Helldivers 2: For Managed Democracy!

[tight zephyr]

I’m probably going to get the new warbond when my birthday rolls around. As a gift for myself. I want that carbine.

Wait I should get the Super Citizen upgrade.

[hearty pier]

Honestly I've been having great success with ARs in general into bots alongside an anti-medium support weapon (laser, HMG, autocannon, etc.)

Having a flexible, ammo efficient primary goes a long way

[strange vine]

Yeee

[unreal merlin]

Basic liberator does amazing work.

[steady flame]

Hey er, what's the Tenderizer do different to the other ARs?

[honest acorn]

About 25 more damage per bullet with less noticeable recoil than the basic liberator

[unreal merlin]

Have a very high base damage (like 95 or something) which makes its individual bullets do a lot of damage to unarmored parts.

Higher damage, but lower recoil and magazine capacity. It's more suited to longer range shooting than the Liberator.

[glossy horizon]

I wondered how it compares to the Diligence and Diligence Countersniper?

[unreal merlin]

Its advantage over those is that it is still a fully automatic weapon that you can spray and pray if needed.

[glossy horizon]

Diligence Coutnersniper still has higher base dmg (and pen), right? I wonder where it leaves the regular Diligence

[steady flame]

So it's got the downsides of the Penetrator, but specs into sheer damage over pen?

[unreal merlin]

Essentially. Having higher base damage but only light armor pen makes it better for unarmored targets (raiders/light bugs).

Medium armor pen is less meaningful if the target doesn't have armor to penetrate

[junior badge]

Spear fix! Wheee

[unreal merlin]

patch day patch day

spear users come out of the woodwork to dunk on automaton bases everywhere

[ionic holly]

i have a job to do

[quick plinth]

and fix for peak phisique

so

time to try eruptor again

[junior badge]

It's only small patch, so I don't think that's fixed yet.

Just crash fixes, so you can use it freely again.

[stone bridge]

that was already fixed

[junior badge]

Oh! I missed that.

Nice.

[quick plinth]

okay so

the eruptor does handle a lot nicer with peak physique, now that they fixed it

I can't even imagine how snappy stuff like the AC is gonna be

[glacial light]

A real fix for Spear this time? We'll see

Maybe a new bug will shore up

[unreal merlin]

"user is now affected by backblast from firing, but it knocks the user forward instead of backward"

[glacial light]

Spear now will reprioritize fellow Helldivers as greater threats to user safety and retarget to them on occasion

[odd arch]

paranoia crossover

[ionic holly]

I mean apparently it can lock onto eagles and mechs so

[hexed steeple]

you gotta keep em on their toes

[glacial light]

They can put IFF on a Spear and Rover but not sentries

Glad they buffed mg sentry cause Gatling does not stop firing when switching targets and doesn't care if there's friendlies in the way

[odd arch]

how do the MG and gattling sentries compare anyways?

[glossy horizon]

Gatling was strictly better. I tried th MG sentry after the patch with the reduced call in time, but it felt like I was forcing myself to throw it on cooldown

[glacial light]

MG's on 120 second CD vs Gatling 180 CD

And MG has better ammo management since it wastes less bullets while not shooting a target

[glossy horizon]

The Gatling has more ammo, so even with it shooting while spinning, it's not that big of a gap. It also just shreds way harder

[glacial light]

I prefer MG mostly for CD, you basically can just throw it if things look even a little spicy

Also MG seems to rotate quicker now which I like cause it reduces chance of friendly fire kills I think. It might ping an ally but it turns pretty quick to not like kill them like how Gatling is basically a stationary laser dog in regards to friendly fire

Although i've seen rocket sentries can slowly but surely kill heavy enemies effectively now so I might try it out more once I get the HP sentry buff

[heavy portal]

Where does super earth find all this manpower anyways

[glacial light]

Children over the ages of 7

Super Earth has discovered how to give 18 year olds 11 years of work experience by the time they're done with high school for entry level jobs

[strange vine]

https://www.rxddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1do1tkh/for_any_of_you_wondering_this_is_peak_physique/

[tall stone]

Ho boy

That is fast

[hexed steeple]

goodness gracious

[hazy oriole]

i cannot wait to see how the hmg handles with this

[quick plinth]

it is much snappier

but I still don't see what niche the HMG fills

[keen zinc]

killing everything

[honest acorn]

That is pretty much it yeah

[hexed steeple]

yep the killing and whatnot

[quick plinth]

okay but I can do that with with the AMR

[honest acorn]

So use that lol multiple guns are viable

[glacial light]

HMG shoots faster

[keen zinc]

The HMG hard deletes like brood commanders en masse, less damage than the AMR but can engage the same targets with much higher DPS

Just far less precision

I love them both

AMR and HMG are like Diligence and Stalwart

[glacial light]

AMR is the long range option, HMG if you want to put more heavy bullets downrange in a shorter time at a closer range

[honest acorn]

Yeah that's a good comparison

[quick plinth]

My complaint is that, if I want an MG there's stalwart and MMG, if I want to delete mediums I can take the AMR or the Railgun, (if I still want a backpackslot), but you still just take AC whenever you want to hard delete pretty much any threat minus biletitans and strider factories

[keen zinc]

They both go great with jump pack

The HMG can protect you in close engagements far better than the AMR or Railgun

While still offering the light vehicle armor and medium armor pen

And massive damage per second for dropping high HP

[quick plinth]

true enough I guess its more of a prefence thing than anything at this rate

[keen zinc]

Yeah

Like I said I love em both

HMG I favor for bugs

AMR will always be great for deleting hulks

[glacial light]

Don't AMR and HMG kill all the same enemies for bots with similar armor pen

They're more of an apt comparison whereas MG and Stalwart have lower armor pen and can't kill the same enemies the same way as HMG

[quick plinth]

a different thought: if the jeep is going to be anything like the warthog I'm already onboard

though I imagine it'll handle nothing like it- I'm just hoping its going to be as much fun

driving around while your teammates shoot at stuff

[strange vine]

the eruptor feels soooo much better with the physique armor now

[strange vine]

it basically visually looks like it at least from the datamine leaks

has MG on back with gunner standing up

[quick plinth]

its not a rotary mg though is it?

just the MMG?

[strange vine]

think so? dont recall

[steady flame]

Does it have a second gunner on the front passenger seat?

[quick plinth]

I imagine it needs to be able to seat 4 people

so likely it has one guy on the gun two people using their personal weapons and a driver

[tight zephyr]

Anyone else having trouble with the game getting stuck on loading screens?

[tall stone]

Yes

[tight zephyr]

Ah, okay.

[quick plinth]

\

robo ghosts

[daring monolith]

ah yes, the 'ghost patrol'

I saw them back on malevelon creek. Spooked the shit out of me

[agile fable]

That’s kind of the point

[tight zephyr]

I sometimes run into a bot that I can't kill, but also doesn't shoot at me. Sometimes they'll follow me around the map. It's like having a pet.

[stark ether]

thought that was st. elmos fire or somthing at first

[odd arch]

what were the illuminate like in the first game?

[trail nymph]

Pain

[glossy horizon]

They had teleporting guys and regenerating shields. Also they could create forcewalls that blocked movement, although I'm not sure how that would work in 3D

[tall stone]

Also apparently some dangerous snipers.

[unreal merlin]

You ever think what it's like to fight protoss Dark Templars? How about off screen snipers? How about psychic mind wranglers that screw with your controls? How about SUMMON UNBREAKABLE SHIELD WALL balls?

As always, move fast and kill the scouts faster.

[glossy horizon]

Oh and the confusion "reverse inputs" guys?

While I do unterstand that for HD2 they want to keep all fronts against the enemies open, it was kind of funny to log in and see "Oh cool, only Illuminates left"

[burnt vapor]

The only good thing about the illuminate is they don’t have any heavy armour just energy shields

[tall stone]

Man, the Terminids really are just trying to avoid us.

[glacial light]

Oh ok just a simple random mutation, nothing to worry about.

