Welcome to my guide!

I've gathered my 400 hour-ish experience to bring you this guide full of tips to thrive in the world of Hoxxes. If you are new, then welcome miner! I recommend you to play the game and explore a bit without me spoilering all the quirky things about it. If you are experienced however, then I hope I can serve with some new information to you as well!

If you have tips you feel like are really useful, throw me a comment or a private message and I will make sure to feature you in the guide!

I hope you will enjoy reading these tips as much as I did writing them!
So without further ado, let's dig into it!

First of all let's make sure we are on the same page with our definitions. It's probably best to return here if you are unsure about a word or acronym I used.

Pod/Drop pod : exit vehicle used to leave the area.
Zone : a part of the planet with a specific biome. (ex: Dense Biozone, Magma Core)
Ping : using the laser pointer and pointing somewhere and pressing the left mouse button.
Hazard level : the selected difficulty of your current mission. Ranges from 1-5
Mutator : any effect on your mission. might be positive or negative (warning, anomaly)
Warning : a negative effect on your mission marked by a red icon.
Anomaly : a positive effect on your mission marked by a yellow icon.
OC : an overclock for your weapon.
Core : matrix core.
Wave : a bigger bunch of enemies incoming, usually announced by Mission Control
Pancake : the Engineer's platform gun shoots pancake-like platforms. Ah I love pancakes <3

1. My Way or the Highway

4 out of the 5 mission types (mining, egg, salvage, point extraction) you will have to backtrack a bit to get to the drop pod at the end so it's a good idea to always make sure you have a clear path even if you are digging or jumping down, unless you are a scout of course.

2. Minerals Start with Mine... for a Reason!

Your highest priority after completing the missions should be collecting minerals. Much more so than gold, since you get money from multiple sources. (mission, assignment, event, loot bug, etc..)

3. No breathalyser on drop pods hopefully...?

Always keep an eye on the abyss bar, because the Today's Special drinks may help you in your mission or give you a boost of resources.

4. Are we? Yep we are lost.

If you get to the end of a long mining operation I recommend you to travel back at least a fourth or a third of the way to limit the distance the drop pod can spawn at. It can land very far and if you are not a scout or don't have a great memory to remember all the little turns you had to take it can be difficult to get back in time. Especially if something unexpected happens. Looking at you, detonators...

5. A Healthy Diet

Generally don't just focus on one or two zones even if you have a favorite, since you will need the minerals from each to upgrade your gear. Also you will later be doing Deep Dives where you cannot chose a zone, so you will have to adapt which makes it crucial to be be at least adept everywhere.

6. Lucky we don't Have Cats

Using the Laser Scanner (Ctrl) highlights the outlines of your teammates, supply pods, drop pod and the MULE. You can also ping resources and enemies for others to see even through walls. If you press the use key (E) while having it in your hand, you can place personal waypoints which are visible through walls.

Also if you are playing solo, marking locations sends Bosco there to help mine some minerals, or even eggs. Pressing X makes him instantly stop whatever he's doing and come back to you. He even drops carried items.


7. One Dwarf to Rule Them All!

It might be tempting to try out all the four classes quite early in the game, which is fine, but focusing on one and leveling up to 25 to promote is the preferred way to go, since a lot of options are going to be opened for you at that point.

8. Ohh Shiny!

There are two very rare minerals in the game and they might not be obvious first, but if you see glowing spikes sticking out or pink pebbles laying around definitely start digging!


9. Blame Game

When you throw an item (jadiz, mule leg, battery, etc...) an other player can catch it mid air! You can cross giant gaps without bridges and get items up high cliffs by having your buddy catch your candy in the air! As an added bonus, you can always blame them if it falls off eventually! Good times!

10. The "Tunnel Boring Machine" 's Middle Name is Boring for a Reason

If you are not a Driller, never try to dig for longer distances to reach other tunnels. It is dangerous since you can get stuck if enemies swarm you in your tiny duct, and also the game is about exploration, not "who can hold W and Right click longer?". Oh and you will miss out on every loot on the way you skip. This alone would be enough to not do that ever (even for Drillers).

11. Mothership

You probably met one of those giant flying Breeders. They can be a pain to deal with if you can't attack further away and you can get overwhelmed with her tiny brain batallion.

So.. she does not actually spawn those brain-like creatures immediately. She throws eggs that fall down and hatch in a few seconds. So try to kill them really quick before they do so.


