HELLDIVERS Helliquette - a gentleman's guide to the galaxy

Preword

Being interested in this game for a long time I held the high hope of PC release for the last half a year and searched for A LOT of materials concerning the game. During my internet surfing I stumbled upon this peculiar thread.

I did my best to overcome the laziness and contacted the creator of Original Thread on Reddit to deliver this collection of wise advices to rapidly growing PC Helldivers community.

I really do hope that the community and YOU, dear reader, will find this guide quite as useful as did I. If you have any additional suggestions - post them in comment section down below and I will consider adding them in along with giving due credit.

Some of the remarks might not be added to the guide. However, most of them are useful, so I also advise you, dear reader, to look through comment section too.

If you think that something here can be improved or changed - voice your opinions and concerns in the comment section down below as well.

~Akinbird

PC edition of Helliquette last updated on 8.2.2016 (m.d.yyyy)

General Etiquette

Don't step in your pod before the host

No matter how hard the mission or how unskilled your mates are, don't abandon the mission

If you mess up/suck over and over again and the host does not kick you - commend him/her

Greet/seeing off your fellow divers with a few capespins

Commend your fellow divers if they play and behave well

Don't take other people's stuff without permission/unless absolutely necessary

Don't report noobs for being noobs

Don't drink and drive

Don't take too long upgrading your stuff on the bridge

Before the mission starts, don't immediately confirm your loadout if other people are still making their loadouts. If everyone's in a rush to confirm their loadout the last person gets stuck with a bunch of useless strats because they ran out of time. Just make your loadout and then patiently wait at the bottom to hit confirm, that let everyone else know you're ready to start. If the remaining people are just playing around or not paying attention, then hit confirm and start, so the timer begins. But ideally, try to give everyone in the group ample time to put together their load-outs.

Gameplay Tips

If you drop in a running mission don't stall the game, assess the situation and drop in your stuff only if your group has to wait anyhow

Don't make your group wait for your equipment if it is not absolutely necessary

Don't obstruct the line of fire. If you do (it can happen) hit the deck

Don't go over dead bodies for kills. Shooting through a teammate for some kills is not worth it

If you are the last man standing, escape, reinforce, resupply, try again

There is no in-game need to rush, as a group, take your time preparing

Leave the ammo drops to the guy carrying a supply pack. The supply guy taking the ammo gets his own weapons refilled AND his pack too, which in return you can use to refill your stuff

If you don't carry a backpack (shield, drone, supply pack) and someone calls down a recoilless rifle/commando, offer to take the ammo for him to make use of the assisted reload, since it's a lot faster than one man manual reload. When playing with randoms it might be really hard without voice chat but standing next to it, pushing wait, grabbing, pushing affirmative should work too

Don't try to "drag" your group with you because you want that sample unless your group is sample hunting anyway

Try to maintain a formation where you have a clear line of fire while obstructing none

Please upgrade your reinforce to mk3, a short cooldown of just 30 seconds might often safe the tough mission

When reinforcing in combat, don't throw your mates inside the enemy group unless you have no other choice. Yes, the pods might squish one or two enemies or even the tank but they will be standing in the middle of enemies and in your line of fire, which will result in another quick death and no reinforce for the next 30 seconds

If three of your mates are distracted with a cluster of enemies, don't butt in and instead secure the unguarded flanks

Stop all running in front of the escort; they die when off camera, and you're leaving them exposed in the rear. Let the guy leading the escort run ahead with one player as backup; at least one 'diver should be pulling up the rear

Resist the temptation to aim backwards. It seems cool to "cover" the guys by aiming backwards but this prevents the camera from moving forward and can be infuriating and dangerous for the diver at the front who cannot see what's right in front of him

When you need to move, if you are in the front, cover your teammates at the back who are still engaged with pursuers. Get some bullets down there or throw a stratagem they can scoot past to block enemies from following. Pinning yourself to the far end of the screen and spamming "move!" is not going to make them go faster

Lead the team back around to reclaim abandoned equipment between objectives and/or before extraction

If there is no objective require you to kill a certain amount of enemies then never stand around trying to kill that one bigass bug. Always running toward the next objective

Always be on the move. Two Helldivers fallen in combat? Start running with the other one to the next objective then call them down and wait for them to arrive, securing their arrival

IF YOU CAN safely call the res beacon, absolutely do it. If you can then stand around until it pops, do that too. If at any point you become genuinely concerned that it's a choice between successful mission completion and getting the second star GET ON THE SHUTTLE. Everybody will be a tiny bit sad if they are not on the shuttle, and majorly bummed if they have to repeat the whole mission.