[honest acorn]

They were the “tricky faction”

Patrols were single cloaked bots

And snipers who fired beams from 3-4 screen lengths away

They also had the ability to drop walls which killed you if you ran through them

And attacks which inverted your control

And regenerating shields

But very little heavy armor

[quick plinth]

someone just stole my drip and then kicked me from their lobby

[hexed steeple]

sounds like fun

[quick plinth]

I watched them put on the same armor pieces as me and when I reacted with "bruh wtf" they kicked me

honestly

[hexed steeple]

also i was sitting here like 'what do you mean screen lengths as a unit of measurement' but then i realized HD1 had a way different format

[odd arch]

power move

[quick plinth]

I didn't think theft was what could happen

[odd arch]

I appreciate that the lobby makes your loadout upfront and public btw

[quick plinth]

wdym

[odd arch]

having people give me shit for not running a meta loadout and then carrying their ass with my blorbocore kitchen appliance is my favourite activity in coop shooters

or slashers for that matter

[quick plinth]

no I mean- I haven't noticed any UI changes

[stiff spoke]

you can press a button to see the equipment instead and oyu can look at what other people are using

[odd arch]

...what do you see if not the equipment?

the game started with equipment view for me

[stiff spoke]

isn't it switching between stratagems and eq?

or did they put them on the same page now

[quick plinth]

switching between stratagems and equipment has always been the case

[stiff spoke]

yeah that's what i'm saying

[quick plinth]

and I haven't seen any UI changes where now its both

[odd arch]

it's new to me because I just started playing

[stiff spoke]

hardly any other game does that

you end up finding up in game

[quick plinth]

ah

[odd arch]

vermintide and deep rock both have approved mods for that

[quick plinth]

I see

[odd arch]

I think vermintide has it in vanilla now?

[quick plinth]

well understandable

[quick plinth]

sorry it would appear I added a word

[quick plinth]

it annoys me how the pod is painted but not the turret

[glacial light]

Huh weird

How's the rocket sentry I haven't had a chance to try it but it seems nice from what I've seen randos use it for

[quick plinth]

its basically a better AC turret

at least the way I use it

the AC is still better against heavies

but the rocket sentry does a good enough job

[glacial light]

Can AC turrets damage chargers?

[gusty wave]

Yes, they can also damage bile titans

[tall stone]

AC Turrets can handle all heavies.

[alpine seal]

...huh!

i didn't know there were 3 different autocannons

turret, support weapon and mech autocannons all have different damage values

[odd arch]

support autocannon is a little wonky imo by not letting you buddy reload it from the user's backpack

like it's right there just reach 5cm to the left

[quick plinth]

that's a complant for all backpack weapons

[odd arch]

I get the Vibes justification because that's how it's done irl but good luck convincing someone to trade backpacks lmao

[glacial light]

It would be a huge QoL if you could just take ammo from someone's backpack to teamload

[odd arch]

and a backpack on the ground, perchance

[glacial light]

But also like it seems unwieldy to grab ammo from your own backpack on your back to reload someone elses

[odd arch]

helldivers on ammo duty are selected from a boneless gene mod pool

[glacial light]

That would explain how sometimes we can survive being thrown like 20 feet without dying

Sometimes

[glossy horizon]

I don't see that happening, as that's pretty much the reason the supply pack exists

[quick plinth]

??

[glossy horizon]

Oh wait, this is about the backpack guns

[quick plinth]

we just want the ability to teamload someone from their own pack

[glossy horizon]

Ye I didn't see the whole discussion. Although having recently done that, the fire rate with team reloads is quite nuts. I think it's designed around not being easily available

[odd arch]

I think the venn diagram of like

"people who won't use the current backpack" "people who will"
and "people who won't use the hypothetical new buddy reload" "people who will"

is still two circles

being asked to trade your own backpack is a far smaller ask than cooperating at all in the first place

[glacial light]

It's more annoying to me than anything cause like if I'm shooting an RR and my loader dies then I gotta pick up the backpack from wherever they're corpse went or else no reloading

[odd arch]

and gluing yourself to a rando

[glacial light]

And vice versa where if I'm loading and the shooter dies then I have to drop my support weapon if I want to make use of the ammo backpack of whato they had

Or just not use it

[odd arch]

that's where the strongest stratagem comes into play

reinforce

[glacial light]

When my teammates reinforcement me (they dropped their hellpod on me cause they thought I was an enemy)

[pastel igloo]

An honorable sacrifice in the line of duty

[strange vine]

https://www.rxddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1dousr9/so_turn_out_striders_dont_actually_need/

[glacial light]

Maybe the automaton is like a gunner

But probably just a funny bug

Little guy doesn't know how to walk or shoot without a buddy we should adopt it to kill automatons

[odd arch]

I wonder if stealing striders will become a thing since the pilots don't "interface" with them in any way

it's just tank controls

[glacial light]

We should be

Let me hijack a strider and use it to kill bots

[hazy oriole]

https://www.rxddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1dowk8c/for_the_first_time_ever_a_planet_only_has_08/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

neat info for bot players!

i might hop on there this weekend if I'm feeling bots tbh

[tall stone]

Oh my lord

I am just going to ignore the MO

[modest fiber]

lol

[tight zephyr]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1202861741151879268/1255580168832155719/rapidsave.com_the_new_japanese_dub_is_awesome-v05aj4zi5x8d1.mp4

I've had the Japanese voices on for like a week and I feel like I'm an anime protagonist.

[unreal merlin]

I got this a lot when I started running Orbital Gas Strike against bots. People seemed to think I was insane, but throwing one gas strike and getting 37 destroyed Raiders is pretty great value to me.

[cobalt patrol]

There's a reason i'm a big propent of subs when you can for anime and part of it is just hier VAs go ridiclously hard

[tight zephyr]

Yeah the gas is corrosive, it’s not strictly a poison gas.

[glacial light]

If I'm changing Helldivers to japanese

[tall stone]

The Vandalon regen rate has dropped even lower

[cobalt patrol]

Can yo see the regen rate in game now, or still no?

[tall stone]

Finally got to try out the Blitzer. It's so good into bugs.

[sage plume]

<@&1206091872716595200> i got my pc back who can helldive <t:1719514800:R> ?

[quick plinth]

sure

[trail nymph]

I’m ready to dive

[modest fiber]

alright

[sage plume]

<@&1206091872716595200> ok im setting up the vc now

[quick plinth]

@trail nymph you comin?

[hexed steeple]

tower broke

[heavy portal]

foolish government

[tight zephyr]

MMG good.

[tall stone]

All machine guns good tbh

[tight zephyr]

I have trouble controlling the HMG even on the lower RPM setting, but it's very strong.

[stone bridge]

The HMG really wants fortified or engineering kit, ime

The additional recoil reduction makes a massive difference

[tall stone]

Yep, agreed

I love the thing in short bursts

[unreal merlin]

I haven't tried it myself but I imagine the newest Peak Physique perk gives ridiculous handling with the HMG

However if you put ROF to minimum and only like, 1-2 tap your targets it's fine even without recoil reduction

[stone bridge]

It handles really well, yeah

With Peak Physique

I think the recoil reduction is better in the end, that said

Particularly since the ancillary bonus of either armour is significantly more relevant than +50% melee damage

[unreal merlin]

One day throwing knives will be easily replenished and inherit that+50% melee damage. One day.

[tight zephyr]

I want this perk on armor that isn’t sleeveless.

[supple siren]

Even less sleeve, just a tank top

[odd arch]

sleeve toggle from deep rock

[tall stone]

But Fang: More Guns Out.

[odd arch]

when the correctional officer tries to confiscate my guns but these two are god-given

[tight zephyr]

If I’m wearing space armor, I want it to cover everything.

There shouldn’t be a square nanometer of exposed skin.

[odd arch]

environmentally sealed shell (with a cigar port)

[quick crown]

helmet with a hat attached

[glacial light]

Granted, the new melee armor is just sleeves and nothing else.

[heady halo]

you have to expose the skin, putting the biceps on show is what makes you stronger

[modest fiber]

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-Daxhmxz-5o?feature=share

[heady halo]

braain blast: WE NEED SPACE USE SLEEVELESS SUITS WITH CLEAR GLASS/PLASTIC ARM VISORS TO REVELA THE ARMS FOR EXTRA MELEE UNDER VACUUM

[hexed steeple]

wha

[modest fiber]

the confusion is strong

[heady halo]

lmao

sorry

arrowhead has said that armour designs are meant to imply and match its passives

so for a voidproof melee enhancing armour

you have to give it clear arms

so you can still see the biceps

as seeing the biceps is the main difference visually for that armour set

[odd arch]

I'm now imagining the like extremely bulky NASA suits

but with clear latex arms

like the astronaut angrily tore their arms out the sides of a suit that was too small

[heady halo]

my thought was similar to to other armours but with clear visor like armour pieces over the arms

big and bulky

[honest acorn]

Just have the armor painted to look like muscles

I like the clear more though

These but with bubble arms not a bubble head

[gusty heron]

It's a bulky space suit with no arms, but you deploy with a can of that spray-on flex seal stuff and so you can just give the arms a quick overcoat before dropping.