12. Never hold onto It

Any minerals that you hold in your hands or leave on the ground when leaving with the pod will be lost, so make sure to deposit them all! By hold in hands I actually mean when you walk with them while holding it. For example: Jadiz, Gunk seed, etc...

You also have to finish the secondary mission in order to gain it's rewards. So having the last pieces in your pockets won't work.

But also keep in mind that finishing a level is more important than finishing it flawlessly. So if you feel like you could die if you had to drag some stuff to the pod, then by all means.. leave immediately.

13. Task at Hand

Try to focus on assignments in the very beginning since they will unlock more opportunities down the line. Of course, if you find a really juicy mission, by all means, go for it!

Also, you can wait with the assignment unlocking hazard 5. That should be your lowest priority of the bunch.

14. Sharing is Caring

Supply pods are a shared resource containing 4 slots of ammo and health, that each amount to about 50% of your max capacities. That being said, if you play with multiple people you should definitely try to divide these resources instead of taking all you need yourself. Two dwarfs on half ammo are more effective than one on full, needless to say!

You can also check an approximate of their current ammo below their icons while having the laser pointer in your hand.

15. Pro Motion

Promoting your dwarves has some hidden advantages beyond the shiny frames and pretty stars above their heads. Oh and you lose nothing! You can use all your stuff the same as before.

When you promote your first dwarf, you will get an additional perk slot for him and gain access to Machine Events, Deep Dives and the Forge. This is essentially the "endgame" content currently and a significant portion of the loot you will look forward to in the future. You will get an additional perk slot with each dwarf on their very first promotion. This is all very important but...

Additionally, you will increase your Player Rank with every level, so promoting essentially resets your level to 1, enabling you to level up to 25 over and over again, gaining those sweet ranks. There are milestones as well, opening up new missions for extra cosmetic items every once in a while!

1. Worthwhile Masochism

Warning Mutators give you hazard bonus and increase your overall rewards by between +15% and +30%, so don't dismiss them immediately even if you dislike their effect.
Mutators Wiki[deeprockgalactic.gamepedia.com]


2. Pots of Goodies

Pots o' Gold and Dark Morkite drinks increase the amount of chunks dropped by each swing of your pickaxe at their respected ore vein, but ONLY your pickaxe. This means no Bosco, no Explosions and no digging around the ore.

3. I'm the Headmaster

Falling down big holes is surely painful even tough I'm sure it never happened to you ever ;).
Anyways, you will be happy to hear that if you land on your fellow dwarf's head it will negate all fall damage. This makes sending a scout down and then jumping on their head a great strategy, especially in point extractions, when you might have to get back to the mining head quick when a wave is coming.

4. Leash the Leech

Cave Leeches can be a real pain for all players. You probably noticed that they start glowing when coming for you which is really nice, but they also make a hissing sound when they get close. I recommend when you find one, step in its range a few times and get used to the sound, it will save you a lot!

5. Forge Inception

Forging items in the game might be useful even when you don't actually need that item since it will advance your forge level. After every 5. forging you will get an additional core which makes using up all your cheap cores worth it! As a fun fact this makes it so that every core is also 1/5 towars a new core which makes getting one technically worth 1.22222222.... items instead of just 1.


6. Iron Not Yet

Iron Will is a really great perk letting you walk around berserk mode for a few seconds after dying before finally dropping dead. But actually in this phase if you manage to heal yourself above 0 health you will be "revived"! So finding some red sugar, using a resupply pod or killing an enemy with the Vampire Perk will let you continue your mining craze. Even after healing yourself, the effect will last for the full duration.

I recommend being near a supply pod all the time in waves when you have this perk and you will be able to use it much more consistently than red sugars, but keep in mind, that you can still be knocked away by bigger monsters.

7. Even Steven

The Beast Master perk lets you convert one enemy to fight for you out of 4 beast types. This is great, because they draw some attention to themselves away from you and also have some special abilities.


8. Nut Those Nuts

If you feel safe, you can use your power attack to mine. It counts as an attack reset, so if you hit one with the pick then instantly slam the power attack, it will not wait for the time it would take you to swing the pick again.

Also it has some special interactions with other items as well. For example it immediately opens an ebonut. So play around with it and see what you can find!

