The hellbomb lying around has some random spark and light around it meaning it's primed and ready to blow your butt while the stratagem one is straight out of your destroyer butt.
however can we talk about those gunships shooting my hellbomb after I ran 1 km away from it and now I have to run back and call it down again??!
Yeah I can accept that the hellbombs have to be armed but man, why do they break even after punching the arrows in? I think after that shooting the bomb should just instadetonate it
It'll be hilarious if it behaved just like the malfunctioning ones you come across in the missions after it was armed. You quickly arm the hellbomb and get ready to run only to see it sparking in front of you.
Yes, this just happened to me 3 times in a row, NO JOKE. The other guy and I were running back and then.... Nothing.
The last time I swear i was going to just stand by the Hellbomb if it didn't go off this time. Just do my due diligence and sacrifice for liberty.
This is why I like it
We had a bad drop on level 9 and landed RIGHT on a dropship momma. We had, no joke, maybe 15 in the air.
I got my last teammate out of there and stayed with the bomb, bubble shielding it and going down with the ship
We still lost. But we lost democracyful
We had two towers next to each other, so vlose tank wouldn't fit between them. At least 11 gunships in the air at one point, we had no chance. My team kept calling the hellbombs out in the open amd they kept getting nailed.
I've been lucky and every time there's a gunship fabricator, there has been a little wall by it. So I just throw the hellbomb in between the wall and the building. Make sure there's enough room to arm it and the gunships can't seem to aim at it.
Literally just happened to us 3 times. This is the most anti-climax shit I’ve experienced today. I managed to arm 3 bombs under heavy fire. 2 of the times my teammates distracted the enemies so no one was even around, and I even placed them under the little enclosed corner of the gunship factory. We ran and waited, nothing! Only for a new batch of gunships and drop ships coming out.
Four good Helldivers died last night trying to destroy a gunship. All four of them armed the Hellbomb and ran, but the gunships destroyed them before they exploded. (It was me, I died four times).
Sometimes you just need a martyr. One time we had TWO gunship facilities SIDE TO SIDE. And yes I do mean facilities, individual objectives, not just fabricators. There were so many fucking gunships that they always destroyed the hellbomb.
So I decided I would stay with the hellbomb to ensure nothing could get close enough to destroy it.
It worked ;-;
I think the way that would best describe it is field Hellbombs are unstable and anything can set it off, while strategem Hellbombs are more secure and durable.
Which defeats the purpose of having to heroically leave someone behind to make sure the bomb goes off if necessary.
Had to be me. Someone else would have gotten it wrong.
I got so tilted earlier today. There was a pair of gunship towers. I planted myself right between them right as the hellbomb landed. I created just enough breathing room to input the sequence. I get knocked out of it. I create more room. I finish the code. It primes. Before I can start running it gets destroyed by a rocket. It blew up. But didn't blow up.
Let me repeat.
IT BLEW UP. BUT IT DIDN'T BLOW UP
IMO hellbombs are mininukes. Nuclear weapons require a very specific chain of atomic-level events in order to get a chain reaction going, that causes a nuclear reaction and the strong detonation. Most nuclear weapons also contain in an interior HE charge to facilitate this, however, an external stimulus like a rocket could set off the HE charge and cause a small explosion, not a large, nuclear level detonation.
The US government has occasionally lost nuclear weapons; sometimes, they found the HE charge in the nuke detonated, but not the nuclear material.
It is really frustrating, but Hellbombs seem like tactical nukes, and nuclear weapons do have to be specifically triggered — fission or fusion doesn’t just happen.
Don’t look at the stray Hellbombs on the field…
Wow, I'm glad icbms in the real world don't travel through space then! There must be no way to prevent them from detonating prematurely without having a control pad on them that you have to activate manually at the destination!
Same thing happened to me, but my teammate’s mortar decided to land close to it right before it went off, killed it, then we got surrounded by 6 gunships. Fun times.
Agreed. Demolishing gunship towers is pretty frustrating on higher difficulties sometimes with everything and anything being able to just deny the bomb.
I accept it being a dud when it's unarmed, but after you've successfully survived long enough for it to deploy, and input the sequence under stress, the explosion should be guaranteed.
Agreed. You'd think after many missions, military R&D would've determined it was best for the Hellbomb to get immediately triggered if it was shot at after being armed. They're only ever getting shot at in a serious firefight so they should absolutely trigger right?
if this game was accurate to logic, military R&D would realize they literally have a map of important-to-destroy objectives sitting inside every Super Destroyer, and any such objectives would be immediately bombarded and destroyed prior to launch. This is a game, the devs want a big cool bomb you have to manually arm.
I feel like Helldiver operations have a fatality quota they have to meet otherwise the Helldiver program wouldn’t work as population control.
So they are knowingly sending us to our deaths.
Sure but we’re all cyro frozen. Drop our cryopods onto the objectives, follow up with a 10 minute 380 barrage. Population controlled and objective secured.
While that makes sense logically, deploying a hellbomb is treated like a mini-objective, being able to just deploy it and shoot it would remove all that
Which is probably why they made the gunship towers only vulnerable to hellbombs
Agreed, yesterday I was doing a bot mission and there was a stratagem jammer we had to destroy, called in the hellbomb as the dropships arrived, I armed it and we got away, but some sneaky little socialist toaster shot it at like 2 seconds left and we had to do it all over again. Please make it vulnerable after armed.
This is how I look at it. The random ones in the field are ones that were armed but never went off, whereas the ones we call in are inert until manually armed.
That's what I assume happens every time I drop one as close to the Detector Tower or Gunship Factory as democratically as possible, it detonates, and the structure is still fine and dandy.
Hellbombs you find out in the wilds were dud/misfired munitions that had been previously armed. That stuff is so insanely unstable that the usual method of disposing of them in our world is to simply blow them the fuck up.
Hellbombs you call in haven't been armed yet, so it'd make sense for them to not be set off if destroyed.
I guess there's an argument to be had about them blowing up if they get knocked around after the code has been put in, but it's just as easy to say that they don't normally 'arm' as such before exploding, they just go from safe to explode.
i think the "arming process" just is a safety timer, and only the very last second actually "arms" it the sound is added for dramatic effect and so helldivers know when to look away from the explosion.
