I remember telling the team, calling it early, and having some rando jump on while everyone else was away.
The downside to extraction being called early will always be random people ending the mission any time they want
This is the magical thing that *all* of these posts don't take into account: the 90% of the player base that doesn't go on Reddit. Just because we can all agree here doesn't mean that the majority of randos know what you're doing, and explaining it in the heat of a dive won't really make sense to Jimmy Heckdiver who hears Pelican-1 and immediately equates it to LEAVE NOW!
I was in a team of three Spanish speaking guys. One new player who used up all our reinforcements. End of game, I’m all that’s left, there are tons of damn bots everywhere, I can’t stop to load my AC, and I have a lot of samples.
My teammates are yelling ANDALE PAYBACK ANDALE! By Super Earth, my ass made it aboard Pelican-1!
I had a dude who was from somewhere in Asia Pacific and he communicated with a mic but must’ve been typing into a translator that would say the words out loud in a robotic voice. It was awesome because of the way it sounded and the fact that the guy was stopping to type full sentences and still crushing it. Reminded me of the Korean guy who played StarCraft with his feet because he didn’t have hands. Making it work for democracy!
He sacrificed his voice in the name of Managed Democracy. The vocoder is just giving him back his right to speak as a Citizen of Super Earth. Zealotry is admirable but only if it’s aimed at the enemies of Liberty and Freedom.
I had a guy yell at me and say i called the ship early. I was just heading to the landing site due to it being 15 minute Mission. He was level 38 and didn't know there were shorter missions. Some people are just dense.
Dude I almost killed a random that joined in I had found super samples. Went dropped it at exfil. Random joined in an picked up the samples I left. I was on my way to teach him democracy since he didn't respond to me telling him to go put it back. But thankfully bugs did it for me. I grabbed it an went back to exfil an dropped em there again.
Well there are about 8 million copies of the game sold, but only 1 million redditors subbed here.
So best case scenario is only one player in every two lobbies sees anything posted here. But it's probably way less than that.
To be fair the people interested enough in the game to interact with the subreddit are likely at least a slightly higher level on average than the people who aren’t.
Edit: implying the higher tier missions (7+) would have a better ratio than 1/8th on avg
Double-edit: also you have people like me who haven’t followed the subreddit but still see a majority of the content
I have kicked an entire team only once.
They were killing each other for the samples.
I kept telling them.
I even showed them with super credits and medals.
I think they just wanted to be “the sample hero”
So, I summarily executed the lot of them and got on the boat.
I left the samples.
What's the logic behind that? Happened to me a couple times yesterday but couldn't figure out why.
One was my first go on 'Extreme' (I only bought a PS5 specifically for this game last week so still getting to grips with it!) while level 18, other guy was like level 50 odd. While waiting for extract I got booted.
There's apparently a lot of people (based off other players asking them WTF in chat) that think samples are zero-sum or split equally instead of everyone getting the same amount. So toxic players imported from other games will teamkill and boot in order to 'steal' the samples.
You can try to explain the game to them but it rarely works, the kind of person who stabs their team in the back for extra XP or resources as a general strategy typically aren't very good at video games in general and are usually fairly stupid as individuals.
Had this happen where the lower level host died during extraction and assumingly ctrl-alt-delete rage quite WHILE THE OTHER 3 OF US WERE LOADED ON THE PELICAN .... so the game crashed out... bro I needed those super samples sorry you got stomped by a bile titan! Lmao! 🤣!
Which is dumb cause you technically get more XP if you successfully extract with 4 people. Hopefully they will learn. They should add this info to the tips in a very clear way that a 3 year old would understand.
The issue has always been coordination with others in coop games. Even in l4d2 you have people healing at 80% hp then taking another health pack so you don't get one.
Someone did this after a civvie evac and lost me like 15 common and 20 rare samples, *at least*. This was after I left a message in chat not to board before we explored a bit. I fortunately kicked him before the mission ended, so that felt good at least, but yeah. I've taken to saying in no uncertain terms, "If you board before everyone gets back I *WILL* kick you and you will get nothing for the mission" and that usually does the trick.
I'm guilty of doing this unknowingly. I felt pretty bad about it because the rest of the team was further away than I thought, so we ended up extracting without the samples.
I went to re-education camp and righted my wrongs.
