Deep Rock Galactic: Engineer Build Guide and Tips (2024) (2024)

NOTE: Our Deep Rock Galactic: Engineer Guide has been recently updated for Season 4.

As the Engineer, it’s your job to fix problems. When you’re teamed up with a bunch of lug-nuts, problems tend to get you killed – especially out in space.

Luckily, the Engineer is a jack-of-all-trades that’s capable of babysitting the squad and getting the team safely out of the deathtrap known as Hoxxes IV. However, you can only bring so much ammo and supplies with you, so it’s important to know how to use your kit efficiently.

To that end, we’ve created a comprehensive Deep Rock Galactic Engineer guide to teach you everything you need to know. We’ll go over your role on the team, the best builds for the Engineer, how to use your equipment, and more. All these tips and tricks will help you tame the threats of Hoxxes IV.

Let’s get started!

Role of the Engineer Class

As the Engineer, you’ll spend most of your time in Deep Rock Galactic helping your team get around the cave systems and avoid hitting the ground at terminal velocity with your Platform Gun. Simply aim and fire to create instant platforms on nearly any terrain.

Platform Placement

The most common and basic use for these platforms is helping your Scout safely mine high-up minerals. Whenever you enter a new area, simply start tossing out platforms near hard-to-reach deposits and ping the minerals with your terrain scanner to alert your Scout (or wait for them to ping you and ask for a platform).

If you don’t have a Scout on the team, you’ll have to make a judgment call. Building a staircase up to the minerals may not be worth the ammo if your Driller can just dig a tunnel up to them. If you do make a staircase, make sure you can actually reach each platform on the way up.

You’ll also frequently be using your platforms to help your team cross chasms and climb ledges. This is especially important when your team needs to repeatedly go back and forth in an area. You can even turn areas into mini-arenas for when a major fight is coming up.

Examples include when you’re defending a point against massive swarms or trying to kill difficult boss enemies (like Dreadnoughts). Do what you can to cover any pitfalls and create as much space as possible for your team to safely work with. Falling into a hole and getting stuck is a sure way to get murdered.

Once you’ve leveled up enough as the Engineer and unlocked a certain upgrade on your Platform Gun, your platforms will also provide shock absorption – drastically reducing fall damage for anyone who lands on them.

Set up safety platforms to rescue a falling teammate (or wherever you predict falling to be common). This is especially handy for letting your team escape from enemies and to buy a bit of time for your shields to recover.

Engineers in Combat

In combat, the Engineer has the most balanced arsenal of all the classes. Your primaries are well-suited for handling smaller threats, while your secondary is capable of absolutely devastating crowds and elite enemies. On top of that, you can deploy between 1–2 (depending on your build) automated sentry turrets to provide extra firepower and coverage.

This makes you fantastic for securing areas and choke-points, as a well-situated fortification of platforms and turrets can make it super easy to kite enemies back and forth safely. Your team will certainly love you for it, as the differences between an experienced and rookie Engineer are subtle but substantial.

Perks

Depending on how you want to play the Engineer, there a couple different perks that will strongly reinforce your playstyle. However, we strongly recommend at least taking Dash no matter what due to the sheer survivability it grants in escaping bad situations.

Active Perks

• Dash: As mentioned above, this perk lets you escape a lot of bad situations.
• Beast Master: You already have your turrets — might as well add another ally to your repertoire. Charm a Grunt (preferably one of the stronger variants), relax as they hold aggro on incoming enemies, and let your turrets just free fire.
• Shield Link: You’ll often find yourself setting up near a teammate. Stay close and super charge your shields when you’re about to be overwhelmed.
• Field Medic: Since you’re already babysitting your team, you’ll often find yourself as the last one standing. Kite your enemies with tactical platforms and get your teammates up when you have the chance.

