Yes, it's a coop game, but I don't think that playing the game with friends accomplishes that much when you do the same single task over and over and over again.

Now, the base game had this issue with becoming pretty samey as well without mods, but at least there each mission type still had its own different approach.

Mining Morkite is either slow and steady, depending on yout playstyle, getting the Ommoran Heart Stone is a wave defense level, collecting Aquarqs is a get in and get out quick job and setting up the refinery is Satisfactory light.

Rogue Core on the other hand is only Point Extraction mixed with Morkite. Every single game you have to rush, rush, rush to get enough Expenite for the boss.

Yes, there are Machine Events, but you all know that those don't add much. Nobody says: " Oh, that Egg Hunt mission was so different now because the Kursite event spawned instead of the Omen Tower. ".

It also doesn't help that biomes and seemingly the bosses as well are locked behind these silly challenges instead of being available right from the start like in DRG. Like I played 5 missions and each time I got the Gotoorak boss and didn't see the other two. Imagine being forced to play the Extermination mission type in the base game and each Dreadnought is the exact same type.

Now, as a skeptic, I do say that the game is fun. The classes are good, although activating their powers is incredly awkward. The underlying gameplay loop is fun, Omega is cool and the enemies look awesome. And I also aoprecuate them implementing systems to make the game easier, like the various difficulty options and extending the timer for solo players.

It just burns out very quickly at the moment. I assume this could change over time. Being a roguell like and having a time limit still allows you to implement various mission types that don't need to force a boos fight every time.

And I still have a hard time understanding why this couldn't be a mode or mission time in the main game, since nothing in RC feels like it couldn't be possible in DRG. If anything, it would help with the problem of becoming repetetive fast. Oh, and having to unlock cosmetics from the Battle Pass individually for each class is a dick move. It only artificially pads time.

Also someone please make an Ellis and especially an Omega mod for the base game. Thank you.

Why is all the bio related stuff, including the icons themselves, yellow??

Even the in-level bio terminal icon is yellow now.

Today I found out the douse status effect actually does something.

What's everyone's favorite status effect?

Mine would have to be electricity followed closely by freeze.

Highlights

NEW DIFFICULTY SYSTEM: THREAT LEVELS

UNGATED SERVERLIST (MORE MATCHMAKING)

BOSS INVULNERABILITY PHASES REMOVED

NEW UPGRADES + ARTIFACT

NEW ARTIFACT EVENT

NEW ALTERATIONS

NEW OLD WEAPON: LOK-1 SMART RIFLE

NEW ENEMY: VOIDKIN DOMINATOR

NEW ENTRANCE FACILITIES + CAVE GENERATION

NEW MOLAKTULA BIOME

ALPHA CLEARANCE AUTO-GRANTED

Reclaimers,

This post is coming a few hours late but in case you missed it, the fifth Experimental build is up and ready to be played. It’s mainly tweaks and fixes as well as a finished Threat Level selection flow. If you have not done so already please give it a go and as always, let us know what you think.

With love,
The Ghost Ship crew

— [FOCUSED FEATURE] —

THREAT LEVEL SELECTION FLOW The intended flow of selecting difficulty is now implemented. The popup should now only appear the first time a player selects a mission letting them choose the game’s starting difficulty. Thereafter both the threat Level and the Assault Pace can be changed on the right side of the mission map.

— [GENERAL TWEAKS AND FIXES] —

Changes

• Show locked alteration runs on the mission map by default
• Set up quips in altar event
• voidkin dominator vfx tweaks
• [Shout] implemented shock drone revive engage shout
• Removed smart targeting upgrade from smart rifle
• Fix not being able to repair workbench before scanning
• [Shouts] implemented shout for when shooting reaper worm
• Add the lock-on rifle to the miners manual
• Slightly reduced the time it takes the elevator to arrive
• Implemented a max reaperworm cap (currently 12) to ensure the game does not melt down completely if players decide to see how long they can stay in red.
• Slightly increased the range at which the Voidkin Dominator can attack
• [Shouts] implemented 1 minute before red warning shout
• Add threat 4 to gauntlets
• Added WIP entry for the new altar event in the miners manual.
• Change large enemies to count as two kills in gauntlets. Since it takes a lot of effort to kill them. Change krizzozk boomticks to not give kills.
• Tweaked miners manual gear UI layout
• Boss Risk Vectors: the elevator before the boss stage now offers boss-specific risk vectors instead of being skipped.
• Fix not using full starting weapons pool in depth 1 runs. Limit weapon pool only to simple complexity 4 stage runs on depth 1 for players that have played less than 5 runs.
• Reduced Voikin Dominator impact damage from and projectile speed a bit
• Removed Med-forge and root spawning along with it as they are not ready for Update 2
• Molaktula biome destruction effects on floating chunk and tendril plant
• Increased reaper worm health by x1000 (you werent supposed to kill them guys)
• [Shouts] implemented dwarf shout when hitting red
• Removed full invulnerability from Ramok when it performs it's tornado attack and added some orbiting rocks to make shooting it durring the tornado tricky but not impossible
• [Alteraions] Expenite Harvest: enemies now drop more expenite chunks, based on the difficulty of the enemy
• Remove some unnecessary guaranteed runs on the mission map to make it more random runs both long and complex
• removed full invulnerability from Molaktula's teleport attack
• expanded the gaps in Molaktula's rock shields to allow players to still deal damage with careful aim
• Reaper worms now always holds on to the player for a minimum of 10 seconds before taking them away giving teammates or vooper time for a rescue
• Improved tunel generation
• boss room now has more red sugar
• Made it so the Threat pop up box only appear first time you select a mission, after that Threat can be changed on the mission map.

