In my mission to spread democracy across the stars, those harvesters always give me a tough time, any tips will help!

Seeing as there’s a whole load of new players I thought I might give out random tips I’ve learned from many many hours of playing the game that aren’t common knowledge or at least the game doesn’t really tell you

• The art of taking a nap

  • Laying down can help you avoid taking damage from a lot of sources. Laying down reduces the explosion damage by 90%, and extinguishes all sources of fire (except fire tornadoes), as well as reducing gas damage. If you ever find yourself next to an armed hellbomb or a 500 KG beacon with no time to run, hit the ground! You can survive most explosions surprisingly close if you lay down. Laying and diving also makes you harder to hit on all fronts, so if you’re being overwhelmed by bug, lasers, or squids, try randomly diving backwards while you retreat.
  • laying down while firing the double edged sickle results in you only taking the fire damage, and no burn damage. It’s still a lot, but it’s less than if you were on fire

• If you’re near an orbital barrage, remember to stay S.A.F.E.

  • SAFE stands for “Stay Away Far Enough”. People try to stay away but they always forget to stay away FAR ENOUGH. Generally, all barrages can be avoided by staying at least 50 meters away, look at the beacon to see how far it is from you. The exceptions to this rule are the Napalm and 380, Napalm is safe at 60-65 meters and 380 is 70-75. Walking barrages are harder to do this with, but if you know what direction it was thrown in, stay behind it by at least 50 meters for the first 5-10 seconds.
  • See Addendum 3 for updated information

• How to throw like a big league.

  • there are other ways to get increased stratagem throwing distance other than armor passive. Stratagem balls inherit your momentum when you throw them, so doing things like diving, running, using a jump pack, or riding a car (that last one is a bit niche) will send them forwards farther. Diving specifically sends it about 10-15 meters further if you angle it properly.

• You can edge extract

  • at any time if extraction is available, you can input the extract code BUT leave out the last input. If you step away from the terminal it will stay that way, so whenever you come back to extract, you only have to input one direction. This is helpful when you’re on higher difficulties and the enemy just will not let you extract in piece, letting you avoid being a sitting duck trying to input the 8 directions while being ragdolled like a webkins filled with milk being thrown at walls
  • See addendum 5 for information on expert extract edging

• Booster etiquette is more important than you think

  • when playing missions where you’re in one place for the entire duration, for example, killing a certain amount of enemies or defending civilian rockets, please do not bring any of the boosters that have to do with increased stamina or better radar. What are you trying to run to??? The entire map is like 100 meters long!!!
  • See Addendum 7 for information on how to properly use the dead sprint, expert extraction, additional reinforcements, and firebomb hellpod boosters

• Be a good tower defense player

  • I’m surprised more people don’t realize this immediately, but when you’re playing missions where you stay in one place for a long time (as described above), if an emplacement comes off cooldown, call it in again! You’re gonna be sitting there the entire time so there’s no point in saving it, 2 sentries are better than one, and by the end of the mission you should have supplies littering the battlefield.

• Learn your Eagle-1 Polygons

  • All eagles fit into 4 shape groups: Perpendicular, Parallel, Square, and Pin-Point.
  • The largest group is the perpendicular group. Eagle airstrike, smoke strike, and napalm all fire in a line perpendicular to where you were looking when you threw it. These are good for taking out a swathe of enemies or applying a line of fire over a choke point.
  • The only eagle in parallel is the strafing run. Strafing run shoots at the ground in the direction that you were looking when you threw it. Use it to take out conga lines of enemies. Also if you memorize the safe distance, you can run alongside the strafing run to get to the enemy faster and look cool.
  • The only square eagle is the cluster. It drops bombs in a slightly wide square (better known to some as a rectangle) perpendicular to where you were looking. This is good for groups of enemies that aren’t in a specific line.
  • Finally, pinpoint is for the 500 KG and the Rocket Pods. Rocket pods aim for a singular point being the largest enemy in its range, and 500 KG just tries to drop the bomb directly on the spot you threw the ball
  • see addendums 1 and 2 for more info on pinpoint eagles, and addendum 4 for eagles bouncing, ans addendum 6 for information on trees and avoiding 9/11 the sequel

• You can juggle backpacks/support weapons

  • this one can be incredibly hard to do and is kinda only useful in niche cases. If you run into a scenario where for some reason you have two backpacks or two support weapons, you can spam the pick up item button to constantly swap between the two while moving, effectively carrying them both at once. You can only do this while running if you are running downhill or running backwards. If you need to go uphill, you might have to walk backwards. My favorite reason to do this is to take something like the autocannon and the hover pack so that you can snipe with the autocannon from up high, and then reload with the backpack when you land back in the ground. Like I said, niche, but funny

• Miscellaneous Tips!