Passive Perks

• Born Ready: Your weapons can take a while to reload. Swap to your platform gun and run away for a bit to prep yourself for the fight again.
• Friendly: Your secondary weapons have a huge AoE presence. Best to not get your team killed in the process.
• Elemental Insulation: Resistance to elemental damage is always nice. Especially if your turret fortifications get irradiated or something similar. If you’re running the shock turret build, this also helps ensure you don’t zap yourself to death.
• Veteran Depositor: This one is less about depositing things quicker (though that is nice), and more so about the 30% damage reduction you gain while standing near the M.U.L.E. Given that most players won’t be depositing during a fight, you can call Molly over to your fortifications and hunker down even more.

Related Reading:Best Perks Overall for Deep Rock Galactic

Engineer Primary Weapons & Builds

As befitting the jack-of-all-trades mentality, the Engineer’s primary weapons are all drastically different from one another. However, they’re all well-suited for dealing with smaller enemies while being ammo efficient. Just make sure the rest of your team does their fair share, or you’ll find yourself overworked (and there’s no overtime).

1. “Warthog” Auto 210

This is the Engineer’s default primary — a straightforward automatic shotgun. A simple but effective solution for dealing with anything trying to eat your face. Simply apply it directly to their face. While it may not one-shot most threats, it’s reliable, comes with more than enough ammo, and has a high stun chance on each shot.

Thankfully, shotguns in Deep Rock Galactic calculate their damage based on the number of pellets that hit an enemy (so there’s no damage fall off over distance). If built properly, you can effectively snipe enemies with the Warthog.

Build A: Stunner / Magnetic Pellet Alignment

This build is incredibly straightforward, turning the Warthog into a fully-automated, accurate face-destroyer with a high stun chance. Your choice of overclock augments either the gun’s stun capability or weakpoint damage.

• [1] Supercharged Feed Mechanism
• [1] Expanded Ammo Bags – While more damage is nice, it’s too hard to pass up on ammo.
• [1] Recoil Dampener
• [2] Bigger Pellets
• [2] Miner Adjustments
• Overclock: Stunner/Magnetic Pellet Alignment — Both overclocks complement this build’s playstyle. It comes down to whether you’d rather have more control over the meatier enemies or just want to hit harder.

Build B: Turret Whip (Recommended)

This build is a bit more involved and revolves around the Turret Whip mod, which allows you to shoot your turrets to launch a supercharged shot. While this strategy was originally lackluster, it has been buffed to be arguably the Engineer’s most efficient damage per ammo strategy and best Warthog build.

This supercharged shot effectively turns your turrets into a miniature version of your PGL secondary. It does a huge chunk of explosive damage in a 2 meter radius, stuns whatever it hits, and has a 50% chance to fear most common enemies.

While it does require you to spend 5 turret ammo per supercharged shot (and one shot from the Warthog), the damage and effects more than make it worth it. That being said, there are a few other caveats to take into consideration.

There is a 3-second cooldown on each turret before you can shoot it again to launch another supercharged shot (indicated by smoke rising from the turret). To reduce your downtime, it’s imperative to take the Gemini System mod on your turrets – as each turret has its own separate cooldown for activating Turret Whip.

The Gemini System will also give you more coverage, which is crucial for dealing with larger swarms on harder difficulties, and grants you more flexibility in repositioning your turrets. Just make sure to also take the Quick Deploy mod to reduce your turret set up time, as you’ll be repositioning often and can only fire off supercharged shots from fully built ones.

You’ll also want to take the Defender System mod on your turrets. Your turrets will still be firing normally in-between Turret Whips, so you want to boost its innate damage. Plus, the alternative Hawkeye System mod requires far too much micro-managing to be practical.

Lastly, the supercharged shots aren’t the fastest, so they’ll struggle to hit far off enemies before they move. It’s best to set up your turrets near choke-points, so you can also take advantage of the splash damage from the supercharged shots.

It’ll probably take a bit of practice and adjusting to get use to this build. But if you can consistently position your turrets in the right place, you’ll find yourself devastating whatever comes your way.

