Helldivers 2: For Managed Democracy!

[lethal delta]

Imo, would be ideal for both heavy and light.

[glacial light]

Or even like HP regen happens for like good amount of time after you stim and it's not entirely infinite healing

[lethal delta]

(To avoid it affecting unwilling teammates)

[knotty folio]

Powerful regen + stim nerf on an armor would be fine too, yeah

[cobalt patrol]

I was once experimenting and figured out that you could dive off a cliff to throw somethign then wrap pack back on

when i did it again to confirm this, a teamte stepped where i was standing

[knotty folio]

They died in the name of Super Science

[glacial light]

Yea im not a fan of dead sprint or the offensive hell pod ones, considering you wouldnt see it if a person joined after you start it could be an unpleasant surprise death

[lethal delta]

Yeah, dead sprint is terrible

[knotty folio]

Yeah dead sprint is awful

[lethal delta]

Only have had someone join using it once

[glacial light]

Any sort of global penalty to the team is like, feels toxic

[lethal delta]

And they were a troll

[knotty folio]

Reminds me that I hope they add more operation modifiers eventually

I'm just so uninterested in playing operations with +25% stratagem cooldowns, and that's like half of missions on some planets at d10

That modifier really shouldn't exist IMO, it's the most boring form of debuff imaginable

And it specifically reduces the gameplay aspect that makes HD unique

grumblegrumble

[glacial light]

It'd be lacking as the sole trait on an armor but i think dead sprint could be a neat 3rd neutral perk on armor. We do have 3 minor effects types of armor. A weird stamina armor based one would be suitable

[knotty folio]

Cursed operation modifier idea: tidal flux - every x minutes, the water level rises/falls

I could see it being fun as a temporary thing on specific map types but my goodness would it get old quick to get stuck on an island for 10 minutes

[glacial light]

Or like a weird adrenaline stamina armor where you can use stamina as a resource to buff something and it has dead sprint so you are stamina hungry but you get stamina on kills. Flavor it as they're injecting you with super drugs when the armor detects you kill an enemy of democracy , suitably in lore.

[knotty folio]

The Vampire perk from DRG would be a fun one to have on an armor set, probably with a +melee damage buff as well

(Minor heal on melee kills)

Knight Divers deserve some love

[lethal delta]

New stratagem available for everyone: Superboat

[knotty folio]

For that matter I would be so happy to have an armor set with Born Ready (reloads weapons after they've been holstered for x seconds)

[knotty folio]

Archipelago maps plus a boat stratagem would be fantastic

Would need to be a major update though probably

[lethal delta]

Yeah

Like, we have water, but it's like

Non fuctional kills you water

[supple siren]

Don't make them put more code in here

I need it to remain under 200gb

And run

[knotty folio]

TBF boats wouldn't need to change that mechanically

But they would need to add enemies that worked with water and that would be a whole thing

[cobalt patrol]

Mm, i'd rather we stick to land based combat

and just get.. some more mechs (Where's my heavy melee mech with a flametrhower and a spear gun)

[knotty folio]

Pure energy mech would be fun

Quasar/Laser Cannon, maybe

[lethal delta]

It's funny how I've found the laser cannon to be more sucessful in bots than in bugs

You'd think it's the contrary

[knotty folio]

I hope they give us a segway for april fools someday

[lethal delta]

Oh yes

[knotty folio]

It's the lack of stagger and low DPS, IMO

Can't really keep a horde off you, but high pen + excellent precision does work on bots

[lethal delta]

It's not super fast at culling through heavies, but can do it comfortably

I've killed two hulks in a row with one and it wasn't a struggle

[glacial light]

Imagine though if there was a backpack thats a buckler that can parry melee attacks

[glacial light]

Idk how difficult it'd be but in dying light 2 if you do certain objectives you can do things like open dams and basically open up parts of the map that were underwater

It would be very super earth to pump out a massive lake just to plant 3 flags

Or Terminids adapted to be underwater as a defense from orbitals and this somehow creates super super oil, so draining oceans of sea terminids to get at the nest.

[knotty folio]

I think there's only one water level across the whole map, at least when it comes to death water

So draining a specific area might not be feasible in the engine

I could see a "destroy dam" objective that raises/lowers it across the whole map though

(Though whether the engine even supports changing the water level in game is also questionable ofc)

[glacial light]

I'd settle for breaching a mega fortress and one of the options would be to setup a big vehicle to break down the gate

My copium is maybe the caves will lead to automation mega fortresses that's the entire map with like large hangars and buildings you can't call stratagems in

[knotty folio]

I could see that as a mission type on Automaton home worlds

Something like the shoot down mothership objective where you have to bring a vehicle to a gate then position it precisely while under fire

Have it be a hydraulic ram you're targeting at joints in the door or such

Then you have to bring a portable hellbomb to a fabricator or creche or suchlike

...I am once again tempted to play Warframe

[stark ether]

one of us

[glacial light]

A hell ram

Just a series of hellbombs in a tube

And you have to carry hell bombs and load it in the ram

[lethal delta]

Question, how does the last warbond heavy armour look like with the thought police helmet?

[spare verge]

love the news going straight from "We've won!" to "alright, get back to dying in caves for oil"

[glacial light]

I almost failed to extract in the Pelican cause I was pressing buttons in the Pelican and warped pack out at 3 seconds left. I almost learned the hard way you can do that

[graceful bluff]

The warp pack controls are not a fidget toy!

[strange vine]

QC and EATs keep the same 2 shot breakpoints they still have on the turret

[glacial light]

Is it colorful then

[knotty folio]

Oh, I missed that it was just changing the front - justifying the memes about Helldivers' reading comprehension, lol

Yeah in that case I agree

Though if you're making the armaments more dangerous I think a thermite to the turret should still be a kill

(Depending on how much more dangerous, ofc)

An energy shield tank would be nifty - instead of a main gun, it has a directional shield projector turret, that provides a significantly larger and tankier directional shield to cover its allies

Probably give it a light machine gun like the cannon tank has so it's not entirely helpless on its own

[glacial light]

Damn we were so close, I joined a mission with 0 reinforces and none of the 3 orbital cannons objectives were done. Once I joined the last person left and then 3 more came in and we were like wtf how is this at 0 reinforces when not even fabs were destroyed.

Anyways we said fuck it we ball and one person managed to extract

[oblique lotus]

EATs are still good

They oneshot hulks, oneshot war striders, oneshot tank vents or the sides of the shredder turret

[glacial light]

I had nothing but an eruptor and talon with a broken arm and we were at the landing zone and there were like 12 tanks and hulks and no one had any stratagems to take them and someone pinged a portable hellbomb and I warp packed ahead of them and took it and they covered me as I ran into the crowd with an active hellbomb

[oblique lotus]

I think a RR 2 shot is still an EAT 2 shot/Commando 4 shot

[knotty folio]

Yeah you can set the breakpoints to make RR a 2shot without increasing EAT breakpoints, I just misread

[cobalt patrol]

I do wish they'd let eats be a bit faster to pull out and arm

That's the main thing that stops me from using them, they're just not as snappy as the RR is and it throws me off

[knotty folio]

Interestingly it's specifically when you pull them out from holstered

If you pick one up directly from the drop pod you can fire it immediately

[unreal merlin]

If you drop them while holding, they retain their ready-state

[glacial light]

Thats a big one for me, commando you basically quick draw fire in comparison to EATs

Also its maintains a lock on with a pinl and if you hipfire into the sky itll curve onto the enemy by itself

So you dont even need to maintain the lockon

[steady flame]

Probably going to be shot by our democracy officer but if the bots can build an indestructible shield why can’t we?

Serious the heavy devastator shield has literally infinite health

[cobalt patrol]

Budget issues

[strange vine]

it really shouldnt imo

its already immune to heavy pen weapons with AV5

no reason why it should have infinite health

[hazy oriole]

if i can't get a machine gun shooting buckshot as a support weapon i'd at least like them to make a sidegrade to the arc thrower that works like a beefier blitzer

shorter range, but no need to wind it up to shoot it, and hits like a freight train

[blissful sparrow]

USAS-12 with frag rounds time

[steady flame]

You shot out THE SUN?!

Prudentia | LFACs given ↩️

[Reply to:](#1204832579287519292 message) USAS-12 with frag rounds time

Though to be fair, it'd be balanced as a support weapon, considering it's fighting with, you know, shit like the RR, the AC, and the Spear.

[lethal delta]

For those who have it

How does the Inspector helmet from truth enforcers look like the heavy armor from dust devils?

[split parcel]

Is that the white one in the warbond?

The white truth enforcers helmet I mean

[lethal delta]

Yep

[split parcel]

It doesn't really work well together. Inspector helmet is pretty white and heavy dust devil armor is like, a noticeably darker beige

[lethal delta]

Cursed

I really hope we end up getting colour schemes if we don't get transmog tbh

[glacial light]

So for those that kept up with the story, why is illuminate space like right next to super earth

What's funny is the democracy station is at the very edges of illuminate space

[cobalt patrol]

Oh, that's mostly because we've been lazy about pruning back squid space

Also they did invade super earth that time

[knotty folio]

There's also been pretty constant bot and bug MOs for a while

So other than Beach they've been mostly ignored

[cobalt patrol]

Yeah, Beach is a running joke (because Halo Reach and the meme we told the Xbox divers that it was the squids fault)

[glacial light]

That's pretty funny

[hazy oriole]

solid proposal, i was thinking something like the abzats from metro

[glacial light]

A primary version of the airburst launcher

Basically the Eruptor

[stark ether]

i need hd2 to have a leveraction rocket launcher

[glacial light]

Well eruptor doesn't got you, it's more a lever action grenade launcher

[stark ether]

need more leveraction things that shouldnt be leveraction

[lethal delta]

It's even worse than I thought

Sadge

[knotty folio]

It's not as jarring in some lighting but yeah unfortunately pretty bad

[cobalt patrol]

The other thing is because of the way liberation works you actually need the majority of the playerbase to be on a single planet to get anywhere, unless it's got like no reinforcements (0.0).