[heady halo]

absolutely perfect

[copper crest]

https://www.rxddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/4JgpgGokhR

[sage plume]

ooOh?

thats cool

[junior badge]

Neat!

[sage plume]

<@&1206091872716595200> dunno if its in game yet but still anyone dow to dive?

[quick plinth]

honestly a flare stratagem would be cool regardless

[modest fiber]

🤔 wonder if they also add flare grenades or would the strategem give a utility tool for that

[cobalt patrol]

They arent a real accoutn afaik

[sage plume]

damit

[junior badge]

Aw, boo. We know that flares are at least planned, which makes this so believable.

[cobalt patrol]

Always source yer shit!

[glacial light]

My question is can you kill a teammate with a flare

Asking so it doesn't happen of course

[tight zephyr]

A mission standard illumination flare stratagem would be really nice.

[unreal merlin]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1083003376905760880/1256654942274322473/I_love_gambling_with_Bile_Titan_heads_q9z2jhztoi9d1.mp4?ex=66818e9d&is=66803d1d&hm=87f1092a34fadadd8f8600c8ab47ca5d61b3aa20b09e8d4280e60a343acc4d90&

[keen zinc]

not rockets

giant bullets

[odd arch]

I think for all meaningful purposes they can be called rockets

I don't have a PC that can run the game atm to confirm if the projectile boosts in flight

[heady halo]

you can fire rockets from a rifle

rifle just means the inside is rifled right?

[odd arch]

yeah

[unreal merlin]

that is the defining property of rifles yes, that they have rifling in the barrel

[odd arch]

if the projectile doesn't boost it's technically a grenade

same if it fires but doesn't accelerate

that's a gas generator

military terminology never learned from the fiasco that was deciding what's a spear in the medieval times

[stiff spoke]

honeslty

we shouldn't have progressed past spears

everything should just be a spear

[blissful sparrow]

tho usually you do not want to rifle a rocket projectile. it needs at most a gentle rotation and otherwise can stabilize itself

[stiff spoke]

seems gentler

[odd arch]

you can lower the spin imparted on a projectile with the right sabot

question is why would they do that, unless it was originally designed for shells and rockets were a later addition

[stiff spoke]

it could've been cheaper

realised they could save cash by using hte same barrells

it's super earth, they would do something dumb

[odd arch]

recycling tubes from a vehicle mount into man portables

[blissful sparrow]

simply fire the gun 100000 times until the rifling is worn away

[keen zinc]

recoilless rifles fire specially designed shells, not rockets

[odd arch]

yeah but with alternate ammo weapon categories are very blurry

pretty much only dictated by the original design

[keen zinc]

the ingame recoilless is basically just a carl gustaf

makes sense since its swedish

[odd arch]

ah

I couldn't take a look at it in-game

[keen zinc]

they fire giant bullets and have special cartridges that ventilate outward, so the gas is directed equally in both directions

causing it to be recoilless

[blissful sparrow]

really, its more a compensated recoil rifle
But that doesn't sound as exciting when you want the sell the thing to a military

[keen zinc]

it doesnt have a propelled projectile or it would fuck the mechanism that allows a recoilless rifle to function, it would have to be a two-stage munition that ignites in flight

[keen zinc]

nah its essentially recoilless, the shells are engineered for propellant vs projectile mass to balance out

old recoilless shells were funny

[odd arch]

me tying a weapons guy to a chair telling him I won't let him go until he categorizes rocket launchers, recoilless guns, rocket assisted shells, gun fired rockets (...) without overlap

[keen zinc]

a rocket launcher launches rockets, a recoilless gun fires a recoilless shells, a rocket assisted projectile is a multi stage projectile but doesnt change the classification of a weapon (loading a slug doesnt make a shotgun a musket), a gun fired rocket is a rocket

this "behold a man" level nonsense

now untie me

[odd arch]

you won this one batman, but I will be back

[tight zephyr]

I got to see a Carl Gustaf in action once, it was cool.

My dad was in the National Guard and they had some kind of family day when I was a kid and they demonstrated some anti-tank weapons on an old M60 Patton that was being retired so they could replace them with the Abrams.

[unreal merlin]

Always a fun time when you get to break your unit's old things with permission.

[tight zephyr]

My dad was an engineer, so they did a huge demonstration on how they build pontoon bridges.

[unreal merlin]

I know a guy who was once tasked with "demilitarizing" an F-16 that had been deemed irreparable. According to demonstration by the firefighter crew who was supervising the area, "demilitarize" consisted of beating the shit out of the F-16 with firefighter tools like axes picks and hammers until it would never be flyable again.

Very cathartic day.

[tight zephyr]

I'd like it if we eventually got some kit in Helldivers that let you be an engineer to some extent.

[odd arch]

there's the call-in deployable cover but that's uh

very whatever

it's datamined, not in the game yet

I think something like the hell let loose constructables would be a good fit but anytime you add something like that you have to carefully consider one thing: many players will grow very attached to their forts and not consider them temporary and disposable

and tunnel vision in on them instead of doing the mission

that being said aggressive, disposable construction is my favourite playstyle in any game that allows it

[unreal merlin]

I remember having a lot of fun with mortar + shield bubble to make little firebases on Malevelon Creek.

[odd arch]

fuck your counterattack I've already dug holes during the two minutes you were retreating for

[unreal merlin]

Identify there's an engagement about to happen, drop a mortar and shield, now you have a firebase to attack from. Mortar in general is just awesome vs bots tho.

Not so much fun when the Hulk runs up into your bubble shield.

[odd arch]

my spitballed idea would be an engineering backpack, besides some construction it allows you to silently cut barbed wire and fences, and disarm or relocate mines

(chuck them into factory vents like a bomb lmao)

not sure what side utility it could have for bug missions tho

[quick plinth]

meanwhile 1 spear to the head if its close seems to do it fairly reliably

but if its far away it becomes much less reliable

[quick plinth]

me when I play commander in HLL and commadeer every single engineer to set up the maginot on the second point while telling everyone else to fight like hell on the first- (the enemy never reaches the second point and squad leads ask should we let them cap just to test the bunkers)

[lethal badger]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2024/06/29/after-initial-success-helldivers-2-has-lost-90-of-its-players-with-no-signs-of-recovery/

[tight zephyr]

Helldiver's 2

[stiff spoke]

I mean yeah

People realised the content for the most part is going to be the same

[honest acorn]

It’s usually the case that big FOTM releases have a playerbase collapse to a pretty “normal” successful amount

[stone bridge]

It's nearly always the case, ime

[stiff spoke]

Lethal company is at 9k or so

15k

[stone bridge]

Yeah that's a normal "popular indie game" amount

I'll be real, people often have ludicrous expectations

[stiff spoke]

It's more just

There isn't a lot to do

You can really quickly experience all the content

[tall stone]

I just like the gameplay loop. 😄

Also I like participating the story such as it is.

[stiff spoke]

So do the 90k people that still play

[stone bridge]

Tell that to PUBG

[glacial light]

How many people still play PUBG

[stiff spoke]

600k at peaks it seems

[glacial light]

Damn 280k average

[stiff spoke]

And tbf, competitive games get a lot of attention like that

[glacial light]

But also didn't have AH have fairly low expected player count number

[stiff spoke]

Yeah

[glacial light]

Like they received funding for the game based on those numbers

So like they're doing great with current players count higher than expected

[honest acorn]

I think it’s about “on target” now

But hitting what like 500k ccu was nuts and not expected

[tight zephyr]

I really like Helldivers 2. It's probably my favorite game right now. I have a lot of gripes with it, but I really want to see it continue and be successful.

[glacial light]

HD1 peaked at like 7k plauers concurrent

[tall stone]

We've got 52k people on Helldivers right now.

[glacial light]

I will say the first major patch since Pilesedt stepped down as CEO was a baller one

[tall stone]

2, that is

[glacial light]

So far he was good on his word to become more involved in game direction since he stepped down as CEO

And I don't have the tweet but he was quite humble about it saying it was mostly the team

[tight zephyr]

I'm looking forward to seeing how the balance shakes out in the future.

[glacial light]

Guy seems to be good at giving players what they want. Bless game devs but a lot of them get locked into spreadsheets for balancing and while math can be important for balance it's easy to makeathetically sensible but not fun changes

[royal lantern]

They also seem to have a lot of content planned out, based on leaks, though when it comes out is always a big question with live service games

[tight zephyr]

Final module unlocked.

[hazy oriole]

wait a motherfuckin second that thing has the mech icon but it doesn't buff mechs??? arrowhead pls

[agile fable]

mmmmm just got napalm airstrike. might actually use the Eagle now.