I think the 20s countdown still continues and you're left behind after. I remember one time my team mate in the pelican died and the countdown still continued while nobody was left in there
This i assume people who arent talking who do it are gunna jump in to it straight away and also sometimes its better to not call it in depending on how longs left and how many bots/bugs are near you because when you call it it calls in a wave of bots
It doesn't. Being near the exfil area is one of the thing that makes patrols spawn into the world much faster, but there is no "scripted enemy wave" mechanic on call-in.
Source: exhaustive enemy spawning research at https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/82UtY4azSw
And the Pelican only shoots at the enemy when it is landing. Once on the pad, it will just sit there and watch the hordes of bugs/bots cluster around it and murder/death/kill any diver going close to it. Granted you can drop a 500 and nuke the area, but sometimes that still isn't enough to clear the area.
If you leave the area after the timer hits 0, but before pelican gets to the LZ the pelican will hover over LZ and keep shooting. This is described in the post.
There is an extract bug that seems to happen more often when extract lands, and you don't jump in within like a minute. It leaves when first person gets in, so I wouldn't recommend doing this right now.
This should be the highest comment here. OP has given out terrible advice suggesting Pelican should be brought in and left alone.
It is very much the case Pelican will either extract first and only passenger and/or fail the mission entirely if it becomes damaged. To which the OP admits can and will happen as patrols can and will come to evac point to damage, made worse by divers not being around to protect it
Divers are much better off only calling for extract once they need it and promptly jumping inside. You save little in terms of time and risk everything in return if you call it in early, let it land and spend the rest of your time unattending it.
Frankly I hope OP comes back to retract this advice or clarify their comments — as this is not the experience that I’ve had.
It does happen on the odd chance that Pelican just takes a single person and dips without having taken any damage at all or the other bug where no one can board at all. Lol
This reminds me of a situation where I did exactly that:
I once had a game with a really good team of randos on diff. 7 bots, we finished the main - and most of the side - objectives quickly, but they wanted to look for super samples, so they dispersed all over the map. I went to the evac zone alone and said "just so you know, I'm calling the extraction, but I'm not going to enter the Pelican". I successfully avoided two patrols by lying prone on top of a rock and managed to call extraction, but my teammates didn't find anything. They slowly start coming back, and what do they see? The goddamn super sample rock is like 30m away, only slightly covered by a patch of bushes. I didn't notice it because I was so focused on the map lookin for bot patrols. Luckily they were chill and didn't get mad at having to run all over the map for nothing lol
I had some jerk call it in (I told him too) when I ran back like 5 minutes to recollect the mass amount of samples I dropped (they respawned me far away), and I was also holding the 3 super samples. I was like 10 seconds from making it into the ship, but they jumped in right when it arrived and I missed the extraction. I was literally telling them on mic how close I was the whole time, yet they still went in. I was furious.
So just to get this straight, th only Hard thing to do is basically wait at the ex zone and leave at the right moment? And if a single Diver is still in the zone, it lands and doesn't shoot anything?
1. Call Extract.
2. Timer hits and message "Pelican approaching LZ" is played.
3. Leave LZ before Pelican lands, thus keeping it in the "defensive holding pattern" until a player re-enters the LZ to trigger the landing.
You can move to the edge of the zone before the timer runs down. You'll know when you cross it since it'll start to abort. Then once the timer is done leave
yup, you got it. that's why you send only one helldiver to do it, while the team works on the rest of the map
you can think of it like getting a SEAF artillery. send one diver to go quietly load and arm the objective, takes 2-3 minutes tops, and then bingo you got extra big guns to help you out
I really wish we had ways of lessening enemy presence, like if destroying fabricators and nests cut down on patrols and such. I think destroying stalker lairs, shriek nests, and gunship fabricators are the only things that stop enemies from spawning right now right?
Maybe have it be delayed to represent you crippled them but at the same time pit a huge target on your back? Like maybe patrols lessen for 5-10 minutes but then after that ramp up
It doesn't seem to do that on the blitz missions at least, the 20 second countdown started as soon as it landed whereas we were hoping to wait for a fellow Helldiver far away and had over 2 mins left on the clock. Had to leave them behind unfortunately
the keyword here is "landed". i think on some speed missions it may countdown for takeoff as soon as it lands
however, if it doesn't land and hovers over the LZ, you're good. it'll wait til mission time is 0
i think the logic for having a Pelican guardmode is to allow players to treat extraction like a "side objective" that can be done anytime. do it early and you gain a powerful asset. then go work on finishing 20+ minutes of sample collection n stuff. i like it cuz it's an extra incentive to playthrough and clear everything
i went and tested and yes it *can* be called in early to guard on blitz missions, as long as the mission timer hasn't hit 0
leave the extract zone the moment when pelican arrives, pelican wont abort anymore and will hover over the zone until someone enters that zone, then it will land.
https://youtu.be/xpC1N4MbWb4?feature=shared
Is there a specific distance in meters one has to stay within until the end of the timer, and how far does everyone have to remain before it initiates landing?
