Getting Around in Deep Rock Galactic

Deep Rock Galactic actually has a rather in-depth movement system with all sorts of useful tricks to practice. Thing is, it's not always immediately obvious how to access all of this.

Speedy Introduction

Moving around and navigating the caves of Deep Rock Galactic make up a decent chunk of gameplay. In fact, on higher difficulties good manipulation of your terrain can often be the difference between success and failure. The game does not really explain most of the smaller mechanics, so let me show you the way dear Greenbeards.

Basic Movement Tricks

I won't waste your time explaining the very basics, Management has training assignments and readings for that purpose. Instead, allow me to explain some fundamentals that I'll be referring to through the guide.

Sprinting and Jumping
Sprinting allows you to infinitely increase your movement speed at the cost of having to stop when doing basically anything else. When jumping and sprinting, you will maintain your sprinting speed for the entire length of the jump and fall, even if you perform an action that would stop your sprint.

Momentum
DRG's physics engine does have momentum added to a lot of movement actions. It's a little hard to describe in words, but gaining speed boosts or jumping/falling can allow you to build momentum. For example, using a speed boosting effect, falling down, and then jumping when you hit the ground will cause you to bound forward far faster than any of those actions individually wound.

The Essence of "Mountain Goating"
When jumping towards a ledge that you can get at least chest height to, you will automatically clamber up the surface through effectively gain a bunch of vertical momentum really quickly. This is meant for some basic platforming and nothing more. However, due to the sometimes weird angles of the caves, you can use this to your advantage to ascend up seemingly unscalable walls.

Try clambering up minerals, rough edges, and even most stuff that grows out of the walls to get into spots even as a less mobile dwarf like Gunner. If you want to test this out, the large window in the Space Rig is a great example of this.

Fall Damage
The #1 thing that kills and dwarf in the caves is fall damage. Whether from large heights or smaller gaps at low hp, never underestimate the ability for a fall to down you. Luckily, many things can slow your mid-air momentum and either reduce or outright negate incoming fall damage. This includes:

• Clambering
  
• Most mobility items such as the grappling hook or zipline launcher (see below)
  
• Hugging a wall while falling
  
• Landing on SOME kinds of plants or biome elements
  
• Landing on teammates or larger enemies

The Pickaxe
While your pickaxe is largely used to mine minerals and remove obstacles, never underestimate the pickaxe's ability to get you where you shouldn't be. Often digging, or better yet power attacking, terrain is all it takes to make a surface easy to clamber onto or create a little outcove in the wall you can stand on.

Utility Items for Each Class

Each class in the game has their own little tips and tricks to getting around. This is mostly in relation to their utility items, with each of them having mechanics and techniques to make the most out of your kit.

Driller - Reinforced Power Drills

Driller is far better at manipulating terrain than he is at navigating it, so I don't have many tips for his utility. The drills can be used to get you out of danger by making your own escape routes, but your reduced speed while drilling can pose a challenge.

Drilling can be used to get up decently high if you drill upwards and create a bit of a staircase pattern. In order to make sure you actually make it to your destination, you can press the Interact button with your Laser Pointer out to mark a waypoint for where you want to drill to (you can do this on all classes).

Gunner - Zipline Launcher

Gunner's Zipline Launcher places slow moving lifts that you can teammates can use. These ziplines are one of the only ways to gain any kind of extra movement while carrying heavy objects, and can drastically speed up some mission types such as Point Extraction.

When descending ziplines that are at steep enough of an angle, you can speed down them at a very fast speed. The daredevils among you can try to prematurely hop off of the zipline and allow yourself to carry that momentum further than the end point of the zipline.

While falling, you can ALWAYS catch a zipline that you pass by. To do this, hold the Interact button and you'll automatically latch onto the nearby zipline and take no fall damage.

Engineer - Platform Gun

Engineer is the king of clambering. Your platforms can make almost any vertical surface have chest-high outcrops to climb on. While this cannot be done in a straight line up, you'd be surprised how tightly you can place ascending platforms near each other.

When it comes to preparing an area for a large wave, boss enemy, or timed event; never underestimate the importance of clearing up holes with the platform gun. Many movement speed increases can be entirely nullified by falling into even a shallow hole and having to spend time digging out.

Scout - Grappling Hook

Lastly, we have Scout. Naturally, this will be the biggest section as Scout's whole thing is getting around quickly. The grappling hook is the single best mobility option in the game and I'm not even remotely kidding.

The grappling hook is obviously best known for allow you to rapidly traverse large areas. However, the grappling hook also comes with two other extremely handy mechanics.

