Run with your team, you’ll live longer. Take the time to look for stuff, it’s spread all over and it’s what you need to build your ship and pay for weapons and strategems. Not every Diver is nice so don’t take it personally. Always load the mini nuke arty first. Mortars are great, but bugs like to get under your feet and so your mortars will kill you and your team, so bring them wisely. Don’t immediately call for extraction, it makes your team mates worried you’re going to leave them and also brings the enemy to extract, so your squad has to fight their way in. Kill all the bases before the last objective, or the enemy swarms as well (that effect was reduced via patch but still exists as far as I see). Most of all, have fun. It’s a game. For Liberty!

Do whatever the fuck you want and do missions of appropriate difficulty

Always respond to an emote.

It's undemocratic to refuse a hug and you will rightfully be 500kg'd for it.

f the bugs

f the bots

f the squids

stim addiction aint real

I just learned the communication wheel thing last week. Same with the Samples at extract.

My first mission I got my hand held by a buddy who is lvl 80, and he showed me how to find samples and loot at POI's. The Pelican trick I learned from reading a Reddit post over the weekend. I thought it was a joke until I tried it out.

The angry way that Pelican-1 says "waiting for helldivers to enter the extraction area" is kind of funny. Pelican-1 can be as angry as he wants, as long as he keeps the enemies off my butt.

Don’t be afraid to run. Sometimes a tactical retreat is better than standing and fighting multiple bug holes or bot drops. You can always swing back later and clear an objective. This is especially true if you start a mission and drop into pure hell. Sometimes it’s like D-day and you just need to get your ass off the beach and to relative safety to regroup and decide the next objective.

Lots of little stuff:
1) COMMUNICATION WITH YOUR TEAMMATES IS KEY.
Any difficulty above 5 or 6, lack of communication can quickly doom a mission.
2) At points of interest, you will often see something that looks like a shipping container: blow em up to collect shiny loot.
3) If you find a radar station, it will reveal all the Points of Interest on the map. If the POI is a diamond, it has samples nearby.
4) If you find an artillery station and load it up, you get 5 free artillery strategems. Pay attention to what you load into it.
5) Many POI's have items like Super Credits, Requisition slips, and bonus Medals that you can use to buy new gear.
6) Choose your loadout appropriate to the mission.
examples:
For bots, you want precision attacks and armor piercing. The Liberator Penetrator, HE grenade, and AM rifle are great.
For bugs, you want stuff good for fighting swarm tactics. I prefer machine guns and fire.
Any difficulty above 3, you need something that can take out heavies like chargers. (Personally, I prefer the Expendible Anti Tank.)
For defense missions, use turrets and mortars.
For attack missions, use VIOLENCE.

7) You can drop Items by either holding x on keyboard or down on the PS controller, then selecting the item to drop.
8) Related to 7. Drop your samples at the extract point and leave them there. That way if you die, you don't have to run all over the map to retrieve them. You only get credits for the samples you are carrying at extract.
9) The 120mm and 380mm Orbital strategems are NOT precise. It basically randomly bombs everything within 50m of the target.
10) For a defense mission, where the good guys are in the base and the bad guys are out of the base, indirect fire weapons like the mortars are great.
11) If it can kill the enemy, it can kill you. Friendly fire is not only mandatory, it is also hilarious.
12) If you aren't using voice chat, go into the menu and change your settings from open mic to something else. Many Helldivers use map pings and the communication wheel to communicate.
13) You may not speak their language, but the game does. Being able to say "Sorry I blew you up." in 10 different languages is hard, but if you use the comm wheel it will deliver your apology in their chosen language.
14) Samples, Super Credits, Requisition Slips, and Medals are shared. No need to fight over them.

If the daily challenge is kill 500 bugs with flamethrower for example. Only one person needs to do that in the mission for everyone to complete the challenge. So in a group of four divers only two really would need to take flamethrowers to complete the challenge in one mission. This is a very team based game playing with more people will be much less frustrating and more fun. As you can experiment with new gear instead of taking the meta every time.

If the squad has split into two teams, and one of the other team’s members dies, let their teammate call the reinforcement. If you call it your team will have 3 guys and the last guy will be alone.

If someone pings equipment, they are volunteering it. Make use of it if you can.

If a bit of your equipment is refreshed, and you are fairly confident you don’t need it, bring it down and donate it to someone else. You are all the same squad.

Personally, I like using my mic. But around 1 in 10 times, I'll use the mic to say hello and get immediately kicked. Fortunately, those are also the kind of players I don't want to team up with, so I've taken to using "Hello" as a litmus test at the start of each mission.