Which because the playerbase tends to fragment across all three fronts + blob following the DSS means very little gets done

[lethal delta]

I guess I could use the eyeless one from the cutting edge warbond

[glacial light]

Imo we need another station that's sort of like primarily for force multipliers, like it's mutually exclusive and passively takes the planet and halts progress so anything that isn't where the main station is can be liberated.

[cobalt patrol]

Or, and hear me out here

Liberation/defence could just be based on players active in that faction

[glacial light]

Probably, any solution but the current liberation system

[cobalt patrol]

Instead of a bot planet being harder to liberate because there's a 100k on a bug planet

[unreal merlin]

It's been quite a few months since our Major Orders entailed making actual decisive pushes for territory control. I do genuinely miss the days of grand strategy, cutting off regions of Automaton systems only to then ravage liberate them once their supply lines had been cut off.

[strange vine]

hows this for a Commando icon?

[glacial light]

A lot better than the current

Current one looks similar to most other At support options

[cobalt patrol]

Current one is literally the spear icon except with a line through the rocket, it's awful

[ionic holly]

Yeah i have confused the spear and commando so many times

[knotty folio]

I'm still not a big fan of using the laser icon for the pointer, it feels like there should be another icon for tracking rather than damaging lasers

[strange vine]

well they use the same icon for switching modes

could make it a dotted line i guess

[knotty folio]

Huh, TIL

Tbf I don't think I like that design choice from them either :p

[knotty folio]

I definitely prefer this version

[strange vine]

in-game comparison

[cobalt patrol]

The dotted line works better to be

Me* even

[fringe quiver]

So apparently I'm super dumb

Because I cant figure out how to get the high command dispatch channel to not ping me

Maybe I got it

[glacial light]

Cant have Shete in Illuminate space

[tight zephyr]

can’t have shete in illuminate territory

[strange vine]

replicating how HD2 colors its icons in gimp was a chore
i decided to go back to the older icon instead of the rocket icon because its a missile, not a rocket
but hopefully theyre different enough now its unlikely to mistake them

[knotty folio]

Bottom one is Wasp?

The backpack symbol definitely helps differentiate

Just not sure if it's Wasp or Spear

Ah, Spear

[glacial light]

Backpack symbol would be nice to see see what requires a pack at a glance

[knotty folio]

I'm pretty sure Skaian's mod already has them! #1204832579287519292 message

[idle hollow]

I wish we got stinger missiles

E-AT equivalent for the spear

[glacial light]

Commando

It just doesnt track moving targets unlike spear

Against buildings it is fire and forget

Id want expendable gatling where it just drops the support weapon that cant be reloading

Id want a gunner pack of ammo but I dont think any expendable weapons has a backpack

[knotty folio]

That's feels like it would overlap a lot with the HMG emplacement

[strange vine]

a disposable spear missile launcher called the Stinger was in the files like a year ago, but not much more than that

[strange vine]

god i want the disposable MG from HD1 again so badly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Gmgtwv8dVE

[glacial light]

Nah it's portable

There's both EATs and Eat encampment it's not unprecedented

And hmg encampment

[glacial light]

I'd would just get disposable everything if I could

[strange vine]

https://www.rxddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1oqdeek/i_dont_know_how_to_prove_it_but_the_automatons/

[glacial light]

I mean you were killed by a machine

Mech Pelican has almost killed me so many times, I throw it on what looks like a clear patch and they drop my mech almost on top of a teammate or me

I just see the large shadow and dive in case my mech is being dropped on me.

[knotty folio]

The new Leviathans are super nifty, huge fan of them

Also had a falling Stingray crash into the landing Pelican and send it swinging wildly away, delaying the landing while it stabilized

Which was a nifty bit of emergent gameplay

[glacial light]

I've lost 3 high priority assets cause a stingray crashed into the generators

[knotty folio]

Yeah they love to angle for those, it's super annoying

[glacial light]

And with the way they spawn from edge with spawn to players it puts them in the path of generators a lot. I take extra concern to either kill it early or real late

[knotty folio]

I try to snipe them right at the start of their strafing run with the AT emplacement, but if someone's standing too far back it can still be too close

[glacial light]

Leviathans are neat, though multiple per mission is a pain

I don't really try to kill them but I use the commando to knock out the lasers and turrets

[knotty folio]

It's very cinematic having two cross the extraction raining down lasers

I need to practice Erupting their lasers

[glacial light]

And it makes me appreciate warp pack more

[knotty folio]

Seems like two Solo Silos pop a Leviathan nicely

[glacial light]

They just lose aggro if you warp or break LoS for a second

Damn, I've been wanting to try silo ever since they updated it so enemies don't purposefully attack them

[knotty folio]

It's a ton of fun

[glacial light]

I'm sad it only has a demo force of 40

[knotty folio]

Just remember that the laser pistol in your hand is the target painter not the Talon

I had that issue several times today

[glacial light]

It's probably to avoid jammer being one shot by them, but you could make the demo force 50 to take out more structures and make it spiral out of control in jammers

I see it used to pop factory striders a lot

And sometimes dragons

[knotty folio]

Yeah, bonus demo force would be nice, but I'm here to bonk big enemies and groups

[glacial light]

I run objectives mostly

Almost never highest kills but always lowest deaths and the one to do the objectives (unfortunately usually solo)

[knotty folio]

Same re:doing objectives, so I don't need a stratagem to kill 'em

[glacial light]

Eruptor is good for that

Just kills most objectives youd use a grenade for

[knotty folio]

Yep

[glacial light]

Warp pack just let's you run away from so many situations you shouldnt with like half the enemies on you

[knotty folio]

Eruptor + Thermite is especially nice on squids and bots, Eruptor for when you've got a good angle or spare time, Thermites when you just want to not deal with it

[glacial light]

I'm a believer in warp pack now

[knotty folio]

I'll probably grab that next

Though I do adore my dogs. Lets me just murder my way through basically anything

[glacial light]

It pops hard if you just spam it to basically move faster, it'd let you go faster than normal light armor in heavy armor.

CD is quite low compared to the other mobility packs and while you don't have iframes being able to go 15 feet instantly let's you avoid attacks that dodge couldn't

So it's like hybrid mobility boost and better dodge

[knotty folio]

Yeah, it's nifty from when I've used it

[glacial light]

It synergizes well with eruptor cause you could warp then safely shoot where you were, makes berserkers/bugs a lot easier

Ah I assumed you didn't have it since you mentioned grabbing it next

[knotty folio]

I don't have it, but played with it a decent amount from peoples' spares/the free packs on Oshaune the other day

[glacial light]

Yea that's what sold me on it

[glacial light]

https://youtube.com/shorts/Eq_IsQ_zkUQ?si=3RDZqRcqd5sq2TQE

[cobalt patrol]

Hmnmm.

lol

[strange vine]

i miss the service technician :(

[steady flame]

There is something funny about how the proposed solution is “steal a rainforest” rather than just…plant a new one

[blissful sparrow]

scratches off the nameplate of the Ministry of Prosperity The British Museum???

[glacial light]

Trees take time to grow, stealing is now

That's also very funny why are we wanting a rainforest

I hope it's to restore a planet we destroyed the ecosystem of

[spare verge]

during the invasion of super earth they cut down the rainforests for extra airstrips to fight off the invasion

[glacial light]

Amazing

[spare verge]

also, if super earth can do that, this implies that there's no real reason it's the "last remaining rainforests"

they could terraform super earth to be better

they just don't

[glacial light]

They want trees now

Waiting is undemocratic

Stealing an entire ecosystem is pretty funny as a fictional concept

[spare verge]

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

[glacial light]

Space balls how I miss you in a rose tinted glasses way

[knotty folio]

Presumably, next time Super Earth is invaded we'll cut down the new trees again

[stark ether]

presumably the trees will be filled with unimaginable horrors

[glacial light]

Inb4 the trees were full of terminid spores and there'd an invasion on super earth

[glacial light]

Man portable hellbomb is so nice on bots and silo too

One shot the factory striders and with warp park I will get the hellbomb to destroy the gunship or jammer, even if I need to triple teleport to do so.

I do love playing aggressively

To me one person soloing and dying is worth it over a slow prolonged engagement where everyone is being super cautious and like 4 deaths happen.

It makes the expendable lives calculus quite enjoyable

[strange vine]

Toying with changing the shield generator emplacement icon

[azure rock]

I like the first one just from a "readability from afar" standpoint, though the connecting to the ground part of the second is a good touch

[split parcel]

I've been taking it all the time recently. Makes me very sad that I can't use it and like, warp pack or jump pack at the same time lol

Maybe I'll do that one trick with AT Emplacement

Light Unflinching armor is pretty good for making Hellbomb runs

Incredible drip helps too

[knotty folio]

Not a huge fan of the second one, couldn't say specifically why

[glacial light]

It's my fuck it we ball move and I drop my warp pack and support weapon in a safe spot and go in

Also spire lung

I've noticed randos will just call it in but not take it so all 4 of us are at the lung and I'm like, who has the hellbomb?