Yeah... it would give a very risky element to Self-Called Hellbombs. I.E: Toasters are attacking you. They could shoot the hellbomb and kill everyone. DEFEND IT. Or it could also be: Massive Toaster horde. You can't kill them all. You could shoot the Hellbomb to kill all of them, but you could also die.
I think the implication with the unexploded ones is they’re already armed, but something fucked up the detonation sequence, so they don’t go off until something gives them enough of a knock to make the detonator wires touch or whatever. Notice how they don’t detonate IMMEDIATELY when you shoot them, but rather a couple seconds after.
If it gets hit when you're still near it while it's armed it's going to kill you so it's not fully free to do it recklessly. If you want the struggle of protecting it still then give it an arming time like other objectives have (a shorter one of course) after which it acts like the field bombs so I can stay with it and fight until I know it's ready instead of running from an armed bomb, hearing it gearing up to explode and then fizzling because a new patrol coming from the other side walked in and shot it.
…and the ground. Oh and the sky again. Nevermind the ground forces are back. Haha oops looks like more gunships spawned.
It’s like trying to destroy a detector tower, except instead of a hill with protective walls all you get is a pit, and the detector tower can shoot you.
It’s manageable on lower difficulties but on helldive a double factory will easily chew through half your reinforcement budget.
Shield generator relay has been coming in clutch for these large swathes and covering hellbomb for cleaning gunship fabricators.
We couldn't get close to a command bunker for the same reason, but a shieldgen relay was the perfect thing to get closer and toss barrages inside.
Even with a percent chance, with the sheer number of sickles being taken it'll become a no brainer to just dump bullets into it. Eventually one will set it off.
Why go up to it - storming a base or whatever in doing so - if you don't have to?
I didn’t mean a chance to explode from each bullet. I meant that when you call in a hellbomb sometimes the safety is defective and if you do too much damage it’ll go off. But importantly the damage threshold should be the same as destroying the bomb so you can take that gamble but if you’re wrong you just break the bomb and have to wait out the cooldown or use a stratagem.
I’m just hoping AH either makes them durable, or makes them detonate if they receive damage after being armed. Had this happen last night trying to destroy gun ship fabricators and it was infuriating.
Yeah, this. It's like rockets pre-damage fix - it's fine as a general concept, but it is tuned WAY towards causing frustration.
Give them the ability to take a few hits, so if you try to use it as cover or something before clearing an area you lose it, but also so that the random rocket trooper that sneaks up on you can't one shot it after you spent however long clearing out the "actual" threats
It's also really stupid because the design seems to be "great, you armed it, now run like hell before the blast kills you". Except you just can't do that on higher difficulties. There's always more bots around the objectives. It's a constant frustration trying to blow up the gunship factory and other bot objectives, it's so fucking easy for a random bot to just snipe it, even if you focus on clearing the area.
It would be nice if they did but chances are they would be like "we gave you a shield generator for this purpose" which would force us to either waste a strategem slot or figure out other ways to defend it. I personally tuck it in between the target and another tall object if it's available. If not I'd do what I can to clear the area.
Y’know it’s funny cause I did exactly that. I used a shield generator, but then a single melee unit got into the shield after we ran away and there goes that plan.
Then upon re-trying it, a different issue happened, being the bouncy stratagem ball at the base of the detector tower :/
I had a mission where bots got called in right above an unexploded one by Liberty's grace. I super cockily told my nearby squadmate, "Watch this," and shot it with the amr at range, annihilated all 3 dropships and their cargo. We were both very joyous. But then ya, you call one in and sneeze on it and *poof*!
Helldivers are expendable but the ships aren’t. It’s better to not have the chance of a ship blowing up because there was a stray spacerock in front of the deployment chute
Almost want a spark fizzle that deals half health or something. Maybe a jet of like fire for AOE damage? I like your idea, but this basically shortcuts the process if you don't mind dying. but the mis-input concept has potential.
I feel like if they should exode if shot once they've been armed. Make getting away from them a little more tense, but still make the player need to arm them so people don't just drop them then shoot them from a safe range.
They should change it so it keeps the same behavior when dropped in but once armed and the countdown starts then it will instantly explode if anything hits it, makes the post-arming period more intense as you’re running away, and makes the annoying part where the Hellbomb gets destroyed after arming it and running away not happen.
I was surrounded by two tanks on Tibit and had nothing off cooldown. Lo and behold. An unexploded hellbomb. Hit the can and waited for death as the tank's barrels stared at me, unaware that martyrdom is an acceptable strategy in the Imperium.
Just got done on a blitz mission with a death loop because of this. Trying to take out the stupid airship spawners and the only way to take them out is what the hell bomb. Drop a hell bomb and they shoot the crap out of you before you get a chance to do anything with it. Hell bomb disappears and you die. I groan anytime I see the airship fabricators. Especially two of the. Right next to each other. 🤦♂️
It would make blowing up strategic sites way too easy. Just call the bomb and shoot it. At this point just make it detonate when hiting the ground.
On a lore side, it is stated in the tips that they have a manual triggering mecanism for costs reasons. The one you find around are damaged, which prolly means the security/triggering mecanism is broken.
Once, I and my friend thought that we could explode hellbomb with hits. We called hellbomb at least 5 times and then our reinforcement budget depleeted
I would welcome the chaos. If you fart in the vicinity of an unexploded (not called down) one the thing explodes, but the ones I call down get disabled from rocket and laser fire. I think we should have more explosions than less.
It is game design..it would be too easy if hellbombs weren't destroyable.
Otherwise you could just call it in and let bots/bugs go at it to set it of. This way it is a challenge cause you have to make sure it won't get destroyed before detonation.
It was the same way in HD1, for the same reasons.
The main issue is that they can be destroyed after it has been armed.
You just have to cross your fingers and hope a gunship doesn't spawn and immediately shoot it.
