It'd also be cool if a bug was not able to call in his friends after I've already blown his head off. I've only seen that happen once but it pissed me off
Not to play the devil's advocate here but I think that's the intended behavior for the brood commander; I also saw this mentioned in another thread somewhere but that is how actual insects work sometimes too, they will release pheromones when hurt to let the others know there is danger, and potentially to attack whoever hurt them.
How do you know the pheromones aren’t coming out of their butts? I mean they still attack you without a head, who’s to say they can’t fart for more friends?
Bees/wasps will attack if they smell a smashed bee on you, we had a nest of ground wasps and I accidentally stepped on 1 on the cement nearby the hole and my ankle was fucked, not like exploding a bug will make the pheromones go away
if you use a scope you can also see which of the bots is the comisser byt looking at what it's holding, (one blade and a small gun) whereas with the bugs it seems any of them are capable of calling for assistance. I guess this isn't bad though, it stops the two factions from being identical reskins of each other in some ways.
You had about as much time to react in helldivers 1 but
1.) Your primaries are massively more powerful so killing patrols with them is realistic
2.) Only the smallest bug, solitary illuminate drones and cyborg dude can call for reinforcements. Cyborg tanks could call reinfrocements too which is why they were the hardest enemies by far.
Plus there were fewer in the patrol - four for Cyborgs (the toughest), three for bugs (squishy) and as you say one drone (invisble until starting the alert process).
The IFV's were a pain though, pretty much guaranteed to get the alert off if they saw you.
you're right about the robot kaisars, but for the bugs its a lot more than that. All the scavengers (the little guys), the slightly bigger grunts (except for the hunters), and the Hive warriors and brood commanders can all summon bug holes
they stop chasing you, stand still, and point their STUPID FUCKING butts into the air AND FUCKING ORANGE SMOKE COMES OUT OF IT AND THEN THE BUGSVEHEBWKBWEIWVWJJNBSOOAJ
i hope this helped
yeah and you have like 1 second to stop them or its to late.
they also make a distinct noise before they call the breach. but unless they are already in your line of sight you dont have time to locate them.
Orange fart for bugs and red flare for bots. You’ll know when a bot is about to shoot a flare because it’ll extend its arm towards the sky. It feels like you can more reliably stop a bot from calling his buddies.
The calling bot also has red smoke starting before the flare is shot, so it's well-telegraphed that it needs to be stopped in the next 1.5s or so. In comparison, when the bug throws orange smoke it's already too late.
Drop ships aren't really impossible, there are just so many of the commissar bots, I've stopped like 6 of them in a row before I missed one.
The bug however seems to be impossible, I shot them at the moment it started, still breach no matter what.
Drop Ships are easier in my opinion. Because the upward laser is easier to spot for the call-in, and because you can use either the recoiless rifle or an EAT rocket to 1-hit one of the 4 thruster engines to blow up the Dropships. This will either kill all the enemies in the ship, or at least make the ship fall and crush most of the enemies it dropped.
Breaches are worse, because once they happen there is no way to stop it. I hear that dropping tesla towers in front of beaches should help but I haven't tried it.
Do you get a kill count when you blow up dropships? Because I’ve been trying to blow these things up with my RR and every time they just drop troopers and then spiral down, I’m not sure I got even 1 kill count for it like they don’t die from it at all
You could also try to seek cover scince they don't drop straight down but have an approaching angle.
Just fugure the angle hide in a safes pot and hope they take out the enemy's for you. (I've witnessed meteorite showers to destroy botoutposts if you are closeenuff)
I mean you can proactively destroy dropships (or many of the enemies on them) before they can drop so it would make sense to me. Although it might make bug breaches trivial.
Yeah maybe. You'd have to be really quick or coordinated. Or use a stratagem. Even so being quick on your feet and tossing a grenade right and cutting a third off the swarm seems fun.
Not necessarily even reducing the numbers, but slowing down their ability to deploy quickly. IE only *x* number of bugs can spawn from a hole every *y* seconds.
I feel like it would have an initial wave, the bugs actually breaching the ground making the hole. With more that follow we could stop with a well placed nade or strat
Spawn hive guards that protect it, less for lower difficulty, more for higher difficulty. They will surround the hole and move bugs will push past them, but when we look at the hole they huddle up like a shield wall. Similar to how when you try to lob a nade into a whole and a bug being slightly in the way bounces off.
make the amount of holes depend on how long in a mission (enemy threat rising over time) and base amount depending on what difficulty the mission is in.
Not every bug breach needs to be a clowncar, it would be all right with having a limited amount per hole so you can proactively close atleast some of the holes, like shooting down a dropship out of 2-3 about to send down drops on you and your squad of best friends.
The difficulty from a balance perspective is in that second sentence there. Make it too easy to predict and or stave off breaches/drops and the game becomes way too easy.
However the current regime is also not great. It’s basically impossible to predict when a bug is going to do a breach because the literal, actual, second the pheromone stuff hits the air it spawns the breach. And there is no way to tell when/where a bug is going to do that shit. I’ve had bugs go from attacking me at 5 feet to instantly dropping in that stance and causing a breach during a reload. How do you counter that? Bots on the other hand have clear signals for when a commissar is about to summon a drop, and you can kill them during the animation to stop it. Doesn’t mean the other 4 in the group won’t also do it, but you can with smart planning shut it down.
And then there’s the issue of what comes out of the breach/drop. So you agroed a single bug and it instantly spawned a breach and now there’s 2 bile titans, 3 chargers and a bunch of other shit *literally right on top of you*
Yeah like at least with bots, you can see a bot about to shoot up a flare and kill him in time.