I just bring my own now so I do not have to wait for objective

I also run medic armor with stim booster so you can easily march through any spore lung area or jammer by the power of constant drugs and speed boost if you're willing to burn 6 Stims

I have a hard time switching from medic cause the 2 Stims is often the difference between a death sentence with the hellbomb vs actually making it out alive with no Stims

[strange vine]

hows this

[knotty folio]

Oh I do like that one

[azure rock]

i do like dat

[glacial light]

Warrant is pretty neat, it's nice for no aim fire and forget kills for a side arm

I got the solo silo and the CD feels real slow but it's very cool feeling

[cobalt patrol]

I think the cooldown is reasonable now it's very hard to destroy it early

It's just such a potent thing, a better than 500kg you can perfectly aim

[lethal delta]

Does it still have little demo power?

[graceful bluff]

wiki says it still only has 40 yeah

[split parcel]

You can also just throw it down somewhere safe and carry the gun with you until you need it

[unreal merlin]

I think the best part of the silo's niche is being able to lase things across the map. It lets you deal with certain objectives very quickly and/or easily (command bunkers especially)

[rare nymph]

It’s great for high level Bots, I find

Pops command bunkers and factory striders

[split parcel]

Convoys too

Lets you dunk on them at your own leisure

[tight zephyr]

Yeah, the silo seems to be a bot-specific weapon. It's not much use against bugs or squids, I think.

I haven't been playing Helldivers as much recently. I should change that.

[split parcel]

Still nice for taking out spore towers and shrieker nests for bugs, maybe the pseudo jammers on squids too?

[glacial light]

No stratagem can destroy those technically but the power supplies can be popped by barrages or clusters

The only squid use I see it excel at is kills a leviathan in 2-3 shots

[glacial light]

Well it can destroy less buildings than a 500kg

[glacial light]

Hmm I realize there are 4 expendable stratagems with eats, neats, commando, and solo silo.

The most expendable loadout

[split parcel]

yeah the 4 power supplies is what i was meaning

[glacial light]

Well it can take out 1 power supply

[split parcel]

are they too far apart otherwise?

[glacial light]

The explosive radius is quite small similar to 500kg

[split parcel]

gotcha

[glacial light]

I'm not sure what it is about the psu but they're rather hard to pop with most orbitals/eagles. Probably cause they're sort of embedded inside the wall a bit

[oblique lotus]

iirc some stuff with line of sight

cluster does a good job

[knotty folio]

Portable Hellbomb too

[glacial light]

Oh yes to turn you into the expendable

[tight zephyr]

One of my friends always brings what she refers to as her "funny backpack" that she uses if she feels like she's been cornered.

[glacial light]

I've grown to like it

Mostly cause you only need to input once for the stratagem

Not needing to do the call down in a hot zone and then arm it let's you get away with destroying objectives by playing stupid aggressive

I think my loadout npw is warp pack, commando, portable hellbomb, and silo.

The big boom loadout

I want to like EATs but the prep time for switching to it feels so long

[knotty folio]

The fact it can't be destroyed is super nice

I could see the exosuits counting as expendable stratagems as well

[glacial light]

I never thought about if it could be destroyed

I always do it myself by priming it

[knotty folio]

It's annoying when you've got a particularly large group of enemies you don't want to deal with on your tail, you can't just drop the hellbomb, circle around, and arm it on a second pass through

Or if you get ragdolled while it's landing

Things like the grenade spam from War Striders can pop it very quickly (I think a single grenade volley did pre-nerf, if you were unlucky - not sure about now)

Only 350hp apparently

[glacial light]

Oh I see you meant the OG non stratagem hellbomb

[knotty folio]

Well, it's still a stratagem

But yes, the non-portable one

[glacial light]

I commandeered a dead players eats encampment and damn it's kind of wild

Less damage than eats and deals similar damage to commando but you can rapid fire dozens of shells. And looking at the wiki it's only like 180s.

If you had a sentry or dog then you could go ham.

[stark ether]

eats encampment?!?!? did i miss a warbond?

oh the at emplacment

[knotty folio]

Yeah AT Emplacement is exceptional

One of my favorite strats for bots generally, and IMO required for 2-player defenses on D10 Illuminate

Particularly fun on hilly maps against bots, you can find a peak and remove 90% of the fabs and cannons on the map, then start sniping heavies and dropships

[split parcel]

i should do this with hover pack

[unreal merlin]

AT emplacement is a universal problem-solver assuming the enemies are not already right on top of you. Cross-mapping enemies and objectives with it is my ideal bot experience.

[knotty folio]

The only awkward thing with hover pack + rocks is it loves to bounce off surfaces

[split parcel]

it does, but it's fun when it works as expected

[spare verge]

I was wondering why so much of the bug front was specifically on crimsica

[glacial light]

Is that it's name the entire time or is it like a glitch

[spare verge]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Llanfairpwllgwyngyll

[glacial light]

Amazing

[graceful bluff]

The average persons first reaction upon being exposed to welsh

[stark ether]

compound words are cheating

[harsh kayak]

Germany disagrees

[glacial light]

Sort of vain but I wished we got a end mission stat for like primaries done and objectives completed

Since I mostly take stuff to do objectives and be fast not really killy.

Just run past hordes, do the objective, then leave, go elsewhere while team clears up fabs.

[split parcel]

I did this last night on one of the cold moon bot planets and was immediately torched by a factory strider lmao

We had some whack map generation. It was "Destroy the dropships" and one of the bases was on a hill with incredibly steep sides that you couldn't climb up, and the only way up was a narrow path on the back side that took you outside the map edge for several seconds. And of course there were fabricators and a factory strider up there lmao

[glacial light]

Oh damn I had that too

Except it was moreso a plateau with 2 paths, one path made you go outside the map and the other did a massive loop

Everyone except the jetpack guy had a bad time.

What was worse was it was a jammer overlapping another jammer

We should not have won that mission the game was throwing everything to stop us

[oblique lotus]

I actually like the balance between the senator and talon

both feel good without one just being better

the senator heavy armor pen lets it clutch in a couple situations and amps its damage against medium enemies plus it has basically 0 sway with the gunslinger armor but the talon has infinite ammo and can be spammed from hipfire very effectively

[glacial light]

Nice on bots for like popping eyes

I think you can still kill a hulk with senator if you aim good

[stone bridge]

wdym still?

always could since the Senator got made heavy pen

[glacial light]

I haven't tried that since I came back so I wasn't sure, I got the talon and stuck with it.

Also Eruptor is heavy now so no reason for me to use senator

[unreal merlin]

Senator has way better handling characteristics, the eruptor is a glacier. I do like exploding alpha commander heads with it though

[glacial light]

Eruptor's shrapnel is big

But eruptor and senator seems redundant

For a sidearm to use if enemies get too close for eruptor there seems to be better options

[cobalt patrol]

Yeah, i wouldnt stack Eruptor and Senator

sentator is to compliment things like an Ap2 bullet hose

[glacial light]

Basically

Every time I try another primary I think about Eruptor

[cobalt patrol]

I have never liked the eruptor. Much prefer my purifiers, dead eyes and carbines

[glacial light]

Its mostly I'd miss my primary having AoE for ad clear, high HP damage via sharpnel, heavy pen for armor, x10 scope for sniping, explosive for destroying building, good stagger. A primary that does everything needed to kill every enemy in the game but not in melee and fires very slowly.

It's just the ideal weapon for me since I run a lot so a weapon you spend more time sprinting than shooting is nice to me. I rarely use it to hunker down and push back a horde but kind of skirmish, pick off the annoying mediums for teammates & pop objectives.

For a grenade sniper it's ironically a good skirmisher hit and run weapon if you run around in the backlines.

[oblique lotus]

I like the senator for bot headshots

[glacial light]

The counter sniper seems good for that if youre good at aiming which I am not

[oblique lotus]

it's also just a very good secondary for "oh it's only one dude I don't want to waste an eruptor shot"

since it'll reliably pop just about anything

[glacial light]

That's what I use talon for

Around same damage, infinite ammo if you don't fire 7 shots in a row, med pen is good enough for most things that get close to you.

Or bushwacker since it has the strong stagger despite being light

[strange vine]

AH posted a new survey in their discord that's not as barebones as they've been in the past. Linking here for those not on discord and want to share feedback:
https://survey.alchemer.com/s3/8517525/hd2

[glacial light]

I discovered that EATs, NEATs, and portable hellbomb are a heavy killing combo for bots.

So much litter

I struggle to use them all there's just not even heavies

[unreal merlin]

throw in solo silo for the full blue kit

[glacial light]

I sometimes do

Being able to one shot a strider every 3 minutes is nice

[verbal summit]

That and saving them all up n just launching them all after the other just gotta run around for the laser designator

[glacial light]

I do like that, seems like most objectives you need to stay in the area for it causes spawns to increase in that region including heavies

Quasar can only take out one every like 18 seconds but like half a dozen pods of eats/neats on the objective says bring it on

You cannot kill me in a way that matters, the expendable weapons cant die until its used.

i will say its painful to do warp pack/eats/neats cause thats only one free slot and on bots I usually go with portable hellbomb

I got no eagles/orbitals/sentries

I like exterminates cause I could just bring only eagles/orbitals and end up putting in the most work

I'm here for a kill time not a long time

[unreal merlin]

500kg + Airstrike + Strafe + Orbital Gatling

[glacial light]

Even more.
Airburst, cluster eagle, laser, anti tank mine field

Bugs I do napalm

With sidearm being ultimatum, ammo isn't an issue as I'll probably die a lot in

[oblique lotus]

ship complete!