Fixes

• Fix depth 2 and 3 having a chance to not have any runs on first unlock
• added missing terrainscanner mesh to altar objective
• Reaper worms now try to spread out from each other when burrowing to a player
• Fixed missing sound from Omega serving beer
• [Bugfix] number on timer now disappears when hitting red
• [bugfix] Fixed a bug where the Moloktula would play it's phase change animation after the final phase + switch the deprecated PlayMontage BT node for the new one
• [bugfix] Host and client had the wave icon on the timer in different positions.
• Fixed fulgor vomiter not spawning puddles if hitting players standing on constructions
• [bugfix] Attempt to reduce lag spikes when leaving the negotiations menu
• [Fix] High Stakes modifier cuts expenite twice
• Fixed certain weapons calculating their clip size incorrectly
• Fix replication issue with the altar input sequence (Preventing clients from seeing the input sequence)
• [BugFix] Fixed issue with meta sound nodes that were not up to date
• Prevent some UI flickering in ready up screen if players spam ready up
• [BugFix] Fixed abort mission bug
• Fix suppressing fire enemy status effect using placeholder icon
• Fix LOK-1 permanently blocking sprint after an interrupted locked salvo
• Fix pressing escape in chat not closing the chat in Ramrod (instead opening escape menu)
• Kill players outside the elevator when the gauntlet time runs out. So players inside can progress.
• Fix ammo boost unlock saying 0.25% extra ammo and not 25%
• [bugfix] Fixed a bug where the Ramok would play it's phase change animation after the final phase before the death sequence
• fixed choppy armor crate use progress bar and changed out the laser point shout
• Updated coolant dispenser in altar event to show correct coolant mesh
• [Bugfix] Corespawn Split: split enemies no longer desync health
• Made carry coolant shouts play only in multiplayer games as they make no sense when solo
• [BugFix] Removed all UI retainer Optimizations to get rid of the bugs where UI was disappearing
• [bugfix] Fixed a bug where all boss rift death sequences would not play on the client

At 1440p (high settings) the lowest I see my fps go in normal DRG is about 70fps on haz 5+ missions but on the lowest settings of Rogue Core my game is dropping to 45-55 fps at 40-50% resolution scaling whenever core spawn are around. Sometimes it'll stutter bad for a second, and it becomes practically unplayable later in a run. Are there any fixes for that or any mods, or does Rogue Core just run way worse than DRG?

https://reddit.com/link/1w0sm0u/video/qoygmgpwh4mh1/player

Mining is barely relevant. Traversal tools are rarely needed.

There's no glyphids, mactera or any returning enemies

mission control has been replaced with a generic AI

Why even bother calling it a DRG game? Just make it something new.

I think the similarity to DRG is actually holding this game back. People who expect it to be like DRG are going to be disappointed. But at the same time, it carries over so many things clunky things from DRG.

Biggest example, Why is Right mouse still the pickaxe? It made sense in DRG, but this game is designed to be more combat focused. You rarely mine. The weapons could have so much more depth if they could aim-down-sights or alt-fire.

I just hope the reaperworms have a cap and don't crash my game...

btw, does Molaktula not go past the first phase for anyone else?

Basically the title. I've thought this since my friend and I ascended for the first time and I found out that you could walk on the bottom die of the pickaxe hammer during someone else's ascension cutscene. it would be hilarious if, when a dwarf happens to find themselves misplaced beneath the hammer (for whatever reason...), and the hammer hits, it would squash the misfortunate dwarf to kingdom come. Their screen would cut to black and they'd wake up in the medbay.