Welcome aboard! The Arc Thrower has helped me greatly on bug and squid missions and the Quasar for the bots. Just make sure you’re not around your team if you decide to have some fun with the Arc though.

And if you play regularly and try to hit up all the points of interest on each of your mission playthroughs, you’ll be grinding credits at a decent pace to buy warbonds without having to buy credits with IRL money.

Diving into prone puts you out when you're burning

Watch out for joining higher level missions if your on Xbox. The community is pretty nice when playing the easier difficulty levels but once you start doing the like lvl 7 and above people tend to just see the low lvl and Xbox symbol sometimes just kill you for no reason ie. “Your not staying with group” despite me doing side objectives and places of interest and I’m under the impression that difficultly doesn’t scale with player number. Idk could just be a couple of bad games, not trying to rain on your parade at all because it is a really fun game especially with friends, but just my experience.

Ps. Boosters aren’t one time uses so feel free to use whatever ones you like

Some bugs turn invisible. Don't get got.

What front do you play on?

For bots portable HB will be your best friend. You can also use Anti-tank emplacements for most things (command bunkers, factory striders, war striders, gunships). The stratagem jammer should be your top priority if you see one, they will often impede the other objectives especially without a portable HB. Hulks can be shot with medium piercing at their backs but it will take a while, it's preferred to use an anti tank strategem or heavy armor piercing weapons instead. Aim for their tiny heads. War striders take a lot of bullets with a HMG, so it's better to use a commando, expendable anti tank, or recoilless. you should shoot them in the crotch for maximum payoff. Railgun is also pretty good on this front if you're good at aiming. At difficulty 7+ reinforced striders will spawn, for these you will need medium piercing at minimum for one of your guns. Aim at their crotch as well. The senator can drop them in two shots. Your primary can be light or medium pen but it requires a bit of finesse with light pen. Keep to cover and try to pay attention to enemy fire cycles, you can pop out of cover and kill them if you time it right. Watch out for cannon turrets, they will one shot you without much difficulty. Factory striders have a weakspot under their bellies

https://preview.redd.it/r3ekacm660mf1.png?width=200&format=png&auto=webp&s=e8678dec119a7c4a7d36d87f5f848fe0246d1f8f

if you shoot here with an expendable anti tank or a few commando rounds they will go down instantly at full health, this is risky as approaching the factory strider can get you filled with machine gun rounds so be diligent you know what the strider is up to (focusing you or others)

Incineration Corps requires fire protection, you can play it without fire protection but you'll die pretty quickly if you take damage. Jet brigade troops explode when they're close, be aware of that before you panic shoot them. Besides that i don't have much else advice for this front, feel free to dm me if you'd like a friend to play with : )

Litterally me last werkend too, only change turrets for support weapons.

It made some old timers smile. Make then bleed diver!!!

Thank you for doing your patriotic duty.

Thanks for sharing! This was a great read. Since you bring up the story, helldiverscompanion is my favorite resource for the meta game. It even has its own encyclopedia and descriptions on every planet for anything big that’s happened on that planet. Anywho, keep it up warfighter. Welcome to Hell. 

If you Hold X you can drop items (backpack, special weapon, samples etc)

Press and hold reload for more options on every weapon,
If your on pc, re bind your call-in keys to the arrows.

Welcome to the War Helldiver. Super Private Quifoo of the SES Spear of Democracy here. Some of the first things a Cadet should learn are as follows:

Samples (and other resources) are shared amongst all Helldivers. If one person extracts will all samples, all helldivers get those samples

You don't always have to fight. If you find yourself stuck in a position (especially not at an objective) and there are constant breaches / bot drops, you can relocate to another position / objective until the area has cooled down.

Teamwork makes the dreamwork, if your team is elsewhere, try to be with them. Fighting the enemies of democracy is far easier with other Helldivers

Prioritize Warbonds with Strategems over the others. Strategems are our biggest power spike, followed by weapons and then armor.

Dont feel pressured to do higher dives even if it means not getting super samples. Ship upgrades are nice, but they don't greatly improve your ability to perform on the field. If you are struggling on a certain difficulty (usually 5+ deaths every run), then you should drop down in difficulty and learn objectives, enemy patterns, weapon function, etc. No one says you have to dive on Dif 10 to contribute to the war (or have fun!).

Lidar stations (originally radar stations) will make a *Beep* sound when you are in the correct orientation, you can use this to quickly rotate the tower to the right spot without checking the terminal.