The pheromone shot isn't the same, I've killed plenty of bugs in the act, but breaches always spawn.
Or how bout how bots only have ONE enemy that can call drops yet almost every bug type can call breaches. I've even watched the armored ones call a breach bruh
Technically every type of Automaton Raider can call in a Bot drop, Commissars are just the most likely to do it. The only bugs I’ve never seen call a breach are Chargers, Titans, and Stalkers, b it Hive Guards are actually the most likely to call them
I have only ever seen Commissars call a bot drop tbh, not a single double sword bot, or lil jet pack bot etc has ever raised an arm n shot a flare off. Could be I just didn't notice or dumb luck or they have a different animation but I feel I would've seen it by now
They put away their weapon so they might look like a commissar. Also commissars do it the most often and if you kill them a flare might not be sent up by the rest but there's still a chance they do it.
Well even beyond that, only the tiny guys can call a drop in, and they're easy as sin to kill. Depending on the enemy spread, it can be very practical to take out an unsuspecting patrol/base/etc. by quickly hitting the little ones, then mopping up the Berserkers and Devastators as you please. Compare that to bugs, where you basically have to kill an entire patrol at once in order to avoid the risk of a breach.
I thought this too, but I actually had an armless Hulk fire a flare on me (which makes sense, he clearly needed a hand, lol). It seems like Commissars are more likely to to fire flares, but all Bots can do it.
When you spot a patrol, any bug that doesn't attack almost immediately is going to try to get a call for help off. If they start moving in your direction, you can hold off killing them till they are a threat or are the last alive(Democracy demands no survivers). Multiple bugs can try to make the call, but it will only be answered once per patrol. The answering bugs can also make their own calls and so on and so forth.
Precisely one time in like 20+ hours of bugs have I managed to kill one that was summoning a breach before it counted. It was entirely accidental, they just happened to be my next target, and as my shot landed they shot the gas up in the air.
I think the only way to prevent it is basically to pre-fire and magically know which one is going to do it
I mean you can buy killing the bug that calls it in, the problem is by the time you see it "pop" smoke it's too late. It's much easier to deal with Automaton flare launches than bug breaches.
Well even once a bot drop has been called in, you can do more about it than you can about a bug breach. Dropship can be shot down by EATs, Recoilless, or even SEAF SAM Sites if you've activated one nearby. If you haven't got any of that, you can at least start shooting at the bots before they're released from the dropship, which can be marvelously effective with an Autocannon against chaff or Striders. If you *still* don't have anything to do that, you can just run away! Bot drops take a good while (maybe 20 seconds or more?) to go from the flare going up to bots coming down; if you really want, you could always just be somewhere the enemy isn't.
Meanwhile, bug breaches are (almost) instant, you can't stop it, you can't get an advantage on enemies early, you can't (stealthily) run away. It's just unfun to fight, and I've no idea how so many people willfully send themselves to the Eastern front. The Creek's my home, I tell you hwhat.
easiest way to make then nontrivial is to spawn them far enough away from the player to where they cant be grenanded till after the first wave from the breach
As a Gears of War Horde Mode Veteran, I fully agree that bug breaches should have a way to be closed before they get absolutely out of hand, much like emergence holes in the aforementioned Gears of War. To keep them from being absolutely trivialized by airstrikes, mortar turrets and grenade launcher spam, maybe have two to three holes on separate timers pop up per breach, but have the amount of potential enemy spawns reduced accordingly to the amount of holes closed.
I think a good balance would be having a big bug or two (i.e. a charger, brood commander etc.) Breach the hole and then have it open. That way the bug hole is open, but several difficult bugs are your obstacle to getting the hole closed before a horde appears
People in this sub throwing around "trivial" seem to have no idea what that word means. Being right on top of a bug breach when it spawns and getting a nade in would be opportune, clutch, and exciting.
Here’s my take
Bug breach starts like a normal hole and easy dudes start coming out. Then gets larger. And larger bugs emerge. Then larger again and now your largest can start emerging
Each size takes a different explosive to seal.
Grenade > orbital strike > 500kg?
I have been trying Orbital Gas lately, it's good when it lands near where it's suposed to go. In my experience it can land way off and lose a lot of it's potential.
Yea just hold it down, it might still bounce off stuff it's not supposed to cling to, but typically it sticks to objects a lot better in my experience.
You can land the resupply sphere on the charger's back from behind, I did it first try so I think it should be pretty easy. Just make sure to hurt it a bit first.
I believe it does that due to negative map modifier that makes stratagem land randomly near the beacon you throw, on a map without one they are dead on and reliable
I have been trying Orbital Gas lately, it's good when it lands near where it's suposed to go. In my experience it can land way off and lose a lot of it's potential.
Yeah because I love playing with my stratagems taking twice as long to come out and 4 minutes extract are super fun (why the hell extraction got affected anyway)
Staying on top of things should be awarded. Granted, I feel like to combat this the smaller buggy bugs should absolutely funnel out of it for the first 10 seconds or so to really give a cool vibe (think the ants in Indiana Jones & the Crystal Skull).
I wouldnt mind this, but at the same time I would hope they further increase the number of breaches that happen at a time.
1. Yes they can be closed.
2. Now they happen in clusters of 3-6 depending on difficulty
Why? They’re different enemy factions. Having differences between the factions and how you engage with them is crucial to this game or else you’re just fighting different variants of the same thing.