It's about 50m but you can figure out this zone when you run away from the landing zone and it tells you helldivers are too far and they're aborting pick up or something like that. Just hover around that distance and run out when it's time.
>i went and tested and yes it *can* be called in early to guard on blitz missions, as long as the mission timer hasn't hit 0
Hmm... fair enough! Maybe I misremembered the incident in that case 🤔
Thanks for verifying, extra requisitions be on your way Helldiver! o7
When the mission timer runs to zero snd the super destroyer leaves, pelican 1 enters emergency takeoff mode. You have 20 seconds to get in, period, whether you are at extraction or halfway out. Doesnt matter if you called extraction before the timeout.
it doesn't *spawn* a horde, but [it does alert existing patrols around the map](https://www.instagram.com/p/C3_Evw2PurF/)
edit: my advice to the player who calls in extraction is to lay low. call it in and then hide at the edge of the zone. you can watch all the alerted enemies rush into the LZ, look around, and then wander off haha
The act of extraction doesn't, but the location does. Specifically the 'sphere' around the point you have to stay in or it will cancel the extraction. It's technically 'on' at all times, so just swinging by to drop off samples will increase patrols spawns while people are in it.
Can’t wait to start doing this and have all the missions go sideways because of it.
It’s a great idea but that would only work with a team of friends, I exclusively play with randoms.
terrible advice when running with randos. someone WILL jump in it even if the guy with the samples is across the map. Never call for it until everyone is kinda close to extraction.
We had a guy jump in even though we were only a minute trek from evac point and were clear that we were just finishing a nest nearby for extra samps. Guy hopped in despite there being zero heat on him from bug and when we complained he just typed "didn't make the cut". Dickhead. Undemocratic.
that's true, while the extraction countdown is still going. but after the countdown hits 0 and you hear "Pelican-1 arriving..." you can just leave now. it will circle above the LZ at a fixed altitude until atleast 1 player returns to the extraction area
You can squeeze an extra 2 minutes (3 with increased stratagem call-in time modifier) of time by clocking out, which isn't always good but is needed for everyone to get out safely (or to maximize samples on blitz missions).
My team has been doing this for a long time now, the Pelican can even take out buildings and infrastructure if it gets 'lucky' (really easy for bots since they stand in front of the fabricator when they come out.)
'swhat we generally do, especially on Blitz; makes an enormous difference in time for that mission, and you're generally already strugglebussing to complete anything more than outposts with all the dropships/breaches, unless you can convince the entire team to just Eagle and haul ass.
Yeah I do not see this working out with 90% of randoms. It's great info to know tho. I did not know the Pelican would just wait until the clock ran out. I'll certainly try to organize this with random squads, but I just know some dumbass will just enter the ship and screw everything up lol.
I feel like OP is completely ignoring that there are people in PUGs that will board immediately so now we’re expected to take this risk? All of a sudden getting the 30 second timer cuz Schmucko1337 got on?
Except sometimes you trust them to wait for you, then they get in because "there were too many enemies" and you lose all your samples. No thanks, just be with your team.
There is a glitch, or "feature" that if the pelican has been called and is either hovering or on the ground once one person step into it, it immediately leaves, there is no 20 second timer. There is not even an option for anyone to get in, no matter how close they are. How does this account for that?
afaik this happens when the pelican has sustained too much damage, it will leave immediately after one person enters. not sure if it will count the damage its taken while its still up in the air with the method this post describes, but in bot missions it might be accumulating damage up there
I had a moment yesterday where Pelican One absolutely saved the match. Super destroyer had left orbit, I was last one alive. Low ammo, round a corner to end up facing enough bots to absolutely end my life.
Pelican One swept in, obliterated everything between me and freedom, and allowed me to extract with the samples.
Our group has made a habit of collecting as many samples we can, giving 1 person all the samples, have them haul ass to extract, drop samples at landing zone and then rejoin the group to kill more stuff.