[glacial light]

Nice

Ive got like 3 left

But my bottleneck is rare samples

[knotty folio]

Always the rare samples

[glacial light]

https://www.rxddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1kvlpm9/hellbomb_trebuchet_leviathan/

[knotty folio]

???

Note that this was a completed mission, so of course all four bunkers were destroyed

It only gave 3 stars even D:

[knotty folio]

It happens a lot with secondaries but this is the first I've seen it on a primary objective

[glacial light]

Your democracy officer said the 4th one wasn't destroyed enough

[glacial light]

I used to be all in on heavy then I went medium and now I see the appeal of light armor. It may be redundant with warp pack but I am the fastest helldivers alive

Stim armor and stim booster so I can cross the map in under 30 seconds

[dense grotto]

Medium armor
Engineer kit
Sickle
Talon
Warp pack
Quasar

And the patriot exosuit

All I need is a laser mech

And I'll never beg for resupply ever again

[glacial light]

Supply pack

You will never touch resupply and can field ultimatum to kill heaviest and spam machine guns at highest fire rate on chaff without worry

Use the most ammo hungry guns, spam nades, spam Stims for a papercut, and be fine

I used to stan hard for it but warp pack is just very fun

[dense grotto]

Fr

[stark ether]

Supply pack is so slept on

[supple siren]

Too many supplies

[stone bridge]

you can never have too many

[strange vine]

i dont think its slept on that much? its very much an S-tier backpack

[split parcel]

The way it works with resupply pods is awesome as well

[ionic holly]

might be bias but i'm pretty sure i'm the only one in my friend group who doesn't run it

but even then i run into the the very typical eruptor/ultimatum/stalwart(or MG)/supply loadout so many times i filled an entire note with tally marks

[oblique lotus]

I prefer gundog to supply pack

[knotty folio]

Supply pack gets more valuable the less coordinated the team is, IME - if you're calling supplies off cooldown it's pretty much impossible to run out of supplies, but less coordinated teams usually don't call them in nearly as often (since it can easily lead to supplies on cooldown when one player desperately needs them)

Also more valuable on planets without towns/cities, since less scavenge

[glacial light]

To me it's lesso run out of supplies and moreso you can use supplies stupidly and not run out

If you use it selfishly you can like stim up before every fight even if it looks safe, stim just cause you ran out of stamina, throw termites at every single spawner without a care in the world, magdump your ammo hungry gun on chaff.

You're super safe by using your strongest offensive and defensive tools in every situation non threatening it is

[oblique lotus]

Yeah I definitely get how supply pack is useful but my playstyle tends to be ammo efficient on its own so the need for supply pack is reduced

and gundog adds an extra 8 mags of libpen that get replenished by ammo pickups for free

[glacial light]

Imo I think it's lesso slept on but moreso not as interesting if you use it a ton. It is S tier but it mostly just let's you use your basic tools and at some point you can play your preferred difficulty fine without it with other options adding more to the enjoyment.

Like dogs give you a nice peace of mind especially for bugs, mobility packs give you a new movement tool, backpack AT feel good to just delete heavies for breakfast.

[glacial light]

It's really fun with ultimatum, just yeet mini hellbombs at every heavy

[oblique lotus]

Yeah theres a good balance of choices

Supply pack makes unsustainable loadouts sustainable, the various dogs add pretty significant firepower, the mobility packs make you considerably faster, etc

I think the quasar might actually be overbuffed tbph

[glacial light]

HD2 to me feels well balanced and you can play d10 with a majority of options without needing to be cracked at the game.

[oblique lotus]

Getting a medium AT shot every 15s for free is low enough CD that you can use it multiple times in a fight and it recharges on the move and it doesnt take up a pack slot

Also the blast is fast as hell and has no drop

[glacial light]

The 3 second charge gets me

[oblique lotus]

Yeah that stings but you don't need to stop and crouch to reload it

[glacial light]

It's probably cause I run light armor and play reckless, but I don't get many chances to be able to be almost still for 3 seconds for a kill. I'm sure if say you stick with the team and not rushing into groups of enemies it's a lot easier to find the 3s but thats not really my playstyle moreso than anything with the weapon

[split parcel]

Are there AT support weapon options that both don't have a backpack and can be reloaded by Supply Pack?

[glacial light]

Epoch technically

Speargun

I think unsafe rail gun

[oblique lotus]

do you count the HMG as AT?

But railgun definitely

[glacial light]

I assumed it was AT like it had AT level pen

But also decent at killing enemies with AT armor. Weapons I know have AT pen but I definitely wouldn't try killing a tank with is sterilizer, arc thrower, or flamethrower unless I'm missing something about them.

[cobalt patrol]

Ft might actually do well... If you can get behind the tank and onto the vents

[glacial light]

Is flamethrower not napalm damage? I learned the difference between napalm and flame dot when napalm barrages were free. Napalm dot is anti tank but much shorter and fire is heavy

Why pyrotech grenade can kill factory striders with 3 thrown at its feet alongside most heavies

[oblique lotus]

You can kill tank vents with small arms that doesn't count

[unreal merlin]

It is not napalm

[cobalt patrol]

Ft just flat out does a lot of damage, it can dumpster bts in less than a mag

It's main issues are it doesn't have much range and it doesn't stagger, so you constantly self ignite it get swarmed

[knotty folio]

AMR, if that counts

[unreal merlin]

Epoch

In fact I regularly run both Epoch and Supply Pack specifically so I can go wild with obliterating alpha commanders and hive guards and devastators in addition to the usual AT targets (charges, BTs, tanks, turrets, facstriders, etc)

I'll even run siege ready light armor for the extra mag and faster reload

[glacial light]

Epoch on full charge is ap5, not full charge it's heavy

Benefit is you can spam it like 3 times in a row before reloading so it has better burst potential than quasar but ammo is rough without supply pack

And it charges faster than quasar

But you might blow yourself up

The time window between max damage and self exploding is really short and hard to see in 3rd person then the audio cue for when it's ready happens before the visual flash of you're going to explode in half a second and bad network connection can get you killed.

[unreal merlin]

They recently widened the full charge hold window, and I strongly recommend not relying on a visual cue. Audio cue is a very distinct whine that cuts through noise, and you're literally choosing to charge the weapon so your ears should know what to be listening for after the charge time

[glacial light]

The issue is with bad network connection the host could reach the overcharged trigger before it plays client sideb

So 1st person I am absolutely certain it's not even in overcharge let alone I overcharged yet I explode before I hear or see a cue

[unreal merlin]

I can't comment on this phenomenon because I've never experienced it. I'm sorry to hear you apparently have inconsistent-enough connections that this is a problem.

[glacial light]

Do you play with a group or with randos mostly

I play with randos, sometimes at like 2am on a weekday so like it's not match making me with anyone close and that's when I notice it most, I just don't use it outaide of peak user count time. It's odd cause rail gun on unsafe is fine for me

[unreal merlin]

Almost entirely randoms

It is suffering and my friends pity me for it

But consequently I am decently practiced in running self-sufficiently

[cobalt patrol]

I enjoy the challenging of picking up random teams and carrying them across the d10 finish line

[unreal merlin]

Despite their BEST EFFORTS to fail, we will drag them to success.

[split parcel]

Is it fully charged as soon as that high pitch beep/whine starts sounding?

[glacial light]

The pain is real

[glacial light]

Yea, a little before that there's only what I can describing as a higher pitched whirring or steam sound to indicate you're about to be in peak overcharge beeping state

[glacial light]

There are times where I just go fuck it we ball because the team is like trying to approach a jammer super slow and cautious and end up burning like 7 reinforcements from basically standing on the edge of the danger and I just die for 6 Stims, drop my good stuff, get the hellbomb, and rush in myself with Stims active at all time and drop the portable hellbomb before I run out and die

Me dying once to prevent even 2 deaths is something I'd do every time

Warp pack, eats, neats, portable hellbomb is my new Togo loadout

Might replace eats/neats with silo and something else but I'm still playing around

[split parcel]

Do you just swap Warp and Hellbomb mid mission?

[unreal merlin]

Yes, the entire "steady whine" tone is a full charge

The only time I'll say to use a visual cue for epoch charge is to see the flash and use that to recognize "oh this sound is what plays when the charge is ready" (and then never rely on the visual cue)

[split parcel]

That's what I thought, felt natural, wasn't sure if there was something else to look out for

[glacial light]

Yes if I plan to use the hellbomb

Drop warp pack where I'd be reinforced

Or at times just drop it to kill something

[odd arch]

late but imo the optimal play with supply pack is to have something ammo hungry in every slot

if you're refilling 1 weapon constantly, might as well refill 3 plus nades

[oblique lotus]

I have exploded due to lag before

[glacial light]

Pretty much, options that you normally wouldn't take due to poor ammo economy become really good cause many are made to be stronger with the intent they are balanced by low reserves.