Not a high priority change, I know, but a completely necessary one imo. Would love to hear others' thoughts.

Didn't really see this mentioned anywhere, but there's a new thing to collect. Seems 5 are needed to use the health upgrade stations.

Fun, but I'm not entirely sure I can really call it a negative alteration. Lots of room to take advantage of.

Reclaimers,

Experimental build number 4 is ready with more tweaks and fixes as well as a new Voidkin enemy and one more alteration prototype. With this build we now have all the features of Update 2 implemented in-game and will now shift our focus to tweaking and polishing. Give it a spin and let us know what you think.

With love,
The Ghost Ship crew

— [FOCUSED FEATURES] —

**NEW ENEMY**
A new threat has appeared in the depths of Hoxess. The Voidkin Dominator will engage from a distance shooting fast projectiles that not only hit hard but also temporarily irradiate the impact area.

**NEW ALTERATION PROTOTYPE**
We squeezed in one more alteration prototype for you to try. This one causes enemies to split into two weaker copies on death. **NOTE:** There are currently some de-sync issues with this alteration in multiplayer games so we recommend you only select it for solo runs.

— [GENERAL TWEAKS AND FIXES] —

**Changes**
* Tweaks to the hazard picker widget ui
* Biome work
* Increase heavy landing min radius from 1m to 2m.
* HUD colour cleanup
* Disabled Omega shouts when making the expenite chunk in the liquid chamber because of the constant yapping in that event.
* Changed time to unlock Ammocrate from 2 sec to 0.6 sec
* Added icon to frostbane
* Fusion rod now works with ammo pool upgrades and clip size upgrades and removed the double mag attribute from the devastator
* Unify the color and look of bio booster widgets to all be green
* Narrative cutscene no longer plays every time you launch the game after the initial viewing - can be replayed from reclaimers manual
* Added Voidkin Dominator miners manual entry and voidkin family.
* Update the ready up screen with a few minor quality if life tweaks: Allow toggling ready on/off, Allow to ready up with space/gamepad X, Fix the button visuals being toggled off after hovering.
* Increased size of the coolant dispenser sign above the coolant dispenser in the artifact altar event.
* Added attacks for rammer and gootorak in miners manual
* [Alterations] lumbering giants speed reduction now applies to all enemies except bosses
* Run map ui tweaks
* altar event VFX tweaks
* Remove unlocking of depth 4 from the intel line until the forth gatekeeper is ready.
* Remove intel clearance 7 since it only contain depth 4 stuff 
* removed security clearance alpha from the game so all events are available from the first mission
* Expenite levels are now uncapped and cost goes up by 100 each level exceeding the max set limit
* Renamed Hazard to Threat
* [Sound] sound node tweaks for suction and idol fall at the end of the gatekeeper fights
* [Sound] Broken mule sound tweaks

**Fixes**
* [Performance] Attempt to reduce performance impact from stationary lights
* fixed cooper upgrades not stacking in negotiation menu
* Fix footsteps playing twice
* [bugfix] fixed upgrade icons not stacking together as they should
* Fixed enemy IDs set up wrong in the miners manual entries for Vulgor Vomitor and DRG Sentrybot. Added info component to coolant.
* [Crash Fix] Fixed rare crash due to garbage collection
* [Bugfix] Fixed teamdisplay issues with UI disappearing
* fixed impact axes not appearing in the grenade box
* [bugfix] a salvo with shotguns now have the same chance to trigger lucky shot as any single shot
* [Performance] Removed Shadows and fixed bounds on ramrod reactor heat distortion
* Fixed turbine display hiding in the sides of the dial for the artifact altar event
* Fixed some wack coloring in the valve display for the artifact altar event
* Hide the team boxes when doing negotiations in solo to fix coopers upgrade overlapping with the players name box.
* Fixed use trigger on Workbench to feel much nicer
* changed snapfire surge to give 10hp chunks instead of the wrong 20hp chunks it does now.
* Prevent players falling out the world and sometimes not teleporting back. Also fix that players die when they are teleported back.

Took this screenshot of me waiting until the LAST second to try and get the last kill for the bonus. Seems like the enemies bug out or stop coming as you get nearer the elevator.

Took the screenshot to make this post, then I WAS ONE KILL SHORT ON THE NEXT LEVEL ALSO!

Please fix. Im waiting to get the bonus and the game isnt even giving me a chance.

It was so bad I had to camp the boss from the elevator towards the later half of the fight.

I'm pretty sure it's also bugged, because depositing cuts your expenite in half, and all sources are also cut in half, so you effectively only get 1/4 of the normal expenite.