9. A Cold Touch

When an enemy is frozen, you lose the ability to hit its critical spot, however every single hit to any point on its body will deal 3x damage for the duration. This only affects direct single target hits. So no area of effect or damage over time.
This makes an amazing combo with the scout using Cryo Grenade with the double pistols.

Oh and also it instantly kills flying enemies!

10. Goodie Overflow!

You probably noticed that after you complete either the main or the side objective it stops counting. This does not however mean you don't get rewarded for your work with XP, so if you find some Morkite, Aquarq, Ebonuts, or any other mission items in your way don't hesitate to yoink them.

11. A Bombastic Present

You probably met some detonators by now. I know you love them just as much as I do. But you might not have met it's golden variant. It is called Glyphid Crassus Detonator. They are very rare and they turn everything that touches the outer edge of their blast radius into gold!

So if you find a detonator check if its name is Crassus. If it is, make sure to lure it into a smaller cavity to maximize the amount of blocks that get turned into gold. Oh and also good luck mining it! :)
As an additional tip, if you have a Driller on the team, they can mine around the bottom part of the gold and it will fall because of "gravity?!?ish".




12. Glowing Personality

Just imagine how much people would love you if you could rid them of those annoying radioactive crystals in the Radioactive Exclusion Zone! What if I told you that you don't have to mine their bases or throw explosives on them? Just find the white glowing point around the middle and one hit will do the job!


13. Miner Ambulance

The Field Medic perk is a really useful one that I take to every single mission I play with friends. But even if you don't do so, I highly recommend it in the Magma Core zone, since if your buddy dies on some fire vents or a lava-rock left after an explosion, you will not be able to save them without taking significant damage yourself.

14. The Nitra Experience

You might have heard that the nitra you collect will give you additional XP at the end, which is why quite a few people tend to save it at the end and get into sticky situations.

The calculation is based on the nitra you deposited. So even if you use it, the XP is already there, so go spending!

15. Supplies for Days

The Resupplier perk. It is great. It is essential. Use it. Please!

16. Steady Hands

You remember that you can toss stuff around and your buddy can catch it? Well it works with Nanite Bombs as well in the Tritilyte Crystal event. If you are up for it but the terrain is a little finicky, you can make a throwing chain.

It's a great way to share responsibility. The catcher is the one who dies if you fail, but the thrower gets the blame. It's fun!!

17. Boo the Goo

There are those really annoying fat flies with the two glowing balls on their bottom spraying you with green juice from time-to-time right? Well if you manage to pop both of their sacs they will deflate without greasing your face.



19. Promotion Partner!

You can do the promotion missions of every Dwarf with the others. So you will not waste XP when one is lvl 25

20. Sudden Bridge

In the Glacial Strata and Magma Core zones sometimes the ground starts to tremble before one or several cracks open up near or under our bearded friends. If this happens just jump onto molly when the shaking begins, since she can't fall and you will be fine.

19. Blazing Toes

When you are interacting with something (taking supply, depositing, reviving), you are essentially floating. This means that you are completely invulnerable to environmental effects such as lava.

Salvage is considered one of the most difficult mission types, so using these tips can be really important, especially in Hazard 5 or EDD

1.1 Secret Supply
There are hidden supply pods completely covered or partially exposed in the ground. You can search for them with your terrain scanner.

1.2 Leg-al violence
Every time you remove a stuck mini mule leg form the ground it spawns a mini-wave a few seconds later. I can even be as much as half a minute delay so be careful with taking out a lot at once, especially in higher difficulties.

1.2 #cheese
If you have an engineer, you can dig a hole below the Uplink and the Refuel Pod, then cover the top with pancakes. Doing this essentially means you are invincible during the fight. A driller is a huge help for this obviously.

The catch is, that there are 3 enemies that can dig a hole towards you. Dreadnought (very rare), Detonator (relatively rare), Oppressor (relatively common). Because of this, always dig tunnels near the shafts, but not all the way so if you hear digging you can just run and quickly dig yourself out.


Mining expedition is a pretty straightforward mission type, but there are a few interesting fact you might not be aware of.

2.1 Watch your back
I have to mention it. Always make sure to have a clean way backwards, since most of the time you will have to run back for the drop pod. Getting lost or not having a way upwards will be very frustrating indeed.

2.2 I thought it was just a legend
The final room in every expedition is a so-called "reward room". This is because the very last room usually has quite a bit of minerals, gold and morkite lying around making it worthwhile to go all the way.