• [1] Supercharged Feed Mechanism
• [2] Loaded Shells
• [2] Quickfire Ejector
• [2] Bigger Pellets
• [1] Turret Whip — The core of this build.
• Overclock: Mini Shells / Light-Weight Magazines — Mini Shells reduces your shotgun’s damage and stun capability but drastically increases your ammo and magazine size. Since you’ll be mostly relying on supercharged turret shots, this shouldn’t be too bad. You can take Light-Weight Magazines instead if you don’t want to give up any base damage on your gun.

2. “Stubby” Voltaic SMG

As its name implies, this primary weapon is all about electrocuting your enemies. Every shot has a 20% chance to apply the effect to your enemies, slowing and damaging them over time. As very few enemies have electric resistance (outside of bosses — which are resistant to nearly everything — and Rollers), this makes the Stubby useful in nearly every situation.

As it’s an SMG, you can rapidly spray a crowd of enemies and hope to electrocute all of them and simply walk away as they get shocked to death. Most builds will revolve around its electrocution ability over direct damage, so it’s primarily used for crowd control as opposed to executing priority targets.

Build A: Turret EM Discharge

This build revolves entirely around the overclock turning your turrets into explosive lightning rods. Every time you shoot your turret and the bullet would apply electrocute, your turret will release a massive shock around it (5 meter radius). Since this build increases your electrocute chance up to 50%, you’ll be triggering this effect approximately every two shots.

NOTE: There is a 1.5 second cooldown on this effect, so we strongly recommend taking twin turrets, as each turret has its own separate cooldown.

Previously, you could trigger the EM Discharge off non-fully built turrets. Tragically, they have patched this out – you must fully build the turret now to activate the effect. Due to that, this build is now more suited for holding certain points and choke-holds.

Luckily, even if your turrets run out of ammo, you can still trigger the EM Discharge. However, be careful, as the blast will do friendly fire damage. If you run this build, it’s imperative you take the Friendly perk, or you’ll risk downing your own team.

• [2] Upgraded Capacitors — This build revolves around proccing the Electrocute effect.
• [2] Recoil Dampener — It’d be awkward to miss your shots on your turret.
• [2] Expanded Ammo Bags — You’re relying on activating your turret’s explosion for damage.
• [2] Conductive Bullets
• [2] Electric Arc — Free chance at spreading electrocute to more enemies.
• Overclock: Turret EM Discharge — The lynchpin of this build. Will cause a large burst of electricity around the turret, dealing damage, electrocuting, and causing a high chance of fearing nearby targets.

Build B: EM Refire Booster (Recommended)

This build is more of a conventional run-and-gun, with the aim of getting up close and killing enemies in bursts. While you’ll have to aim a bit more carefully with this build, you’ll be putting out an impressive amount of damage in the process.

• [3] Expanded Ammo Bags — It sucks passing up the higher electrocute chance, but you desperately need the ammo.
• [3] Improved Gas System — Dump bullets even faster into their face.
• [2] Expanded Ammo Bags
• [1] Hollow-Point Bullets — You’ll mostly be in their faces when shooting.
• [1] Magazine Capacity Tweak — Less reloading.
• Overclock: EM Refire Booster — Critical for this build to work, adds extra electric damage and more importantly drastically boosts your fire rate. Just mind the increased base spread.

3. LOK-1 Smart Rifle

This is the most unique weapon in the Engineer’s arsenal. This rifle does the aiming for you by locking onto targets while you hold down the trigger. Up to twelve shots can be queued up and fired. If an enemy dies, the gun will not continue to fire queued-up shots.

In theory, this makes the gun incredibly ammo efficient, but the problem is that the lock-on does not explicitly target weak points on enemies. You’ll have to position yourself so that the bullets will travel into a weak point. Alternatively, you can fire it one shot at a time like a normal rifle.

While it might be a fun gun to use, it’s widely considered to be the Engineer’s worst weapon. That isn’t to say it won’t work, but the LOK-1 is just outclassed in nearly every situation by your other choices.

