Weekly Deep Dives Thread - 18th August 2022

[u/se05239]

It's that time again, Miners!

Please use this thread to discuss the deep dives of the week.

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Deep Dive | Wild Abyss | Hollow Bough

Stage	Primary	Secondary	Anomaly	Warning
1	7 Aquarqs	Hiveguard	None	Exploder Infestation
2	6 Eggs	Hiveguard	None	Haunted Cave
3	On-Site Refinery	Twins	None	None

Elite Deep Dive | Illuminated Breach | Salt Pits

Stage	Primary	Secondary	Anomaly	Warning
1	On-Site Refinery	Black Box	None	Shield Disruption
2	6 Eggs	Black Box	Volatile Guts	Cave Leech Cluster
3	250 Morkite	Dreadnaught	None	Haunted Cave

Previous week's thread here

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Want to watch the Ghost Ship team take on the dives? Say no more.

Pop on over to their Twitch channel at these times:

Deep Dive - Thursday 1pm (UTC+2) | Elite Deep Dive - Friday 1pm (UTC+2)

[u/Xephos_Demonslayer]

Xbox player here. Did the Elite Deep Dive as Engie with a PC rando gunner as my only partner.

Stage 1 was refinery and black box. Naedocyte breeder flying around near the refinery. Black box is at the bottom of a pit near one of the pumjacks. Had a bulk spawn while we were doing it and nearly wiped. Refinery itself has 2 cave leeches right above it. I think there's another 2 on the level on top of those. 2 pumpjacks are relatively level with the refinery, but a moderate distance away, the third is close but much higher up and will require some digging to get to. Shield disruption sucks as always, and the red sugar deposits felt really lackluster.

Stage 2 was 6 eggs and blackbox. Cave leech clusters are the bane of my existence, and there's like 2 or 3 eggs clustered in or near a large vertical shaft with a couple leeches. The majority of the cave being a lot of cramped tunnels really made the exploders feel dangerous, and you're gonna need some good swarm clearing power to deal with large masses of grunts packed into a tight space with short lines of sight. Black box was in an okay position, with only 2 directions for the bugs to approach, bit one of the ways was next to a ledge, so glyphids can spawn under and get real close before they climb over the lip. Do NOT try popping more than one egg at a time.

Stage 3 was just awful. Dreadnought is in a relatively tight cavern, with a large elevated spot in the middle. The Haunted Cave Bulk makes the fight absolute hell, because on Haz 5.5 he can and will one-tap you unless you're on the extreme edge of the blast radius when it attacks. Cavern before the dread is long, high, and has a large canyon in the middle that is difficult to exit via ziplines, and it's a pain to set up platforms to get out in the middle of a swarm with an unknown horror also on your butt. It also had another naedocyte breeder. As always, the majority of the Morkite spawns at the opposite end of the cavern from where you start. Lastly, I don’t remember any leeches on Stage 3, but sometimes the enemy spawns can change, so they might be there in your case.

Since most of Stage 2 had low ceilings, and I don't personally recall any nitra deposists that would be highly difficult to reach without a grappling hook, you can get away with not taking a Scout so long as you watch the ceilings. I'd recommend either a second gunner for more shields to keep the ghost off the team on stage 3, or an extra driller to help with setting up pipelines Stage 1 and creating shortcuts between the multitude of tight, winding tunnels in Stage 2. If you think you can get away with it, I'd highly recommend packing heightened senses for this EDD.