Escort Duty

Cave Type
 Deposit Type
 Payout
 XP Payout

 This page is up to date for Season 02: Rival Escalation

 This page is up to date for Season 02: Rival Escalation
Escort Duty is a mission type in *Deep Rock Galactic*.

Escort the Drilldozer while it makes its way to the Ommoran Heartstone. Escort Duty is the fifth unlockable mission type, following Point Extraction.

## Protect the Drilldozer

Escort Duty involves escorting a Drilldozer (also known as the Dozer, and affectionately named "Doretta" by the Dwarves), a large automated drilling machine, protecting it from attacking Creatures and repairing damage done to it. The Drilldozer's health is segmented into three parts: the left side, right side, and body. The left side will take the damage first until it breaks, then the right side second, then the body. Damage dealt to the Drilldozer from any location will only affect the active segment. However, it can only be repaired from the area of the Drilldozer it corresponds to. When a segment reaches 0%, Mission Control will announce that the Drilldozer has taken permanent damage. The damaged segment cannot be repaired anymore and then the next segment will begin taking damage. If the Drilldozer runs out of health completely, the mission fails. Multiple players do not increase the speed at which the damaged segments get repaired.

The Drilldozer's speed is determined by how many Creatures and Dwarves are nearby. The more Creatures are present, the slower it will move, leaving it vulnerable to attack.When the Drilldozer runs out of fuel, it must be refueled by extracting oil from Oil Shale with the Fuel Canisters taken from back of the Drilldozer. The beams emitted from the Canisters liquefy the shale, which automatically collects the fuel. Oil Shale can be mined normally (though it requires four pickaxe hits to break), but Dwarves cannot pick up the chunks. A delay similar to laser mining the ore is also applied when chunks are collected with the Canisters. It is faster to use the Canisters on the Oil Shale directly rather than mining it with a pickaxe. Once a Canister is filled, it must be inserted back into the Drilldozer. When it is fully refueled, the Drilldozer must be manually restarted.

The Drilldozer will eventually arrive at the Ommoran Heartstone, a large spherical structure. The Drilldozer must be manually started again to begin drilling into the Heartstone. Swarms will spawn frequently throughout this entire process. The Ommoran Shell's lifebar is divided in 4 parts, the first two phases last about 60 seconds each, the second phase lasts about 75 seconds, and the last phase lasts about 100 seconds, for a total of roughly 300 seconds (5 minutes) with the interval between the different phases. Each time a phase ends, the Heartstone releases an explosion which will heavily damage and knockback dwarves in a 35m radius.

**Phase One:** Swarm trigger.
**Phase Two:** Summons Flying Rocks to slam into Doretta - these deal extreme damage but can be destroyed before they hit the Drilldozer.
**Phase Three:** Intensified swarm trigger with increased enemy presence.
**Phase Four:** Starts spawning Ommoran Beamers: large, destructible crystal towers which fire laser beams at the Drilldozer, dealing constant damage. On top of this, a slow trickle of enemies constantly spawns.
At the conclusion of Phase 4, The Heartstone will emit a shockwave that instantly kills all nearby enemies in a 35m radius. The Heartstone can then be extracted and strapped onto the back of the M.U.L.E., where the Drop Pod extraction process can begin. The Drilldozer's head pops off and is considered retired. A dwarf can grab the Drilldozer's head and carry it back to the Drop Pod, where it will automatically move to floor of the Drop Pod, appear during the mission end screen, and in the Space Rig only once.

## Combat

See: *Flying Rocks* for more information.

## Cave

Compared to the caves seen in other mission types, most of the "rooms" are not connected by tunnels or Compressed Dirt barriers. The only way to proceed is by accompanying the Drilldozer, which is programmed to follow a path to the Ommoran Hearthstone, encouraging the team to stay by the Drilldozer and protect it. Wherever the Drilldozer digs, it creates large tunnels in its wake, which can be navigated through later and are often necessary for the Extraction phase. The Drilldozer will only ever run out of fuel in the middle of a room, making Oil Shale easier to locate and collect. The Heartstone itself is found in a larger room and is fairly easy to spot, given its dark red-purple glow.

## Objectives

### Primary Objective

* Unpack Heavy Cargo Drop
* Start the Drilldozer
* Escort the Drilldozer
* Refuel the Drilldozer 1-3 times
	+ Continue escort
* Crack the Shell of the Ommoran Heartstone
* Return the Ommoran Heartstone

The amount of times the Drilldozer will need to be refueled depends on the mission length. The amount of Oil Shale required to refuel the Drilldozer depends on the mission complexity.

### Secondary Objective

 Collect **10 Alien Fossil**
 Collect **15 Apoca Bloom**
 Collect **20 Boolo Cap**
 Collect **14 Ebonut**
 Exterminate **10 Fester Flea**
 Collect **12 Gunk Seed**
 Collect **25 or 35 Hollomite**

 Collect **10 Alien Fossil**
 Collect **15 Apoca Bloom**
 Collect **20 Boolo Cap**
 Collect **14 Ebonut**
 Exterminate **10 Fester Flea**
 Collect **12 Gunk Seed**
 Collect **25 or 35 Hollomite**

## Gallery

* Hologram of the Heavy Cargo Drop.
* The Heavy Cargo Drop.
* The opened Heavy Cargo Drop.
* Doretta entering a new cave.
* Doretta in the refuel stage.
* Doretta fuel canister.
* Fuel tank in use.
* The Ommoran Heartstone.
* Doretta preparing to drill out the Ommoran Heartstone.
* Doretta drilling out the Ommoran Heartstone.
* Doretta being damaged by an Ommoran Beamer.
* Doretta completing the drilling process.
* The extracted Heartstone.
* The Heartstone after being deposited on the M.U.L.E..

## Trivia

* This mission type was added in Update 32: Roughnecks At Work.
* Repairing the Drilldozer uses various tools instead of the typical hammer used when constructing/repairing objects, including a pipe wrench and an oil can.
* It is possible to pet the Drilldozer by pressing the [USE] key on its "head", found at the top of its body behind the drill.
* Pressing the Salute key while holding a Fuel Canister causes the dwarf to say a beer-holding salute line.