[cobalt patrol]

Also, a lot of us have palyed a ton, will happily come b ack

but are cherily doing Elden Ring

or whatever elseright now

[tall stone]

To quote Yoshida over at FF: Elden Ring DLC

[cobalt patrol]

also Destiny 2 big dlc which was a hit, FF14 just launched dawntrail

[tight zephyr]

I should get back to work on FFXIV, but I'm having way too much fun helldiving.

[strange vine]

Yeah and its also very clearly a break week in terms of MOs

Iirc as a swedish company theyre also gonna be having the mandatory summer time off too

[quick plinth]

5 what super earth???

FIVE WHAT

[stone bridge]

5

[tardy onyx]

5 clearly.

[quick plinth]

I'm getting very annoyed with BTs now

their head hitbox even with the spear (now that I'm using it more extnesively) is very elusive

even if I do what does it most of the time

which is to be close enough where the upward arc of the missile is the level of their head

has to be bots

killed every bug enemy under the sun

cept maybe commanders

[odd arch]

let's go gambling

[quick plinth]

hm

the question.

[blissful sparrow]

now i just want a proper T-Pose victory pose

[tight zephyr]

Bile Titans are so bad.

I eventually went back home to the bots last night.

[quick plinth]

they really gotta make that head hitbox either consistent

or at least tell us what the head is

[runic cairn]

<@&1206091872716595200> got the dawg in me

[unkempt river]

That's ruff, buddy

[runic cairn]

boo

anyways anyone down to play

[glacial light]

So I did the MO and now it's messed up my counting. I got 6 fingers now? 1 2 3 4 6 I could have sworn it used to be a different number

[glacial light]

https://www.rxddit.com/r/helldivers2/s/X3LuIEV3Re

Me carrying a mini nuke on pelican one to the super destroyer

[glacial light]

Foreign object detected in the hellpod, would you know anything about that?

[wind arrow]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1235573459451383870/1257109890237988934/chargermovingataveryhighspeed.mp4?ex=66833651&is=6681e4d1&hm=f8ba079d0177d6d65f13b5f85748ade07a9779aab89a86f28e1155c98bf47506&

someone had a funny clip

[glacial light]

I thought that was a super low run eagle strafe or something

Amazing work Charger

[strange vine]

fghfdhgdfhg

[glacial light]

https://www.rxddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/WjNDPWoatk

Who's the helldiver that dropped and unloaded 20 rounds to kill 5 (thanks for completing that order) then died

[pastel igloo]

John Helldiver...

[tight zephyr]

I don't think we're getting this one.

[unreal merlin]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1214132854955712532/1257050414529118258/ssstwitter.com_1719492745145.mp4?ex=6682feed&is=6681ad6d&hm=63e2d0848e8c92a5144cf56bd65204cae65bfa99c36de647f78cc455ee24b244&

[barren iron]

fellas

[tight zephyr]

Just do it. Kill five.

[tight zephyr]

https://rxddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/py5i6Pvh8q

[hearty pier]

That's just the hidden ability of peak physique: "yeet"

[keen zinc]

https://youtu.be/RLSV-Fz9l3k?si=m9JtqR5BP0LNZ2ea

Love this video

[quick plinth]

ah

how does that even occur

BT just looks at AT weaponry and says nah burh

[quick plinth]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSHlyBfqc4c

[glacial light]

I didn't watch the video at all but I agree it contradicts the normal

Most horde shooters are mostly melee with few ranged enemies, having a horde faction that's mostly ranged enemies is new and scary to people used to other horde shooter games

[quick plinth]

the one thing he failed to mention is the cannons giving an anime blink before firing

but that's the exception that proves the rule

[quick plinth]

"bots are designed to be a challenge"

I

just

"difficult to fight, the automatons are the tougher enemy"

I disagree with that so much

in the sense that "bots are for hardcore players and bugs are for casuals"

like- sure it can be jarring switching to the other front for the first time

but once you know both factions and what to do its simple, the difficulty comes from teammates that do not pull their weight, and from deathspirals that go out of control

not the enemies themselves

[odd arch]

bots are held back from their full potential by mediocre AI imo

so their difficulty has to be implemented as 30 billion hulks and devastators

[quick plinth]

making the statement that bots are just outright more difficult than the bugs and that the design phylosphy is that they're meant to satisfy the more hardcore players while bugs are meant to be for casuals is just innacurate

I find bugs much more annoying to fight than the automatons, simply because they constantly persue you and have heavy enemies that much more disrupt your gameplan than the bots do

bots is a leisurely stroll when the team is even semi competent while bugs is a constant fight through to the objective and back, regardless of team skill (it can be leisurely sometimes however)

also the man saying "finding bugs more difficult than the bots, that's just a skill issue if I ever heard one"

like man- you had a nice video there

[naive dragon]

Yeah I wouldn't say bot is harder than bug, just more people enjoy bug. I can't fight bugs for shit but I rock bots regularly and I am very mid at best at videogames

I have a lot more time to think about how to deal with any one wave of bots. I have a lot more room to move and position while handling them. They have immediately obvious weakpoints and tells.

[blissful sparrow]

bugs is just funnier cause there is more of them in clusters so explosions are fun

[odd arch]

btw I had something like this happen when I was figuring the game out and had no AT weapons unlocked so I figured I can bait a charger through my AP minefield

all I achieved was making the charger rocket propelled

my corpse too

[quick plinth]

finally

[placid hamlet]

nice

[unreal merlin]

hooray, once again I can do the ultra high rate of fire trick

one RR gunner, assistant reloader, and an adjacent supply drop. dump the whole backpack into them and pick up 1/4 of the supply drop for another 5 rockets, stretching to 20 total

[glacial light]

Those 8 bile titans won't even see what hit them

[placid hamlet]

the other 8 bile titans will see what hit the other bile titans tho

[hearty pier]

Not if I hide the first 8 under some Smoke Strikes

[quick plinth]

when the daily order is "kill 8 bile spewers"

I for the life of me can't land in a mission with some

[tight zephyr]

Re: Bots v. Bug difficulty

I actually find the bugs to be way, way harder.

Every different kind of bug is annoying in its own special way.

[tall stone]

With the changes to Hunters and Bile not being insta death, they're about equal to me.

[quick plinth]

I personally dont find bugs harder- I just find them more annoying to fight relative to bots

[tall stone]

Annoying I can still agree with.

Too much going on for bugs at once.

[quick plinth]

primarily the fact half the roster slows you or blows up if you kill them wrong near u

and the two heavies disrupt your gameplan a lot more than the numerious heavies on the bot front

sure a rocket dev squad or a couple of heavy devs will halt your progress untill you deal with them

[tall stone]

"I guess I'm dealing with 3 Chargers at the same time while I'm super sample hunting"

[quick plinth]

but you can deal with them, they aren't trying to stick their thumbs in your eyes as you scramble your support weapon or stratagem

chargers and BTs just keep coming untill you kill them, which with the BTs bugged head box and the fact that chargers seemingly haven't went down in number, just got replaced by behemoths

[tall stone]

Frantically dodging Chargers while trying to input a strat is a thing for sure.

[odd arch]

bots would be a lot cooler if they had a lot of troopers and they were a bigger threat imo

[quick plinth]

I mean, mg raiders can one burst you these days

[tall stone]

They can absolutely be a threat.

[odd arch]

yeah but they tend to kinda get vaporized from the collateral damage from dealing with their heavies

my pipe dream is having them actually use tactics to make getting to their big units a more interesting challenge

[tall stone]

But also this is like complaining the little bugs should be more dangerous.

[odd arch]

little bugs don't provide an interesting play fantasy

an army of pseudo human enemies does

this would go against their vibe of "stupid roomba marching forward menacingly" but

[tall stone]

Also, we're ignoring that the commissars are the most dangerous thing in the Bot army.

Heavies can't call in Bot Drops. Troopers can.

[odd arch]

which wraps back around to bot difficulty being 30 billion heavies

[cobalt patrol]

There's a reason one of my "Is this a good bot primary"

is "how fast does it kill littles?"

anything that can one tap littles becomes very, very good

[odd arch]

also huh, I think we played together when I was using my SO's PC

[tall stone]

The heavies also aren't the most dangerous Bot units.

No, those go to Cannons and Heavy Devs.

[odd arch]

that's kinda the thing

I think the current scaling is rather poor because instead of an interesting challenge it tasks you with sniping the boatloads of heavies

which isn't particularly difficult if you don't rush in

[tall stone]

I play with too many randos for that to be true.