If you wanted to super maximize then stun nades, just throw one at your feet the moment the previous start and with dozens of Stims at your disposable you can brute force solo push into an objective without killing

One nade I found fun with supply pack is seekers, use seekers like candy and it's like a weird guard dog

Ultimatum spam too

[split parcel]

Total Variable Spam Supply Pack

[glacial light]

Only total mode, you got stims

[fringe quiver]

BERNARD

[rare nymph]

… I don’t even know why they bother putting up for a vote

We all know how this will end

[graceful bluff]

New york supremes isn't entirely out of the race

[glacial light]

Just as super democracy intends

[burnt vapor]

Gun was funny but I do hope they exercise some managed democracy for this one

[split parcel]

You can also just fire from prone and be fine

[glacial light]

Interesting does it not do damage if you prone?

[split parcel]

Nope, no damage or knockback

[glacial light]

https://www.rxddit.com/r/helldivers2/comments/1ow34ty/bernard/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

[fringe quiver]

Bernard!

[glacial light]

Huh it embedded the 2nd image

I meant to post the 1st image in the post

[strange vine]

something i was thinking about is that while the AC support weapon, the emancipator, and AC turret share the same ammo icon, the former has AP4 while the latter 2 have AP5. So I was thinking to do something similar with my MG icons having different designs for different penetration values for the AC icons

[graceful bluff]

Could have two bullet icons for the autocannon to keep the two bullet thing but have one of them represent the flak rounds

[strange vine]

in-game

[glacial light]

Man icons for pen would be a nice QoL

Something like no line med or less, 1 line heavy, 2 lines AT, 3 lines even more

[azure rock]

armor pen icons would be so helpful

[glacial light]

I have beef with the icons in general

A lot of them look too similar and it makes using one you usually don't a pain to find when everyone else already ready'd up

[azure rock]

🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

[glacial light]

I like shoring up for my team when I play with randos to not use the same loadout every time

[strange vine]

my mod has one for the bullets

[glacial light]

What's HD2 modding scene like

[strange vine]

lotta model swap mods

visual mods, audio mods, etc.

[glacial light]

Ok so mostly aesthetics?

[strange vine]

mostly yeah

i know theres some mods that do stuff like make all samples emit a beacon or making the stratagem illumination flare work

these are most of the icons my mod changes

[glacial light]

Oh thats neat

[strange vine]

current version, you can install with the hd2 arsenal mod manager

[strange vine]

published my stratagem icon mod
https://www.nexusmods.com/helldivers2/mods/9356

[glacial light]

Chat my shoulder is kind of sore should I get it checked out?

[hexed steeple]

you'll be fine. here's a stim

[glacial light]

What flavor stim

[ionic holly]

Stim flavor

[glacial light]

As a medic armor user that's my favorite one

[hexed steeple]

with the update a couple weeks ago what's the best place to shoot war striders with an anti-materiel rifle

[strange vine]

Eyes or vent if you have the sights on it

[hexed steeple]

which one's the eye? it's got two glowingg red thingies in front

[strange vine]

Both of them, but they have separate health pools

[hexed steeple]

huh okay

thanks!

[strange vine]

[glacial light]

Huh TIL war strider eyes exist

[steady flame]

Yeah it was one of the recent updates

[glacial light]

Ive only run eruptor with bots since returning and they got mega explosive resist and I just do some shots at the leg.

I'm rather bad at aiming for eyes except with commando

Eruptor gaming cause I want to feel like a sniper with the x10 scope but don't aim like one.

Hit a shield devastator not on the shield and get a kill? That's enough aiming for me

[oblique lotus]

I'm getting concerningly good with eruptor irons

Hulk heads move a little too much for consistent sniping but looping shots over heavy dev shields and into legs n things is getting second nature

[glacial light]

Damn I envy you

I have a hard time hitting things without a x10 or x4 scope

But the iron sight has such good ergonomics

Makes a huge difference on eruptor, I tried peak physique armor and it was night and day but unfortunately I kind of crutch on having 6 Stims

[oblique lotus]

I find the sway to be really bad with the scopes

But irons are solid for locational hits out to ~100m and then beyond that you can shoot center mass or large weakpoint fairly reliably

[glacial light]

I like the 200m scope for shooting vents and gunships

Trying out new guns and punisher family feels great on terminids, stalkers stay stunned

And hover pack makes quasar much less risky to charge

How you fall super slowly is annoying though

[cobalt patrol]

Try out the lib family for stalkers, esp lib Carbine

Trick with them is their body HP is huge , but their head has like 200 HP at most and the fatal tag.

So bullethoses actually wreck them if you can aim straight

[glacial light]

Unfortunately I cannot aim well

Also round reload feels so nice in a game since you can't wait bullets in a mag and you load it pretty quick

The fire load fire load rhythm is nice

[knotty folio]

I near-universally use third-person aim, which seems to be fairly unusual for an Eruptor user? But I really like how mobile it makes you

(Not quite universally since I sometimes pick up an AMR off the ground)

[glacial light]

I use it third person but moreso do a quick shot behind me without aiming

Yea it does let you play real mobile

I do scope in for distant shots

Otherwise the third person hit and runs

Unrelated but I unlocked the Halt and wow it's an amazing shotgun

The fletchette and stun rounds being separate magazine's is a life saver

Always have several stun shot barrage every moment you need it

[glacial light]

Man free lasers is wild on bots

Take a laser and each person can solo 6 fab hubs on average its just easy mode

If theres a factory strider convoy they get crisped by all the lasers

[split parcel]

wife got me a fun sticker on etsy

[strange vine]

Omg

[glacial light]

God I need a, I was at Malevelon Creek and all I got is this sticker

[glacial light]

I get it, I get democracy protect. I survived a portable hellbomb and a direct cannon tower shot and was still alive

And I realized how many one shots there are

Physics is the deadliest enemy. Shame no light option but I get it'd be too strong on light

[oblique lotus]

democracy protects, helldiver

if you carry democracy in your heart you will never die

[agile fable]

i care not for democracy, and yet i am protected.

[cobalt patrol]

Tbh, there's only a lot of one shots at medium or lower armor

I stick to extra padding medium, and you can survive a lot of things short of like, bt stepped on you. Hell you can walk on mines and live

[odd arch]

I very rarely wear heavy armour but when I do it's almost always explosive resist

because the combined durability is just unmatched

explosives become just rocket jump opportunities

[glacial light]

Hmm I hear Warrant can lock onto stalkers

[graceful bluff]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/309171491826696192/1439351359940985203/comic-meme-my-friends-keep-dying-i-wonder-why-v0-69g10e20je1g1.webp?ex=691adcaa&is=69198b2a&hm=8b35d6d683db5c86d3de0969632e213e8508c6d7b03c00bc8f535341cdf0a09a&

[verbal summit]

People shit on arc tower and arc things but it's peak

Just don't be between me and the enemy

And then people get between me and the enemy and they blame me

[glacial light]

Arc dog cares not where the blood comes from only that it flows

For bugs it's a monster if there's no teammates nearby

[supple siren]

Arc chains sometimes make some real decisions okay

It finds a path

[glacial light]

So I've been enjoying it, monster of guard if you like to go off and flank or solo objectives

I just stow it if there's someone nearby

[odd arch]

arc tower has crazy potential for how low its cooldown is

it just needs to survive your allies trying to preemptively blow it up

[glacial light]

I ran all arc trio once and it's all I think about

All arc resist armor, all arc dogs, all Tesla towers, all arc thrower

No enemies ever moved

[verbal summit]

Like people blame the arc but if people can just get the hang of positioning its so good

[glacial light]

I never trust randos with positioning

I've seen pub players put down sentries

[supple siren]

I mostly just dont trust that one Hunter jumping to the side and making the bolt take a few 90 degree turns

[verbal summit]

Yeah but the friends I play with will also just blame the arc

Like sure sometimes it's the arc

But a lot of it is also just people running right between me and the enemy.

[glacial light]

I don't really expect randos to adjust their playstyle for me at the slightest

[supple siren]

I will say it's also a lot to ask in this game

Sometimes you just need to be on the move

[verbal summit]

Myeah

But I want to arc

[supple siren]

Oh same

The dog is just danger mode

[glacial light]

I will have subside on orbital airburst for danger

It's a monster of clearing many enemies

And usually people won't run into itn

Usually

[verbal summit]

With how the destroyer is now on the sided of the map the orbital airbutst comes in at quite the angle usually

Which means it covers more whcih is good!

And it covers more which is dangerous!

So either you have to know where your destroyer is or you just gamble n run away in a direction n hope you're not about to get misted

My favourite orbital airburst clip is this

[glacial light]

I just always know where it is

The destroyer knows where it is

[verbal summit]

This clip was from before the update that put destroyers on the sides of the map

But yeah I usually just keep track

[glacial light]

City maps it's especially important

[verbal summit]

But not that my teammates keep track of my destroyer so sometimes they get misted

[glacial light]

I just throw it with a large margin of safety

Slightly further than the distance that I think a teammate running full sprint could cover during the inbound time

If they run onto the airburst after the first burst of extremely visible ground exploding that's on them

[verbal summit]

Yeah

Just sometimes with it being angled people will run away and stay still at like 30m distance but cus of the angle it can reach like 70m from the beacon

[glacial light]

It is beautiful to see the max angle throw though

This entire line of the zip code will receive death 3 times

And it's only 90 seconds

[trim breach]

I've run everybody with arc resist armor, arc dog, and arc thrower before

It was honestly kind of hilarious

[glacial light]

I dont really run it anymore since I found warp pack and got tired of checking the map constantly to make sure allies arent approaching me

I do admire HD2 for the build diversity.