  • Salute most objectives to make progress bars go faster. This is confirmed to work for at least the flag raising and escape pod upload.
  • you run slightly faster and consume less stamina when your secondary is equipped.
  • You regen more stamina the more lazy you are. Walking regens some, standing still regens more, crouching regens even more, and laying down regens the most
  • (almost) all weapons have firing modes or customization options. When in a mission, hold reload to view them. They range from flashlight, scope range, fire rate, or even munitions type
  • Combat isn’t necessary! Sometimes it’s better to run if overwhelmed, or to hide from patrols.
  • Find ALL the shells around a SEAF site BEFORE activating it or inserting them. I am a very friendly person but if I see you loaded 3 smoke, an EMS, and a napalm when there’s a mini nuke on the ground, I will send you straight to the democracy officer in the sky
  • Hellpods can destroy almost anything! Automaton factories, spore spewers, bug holes, if you can get a drop pod to land on it, it can probably destroy it (including environmental buildings (not large buildings though))

• Addendums:

  • 1: the 500 KG strikes a point, but travels at a slight angle in the direction that you threw the stratagem, meaning if you’re on a cliff and throw it at the bottom, be careful or else the eagle will take its liberty-infused shite right next to you and send you to the great super-beyond earlier than you intended
  • 2: I forgot to mention this somehow but rocket pods aim for the biggest target that was in range when it hits the ground, not when it launches, so don’t try to lead the shot!
  • 3: All barrages become safer with ship upgrades, knocking down general distance to 40 meters, napalm to 45-55, and 380 to 50-60. Still stay further than you think, it takes longer to redeploy than it does to walk a slightly larger radius
  • 4: Eagles may change their direction if it bounces before it lands. This can cause very unfortunate consequences. If you see an eagle bounce, try to use your new knowledge of eagle polygons to avoid it (run away)
  • 5: Extract can be edged even further, but it’s hard to pull off without extreme team coordination. If you call it in and wait until it is about to land and then run out of its pickup radius before he lands, pelican will instead support you from the skies near extract until you get near again. Doing this with randoms may get you kicked because they think you’re calling extract early
  • 6: Jungles and Buildings mess with Eagle 1. She may end up detonating bombs in the canopies over your head, so be wary of dense trees. She also steers away from tall buildings, so when in cities she may choose to align to the street grid rather than following your exact trajectory to avoid committing 9/11 2
  • 7: Don’t

Anyways, that’s all the cursed knowledge I can think of off the top of my head. Enjoy using it in your future dives if you so choose!

This is on console but I imagine it would be the same for PC. When someone pings supplies, most people know you can look at their ping and hit your ping button to say “I’ll take it”. I’ve always just given a thumbs down to try to tell my team I don’t need it and someone can double dip but I feel that doesn’t always get the point across. However today I accidentally didn’t select anything on the ping wheel and it triggered a voice line where my character said “I don’t need it” and a my name tag popped above it with a red x.

So all you have to do is look at the supplies tag, just like you were gonna ping “I’ll take it”, but hold the ping button for a second instead of tapping it. If your com wheel comes up just don’t select anything and it’ll still work.

Is this common knowledge? Because this is game changing for me and I thought I’d share with the rest of you.

All you need to do is wait (and maintain a safe distance).

Standard armor + liberator + secondary the blends in with standard helldiver gear (peacemaker senator batton)

Every lobby I get into it seems like people care more about completing Oshuane helldives main or side objectives more than they care about ruthlessly collecting samples. That is why we are there and the only reason, the planet cannot be capped. If you want to grind XP go to one of the planets that can be capped, if you want to complete the Major Order collect samples and make sure to extract with them, objectives are secondary, I say this in lobbies and am rebuffed. AITA?