You're asking people in a game to sit back and be patient. 😛

[odd arch]

undemocratic behaviour

[ionic holly]

I see bot, i shoot bot, if bot too big, i use spear
simple as

[tall stone]

Randos will bumrush right into a detector tower's sightline every single time

[sage plume]

<@&1206091872716595200> divedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedivedive

[ionic holly]

dive dive dive dive get liberated get liberated get liberated get liberated

[sage plume]

dive?

[runic cairn]

on in a bit

[sage plume]

yey

[heady halo]

unfortunately i dumped a cup of tea over my laptop charger and the extension cord it was plugged into

[runic cairn]

yike

[heady halo]

im not even gonna try the cord and am tossing up on chucking the charger lmao, but if nothing else i wanna give it overnight to dry

tripped the safety switch for every outlet in my apartmenr

[runic cairn]

rice?

[glacial light]

I like bots cause pretty much any med pen weapon can kill every bot fast with proper positioning. Bugs are more of a heavy pen AT check of do you have a weapon/strat that can kill a charger or BT right now? If no then run around until you do or god forbid spend several minutes shooting what can be damaged with lighte weapons

[odd arch]

yeah that's a problem I've encountered when going up in difficulties as soon as I was allowed

I just straight up did not have the gear

[glacial light]

Like bugs 7+ with the BT/charger spawns it's does your team have a response to 4 chargers/BT that just spawned or is it on cooldown

[odd arch]

at least the POIs kept giving me the arc thrower

[glacial light]

I find that harder cause poorly timed cooldown or swarm is on me while my spear is unloaded will be a bad time

[odd arch]

and a number of shots in the teens to kill a charger is Very Suboptimal but it's something

[glacial light]

Bots you can like find cover

[odd arch]

also I think I messed up by going with the uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

adjudicator?

I genuinely can't tell if there are any bugs where its pen made a difference

[alpine seal]

just picked up 2/3 spear rockets from a resupply

it's... still not fixed...

i suspect it's only fixed if you call down the resupply, which is completely new and the fourth weird thing the upgrade has done

[unreal merlin]

Against bugs you really don't need a medium pen assault rifle. All the medium armor bugs have very consistent ways around what armor they do have

[honest acorn]

How is this the buggiest thing in the game lol

[heady halo]

how damn spaghetti is thier code

[unreal merlin]

Their computers have the default language set to Italian

[glacial light]

Well their engine is 7 years out of date, as in 7 years ago the devs stopped supporting it completely

You can't even get it anymore as of 2018

[tight zephyr]

Seems like a bad idea.

[glacial light]

It is but it's kind of too late to change it effectively

Iirc the engine just out of nowhere stopped a year into HD2's development

Stingray existed from 2014-2018

But yea not great for a live service game which needs to be updated often for compatiblity with new systems

[ionic holly]

I would bring up payday 2 for comedic purposes but payday 2 doesn't have as nearly as many online components

[glacial light]

Apparently Vermintide 1/2 and darktide uses it too

[ionic holly]

pardon?

wait helldivers or diesel (payday's)

[glacial light]

Stingray

So helldiver's engines

[odd arch]

big bill hell's dives

[strange vine]

got this info from another:

Unless that was how it worked before, I think that they've also secretly buffed SPM by allowing randomly found Support Weapons in the field to be fully replenished by a single Resupply box as well, not just Support Weapons you've called in yourself.

I presume that this also means that if you pick up a Support Weapon which was dropped by a teammate who doesn't have SPM, you can still benefit from the upgrade and get a full ammo load regardless.

EDIT: Correction/Clarification. It seems that SPM now applies via who calls the Resupply Drop itself. Eg, if the person calling in a Resupply Drop has SPM unlocked, the boxes from that drop pod will fully resupply any Support Weapon. On the other hand, if someone without SPM unlocked calls in a Resupply Drop, those boxes will only supply the original amount of ammo to all Support Weapons. In other words, if only you have SPM unlocked in your squad, it is in your best interests to volunteer to call the Resupply Drop for the squad so everyone gets more ammo.

[alpine seal]

ahh

[ionic holly]

I mean it makes sense admittedly

[alpine seal]

that does make sense, i just didnt catch onto that being why that was

[strange vine]

size comp of automaton ship and super destroyer

[hazy oriole]

FLEET BATTLES PLEASEEE

[heady halo]

or just a blitz in a automaton ship

[honest acorn]

automaton ship?

When did these appear?

[strange vine]

In the cyberstan invasion

Mostly as part of the news video

[honest acorn]

Oh shit that's happening now?

[strange vine]

But they have a model in-game

[honest acorn]

Or just the video

(I have been on a trip and not playing for nearly a week)

[steady flame]

Where ya tripping to?

[honest acorn]

Oh I was just visiting family in Oregon

[tight zephyr]

Imagine having your Hellpod shot into the hull of an Automaton ship as a boarding action.

[heady halo]

exactly

or have a automaton warship ram your windows and you have to defend

reinforcing from the cryo deployment at the back

[odd arch]

welcome back star wars battlefront

[keen zinc]

space battles: broke

boarding actions using the hellpods as boarding torpedoes: woke

[sage plume]

YeeeS

use me as ammunition

[keen zinc]

special hellpods that open up on the bottom and eject you into the ship

could call them... shellpods

have an ablative penetrator tip that ejects off of the pod after entry

[tight zephyr]

We're not supposed to talk about that.

[stark ether]

https://tenor.com/view/tf2-team-fortress2-tf2engineer-use-a-gun-and-if-that-dont-work-gif-17911768

[glacial light]

Ok what if we just used the entire super destroyer

Equivalent of a raid with increased helldiver count that'll probably crash your PC with all the stratagems

[strange vine]

https://www.deviantart.com/the-red-right-hand/art/Commission-DarkChaos10-1065117178

[tight zephyr]

"Gonna need like... a lot of stratagems for this."

[agile fable]

looks like we're gonna need a 1k bomb

[tall stone]

I got my zapper I'm good.

[glacial light]

Railcannon targeting never fails https://www.rxddit.com/r/helldivers2/s/laT5O6vWav

[modest fiber]

well they where a bot symperthiser so its ok :3

[strange vine]

one thing i like about the terminids is that despite having a ton of different forms they all share the same body plan
really sells them being the same species

[quick plinth]

eusocial insect moment

[tight zephyr]

I really like the visual design in the game generally. Their art team is doing some good work.

One thing that stands out to me is that everything looks a little like a toy. Just a little. The Helldivers straight up look like action figures. Maybe it’s just me, but it’s just another way the whole war feels like a joke.

[royal lantern]

That's definitely very deliberate I think, like even down to the oversized guns and capes

[tight zephyr]

Absolutely.

Even the perks armor gives you kind of has the feeling of a child making something up about this toy they’re playing with.

[royal lantern]

Yeah or special features of an action figure that they list in the commerical or the back of the box

[tight zephyr]

If I saw a Hulk in a big box on a store shelf advertised as coming with a set of interchanges arms and a free Commissar I wouldn’t even blink.

(And would probably have to be talked out of buying it.)

[tight zephyr]

Helldiver armor is definitely powered, right? There’s no way it doesn’t have some kind of strength assist going on.

[odd arch]

funnily enough I can buy most loadouts more than what your typical John FPS carries

unless you're running like, HMG with supply backpack

[ionic holly]

Some of it is powered though, or atleast has servos, hence servo assisted limbs

otherwise i don't think so given the speed penalties/benefits for heavier and lighter

(also i still follow the beliefs that the helldivers are fitted as cheaply as possible besides the super destroyer, lowest bidder and all that)

another thing i wanna spotlight is that some of the item reviews in the super store also imply civilian uses of the armour

now that isn't exactly close and shut 'oh yeah no armour is cheaply made too' since military surplus is a genuine market for civilians in real life but still

apologies i'm rambling arent i?

[trail nymph]

I agree it would also explain why everything for lack of a better word looks boxey and simple

[glacial light]

Helldivers just built different

Probably all those muscle stims

[ionic holly]

Like the super destroyer is the only thing i'm convinced costed more than 2 thousand super earth bucks

[odd arch]

super earth funded my HRT (male to helldiver)

[ionic holly]

Heh

good ol helldiver replacement therapy

... that wasn't a bad joke right?

i hope it wasn't

[glacial light]

The fact we have to buy our own stratagems with requisitions and medals we find in bunkers

[trail nymph]

Also it’s the lore reason why hellbombs have to be armed manually

[glacial light]

We should just throw down those broken hellbombs we find on planets

They should explode once armed instead of being destroyed

I would rather a random automaton blow me up with my own hellbomb and complete the objective then to have it be destroyed and having to get another in

[odd arch]

we hire an intern to hit every hellbomb with a wrench before dropping

[glacial light]

The guy who front loaded our stratagems needs a job if you got the upgrade

Madlad was great at their job reloading the stratagems in space, you only save like less than 10 seconds on most stratagems it affects I believe once you get the upgrade to breach load them

[tight zephyr]

The autocannon is the one that makes me go "Yeah that's at least light power armor."