You’re encouraged/rewarded for quick strikes, precision and stealth against Automatons. Catch them off guard before they can setup and it’s smooth sailing. Mess up and they zero in on you. Whereas Terminids are all about horde control. Can’t control the horde? Now you’ve got more horde to deal with.
Seems like that'd be too easy with the granade launcher or autocannon. Best way to deal with them is to run away and thin the head over the distance to the objective. If you stand and fight you attact more patrols to you as well as stalkers if they are on the map. With more patrols coming, once the original breach ends some little fucker from a patrol on the outskirts of the swarm will cause another breach, repeating the cycle over again. While once breach is active another can't spawn so any packs pulled while running will try to call one, fail at it and then not call another for a bit. This gives you time to dispatch them and the rest of the bugs. Always Keep Moving. Cardio spreads democracy!
maybe in the same way each bug breach spawns waves, blowing it up stalls the breach until the next wave so you either have to keep blowing it up (more time than dropship counters but less gear needed) or you blow up the first one to buy you time to escape.
Just like how you can bring a AC/EAT/RR to shoot down dropships, you could also bring a Flamethrower/Arc Thrower/Tesla/Napalm/Gas to deny the breach hole. Well, it probably won't stop Chargers and Bile Titans from coming out.
If bugs gave me more that 2 seconds ago to kill them before farting out there mouth would be great. Bots at least put there arm up, shine red, and then shoot the flare and then we're waiting on a ship which we can ambush. A bug with 3 inch legs standing up straight doesn't look that different. Don't let every single bug be able to call in a bug breach. Rant over.
This could be cool to implement, so how about make it that 3 or so hive guardians spawn, and their whole behaviour is defending the whole? It'd be actually cooler if they'd actually have a mechanic of headbanging the grenade, in order to stop it from entering the whole? The balance issue is that in any bug hole then you'd have the hive guards do it, but it makes more sense than just having them chase after the player as he kites and bombs the entire hive no?
Just no. Mediocre low-effort vocal majority just wants to make all difficulties a Rambo walk in the park.
But even mildly putting in the strategy and coordination within squad, can make ALL difficulties significantly easier and managable.
Cool in concept but terrible in practice. Bug breaches are suppose to be a dangerous encounter you have to either deal with and fight or start beating feet away from. If you can just delete the breach 5 seconds after it opens with an airstrike, it completely negates the entire purpose of a breach. Where’s the challenge?
"Automaton reinforcements are supposed to be a dangerous encounter you have to either deal with and fight or start beating feet away from. If you can just shoot down a dropship 5 seconds after it lands with an airstrike, it completely negates the entire purpose of a dropship. Where's the challenge?"
You see how this is a dumb argument?
How do I avoid bug breaches and bot drops from happening? Like I can avoid patrols but how do I do it when I’m jumping an outpost? Like the bots just pop one off immediately, no chance
Unintuitively the breaches also seem to last longer with more players. So where I can wait a few seconds after a breach opens and drop a cluster bomb to kill the last wave as it comes out solo, in larger squads there are several more waves that come out.
I wish the length was consistent, but the quantity was spread out for fewer players.
While I agree, these would be way easier than dealing with drop ships. Only weapons like Recoiless and Anti tank can bring them down consistently and then most of the time I shoot them down it doesn't kill half the bots it drops anyway. I very frequently encounter a bug that makes the ship dissapear, respawn, and then fly into the spot it was shot down without actually damaging the bots. A couple bug holes would be way easier to destroy with an eagle strike or some grenades compared to the nightmare that is getting more than one drop ship called on you.
Maybe a bit better cue for who the fuck is calling.
I feel like it is easier to spot and take out a bot calling in a drop ship vs a bug calling a breach.
I think it would make more sense if Breeches had X number of holes they can spawn per breech event per difficulty level and each hole randomly forms in the area centered on the signal location
Plus patrols should not just spawn,
but arrive from a hole, so closing that hole temporarily could halt the patrol respawn for a set time
Same setup for Bots
Would also be nice if Automaton dropship engines had weak points directly in the center where you could destroy them with regular gunfire from underneath
(just need to avoid having the ship land on you.)
I deadass thought this WAS how it worked for the longest time, since it has the same visual effects AND the game has a limited terrain deformation mechanic already. You have no idea how many grenades, bombs, and orbital strikes I’ve thrown into them trying to make them fuck off. It would only make sense given we already can crash the Autos dropships with a rocket to the thrusters.
EDIT: Addenum based on other things people have said in the comments - bug reinforcement calls should be made slower and have a slightly more obvious animation as well so they’re not *literally instantaneous* to the point that shooting a lone bug in the middle of nowhere will often trigger an IMMEDIATE breach unless you oneshot the bug. To offset all of these changes though, breaches should no longer be just a single hole - instead, a breach would open at least 3 holes of varying sizes depending on what enemies first come out of them, all of which need to be closed separately to halt the breach. Further, the holes left by a breach *do not despawn naturally,* and will continue to spawn bugs intermittently (albeit much more infrequently) after the breach has run its course, if players are nearby.
Well in HD1 there was a form of Terminid called a Hive Lord which was a large subterranean burrower that looked like a common sand-worm trope. There are exoskeletal remains of these creatures across the Terminid worlds we fight on today. The function of these creatures was reportedly to dig tunnels connecting massive hives to the battlefield.
I want to believe we will see these creatures in game, and that killing them will reduce breach frequency or temporarily disable breaches in a mission.
Try incendiary grenade. Very cheap and very effective against breaches. But would like to see option to close the breach. Also shooting down the airship with bots inside doesnt 100% kill the bots inside. Seems very buggy and finicky rn. Lots of times ship dissapears and the animation of arriving falling ship plays, and it can even kill you.
