that impressive. When I was vibing in the hold and not getting overrun, I was doing more than fine without it. It was the times where I was forced out of my hold and into the abyss that I think I would value it more, and to be honest that happened enough that I will definitely swap. So to @Beastly21100, I think our discussion a few videos ago was productive, and you've changed my perk choices for the future :)

You can take deep pockets from my cold, dead hands. (Which I mean, won't be too hard 'cause I'll definitely be a corpse due to my refusal to switch to a better perk that would save me, but I can't live without it).

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Loadout:
11111 Executioner
11122 Inferno
Proximity Mine

Perks:
Dash / Iron Will
Resupplier / Strong Arm / Deep Pockets

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Highlights:

0:00 Build
0:43 Mission start
3:06 Finally leaving pod after 87 kills lol
13:05 Stabilized
38:05 Starting pump
44:10 Extract
45:54 Final stats page