Don't drink and dive

PROTIP: When you're on the ground, you can still call in a reinforce beacon

PC Community Additions

updated 8.2.2016

Gameplay tips

Currently the VOIP push-to-talk mode is disabled by default and there's no indication that the mic is on at all times. Check your settings and turn push-to-talk on if it's currently off, since not everyone likes to hear your screaming kids/TV/you or the sounds from your game all the time.

Use in-game callouts responsibly. Don't spam the MOVE callout (or any callout, for that matter) if someone is falling behind because they're in an exo-suit or are just slower than you. If it seems like they're trying to keep up, slower your pace and move as a unit. Use HOLD callout only if you need to pick up sonething really important (like the RR and ammo to it in the middle of high-level cyborg mission). If you are hosting but you don't use VOIP - use NO callout instead to warn players that they do something wrong.

You can use stratagems while rollin' around in your Mecha (not APC/HAV/Bastion however)

Be careful with attack stratagems. If you prepared it but haven't thrown it yet dying with the beacon in hands will cause the stratagem to deploy at the spot where you stood

If you don't know which stratagem to take - take the Humblebee (Recon DLC pack UAV stratagem). It's always useful. When there's a player in your squad who has a UAV and it is active - let him/her lead the way. Bear with him/her checking the surroundings via map a lot, UAV operator knows what's up

If you're feeling like lonewolfing - for the love of God, play solo. Remember, that the screen is locked for all players present, and it is locked over the whole squad. As such you depend on them and they depend on you

If you are a pathfinder and you lead your squad - always assess the capabilities of your teammates. You might be able scoot over that pesky minefield harmless using your jump pack but your pedestrian teammates or mecha operators will most likely die

If you are on fire - hit the ground. It will stop that deadly DoT effect

Shoot scouts that can sound the alarm first even in combat to avoid getting more trouble on your backs

Communicate your strategems before starting the missions. It sucks when there are three shield pack divers and one guy with a recoiless being forced to carry his own ammo, especially when it can be prevented so easily just by communicating before the mission starts

Wait to drop Mechs and Vehicles until everyone has dropped the rest of their gear. Nobody likes to watch them get blown up by the Resupply Stratagem you threw in the same direction a milisecond later

Credit Section

For the original content all credit goes to the creator (Sokunokumi) of the original Reddit thread (Helliquette - a gentleman's guide to the galaxy) and all the contributors there.

Credit for minor changes in the original text goes to me.

Credit goes to Mr. Stimpson for the remark on callouts

Credit goes to MeatMachine for the remark on VOIP

Credit goes to SCUM-O-CIDE for the remarks on stratagem-while-in-mecha summoning and danger of attack stratagems

Credit goes to Harmony Sly for the remarks on UAV, squad capabilities assessing and for the idea about lonewolfing

Credit goes to mr. Sandman for the remark on Covering and fire effect DoT

Credit goes to Satire for the remark on shooting the scouts

Credit goes to John Graham Doe for the remark on equipment and strats communication

Credit goes to Charge Beam for the idea to drop mechs and vehicles after all other gear

Credit goes to YOU for reading this and spreading manners in the community.

Guide Updates

update from 8.2.2016

added Charge Beam's contribution to the "PC community additions" section

update from 1.5.2016

added John Graham Doe's contribution to the "PC community additions" section

update from 12.10.2015

added Satire's contribution to the "PC community additions" section

update from 12.9.2015

added mr. Sandman's contribution to the "PC community additions" section

update from 12.8.2015

added SCUM-O-CIDE's and some of Harmony Sly's contibutions to the "PC community additions" section

edited "Preword" section and added some stuff to it

fixed a bunch of typos

update from 12.7.2015

added new section: "PC community additions" (for the sake of keeping the stuff borrowed from Reddit in more or less original form)

added Mr. Stimpson's and MeatMachine's contributions to the "PC community additions" section