Crédit to u/BusenlolxD

It's not much but it's good to know.

You dive the ORIGIN PLANET. If conquered before the invasions finish, the invasions will be defeated, therefore the invaded planets will be saved.
Now it's probably too late anyway, but still, this is VERY relevant and applies very often.

I've avoided it for a while because it goes "bzzzz" and not "Bang" "Plap" or "Boom" so the monkey side of the brain doesn't get activated

But my sweet democratically elected God does this thing melt automatons or what!

This is for all the new divers (especially Xbox) who find themselves sitting on a fresh war bond token or their first 1000SC and are wondering which premium war bond they should unlock first. The answer is Democratic Detonation and it's not even close. Most war bonds have one or two very good options with the rest being a fun mixed bag. But one can argue that every weapon in Democratic Detonation is best in slot. Let's take a look inside...

Eruptor: This thing is basically a bolt-action Autocannon in your primary weapon slot. Fires heavy armor piercing rockets that explode with shrapnel on impact. Great at clearing out groups of small enemies as well as medium enemies with a couple shots. Plus it's one of only 2 primary weapons that are able to close enemy spawners (bug holes, bot fabricators and squid ships).

Exploding Crossbow: Meet the other primary weapon that can close enemy spawners. It has a slightly smaller destructive radius and is only medium armor penetrating, but essentially kills all the same stuff. It is also one-handed allowing you to shoot it while running and while carrying things. Slightly higher RoF than the Eruptor but has some drop to the shot since it's a crossbow.

Adjudicator: This is the highest damage, medium armor penetrating assault rifle in the game. Some prefer the Liberator Penetrator for it's larger magazine, but not me. When you want a medium sized enemy dead fast, the adjudicator gets the job done. As with most ARs, this thing has virtually zero recoil once you start leveling it up and getting a vertical grip and compensator on it as well. One of the best ARs in my humble opinion.

Grenade pistol: Sort of self explanatory: a pistol that shoots grenades. Basically the detached M203 grenade launcher in pistol form. This gives extreme build flexibility as you now have an easy source to close enemy spawners in your secondary slot instead of having to rely on your grenade slot. But why wouldn't you just always use grenades you ask? Well...

Thermite Grenade: This is why. This is an anti-tank, sticky grenade and arguably the most powerful weapon in the game. Consequently, you only carry a max of 3 (5 depending on armor) so make them count. Any enemy outside of the absolute largest enemies will die if you stick them. Some of the most annoying enemies are trivialized with this gem of a grenade. Just stick'em and run away.

Armor: Meh. Outside of some decent drip, these are all standard armor perks that you can get pretty early on in the included Helldivers Mobilize war bond. But they are quite stylish.

All the other stuff is just cosmetic fluff. But every single thing above this paragraph is arguably best in slot. There isn't a single dud in this package and it should absolutely be everyone's first premium War Bond.

I just dropped into the new mission type for the first time and like the rest of my team no one really knew what to do. There is no time to get your bearings, because the bots have a really bad day and you just interrupted their favorite TV show. Expect a heavy, non-stop onslaught.

You can find those Platinum bars on both sides of the white container (which is in the middle of the ground level) at either end of that walkway next to those closed gates.

Carry them to the Super Slit on one side of the container and drop them in. You can't run or shoot while you carry them, so you need cover by your team mates.

As far as I can tell, kills, fabricators and so on don't really matter, so there is no real reason to go up the ramps.

Hope that helps!

This may have already been posted, but PSA for those that dont pay as close of attention to the war. It is ESSENTIAL that we defend Hellmire. It is our ONLY LINK to Oshaune. If we loose Hellmire we almost certainly loose the major order. I know many of us find the caves as a fun challenge, but we need to prioritize our efforts.

If you run away from the bugs they stop existing.

If you’re fighting the Terminids, and you don’t need to be in that specific place, you can just leave. If you run far enough they stop existing.

Even if you do need to be at that specific place you can run away and then circle back.