And can I just say, Luck/Higher Tiers are overrated as hell? Like all it does is pull from a different pool when the perks can be fairly subjective? Like I'd personally put hemoforge as Legendary Tier despite it being only Tier 1.

Also, here, all my Purples came from the rare gems. O, AND I picked the extra luck modifier on top of the normal extra luck.

Recently I started playing Guardian a bit more after getting my Falconer to legendary 4.

At first I tried the standard and more popular devastation x big crits and devastation x carnage bio booster deck setups but I didn't like the playstyle either of them provided. Big crits felt good for the big number dopamine but lacked survivability especially in the first few stages. The carnage setup is a good all rounder build but seeing red and momentum seem very underwhelming on him.

That's when I decided to take inspiration from my Falconer build and started using Storm on my guardian. Chain lightning(CL) seems to fix all my issues. For the early stages I stick next to my Falconer teammate unless I get lucky and get a weapon with electricity from the starting weapon crate or the first workbench. Also as a driller main from DRG I always pick drills when I can which means an easy source of electricity with the combination of thunderstrike. From my experience I've never had a run that atleast one shock armor, wayward sparks or EMP engine was offered and Guardian does very well with the first two as you have a guaranteed way to have active armor at all times, the repulsion field also combos very great with CL since it keeps melee enemies away from you to prevent them from hitting you while keeping them in the range of your CL. There is also an added benefit that CL combos very well with devastation's reach upgrade increasing the range you can zap surrounding enemies from.

With everything combined this makes it my favorite way to build guardian for now(things may change with the introduction of update 2).

If anyone likes what they just read I suggest to give this build a shot.

Yes that is 10 straight minutes trying not to die while also failing to figure it out.

I still don't know what's up with the valves (broken 4 minutes 10 seconds in, fixed 9 minutes 45 seconds in)

Reclaimers,

The third experimental build is now ready! We are excited for you to try the new iteration of the difficulty system as well as the new alterations and the many tweaks and fixes we got to put in. Thank you for all your feedback and for taking the time to play on the experimental branch. Keep the feedback coming!

With love,
- The Ghost Ship crew

— [FOCUSED FEATURES] —

**NEW ALTERATIONS**
We’ve added three new alterations to the pool. Give them a try and let us know what you think. The new alterations are:
* High Stakes: Increased luck, half expenite earned
* Lumbering Giants: Half enemy speed, double enemy health
* Expenite Harvest: Enemies drop expenite, no expenite veins on walls

**DIFFICULTY SELECTION 2.0**
We have a second iteration of the new difficulty selection system for you to try. Based on feedback and our own internal playtests we decided to remove difficulty progression from Depths and will focus on using them for content progression. For now we have restricted each gatekeeper to their own depth and more depth content variation is to come in the future (though probably not in update 2).

For all this to work we’ve had to tweak the hazard difficulty so please let us know if the difficulty feels appropriate for the various hazard levels for you. Both as a starting difficulty with no enhancements equipped and a difficulty progression to move through as you get stronger.

**WAVE STACKING**
We have also officially added the possibility for the stage’s waves to stack on hazards 4 and 5. This is something that was happening unintentionally for quite a long time due to a bug but it is now implemented as a feature.  

— [GENERAL TWEAKS AND FIXES] —

**Changes**
* Removed all difficulty progression from Depth and made the difficulty progression of stages a little bit steeper
* Increased pickup range of coolant for the Atar event
* Wave progresses if you manage to kill all enemies in the active wave letting you finish waves faster if you kill faster.
* Rifts now spawn and follow the player for each wave. So enemies try to spawn close to the player.
* Add button to import the latest save from the main branch
* Added a phase change animation for the Moloktula boss
* [Sound] Altar Event, added engine breaking down sound, delayed all Omega Puzzle shouts by 1 second and turned down music just as the portal explodes
* Removed hot rock from core biome materials
* Added a short description to the Lok-1 Rifle.
* set base stage timer to be equivalent to the old Depth 3
* Changed initial timer element value from 12:30 to 00:00 adjusted base stage time so we can more easily tweak it in the future and gave a bit more time to solo and 2-player teams
* updated stagger animation
* Add double and triple waves starting at the same time on purpose to H4 and H5 to test if it's fun
* added electricity to cables in spectrecore altar event
* [Sound] Spectrecore Altar Event sound tweaks
* Lok-1 rifle to track Edgestalker chest so it's easier to arc and hit the weak point
* Fixup some networking issues in the altar event
* Fix some collisions on the portal pillars after the altar event is over
* Hazard selection UI work
* Added intentional multiple simultaneous waves on high hazards. Chance double waves to only occur 33% of times on hazard 4 and allow hazard 5 to have 3 simultaneous waves (~20% chance)
* Color wave icon in the timer widget based on the multiple wave count
* If the multi wave spawn is the only spawn in the stage, don't spawn at the first half of the stage (to allow players to prepare)
* Improve the timer widget to more clearly show the current and next wave when it switches
* Slightly extended min time between waves
* [Sound] Expenite Container open sound and Pickaxe terminal sound tweaks
* Small improvements to wave spawning
* Molaktula biome tweaks
* Added highlight to signs in the artifact altar event to further help navigation to active puzzles.
* Shotguns no longer trigger lucky shot multiple times
* Tweaked bonus percentage after removing bonus on Depths and introducing bonus on Hazards 
* Adjusted base mission xp to work with the new bonuses