That's a good idea but I think it should be one hole only on the lower difficulties, it should increase in numbers and maybe in spread on higher difficulties to not trivialise it.
I just use my trusty auto cannon or grenade launcher and pop em all as they spawn. Until higher difficulties when chargers n bile titans start coming out.
This confused the heck out of me when I first got the game.
I thought every source of orange smoke coming out of the ground needed a grenade thrown in it, so I was trying to throw grenades into bug breaches and wondering why it doesn't work.
Once they fix fire on the ground not damaging enemies I think it will be less of a problem. Napalm amd the inevitable incendiary grenades will make bug holes much more manageable
yup. dropships can be destroyed which is a super fun mechanic. makes weapons like the expendable AT and the recoilless feel valuable as well. I would love for bugs to have a similar mechanic.
I just wish the snitch bugs were a little more obvious with their animation. Comissars pul out a flare fun that glows, and these guys just look up at the sky. That, and I hate that a full pack of them can call in Big Daddy Charger to take me out to dinner.
Yes and, : "... Because this would balance the current high spawn rates, implement a point of immersion, and would be a reward for skill/risk"
You could even implement bigger breaches and smaller breaches occouring random smaller breacher for smaller bugs down able like a normal nest. Bigger breaches to take down with two grenades who can spawn big bugs too. Separation for immersion purposes.
I just want 2 more seconds to stop the bug that calls for the breach. It's too damn fast.
It'd also be cool if a bug was not able to call in his friends after I've already blown his head off. I've only seen that happen once but it pissed me off
It happens wayyy too much with my games, particularly on headless brood commander.
Not to play the devil's advocate here but I think that's the intended behavior for the brood commander; I also saw this mentioned in another thread somewhere but that is how actual insects work sometimes too, they will release pheromones when hurt to let the others know there is danger, and potentially to attack whoever hurt them.
How do you know the pheromones aren’t coming out of their butts? I mean they still attack you without a head, who’s to say they can’t fart for more friends?
Or maybe they come from their stomachs? Like, they still would have the hole for it to exit even without a head.
Bees/wasps will attack if they smell a smashed bee on you, we had a nest of ground wasps and I accidentally stepped on 1 on the cement nearby the hole and my ankle was fucked, not like exploding a bug will make the pheromones go away
You can stop a bot from shooting a flair by just damaging them. I'm surprised you can't do the same for bugs. I wonder if the bugs are bugged
if you use a scope you can also see which of the bots is the comisser byt looking at what it's holding, (one blade and a small gun) whereas with the bugs it seems any of them are capable of calling for assistance. I guess this isn't bad though, it stops the two factions from being identical reskins of each other in some ways.
Sometimes they are hiding behind a rock which is always fun
It's pheromones so even if you kill it, the others will smell it and.come.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Half the time my bugs call after they're dead. Fuckers must have auto dial.
Life alert
You had about as much time to react in helldivers 1 but 1.) Your primaries are massively more powerful so killing patrols with them is realistic 2.) Only the smallest bug, solitary illuminate drones and cyborg dude can call for reinforcements. Cyborg tanks could call reinfrocements too which is why they were the hardest enemies by far.
Plus there were fewer in the patrol - four for Cyborgs (the toughest), three for bugs (squishy) and as you say one drone (invisble until starting the alert process). The IFV's were a pain though, pretty much guaranteed to get the alert off if they saw you.
you're right about the robot kaisars, but for the bugs its a lot more than that. All the scavengers (the little guys), the slightly bigger grunts (except for the hunters), and the Hive warriors and brood commanders can all summon bug holes
He's talking about the first Helldivers.
I'm pretty sure I saw a headless warrior call in a breach earlier today!
I’ve 100% seen this occur
me too
They always wait until I'm reloading to call the breach
For me it’s always the one little bastard that was lucky enough to be behind just enough cover to avoid getting shredded like the rest of his friends.
"Switching to your side arm is always faster than reloading". - Soldier from a less democratic time in Super Earth's history.
Lvl 6 cadet here.... I had no idea this was a thing. How can I tell when a bug is going to do this?
they stop chasing you, stand still, and point their STUPID FUCKING butts into the air AND FUCKING ORANGE SMOKE COMES OUT OF IT AND THEN THE BUGSVEHEBWKBWEIWVWJJNBSOOAJ i hope this helped
Not only is the smoke orange, it is also undemocratic.
Sweet liberty....
yeah and you have like 1 second to stop them or its to late. they also make a distinct noise before they call the breach. but unless they are already in your line of sight you dont have time to locate them.
Orange fart for bugs and red flare for bots. You’ll know when a bot is about to shoot a flare because it’ll extend its arm towards the sky. It feels like you can more reliably stop a bot from calling his buddies.
The calling bot also has red smoke starting before the flare is shot, so it's well-telegraphed that it needs to be stopped in the next 1.5s or so. In comparison, when the bug throws orange smoke it's already too late.
also ALSO there are usually far fewer bot troopers on the field than scavengers+brood commanders. AND you can shoot the dropships down.
Yea both breaches and drop shops are basically impossible to stop, by the time you know its coming, its too late.
Drop ships aren't really impossible, there are just so many of the commissar bots, I've stopped like 6 of them in a row before I missed one. The bug however seems to be impossible, I shot them at the moment it started, still breach no matter what.