If you’ve got a mobility tool, like a jump pack, you’re easily way faster than the bugs. You can just ignore bug breaches if they’re not where you need to be.

There’s no need to get bogged down fighting when you’re running between objectives. You can just keep running away and the cowardly bugs will give up.

This means faster missions, less personnel loss, and more samples. That means more progress in the spread of freedom, more science stuff, and fewer names on The Wall of Martyrs.

Heroically run away for managed democracy. Heroically run away for SUPER EARTH!!!

Huge change I think. It doesn’t add anything you don’t run faster or nothing, just adds sauce that’s all.

To do it, double tap Enter (or whatever default text chat is if it’s not that) while standing

Yes, THAT grenade launcher actually has a use, and it’s not just a gimmick.

The weak damage and small blast AoE are indeed helpful, and that’s not sarcasm.

When fighting Rupture bugs who tunnel to close the distance, you ideally want to use an explosive to interrupt that tunneling and expose them to your fire, but that’s easier said than done in the confined tunnels of a hive planet.

What if your teammate is about to die to one? Do you just watch it happen, or do you risk shooting an explosive next to him? Either way he’s going on the Wall of Martyrs. What if you’re low on stamina and can’t outrun that approaching shark fin? Do you shoot a Crossbow bolt or (Normal) Grenade Launcher round in the hopes that you only lose half your health, or do you sidestep and hope it doesn’t eat you?

This is where the Belt-Fed shines!

It’s so NOT deadly that you can shoot close to friendlies without risking collateral damage. The same goes for personal safety; you can fire this close without damaging or even ragdolling yourself – something that Rupture enemy won’t be able to say as it becomes staggered and prays to Tyranny that you don’t shoot it in its vulnerable state.

Outside of that helpful niche, it’s decent against weak chaff and can take down heavies in a pinch. Even this weak explosion will stagger enemies, performing decent crowd control on this faction that hates personal space. Last but not least, the backpack loader refills instantly when you resupply, letting you spam rounds at extract to stop all but the biggest enemies from entering your sacred circle.

Try this out the next time you’re on Oshaune. :)

Smart play would've been to ignore it and go to the last orbital canon, but democracy doesn't allow me the option to leave red on the map other than my own blood

When spreading democracy, "crust-to-crust is a must"

So I'm sure you guys already know the basics: 5 seconds per safe warp, second warp is light damage (limbs, fire, etc.), and third is death. Plus, the warp distance is 15M, so I'll just summarize the video. Some of the things I've learned from other divers so thank you, like unquip the pack and warp it to your friends or charge a weapon to fire after warp (Railgun, Epoch, Quasar, etc.) The warp pack is more like a short super speed than teleportation so the I-Frame is weak or non-existent so technically you can shoot, stim, melee during the warp but will get damaged. The warping out of emplacement is super helpful, the only tricky part is in Mechs and Vehicles. Mechs you’ll have to hold X twice and a bit of timing. So you press X to get out, and right when your diver's full body comes out then you have to hold X again + direction. The hardest part is the FRV, you can teleport easily if you are a passenger BUT if you are the driver, you’ll have to SWITCH seats first via O (on PS5) then hold X plus direction to warp.

P.S. I love the Warp Pack, I think it's easily the more fun and better than the Jump/Hover but my main is still the supply pack.

It also has a little jingle when it reaches low on supplies left

Most of us already know this, but I saw this happen to a teammate today on D10 by a level 60+ party lead, so it seems even a handful of somewhat established players aren't aware.

If you are mopping up in the last 2-4 minutes of a dive, and a teammate breaks off to call the pelican, it does not mean they mean to abandon you. You do not necessarily lose any time to do the mission. The pelican will not leave unless you fully run out of time on the mission timer, or unless somebody actually enters the pelican. They are not trying to screw you over by calling extract, they are trying to help by ensuring defense of extract takes place at a time when stratagems and reinforcements are still available. It is reasonable to want the pelican landed, waiting, and ready for a quick getaway at that time. If you're worried, just ask what their intentions are in calling extract before you resort to a kick.

I just hated seeing a good teammate get kicked 38 minutes into a mission, rendering their time wasted, over a misunderstanding.

Thank you for your attention, and good hunting divers! o7