Eruptor is a rather unique for games basically being a grenade sniper rifle.
Not much like Warp Pack in other games considering how spammable it is.

[trim breach]

I refer to both the Eruptor and the Dominator as the 'Legally-Distinct Boltgun'

[glacial light]

Dominator is actually legally distinct boltgun

Its a dual stage propelled projectile just like a boltgun

Eruptor moreso is like a precise grenade launcher

[trim breach]

Eruptor is also dual stage rocket IIRC

It just has actual blast damage and is a weird-ass bolt action setup

Or rather it has shrapnel damage

[glacial light]

Oh theyre both "jet propelled" weapons

Or rather dominator has "jet propelled rounds" and Eruptor has "jet-assisted shells"

Im not sure what the difference is if there is any

[fleet nacelle]

\ there isn’t

[steady flame]

Just two ways of wording the same thing

Or well, technically rocked propelled would be something like a gyro jet whereas rocket assisted would be a normal gunpowder charge AND a rocket

[oblique lotus]

Eruptor is also jet propelled which is why it doesn't have drag

[glacial light]

Is bullet drag a thing in HD2?

I know eruptor has a bullet drop

[cobalt patrol]

It absolutely has bullet drop, but wether that's calculated via drag or not I don't know

I use the drop to abuse trick shots with the RR all the time

[knotty folio]

Bullet drag and bullet drop both exist, they vary depending on the weapon

Eruptor has 0 drag and 30% bullet drop

[glacial light]

What is bullet drag in the game? Loss of speed in a projectile?

Eruptor having 0 drag means it just travels at a constant speed the entire time?

[knotty folio]

AIUI it's loss of speed over time, yeah

Which means loss of damage as well

[knotty folio]

Yep, which is why it has exactly 180m range - 180m/s projectile speed, 1s lifetime, no drag

(Though IIRC it detonates at the edge of that range so the explosion + shrapnel can go further)

Actually it looks like it might just be damage falloff, not actually speed? Need to verify

Oh, nope, it's both - from the wiki,

Projectiles lose velocity from drag factor. Damage increase can occur when firing at a target at a lower elevation using, for instance, JAR-5 Dominator which has 0% Drag but is affected by gravity. Reduction in speed and gravity is otherwise typical for most weapons no matter the elevation.

Weapons with 0% drag do not suffer damage fall-off.

[glacial light]

Huh neat

Eruptor stays winning

[glacial light]

Free laser & free laser cannon? Bot divers are eating a buffet

[ionic holly]

blegh

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/surely-theres-a-middle-ground-here-helldivers-studio-ceo-says-people-jump-to-extreme-takes-when-debating-genai/

I'm eh
i'm just gonna move on from HD2 methinks

[stone bridge]

over this article?

i mean honestly, it's a milquetoast neutral response that basically any CEO would give rn, especially when they've got Sony's higher ups glaring at them

[fringe quiver]

It's a valid reason as any tbf

[stone bridge]

i just don't think its indicative of anything tbh

[fringe quiver]

Depends.

Ultimately we'd like to think every human being has a good head on their shoulders, looks at backlash of gen AI in embark and gets the right things from it.
"this game would have a perfect score and nobody would have complaints if it wasn't for genAI"
Vs
"Wow we can have a game that did as good as arc raiders and no one will care as long as we successfully get the bag of the genre that doesn't have too many good games, even if we use genAI"

Fwiw tho none of us are execs so not like we're privy to those sorts of behind closed door meetings where execs weigh in on that stuff when they're chasing money

End of the day it's more, "I don't wanna play X game for Y reason"

Like I've got even less of a good reason

I mainly don't play cause every once in awhile I think about it and then I go, "but I'd want to do solo for farming stuff" and even if it comes to playing with people there's big question marks where.

I could completely explode on one of my friends for being an idiot and leaving his party open when he

A- complains about randoms
B- one of his relatives who he thinks is an idiot randomly can join and start dropping slurs and I explicitly tell him I don't like this relative.

Or I can try to find a match otherwise but then I don't like putting effort into finding more people to play with.

So I usually just look at like, ball x pit or w/e game on steam store that's sp and wonder if I should buy it.

Can't get much more dumb reasons than that

[karmic prawn]

The problem is he's being disingenous. People hate gen AI because it's practically synonymous with attempts to cut jobs with a low quality replacement.

[tall stone]

Honestly, yeah, this is the most nothingburger response.

This is "I have to answer this stupid question while trying not to piss off all the people that ensure I have a job on both ends"

[karmic prawn]

Though yes after some reflection I think the reporting is blowing it up a bit

[normal juniper]

i do think as a CEO he is to a degree out of touch, the whole "meet in the middle" thing reeks of a specific kind of spinelessness that the position may require

but i don't think he's that wrong about the idea that "why can't we figure out how to get AI to do the drudgery we Hate doing instead of the things we Want to do", which is the only usecase of "AI" that really makes any ethical sense to me bc it's not foundationally a plagiarism machine

i'd still rather do without AI altogether bc even the drudgery is massively important, and Someone Somewhere genuinely likes doing it

also we've gotten through creative processes fine without bolting on bullshit that largely only eats power and slows down the process in any way that matters but that's neither here nor there

His statement doesn't inspire confidence, but it also doesn't inspire anything other than "i don't really want to talk about this and just want to get back to doing my job", so. Eh

[tight zephyr]

As long as they don't start using AI, I'm fine. Although the statement does make me give Arrowhead the side-eye.

[harsh kayak]

Sony?

[stone bridge]

Where's the confusion, sorry?

[harsh kayak]

Why are sony higherups interested in HD2?

[spare verge]

sony publishes helldivers 2

[harsh kayak]

Ah

[stone bridge]

because it's easily one of their most successful games recently

[sweet surge]

Dec 2nd is the date to watch for.

[agile fable]

Hooooooooo boy SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES

[graceful bluff]

they also own the ip

[cobalt patrol]

Hmmm, game awards are 11th of December

[heady halo]

ktthey are going to brick everyones xbox to force them to buy steam decks

[glacial light]

Unfortunately

Helldivers is basically Arrowhead's baby but Sony gets the final say

[glacial light]

Who's that helldiver

[tight zephyr]

Don't worry about him or the dude who's still on Cyberstan.

[glacial light]

John Helldiver never gave up on bots

[unreal merlin]

https://youtu.be/R09y83XJJJU

[glacial light]

Using a weapon with ammo when you got no reinforcements is a bold move

[tight zephyr]

It's loaded with DEMOCRACY.

[odd arch]

there's enough on the ground for 300 years on continuous fire

remember how many helldivers died there with a full load

[tight zephyr]

Known issues:
Helldivers sometimes fight on planets that are not Hellmire.

[glacial light]

Do what they did for Malevelon Creek

[quick plinth]

*reveal trailer

[hazy oriole]

i think it'd be funny if they added a rare death animation if you get decapitated of the headless helldiver body hitting a salute before falling down

it's very much inspired by the same animation being on the voteless, i love the idea that they're so indoctrinated the super earth salute is built into their muscle memory

[glacial light]

Literal muscle memory

Not really ingrained reflexes in your brain, your muscles are democratic

[stark ether]

i mean many reflexes dont live in the brain

[quick plinth]

muscle memory is often not thought about, but yeah literally, your limbs can "remember" actions

[rare nymph]

Your spinal cord also governs a lot of reflexes iirc

There’s some impulses that travel from a limb to the spine and straight back to the limb

[hazy oriole]

anyone here use the stalwart on bots? i kinda wanna go devestator head-popping with it but i'm not sure what to pair it with + worried about ruining the match for my teammates

[knotty folio]

I don't usually take it as a stratagem, but when I've picked one up mid-mission it's felt fine paired with Eruptor and Thermites

Eruptor kills striders, Thermites kills heavies

[cobalt patrol]

If head popping is your goal you're much better off with a dead eye or diligence imho. Both of those crunk dev heads in a single bullet

[hazy oriole]

true but I wanna do it with something automatic with a generous mag

[hearty pier]

Drum mag liberator is a fun bot option for that reason

Stalwart on bots probably wants an eruptor/crossbow primary and a shield gen

[glacial light]

The carbine with mag is basically stalwart the primary

I don't what to use a secondary/support for like fleshmobs if I use a liberator carbine

It seems great for illuminate since they got light pen points though

[split parcel]

I'm a big Variable enjoyer for the Illuminate

Easily takes care of anything smaller than a Stingray/Harvester

And even takes care of Harvesters if you've got good aim. One taps them in the eye with Total mode

[glacial light]

Variable is fun, I did that double tap trick you taught me but changing it twice is a bit clunky

I accidentally use total mode often

[split parcel]

Keeps you on your toes :^)

[glacial light]

Eruptor is a beast for fleshmobs, 2 shot body shot

[cobalt patrol]

Autocannon

[glacial light]

I forgot autocannon has a flak mode but unfortunately I am married to warp pack

[cobalt patrol]

Well, that's your problem.

😛

I would no joke try the Eradictor, or whatever te name of the support plasma gun is

Sicne it's big explosions should shred fleshmobs

eps if you manage to nail a face with one

[glacial light]

Oh right the epoch

I do like how you can fire it back to back

[split parcel]

I'm actually not sure how Epoch does against fleshmobs, I might test it tomorrow

[tight zephyr]

I still don’t know how to deal with multiple fleshmobs. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t even bother fighting Illuminate.