That thing has such violent recoil and it's fucking huge not to mention the ammo backpack...

My opinion is that there's an artificial muscle underlayer like the MJOLNIR Powered Assault Armor from Halo.

[modest fiber]

when you're farming super credits solo and the map has 3 bunkers

[tight zephyr]

Ugh yeah.

What's the best way to farm super credits, anyway?

I'm really close to 1k and I don't feel like spending $5 I could spend on food and Monster™️ Energy Drink.

[modest fiber]

well either do 1-2 dif missions on solo.. or 4-5 missions in a group, thats about all i know, first one is quite boring tho but fast

[unreal merlin]

Go to a difficulty 1-3 mission and run around looting POIs. It's very very boring but it's easy. I find that I can get a lot of credits in 6+ missions with randoms just by being really active about quickly hitting up POIs as we move around the map.

[naive dragon]

I miss solo diving bot D9s and seeing how long it takes for me to get horribly murdered I would do that again

[tight zephyr]

Ah, so just doing low-level missions and being really thorough. I didn't think they'd have SC stashes in lower difficulties.

[unreal merlin]

the maps tend to be smaller and thus fewer POIs but the point is the same

[tight zephyr]

Tell you what. She's as beautiful...

...as the day I lost her.

[unreal merlin]

tenderizer definitely slaps raiders hard

[junior badge]

It's a nice gun.

[tight zephyr]

It's by far my favorite gun for bot work.

[honest acorn]

<@&1206091872716595200> anyone wanna do a couple missions?

[tight zephyr]

Sure.

I'm mostly doing low-intensity stuff to scour maps for Super Credits today.

#9305-6252

[honest acorn]

Hmm I might want to do higher stuff for medal payouts lmc how many major orders got done

[tight zephyr]

I haven't done mine yet.

It's 50 kills with the GL.

Oh wait major orders.

Looks like all that's left is Erson Sands for the current one and that's... we'll probably get it?

[tight zephyr]

Man, just running low-level missions with one other person did net me a lot of Super Credits. I think I ended up with two hundred more than I started with after just a couple of hours.

And doing low-level stuff is a good way to practice some fundamentals, too.

[stiff spoke]

Yeah, there's no difference between high and low diff for sc gain

[unreal merlin]

Have you had the joy of getting one of the +100 SC pickups? Good feeling, that.

[mortal wing]

nope

[stark ether]

got two in one level before i think

[mortal wing]

[tight zephyr]

I haven’t, but I’d like to right about now because I’m at 900 SC.

[sweet surge]

New major order

[reef raven]

"battle station plans"?

👀

[placid hamlet]

oh god, the bots are gonna take the other planets in that sector, aren't they. And then X-45 will be behind two entire sectors of bots

[odd arch]

calling in stratagems from the battle station when

I can't really think of something that'd be distinctly more Awesome than something fired from the destroyer
that wouldn't also have a very wonky effect to availability balance

but hey

[strange vine]

some datamined stuff hints ||this is related to the clan/platoon system||

[quick plinth]

||ah so clans will each get a deathstar, hilarious||

[tight zephyr]

Doing solo stuff has been pretty fun, but the Friend Doors are always a kick in the balls.

[stark ether]

games need to stop adding friend doors

[red steeple]

Counterpoint: have friends

[tight zephyr]

I'm pretty sure the devs want to actively disincentive solo play, but... c'mon.

[stark ether]

counter counter point,

[tight zephyr]

Also, I have friends I just don't want to bug them whenever I'm playing Helldivers and what I'm doing isn't something I trust pubbies to be helpful with.

I play this game a ton more than my friends do and I don't like imposing on them if they're not already playing.

[stark ether]

but my real counterpoint to friend doors: sometimes i want to farm, when i first started figuring out how to farm well i got a ton of pushback from sharing my methods from people even here so i dont like to farm with other people now

[tight zephyr]

Yeah, right now my big project is farming Super Credits.

I'm 50 away from 1k and I want to get the Viper Commando warbond.

[stark ether]

trivial missions are your friend

[tight zephyr]

I've been doing Normal just because Trivial is a little too sedate to keep me engaged.

While Hard is a little too spicy for me to easily complete the missions.

[stark ether]

trivials have a much smaller map but the same number of poi, can crank them out hitting everything in ~8 minutes or less

[tight zephyr]

Ah, I see.

Maybe I'll do that. But really the Normal difficulty is just because I like playing the game on its own and want something I can sink my teeth into while I'm farming.

[stark ether]

[tight zephyr]

However, if I get fed up with it I'll keep that advice in my back pocket.

I also learned a bunch of important mechanics while doing solo missions that I never learned doing stuff with pubbies at higher difficulties because I feel like I can take a few extra seconds to figure things out.

[stark ether]

yeah, when i was regularly playing i'd warm up with 2-3 trivials and then go for the harder difficulties and didnt need dedicated farming sessions

[tight zephyr]

Like how to destroy bot fabricators from long range with the autocannon. I always thought it was the splash damage on the vents, but you're actually supposed to ricochet the bullet into the vent off of the flap at the top. This never occurred to me until I could actually take a minute and test it out for myself.

I'm also getting a better handle on the stealth mechanics.

[steady flame]

Re friend doors: Warframe does it nicely, because if you have only 1 player, it'll just open the door. If you have multiple, it acts as a slowing tool.

[pastel igloo]

Yeah doors are nice in like that in WF

[tight zephyr]

Woo, there's my 1k Super Credits. Time to get Viper Commandos.

[glacial light]

I see cluster strike going off outside (fireworks bit it's uncanny how some of them look exactly like clusters but with colors sometimes)

[keen zinc]

my county is on fire but i dont think that will stop the dumb fucks around here from starting more fires with illegal firework shows because merica

[tight zephyr]

I think the most important skill I've learned while playing solo is how to disengage without it being a panicked flight from combat.

[cobalt patrol]

Whereabouts are you that's on fire?

[keen zinc]

Northern California

[cobalt patrol]

..>For some reaosn i thoguth you were in europe

huh

[sage plume]

new update for helldivers, more modules

also source: https://discordapp.com/channels/1102970375731691612/1102974129734434919/1258351966065524777

[naive dragon]

That looks like some stuff

[sage plume]

ye i quite like the imediate launch of support weapon strategems

[sage plume]

also orbital gatling deals MORE damage

[hexed steeple]

incredible descriptions on all of these

taught them how to leave loaded ammo loaded. mama mia

[cobalt patrol]

The HR asosciates one is hilarious

Not seeing the extra damage on gattling barrage though @sage plume ?

[odd arch]

the mortar targetting one is real nice

rest is RPG stats but I'm not complaining

[sage plume]

might just be me going mad and reading wrong but isnt orbital gatling counted under the High Density Explosives upgrade?

[cobalt patrol]

Nope

Walking, Precsion, 120, 380

i checked in game

[sage plume]

damn, bummer,

[cobalt patrol]

I mean, it makes OPS better

[odd arch]

that's odd because the upgrade that removes explosive damage falloff does affect gattling

[cobalt patrol]

Maybe i'm missreading?

[sage plume]

idk, anyway more boom from red strategems

[stiff spoke]

paid toilet breaks

removing "do you want to fire" from support weapons or automating HR processes to HR can work on guns

descriptions are always peak

[odd arch]

I got food poisoning once and it dashed my hopes of ever saving up enough for a goldfish

[tight zephyr]

Do you want one of the Super Sandwiches I get because I survived three concurrent missions?

[glacial light]

Hello it's yoru democracy officer i'm stuck on malevelon creek and need 50k requisitions to extract if you transfer that to me then i'll share half of the million medals I found in a friendship bunker

[graceful bluff]

So which of the battle passes after the explosion one is actually worth it

[strange vine]

most of em are good at this point imo

[unreal merlin]

most of them have at least something really good in it

[quick plinth]

out of all of the new upgrades the reload speed for support weapons is the one to get first imo

the rest are much more situtational/specific

[cobalt patrol]

5% universal cooldown is amazing too

[quick plinth]

5% doesn't seem like a lot

like yes its gonna stack up over time, you might get an extra use of a long cooldown stratagem per mission

[unreal merlin]

feels mvp

[tight zephyr]

This Super Sandwich I got after clicking on the offer of Free Super Sandwich in my Patriotism Mail tastes a little GLORY TO CYBERSTAN THE AUTOMATONS WILL BURN SUPER EARTH weird, guys.

