November’s just around the corner, which means it’s almost time for the first maintenance update that we mentioned in our recent roadmap. We wanted to give you a quick overview of what we’re focusing on, just so you know what to expect.

Among smaller tweaks and fixes, we’ll be using this to introduce two bigger features: the first being a toggle option for seasonal content like Rockpox, and the second being a new Weapon Maintenance reward system.

Let’s take those two big ones first, and we’ll cover the rest down below.

We heard your concerns about this season’s Lithophage events getting stale, so addressing that is our main focus for this update. We’ll be adding an optional check box at the end of the Performance Pass, for those of you that want to put your game into a ‘season-neutral’ state until Season 5 arrives.

Once you complete the Season 4 Performance Pass, you’ll have the option to disable seasonal content in Deep Rock Galactic. You can always switch it back on, of course.

If you uncheck that box, here’s what happens:

• The Lithophage Corruption Zone will disappear from the mission map.
• The chance of encountering Lithophage Outbreak Warnings will become equal to other warning conditions (like Rival Presence).
• Rockpox enemies will not spawn outside of Lithophage Warnings and Events.

Of course, doing this will make it harder to obtain Plague Hearts (as these come from Meteorite and Corruptor events), and it’ll also be harder to complete Lithophage Outbreak Season Challenges (as these require the Lithophage Outbreak Warning).

Again, all of this is completely optional, and you can always turn it back on.

The ‘seasonal opt-out’ check box becomes available once you complete the Season 4 Performance Pass.

Okay, we said these Maintenance Updates wouldn’t add any new content, but we’ve got a surprise for you. We’re introducing the Weapon Maintenance System to reward proficiency with different weapons, and give some extra shine to your favorite firearms. No tricky gameplay-specific gimmicks here, just a straightforward reward for playing with the guns you like best.

Once you earn enough XP with a specific weapon equipped, you’ll unlock a sweet new paintjob for that gun, so you can show your friends how much you love shooting.

The new Weapon Maintenance page, for tracking progress and cashing in on rewards.
This is going to be a seasonal feature, so with every new season in the future, there’ll be a special paintjob you can earn for every weapon.

We’re also making this retroactive – so when it launches in November, you’ll have four paintjobs to earn for each weapon (one for every season up to now).

The new Weapon Mastery color schemes are:

1. WM1 ‘Yellowjacket’
2. WM2 ‘Cobalt Crackle’
3. WM3 ‘Heroic’
4. WM4 ‘Grasshopper’

Weapons free, miners!

How the new paintjobs look on a couple different weapons and frameworks.

On top of these two features, we’ve got a number of other things we’re working on for this update. Here’s the rest of our to-do list:

• Nerfing the Stingtail. We’re increasing the cooldown on its grab attack, especially after a successful grab, so you won’t be getting yoinked all over the place as much. We’ll also be tweaking its health and elemental resistances so it’s less of a pain to take down solo.
• Making the Septic Spreader projectiles shoot-downable. I can’t think of the right word for that so we’re running with shoot-downable. You know what I mean.
• Rockpox mitigation. We’ve been looking at simple ways to make Rockpox effects less harsh, like making it easier to break out of when you’re stuck. Final tweaks still TBD here.
• Weapon & overclock balance tweaks. Just a bit of routine balancing for different weapons and overclocks. These are shaping up to be mostly buffs, so don’t worry about your favorite gun getting nerfed to bits.
• Bug fixes. There’s a sizable queue of bugs to address, but we’re still working out which ones are the highest priority for this update.
• Typo corrections. Nothing too special here, but figured we’d mention it anyway.

We’re still working on implementing all this, and we’re aiming to have everything finished for a mid-November release. When the update drops, we’ll share more about the specific balance tweaks, Rockpox reductions and bug fixes.

Thanks to everyone who’s shared their opinion on our plans for Deep Rock Galactic lately. We understand that all those feelings, from frustration to excitement, come from a place of passion. We’re glad you care enough about the game to weigh in. <3 Hope everybody’s doing well.
Rock and Stone!

With Love,
-The Ghost Ship Crew