Build A: Explosive Chemical Rounds (Recommended)

This build makes it so that if you manage to get at least three bullets locked onto a single enemy, the last shot will be an explosive round and electrocutes them.

Given that it’s hard to consistently ensure that multiple enemies have at least three locks on them, you’ll mostly be using this gun in single-target scenarios. If you can position yourself to take advantage of weakpoints, that would be ideal but not necessary.

• [2] Expanded Ammo Bags — Essential for offsetting the overclock’s demerit.
• [1] Macro Lens — Ideal for single target.
• [1] Electro-Chemical Rounds — Synergizes with your last modification.
• [1] Shutter Speed Sensor
• [1] Electric Generator Mod — Lines up with the overclock and bonus damage to electrocuted.
• Overclock: Explosive Chemical Rounds — Critical for this build. It reduces the base damage of the gun, but the explosive third shot more than makes up for it. Though the reduced ammo hurts.

Build B: Executioner

Unlike the previous build, this one is completely dependent on hitting weakpoints, so you’re going to have to position yourself quite well. Once again, this build is best suited for single-target damage, specifically against large sturdier foes. Focus on locking all of your shots onto one big target and position yourself so that the rounds will all hit its weak point.

• [2] Expanded Ammo Bags — Desperately needed.
• [1] Macro Lens — Smaller lock on area for more precise shots.
• [1] Electro-Chemical Rounds — Mostly for synergizing with the rest of your team. Do not take Smart Targeting, as it’ll prevent you from getting a full lock on.
• [1] Shutter Speed Sensor
• [2] Unstable Lock Mechanism — You’ll need to lock on all 12 shots for this effect to activate.
• Overclock: Executioner — The lynchpin of this build. Makes it easier to single out an enemy and get a full lock on. Just mind the reduced ammo and smaller magazine you’re working with.

Engineer Secondary & Builds

Each secondary for the Engineer is designed to take care of big problems (which is concerningly common in Deep Rock Galactic). Whether it be massive approaching swarms or a hulking behemoth of a threat, your secondary will up to the task.

1. Deepcore 40mm PGL

No FPS would be complete without a grenade launcher. And look at what we have here! The Engineer’s default primary does exactly what you expect it to do. It launches a highly explosive projectile that travels in a slight arc and does massive AoE damage on impact. As a bonus, the explosion tends to fear any nearby (surviving) enemies and break armor.

It’s fantastic for clearing out any area, dealing with swarms, or just taking off a huge chunk of health from major threats. That being said, watch out to not catch your teammates in the blast radius. Though sometimes taking a bit of friendly fire is better than getting mobbed to death.

Build A: Clean Sweep

This build is all about dealing as much AoE damage in as large of an area as possible. Breathing space is essential when dealing with the swarm on higher difficulties, and one shot from this build will create plenty of space.

Just be conservative with your shots, as you won’t have much ammo to work with in this build. Though given how large the swarms get on higher difficulties, you should be getting plenty of value from each shot.

• [3] HE Compound
• [1] Expanded Ammo Bags – Between the overclock and first mod, you’ll have more than enough AoE damage for most swarms. Extra ammo is always nice.
• [3] High Velocity Grenades — To ensure your shot can reach the ideal center point of a swarm.
• [2] Nails + Tape
• [1] Proximity Trigger – We’re mainly taking this for the greater radius. Notably, this mod makes it so that the grenade will bounce off surfaces. It won’t detonate until it’s close enough to an enemy or until 3 seconds pass from when it was fired. If you really don’t like Proximity Trigger, take the Spiky Grenade mod instead for some direct damage on larger targets.
• Overclock: Clean Sweep – Even more AoE damage and range.

Build B: Fat Man (Recommended)

This one quite literally turns your shots into nukes and is ideal for destroying high priority threats, especially since it also leaves a radiation field behind. Just for the love of Karl, do not fire this anywhere near where your team is standing or planning on going due to the lingering radiation.