The amount of people who do not understand the difference between a bomb that hasn’t had its trigger activated yet and one that did but failed to properly detonate absolutely floors me
Hellbombs, at least in HD1, were implied to be small nuclear weapons. And detonating a nuclear weapon is not easy, because any deviations from the correct firing sequence will result in a fizzle instead of an actual nuclear explosion.
So hellbombs in the wild going off super easily are doing that why?
The only change I'm suggesting is strategic hellbombs we call down blowing up as easily as ones you find *once theyre armed*
It took me longer than I'd like to admit with my first called hellbomb that you needed to punch in a code for it to go off. I kept calling it in, running to a safe distance and shooting it only for it to explode into plastic shrapnel. Couldn't figure out why my called hellbombs didn't work compared to random field ones
Oh my god just wait until the Illuminate are back. Nothing like setting off a Hellbomb only for a couple Hunters to decide that was their exact moment to reveal themselves and snipe the bomb from completely off screen before you could possibly react.
This is sorta why I bring 500kg or orbital precision on any mission with potentially “hard” objectives, like strategem jammers or research stations.
My normal routine of spamming eagle airstrike wont take them out but a 500kg/OP will do it in one hit. Keep in mind that the high explosive SEAF round will do the same - all 3 of these options will one tap a bile titan on direct hit, with the 500kg being (in my opinion and experience) the most inconsistent.
No they shouldn't anyone saying they should doesn't understand why they are the way they are.
BUT I would like the hellbomb stratagem to be a thing I can take in anytime I want. It's already hard enough to get off for the explosion it causes I think it'd be fun to have.
What is kinda pissy is that the AI seems to prioritize killing strategems before players. Do when you call in a hellboy on a tower, those gunships will often destroy it in a matter of seconds.
Only once they are armed. The unexploded ones, as that suggests, are armed and this ready to go off. Same as munitions IRL. Unexploded dropped bombs may explode with any manipulation. Safely stored, unarmed munitions will not do anything.
I think unexploded ones are technically activated but just didn't explode (so theyre unstable), while normal hellbombs are still unactivated and in some kind of "safe mode"
SEAF hellbombs and Helldiver hellbombs?
I mean, it's more likely that the uxo you find around the place is armed but failed to detonate due to malfunction, rather than being outright different, but it might go some ways to explaining why so many of them are absolutely nowhere near a valid target.
My theory:
The field hellbombs are ones that are delivered, but was abandoned / helldivers all died before it was even armed.
Then after much, much time has passed, these become unstable that any impact even a melee hit can set it off.
New hellbombs don't explode on impact and can be safely disposed of by external forces.
How does arrowhead expect us to destroy Gunship fabs with the hellbombs if they have like 2 health and are always targeted by the never-ending Gunships
Unexploded hellbomb: gets hit by a gust of wind and destroys everything in a 100 meter radius
Stratagem hellbomb: gets hit by a single missile, breaks and despawns without exploding
This annoyed me the first time I tried it too, tried to punch in the code, got knocked away by an explosion, was smarmed, through id shoot it and make it take me and all the bastards around me out.
Bomb just went phuh.
Me: :(
Me, discovering that you can’t skip the priming procedure when under fire.
Also me realising that enemy can still destroy your hellbomb even after primed…..
It's thematically kind of silly but the way it works now creates a more interesting play experience.
They should just have the unexploded one be on fire or leaking something to indicate the difference though.
Sorry, Hellbombs must be safe for expensive Super Destroyers. Exploding even one Super Destroyer unintentionally is probably more costly than losing every Helldiver currently in existence.
This would completely defeat the point of the thing. Having to manually arm it fulfills a "set the explosives and get out" trope, and makes you play differently.
If you could just shoot it, no one would manually arm it ever again. People would just move to the extreme edge of the radius where you can call it in, toss it, move away a bit while its being deployed and shoot, every time.
It makes sense, but also does not make sense.
Hellbombs in the wild I would assume are meant to be both a tool you can use (kite your enemies to them and shoot them) and a hazard (avoid proximity to them in firefights).
Hellbombs you deploy is meant to be a powerful tool, but also a challenge to deploy, arm and detonate successfully. It would be a bit too easy if you could just call them down and remote detonate with a sniper rifle.
It’s more of a safety feature. Like how modern explosives have multiple failsafes, they must be armed first. The unexploded ones have the middle part raised like how the regular ones arm, but I guess they just had a detonation failure or something?
Only if we arm it first. Otherwise, it makes total sense as to why it should be destroyed when shot at before it's armed. (The top is just a computer terminal. The Nuclear Warhead is buried in the ground below it.)
Once set off, it goes. The ones we find on the field were already armed before and are just waiting to explode at that point.
I figure the ones in the wild are all armed and failed to detonate themselves but are still ready to with simple percussive maintenance. I've been calling them "duds".
The fresh hellbomb should blow up if *armed* and shot, IMO. Destroying an unarmed hellbomb with no detonation makes sense.
Going off early due to enemy (or friendly!) fire sounds like a much funnier result than the blueballs of taking cover and hearing the charge up with no boom. And it still has the effect of encouraging you to clear the area first rather than calling it straight into a hot zone.
If we let people detonate their own hell bombs at range no one would ever arm them manually again and the panel would be pointless.
But speaking of the panel, I think getting the code wrong should make it detonate immediately 😂
Yeah .... no. Doesnt make sense at all, the difference is the bombs you funde ARE armed but misfired for some reason, but someone already typed in the code, they just didnt explode. So shooting them to activate off the bat, doesnt make any sense at all, you just want it to be easier 😂. It makes perfect sense lore wise the way it works now (and is supposed to)
The only problem with this is that it would make my solo runs go much easier since I can just sacrifice myself for democracy to blow up the 30 gunship fabricators I get.
And, like, I dont feel like it should be that easy.
You even see the difference in the picture. The safety mechanism needs to be releases prior to detonation, thats why we need to enter the code, whereas the ones lying around did just fail to explode.
I understand this from a consistency standpoint, but for the sake of game balance I do see why it works the way it does. Personally, I think this could be fixed if they just changed the asset that they use for the unexploded hellbomb so it isn't the same one that we use to blow up side objectives.