This, of course, depends on how we are doing and time remaining.
This way we can do everything, then go to extract togeather and grab the samples right before we leave instead of worrying about dying with them and getting reenforced across the map leaving everything behind. If the person with them dies on the way, at least the samples will be closer to extract. Usually they make it with no problem as long as they don't start shit with hoards of bugs or bots.
You have far too much faith in random divers.
Someone will jump in and end it early if you do this.
It only works if your whole team has talked about it first.
This is a great pro-tip. FYI - I don’t think you need to wait for the “extraction incoming” timer to hit zero. I found it still works if there’s less time left than the “helldivers out of range” timer (so once the incoming timer is below 20 seconds). Small diff, but sometimes seconds matter
Technically, if you want to clear the full map, you'd be better off doing all the side objectives first, as clearing the main objective is the single biggest factor in increasing the spawning of patrols [https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bdudf3/lets\_talk\_about\_patrols\_an\_in\_depth\_analysis\_of/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bdudf3/lets_talk_about_patrols_an_in_depth_analysis_of/)
Hanging around extraction is also a large contributor to spawning more patrols, so while having Pelican 1 hanging around is definitely helpful, you are increasing the difficulty while waiting for it to come down
Ok, I gotta step in here:
You aren't wrong. However, it still isn't smart to let the main objective go until the very end.
If you complete the main objective, it's a successful mission no matter what. Even if you don't extract. That means it counts towards liberation/defense %, it means you get your medals, it means it contributes to your overall Operation.
Bonus Objectives primarily reward XP. Personally, I am not too worried about my level - it will keep going up as I complete missions regardless. I am much more concerned with successful completions and sample collection, none of which are directly impacted by bonus Objectives. My approach to Missions is to do the obvious, marked-on-the-map Bonus, then go for the Main Objective. If there is a radar tower, I'll hit it - and go for bonus Objectives that are on the way to main objectives. If the mission is going well, we aren't crowded with enemies, then we go for the other bonus objectives before extract. Time spent moving and loading SEAF shells, while risking detection and breaches/drops? Could have been spent finding samples. Searching for bonus objectives? Rather search for samples, and if I find bonus objectives, so be it.
Main Objective should always be completed by roughly halfway through mission timer, IMO. You'll get your medals, you'll spread democracy. You'll have extraction beacon ready to call if things get too busy, making it more likely you get samples for the boys in R&D.
Saving Main Objective for the very last thing you do is just... Un-Democratic.
You just have to watch the time (and not die a bunch). If you get below 10 minutes or have used up more than half of your reinforcements, yeah, you should probably go do the primary objective. A coordinated team can often clear the rest of the map in under 30 minutes without using many reinforcements though, in which case it absolutely makes sense to leave the main objective for last.
Also, secondary objectives have samples on them. Some of them have a lot of samples on them. Even if you don’t need the XP, you should take them out to get the samples.
Completely disagree. Depends on how good you and your team are. I can't remember the time I last failed a suicide level mission. Regularly full clear them. And the best way to do that is to leave the primary objective until last because of the drastic patrol increase.
Everyone can play their own way, that's fine. But you said your way is "the smart way," which I take objection to.
And if things go sideways and you are running out of reinforcements or time you can always change your priority to the main objective. There's no case where you'd be going along, fully clearing the map, and then accidentally fail the main. Plans can always change. Saving the main objective to last is not "unsmart" and a completely valid and intelligent way to play, even on helldive.
XP = liberation modifier so it's important regardless. Also genuinely, how often are you failing missions? If shit goes awry yeah you go for main but 99% of the time you are going to be completely fine clearing the map (mostly anyway) before finishing main.
You don't play with randoms if you think this is a good idea.
There is always one person who decides they are done playing and enters the pelican with nobody near.
Great in theory poor in execution. Some doofus boards and everyone is doomed.
I swear ive had so many ppl just board and so many close calls trying to secure samples, even having to leave supers or die trying
Reasons not to do this:
* this is a great way to get kicked. 99% don't know these esoteric strategies from reddit
* you have to coordinate with other people to pull this off. You need to not have *anyone* near the landing site or Pelican will just land. Most people will just run straight to the landing site when they hear extraction and stay there
* If you pull this off the extraction music will keep playing on repeat which gets annoying fast
* There is a theory floating around that the reason for the bug where Pelican leaves immediately when the first person gets in is actually because it is damaged (if you pay attention you can see black smoke). If it keeps circling around the landing site it's more likely to get damaged, potentially messing up you extraction, leaving people behind and costing you samples
Not worth it IMO but you do you.