• [2] Extra Ammo
• [1] Expanded Ammo Bags
• [2] Pressure Wave — Most priority threats have armor. This fixes that.
• [3] Concussive Blast — If your target survives, it’ll be stuck in the radiation zone for a bit longer and be vulnerable to follow-up attacks.
• [1] Spiky Grenade — Aim for the face.
• Overclock: Fat Boy — The name doesn’t do this overclock justice. Besides increasing the area damage and radius, this overclock also irradiates the area it explodes in for 15s, dealing massive radiation damage. Once again, do not fire this near your team’s location.

2. Breach Cutter

If the Deepcore PGL is about killing everything in a circle, then the Breach Cutter is about killing everything in a line. This beautiful former mining tool fires a line of plasma that cuts through everything it touches until it travels a set distance. There is a slight delay before the line becomes active, though, so back up a bit before firing!

The beam will travel through terrain, meaning you can hit enemies through walls. To gain the most value from each shot, try to line it up with a horde of incoming threats while on even terrain. It’ll kill most basic enemies in a single shot, while tougher ones may require an entire clip.

Build A: Return to Sender

This build is for those who want to double the value of their shots, which is really only needed against bulkier targets. The overclock enables you to recall your shot and reverse direction. While most enemies will die from the initial shot, this will let you deal double damage on elite threats.

• [1] Prolonged Power Generation
• [2] Condensed Plasma
• [1] Quick Deploy
• [2] Disruptive Frequency Tuning
• [3] Triple Split Line — This turns the line of death into a block of death. Ensures that you hit everything in a pack (including flying enemies).
• Overclock: Return to Sender — If you hold down the trigger, you can release it to recall the laser lines. Fantastic for clean sweeping an area or devastating bulkier threats.

Build B: Spinning Death (Recommended)

If you want to turn an area into a no man’s land with spinning laser blades, this build is for you. The overclock makes it so that instead of traveling in a singular direction, your shot will instead launch the laser forward a bit before it starts spinning in place.

Place a shot in front of a choke-point and laugh as every thing shish-kabobs itself trying to reach you. Alternatively, if there’s a large slow enemy, you can place a shot right below them. As a bonus, this build is a bit better now that the overclock’s ammo penalty has been reduced as of Season 4.

• [1] Prolonged Power Generation
• [1] Expanded Ammo Bags — Offset the overclock’s demerit.
• [1] Quick Deploy
• [2] Disruptive Frequency Tuning — Anything that survives gets stunned in your gyro of death.
• [3] Triple Split Line / [2] Plasma Trail — We prefer Triple Split Line to cover a larger entrance, but the Plasma Trail is great for when you want to add even more damage to a single area for a largely stationary enemy.
• Overclock: Spinning Death — The core of this build. Lose a bit of damage, max ammo, and magazine size. Shots gain a much longer projectile lifespan and width while spinning in place.

3. Shard Diffractor

Somehow R&D managed to shove a shard of an Ommoran Heartstone into this cannon and weaponize it into a laser that vaporizes anything on the other end (without exploding and killing you in the process).

Due to the incredibly unstable energy source powering this weapon, you can only fire it for a few seconds before having to let the battery recharge. While it’s incredibly powerful, you’ll chew through your ammo incredibly quickly so careful consideration has to go into when to use this weapon.

Notably, this weapon has infinite range and will quickly disintegrate the health of everything it touches. This makes it absolutely fantastic for dealing with major threats at a long-range distance where you can stay nice and safe.

Anything near the impact point will also be caught in the beam’s heat, giving the weapon a bit of AoE presence (though it pales in comparison to the other secondary weapons). As a plus, the laser will cause enemies to ignite and killing them with the weapon will prevent enemies’ on-death effects.

Unlike the Engineer’s other secondaries, this one is more suited for killing single targets instead of devastating crowds of enemies. The weapon also has a brief charge up period before you can start firing, making it less reliable in an emergency situation.

It’s usually best to just fire the weapon until the enemy is lit on fire instead of fully dying due to the limited ammo reserves. They’ll usually die from the burn damage, or you can swap to your primary to finish them off.

