All the other new stuff in U33

3 years ago

This is the third and final blog post about all the new content coming out in Update 33: New Frontiers. Because the first one covered the two new biomes and the second one covered the new Dreadnoughts, this one will be the rest of the miscellanous stuff that got changed or added in U33.

Mactera Tri-Jaw

As the Glyphid Slasher is to the Glyphid Grunt, so is the Mactera Tri-Jaw to the Mactera Spawn. Not only does it do more damage per projectile, it also fires three arcing projectiles simultaneously in a spread that can be kind of tricky to dodge. The best technique I've found so far is to wait until its belly starts swelling (indicating that it's charging up its attack), start backpeddling away from it while still watching, and then sprint forward when it fires. Because of the lobbed trajectory of its attacks, you should run right underneath them and be safe until the next volley. A word of caution: Tri-Jaws should be your absolute top priority in Escort Duty missions, because Doretta has a massive hitbox and a slow movespeed. A Tri-Jaw left alive is a very fast way to fail Escort missions.

Mactera Brundle

Continuing the analogy, Mactera Brundles are about equivalent to Glyphid Guards. Not only almost three times the health of a Mactera Spawn, the Brundle also features some Heavy Armor that completely covers its Weakpoint belly. Although the Brundle does the same damage per shot as the Mactera Spawn, it positions closer to the player before it attacks. I've run the numbers, folks: Armor Breaking mods will save you more bullets than Weakpoint Bonus mods vs a Brundle. At some point in the future I might write up a post about why DRG needs more creatures like the Mactera Brundle to make Armor Breaking mods viable, but that goes beyond what this blog post is about.

Salvage Mission overhaul

A couple of things were changed in this mission type. Now when you walk up to a broken minimule, you have the option to download the location of all the legs in the map and make the 4 legs associated with that particular minimule light up with a faintly pulsing sphere. After repairing all of the minimules, they'll use the same magnetic arm that Molly does to board the Drop Pod while you get the Uplink ready. After finishing the Uplink, the Refuel Cell has a really cool change: they adapted the On-Site Refinery pipeline technology to let you connect the Refuel to the broken Drop Pod. Don't worry, the mini pipeline doesn't break! Be aware, this does disable physics on the Refuel too, so removing large chunks of terrain underneath the Refuel might make it really hard for people to stay within the sphere. Make sure you're satisifed with the Refuel's elevation before you start building the line.

Misc. items

  • Point Extraction Minehead got an updated model
  • You can carry Doretta's head back to the Drop Pod at the end of Escort Duty missions. There's no XP or Credits reward for doing so, but she shows up on the endscreen.
  • Mineral Trade terminal got an overhaul, including a Deal of the Day
  • Because we got DRG nominated for the Steam Awards, we all get the Viking Helmet for free
  • Molly now has a proper docking animation when getting into Drop Pods (magnetic arm and everything!)
  • No weapon balance changes yet (hotfixes TBD)
  • Streamer-friendly Jukebox mode

That does it for this round of blog posts about U33. Go forth and enjoy the new content! Within a couple days there should be an Update 32 Loadout Analytics blog post, styled like the Update 31 Analytics one.

Rock & Stone!
-MeatShield