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With Deep Dives coming up, our dwarves' skills will be put to the ultimate test. But so, too, will the limitation of certain exploits. Chief among these is the Driller's ability to tunnel straight to the Drop Pod or to an objective.
In a random map, this ability always carries some risk; even when carefully checking the map to ensure you don't fall off a cliff at the end of your tunnel, breaking through could reveal any sort of threat; Spitballers, Cave Leeches, environmental hazards and more. But Deep Dives won't be random:
"Furthermore, each Deep Dive will take place in the same caves, with the same types of aliens for everyone. However, spawns will still be unpredictable, so stay alert while on a Deep Dive."
If a streamer were to record an optimal Driller route to speedrun the week's Deep Dive in five minutes (or whatever number is absurd compared to a "straight" runthrough) then everyone could copy it, and the "actual" difficulty of the Deep Dives deflates like a sad Neodacyte balloon, prompting calls for harder missions while the struggling players who didn't know about streams are left to flounder in a too-high difficulty if buffs are applied.
So, if necessary, how can this be gently discouraged without killing the Driller's playstyle?
One existing risk to the beeline method is Exploders - especially Bulk Exploders - and Dreadnoughts. But adding more Bulk Exploders would be heavy-handed. Likewise, Praetorian's/Dreadnought's rear weakspot is completely protected when marching through a narrow tunnel and its AOE attack can't be sidestepped. Other possible mentions are Q'ronar pillbugs and Nayaka Trawlers. However, these challenges only really crop up during the retreat phase. Nothing exists to add risk to a long shortcut.
A potential new solution could be patches of hard stone, occupying the large voids between existing cave segments. These wouldn't be undiggable, but would be much harder to make a granite smoothie out of. (Perhaps this would necessitate using C4 for digging, as an appropriate cost for a shortcut?) Such terrain would also leave the opportunity for smaller opportunistic shortcuts to connect existing tunnels and caverns, since there wouldn't be enough space between those for hard stone to spawn in troubling quantities.
Another solution could be hazardous pockets - cavities not connected to the rest of the map, possibly even hidden, and bearing some manner of unpleasant hazard such as poisonous gas, volcano bits, a Leech cluster, spiky plant pits or Swarmer nests. However, these could be navigated around on a Deep Dive, where their exact location would be known through trial and error.
What do you think? Does Drillers making swiss cheese of a would-be boss cave seem unsporting, or is it just part of the game? The input of fellow Driller mains would be appreciated here. If it were to be mitigated, how would you rather see it done?
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