Before we get into the builds, we want to note that the overclocks for this weapon open up some interesting gameplay options. Especially the Endothermic Explosion one which allows you to turn your Engineer platforms into bombs. While they’re all quite powerful, they also tend to reduce your total ammo capacity on a weapon that’s already deprived of ammo, making us steer away from them.

Build A: Efficiency Tweaks (Recommended)

This one is a straight forward direct damage build that’s designed to let you fire the Shard Diffractor for as long as possible, with bonuses to weak points and faster ignition. As we mentioned above, it’s usually best to let enemies burn to death after they’re ignited, instead of wasting more charge on them.

In case you’re wondering why we don’t run the Bio-Mass Converter mod to regain some ammo, it’s because the mod is pathetically inefficient. You will probably think it’s bugged and not even working. Unfortunately, it is – just incredibly poorly.

• [3] Larger Battery – Critical given how little ammo you have to work with.
• [1] Soft Tissue Disruption – Ideal for single target.
• [1] Aluminum Foil DIY
• [1] High-Intensity Heating
• [1] Hydrogen Rupturing / [3] Dazzler Module – If you’re running the Stubby, go with Hydrogen Rupturing. Otherwise, run Dazzler Module to keep enemies locked in place longer.
• Overclock: Efficiency Tweaks – Only overclock with no downsides. Increases total ammo capacity and time you can fire the weapon before having to let it recharge.

Build B: Volatile Impact Reactor

For those who want the Shard Diffractor to be better suited against swarms of enemies, this build effectively lets you create lines of Sticky Flames to burn the incoming swarm. By utilizing the Volatile Impact Reactor overclock, you can blast the terrain and convert it into magma for 7 seconds.

Best used for setting up kill zones and hunkering down in a defensible location, this build turns the Diffractor into a set up weapon. The AoE radius and firing duration of the weapon will decrease even more, but at least it won’t hurt the ammo capacity.

Simply carve strips/trenches of magma where you expect enemies to patrol through to reach your team, and laugh as they keep burning themselves trying to reach you. And fortunately, unlike actual Sticky Flames from the Driller’s flamethrower, enemies don’t really go out of their way to avoid your magma lines.

• [3] Larger Battery
• [2] Particle Spattering
• [2] Open Structure Battery – Lets you create magma lines on demand.
• [1] High-Intensity Heating – While you won’t be actively directly targeting enemies, there will be moments where enemies walk directly into your beam.
• [2] Bio-Mass Converter – The other options don’t really help, so you might as well get a bit of value out of Bio-Mass Converter. Note that it does not work on Swarmers.
• Overclock: Volatile Impact Reactor – The lynchpin of this build. It’s what enables you to turn the terrain into magma. Reduces the AoE of the beam and the battery “magazine” of the weapon.

Engineer Equipment & Builds

Now that we’ve gone over the Engineer’s main problem-fixing tools, let’s take a look at the rest of his equipment and the best builds for them.

Platform Gun

Arguably the most iconic part of the Engineer’s kit — the Platform Gun. We’ve already touched upon most of the uses for it in the role section for the Engineer, but we’ll go over a few more details here.

Platforms can only be horizontal. It’s a shame, but there’s no way to change the angle of them. The platforms are mineable, so you can destroy them if need be. Additionally, explosives will destroy any part of them caught in the blast radius. This includes explosive attacks from enemies.

It may not be obvious at first, but there is a slight arc to the shots launched from the Platform Gun. It only becomes an issue at longer distances, but you may want to get some practice in with judging the distance in a solo game.

Additional platforms can be linked together by aiming at the edges of existing platforms. If you aim at the top or bottom of an existing platform, they’ll be a slight incline/decline. This is an excellent way to create a canopy or larger platform, which becomes incredibly useful when you take the “Repellant Additive” modification.