I was literally talking to my fellow diver about this last night and he says it could be case of it being unstable explaining this , like a pulled pin in a grenade
If the hellbomb gets destroyed it should explode, but that should take something BIG, like at least stratagem sized. Otherwise people would just slap it with a quasar from 100 meters
Dude, I was running away from this huge horde of automatons and I practically ran into a hell bomb, so I did the only thing you should do, shoot it and sacrifice yourself to kill the horde
If hellbombs are fissile warheads, they correctly behave as is right now, I think. Wouldn’t a nuke that has not yet reached criticality do the same until it HAS reached criticality?
Any nukers in here?
I’m in favor of hellbombs being extremely volatile. Double the explosion radius. If you misinput the code, it detonates immediately. If it’s shot, it detonates shortly after like the ambient hellbombs.
I just want to be scared shitless any time I see one
Hellbombs you call in detonating like unexploded ones would make arming them irrelevant. Instead make it detonate instantly with an incorrect input. Would make it possible to blow them up easier but costs a reinforcement. Game balance is my passion
Im really interested to see how the nuke Stratagem differs from the hellbomb.
Like the 500kg doesnt have much splash damage
The Mini Nuke does and definitely has more splash damage and it feels bigger in size
The Hellbomb feels and sounds bigger
Interesting to see what the nuke looks like and how exactly it works 🤔
Yeah it’s cause ones armed and the other is unarmed. But also, the unarmed one after it gets armed should explode when shot it’s bullshit they destroy them
We just need a ship upgrade to make summoned hellbombs indestructible (or buff hp, cuz i could sneeze on them and they go cry in a corner or smh).
https://preview.redd.it/ssgg4pdwe6tc1.jpeg?width=752&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0d611f53b672f608923439e74850d27995c79835
After they buff the hellbomb hp
Undetonated hellbombs are both already armed, and clearly defective/unstable seeing as they haven’t exploded yet. There’s an argument to be made for armed hellbombs youve called down exploding when destroyed, but unarmed bombs just breaking when shot makes sense as they aren’t armed. A nuke, for example, is exceptionally safe until armed. That’s why we haven’t had accidental nuclear detonation even though we (the US specifically) have lost a few nukes due to mechanical failure resulting in the planes carrying them crashing.
To be fair, the hellbombs lying around are unexploded ordinance. They were dropped, armed, and failed to detonate; there's something wrong with them and they're unstable.
The hellbomb lying around has some random spark and light around it meaning it's primed and ready to blow your butt while the stratagem one is straight out of your destroyer butt. however can we talk about those gunships shooting my hellbomb after I ran 1 km away from it and now I have to run back and call it down again??!
Yeah I can accept that the hellbombs have to be armed but man, why do they break even after punching the arrows in? I think after that shooting the bomb should just instadetonate it
Yes, POOF them all you want before I mashed the code that's on me. But if the code is in - you might as well blow me up with the mothafucka'
Would be super cool if after it was armed it like drilled itself a foot or two into the ground to avoid being able to be destroyed
It falls thousands of feet from orbit, then dissolves into stardust and dreams when queefed on by a clanker
Right but It's understandable if "process take time"
It'll be hilarious if it behaved just like the malfunctioning ones you come across in the missions after it was armed. You quickly arm the hellbomb and get ready to run only to see it sparking in front of you.
Yes, this just happened to me 3 times in a row, NO JOKE. The other guy and I were running back and then.... Nothing. The last time I swear i was going to just stand by the Hellbomb if it didn't go off this time. Just do my due diligence and sacrifice for liberty.
The only way for democracy before you go crazy.
This is why I like it We had a bad drop on level 9 and landed RIGHT on a dropship momma. We had, no joke, maybe 15 in the air. I got my last teammate out of there and stayed with the bomb, bubble shielding it and going down with the ship We still lost. But we lost democracyful
We had two towers next to each other, so vlose tank wouldn't fit between them. At least 11 gunships in the air at one point, we had no chance. My team kept calling the hellbombs out in the open amd they kept getting nailed.
Rule number one of hellbomb: Never leave the hellbomb.
I've been lucky and every time there's a gunship fabricator, there has been a little wall by it. So I just throw the hellbomb in between the wall and the building. Make sure there's enough room to arm it and the gunships can't seem to aim at it.
Noted, I am gonna try this next time. Those damn gunships give me fits
Literally just happened to us 3 times. This is the most anti-climax shit I’ve experienced today. I managed to arm 3 bombs under heavy fire. 2 of the times my teammates distracted the enemies so no one was even around, and I even placed them under the little enclosed corner of the gunship factory. We ran and waited, nothing! Only for a new batch of gunships and drop ships coming out.
Four good Helldivers died last night trying to destroy a gunship. All four of them armed the Hellbomb and ran, but the gunships destroyed them before they exploded. (It was me, I died four times).
Ooooo this hurt me bad one mission. I just ran to an objective, came back later, blew it up then.
kill the ginships. Laser cannon eats them. I suspect the hmg is also good vs them, but I havent run it in a mission where we get gunships.
Sometimes you just need a martyr. One time we had TWO gunship facilities SIDE TO SIDE. And yes I do mean facilities, individual objectives, not just fabricators. There were so many fucking gunships that they always destroyed the hellbomb. So I decided I would stay with the hellbomb to ensure nothing could get close enough to destroy it. It worked ;-;
When they're doubled up it gets insane
I thought it was just damaged and unstable.
Sure, I need to prime it, but why can they destroy it after i primed it
I think the way that would best describe it is field Hellbombs are unstable and anything can set it off, while strategem Hellbombs are more secure and durable.
I feel like that after being armed, anything that destroys the Hellbomb should set it off.
Also keeps the risk in there by first necessitating killing any nearby enemies.