First, you can prematurely stop a grapple at anytime and maintain the momentum of the grapple. Try releasing the grapple right before reaching your destination to fling yourself forward and straight into a sprint. Do be careful about overdoing this near sharp drops though.

Secondly, latching onto a surface with the grappling hook even for just a second is often enough to entirely negate downward momentum. Counter-intuitive as it may seem, if you see yourself hurdling towards the ground; try grappling the ground and defy physics as you actually somehow slow down and prevent serious harm!

Passive and Active Perks

Unlocked at the Key Performance Indicator Terminal within your room on the Space Rig, passive and active perks give you various additional abilities to use in missions independent of your gear. Some of these perks have impacts on your movement abilities, so here are a few noteworthy options for you.

Second Wind
Second Wind grants you a small, but constant, movement speed increase of 12% after sprinting for a few seconds. As I said earlier, sprinting is free and you'll basically always want to be doing it when not in a firefight or completing an objective. Nothing more fancy here, just a really good perk if you like moving about.

Unstoppable
This perk allows you to carry heavy items faster, but the part I'm more interested in is the reduction to slow down effect. Almost all status effects that slow you are reduced by literally half, and can make a mobility based loadout much harder to counter. Unstoppable's use cases are reduced if you have other means of immediate movement such as the grappling hook or Dash (see below), but some biomes such as the Glacial Strata make Unstoppable a very useful pick.

Sweet Tooth III
Specifically the 3rd tier of Sweet Tooth grants a temporary 20% movement speed increase when consuming Red Sugar. This make Sweet Tooth a 2-for-1 in getting out of a bad situation. If you're injured and being chased by enemies, you can heal AND get some much needed space from the bugs. Not useful in every perk loadout, but a solid choice.

Dash
I would like to announce the king of Getting Around in DRG! Mashing the sprint button with Dash equipped will launch you forward at over double your base movement speed. Ontop of that, Dash also completely nullifies almost all slows and stuns and can be used while carrying heavy objects. If you like moving around quick in this game like I do, then Dash is a mandatory pick on most perk loadouts.

Dash is perfect for any situation where movement is important: Want to get somewhere in a hurry? Dash. About to get hit by a large incoming attack? Dash. Currently slowed/stunned and want to start building momentum up again? Dash. It's also on a breezy 25s cooldown; much faster than most other active perks.

Hover Boots
I include Hover Boots here less as a recommendation, and more as a warning. This perk allows you to hover in place for 3 seconds and also rapidly stops any and all momentum while doing so. However, as I've gone over earlier, there are a ton of ways to stop downward momentum for free and using Hover Boots at the wrong time can still get you killed anyway. Especially with its 75s cooldown, I personally do not recommend taking Hover Boots in your perk loadouts.

Weapon Upgrades and Overclocks

While not as important as your movement tools and perks, I wanted to point at a few particular upgrades and overclocks that can have large ramifications on your movement abilities (mostly Scout). Overclocks, for those of greener beards than others, are unlockable extra weapon mods that are obtainable after your first promotion on any class.

Combat Mobility for the "Thunderhead" Heavy Autocannon
Gunner Balanced Overclock
Gunner (and Driller) do not have any upgrades or overclocks that directly increasing movement speed in any way. However, I include this overclock as it's the only one to directly reduce Gunner's movement penalty he receives from firing his primary weapons. This overclock increases your movement speed by 35% while firing the autocannon. There are other upgrades that increase how fast you start and stop firing Gunner's primaries, but this is the only one I know of that speeds you up directly.

Plastcrete MKII for the Platform Gun
Engineer Tier 2 Upgrade
This upgrade is the only one in Tier 2 so there is basically no reason not to equip it once bought. I debated including this in the utilities section because it's safe to assume all but the newest of Engineer players will have this upgrade.

What this upgrade does is reduces fall damage of all dwarves who land on it by a considerable amount. Basically, Engineer platforms are another thing to aim for when plummeting to your death. Fast Engineers will actually deliberately fall great heights and platform just before they hit the ground to avoid a slower and more tedious descent.

NOTE: Platforms will not stop all fall damage and you can still be injured or die even if you do land on a platform.

RJ250 Compound for the Deepcore 40mm PGL
Engineer Balanced Overclock
This overclock grants the Engineer the ability to rocket jump with his grenade launcher. That's all I need to say. If you're not equipping this overclock right now after hearing that then there is no hope for you.

Hot Feet for the DRAK-25 Plasma Carbine
Scout Tier 3 Upgrade
Hot Feet grants Scout a small movement speed boost everytime the plasma carbine overheats from firing too much. Luckily for you and me, the carbine overheats very easily. There are multiple neat synergies you can equip by making a carbine that deliberately overheats easily to benefit off of several powerful effects like Hot Feet at the same time.

