Escort Duty
Escort Duty is a mission type in Deep Rock Galactic.
| “ | This time we are after an Ommoran Heartstone! In order to extract it, we are sending in an autonomous Drilldozer to support you. The Drilldozer will automatically home in on the Heartstone, so your job will be to escort it and keep it running. Good luck, miners! |
| — Mission Control |
Escort the Drilldozer while it makes its way to the Ommoran Heartstone.
Protect the Drilldozer
Escort Duty involves escorting a Drilldozer (also known as the Dozer, and affectionately named "Doretta" by the Dwarves), a large automated drilling machine, protecting it from attacking Creatures and repairing damage done to it. The Drilldozer's health is segmented into three parts: the left side, right side, and body. The left side will take damage until it breaks, then the right side, then the body. Damage dealt to any part of the Drilldozer will only affect the active segment. However, it can only be repaired from the area of the Drilldozer it maps to. When a segment reaches 0%, Mission Control will announce that the Drilldozer has taken permanent damage. The damaged segment cannot be repaired anymore and the next segment will begin taking damage. If the Drilldozer's body runs out of health, the mission fails.
The Drilldozer's speed is determined by how many Creatures and Dwarves are nearby. The more Creatures are present, the slower it will move, leaving it vulnerable to attack.
When the Drilldozer runs out of fuel, it must be refueled by extracting oil from Oil Shale. This is done using the Fuel Canisters taken from back of the Drilldozer. The beams emitted from the Canisters liquefy the shale, which automatically collects the fuel. Oil Shale can be mined normally (though it requires four pickaxe hits to break), but Dwarves cannot pick up the chunks. A delay similar to laser mining the ore is also applied when chunks are collected with the Canisters. It is faster to use the Canisters on the Oil Shale directly. Once a Canister is filled, it must be inserted back into the Drilldozer. When it is fully refueled, the Drilldozer must be manually restarted.
The Drilldozer will eventually arrive at the Ommoran Heartstone, a large spherical structure. The Drilldozer must be manually started again to begin drilling into the Heartstone. Swarms will spawn frequently throughout this entire process. The Ommoran Shell's lifebar is divided in 4 parts, the first two phases last about 60s, the second phase last about 75s, the last phase last about 100s, for a total of ~300 seconds (5 minutes) with the interval between the different phases. Each time a phase ends, the Heartstone releases an explosion which will heavily damage the players the closer they are to the drilled part of the core, as well as causing a severe amount of knockback. The explosion will also cause damage to the Drilldozer.
During the second and fourth phases, the Heartstone will perform one of three attacks:
- Flying Rocks: The Heartstone will summon large floating rocks that target the Drilldozer. These will deal a large amount of damage to the Drilldozer, as well as any Dwarf caught in their attack. However, they can be destroyed before they hit the Drilldozer.
- Ommoran Beamers: The Heartstone will summon large destructible crystal towers around itself which fire laser beams at the Drilldozer, dealing constant damage to it, but are unable to damage Dwarves.
- Ommoran Crystal Traps: During this attack, the Heartstone will appear to be shrouded in a field of red energy. One Dwarf will be targeted with a beam, indicating that the Heartstone will attempt to encase them in a large destructible rock. While Dwarves are not damaged by these traps, if the targeted Dwarf is standing close to the Drilldozer, the crystal trap will deal a massive amount of damage to it.
The Ommoran Heartstone sequence will occur as follows:
- Phase One: Swarm trigger.
- Phase Two: The Heartstone begins to perform a random one of its attacks.
- Phase Three: The Heartstone will cease its attack, but another swarm is triggered.
- Phase Four: The Heartstone performs a different attack from the one it used during the second phase. On top of this, another swarm is triggered.
At the conclusion of Phase 4, The Heartstone will emit a shockwave that instantly kills all nearby enemies. The Heartstone can then be extracted and strapped onto the back of the M.U.L.E., where Drop Pod extraction process can begin. The Drilldozer is retired at this point and must be left behind, though its "head" will detach, and is able to be carried by the Dwarves to the Drop Pod.