[glacial light]

Strafing run kills them

Stalwart magdump

Eruptor 2 shots

[cobalt patrol]

Anything explosive messes them up, especially since the recent change so they have weak points with their faces.

Any big high damage hits to those will wreck them - iirc, a variable in total discharge mode either one hit kills if you hit a face, or drops them incredibly low

RR shots fuck them up, machine guns with a priority towards hitting the faces also do big damage, autocannon in either flak or normal mode obliterates them

Crossbow should wreck them, etc

Even stuff like the lib Carbine can do work. Fire and gas are also good choices

[odd arch]

there has been a very curious streak of enemies releasing without weakpoints they definitely should have having them patched in recently

the greater schemes of AH are beyond human ken

[strange vine]

Consistent max charge + small charge breakpoint
Harvesters are also a consistent 2 max charge to anywhere on the head to kill

[tight zephyr]

I’m not dumping an RR shot into a fleshmob. It solves the problem, but another one (and probably a third and fourth) are right there as well.

[stone bridge]

Autocannon flak kills them in like two hits at this point

By far the quickest and most versatile method

[tight zephyr]

Might be time for me to get over my dislike of the autocannon.

[stone bridge]

what exactly do you have against it?

[tight zephyr]

It just feels bad.

I don’t have a concrete “this and this stats are low and this feature isn’t good” but it feels bad to use. It’s the same problem I have with the Eruptor.

[stone bridge]

i think you gotta try it more yeah

[glacial light]

Probably one of the best general purpose heavy pen weapon

Flak mode is a monster against illuminate hordes and fleshmobs while AP mode kills overseers and harvester quite well

Good mag size and reserves

Always has been good and still is apparently.

[stone bridge]

even got buffed recently

[glacial light]

To me seems like cause autocannon used to be like AH's baby and the gold standard for support weapons.

RR although has always been top tier AT it seems

[verbal summit]

Eruptor :3

[knotty folio]

Gas Mines/Strike are great for keeping them busy to deal with at your leisure

[cobalt patrol]

Actually they have said it is infact the gold standard

They only buffed it because it was starting to just get a little outmoded

RR is def The Best Anti Tank weapon, but AC rules the roost on sheer flexabiltiy and "Good into everything"

It doesnt, arguably, overly excel at anyu given thing - but it's a perfect swiss army knife that can tango with anything short of a levitahn

and has a very good TTK on most things. It's also exceptional into mediums sincei t'll usually one hit kill with head shots using AT mode, or can tear groups apart with it's flak mode

[cobalt patrol]

It's probably feeling bad because it's ergonomics are low. My advice is a:

If you really can't get past the ergonomics, use peak physique. But usually i find aiming in third person is fine enough, and i can flick into first person and out as needed. You can with rpactice learn to "Drag" shots over - The white circle when you're in third person mode is where the gun is currently aiming, and it'll always try and get to where your actual pointer is.

You can abuse this to flick your aim up and just fire when the circle moves over your target. (Hopefully this makes some sense)

it does a lot better if you crouch fire.

I also recomend keeping it in semi-auto. Full aut o is very funny, but the recoil is so immense it's useless.

THe other thing is always try and reload when you drop below 6 shells in the mag - it's much, much faster to load anotehr 5 than it is to load 5, rack the gun, and load another 5 for the full ten.

The other thing that's worht learning is how to bounce the AT shells. Depending on the angle, tehy'll deflect off stuff - which you can use to trick shot them into Fabs (Aim for the open vent cover and it'll deflect straight dsown into the fab), or bounce them off the side of wartpship walls to shoot into the Warp ship and kill it

Another handy trick vs Illuminate - while it domes overseers in one headshot, yo ucan also just use flak mode - aim for the body, and a square hit with the flak mode, plus another flak shot anywhere nearbye will kill overseers. The first shatters their armor and messes them up

and then they just die to the sharpnel

this is amazing vs flying overseers or packs of staff/shield overseers as you can just blap one, aim for the next, blap him, his buddy dies, aim for the next... their buddy dies, etc

[blissful sparrow]

You can do auto fire somewhat consistently, by just aiming down at like a 30° angle and it'll hold quite steady at that recoil angle
Just need a loader to make that actually worth it

[cobalt patrol]

(And meanwhile all the voteless also go splat)

[cobalt patrol]

Huh, neat. Did not know!

[blissful sparrow]

a funky side effect of recoil mechanics in most games that there is a maximum angle displacement they can inflict relative to your aimpoint

because it would be quite silly to have the recoil just keep accumulating until you rotate around 😄

[cobalt patrol]

I am remidned of my dalmatian loving chin scritches so much he'd keep craning his head back until he fell over

[unreal merlin]

Spritz them with 4 molecules of gas and kill them at your leisure

It's not what I'd call generally useful, but the Sterilizer is a real pick into squids because of how it gives you a 100% immediate always ready hard counter to any number of fleshmobs and the voteless hordes

Frustratingly difficult to use vs even melee overseers much less flyers or crescent

[cobalt patrol]

Back to back flawless missions on bots is always nice

[verbal summit]

I remember the battlefield 2042 clip of recoil making someone see the world upside down

Because there was no limit

[stark ether]

spin to win

[oblique lotus]

The eruptor benefits a lot from iron sights plus angled grip

[glacial light]

Peak Physique armor too if you like x10 scope and angled grip laser sight

I use eruptor for sniping mostly but it's a very flexible weapon as long as you don't want fast rate of fire

[knotty folio]

I use it as more of a midrange weapon entirely in third-person, it's surprisingly snappy for a mobile playstyle

Since you can snap aim > shoot > sprint a dozen meters while racking the bolt > repeat

And while precision is needed for some enemies there's a lot where a single Eruptor shot anywhere in their vague vicinity will remove them with prejudice

[knotty folio]

Doesn't it go from like 11 ergonomics to 35, as you swap from the baseline setup?

[oblique lotus]

Yup

[cobalt patrol]

Hahahahahahhaa, oh wow.

I made a player so salty they kicked me.

Why? Cos i convinced them that Vit booster was better than extra health, and then only died once in the mission (Whiel they kept dying)

and they werent paying atteiton right at the end and got beserkerd while me and the otehr 150 extracted

No mockery or things, noted a little sadly i lost my own flawless streak (Got myself beserkered)

And then right at the end they kicked me, it was hilariously petty.

Even funnier was the other 150 quit their mission and joined on me, i think out of sheer "...uh, okay then" at that guy

[split parcel]

Gas Mines my favorite stratagem in the game (by AmozuArt)

[modern kiln]

Sickle my beloved. Only time I'm not taking it is when I'm rocking Eruptor alongside the Stalwart.

[graceful bluff]

I still want an upgrade that lets me infuse gas with oxidizers to create the DRG fire+gas explosion combo

(You can't tell me that super earth wouldn't use the hell out of clf3 with how little they give a shit about helldivers)

The chemical that has this lovely quote from one of the greats in rocketry:

It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that's the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water—with which it reacts explosively. It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals—steel, copper, aluminum, etc.—because of the formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride that protects the bulk of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminium keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes

[tall stone]

Too dangerous for the ships.

[split parcel]

if they had gas + fire mine as a single stratagem on a higher cooldown i would literally never stop using it

[graceful bluff]

distilled directly in a backpack the helldiver brings along

[tall stone]

Still has to be stored on the ship. 😛

[graceful bluff]

as its less problematic precursor chemicals! :v

Also my favourite part of that quote is still that he just skips over that it also causes chlorine gas to be made when on fire, because that's the least of your problems at that point

[hazy oriole]

A fun idea, but ususally when someone brings gas they want it to linger, igniting it for a boom gets rid of it

Plus we'd need to differentiate between ignitable and non ignitable gass visually

[graceful bluff]

Do we though

[glacial light]

All dangerous all the time

[graceful bluff]

in a chemistry sense you could just have the explosive gas be more yellow(clf3) or red(FOOF)

[glacial light]

What I'm surprised at is we don't have claymores as a grenade option

[graceful bluff]

What I really want are the decoy frisbees from mgs

just super earthed up by filling them with an explosive gas

[glacial light]

Other helldivers need to be able to interact to catch it too

[graceful bluff]

Funnily enough, my main use of the decoy frisbees wasn't using them as decoys

they knocked people out if you threw them at their heads :v

immensely useful in the invasion mode

[glacial light]

I think about the edf decoys, it aggros enemies then explodes if destroyed or by timer

Also I'd be very funny if all of the factions fall for it

[split parcel]

im becoming a big liberator concussive enjoyer

so much fucking stagger

[blissful sparrow]

i grabbed myself the coyote today
Such a comfortable gun, after only using the Crossbow for so long 😄

[cobalt patrol]

I always find the coyote's ttk awkward, since you really have to leverage the burn to be ammo efficient

Which always made the this is the best gun!!!! Stuff really funny to me

Good gun though

[glacial light]

Ammo seems to be the least picked up ground drop ime everyone just are real stingy until resupply

Eating good by picking it all up

[knotty folio]

Running out of ammo is pretty much never a concern outside of specifically the Ultimatum, IME

Unlike stims and nades

I'll still grab ground ammo to top off my dog and my Eruptor, but it's almost never something I'm going out of my way to get

[split parcel]

Getting fairly close to finishing all the warbonds 🤙

[strange vine]

Ayy

[split parcel]

I've gotten everything that actually has a gameplay effect, so like weapons, armor, stratagems, and boosters, so now it's just cosmetic stuff

[hazy oriole]

tempted to try flamethrower on bots knowing it'll be awful...