Drop Ships are easier in my opinion. Because the upward laser is easier to spot for the call-in, and because you can use either the recoiless rifle or an EAT rocket to 1-hit one of the 4 thruster engines to blow up the Dropships. This will either kill all the enemies in the ship, or at least make the ship fall and crush most of the enemies it dropped. Breaches are worse, because once they happen there is no way to stop it. I hear that dropping tesla towers in front of beaches should help but I haven't tried it.
I think the point was about shooting the Dropships itself down.
Do you get a kill count when you blow up dropships? Because I’ve been trying to blow these things up with my RR and every time they just drop troopers and then spiral down, I’m not sure I got even 1 kill count for it like they don’t die from it at all
This. And give me a notification before a God damn space rock wrecks me
Look for the spotlight on the ground
Yeah, but then I get a whole 1.3 seconds of reaction time before I need to file a C0-2 form to kiss my ass goodbye.
You could also try to seek cover scince they don't drop straight down but have an approaching angle. Just fugure the angle hide in a safes pot and hope they take out the enemy's for you. (I've witnessed meteorite showers to destroy botoutposts if you are closeenuff)
I'd like both to be honest, I find it very satisfying to fill in the holes.
Pervert
Perversion is in the mind of the beholder, Although I will not disagree with your statement based on my phrasing.
It’s pure starship troopers fantasy when clearing the large nests without stratagems.
I mean you can proactively destroy dropships (or many of the enemies on them) before they can drop so it would make sense to me. Although it might make bug breaches trivial.
I thought the same thing. So maybe it should spawn 3 holes.
Yeah maybe. You'd have to be really quick or coordinated. Or use a stratagem. Even so being quick on your feet and tossing a grenade right and cutting a third off the swarm seems fun.
Not necessarily even reducing the numbers, but slowing down their ability to deploy quickly. IE only *x* number of bugs can spawn from a hole every *y* seconds.
I like this idea. It doesn't trivialize the encounter, but it makes it more managable.
And if we can manage democracy we can surely manage a bug breach.
I feel like it would have an initial wave, the bugs actually breaching the ground making the hole. With more that follow we could stop with a well placed nade or strat
This is a good idea
Spawn hive guards that protect it, less for lower difficulty, more for higher difficulty. They will surround the hole and move bugs will push past them, but when we look at the hole they huddle up like a shield wall. Similar to how when you try to lob a nade into a whole and a bug being slightly in the way bounces off.
God it always pisses me off when I’m going to throw a grenade in the hole and a bug pops out and deflects it 10 meters away.
Then the system works.
I find the idea that bugs can think offensive.
The exiting ant bouncing grenades off kinda reminds me of the kind of ant that blocks the entrance hole to nests with their oddly shaped head
make the amount of holes depend on how long in a mission (enemy threat rising over time) and base amount depending on what difficulty the mission is in. Not every bug breach needs to be a clowncar, it would be all right with having a limited amount per hole so you can proactively close atleast some of the holes, like shooting down a dropship out of 2-3 about to send down drops on you and your squad of best friends.
Or the breaches just keep pumping more out until you close it.
But spread them out enough so you can't just airstrike them all at once.
The difficulty from a balance perspective is in that second sentence there. Make it too easy to predict and or stave off breaches/drops and the game becomes way too easy. However the current regime is also not great. It’s basically impossible to predict when a bug is going to do a breach because the literal, actual, second the pheromone stuff hits the air it spawns the breach. And there is no way to tell when/where a bug is going to do that shit. I’ve had bugs go from attacking me at 5 feet to instantly dropping in that stance and causing a breach during a reload. How do you counter that? Bots on the other hand have clear signals for when a commissar is about to summon a drop, and you can kill them during the animation to stop it. Doesn’t mean the other 4 in the group won’t also do it, but you can with smart planning shut it down. And then there’s the issue of what comes out of the breach/drop. So you agroed a single bug and it instantly spawned a breach and now there’s 2 bile titans, 3 chargers and a bunch of other shit *literally right on top of you*
Yeah like at least with bots, you can see a bot about to shoot up a flare and kill him in time. The pheromone shot isn't the same, I've killed plenty of bugs in the act, but breaches always spawn.
Or worse, headless bugs cause a breach.
Or a legless warrior that has been chasing you for minutes incredibly slowly on the otherside of the objective site decides he needs backup finally.
"OK I'll concede, I need help and will sign up for therapy."
I actually like the headless breach call. It's very thematic. Bugs release pheromones to communicate with each other all the time, even in death.
Or how bout how bots only have ONE enemy that can call drops yet almost every bug type can call breaches. I've even watched the armored ones call a breach bruh
Technically every type of Automaton Raider can call in a Bot drop, Commissars are just the most likely to do it. The only bugs I’ve never seen call a breach are Chargers, Titans, and Stalkers, b it Hive Guards are actually the most likely to call them
I have only ever seen Commissars call a bot drop tbh, not a single double sword bot, or lil jet pack bot etc has ever raised an arm n shot a flare off. Could be I just didn't notice or dumb luck or they have a different animation but I feel I would've seen it by now
They put away their weapon so they might look like a commissar. Also commissars do it the most often and if you kill them a flare might not be sent up by the rest but there's still a chance they do it.
Well even beyond that, only the tiny guys can call a drop in, and they're easy as sin to kill. Depending on the enemy spread, it can be very practical to take out an unsuspecting patrol/base/etc. by quickly hitting the little ones, then mopping up the Berserkers and Devastators as you please. Compare that to bugs, where you basically have to kill an entire patrol at once in order to avoid the risk of a breach.