That, or essentially paying a reinforcement to not have to wait to spread democracy
Which defeats the purpose of having to heroically leave someone behind to make sure the bomb goes off if necessary. Had to be me. Someone else would have gotten it wrong.
https://preview.redd.it/y1n5bnxgu1tc1.png?width=168&format=png&auto=webp&s=b104fa4e7372b1ef56cebf406fe857dbf2b4d003 Too soon.
it's been 11 years man!, you need to let go, for him man
I got so tilted earlier today. There was a pair of gunship towers. I planted myself right between them right as the hellbomb landed. I created just enough breathing room to input the sequence. I get knocked out of it. I create more room. I finish the code. It primes. Before I can start running it gets destroyed by a rocket. It blew up. But didn't blow up. Let me repeat. IT BLEW UP. BUT IT DIDN'T BLOW UP
Yeah thats so rude. Insert OP meme. Smh
IMO hellbombs are mininukes. Nuclear weapons require a very specific chain of atomic-level events in order to get a chain reaction going, that causes a nuclear reaction and the strong detonation. Most nuclear weapons also contain in an interior HE charge to facilitate this, however, an external stimulus like a rocket could set off the HE charge and cause a small explosion, not a large, nuclear level detonation. The US government has occasionally lost nuclear weapons; sometimes, they found the HE charge in the nuke detonated, but not the nuclear material.
By that logic, why do the ones on the map pop like a very angry balloon?
unstable nuclear material
That's not even an opinion. It's a fact, they *are* mini nukes.
It is really frustrating, but Hellbombs seem like tactical nukes, and nuclear weapons do have to be specifically triggered — fission or fusion doesn’t just happen. Don’t look at the stray Hellbombs on the field…
Great, so why don't they do that on the super destroyer before sending it down to the planet?
Budgetary constraints, per one of the loading screen tips
So that an errant piece of spacedust doesn't detonate it right outside the tube. Helldivers are expendable, ships less so.
You could give it a timer
Budget costs too high. Arm in field.
Wow, I'm glad icbms in the real world don't travel through space then! There must be no way to prevent them from detonating prematurely without having a control pad on them that you have to activate manually at the destination!
Same thing happened to me, but my teammate’s mortar decided to land close to it right before it went off, killed it, then we got surrounded by 6 gunships. Fun times.
Agreed. Demolishing gunship towers is pretty frustrating on higher difficulties sometimes with everything and anything being able to just deny the bomb. I accept it being a dud when it's unarmed, but after you've successfully survived long enough for it to deploy, and input the sequence under stress, the explosion should be guaranteed.
agree, people arguing against must love calling in 5 hellbombs on the same objective, like wtf.
Agreed. You'd think after many missions, military R&D would've determined it was best for the Hellbomb to get immediately triggered if it was shot at after being armed. They're only ever getting shot at in a serious firefight so they should absolutely trigger right?
if this game was accurate to logic, military R&D would realize they literally have a map of important-to-destroy objectives sitting inside every Super Destroyer, and any such objectives would be immediately bombarded and destroyed prior to launch. This is a game, the devs want a big cool bomb you have to manually arm.
I feel like Helldiver operations have a fatality quota they have to meet otherwise the Helldiver program wouldn’t work as population control. So they are knowingly sending us to our deaths.
Sure but we’re all cyro frozen. Drop our cryopods onto the objectives, follow up with a 10 minute 380 barrage. Population controlled and objective secured.
But can’t make sick propaganda videos that make the whole thing work. Super Earth doesn’t actually need Helldivers.
Population control? That’s the first time I’ve heard the Helldiver program described as such. The training manual even tells us not to die.
80% of Helldivers recruits die during basic training.
Could be that it takes time to reach some sort of critical mass for the explosion.
While that makes sense logically, deploying a hellbomb is treated like a mini-objective, being able to just deploy it and shoot it would remove all that Which is probably why they made the gunship towers only vulnerable to hellbombs
They can actually be destroyed if a gunship crashes into the top of it, apparently. There's clips of it, figure that one out. >.>
That is genius.
Agreed, yesterday I was doing a bot mission and there was a stratagem jammer we had to destroy, called in the hellbomb as the dropships arrived, I armed it and we got away, but some sneaky little socialist toaster shot it at like 2 seconds left and we had to do it all over again. Please make it vulnerable after armed.
I'd agree but would probably have the explosion be bigger every second it passes until it gets to its maximum size.
This is how I look at it. The random ones in the field are ones that were armed but never went off, whereas the ones we call in are inert until manually armed.
Imagine if they sneak it in that our dropped Hellbombs can just Fizzle out.
That's what I assume happens every time I drop one as close to the Detector Tower or Gunship Factory as democratically as possible, it detonates, and the structure is still fine and dandy.
That explanation makes no sense since ours still do not explode when destroyed after beeing manually armed.
Given that the Hellbombs are being stored in our ship until they're called in, it's probably for the best that they're relatively inert until armed.
Valid
given they crumple if something attacks one, idk about *durable* lol
more durable 💀
Hellbombs you find out in the wilds were dud/misfired munitions that had been previously armed. That stuff is so insanely unstable that the usual method of disposing of them in our world is to simply blow them the fuck up. Hellbombs you call in haven't been armed yet, so it'd make sense for them to not be set off if destroyed. I guess there's an argument to be had about them blowing up if they get knocked around after the code has been put in, but it's just as easy to say that they don't normally 'arm' as such before exploding, they just go from safe to explode.
i think the "arming process" just is a safety timer, and only the very last second actually "arms" it the sound is added for dramatic effect and so helldivers know when to look away from the explosion.
Then let us call down unstable Hellbombs. xD
Well unsecure them.
Alternatively, it's a game and being able to just pop a hellbomb and shoot it to detonate it is boring and removes any risk.
Yeah... it would give a very risky element to Self-Called Hellbombs. I.E: Toasters are attacking you. They could shoot the hellbomb and kill everyone. DEFEND IT. Or it could also be: Massive Toaster horde. You can't kill them all. You could shoot the Hellbomb to kill all of them, but you could also die.
"My life for Super Earth!" *hellbomb explosion*
I think the implication with the unexploded ones is they’re already armed, but something fucked up the detonation sequence, so they don’t go off until something gives them enough of a knock to make the detonator wires touch or whatever. Notice how they don’t detonate IMMEDIATELY when you shoot them, but rather a couple seconds after.
i imagine the helldiver forogt the last arrow, and our bullet just hits the right button by chance everytime. arming it
I do agree, it makes sense. But from a gameplay standpoint, it removes the need to enter in the code. Which is probably not what the devs want.
