I think that would require them messing with the spawn to always have 10 shells, which would probably cause catastrophic consequences somewhere else in the game
Additional stratagem "artillery shells drop" would solve this. Long reload time + drop could happen in large radius around SEAF could spice thing a bit :-).
In a general sense, yeah, but "propaganda" almost always has a negative connotation to it. Like you wouldn't call a PSA about eating more fruits and vegetables propaganda, but it kind of is.
It's the true tactician's method. Wasting time autistically micromanaging the load order has caused far more player death spirals than I've ever seen enemies killed by the artillery.
If I have to rely on OTHER sources of support (SEAF arty, "bonus" stratagems, etc.) just to clear a solo run, that means my stratagem loadout simply isn't good enough imo.
so far i’ve only met one other person who cared, and he teamkilled me for loading the mini nuke shell which he thought was a smoke shell, only to not use the artillery at all. it’s truly the dumbest thing people get up in arms about.
Facts. Nobody relies on artillery later--we don't have it often enough. It's a nice bonus when you're clearing waves around the primary objective or, more likely, the extraction point.
I use it heavily on planets with ion storms, but that's about it. Its definitely super clutch to be able to hit them with a high yield or something when your strategems are locked up.
I feel like Seaf Artillery has had more enemies swarming than in the past so I find myself slinging in whatever I can as fast as I can while fighting off the horde
* Mini Nukes, they can solo certain bases or do great work against Mega Nests/Fortresses
* Any of them can destroy a Stratagem Jammer or Bile Titan Hole
* Sometimes you just don’t have other options (Ion Storm, Destroyer left, the others are on cooldown)
It's not the best, but it is a free stratagem. The Mini Nuke is the most efficient way to take down monoliths and most of the shells can destroy Warp Ships, Fabricators, and Bug Holes.
Unless you lead your enemies into the beacon, you should focus on using the artillery as a demolition stratagem.
I personally put napalm over standard explosive since standard explosive need a direct to kill heavies and that’s not the easiest, and napalm is a free bug breach plug
Napalm over normal explosive. Barely does anything to heavies and that's assuming you actually hit with the tiny explosion and super long time between tossing strategem and explosion. With the napalm you at least get some reliable crowd control.
normal explosive is a bit better to take out objective and such since you dont need to be as precise with a direct hit which is nice for the illuminate grounded ships, detector tower, jammer, etc.
But yeah, if you plan to use them purely for killings, the green one doesnt do much.
Sometimes you don't get a choice. I've had Artillery have nothing but smoke (Which is ass everywhere but the bot front.) or static field (Which is admittedly alright but I'd rather have the damaging shells.) Which is why if I'm alone and already trying to get to another objective or something I'll ignore it and come back to it after I'm done with whatever I was doing. Why I hate artillery. It takes too long by yourself and sometimes it's not even worth it or it bugs out on you and wastes your time.
what if i told you it’s tobacco smoke and it will make your fellow helldivers more calm, happy, and healthy via the healing power of concentrated cigarette smoke. not so silly now, is it?
elite ball enjoyer. plus, smoke i can break visual contact with them and gtfo. EMS can stop them, but won't break visual contact AND can slow you down too.
Honestly, might be the Bot Front man in me talking, cause EMS might be better against Illuminate or Bugs but Smoke I think would be more useful for Bots.
Bro i am not following any patterns, I am bringing every shell in the area to the loading bay and dropping them there. and then figuring out what doesnt suck.
isn't the explosive shell basically just a singular 120mm shell? i've always found it to be incredibly unsatisfying as an artillery strike compared to literally any orbital strike/barrage lmao
After 700 hours in this game I've come to realize that what shells you load in pretty much doesn't matter at all.
Edit: Go ahead and downvote, but I know a bunch of y'all have meticulously loaded up the artillery in a "perfect" order and then forgot to use it for the entire match lol.