Combat
Health and Armor
Flying Rock
| Effective
Health Scaling |
Hazard Level | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Normal Mission | 
|
DD | EDD | ||||||||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | TE 1
|
TE 2
|
3 | 3.5 | 4.5 | 5 | 5.5 | ||||
| Player Count |  to 
|
175 | 250 | 275 | 300 | 300 | 300 | 399 | 275 | 275 | 300 | 300 | 300 | ||
Attacks
Flying Rock
| AoE Attack | |||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Area Damage | Hazard Level | ||||||||||||||
| Normal Mission | 
|
DD | EDD | ||||||||||||
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | PV 1 | PV 2 | 3 | 3.5 | 4.5 | 5 | 5.5 | ||||
| Player Count |
|
25 | 35 | 60 | 100 | 140 | 210 | 280 | 60 | 75 | 115 | 140 | 150 | ||
|
25 | 40 | 65 | 107.5 | 150 | 225 | 300 | 65 | 80 | 122.5 | 150 | 160 | |||
|
25 | 45 | 70 | 115 | 160 | 240 | 320 | 70 | 85 | 130 | 160 | 170 | |||
|
|
25 | 50 | 75 | 125 | 170 | 255 | 340 | 75 | 90 | 140 | 170 | 180 | |||
| Details | |||||||||||||||
| Damage Type | Kinetic |  Radius: 2.5 m | |||||||||||||
Cave
Compared to the caves seen in other mission types, most of the "rooms" are not connected by tunnels or Compressed Dirt barriers. The only way to proceed is by accompanying the Drilldozer, which is programmed to follow a path to the Ommoran Hearthstone. This encourages the team to stay by the Dozer and protect it. Wherever the Dozer digs creates large tunnels in its wake, which can be navigated through later and are often necessary to use for the Extraction phase. The Dozer will only ever run out of fuel in the middle of a room, making Oil Shales easier to locate and collect. The Heartstone itself is found in a larger room and is fairly easy to spot given its dark red glow.
Objectives
Primary Objective
- Escort the Drilldozer
- Refuel the Drilldozer 1-2 times
- Continue escort
- Crack the Shell of the Ommoran Heartstone
- Return the Ommoran Heartstone
The amount of times the Drilldozer will need to be refueled depends on the mission length.
| Length | Complexity | Refueling Stops | Caverns | Primary Payout | Secondary Payout |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
 1
|
5 |  1105  2990
|
260/325 909/879
|
|
|
|
1
|
5 | 1190 3220
|
280/350 980/945
|
|
|
2
|
7 | 1360 3680
|
320/400 1120/1075
|
|
|
|
2
|
7 | 1530 4140
|
360/450 1260/1205
|
Secondary Objective
|
|
|
Gallery
Hologram of the Heavy Cargo Drop.
The Heavy Cargo Drop.
The opened Heavy Cargo Drop.
Doretta entering a new cave.
Doretta in the refuel stage.
Doretta fuel canister.
Fuel tank in use.
The Ommoran Heartstone.
Doretta preparing to drill out the Ommoran Heartstone.
Doretta drilling out the Ommoran Heartstone.
Doretta being damaged by an Ommoran Beamer.
Doretta completing the drilling process.
The extracted Heartstone.
The Heartstone after being deposited on the M.U.L.E..
Trivia
- This mission type was added in Update 32: Roughnecks At Work.
- Repairing the Drilldozer uses various tools instead of the typical hammer used when constructing/repairing objects, including a pipe wrench and an oil can.
- It is possible to pet the Drilldozer by pressing the [USE] ("E" by default) key on its "head", found at the top of its body behind the drill.
- Pressing the Salute key while holding a Fuel Canister causes the dwarf to say a beer-holding salute line.
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