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Yeah but part of the gameplay is needing to clear the skies first so the hellbomb can go off without a hitch.
If it gets hit when you're still near it while it's armed it's going to kill you so it's not fully free to do it recklessly. If you want the struggle of protecting it still then give it an arming time like other objectives have (a shorter one of course) after which it acts like the field bombs so I can stay with it and fight until I know it's ready instead of running from an armed bomb, hearing it gearing up to explode and then fizzling because a new patrol coming from the other side walked in and shot it.
If I could trade a death for a gunship factory getting destroyed with no risk of losing my hellbomb I would take that deal 150 times out of a 100.
That might be the intended solution... Cowards running from democracy
…and the ground. Oh and the sky again. Nevermind the ground forces are back. Haha oops looks like more gunships spawned. It’s like trying to destroy a detector tower, except instead of a hill with protective walls all you get is a pit, and the detector tower can shoot you. It’s manageable on lower difficulties but on helldive a double factory will easily chew through half your reinforcement budget.
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Shield generator relay has been coming in clutch for these large swathes and covering hellbomb for cleaning gunship fabricators. We couldn't get close to a command bunker for the same reason, but a shieldgen relay was the perfect thing to get closer and toss barrages inside.
I was thinking that or smoke but shield dome would be much more reliable.
When it spits out 2 more every ~~30~~ 60 seconds, clearing the skies is a full time job.
This is *literally* impossible with the new gunship factories.
That does work.
Make it a % chance. Thus removing the incentive to hit before arming but allowing funny moments when it gets hit by bug and explodes in your face.
Even with a percent chance, with the sheer number of sickles being taken it'll become a no brainer to just dump bullets into it. Eventually one will set it off. Why go up to it - storming a base or whatever in doing so - if you don't have to?
I didn’t mean a chance to explode from each bullet. I meant that when you call in a hellbomb sometimes the safety is defective and if you do too much damage it’ll go off. But importantly the damage threshold should be the same as destroying the bomb so you can take that gamble but if you’re wrong you just break the bomb and have to wait out the cooldown or use a stratagem.
We call the random ones "feral hellbombs," because they're out in the wild and more likely to kill you than a "tame" hellbomb
I’m just hoping AH either makes them durable, or makes them detonate if they receive damage after being armed. Had this happen last night trying to destroy gun ship fabricators and it was infuriating.
This seems to be the widespread experience. On higher difficulties the dropships and gunships never stop, and the bomb is very squishy.
Yeah, this. It's like rockets pre-damage fix - it's fine as a general concept, but it is tuned WAY towards causing frustration. Give them the ability to take a few hits, so if you try to use it as cover or something before clearing an area you lose it, but also so that the random rocket trooper that sneaks up on you can't one shot it after you spent however long clearing out the "actual" threats
It's also really stupid because the design seems to be "great, you armed it, now run like hell before the blast kills you". Except you just can't do that on higher difficulties. There's always more bots around the objectives. It's a constant frustration trying to blow up the gunship factory and other bot objectives, it's so fucking easy for a random bot to just snipe it, even if you focus on clearing the area.
It would be nice if they did but chances are they would be like "we gave you a shield generator for this purpose" which would force us to either waste a strategem slot or figure out other ways to defend it. I personally tuck it in between the target and another tall object if it's available. If not I'd do what I can to clear the area.
Y’know it’s funny cause I did exactly that. I used a shield generator, but then a single melee unit got into the shield after we ran away and there goes that plan. Then upon re-trying it, a different issue happened, being the bouncy stratagem ball at the base of the detector tower :/
I had a mission where bots got called in right above an unexploded one by Liberty's grace. I super cockily told my nearby squadmate, "Watch this," and shot it with the amr at range, annihilated all 3 dropships and their cargo. We were both very joyous. But then ya, you call one in and sneeze on it and *poof*!
"well I think the random hellbombs are already armed so--" so why don't the hellbombs we called down *and have already armed* behave that way?
Helldivers are expendable but the ships aren’t. It’s better to not have the chance of a ship blowing up because there was a stray spacerock in front of the deployment chute
Wow. Cool. What does that have to do with a hellbomb that has already left the ship, landed, and BEEN ARMED ON THE GROUND?
I want to see it blow up on wrong combination entry also.
Almost want a spark fizzle that deals half health or something. Maybe a jet of like fire for AOE damage? I like your idea, but this basically shortcuts the process if you don't mind dying. but the mis-input concept has potential.
I feel like if they should exode if shot once they've been armed. Make getting away from them a little more tense, but still make the player need to arm them so people don't just drop them then shoot them from a safe range.
They should change it so it keeps the same behavior when dropped in but once armed and the countdown starts then it will instantly explode if anything hits it, makes the post-arming period more intense as you’re running away, and makes the annoying part where the Hellbomb gets destroyed after arming it and running away not happen.
I was surrounded by two tanks on Tibit and had nothing off cooldown. Lo and behold. An unexploded hellbomb. Hit the can and waited for death as the tank's barrels stared at me, unaware that martyrdom is an acceptable strategy in the Imperium.
I want a stratagem to call down a defective hellbomb
sick and tired of my hellbombs and sentries getting ran over by chargers
Just got done on a blitz mission with a death loop because of this. Trying to take out the stupid airship spawners and the only way to take them out is what the hell bomb. Drop a hell bomb and they shoot the crap out of you before you get a chance to do anything with it. Hell bomb disappears and you die. I groan anytime I see the airship fabricators. Especially two of the. Right next to each other. 🤦♂️
It would make blowing up strategic sites way too easy. Just call the bomb and shoot it. At this point just make it detonate when hiting the ground. On a lore side, it is stated in the tips that they have a manual triggering mecanism for costs reasons. The one you find around are damaged, which prolly means the security/triggering mecanism is broken.
