For me it’s the aquarq missions. Get in and get out quickly. You don’t usually have 10 events like some of the other missions.
I really like the simple mining missions or the dreadnaught ones.
Morkite missions.
It’s the most classical way of “mining” The maps usually always go down, usually there’s only one way.
And it’s literarily mining recourses from walls.
Super relaxing.
I really enjoy regular old mining missions when I just want to chill. I can explore and not feel like I’m holding anyone up if on a public instance. I also like the escort missions. Something about riding along and just letting my gunner spray bullets is fun.
Mining morkite is pretty nice, the longer caves. I think my absolute favourite is the caretaker and bots stuff. There’s a lot going on, the hacking, if the team doesn’t do anything stupid and cooperates, it can get epic.
As a Driller main, I always enjoy the Point Extraction and On-Site Refining.
In Point Extraction, I get to wander around and dig into walls to get the 'Quarks out, and if it’s the tall cave, I can just throw them down. It’s nice to go around the cave and explore and feel like I’m doing something.
As for On-Site Refining, I get to get the pipes up to the pumpjacks, taking the most direct routes, drilling through walls to make the shortest paths and be ultra efficient. There’s just something so satisfying about drilling through meters of solid rock to get right to a pumpjack.
I enjoy Industrial Sabotage, but only because I love running it on Haz 1 and doing both hacks at once. If I have a good team of randos that I have tested in other missions and Driller can bomb the corners well, I’ll do the same on Haz 4/5 for a fun party. I think my record for mission time is 11:45 this way.
I’m a gunner main, so it’s Extermination all day.
Refinery is my #1, even though I like all of them. The distinct stages of
- scouting out the cave, calling the pumpjacks
- drilling out, laying, and constructing pipes
- repairing pipes
- extracting
make it feel like some kind of mini-campaign, much moreso than any other mission type. Every class gets a time to shine (except Gunner, who is just good for some security all the time).
I really like onsight refining, kinda hate point extraction because I always get it in the dense biozone and the aquard indicators are almost identical to the little glowy things that are all over the walls in that biome.
I like taking my time finding every crumb of minerals and crates/lost packs. Aquarq missions give me ulcers with the constant stream of enemies when you’re in it for too long. I think my favourite is regular ol’ mining missions. Usually just a single tunnel, easier to see it all along the way.
Yeah I do wish mission control would warn you that Point Extraction gets worse the longer you stay. I was a hundred hours in the game before I found out from a random person I was playing with.
Seconding Aquarqs, speedrun the mission is a lotta fun!
2nd place for me… I think I’d go with simple mining mission. No quirks or extra mechanics, just a couple dwarves digging precious minerals
On site refining is my favorite. I play all of the classes equally, and all of the dwarves feel like they have their own unique role on that mission, so it’s great variety for me.
I enjoy refining missions. One of the people I play with is a driller who ain’t got time for faffing around, and will just drill a hole straight to the pumpjack if necessary. Sometimes this can be more silly than just taking the pipeline along the environment.
Another friend, an engineer main, prides themselves on being able to able to make pipelines to the tricky pumpjacks without relying on a driller. I’ve seen them pull some truly beautiful feats of bullshit, pipelines perched on the edge of the smallest leaf. They’re an artist.
I respect both of these approaches, because they both have their strengths, and also times when they’re utterly stupid but the person using that strategy are so set in their ways that it doesn’t even occur to them to try the different way. Like you say, it really highlights how many different approaches there are.
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My favorite type is the liquid Morkite refinery missions. I just really like pipes.