2.3 Dirt-y thoughts
Expeditions are usually linear with rooms separated by a dirt wall. Sometimes you find it and then continue walking around and exploring, so you might forget where it was and have to search for it again. This can be solved by playing a waypoint on it when you find it. Waypoints are placed using Ctrl + E. They are only visible while holding Ctrl, but they are permanent.


Just imagine the amount of omlettes we can make when we get home!

3.1 Dwarfalarm
Stealing an egg can cause a wave to start. So.. like.. don't do it when you are in deep sh*t?
Oh also, even if a wave does not begin, it still spawns quite a few of bugs on a slight delay.

3.2 Remote rigging
If you find an egg at a really unfortunate place, like ceilings! (of course the game never spawns them there cause it loves you) But in the rare occasion if it does, or you found a nice place to defend further away, just call a supply under the egg and it will release it when digging down. Alongside with the accompanying horde.


Soo shiny! Who doesn't love aquul.. akvu? akulv!, quarku?... aghh that blue glowing gravel-gem thingy.

4.1 Overwhelming beauty
Always prioritize collecting nitra at the beginning of these missions, because running out of ammo a real possibility, since without Molly you will have to bring it back in 40-50 chunks even from afar.

4.2 Zipzone
Gunner is a great class for this mission type, because he can place ziplines and transfer the aqula... ah FK it.. THE GLOWY SH*T up to the extractor.

4.3 Deep Deposit
Almost every point extraction spawns with a pretty separated room, away from the giant cavern. This usually holds 1-3 glowy stuffs and a bunch of minerals, gold and nitra. Or you know.. it doesn't hold anything. Happens from time-to time.


These are much more difficult solo, so go find yourself some buddies or take your trusty Bosco!

5.1 Overwhelming beauty
Always prioritize collecting nitra at the beginning of these missions, because running out of ammo a real possibility, since without Molly you will have to bring it back in 40-50 chunks even from afar.

1. (Engineer) Molly in Your Holly

Did it ever happen to you, that when you were trying to follow Molly towards LZ, then suddenly she starts climbing up on the ceiling and disappears in your supply drop hole?

Well fear not, because if you have an engineer on the team, they can fill those holes with the pancake gun and stop Molly from climbing vertically to victory.

I recommend to fill these holes immediately after the supply pod arrives.

2. (Engineer + Scout) The True Duality

Engi and Scout are the best combination together in terms of efficiency. When arriving in a new tunnel, the scout should shoot a few flares on the ceilings and walls around the cave for better visibility. Then the Engi can shoot his pancakes just below the minerals on the walls, creating a vantage point for the scout for easy extraction.

Engineer is also great to make up for the relative lack of damage of the scout. Especially related to crowd control.

3. (Driller) Blast the Blaster

When you charge up the Driller's Experimental Plasma Blaster it will shoot a slow moving projectile. If you have the "Thin Containment Field" Tier 5 upgrade, then if you manage to shoot it with another hit with the Blaster it will explode damaging enemies and mining nearby rocks and minerals. This has a slight learning curve though.

You can use this to mine minerals hard-to-reach areas such as ceilings or high walls. Also you can create a small hole on the wall for the scout to hook into.

4. (Scout) I Have the High Ground!

Your primary way of moving around is your hook obviously. You can use it to jump on smaller surfaces, such as on top of red sugars on the wall and even ebonuts. This means you will always have the high ground for combat and you will be able to dig around for hard-to-reach minerals if your team lacks and Engineer

5. (Scout) Blastmonkey

If you hook onto a wall and use your power attack, it will leave a hole on any surface. If you do it right, you can immediately jump into it mid-air. This of course means you can stick to any surface and start digging around for loot.

5. (Gunner) Spider Simulator

If you get hit while travelling on a zipline, you will fall off unfortunately. A potential fix comes from the fact that you can catch ziplines while falling. So if you make a nice web for yourself with multiple lines above each other and you position yourself on the topmost one, you can just catch the lower ones if you happen to fall off.

If there are no ranged enemies around, then you are in luck since you are practically invincible given your line is far enough from walls.

6. (Gunner) Traffic Jam

Use your shield generator to temporarily block off narrow areas, for example when running back to the drop pod. You can also use it to revive a teammate safely, so no need for the Field Medic perk most of the time.