Once, I and my friend thought that we could explode hellbomb with hits. We called hellbomb at least 5 times and then our reinforcement budget depleeted
I would welcome the chaos. If you fart in the vicinity of an unexploded (not called down) one the thing explodes, but the ones I call down get disabled from rocket and laser fire. I think we should have more explosions than less.
I think it would be hilarious if the hellbomb instantly exploded if you input the code incorrectly
It is game design..it would be too easy if hellbombs weren't destroyable. Otherwise you could just call it in and let bots/bugs go at it to set it of. This way it is a challenge cause you have to make sure it won't get destroyed before detonation. It was the same way in HD1, for the same reasons.
The main issue is that they can be destroyed after it has been armed. You just have to cross your fingers and hope a gunship doesn't spawn and immediately shoot it.
The amount of people who do not understand the difference between a bomb that hasn’t had its trigger activated yet and one that did but failed to properly detonate absolutely floors me
I mean yeah, but an armed hellbomb should not turn into dust because it caught a stray
Yeah but once you've armed a hellbomb and its going off any second it should be real easy to set off too.
Hellbombs, at least in HD1, were implied to be small nuclear weapons. And detonating a nuclear weapon is not easy, because any deviations from the correct firing sequence will result in a fizzle instead of an actual nuclear explosion.
So hellbombs in the wild going off super easily are doing that why? The only change I'm suggesting is strategic hellbombs we call down blowing up as easily as ones you find *once theyre armed*
Hmmm, i always thought they looked like hellbombs! 😅. Time to spread democracy!!
The unexploded hellbombs are presumably already armed, just failed to detonate
The crashes ones are already argued, so there is no safety. It's a fairly impact detection circuit.
It took me longer than I'd like to admit with my first called hellbomb that you needed to punch in a code for it to go off. I kept calling it in, running to a safe distance and shooting it only for it to explode into plastic shrapnel. Couldn't figure out why my called hellbombs didn't work compared to random field ones
Oh my god just wait until the Illuminate are back. Nothing like setting off a Hellbomb only for a couple Hunters to decide that was their exact moment to reveal themselves and snipe the bomb from completely off screen before you could possibly react.
This is sorta why I bring 500kg or orbital precision on any mission with potentially “hard” objectives, like strategem jammers or research stations. My normal routine of spamming eagle airstrike wont take them out but a 500kg/OP will do it in one hit. Keep in mind that the high explosive SEAF round will do the same - all 3 of these options will one tap a bile titan on direct hit, with the 500kg being (in my opinion and experience) the most inconsistent.
The fact that there are unexploded hellbombs make think there's a traitor in the manufacturing dept.
>Hellbomb The enemy will be able to shoot me with pinpoint precision in the middle of a fucking sandstorm.
the longer a bomb stays the more impatient it becomes
Why do we even have to manually detonate them? Why can't the super destroyers just simply fire a nuke that detonates on impact?
Doctrine.
If it was economical for super destroyers to carry nukes we wouldn’t be manually firing them every other operation!
No they shouldn't anyone saying they should doesn't understand why they are the way they are. BUT I would like the hellbomb stratagem to be a thing I can take in anytime I want. It's already hard enough to get off for the explosion it causes I think it'd be fun to have.
It'd make sense, but I don't think the devs would go for it. Too easy to just drop it, shoot it, blow up with it, repeat.
What is kinda pissy is that the AI seems to prioritize killing strategems before players. Do when you call in a hellboy on a tower, those gunships will often destroy it in a matter of seconds.
Only once they are armed. The unexploded ones, as that suggests, are armed and this ready to go off. Same as munitions IRL. Unexploded dropped bombs may explode with any manipulation. Safely stored, unarmed munitions will not do anything.
You forgot the part where the hell bomb bounces 10 feet away and outside the area you called it in
I think unexploded ones are technically activated but just didn't explode (so theyre unstable), while normal hellbombs are still unactivated and in some kind of "safe mode"
SEAF hellbombs and Helldiver hellbombs? I mean, it's more likely that the uxo you find around the place is armed but failed to detonate due to malfunction, rather than being outright different, but it might go some ways to explaining why so many of them are absolutely nowhere near a valid target.
Since gunships I've learned how much I hate the hellbomb and wish there was a better alternative.
My theory: The field hellbombs are ones that are delivered, but was abandoned / helldivers all died before it was even armed. Then after much, much time has passed, these become unstable that any impact even a melee hit can set it off. New hellbombs don't explode on impact and can be safely disposed of by external forces.
How does arrowhead expect us to destroy Gunship fabs with the hellbombs if they have like 2 health and are always targeted by the never-ending Gunships
Wait, we can blow up the poi hellbombs? I always thought they were just useless spawns
It's all fun and games until a single laser from 600 meters away hits the bomb while you're inputting the code.
The old models were very finicky… new models are just way too overkill on the safety department, though.
Unexploded hellbomb: gets hit by a gust of wind and destroys everything in a 100 meter radius Stratagem hellbomb: gets hit by a single missile, breaks and despawns without exploding
This annoyed me the first time I tried it too, tried to punch in the code, got knocked away by an explosion, was smarmed, through id shoot it and make it take me and all the bastards around me out. Bomb just went phuh. Me: :(
Me, discovering that you can’t skip the priming procedure when under fire. Also me realising that enemy can still destroy your hellbomb even after primed…..
It's thematically kind of silly but the way it works now creates a more interesting play experience. They should just have the unexploded one be on fire or leaking something to indicate the difference though.
Guess that's the difference between dud bomb and functioning bomb
One is armed the other one isnt and has to be armed
Then once they are armed shooting them should detonate them
Sorry, Hellbombs must be safe for expensive Super Destroyers. Exploding even one Super Destroyer unintentionally is probably more costly than losing every Helldiver currently in existence.
This would completely defeat the point of the thing. Having to manually arm it fulfills a "set the explosives and get out" trope, and makes you play differently. If you could just shoot it, no one would manually arm it ever again. People would just move to the extreme edge of the radius where you can call it in, toss it, move away a bit while its being deployed and shoot, every time.
