Reinforced Power Drills
| “ | One of the classic workhorses of DRG, the twin-linked Power Drill makes short work of more or less anything unfortunate enough to be in front of it. That includes your team mates, mind. |
| — Item Description |
The Reinforced Power Drills is the Traversal Tool for Driller. They are a pair of massive handheld drills mounted up to the Driller's forearms.
Perhaps the Driller's most iconic tool, the Power Drills are able to cleave through solid rock and enemies with ease. They are more effective at breaking rock than the Pickaxes carried by the Driller and his teammates; digging faster and in a much wider space. However, the Drills are unable to mine minerals.
Mechanics
The Drills gain 1 Heat per second while the [FIRE] key ("Left Mouse Click" by default) is held down and lose 2 Heat per second while idle. At the Max Heat of 5.5 they will overheat and become inoperable for 8s while they slowly return to 0 Heat. While in a mission, the right-hand Drill will display a Heat Meter from 0% to 100% (5.5 Heat) but the Heat to percentage relationship is not linear.
Drilling has two modes: Mining Mode, for carving terrain, and Combat Mode, for dealing damage. The game determines which mode to use in the following way:
- Is there a damageable entity (enemies, ebonuts, players, etc.) within a ~2 meter cube in front of the player?
- If no: Use Mining Mode
- If yes: What is the closest object under the crosshair within 2 meters?
- Terrain: Use Mining Mode
- Anything else / Nothing: Use Combat Mode
In other words, the drills prioritize Combat Mode if enemies are in front of the player, unless the player is specifically aiming at mineable terrain within approximately 2 meters.
The Drills become inoperable if they run out of fuel.
Mining Mode
In Mining mode, regardless of successfully breaking terrain or not, the Drills will consume 0.25 liters of Fuel per tick. By default they have a 1.5 tick per second rate, but with mods it can be raised up to 3 ticks per second. As a result, the Fuel consumption rate can be 0.375, 0.5625, or 0.75 L per second, depending on mods.
Each time the Drills attempt to break terrain, the game first performs a check to see if there's any terrain within 2m of the player (according to the Laser Pointer). If there is, then it will destroy a chunk of terrain approximately 2m wide by 2.2m tall by 1m deep in the direction that the player is looking.
While in Mining Mode, the drills will not deal damage, even if there are valid targets in range.
Combat Mode
In Combat mode, the Drills will consume 0.2 liters of Fuel per tick, with a 8 ticks per second rate. That Rate cannot be increased via mods, so the Drills will always consume Fuel at a rate of 1.6 L per second while in Combat mode.
The drills deal melee damage in an area of approximately 2 cubic meters in front of the player, although they can hit creatures that are up to 2.3 meters away as measured by the laser pointer. If any part of a creature is intersecting this area, they will take the full damage. There does not appear to be a limit to the number of enemies that can be damaged at once, and fuel consumption is not affected by the number of enemies hit by the damage.
The damage will be applied to the closest part of the enemy that is intersecting with the damage area rather than the part of the enemy that is under the crosshair. As a result, it can be very difficult to hit weakpoints intentionally, especially for enemies that have limbs extending in front of their body.
Drills do benefit from bonus damage to weakpoints, however in practice it may appear that they do not, since the drills will frequently hit limbs and armor instead. This is especially evident with Glyphid Oppressors, as drills will deal their damage to the invulnerable armor from nearly every angle except from directly behind.
Drills can deal damage to Ebonite Glyphids.
While in Combat Mode, the drills will not carve terrain, even if there is valid terrain in range.
Movespeed
Although the Equipment Terminal indicates that the player moves at 50% speed while using the Drills, that's not precise. In reality, the movespeed of the player while using the Drills is calculated using this formula:
Movement Penalty starts at 50%, and with mods can be raised up to 70%. Additionally, because this is dependent on the player's Walking Speed, the Rich Atmosphere anomaly lets you move even faster while using the Drills.
Modifications
There are four tiers of modifications and each tier has one to three upgrades. Only one modification can be equipped per tier.
| Driller Upgrades | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mod | Effect | In Game Description | Price | |||||||
| Tier 1 |  Barbed Drills |
+5 Damage | "More damage inflicted on enemies" |
| ||||||
 Hardened Drill Tips |
+0.75 Mining rate +10% Movement speed while drilling |
"Drill faster." |
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 Expanded Fuel Tanks |
+6 Max Fuel | "Carries more fuel." |
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Tier 2 5
|
 Magnetic Refrigeration |
+1 Cooling Rate | "Faster cooling for the drills when not in action" |
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Streamlined Integrity Check |
-3s Overheat Duration | "Can use drills sooner after an overheat." |
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| Tier 3 10
|
Supercharged Motor |
+0.75 Mining Rate +10% Movement speed while drilling |
"Drill faster." |
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| Tier 4 15
|
Increased Tank Pressure |
+6 Max Fuel | "Carries more fuel." |
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Bloody Cold Drills |
+Heat removal on Damage | "Your drills cool when drilling enemies!" |
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Unique Modifications
Bloody Cold Drills
Bloody Cold Drills removes 0.2 Heat every time the Drills damage an enemy. Combined with the Damage Rate of 8 damage ticks per second, this means that damaging enemies removes 1.6 Heat per second from the Heat Meter. Because the Drills only generate 1 Heat per second while in use, Bloody Cold Drills allows the player to use the Drills infinitely without overheating as long as they're damaging enemies.
Gallery
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