DRG 6x2' EDD: "Ruptured Retreat" (solo scout)

Yes bosco, two deaths. Featuring thermal exhaust feedback drak + bodkin points crossbow + boomerangs in Radioactive Exclusion Zone.

Special guest on the podcast this week: SADDAM HUSSEIN!!!! We talk about tips for surviving year 12, take a dive into his current culinary obsessions, and get the scoop on Saddam's top ten no-no's in the world of underground dating.

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Stage 1: While checking the map for the locations of things, I noticed the black box had a primo bunker opportunity, so I made sure to go around the long way and not break open that dirt. The rest of the stage is absolutely dull and quite possibly the most boring thing ever, but that's elim for ya. (One of these days I'll get around to making an iota 2, but with dread helpers and pressure waves and stuff. This is a snoozefest worth fast forwarding through). Honestly the two highlights of this stage are me recognizing the bunker opportunity (wow, such brain) and the extract (with its actually kinda interesting room push for last call nitra). Everything else sucked lol. I missed the two cycle on the hiveguard basically by getting cocky and opening up the rock phase at a terrible spot... letting myself get bullied off by the poor exploder wave timing. Beyond that things were pretty uneventful.

Stage 2: mama mia. A whole lot of duck but not a lot of cover. If I were to do it over again... I'd cheat sooner. But for real though, I think the only thing I could argue to increase my chances at that gamble fest was to seek out the black box sooner and really aggressively start it earlier. But honestly it probably wouldn't have helped anyway. Duck and cover doesn't really scale well into 6x2, and pheroless really can't keep up with such disadvantageous terrain for it - even if the pressure was like 2% lighter in an earlier first attempt, I'd likely have still gotten overrun by any unlucky wave since it only takes one bad one to end you. Complicating that start-sooner ideal is that there were a lot of ranged encounter spawns in there that would prevent the E-holding, and I'd still have to do a fair bit of kiting back in and out, which would mean the actual start time likely wouldn't produce as noticeable a difference in ranged density as you'd hope.

I gave it a good three tries before giving in to the Saddam bunker strat. This was my first time cheesing it this way in a real run, so I wasn't quite sure about the exact mechanics of the hole - I knew it could be lazier than my original construction in the [saddam] upload from way back, but I wasn't sure how lazy and it was mostly just guesswork. My first attempt didn't go deep enough into the magic tunnel and they could hit me from the top, but thankfully I had bosco to recover from that. I think for future reference I should be aiming to sit under the black box a wee bit just to have that extra headroom. Swarmers in the pool likely would have sunk me, but thankfully they weren't there.

TEF's strength carried me through most of that stage, as bodkin and boomerangs just collapsed to D&C unfortunately. They're usually okay at the occasional 6x2 spitter wave or whatever, but the increased density outscales their limited bounces. I don't think chem bolting acids/webs on the ceiling in their big spawn groups would have helped too much either - the awkward roof would likely spread them out too much, and I kinda just had to keep the limited ammo for myself to keep the ground guys off me. Cryo and IFG would have equally done basically nothing for me here, and of the pheroless I think there's a strong argument that rangs were the proper choice after all.

Stage 3: classic mining victory lap. A habit I have in REZ is to look out for opportunities to connect tunnels via resup holes - out of all the biomes, I've found this one has the most reliable corkscrew layouts that very often let you do it. In this map, I followed something I call "the south west rule" which exploits the fact that mining map rooms are basically laid out along a linear south west direction (even if the tunnels do other things). When my tunnel was circling down into the final room, I put a waypoint at where it appeared to be furthest southwest before it turned back on itself to loop around northeast again. Then it was just a matter of looking for that waypoint in the final room and completing the connection. It was a smart play until I tried to use it coming out and completely went the wrong way lol, wasting the brilliance entirely. I used up all my brain power noticing stage 1's bunkie opportunity!

Overall, I'd say this wasn't my strongest dive effort. For that I'd like to blame a resurgent Crab Champions addiction for ruining my deep rock muscle memory...

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Loadout:
32112 Thermal Exhaust Feedback
21111 Bodkin Points
Boomerangs

Perks:
Dash / Iron Will
Resupplier / Deep Pockets / Born Ready

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Highlights:

0:00 Build
0:27 Stage 1
16:25 Black Box
21:53 Stage 2
41:42 [saddam]
47:47 Stage 3
57:19 Final stats