DRG 6x2: Escort w/ EM refire and roll control (true solo engineer)
Channel: ojb
Date: 2024-01-24

No bosco, one iron will revive. Featuring EM refire stubby + roll control breach cutter + plasma bursters in Azure Weald.

gg ez. not even close 😎

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I managed to do pretty well in preserving dottie plates until I didn't, and really it just started to unravel near the end. It's kind of a miracle that I pulled off the stingtail market garden stun but that's 100% sheer luck so don't get too worked up about it ok.

Some things:

* Initial cave open to spawn = easy map gg go next. You have one less stressful cave entrance to worry about and the extra time to get nitra really sets up a nice snowball. The me in me loves to see it, but the gamer in me feels that I've cheated by having friendly RNG as this is a serious advantage. It's possible the run goes much differently if I didn't have the extra free time at the start since the additional breach pressure may force me to lose a side entering the refuel. But those are all big ifs and you just never can know.

* Refuel cave is one of the tougher ones (even though the terrain was nice and flat). The reason: there's a whale, and the cave is small enough that you're going to have the encounter spawns right away. Larger caverns may be more toxic to get the oil shale in, but they buy you a lot more breathing room and time to clean up the bugs that followed you into the refuel cave before the ones that already exist show up. A small cave like this is going to be a fight when you breach. The best example of tight caves being hell on 6x2 is pretty much ALWAYS noticeable in the cave directly after the refuel; on a one refuel map, the layout tends to be spawn-cave1-refuel-cave2-heartstone. It's that cave2 that is usually super tight quarters and the toughest portion of an escort map by far, as you're still fighting the swarm-from-restarting-dottie, facing the cave2 encounters in tight terrain, while being pushed towards the heartstone room which will have even more encounters waiting for you. I usually always lose a side in that cave2/heartstone breach process, and the only reason I didn't here is because I got lucky with spawns.

* I show off some dottie void tech. You can let the drill push you into the void and scout ahead slightly to see what's coming. This isn't really super valuable (I haven't weaponized it... yet!), but I wanted to show it off because it is very consistently doable when dottie goes uphill. I don't think it's worth doing ever, but it's neat I guess. I once killed a single leech using it so I guess that's like the best you can ask for lol. I've pulled off the dottie void tech when she's moving on flatground too, but it's less consistent. Uphill is the easiest, and I suspect downhill dottie doesn't work too well but I've never tried. [For the void enthusiasts: you can also use molly to do this in ANY map with a mule, but it's very tricky and inconsistent because the mule pathfinding is painfully annoying. My "greenbeard driller" run was planning on using the molly void tech, but it's one of those tricks that is so awful to do that it becomes frustrating. Dotty void tech is much nicer because the path is predictable.]

* I ignore the whale in cave1 and only kill the ones that I'm locked in with (i.e. refuel/heartstone whales). I've been experimenting with this approach and have found that I like it - the time and ammo spent killing the whale is a bit like killing a brood nexus: if you're far enough away from it, it barely ends up mattering. I tried ignoring a heartstone whale once and it was a complete and total disaster so I'll never make that mistake again. Refuel whales may be more avoidable on engineer too with sentry gun support to cover you while you collect shale, but idk, I haven't tested that too thoroughly yet.

* I actually wasn't planning on platforming the phase 2 rocks, but I saw an opening to do it and made a last second decision to give in to the cheese. It was definitely a bit sloppy but it helped out enough to not lose a side here. Unfortunately, the remnants helped build the world's greatest septic hiding ledge lol. You'll see me "rebuild" the ceiling to try and stop the red rain later in stage 4.

* If you see random plats on walls/floors, it's for bug repellent reasons. Bugs aggro'd on dottie tend to ignore them, so it's moreso for protecting me by making the bug paths slightly more predictable. I'm super lazy however, so it's a lazy half-assed job that doesn't really do much.

* Plasma bursters are fine; a fair number of modded players feel they are the worst engy nade, but I kinda dig them and enjoy playing with them. AOE fear is good. It's additional breach cutter you have on demand and never need to reload: what's not to love!

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Loadout:
22123 EM Refire Booster
23122 Roll Control
Plasma Bursters

Perks:
Dash / Iron Will
Resupplier / Born Ready / Deep Pockets

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Highlights:

0:00 Build
0:49 Mission start
13:03 Heartstone
21:00 Final stats page