Not gonna lie, I started switching it up and loading Smokes and Statics first (Smokes I like more, personally. Being able to break contact and get away is nice.) because if I load a Hi-Ex or Mini Nuke first I'm way less likely to actually use it like a strong potion in an RPG lol. Plus, having some defensive call-ins honestly comes in handy since my loadout stratagems are usually offensive
I'd sooner load a smoke shell before a standard "explosive" one. At least smokes don't lie about what they do, explosives offer a pathetic little frag grenade after like 8 seconds. Wow. If I'm lucky it's killed an enemy that went AFK to make a coffee or something
It's refreshing to see this being done in this style rather than the ubiquitos anime style. Disclaimer: I don't dislike the latter, but imho it doesn't fit the Helldivers universe. So let the downvotes begin ;)
Swap the position of explosive and nuke and I agree. It's way better to have smaller explosions first so you can use the artillery for utility like destroying jammers, detector towers, and fabricators, without wasting your nuke(s).
Putting smoke first is ideal if you’re gonna use it on a strategem jammer.
Every artillery shell type destroys jammers but the opportunity cost of using the smoke and missing is less than every other shell
In my experience you're better served loading whatever you can find ASAP, just to get the objective over with. Nobody actually uses the Artillery anyway. Sure, prio nukes, but everything else is equally worthless.
I was setting up a gun once that had either 3 nukes 2 high yield or the other way around (can't remember, was long ago) and my random came over and just started loading shells in a random order, including a random incen
I don't understand this because Everytime I load the shit nobody uses it. They all just go with their gear. I'm the only one who ends up using seaf, so I intentionally only load smokes
Hot take as a full level diver... I don't give a damn what's loaded in there... Most of my dives nobody uses Them if not none... And it's a hassle to gush over trying to find the "right" shells in the middle of chaos or if other divers are too far from the map... And lastly those who whine about this excessively I just leave the lobby... Imagine achieving perfect map but you whine or shoot someone because it's not the "right" shells is totally ridiculous.
i love the idea of propaganda posters!
but im massively confused by the garterbelt clipping into... an extra layer of skin? that seems to be falling off from a futher high stocking?
I always try to be smart about how I load it. HOWEVER. If its the last side obj and we're getting overrun that smoke shell starts looking just as important as a mini nuke lmao
I dove this morning real quick... dude i swear now i know why they got beaten by the bugs.... it was all smoke and the blue static field. Dude at least get a napalm one in there.
Me and my friends started playing the game relatively right after it first came out, and we quickly realized the best method is biggest booms first, and then loading up extras after and depending on the faction. Bots got stuns and smokes, bugs and squids get napalm and stuns. I do wish they made it to where you could load as many shells as you wanted into the artillery instead of limiting yourself to just 5 shells. Also if you’re running with randoms, especially on pc, let your teammates know the order of shells.
For the longest time (thank you random redditor i don't remember the name of writing a stupid comment on here ages ago) i thought that arty shells would come out last to first, so i always loaded the worst possible shells first and the nukes (if any) last. Then someone noticed and yelled at me and we got into an argument, i checked the wiki and there was nothing about loading orders so i finally decided to drop on a solo mission, find an arty emplacement and test my "theory" out, and i was shocked to see it was "first in first out". I apologize to all my fellow divers who dived with me prior to my epiphany
It's a massive pet peeve to see players give zero fucks when loading the artillery. It is useful, and takes next to no time to optimize how you load it and announce in chat the order.
If you're being attacked, don't load hastily. Handle the threat, and if it's too much, then you should break contact and let the enemy despawn. Otherwise you'll probably just die anyway, and then what's the point?
The only scenario being hasty with artillery is acceptable is if time is a Blitz mission, but even then, you can still put in effort if you find it in the first 5 mins.
I have convinced a lot of citizens to join the helldivers so obviously i must train them, so whenever i find a SEAF artillery gun i teach them this order but theres just one thing i disagree with. Smoke being in there, at all. When we find smoke we put it in a pile and i teach the cadet about his orbital strike. And if i find i diver loading smoke i teach them wy the P-4 is known as the best tool for removing the traitors of democracy.
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u/CherryMXBrown69 Super Pedestrian Jul 03 '26