I have found picking a Support Weapon that does a job, and then strategems that do another job to be effective. AKA picking Stalwart to clear chaff, but taking 500kg, Orbital Precision, and 380 barrage to deal with heavies. Or picking Recoiless Rifle to deal with heavies, but turrets like Gatlin, rocket and Auto cannon to deal with Chaff.

As far as strategies go, Bugs tend to be run and gun and require alot of mobility. Bots tend to be stealth / cover based and require alot of precision. Illuminate falls right in the middle with alot of chaff that require you to move, and Medium units that require accuracy.

The lines on the Galactic map are called "Supply Lines" they show which planets connect to which, and show where you can go / attack, as well as where enemy attacks may come from

If a planet has a defense mission on it, the supply line will show arrows on it, showing which planet that "attack" is originating from. If you successfully liberate the planet that is attacking a defending planet, the defense will automatically succeed. (This is called a Gambit).

If you have any other questions feel free to ask. I have been here since the wargames and the beginning of the war. I am level 150 and have everything unlocked and have about 600 in mission hours. If there is anything you would like to know, I would be happy to assist.

Hey! I just got into the game last weekend, but I feel like I’ve really found my feet at this point. Here are some of my personal tips:

1. Take your time to learn your enemy. Start on lower level difficulties, and work your way up as you feel comfortable. New enemy types come in as difficulties rise, so once you find enemies that you’re having trouble cracking, that’s the time to start experimenting with different toys until you find something that works. Once you’ve found some good solutions, up the difficulty, rinse and repeat.

2. Start the process over when you switch to a different enemy type. Automatons and Bugs are very different, and you may find that the loadouts you relied on for one don’t necessarily work against the other. Likewise, you may find that one enemy type calls to you more than another. You may be more of a Bugdiver or a Botdiver, though you’ll probably see your fair share of both, and sometimes you’ll want a change of pace.

3. For early difficulties, the Stalwart Light Machine Gun is a support weapon stratagem that is basically just better than most of the early primary weapons you have access to. It’s a solid companion when you’re starting out, even if it falls off around difficulty 5 or so when you need to start cracking armour more reliably, and your support weapon starts looking to kill heavier enemies, rather than just put down swarms of little guys.

4. Spend your resources often! Requisition slips cap at 50000, and medals cap at 250. I’ve definitely gotten into the zone of doing frequent dives, forgetting to spend anything, and finding I’m capped out at 50k.

5. Just because there’s no “hug cover” mechanic, doesn’t mean it’s not important. If you need to stationary reload, you probably want to find a big rock you can hide behind first. This is especially important against automatons - they’ve got a lot of guns, and if you’re standing in the open, they’ll absolutely blast you off the map.

6. There’s something magical about this game when you get involved with the broader community and the metaplot of the Major Orders. The most recent Major Order was a wild ride - the order itself was intended to force us to choose one of two planets to save. There’s stakes, drama, and it can be really rewarding. The most recent MO had some wild ups and downs, and some insane craziness due to a backend bug that threw everything into disarray. It adds an entirely new dimension to the game. The next time a Major Order drops, swing by the subreddit and see how people are talking about it. It’s very cool.

If you're still playing, im happy to tag along and show you thw ropes?

Friendly fire isn't

Welcome to the fight.

Someone else hooked you up with a lot of good general advice. A few things they didn't cover:

• Host your own lobbies at first. You need to complete an operation (group of missions) at each difficulty level in order to unlock the next difficulty level, and this is easiest to do when you're the host.

• Once you're done unlocking difficulty levels, you can choose to continue hosting (which I recommend) or you can put yourself into matchmaking from the war map.

• When choosing an operation, there are things to consider: time of day / night, how long the day is (i.e. if you want to fight in daylight due to visibility, for example, then make sure that it'll still be daylight by the time you're finishing the operation), and any active effects, which are operation-specific. The higher you go in difficulty, usually the more negative effects there will be.

• Armor has 3 types: light, medium, and heavy. Some sets are technically in between each of these armor ratings, but the game will put them in these 3 buckets for you. You start out with medium, and I'd advise you stick with it unless you find that you're not having trouble staying alive, in which case you can use light. Heavy is generally best for missions where you don't have to move around as much.

• When you're picking your stratagems and gear in the mission prep screen, don't forget to pick a hellpod booster. These help the whole squad, not just you. There are posts on this subreddit and I believe links to other sites that have details about how they work, but to start out with, the hellpod space optimization booster is a good one.