[knotty folio]

I think it's actually surprisingly usable in cities, considering the pen 4

[trim breach]

Fire on bots is actually decent if you can get close

[unreal merlin]

Yeah flamethrower isn't too bad, they're not resistant to being melted. You just need to address the relatively short range which can be worked by running aggressively, corner camping, or using mobility aids like jump/warp packs.

[glacial light]

Good old mandalorian build, fly and spew fire

Warp pack I found is very great for bots since you can just teleport behind hulks, tanks, turrets to kill via hitting vent.

Since most vents are unarmored you wouldn't need an AT or heavy precision weapon to kill bot heavies

I hear speargun is real goated but I am bad at aiming and actually hitting eyes

[cobalt patrol]

There seems to be some sort of ARPG going, bot on the main discord making players as Dissidents

[graceful bluff]

I don't know why they ever bother with the discord bot thing

it always breaks

[trim breach]

The one thing that makes flamethrower annoying for me

Is that somehow a high-pressure stream of burning napalm lacks the ability to even slow down anything

There is zero cc, stun, or even suppression

[supple siren]

That is such a baffling choice

Especially into bugs

[trim breach]

Bugs should be the best target for it but most of the time you fuck yourself because a random hunter is going to charge through the fire and not only do normal damage but also set you on fire

[supple siren]

At least it's better than when it was four random hunters to combo you instantly, I just can't understand like the coding decisions behind it doin nothing

and they act like it's overpowered with how they adjust flame damage n all

[graceful bluff]

I mean it isn't napalm, it acts like basically a gas

[glacial light]

It's kind of what gas does

[graceful bluff]

yes, and napalm isn't a gas :v

[glacial light]

I meant Gas

It cc via confusion

Better than cc cause they could attack each other

[cobalt patrol]

? This is a for fun type thing I dunno what you're on about

[graceful bluff]

Yes? I'm saying that neither discord itself, and whatever server they have the bot on can handle the amount of inputs that happens every time they do a thing like this

[strange vine]

the flame weapons really need stagger

[tight zephyr]

I agree. I think it’d help to further differentiate between flamethrower and gas sprayer.

[glacial light]

Yea flame weapons outside incendiary grenades are rough, against bugs having no staggers is painful

[trim breach]

Case in point

The muscle memory for flamers in DT and SM2 is ‘hold trigger and steadily advance’

In HD2 its ’hold trigger and frantically backpedal’

[knotty folio]

(But don't dive or you'll light your toes on fire)

[trim breach]

The sticky flame are like DRG

Except in DRG they’re actually useful

And in HD2 they’re a hazard to you and only you

Because again they do chip damage to enemies, have no slow or even avoidance effect, but set you on fire instantly

[hazy oriole]

having tried it, i found the dps was miserably underwhelming

I was killing shit faster with my lib pen in 99% of cases

[stone bridge]

We aren't really talking badly about fire here are we? Flamethrower is still a fantastic bug weapon to this day

[strange vine]

i think it just needs stagger so it feels better to use

[odd arch]

I think they're struggling with balancing it because it's an anti-everything weapon

but imo they did enough with differentiating burn damage between light and heavy enemies to let it stagger lights

[glacial light]

Stagger sold me on Reprimand being able to stagger lock stalkers on bugs

Although Halt is just great as a shotgun

I feel the no stagger if I use like lib carbine

[quick plinth]

a little stagger on flamethrowers would make them really nice considering their range

[odd arch]

I'm not sure how the game handles cumulative stagger because that'd be the play

as opposed to every tiny puff of flame staggering

[quick plinth]

perhaps then code it so it's not on every puff but every whatvers reasonably proportional

[cobalt patrol]

... It's not taking inputs, you're wildly leaping to assumptions here

[cobalt patrol]

Stagger or some range, one of the two

[burnt vapor]

This is not the warbond I was expecting, I am more then ok to be wrong.

[odd arch]

CHAINSWORD ALEEERT

[rare nymph]

Miniguns, chainswords, and underbarrel GLs, oh my!

[odd arch]

very nice armour passive if it works as described

[glacial light]

Chainsword and bolter (dominator) let's go 40k

Also mini gun looks cool

[graceful bluff]

guard dog flamer

woo

[quick plinth]

arrowhead denies the existence of stealthdivers once again

[odd arch]

they wouldn't be stealth divers if we talked about them y'know

[quick plinth]

yes but the numbers! the sekrit documents! I saw them!

[tardy onyx]

Maxigun, what a name

[odd arch]

@verbal summit now not even ragdolling will get in the way of our stimgun fuckery

[rare nymph]

I didn’t even notice that it was called the Maxigun lmao

[blissful sparrow]

Hot Dog is a great name for a flame dog

[harsh kayak]

More casualties!

[glacial light]

Hot Dog is great name

I doubt it can tk more than flamedog but itll cause more panic

Arc dog just kills you, flame will probably set you alight and you got a second to stim or die

[hallow gorge]

Is the maxigun backpack fed or is that simply an ammo container like the other backpack weapons?

[strange vine]

sounds like its backpack fed

[glacial light]

The illuminate and terminids are touching

[strange vine]

😳

[agile fable]

Me, holding an overseer and a hunter: "Now kiss"

-# five seconds later i was brutally disassembled

[glacial light]

Im sure nothing could go wrong if the very adaptable bugs interact with the illuminate who assimilate others into voteless

[glacial light]

Yooo expendable MG

[strange vine]

i think they phrased it poorly

you dont have reserve mags or anything, you just use the bullets directly from the backpack

and the backpack can be refilled by ammo sources as usual

[calm sorrel]

For a moment I was worried I'd need to keep at least one bullet in the backpack at all times so it would stay resuppliable

[split parcel]

Minigun looks dope as hell

[knotty folio]

Welp I know what armor I'll never take off against bots, assuming the passive actually works

[stark ether]

i just want a ui fix where having a support weapon w/o spares doesnt say the person is critical on ammo

[glad marsh]

I heard somewhere that we have multislot weapons?

[strange vine]

someone claimed the epoch cant 2 shot max charge war striders and i spent like an hour last night recording clips to prove them wrong lmao
https://imgur.com/a/zj57l2V

[unreal merlin]

that simmering righteousness when you are provably correct and they are provably incorrect

[glacial light]

Based

[tight zephyr]

Looking at the new minigun like

https://tenor.com/view/i-do-declare-king-of-the-hill-gif-6010391340999909683

[royal lantern]

The Grenade Launcher AR may unseat the Dominator for me, at least in the "low ergo, hard hitting" catagory

Though I wonder if the AR part will just be a regular liberator-alike or if it will be med pen itself

[supple siren]

Love when RPM means the audio stops sounding like bullets and more.. buzzing? Electricity?

[split parcel]

AR is light pen

[glacial light]

I saw a discord screenshot the maxigun will be med pen

[tight zephyr]

bbrrrrnrrrrrrttt

[glacial light]

I wonder how much maxigun presumably using a backpack will be compared to MG

Not needing to ever reload is pretty sick

[strange vine]

more firepower without reloading but lacking flexibility in having a backpack stratagem comes to mind as the main thing

[supple siren]

Also imagine the handling won't be smooth

[glacial light]

I bet itll be amazing for illuminate

[unreal merlin]

bullet hose guns are already great across the board for squids, this will be no exception

[supple siren]

wonder if the pen/speed will let it saw alpha commander legs decently

[cobalt patrol]

Med pen is a little sad, i would have liked heavy pen, b ut dedicated bullet spray doom is fun

[oblique lotus]

imo they need to be careful w/ heavy pen to avoid having master of all weapons

[glacial light]

What support weapons arent heavy pen besides mg and stalwart?

[split parcel]

Airburst RL is

Apparently it's medium pen

[stone bridge]

Airburst RL, Grenade Launcher

[glacial light]

Interesting, it just seems a lot of support weapons are heavy or AT

[split parcel]

Feel like they kinda need to be that way considering the relative dirth of it among primaries and secondaries

[oblique lotus]

flag, shovel, double barrel also

[glacial light]

shotgun and shovel found on missions only?

[split parcel]

Yeah

[glacial light]

Thats why I think its odd that maxigun is a backpack support weapon with med pen

[dark plover]

Hmm, is the tradeoff vs the base support MG that you get better ammo cap and rate of fire by sacrificing your backpack slot?

[split parcel]

I imagine it just does nutso damage

And more ammo yeah

[blissful sparrow]

i assume also no reload time
Just pick up another supply pack and the bullets get added

[glacial light]

Yea a dev commented on the hd2 discord you can resupply and theres no reload
#1204832579287519292 message

Which no reload, let alone stationary reload is probably real nice

[glacial light]

I imagine when they tested it as heavy pen it was a monster

Since it has a backpack I assume its more stable and less recoil if its meant to be the bullethose version of MG

[rare nymph]

Gotta say, I’m digging the look of the upcoming heavy armor

[glacial light]

I wonder how strong the superarmor is

Is it like, not get ragdoll'd by factory strider cannon or mostly just like rocket devs/stalkers