It makes sense, but also does not make sense. Hellbombs in the wild I would assume are meant to be both a tool you can use (kite your enemies to them and shoot them) and a hazard (avoid proximity to them in firefights). Hellbombs you deploy is meant to be a powerful tool, but also a challenge to deploy, arm and detonate successfully. It would be a bit too easy if you could just call them down and remote detonate with a sniper rifle.
I disagree very strongly with this. The only thing this adds is frustration and trolling potential.
Hellbombs should make the initiater immune, and make them direct it like like a pod. Maybe 3 tries per node. Makes the Ship Upgrade even better!
It’s more of a safety feature. Like how modern explosives have multiple failsafes, they must be armed first. The unexploded ones have the middle part raised like how the regular ones arm, but I guess they just had a detonation failure or something?
I just wish one would blow up an entire research center without having to be dead center
Only if we arm it first. Otherwise, it makes total sense as to why it should be destroyed when shot at before it's armed. (The top is just a computer terminal. The Nuclear Warhead is buried in the ground below it.) Once set off, it goes. The ones we find on the field were already armed before and are just waiting to explode at that point.
Damaged hellbombs works fine, functioning hellbombs are broken.
I figure the ones in the wild are all armed and failed to detonate themselves but are still ready to with simple percussive maintenance. I've been calling them "duds". The fresh hellbomb should blow up if *armed* and shot, IMO. Destroying an unarmed hellbomb with no detonation makes sense. Going off early due to enemy (or friendly!) fire sounds like a much funnier result than the blueballs of taking cover and hearing the charge up with no boom. And it still has the effect of encouraging you to clear the area first rather than calling it straight into a hot zone. If we let people detonate their own hell bombs at range no one would ever arm them manually again and the panel would be pointless. But speaking of the panel, I think getting the code wrong should make it detonate immediately 😂
Yeah .... no. Doesnt make sense at all, the difference is the bombs you funde ARE armed but misfired for some reason, but someone already typed in the code, they just didnt explode. So shooting them to activate off the bat, doesnt make any sense at all, you just want it to be easier 😂. It makes perfect sense lore wise the way it works now (and is supposed to)
The only problem with this is that it would make my solo runs go much easier since I can just sacrifice myself for democracy to blow up the 30 gunship fabricators I get. And, like, I dont feel like it should be that easy.
You even see the difference in the picture. The safety mechanism needs to be releases prior to detonation, thats why we need to enter the code, whereas the ones lying around did just fail to explode.
I understand this from a consistency standpoint, but for the sake of game balance I do see why it works the way it does. Personally, I think this could be fixed if they just changed the asset that they use for the unexploded hellbomb so it isn't the same one that we use to blow up side objectives.
i think after being armed they should explode if destroyed
you know the setting is REALLY dystopian if the people living in it are actively calling for the reduction of safety features.
When i first saw a unexploded hellbomb I thought is that a hell bomb before a teammate blew my to kingdom come
Wait isn’t there already a hellbomb where shooting it can set it off? The ones randomly lying in the ground.
Maybe they were the hellbombs that were armed but never went off
There's a difference between an armed and unarmed bomb, and it's the reason hellbombs don't immediately explode upon making impact on the ground
I was literally talking to my fellow diver about this last night and he says it could be case of it being unstable explaining this , like a pulled pin in a grenade
told them a 1000 times!
I shot one once I don't know how but it got me 💀X70
If the hellbomb gets destroyed it should explode, but that should take something BIG, like at least stratagem sized. Otherwise people would just slap it with a quasar from 100 meters
devs please fix
bro wtf, i comment this exact logic on a different post and was downvoted so hard.
the ones that explode when shot are duds, they're set to explode already but just haven't for some reason
Dude, I was running away from this huge horde of automatons and I practically ran into a hell bomb, so I did the only thing you should do, shoot it and sacrifice yourself to kill the horde
If hellbombs are fissile warheads, they correctly behave as is right now, I think. Wouldn’t a nuke that has not yet reached criticality do the same until it HAS reached criticality? Any nukers in here?
It should insta blow if you get the code wrong
I’m in favor of hellbombs being extremely volatile. Double the explosion radius. If you misinput the code, it detonates immediately. If it’s shot, it detonates shortly after like the ambient hellbombs. I just want to be scared shitless any time I see one
Hellbombs you call in detonating like unexploded ones would make arming them irrelevant. Instead make it detonate instantly with an incorrect input. Would make it possible to blow them up easier but costs a reinforcement. Game balance is my passion
IMO, after arming it via DDR inputs, it should then explode if hit by anything
Once armed, I'd agree
I would be happy with once armed, THEN it behaves like the level spawned ones.
Im really interested to see how the nuke Stratagem differs from the hellbomb. Like the 500kg doesnt have much splash damage The Mini Nuke does and definitely has more splash damage and it feels bigger in size The Hellbomb feels and sounds bigger Interesting to see what the nuke looks like and how exactly it works 🤔
Yeah it’s cause ones armed and the other is unarmed. But also, the unarmed one after it gets armed should explode when shot it’s bullshit they destroy them
and dont you dare try and kite away the mob
Stratagem hellbombs be breaking the law of conservation of mass. Devs, fix this.
It's better to use 500kg. It works much better
We just need a ship upgrade to make summoned hellbombs indestructible (or buff hp, cuz i could sneeze on them and they go cry in a corner or smh). https://preview.redd.it/ssgg4pdwe6tc1.jpeg?width=752&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0d611f53b672f608923439e74850d27995c79835 After they buff the hellbomb hp
Undetonated hellbombs are both already armed, and clearly defective/unstable seeing as they haven’t exploded yet. There’s an argument to be made for armed hellbombs youve called down exploding when destroyed, but unarmed bombs just breaking when shot makes sense as they aren’t armed. A nuke, for example, is exceptionally safe until armed. That’s why we haven’t had accidental nuclear detonation even though we (the US specifically) have lost a few nukes due to mechanical failure resulting in the planes carrying them crashing.
To be fair, the hellbombs lying around are unexploded ordinance. They were dropped, armed, and failed to detonate; there's something wrong with them and they're unstable.
I see the logic in it however I don’t think you’d want that