Get In, Get Out for the Zhukov NUK17
Scout Tier 5 Upgrade
This upgrade has almost exactly the same effect and principle as Hot Feet (see above), but for reloading instead of overheating. Same flightly playstyle, same potential for synergies, etc.

Battle Frenzy for the Nishanka Boltshark X-80
Scout Tier 4 Upgrade
This upgrade grants you a speed boost on every kill with the boltshark. Unfortunately, the weapon's slow firing speed and focus on inflicting status effects make it hard to get the most of with this upgrade. Let's be real, you weren't using the boltshark anyway if you were wanting to focus mobility in your loadout.

Momentum for the Grappling Hook
Scout Tier 4 Upgrade
Momentum grants you a small speed boost after everytime you let go of the grappling hook. As said earlier, you can prematurely let go of the grapple to fling yourself forward, and yes Momentum's speed boost does stack with this. Survival is not guaranteed with this combo, but you will feel cool in the process.

Active Stability System for the M1000 Classic
Scout Balanced Overclock
Much like with Combat Mobility (see above), this overlock grants Scout a 70% speed increase when focusing shots. This is enough to entirely negate the speed penalty that normally comes with focusing while using the M1000. Not super flashy as far as Scout overclocks go, but very good for not getting cornered while sniping.

Hoverclock for the M1000 Classic
Scout Balanced Overclock
Say goodbye to fall damage! While in the air, your mid-air momentum is slowed drastically while focusing. This can be repeated and infinite amount of times with no cooldown. So as long as you can swap to your primary before hitting the ground, you'll never die to falling again. This overclock is really good for hitting cool shots if that's your thing.

Special Powder for the Jury-Rigged Boomstick
Scout Clean Overclock
Much like with the RJ250 Compound, Special Powder adds knockback to each of the boomstick's shots if you are mid-air. Unlike the RJ250 Compound, the knockback is comically high and it's easy to cross the entire cave if you fire both shots in quick succession with upgrades such as Double Trigger. Use this one with caution!

Other Movement Options

This is the place for a bunch of other smaller odds and ends about movement that didn't fit anywhere else.

Jet Boots
Occasionally during missions, you may find a crate of Jet Boots that you can hack into for your team. When equipped, holding jump will very rapidly ascend you into the air. The ease of use and long lifetime of Jet Boots will resolve all vertical mobility issues for you and your team for nearly the rest of the mission. Do keep in mind that these boots overheat very quickly, so have a plan for what to do when going back down.

Rail Grinding
When doing On-Site refining missions, you will build pipelines that can then be grinded on to zoom across them at moderate to high speeds. Much like regular movement, there is momentum to how you travel across the rails. In fact, it might be one of the best ways to really understand how momentum is gained and lost in DRG's physics engine.

You can jump off of a rail you are on to carry the momentum forward in whichever direction you were headed. This can be useful for getting around... or throwing yourself off a cliff if you're not careful. Reminder that you can hold Interact to catch yourself on a rail mid-air much like with Gunner's ziplines.

Biome Interactions
While several biomes such as the Fungus Bogs have terrain designed to slow you down, some factors actually speed you up. For example, the Sandblasted Corridors contains air geysers that will launch you in sometimes helpful directions.

Explosions in the Magma Core, and in some other contexts, will cause the ground to crack into a fiery terrain that hurts when stepped on. This also does have the advantage of providing a small movement speed increase, which can be chained with jumps and other movement boosts to gain momentum quickly.

In the Azure Weald you can find Mobula Cave Angels flying in the air. These docile creatures can actually be "ridden", which can be used to navigate to out-of-reach locations in a pinch.

Anomalies
Anomalies positively modify your upcoming mission in interesting ways. Two different anomalies, Low Gravity and Rich Atmosphere, make navigating vertically and horizontally much easier. Low Gravity allows you to make large jumps and with little risk of fall damage. Meanwhile, Rich Atmosphere increases your movement speed a great deal and makes keeping on the move much easier.

Barrel Surfing
This is almost an entirely useless mechanic, but in the Space Rig you can find various objects with weird collision such as barrels. While sprinting, a well-timed jump can rocket you high up in any direction. While seemingly random, getting the hang of how barrels interact with you can allow you to somewhat propel yourself to anywhere you need in the Space Rig.

Even Speedier Conclusion

Now I've shown you all sorts of little ways you can get around quickly in DRG. Got that all? Alright then! Be sure to show off your new tricks in the caves and, as always, give the bugs hell. ROCK AND STONE!

Update Log:

6/9/2024 - Guide is released to public!