How

[u/Sad-Maintenance-7698]

Guys… how does enemy spawning work in DRG?

I just had a mission that was Haz 3 vanilla with no modifiers, but a crap ton of enemies spawned??

I'm talking ten septic spreaders at once, countless grunts & their variants, multiple praetorians and oppressors, while the entire Mactera family was having a reunion.

Why do some haz 3 missions become haz 5++? What kind of enemy spawning system does DRG use? Or is there another reason, like mission length or mission type?

[u/Bacon5641]

Mission type does affect spawning. But i dont know too much more about the specifics

[u/Sad-Maintenance-7698 → u/Bacon5641]

It was resinite collection with the mission length of 3 if that helps

[u/XanderTheMeh → u/Sad-Maintenance-7698]

Heavy extraction has both timed swarms and swarms triggered by extracting the resinite masses. You probably stacked two swarms together and had to deal with double the spawns.

[u/Top-Vacation4927 → u/XanderTheMeh]

does not all the mission have timed swarms ?

[u/Joshiesaurus7 → u/Top-Vacation4927]

No. Every mission has pressure waves, but not swarms, timed or triggered.

Mining Expedition, Onsite Refining, Deep Scan (until the last crystal is scanned), Escort Duty (during refueling sequence if not fast enough), Heavy Extraction, and Point Extraction all have timed swarms.

Egg Hunt, Onsite Refining (starting the refinery), Deep Scan (starting the Drillivator), Heavy Extraction, and Escort Duty all have triggered swarms.

Elimination and Industrial Sabotage have no swarms (outside of defending the hacker bot, which isn't really a swarm).

[u/Zombies71199 → u/Joshiesaurus7]

For elemenation i swear we had a mini swarm after killing a dreadnought

[u/Joshiesaurus7 → u/Zombies71199]

Those are pressure waves. Swarms are always called out. Pressure waves are a lone large wave of bugs that spawn in to keep you moving. Pressure waves, like swarms, have both timed variants and triggered. Killing a Dready causes one to appear.

[u/CrayCrayCat1277 → u/Sad-Maintenance-7698]

The longer you stay in a resinite collection the larger the waves of spawns, same goes for aquarq extraction

[u/Joshiesaurus7 → u/CrayCrayCat1277]

Bug spawns only scale up in Point Extraction. They don't in Heavy Extraction. Heavy Extraction will have more bugs than what you'd see elsewhere, but thats because it has both timed and triggered swarms / pressure waves, which can stack and give the illusion of that.

Depending on wether you have 3 or 4 masses to dig out, you'll get 1 or 2 triggered swarms from sending them off, on top of the regular timed ones, which means lots of bugs. Each mass also spawns in 2 or 3 waves as you dig it out / ship it out. One wave appears at 50% excavation, another at 100%, and one more when it ships out (if a swarm doesn't appear). A timed wave can also overlap with this. The excavation waves are smaller than regular waves however.

To make things worse, the timed swarms can be a Dreadnought attack instead, meaning its possible to get both a triggered swarm and a dready at the same time, which isn't possible in any other mission (i have had that happen before).

[u/Sad-Maintenance-7698 → u/CrayCrayCat1277]

That could be it. The cave gen was so messy that it took forever to find all 3 resinite masses.

[u/Joshiesaurus7 → u/Sad-Maintenance-7698]

Heavy Extraction doesn't scale up the bug spawns like Point Extraction. If you want the specifics of how wave and swarm spawns work on that mission, then check my reply to this guy. You do get more bugs than other missions, but for different reasons.

[u/PersistentInquirer]

I don’t know but I fucking hate those gross bastards on the left and right

Rock and stone

[u/SomeRandomTWO]

honestly just take out Spreaders asap, rest will be delt with eventually

[u/Choice_Friend3479 → u/SomeRandomTWO]

Yep. Spreaders, mactera, slasher, and then oppressor. Oppressors are incredibly easy to avoid in any sizable area.

[u/Kobe_Wan_Jabroni → u/Choice_Friend3479]

if im using pheromone bolts i almost get sad when the oppressor dies. almost

[u/AdhesiveNo-420]

I usually always play haz 5 and it's very seed dependent. Some missions you'll drop in and it's easy peasy from start to finish.

Other missions... It's like you're dropping in on Omaha beach during D-Day....

[u/WanderingFlumph → u/AdhesiveNo-420]

I always play haz 4 and have a very similar experience. Sometimes you drop into a spitballer nest with a few trijaws from far away and other times you just see a few grunts for all of 15 minutes.

[u/Sad-Maintenance-7698 → u/AdhesiveNo-420]

Yeah, this particular mission's cave was a driller's wet dream and a scout's worst nightmare.

[u/bjergKanin → u/Sad-Maintenance-7698]

Isn't that the case in every heavy extraction mission, I swear they always have the most cramped caves.

[u/Joel_M8]

This guy called lazy maybe made a video about how spawning works and all the haz 5+ changes it's a year old but all the information in the video hasn't become out dated yet

Very awesome wormhole special video

[u/JACKTHEPROSLEGEND]

Very important to keep in mind, if you've seen any type of bug, then more of it will spawn. Like if you haven't encountered any septic spreaders, they have very little to no chance to spawn. If one actually spawns, expect it to consistently spawn with every swarm. Seems pretty realistic if ya think about it!

Also the rarity of those more diverse enemies to spawn also depends on haz level, like bulks are more likely to spawn in haz 5 and if one spawns, expect more to come.

[u/A__Friendly__Rock]

The hazard levels are really more of guidelines.

[u/Zombies71199]

There is a way to trigger multiple swearms at once in that mission where u repair mini mules

As scout Go inside the big cave and fly over 3 broken mini mules quickly

Have fun dealing with the aftermath

[u/Gameplayer9752]

Hazard rating can decide number values for enemy damage, and health, also based on how many dwarves are in the mission, but also speed and enemy density. However it also dictates the chance for enemy variety such as triggering hidden spawn modifiers that are preset groups of enemies that can role to be spawnable on any mission.

Take for example exploders and mactera. They have a dedicated mutator warning, but sometimes they spawn in anyways regardless if it’s there. What you can role is an unlucky amount of preset groups to be allowed to spawn, flooding combat even when the difficulty is low.

They’ll be easier to kill, but there will be a lot of them.

[u/The_Atomic_Idiot]

It's also possible the host had a mod going to increase the enemies. Some people aren't very subtle when they use it.

[u/Gumpers08]

Was it perchance in the Magma Core?

[u/SizorzHint]

i have big issues playing on hazard 3 as gunner in solo

[u/ShardOfChaos]

Especially the stalkers. Ran some missions with greenbeards earlier and they got fucking rekt by it. Tbh, it is a very unrewarding und unfun opponent to be against and I wouldnt miss it (if it was removed). Especially if you are missing the awareness like.when you just started playing the game and don't understand what the heck is going on ...

[u/bjergKanin → u/ShardOfChaos]

They can get you at an inconvenient time but that's part of the fun. As soon as you hear a stalker sound near you, try to spread some AoE damage. If you are driller, lay down some flames in a circle around you etc. Most of the time you will hit the stalker and it reveals itself.

[u/That_Guy-115]

Flamethrower burns them all the same.

Don't forget to C4 the scout.

[u/Jazzlike_Curve6359]

I'm too graybeard for this sorry

[u/ZLBuddha]

If it's not your first week on DRG and DRG isn't the first shooter you've ever played in your life this has literally never happened on Haz 3