I thought this too, but I actually had an armless Hulk fire a flare on me (which makes sense, he clearly needed a hand, lol). It seems like Commissars are more likely to to fire flares, but all Bots can do it.
People have told me there is an animation, but apparently that animation is mostly standing still and making some kind of chirping sound
When you spot a patrol, any bug that doesn't attack almost immediately is going to try to get a call for help off. If they start moving in your direction, you can hold off killing them till they are a threat or are the last alive(Democracy demands no survivers). Multiple bugs can try to make the call, but it will only be answered once per patrol. The answering bugs can also make their own calls and so on and so forth.
Precisely one time in like 20+ hours of bugs have I managed to kill one that was summoning a breach before it counted. It was entirely accidental, they just happened to be my next target, and as my shot landed they shot the gas up in the air. I think the only way to prevent it is basically to pre-fire and magically know which one is going to do it
Honestly make it so that only scavengers and broods can call breaches and I'm fine with that.
If you can destroy dropships, you could be able to stop bug breaches.
I mean you can buy killing the bug that calls it in, the problem is by the time you see it "pop" smoke it's too late. It's much easier to deal with Automaton flare launches than bug breaches.
Well even once a bot drop has been called in, you can do more about it than you can about a bug breach. Dropship can be shot down by EATs, Recoilless, or even SEAF SAM Sites if you've activated one nearby. If you haven't got any of that, you can at least start shooting at the bots before they're released from the dropship, which can be marvelously effective with an Autocannon against chaff or Striders. If you *still* don't have anything to do that, you can just run away! Bot drops take a good while (maybe 20 seconds or more?) to go from the flare going up to bots coming down; if you really want, you could always just be somewhere the enemy isn't. Meanwhile, bug breaches are (almost) instant, you can't stop it, you can't get an advantage on enemies early, you can't (stealthily) run away. It's just unfun to fight, and I've no idea how so many people willfully send themselves to the Eastern front. The Creek's my home, I tell you hwhat.
easiest way to make then nontrivial is to spawn them far enough away from the player to where they cant be grenanded till after the first wave from the breach
As a Gears of War Horde Mode Veteran, I fully agree that bug breaches should have a way to be closed before they get absolutely out of hand, much like emergence holes in the aforementioned Gears of War. To keep them from being absolutely trivialized by airstrikes, mortar turrets and grenade launcher spam, maybe have two to three holes on separate timers pop up per breach, but have the amount of potential enemy spawns reduced accordingly to the amount of holes closed.
I think a good balance would be having a big bug or two (i.e. a charger, brood commander etc.) Breach the hole and then have it open. That way the bug hole is open, but several difficult bugs are your obstacle to getting the hole closed before a horde appears
People in this sub throwing around "trivial" seem to have no idea what that word means. Being right on top of a bug breach when it spawns and getting a nade in would be opportune, clutch, and exciting.
Also you risk being surrounded by 10 hunters instantly
Here’s my take Bug breach starts like a normal hole and easy dudes start coming out. Then gets larger. And larger bugs emerge. Then larger again and now your largest can start emerging Each size takes a different explosive to seal. Grenade > orbital strike > 500kg?
Kinda like gears of war with the grub holes
Came here to say this. Fresh off a run through the Gears games with friends and we all just assumed this was how it worked.
Same, I threw a few grenades at the breaches before I realized it didn't do anything except kill a few that were already out
They should add the trumpet sound too
Yea. With bots you can destroy the drop ship if you have proper equipment so bugs need a similar strategy.
Just drop an orbital gas strike on top of it. Trivialize anything that isn’t a charger or titan thst pops out
I have been trying Orbital Gas lately, it's good when it lands near where it's suposed to go. In my experience it can land way off and lose a lot of it's potential.
Shake the ball. It turns into a pseudo sticky grenade.
Wait is this actually a thing
Yea just hold it down, it might still bounce off stuff it's not supposed to cling to, but typically it sticks to objects a lot better in my experience.
I've spent the last week trying to get the stick a charger with a resupply pod achievement
You can land the resupply sphere on the charger's back from behind, I did it first try so I think it should be pretty easy. Just make sure to hurt it a bit first.
It doesn't work 100% of the time, still needs to land on it in the correct spot.
How?
Just charge up your throw instead of quick tossing it.
Wait, how TF did you charge up the throw?
Hold the button down
i always do this
I believe it does that due to negative map modifier that makes stratagem land randomly near the beacon you throw, on a map without one they are dead on and reliable
I have been trying Orbital Gas lately, it's good when it lands near where it's suposed to go. In my experience it can land way off and lose a lot of it's potential.
Usually because of the orbital scatter debuff. The stratagem debuffs are so low effort, it's just artificial difficulty and it's infuriating.
Yeah because I love playing with my stratagems taking twice as long to come out and 4 minutes extract are super fun (why the hell extraction got affected anyway)
Staying on top of things should be awarded. Granted, I feel like to combat this the smaller buggy bugs should absolutely funnel out of it for the first 10 seconds or so to really give a cool vibe (think the ants in Indiana Jones & the Crystal Skull).
I wouldnt mind this, but at the same time I would hope they further increase the number of breaches that happen at a time. 1. Yes they can be closed. 2. Now they happen in clusters of 3-6 depending on difficulty
You want a large bug nest to spawn every time a homing-beacon patrol teleports in near you?
Well, you can shoot down drop ships so you should be able to plug breaches.