[cobalt patrol]

I tend to take short, fast strats anyway - like OPS + Orbital Gattling, so i probably see a chunk more benefit just off that.

It's absoloteuiy appealing to me, getting my ops back 5 seconds earlier is exactly the stort of power i want

[quick plinth]

Fair enough

[glacial light]

Napkin math that doesn't factor in call in time but in a 40 minute mission if for some reason you use the entire 40 minutes you save off 2 minutes for one stratagem so if you had 4 non support stratagems that like 8 minutes of stratagem waiting time saved at best

I think like the support reload is like 10% it doesn't seem very fast based on what I saw with AC on reddit but maybe it's more noticable on RR and spear. And also permabuff is Perma buff

[cobalt patrol]

For me it just comes down to 5% faster recharge is enough that i'll have plentyo f itmes where it'l lsave my butt or otherwise be relevant

and give me that extra grease to get in a cheeky ops etc

rather than " I need this, but it's still 10s away from useable. BENNY HILL GO"

[glacial light]

5% isn't a lot for one but for 3 or 4 stratagems it adds up

9 seconds off on a 180 does feel nice

[cobalt patrol]

it's a 4.5 second reduction off a 90s cooldown, which is like.. not huge for sure

but absoloteuy not nothing either

[glacial light]

I'm not sure how I feel about ship modules cause the most unique gameplay changing ones are kind of front loaded so easier to grab for new players but the later ones are mostly like incremental slider sticks of increase X by 10% but ig unlike most other things in the game there's no opportunity cost you can just have all of them active at once

[cobalt patrol]

It kinda concenrs me from a power creep eprsepctive

but as long as tehy're Nice To Haves

whjich 5% extra CD time absoloteuy is

i'm not too stressed

[glacial light]

I think a little power creep in a coop PvE game is fine especially if new bigger enemies come out we're still the same squishy helldivers for the most part

Unless you run medic and stim booster then you're invincible as long as you have stims

[cobalt patrol]

it's mostly concenrs around it beocming you must be X size to ride Helldive type problems

where newer players get locked out by not having rindied enough

[tall stone]

Medic, Stim Booster, and Supply backpack.

Actually, that's where the best stuff being frontloaded is great.

A person who's just gotten the space optimization booster is still contributing.

[glacial light]

I mean that's kind of a reason people play bugs, having played bots with absolutely new players it feels harder and less fun with default kit and bugs are just more familiar and easier low level

It's not a hard gate but if I was new to HD2 and one faction seems more easier and more fun with the kit available first 5 levels then I'd play that

[tall stone]

Yeah, Bots are a gear/accuracy check.

High tier bugs are a loadout check.

[glacial light]

Another thing is Striders I think the first default warbond weapon that can front shot kill a strider easily is further in

Whereas all bugs except from heavies can be killed from any direction with default liberator and at low levels heavies for low levels don't show up in threatening numbers

If you don't have strats or weapons that can front kill like a cannon tower or tank you have to coordinate more and that's kind of a harsh thing for new players to learn when they just picked up the game

Although first time new squads groups get med pen weapons I grab them into bots and it's a lot more fun once you have like AM rifle or autocannon

[tall stone]

The bot weapon check is a lot nicer than high bug weapon check

[pastel igloo]

Oh shit

[tight zephyr]

It's just that bolt-action rifle from the first game.

[tall stone]

It's the Halo 1 Magnum.

[stone bridge]

its the doom 2 plasma gun

[burnt vapor]

There are so many things it could be

[tall stone]

It could be Anti-Tank Mines! 😄

[burnt vapor]

The only way to get the community to acquire anti-tank mines is to not tell us we’re getting anti-tank mines

[tight zephyr]

Broke: Anti-tank mines
Woke: Improved anti-personnel mines
Bespoke: Anti-aircraft bouncing betty mines

[ionic holly]

That eagle-1 actively triggers

[unreal merlin]

fireworks for another successful airstrike

[burnt vapor]

This is why Eagle-1 flares after every attack run, to defeat anti-air mines

[glacial light]

https://www.rxddit.com/r/LowSodiumHellDivers/s/vhedLvcIYG

[quick plinth]

I wonder how responsive the mortar ping targeting is

[tight zephyr]

Ah, yes. The Teamkillotron 5000 working as normal.

[glacial light]

We've gone beyond team killing, we're now objective killing

Helldivers are disposable, the mission is not

[hexed steeple]

they should let me ping teammates once i get the mortar targeting upgrade

[glacial light]

Now you can choose which teammate to kill with the mortar sentry, amazing work Super Earth scientists

[keen zinc]

I want to target ground

Just mortar an area and dig a hole

[glacial light]

This is how we get a crossover with deep rock galactic

[heady halo]

honestly that would be pretty sick as a 4th faction

fight the dwarves

[quick plinth]

eehhhh

[strange vine]

Y'know what if for the 4th faction they lean into the environmental aspect of satire where its some sort of "gaia's vengeance" deal

Plant monsters and stuff

Mutated from super earth dumping super uranium and e-710 waste runoff everywhere

[short rune]

AR-19 please

It is far superior to the AR-23

[steady flame]

Oh? What makes the older model better here?

[tight zephyr]

I feel like this is partly the Terminid shtick.

[quick plinth]

this surely won't backfire

[pastel igloo]

no action taken by Super Earth could backfire

[odd arch]

the datamined ||stratagem that will call in a squad of SEAF troopers|| is so cool and my jam, if it works well enough

||turning the game into cat sitting simulator as I break my back carrying my boys to safety||

[stiff spoke]

Democratic Youth Scouts

Wonder what that's referencing

[tight zephyr]

Oh cool we’re getting a ||decoy stratagem?||

[quick plinth]

they're probably || going to act like troopers ||

[tight zephyr]

Yeah, that’s what I said.

||Dudes I get to call in and have them distract the Hulk that's currently trying to eviscerate me.||

[agile fable]

bots? ain't got shit. terminids? i will run.

[quick plinth]

on a 9 you run form everything

and only stand and fight if you have to

saves time

[tight zephyr]

I generally stick to 5 and 6 these days. I can do 9, but it's so hard that it's not fun for me.

There's a weird gulf between "I'm being challenged enough to be fun." and "This is testing the limits of my capabilities as a player." for me.

Anyway, <@&1206091872716595200> does anyone want to do some middle-difficulty Helldiving?

[sage plume]

if ya are still up im down

<@&1206091872716595200> anyway anyone down to stomp some bots?

[cobalt patrol]

First game in like a month

still got it.

[cobalt patrol]

@stone bridge So, with the new 5% cooldown thing, once you'e thrown Gattlign barrage and it lands and it shows your cooldown again? Literally just 60s left.

it's incredible

Just a gattling for every. single. occasion

[odd arch]

I wonder if there exists a scenario within the game that calls for autocannonmaxxing

by which I mean autocannon, automatic fire, prone with recoil reduction armor, supply backpack and buddy reload

because that sounds comical but you wouldn't find enough enemy concentration to justify it without looking

[blissful sparrow]

single chokepoint evac defense

[cobalt patrol]

Yeah i've never really found anywhere near that

honestly just with the fortified reduction i tend to find having a loader a huge pain

because of the mobility penality it imposes

[unreal merlin]

the circumstance that comes to mind would mostly be "there's about two thousand berserkers funneling in a straight line" for ideal autocannonmaxxing

[hearty pier]

I had it come up organically on a messy overtime extract the other night.

We had an evac with a main chokepoint that was absolutely swarming. I emptied my AC so I just jumped on to team load the other autocannon user and told them to let it rip.

No supply pack, but by the time my backpack was empty we had a pelican to jump into

[tight zephyr]

FYI this was at four in the morning for me.

[short rune]

The AR-19 had a couple more rounds, a better scope and did more damage.

AR-23 has been... financially streamlined?

It is still a formidable rifle but not as good as the old variant

[glacial light]

Warriors are the 4th faction got it

[quick crown]

"sending in mission critical objective"

eagle one ejects from cockpit with basketball

[tight zephyr]

GET OUT OF HERE, STALKER.

