Drop Pod
The Drop Pod is a short-range personnel deployment spacecraft operated by the Deep Rock Galactic Corporation. It is used to transport parties of dwarves and their mining cargo between the Space Rig and Hoxxes IV.
Appearance
The exterior of a Drop Pod consists of tough, metallic red material similar to other DRG company equipment. Its fuselage is capped by a thruster at the top and a large auger at the base, which is used to drill into the caverns.
Mission Start
At the beginning of every mission, players appear inside the descending Drop Pod just before it lands in the mission cave. On arrival, its safety barrier retracts, and an access ramp is extended to the surface. If the mission requires it, the M.U.L.E. is also deployed from a small storage port on the side of the pod. Once the M.U.L.E is deployed and all players have exited the Pod, or after enough time has elapsed, the Pod retracts its ramp and launches back up through the entry tunnel.
During the first ~27s of the mission, there is a Safe zone inside the pod where players take only 1% damage from all sources. Enemies also cannot crawl into the interior.
Extraction
After the primary mission quota has been met, a red button will appear on the M.U.L.E., or the launch button on the Mine Head or Mobile Refinery will become active. Once pressed, Mission Control will launch a retrieval Drop Pod. The Pod often lands some distance away from the team, which can range from 40 meters to over 200.
Upon landing, the M.U.L.E. begins an uninterrupted march back to the extraction point while leaving a trail of blinking marker buoys for the player to follow. All player calls are ignored from that point onward. The return path will generally try to avoid scaling vertical faces, but the M.U.L.E can climb up pillars and walls, through minuscule holes, and up resupply pod holes. If the path to the Drop Pod is completely blocked by terrain, the M.U.L.E. can sometimes walk through walls, though in other cases may get stuck in a loop. Once the M.U.L.E. reaches the pod, it is retracted up into its storage port, and the pod then opens the safety barrier for players to enter.
The Drop Pod will always open 10 seconds before extraction if the M.U.L.E. fails to reach it. In missions without the M.U.L.E., it opens immediately upon landing.
Once onboard, the players must stand in the zone marked Safe. In this Safe zone, Dwarves take only 1% damage from all sources. This resistance stacks multiplicatively with other damage resistances. The Drop Pod will automatically launch if all players who are alive enter the Safe zone, and if no player who is incapacitated has an unspent charge of the Iron Will active ability. When launching, the Drop Pod begins to move upward, the access ramp retracts, and the safety barrier gradually closes. Players also lose the ability to move and fire weapons. This sequence marks the end of the mission.
Whether or not players have successfully made it back onto the Drop Pod, it will launch after 5 minutes for most missions, 3 minutes for Point Extraction and On-site Refining missions, or 1 minute for Salvage Operations. However, for each player that successfully extracts, an additional amount of credits are rewarded. (
150 Credits x Hazard Bonus per dwarf). If no player is successfully extracted by the Drop Pod, the mission counts as failed.
Trivia
- The Drop Pod may land in such a way that its ramp is not easily accessible. When this occurs, traversal tools are often required to reach the Drop Pod, such as creating a bridge out of platforms. No part of the Drop Pod counts as terrain, so any platforms fired directly at it will immediately break if there is no actual terrain nearby to connect to. However, Ziplines can still connect to it.
- At the beginning of the mission, the Drop Pod can be seen despawning as it flies back up the tunnel. The top of the tunnel can be seen, revealing bedrock. If a player is inside the Drop Pod at this time, they will fall back to the ground once the Drop Pod vanishes.
- In the Space Rig, if the player continuously moves in and out of the Drop Pod before the countdown can finish, the beeping of the timer will drop in pitch. Should the player continue this behavior, it will close and begin the mission suddenly, regardless of how long is left on the timer or whether or not the player is fully inside the Drop Pod.
- At the end of a mission, if all players enter the Drop Pod before its door opens (such as by clipping through certain points of its geometry or being grabbed through the Drop Pod by a Rival Nemesis), the Drop Pod immediately leaves and the mission finishes normally, as though the door had been already open and the M.U.L.E. had already been retrieved. An exception is if this happens during Salvage Operation between the end of the Refuel and the door opening, in which case the mission counts as failed.
- At the end of a mission, after the Drop Pod launches, it is possible to grab a nearby Zipline. This allows players to circumvent the normal lockout of character controls, regaining the ability to move and fire weapons as long as their feet do not touch the floor of the Drop Pod. It is even possible to leave the Drop Pod. Players outside the Drop Pod at the end of the mission do not receive an extra Down in the mission statistics, but also do not contribute their 150 Credit survival bonus. If all players are outside the Drop Pod at the end of the mission, the mission counts as failed.
Gallery
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