Yeah I figured that killing Imprinter was guaranteed access, I just feel a pinch guilty murdering all those innocent derelicts along with him. Interesting suggestion on hunting for a weapon in factory strong enough for the doors before going in. Problem is, the doors are 45 armor and have a -25% modifier to damage, so there's not much early game weaponry that can get through that. Even phase sabers don't do the trick. My napkin math indicates that a cooled particle cannon in overload mode with a particle charger should do that trick, but getting both of those is not a given.
The end of deep caves is my favorite part of the game so far. So creepy and thematic. And hard. Only pulled it off once so far.
I'll give discord a shot!
e: This just caught my eye in your post ("for instance, moldy"), what did you mean by that?