[cobalt patrol]

So my brain was still in elden ring mode and thoguht someone was doing an elden ring bit

[cobalt patrol]

Oh nooo

[glacial light]

What if the real battle station plans was the friends we made along the anti tank mines

[wind arrow]

diff 4 can be QUITE difficult if the RNG wants your life

had an eye of sauron protected by a laser turret and a mortar camp, all next to the objective ore vein

[cobalt patrol]

<@&1206091872716595200> New strategeme for everoyne - the COmmando. 4 shot disposable laser guided rocekt launcher. availbe for free while you're on X-45 till the end of hte current order. you cant buy it yet

[hexed steeple]

:o

just a taste

[modest fiber]

noice

[hearty pier]

It's currently very good, breaks fabs from any angle and can 2 shot turrets from the front.

[cobalt patrol]

Much trickier to use on hulks though

since i think it's onmly a kill if you get hteir eye perfecl ty

otoh, you can mag dump and that'll kill a hulk

and it's great into Factory Striders

[junior badge]

Anyone up to dive for a few?

[cobalt patrol]

I'm done for now, sorry

i just ran a misison to get a feel for it and then packed it in

[junior badge]

Fair enough. I've had another CTD just now, which is really kinda bumming me out.

Lately, the game has been quite unstable for me.

[cobalt patrol]

See, it was Elden Ring that CTD me

[runic cairn]

im down

[junior badge]

Sorry, I just left the house ^^' maybe later tonight again

[runic cairn]

<@&1206091872716595200> anyone down to play

[odd arch]

https://youtu.be/yLgcGNi4mtc?t=714

lmao

it just works

looks like the sentry is being forced to aim that way through a different method than its normal aiming AI and doesn't know how to traverse because it got stuck trying to flip its barrel over vertical

[stiff spoke]

oh yay

[quick plinth]

Commando seems kinda mid though, I expected it to do be a lil more than it is so that's on me

[unreal merlin]

It's definitely okay. It's not so bad if you treat it like an EAT and don't use it wastefully. I've seen people trying to use it against Raiders and like, single Devastators. No shit you run out fast.

But if you save it for anti-tank/hulk/turret stuff and keep calling it on cooldown it's fine

[odd arch]

"we strapped 4 EATs together"
"GIVE THAT MAN A GOLDFISH LICENSE"

[ionic holly]

I actually have a friend who kept doing this for a time and kept complaining about the EATs lack of splash

it always baffled me

[unreal merlin]

It's the same thing as when the HMG dropped and people ran it at 1250 RPM holding the trigger and then bitched how it had no ammo or accuracy

[strange vine]

It can kill bot fabs and detector towers and stratagem jammers

[ionic holly]

... wait what

Hold on spear might have some competition for me

[quick plinth]

what???

[strange vine]

It has a demolition value of 40, same as spear

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1209566200959602710/1259532459264053359/image.png?ex=668c0683&is=668ab503&hm=30db3c36f51ce7ab9b46f2614c089b2d70368bd6ec1dda1d480f6ef67010c454&

[ionic holly]

HELL YEAH

So it's not competition, it's disposable spear!

love that!

[unreal merlin]

neato

[glacial light]

Oh cool

I do love disposable weapons

[glacial light]

The real coop in the HD https://www.rxddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/eEl10WYaIj

[odd arch]

what'd be better for keeping the laser cannon on weakpoints at long distance? recoil reduction or peak physique?

I can't tell if it has "recoil" or the wiggle is purely visual

[quick plinth]

honestly

I just wish we could get a "laser designator" stratagem

that takes a support weapon slot and lets you guide stratagems that fire munitions

(a lot of orbitals, eagle bombs and rockets and similar)

[unreal merlin]

peak physique

the laser cannon doesn't have recoil, but natural weapon sway makes it swerve around. peak physique would counteract that

[unreal merlin]

some time ago there was leaks of a bunch of datamined stratagems and one of them was a little missile silo, it gave you a laser designator and you'd use it to paint a target and the missile would launch into the air and come down where you marked

[blissful sparrow]

also thats just an EDF item 😄

[quick plinth]

I mean sure- but that's not what I meant

[glacial light]

Me using the laser pointer to redirect the missile back on my ally

[odd arch]

fencer + his laser designator air raider girlfriend is a timeless classic

[blissful sparrow]

love sticking a lockon marker to the back of a fencer

[glacial light]

Throw turrets on an ally

[tight zephyr]

I like the Commando.

[unreal merlin]

I think it's neat. However, it does suffer from all the untamed NATURE of X-45, tree branches blocking missiles all the time. To address this I started running Orbital Airburst + Orbital Gatling Barrage and between those two you can absolutely shred all the annoying swamp jungle cover.

[odd arch]

predator gaming

[strange vine]

I really want them to release the disposable machine gun next

So i can have a full disposable loadout

[odd arch]

hell yeah

[glacial light]

I want a disposable pistol belt

You just get a bunch of single shot pistols on a bandolier

And an energy primary that's a disposable gun but reusable magazine so you unload the gun to throw it away while holding onto the magazine and grabbing another gun to load onto the magazine

Just litter democratically

[keen zinc]

just constantly replacing the barrel

fusion powered gun needs no power cell replacement, but burns out its capacitors and lenses constantly

and thus the entire upper reciever and barrel assembly gets replaced per reload

[tight zephyr]

Just get Tediore from Borderlands in here.

[cobalt patrol]

I have pitched disposable backpacks before

also, re commando: It's 450/450 damage & destructible. an EAT is 650/650.

This means it takes 2 commandos to kill a a charger head, but 1 eat. However, it still only takes 2 commandos to kill a bile titan head (750hp), but it takes 2 eats.

It's also good for stuff like gunships - 1 commando to the engine will kill them

honestly i'm impressed with it, it seems a very well designed weapon with clear strengths vs the eats

and clear weaknesses

(It's a lot worse at snap shots, for instnace, which are my bread and butter)

[glacial light]

Nothing beats RR for snapshots

I like it for bugs

So quick to fire from draw

[stone bridge]

What's the cooldown?

[cobalt patrol]

Uh, around 1:30? I think?

it's longer than the eat, but not that much longer

[glacial light]

2 minutes iirc

About twice the EATs

[cobalt patrol]

Mines been showing lower than that, but i have like all the cooldown upgrades

[glacial light]

Ah that'd reduce it I think if the ship module affects it even though it's not unlockable yet

[cobalt patrol]

It usally does

[glacial light]

It's wild that commando can destroy fabs from any angle like spear

You could rapid fire kill a heavy base with good line of sight with a single commando

[hearty pier]

Yeah, just spending a loadout slot to have ranged base destruction on tap is going to be very tempting

Like the MG + EAT builds that see use

[cobalt patrol]

Pretty sure that part is gonna get a nerf

like it honestly seems ??? that it can do that

[glacial light]

I'm a big EATs fan and my major annoyance is leaving behind the 2nd EAT so having 4 commando shots at a time with low cooldown is great.

[odd arch]

tbh players have so many sources of base destruction in every slot of their loadout that commando is not particularly egregious

[glacial light]

It is odd commando can any angle destroy fabricators but RR and EATs that do more damage can't

Commando has high demolition for some reason

[odd arch]

I imagine if it couldn't destroy fabs whatsoever it'd be a bit weird

and it's a rocket launcher so you can't, uh, bounce your shots

[glacial light]

I'd imagine it would work like EATs and RR and you have to shoot in vent to destroy

[odd arch]

I didn't know EAT can shoot the vent

good to know

[glacial light]

EATs and RR can't bounce and can destroy to vent

Commando can hit the walls or anywhere and destroy

Like the Spear

[odd arch]

then disregard what I said

I was under the impression EAT can't shoot vents

[glacial light]

Spear does the most damage out of the AT weapons so it makes sense it can destroy fabs from any angle to me

[cobalt patrol]

The extra werid thing is it makes the commando able to take down a bunch of stuff

like detector towers

[glacial light]

I think it has the same ability to damage buildings as the Spear

[cobalt patrol]

See this bit from earlier

[glacial light]

Damn gonna have to learn the gunship tower thing

That just seems way too useful

[stone bridge]

That's absolutely getting a nerf

[glacial light]

I would expect the demo force to match or be slightly less than RR/EATs

[ionic holly]

Iunno if it'll get a nerf but it'll likely be removed functionally from the gunship fabs

or something they see folk doing and go "nah that's cool and requires some effort, leave it"

[stone bridge]

I mean we'll see lol

[cobalt patrol]

The gunship one requires quite a bit of effort and isnt confirmed anyway

like... cool if true, but also it's similar effort to just brinign in the hellbomb and setting that off?

[runic cairn]

<@&1206091872716595200> got the need to dive