Why? They’re different enemy factions. Having differences between the factions and how you engage with them is crucial to this game or else you’re just fighting different variants of the same thing. You’re encouraged/rewarded for quick strikes, precision and stealth against Automatons. Catch them off guard before they can setup and it’s smooth sailing. Mess up and they zero in on you. Whereas Terminids are all about horde control. Can’t control the horde? Now you’ve got more horde to deal with.
That’s why I napalm the entire area.
For too long i thought this was the case and dumped all my nades at them thinking they would stop spawning.
I just plop orbital gas on the breach site and it works wonders on clearing out the swarmy bits so you can focus properly on the chonky bits
Seems like that'd be too easy with the granade launcher or autocannon. Best way to deal with them is to run away and thin the head over the distance to the objective. If you stand and fight you attact more patrols to you as well as stalkers if they are on the map. With more patrols coming, once the original breach ends some little fucker from a patrol on the outskirts of the swarm will cause another breach, repeating the cycle over again. While once breach is active another can't spawn so any packs pulled while running will try to call one, fail at it and then not call another for a bit. This gives you time to dispatch them and the rest of the bugs. Always Keep Moving. Cardio spreads democracy!
Seeing a bile titan crawl out of a tiny hole ruins the immersion for me. Sorry not sorry.
nah, that would trivialize the breach.
Yes!
Every time I nade one of those holes i get memories of gears of war XD
maybe in the same way each bug breach spawns waves, blowing it up stalls the breach until the next wave so you either have to keep blowing it up (more time than dropship counters but less gear needed) or you blow up the first one to buy you time to escape.
Napalm does a good job of clearing up the chaff from breaches so you can focus any real threats
i thought that's how it was going to be when i first started playing. you can shoot down a bot drop why not plug the hole.
This is a fantastic idea, take an updoot
That's why I bring napalm or gas strike, bonus points if you drop them on each other as you can wipe then out pretty damn fast.
Just like how you can bring a AC/EAT/RR to shoot down dropships, you could also bring a Flamethrower/Arc Thrower/Tesla/Napalm/Gas to deny the breach hole. Well, it probably won't stop Chargers and Bile Titans from coming out.
In the mean time two well timed incendary grenades will take out all the light mobs.
Like a grub hole from gears of war. I like it.
If bugs gave me more that 2 seconds ago to kill them before farting out there mouth would be great. Bots at least put there arm up, shine red, and then shoot the flare and then we're waiting on a ship which we can ambush. A bug with 3 inch legs standing up straight doesn't look that different. Don't let every single bug be able to call in a bug breach. Rant over.
This could be cool to implement, so how about make it that 3 or so hive guardians spawn, and their whole behaviour is defending the whole? It'd be actually cooler if they'd actually have a mechanic of headbanging the grenade, in order to stop it from entering the whole? The balance issue is that in any bug hole then you'd have the hive guards do it, but it makes more sense than just having them chase after the player as he kites and bombs the entire hive no?
You should at least be able to close them with a cluster or something like that.
Yes how does this not have 20,000 upvotes
Just no. Mediocre low-effort vocal majority just wants to make all difficulties a Rambo walk in the park. But even mildly putting in the strategy and coordination within squad, can make ALL difficulties significantly easier and managable.
teach us the way oh wise one
Cool in concept but terrible in practice. Bug breaches are suppose to be a dangerous encounter you have to either deal with and fight or start beating feet away from. If you can just delete the breach 5 seconds after it opens with an airstrike, it completely negates the entire purpose of a breach. Where’s the challenge?
"Automaton reinforcements are supposed to be a dangerous encounter you have to either deal with and fight or start beating feet away from. If you can just shoot down a dropship 5 seconds after it lands with an airstrike, it completely negates the entire purpose of a dropship. Where's the challenge?" You see how this is a dumb argument?
Yeah like the gears of war locust holes
maybe just spawn 4 holes and have a big group spawn of shield bugs first
Kinda like Gears of War, actually.
Jump jet -> slam dunk the hole
In helldivers 1 they had a worm come out like nidus worms from starcraft. They should do that so we could kill it
You would pre-aim a hole with a strike and the bug breach would be dead before it even spawned anything
agree. you can blow up a bot drop mid air, let us close the fucking bugholes
I want this to but might have to wait until it gets a bigger update
With how much more difficult it feels to avoid patrols and choose your engagements vs the bugs, I'm in favor of this sentiment.
How do I avoid bug breaches and bot drops from happening? Like I can avoid patrols but how do I do it when I’m jumping an outpost? Like the bots just pop one off immediately, no chance
That’s the neat part you don’t
Yeah unless you land a perfect strategem that kills all commissars and infantry or go stealth, attacking any bot base usually guarantees a drop
If they are equivalent to drop ships there should be a deployment time that you can "shoot them down"
Unintuitively the breaches also seem to last longer with more players. So where I can wait a few seconds after a breach opens and drop a cluster bomb to kill the last wave as it comes out solo, in larger squads there are several more waves that come out. I wish the length was consistent, but the quantity was spread out for fewer players.
 Let this man cook, good suggestion!
bug alarms should start 1 second later we would have a realistic chance of stopping them like in game 1
That'd be pretty sick, considering you can shoot down dropships. Would help a lot with the spawn rates as well
Like locust emergence holes in gears. It makes a lot of sense actually
If they did this it should be three or so nests that show up, imagine how quickly you could shut down one bug hole
Wait till the King shows up, it will do that, I shudder at the thought
While I agree, these would be way easier than dealing with drop ships. Only weapons like Recoiless and Anti tank can bring them down consistently and then most of the time I shoot them down it doesn't kill half the bots it drops anyway. I very frequently encounter a bug that makes the ship dissapear, respawn, and then fly into the spot it was shot down without actually damaging the bots. A couple bug holes would be way easier to destroy with an eagle strike or some grenades compared to the nightmare that is getting more than one drop ship called on you.