This mod makes it so that bugs will try to find another route to you instead of crossing the platforms. However, if going across the platforms is the only way to reach you, they will cross it. Instead, use bug repelling platforms to force enemies into certain areas or cut off an angle of attack.

Examples include making a canopy of platforms above your team’s hunker-down point to prevent bugs from dropping down on your head. Leaving a gap between two platform walls to funnel enemies into a makeshift chokepoint. Play around with it a bit to gain a better understanding.

Additionally, another niche use for platforms is to shield the Drilldozer from the meteor rocks launched by the Ommoran Heartstone during its second phase in Escort Duty missions. This is a great way to help your team conserve on ammo and focus their efforts on repelling the swarm instead.

However, setting this up can be a little tricky. There needs to be a structure (wall/pillar) close enough that you can extend a series of platforms to cover the top of the Drilldozer. The platforms need to be low enough that the meteors don’t just move under them, but high enough so that the resulting impact’s blast doesn’t reach the Drilldozer.

Another thing to keep in mind, you have to set up the platforms just after the first phase’s explosion, as the Hearthstone’s transition blast will destroy nearby platforms. Each meteor will also destroy a bit of the platform it hits, so you’ll have to keep replacing the damaged platform or create a buffer zone of platforms.

We know this sounds complicated, but is incredibly easy to pull off once you get used to it. Given how large the swarm is at higher hazards, your team will appreciate not having to worry about dealing with the meteors on top of everything else.

Build A: More All-In One Platforms

All the additional useful features that platforms can have with extra ammo.

• [2] Expanded Ammo Bags — You’ll need plenty of ammo.
• [1] Plastcrete MKII — Get this ASAP. Everyone expects platforms to reduce fall damage.
• [2] Repellant Additive — Deters bugs from touching platforms. Everyone takes this.

LMG Gun Platform

The Engineer’s other most iconic feature is his ability to set up fully automated turrets. These babies will scan back and forth between and fire in bursts at any hostile in range. Unfortunately, they don’t home in on weak points, so how efficient the shots are is dependent on the type of enemy they’re firing at. Also do note that the turrets can’t shoot anything behind them or at 90-degree angles.

The turrets will keep going until they run out of ammo, in which case they need to be refilled by any Engineer on the team. If you hold down the reload button, you will recall all turrets back to you. Make sure to do this whenever you plan on relocating, otherwise you’ll be stuck waiting for them to reach you.

Typically recalling the turrets will also reload them for you, but this is inconsistent (keep that in mind). Additionally, the turrets’ automated shots do not risk friendly fire, so feel free to stand in front of them.

Also, any dwarf can help set up your turret once you place it. Good teammates will help you build them faster. Don’t be afraid to reposition a turret mid fight if you feel that its current location isn’t doing much good. Conversely, do not get killed solely for the sake of setting up your turret.

Build A: Gemini System (Recommended)

Having two turrets is ideal for covering more ground and dealing with larger swarms. They’re also core to a couple builds (above) involving the Warthog and Stubby.

Typically, you’ll want to keep them close enough to each other so you can feasibly reload both of them as needed. Usually you’ll want to place them in locations that hit enemies from different angles, to try and take advantage of weakpoints.

• [1] Gemini System — Set up an extra turret and have more max turret ammo.
• [2] Quick Deploy / [1] Expanded Ammo Bags — Comes down to if you’re planning on constantly moving your turrets or hunkering down in one area forever.
• [2] Stun — Crowd control is always great. Armor breaking tends to not hit the armored bits.
• [1] Defender System — Increase your ammo efficiency and lets you do other stuff.

Build B: LMG MKII

If you really don’t care for managing your turrets constantly and would rather rely on the rest of your kit, then go with this build instead. You’ll most likely only set up your turret when you’re about to manually trigger a swarm to get a little bit of extra damage and coverage.

Just keep in mind that this build will struggle with dealing with larger swarms. We recommend taking the “Hawkeye System” mod, so you can prioritize deadlier threats.

