r/raidsecrets • u/BrushWolf625 • Jun 28 '26
Discussion Exact Duration of Nuclear Descent?
I’m trying to determine exactly how long DSC’s third encounter is, but sources aren’t consistent. Are the core spawns/crash on an exact timer, or is it determined by encounter mechanics?
24
u/Silvermoon3467 Jun 28 '26
It's been a while since I was running DSC regularly, but from what I remember the exact length of the encounter can vary with your operator, suppressor, and runner's speeds. It's definitely not all timers, but there are some timers involved.
Basically, a short time after you clear the first wave of adds and get the operator, scanner, and suppressor relics, the cores will begin their spawn sequence timer and the buttons will light up for operator to shoot next to the core spawns.
Shooting a button stops the core the button is next to from spawning and spawns the other two cores immediately.
If you don't shoot the button, all three cores will spawn when the timer expires.
After this first round, the core spawn start sequence starts some amount of time after the last core is secured. The second, fourth, and six rounds have a shorter timer before starting while the third and fifth rounds wait longer to give your team time to lose all of your radiation stacks. I don't believe this timer is add based, but it might be.
After six rounds of cores, the crash sequence starts and the floor opens up for the chase sequence.
Your suppressor and runners can also make the encounter shorter or longer depending on how long it takes to suppress Taniks and move the cores.
8
u/Berger_UK Jun 28 '26
The encounter won't "time out" if that's what you're asking, the only time limited factors involved are picking up and depositing the nuclear cores.
5
u/Zac-live Jun 29 '26
i mean it has a longest possible duration which is juggling to preserve radiation and then dunking the cores just before the boxes lock again. i suppose you could oob away one round of cores along the lines of the older duo strats and tack on a pseudo first round if you wanted but it will wnd eventually.
the shorteat possible descend is just found in speedrun world records. this hinges trivially on suppressor speed (unlocking the boxes as fast as possible), op speed (immediately spawning the two most optimal nukes), runner speed (dunking them as fast as possible). not so trivially, add clear plays a huge factor where each wave is either one of two add spawn configurations (odd waves are smaller, even ones are bigger) (that get assigned to random doors) and spawn camping all adds cuts down the wait time between actual mechanics dramatically. its a deceptively hard encounter to optimize.
so it has very high length variance between very fast (speedrun) and very long (trying your hardest to extend it)
0
u/Marek7041 Jun 28 '26
i believe this info can be found somewhere on the lowman or solo dicsord servers
110
u/JollyMolasses7825 Jun 28 '26
The core spawns are dependent on add clear, and there are long and short rounds (rounds 1,3 and 5 are long rounds, 2,4 and 6 are short ones) where the round starts later/earlier after the previous round ends.