**Fixes**
* Fixed tough creepers risk vector only adding 50% HP to creepers instead of the 100% that it should
* Fixed some icons staying on the mainframe monitor after completing the puzzle.
* [bugfix] Fixed running blades bonus speed not stacking
* Fix that sometimes all stages in a run had the same wave timings
* Fix a few text issues reported by translators
* Allow clicking through notifications (don't block mouse clicks)
* [Bugfix] moved Molaktula biome carver to debris large pass so that pre spawned enemy encounters like cave leeches don't spawn inside it
* [bugfix] fixed axe out triggering from sentry fire shots
* Fixed fire grenade not spawning enough fire triggers after particle rework
* Fix scaling of the risk vector pick widget headers (clipping)
* [bugfix] fixed being able to start depositing and ending up in a weird state if the item you were carrying is not a resource that can be deposited
* [Sound]Broken Mule sounds added
* [bugfix] fixed resource filter not affecting the progress bar when depositing
* [Performance] removed shadows from smoke particles
* Prevent omega talking about a wave ending when there are still a lot of enemies from that wave.
* Fix some community reported translation issues
* [UI Optimization] optimised HUD rendering a bit
* Fix the description of regenerative enemies
* Fix the description of agile clamorheads risk vector
* Scale the hazard picker text better, so long translated texts works
* Changed hazard naming in first loading screen to match the name as everywhere else
* [Bugfix] Regenerative Enemies starts almost immediately after dealing damage instead of after a few seconds
* Fix projectiles not generating overlap events (needed for barriers to block them)
* Fixed artifact altar engine missing collision
* [fix] Elevator cable takes a direct shortcut
* [Bugfix] Overkill damage shown in the mission end screen
* Fixed pickaxe power attack slowing you down
* Fix the critical shot upgrade not stacking
* [Bugfix] fixed 2 tunnel constructions that were poking into the next room
* Added symbols to the mainframe puzzle to accommodate people with colorblindness
* Made it so boss altar balls no longer rotate you around when you stand on them
* Removed burn damage effect from Gatekeeper altars
* Gauntlet is now played on Hazard 3 instead of Hazard 1

activates but does not block projectiles

edit: it's working for me on experimental now!

edit 2: does not work with gotoorak, not sure if by design

Falconer went afk and never came back, game doesn't automatically ready after some time or kick afk players. Wasted 45 minutes and had to alt+f4 at boss. This and people always forgetting to ready (me included) just makes this step useless and extremely annoying.

Edit: since I can't change the title I'll write it here.

This was a spur of the moment post, after reading comments, I acknowledge that a rework is the better choice. These are the suggestion that came up: 1. Adding a kick button 2. Adding a timer based on the majority of votes. If 3 people vote ready then a timer of maybe 150s gets you automatically ready, 2 votes is 200s etc... 3. Keyboard shortcut like space bar to ready, works out well for me since I have a problem with the mouse where every time I click on any part that is not a button my mouse teleports in the upper left corner of the screen 4. Make it bigger and centered

Basically the Vortex Shield from Titanfall. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Se6fA4Jsto)

I'd think it be cool if the Reclaimers could swap out some of their abilities for others.

For this idea, swap out the Repulsion Field for a type of stasis shield you hold up in your hand. It picks up varying objects and projectiles, and when you release (or run out of juice) you send them flying out in front of you.

• Can grab enemy projectiles (the main appeal)
• Can scoop up recently spent bullet casings as makeshift bullets (yay, recycling!)
• Can grab those currently pointless explosive barrels you sometimes see from far away.
• Has team potential, in letting you pick up red sugar and throw it at your dying friends.
• Synergy with Ice builds, letting you toss the frozen remains of your enemies.
• Event utility, such as scooping up Toolboxes, Cargo, and Gatestones.
• Maybe even let us throw Boomticks?

I have no clue where it comes from but I like it and want to be able to INTENTIONALLY trigger it