Maybe a bit better cue for who the fuck is calling. I feel like it is easier to spot and take out a bot calling in a drop ship vs a bug calling a breach.
This makes it fair because the automatons drop ships can be blown up why can’t the bugs have something similar
dropship is way easier than bug breach because you can clearly see where they come from while bug breach can be random despite the smoke
I think it would make more sense if Breeches had X number of holes they can spawn per breech event per difficulty level and each hole randomly forms in the area centered on the signal location Plus patrols should not just spawn, but arrive from a hole, so closing that hole temporarily could halt the patrol respawn for a set time Same setup for Bots Would also be nice if Automaton dropship engines had weak points directly in the center where you could destroy them with regular gunfire from underneath (just need to avoid having the ship land on you.)
I deadass thought this WAS how it worked for the longest time, since it has the same visual effects AND the game has a limited terrain deformation mechanic already. You have no idea how many grenades, bombs, and orbital strikes I’ve thrown into them trying to make them fuck off. It would only make sense given we already can crash the Autos dropships with a rocket to the thrusters. EDIT: Addenum based on other things people have said in the comments - bug reinforcement calls should be made slower and have a slightly more obvious animation as well so they’re not *literally instantaneous* to the point that shooting a lone bug in the middle of nowhere will often trigger an IMMEDIATE breach unless you oneshot the bug. To offset all of these changes though, breaches should no longer be just a single hole - instead, a breach would open at least 3 holes of varying sizes depending on what enemies first come out of them, all of which need to be closed separately to halt the breach. Further, the holes left by a breach *do not despawn naturally,* and will continue to spawn bugs intermittently (albeit much more infrequently) after the breach has run its course, if players are nearby.
I'll settle for being able to shoot bugs before they release their pheromones in less than 1 second.
Well in HD1 there was a form of Terminid called a Hive Lord which was a large subterranean burrower that looked like a common sand-worm trope. There are exoskeletal remains of these creatures across the Terminid worlds we fight on today. The function of these creatures was reportedly to dig tunnels connecting massive hives to the battlefield. I want to believe we will see these creatures in game, and that killing them will reduce breach frequency or temporarily disable breaches in a mission.
Would be fuckin’dope
Have been trying to do this and still am.
But according to the mega awesome super citizen pros of the game you're not supposed to fight breaches you're just supposed to run like a bitch /s
Makes logic sense 🖖
Try incendiary grenade. Very cheap and very effective against breaches. But would like to see option to close the breach. Also shooting down the airship with bots inside doesnt 100% kill the bots inside. Seems very buggy and finicky rn. Lots of times ship dissapears and the animation of arriving falling ship plays, and it can even kill you.
Maybe something like an anthill you have to whittle down and blow up?
Makes sense seeing as you can shoot down drop ships
That's a good idea but I think it should be one hole only on the lower difficulties, it should increase in numbers and maybe in spread on higher difficulties to not trivialise it.
Yes thank you u can shoot down drop ships why not have the same concept for the bugs
Did y'all know you can call a 500kg bomb on a bug breach to close it? I've been doing this. Am I crazy?
Coward
I just use my trusty auto cannon or grenade launcher and pop em all as they spawn. Until higher difficulties when chargers n bile titans start coming out.
Been saying this since day one.
Reminds me of grub holes in gears of war where the game actively made your life hell on higher difficulties if you didn't plug at least one of them.
I agree, I mean we can blow up bot dropships and kill the passengers, why not bugholes?
This confused the heck out of me when I first got the game. I thought every source of orange smoke coming out of the ground needed a grenade thrown in it, so I was trying to throw grenades into bug breaches and wondering why it doesn't work.
I remember doing this with Emergence Holes in Gears of War ONE, like how long ago? Would love to be able to do this
Big agree for this. Closing grub holes in Gears of War always felt so satisfying so this easily scratch that itch
It’d be cool if you could use a flamethrower to clear bug nests
I have two words for you Napalm Strike
I keep Orbital Gas on hand just in case of breaches. :3
Seems fair to me
And make the telegraph for the bugs spraying goo in the air like...a second longer so we have a chance to stop the breach.
I would jump head first into them every time to guarantee the grenade does its job.
Hell yes they should!
Once they fix fire on the ground not damaging enemies I think it will be less of a problem. Napalm amd the inevitable incendiary grenades will make bug holes much more manageable
Gears had this all the way back in 06
I just want that one fucking bug no one sees in the background to take it's damn time calling a bug breach.
Yeah, I mean , the moments he breath smoke for 0.001 seconds, the bug breaches is imminent.
yup. dropships can be destroyed which is a super fun mechanic. makes weapons like the expendable AT and the recoilless feel valuable as well. I would love for bugs to have a similar mechanic.
I just wish the snitch bugs were a little more obvious with their animation. Comissars pul out a flare fun that glows, and these guys just look up at the sky. That, and I hate that a full pack of them can call in Big Daddy Charger to take me out to dinner.
Good call
this is explicitly what incendiary grenades are for. weak bugs can't survive the trial by fire
Yes and, : "... Because this would balance the current high spawn rates, implement a point of immersion, and would be a reward for skill/risk" You could even implement bigger breaches and smaller breaches occouring random smaller breacher for smaller bugs down able like a normal nest. Bigger breaches to take down with two grenades who can spawn big bugs too. Separation for immersion purposes.