• To reiterate the other commenter: samples and other currencies you'll find at POIs or across the map are shared. It doesn't matter who extracts with them, as long as someone does.

• Communicate with your squad, whether it's using the emote wheel, voice chat, or typing out a message. It's especially good to let people know if you're going to call in the extraction, or if you've found a bunker and need another player to help you open it.

=>Don't be afraid to lower difficulty. Super Earth rather have her diver to die in glory that to die for naught
=>Never go alone. Managed democracy is better when you're plural.
=>Always trie to have some sort of armor piercing weapon. Anti-democratic bastard love to armor up.
=>Managed democracy is all above making the biggest fireball. Use explosive, as much as possible.
=>Managed democracy like its dead heroes, but it's better if you do not stand within the big fireball.
=>Managed democracy understand the heat of the moment, but try to avoid shooting your fellow helldivers.
=>Be always mindfull of where you are and what you do. That's how managed democracy works best.
=>Remember Mavellon Creek.

Kills mean nothing. People who try to show off by racking up kills make missions last an eternity, and they get zero reward. This game rewards objectives, and enemies that aren’t an immediate threat, should be ignored. Only fight what you need to, and move on. Only certain enemies can catch you, and its far better staying alive ;)

Totally, and it's not uncommon to be added as a friend after a mission by the random you played with.

Had a good chunk of people telling me it was a fun ride and wanting to go again.

Now I always have a few squadrons to join everytime I come online, from people that I met in game

ABSOLUTELY!!!! I had wonderful time playing with randoms tonight and made a few friends to squad up with :)

Yeah, I mostly play with randos and is quite good this way.

Don't worry, the tutorial training for helldivers is more than enough to prepare you for everything. After this intense, well thought, demanding two and a half minutes of elite training, you will spread democracy like a pro.

But, just to be sure, stroll for a bit in the lower difficulty by yourself, so you can get the hang of it a bit before jumping to quickplay. Learn to use comms keys to mark points of interest, to call for stratagems quickly, and how some objectives are done (like using consoles).

Then you can jump to quickplay. Follow your fellow Helldivers and look how and when they use stratagems. Be careful not to cross their line of fire (always pass your squad by the rear side if you have to reposition). Use heavy guns on your knee or go prone. Look for the key binding to switch from third to first person view to aim better when needed.

And try not to panic when the trees start talking binary, the floor starts to open under your feet and, for the love of Liberty, if you see your squad suddenly running away RUN WITH THEM.

Keep spamming matchmaking; it will eventually connect.

Hold R to change weapon settings.

Middle mouse button to aim down sights.

Reloading wastes the rest of the magazine.

Use your stratagems. Use your stratagems. Always be using your stratagems.

Focus on objectives. Don't tunnelvision on enemies you don't need to engage.

Diving gives you super-armor. Dive a lot.

When you reinforce to bring back a player, do it near where they died if you can

The game's so recent that we are all beginners :D

i found a way to fix the matchmaking, launch a mission on your own (make sure ur crossplay is turned off) and when in the mission call an SOS beacon and return to your ship, now select that same mission again and people will start to join in (works every time)

Check this..might be helpful

https://heyhowtodoit.com/helldivers-2-tips-tricks/

Finally someone who says the right things! Hate goin in that mission and having to free all civilians alone while the team goes to the landing zone and plays „king of the hill“. It just doesn’t make no sense you can’t win there honestly the best way is just to free the civilians asap and gtfo asap

Gotta remember that a LOT of objectives aren’t simply “Kill anything that moves.” Don’t get so caught up in killing that you forget what you’re there for.

If someone’s not in the thick of it with you, it’s often because they’re either soloing the objectives you’re ignoring, or keeping the swarms off your ass from a distance without you realizing it; It’s a team game, and teams have many roles.

The player that seems MIA may just be carrying your whole team behind the scenes.

Edit: Removed a few KG of salt.

Check my post. Starting a discord server for people to link up. I’m also only one with HD2 in my FG and it’s definitely better when you get a group who can talk

And for the love of god, don’t put a minefield inside a facility. The personnel in the anti-personnel includes you and your fellow helldivers.

Yhe official discord also has a looking for group channel. I have found many good divers there.

For me. I put the heavy machine gun (the starter one) on 900 rpm, yes it chews through ammo but I find it gives you less recoil and allows you to run and gun a lot easier while actually hitting something and painting that recoil control

Play the objective! Its okay to run away from hordes of enemies

On machine guns it's the fire rate. For the rifles you change the scope range.

For PC hold R for weapon options and middle mouse to ADS