Omen Modular Exterminator

You might have noticed that Omens have a fixed layout. The key box is in one corner and the activation pads are in the other three. If you stand on the box and look towards the tower. In front is going to be the switch for the first level, to your left is the middle and finally to your right is the top one. This is good to know because it's usually smart to start with the bottom level.

1. Get in the Matrix

Even if you are unable to do a full Deep Dive or Elite Deep Dive, try to at least complete the first mission in each. They will always give you Blank Matrix Cores, which are amazing, since you can chose which class you'd like to get your reward for at machine events.

This of course helps you focus on the class you like. A random core can roll for any class and can be an overclock or a cosmetic item for each. This means you'd normally have a 1/8 (~13%) chance to get an OC for the class you'd like. With blank cores this is improved to 3/8 (~38%)

2. A Deep Sip

When preparing for a difficult Elite Deep Dive, always make sure to drink in the abyss bar if there is anything good. Sometimes it's even worth waiting for some tasty treat like Red Rock Blaster. I's very important, that drinks last the whole DD, not just the first stage!

And by wait I of course don't mean stand there and watch.. play some other missions or log out and check back every half a hour, they change with the mission rotation. Keep in mind however, it can be the same multiple times in a row.


3. Dankest of Depths

The difficulty of the Deep Dive is on average 3.2, while Elite Deep Dive is 5. I say on average, because each mission gets more difficult every level. DD: (3, 3.5, 3.5), EDD: (4.5, 5. 5.5)

4. Heads or Meds

I consider it essential to bring a Field Medic perk for Elite Deep Dives. Most of the times you will be swarmed with loads of enemies coming from all angles, which makes standing around and waiting for the revive a serious no-no. Oh, and also the instant revive resets every stage, so you get a maximum of 3 every Deep Dive.

5. Continuity of Energy

Any remaining nitra at the end of a stage travels with you to the next zone, so make sure you collect all of it. This means sometimes you can have about 6-8 supply pods in the last zone, which might seem like much, but considering it is the hardest possible zone the game can have in terms of enemy scaling paired with a nasty mutation can ruin your day very quickly.

1. Dunk the Gunk

Just imagine holding one of those tasty looking gunk seeds in your hand. Amazing right? Try to find a low hanging one and give it a slap and see what happens.

2. That Escalated Quickly

I bet you always wanted to see what the top of the map looks like! An easy way is to stand on top of the mine head when you send it up in point extraction and just shooting up!! You can pull it off with any class, but I highly recommend scout, since you can get back down without splattering your bag of goodies on the ground.
Oh and you die. Yeah.

3. The Veil of Cuteness

We all love our lootbug friends. Petting them or squeezing them for their goodies always brings joy to our hearts. But they have a truly dark side! Ever wondered where they get their stuffing from? Yep.. That is right... They search for dropped chunks of gold and minerals and eat in front of your face.

As compensation though, sometimes they drop a chunk of gold when you pet them accompanied by some happy squeaking noises. Never really checked where that gold comes from tough...

4. Holy Intervention

If you manage to line up a drop pod wits some enemies when it is coming down, it can deal some serous damage. I killed a Dreadnought with it once. It's fun for the whole family!

5. Boomer Baby

When you think about it.. We wake up Dreadnoughts by cracking their giants eggs. This basically means they are only babies. How gargantuous can a fully grown ones be?

6. Error, Missing Memories

If you drink a smart stout in the Abyss Bar, one of the things your dwarf can talk about is having 5 error cubes and plugging them in somewhere. Then he forgets how to continue. This might mean that we are going to be able to use these cores to access some secret areas.

Timestamped video Thank you ikiga for the YouTube video!

7.1Y45fg76Xd/f5h*

You can check how many error cores you have collected so far in the Shop. It should be the last item next to the minerals. They do not do anything so far, except give you 2000 XP on the mission you collect them on.

Of course, this guide could not cover all the little quirks and features the game has to offer. That is on you to explore, mine and experiment whenever you can and hey.. you will probably discover something new!

However, if you learned something new make sure to give the guide a thumbs up and spread the knowledge.

I will be updating these tips from time-to-time so if you have something for me, don't hesitate to contact me or add it to your favorites and look back from every once in a while!

Keep on mining dwarves!

Special thanks to everyone who contributed to the guide in any way. Be it art, tips, or corrections.

Morgomir : Tips
TriggerHappyBro : Corrections
Krag7 : Tips
Alcator : Tips
GreyHound : Corrections

Thank you all very Much!