• [2] LMG MKII — Bigger, stronger turret.
• [1] Expanded Ammo Bags — You probably won’t be moving it too much, so more ammo is nice.
• [2] Stun / [1] Hardened Rounds — Personal choice.
• [2] Hawkeye System — Increase its range and gives control on targeting with the terrain scanner. Great for focusing down more problematic threats.

Engineer Grenades

1. L.U.R.E.

The default grenade of the Engineer is the one thing bugs hate above all other things — a dancing holographic dwarf. Tossing a L.U.R.E. will create a decoy for 20 seconds that draws the attention of nearby enemies.

This is great for getting pressure off your team, buying some time to regroup, or to trick enemies into clumping up in a nice little group for a devastating AoE attack. However, there are a few caveats.

For starters, the L.U.R.E. can only distract up to 10 enemies at most. Additionally, larger enemies and enemies that are already fixated on a target are less likely to be distracted by the decoy. Finally, the decoy has its own health bar and can only sustain so much damage before prematurely deactivating.

Luckily, upon expiration (either by damage or time), the decoy will explode and send out an electrical shockwave to all nearby enemies. Though it’s not likely to kill anything, it’ll slow enemies and potentially set them up to take more damage from certain builds.

While its usage drops a bit on higher difficulties (due to how fast it dies), it can still grant you that brief moment to take back control of the situation. Just be tactical with them, as you only have four at max.

Once it takes too much damage, it’ll explode in a burst of electricity – damaging and electrocuting nearby enemies. Use it to buy time or keep enemies in a certain area. Just be tactical with them, as you only have four.

2. Plasma Burster

The next grenade in the Engineer’s arsenal is basically a Bouncing Betty. Upon hitting the ground, it’ll detonate in a burst of plasma and continue to bounce/explode three more times in the direction it was thrown. Though note that if it bounces into a wall, it’ll reverse direction instead of climbing the wall.

While it’s not the flashiest of grenades, it does a considerable amount of damage and tends to fear any surviving enemies. Thankfully, you do come with six of them, so don’t be afraid to use them.

3. Proximity Mine

Arguably the strongest of the Engineer’s grenades (certainly one of the more popular choices). These are exactly what they sound like – mines that detonate once a standard sized grunt or larger crosses the threshold.

They stick to any surface, and their trigger radius is indicated by a flashing yellow circle. It takes three seconds to arm and friendlies will not trigger them, nor will tiny swarmer-sized enemies.

Best of all, each mine can detonate up to four times, dealing a tremendous amount of damage and potentially fearing any survivors. You can even recover mines that haven’t detonated at all.

While you only have four of these, they are fantastic for area denial or dealing with massive incoming swarms. If you want to ensure an area remains secured, simply drop a couple of these mines there.

4. Shredder Swarm (S.S.G)

The newest grenade given to the Engineer in Season 3 is a very fun one that’s ideal for drawn out encounters. Tossing one of these grenades will spawn a group of five friendly immortal Shredder drones that will follow you around for 40 seconds and actively seek out any nearby enemies.

Against common squishy enemies, the Shredders will absolutely tear them apart. And since they’re mobile, they’re amazing for dealing with incoming swarms, as you can keep kiting enemies while the drones take care of them.

Unfortunately, their killing potential falls off a bit against tougher targets. That being said however, they have incredibly high armor breaking capabilities, so they can expose certain enemies’ weakpoints for you.

There is one important thing to note about using this grenade though. Only a single swarm of Shredders can be active at a time. Tossing another S.G.G while the current swarm is active will only waste the grenade. If another Engineer on the team has their Shredder swarm active, it will also count towards the limit.

While you can only carry four of these grenades at a time, given how long the Shredders stay active, you’ll get tremendous value out of them.

Join the High Ground

And that’s it for our Deep Rock Galactic guide on the Engineer — thanks for reading! This hopefully covers any questions you may have about the Engineer in Season 4 and should help you keep your team alive.

If there are any other tips/tricks that you think we should include in our guide (or any questions), then leave a comment below.

And remember, rock and stone forever!