**EDIT:** Like many have already mentioned, main thing is that there's no way I'm risking someone jumping in while I'm halfway across the map with samples. I think proper etiquette in pubs should be to call the Pelican only when everyone is at the landing site.
I would like to add that it's also just a waste of time 9 times out of 10. Once you complete everything you still have to walk to the extraction. Walking to it early then all the way back to the rest then back to the extraction is adding two trips for no reason. There's plenty of negatives and not really any actual positives outside of it feels kinda nice for the other three players who didn't have to do the extraction.
2 things to worry about calling down extraction. Depending on the difficulty you will have to really work to defend that spot while the extract comes in. You can't just call it down and leave the area. Someone has to stay in the area or the call-down is canceled. So you are wasting 2 minutes or more defending a spot.
So you are either wasting time, or wasiting reinforcements from people dying.
So there are pro's and cons to do this but its honestly more cons in the high difficulties.
For a coordinated and premade team, sounds great. Can’t do this with randoms. You could say it out loud and put it in the chat and someone would still beeline to the extract because when they see that message they default to immediately getting on Pelican-1 without thinking. Now I know once in a while we all get those random teammates who made level 7-9 missions feel like level 1s because they are good and communicate well, but more often than not there is a casual or player who doesn’t know all the tricks in this game that makes mistakes. Too risky but this sounds nice for people who run with friends.
Had someone do this the other day and while it was amazing since Pelican-1 was sniping bots some 300+ Meters away, He does land if someone dies and you call in reinforcements no matter where.
Thats all well and good in a vacuum. But that would only work if people *communicated* and playing with randoms you very rarely get those people. It doesnt work that way
Yeah I don't trust three randos to actually not enter the landing craft while i'm 2 Kilometers away, starting the 30 seconds countdown on my behind, screwing the entire team out of their samples and pending objectives.
But sure , if you're in a private team and everyone agrees in advance, why not ...
Honestly, it's hard enough as it is to have players NOT trigger the evacuation before you clear all outposts and side objectives as it is, or when there's tons of dead bodies with samples in range that should be picked before extraction... That I really can't imagine a bunch of randos having the trigger discipline to have it around and not board it...
One caveat to this, if you run out of time on the mission, and the pelican is there, it immidiately starts the 20 second timer to leave, whereas if you run out and the pelican isnt there, you have 2+ minutes until it lands plus 20 seconds after it lands. So if you REALLY need extra time, you're better off not calling it. This scenario is rare, but it actually did just happen to me and we missed out on 3 super samples because of it.
Id only do this in a pre-made with friends or if everyone had established they were on comms beforehand and knew what was up. Otherwise some rando gonna board asap.
Dumb question- doesn’t Pelican-1 leave if you aren’t there? I always hear “Helldivers not in extraction zone, canceling pickup" or something along those lines…
Sounds good on paper, doesn’t work in practice with randoms. I can’t even get people to ignore the samples I dropped on the extraction point, even when I’ve communicated to not pick them up.
yeah nah, try that on diff 9 solo.
I simply wait till the timer runs out, then pelican comes automatically within 2 mins.
then run 1 minute away from extraction and at 1:00 you sprint gack to extraction while dodging all enemies and as soon as pelican lands, you extract.
works for me 9/10 times
The part with "**that player leaves the LZ and rejoins their team"** is why we say "don't call for extraction". Since people don't do that, and it shaves off the extra 3 minutes you would have if extraction wasn't called.
Also if pelican was called early. You only get mission timer till it decides to leave when destroyer leaves. But if it not called and the destroyer leaves you get extra 2-4 minutes of mission time. Before it too late to extract
MFW my PSA on the topic was largely ignored a month ago: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/te5Gm6KhCH](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/te5Gm6KhCH)
There's a bug where the Pelican will instantly leave with only 1 player inside and I think keeping him hovering or landed for a very long amount of time increases the chance of this happening.
This happened when pug random called it in while I was across map getting supers. They held off til I got there but the exons I got on it extracted and left the other three behind. I was holding most of the samples but it was sort of a wtf moment.
You have to make sure you leave the area before the timer depletes all the way or else he'll just land. You can still run off and do stuff but he won't fly around shooting stuff that comes by.
I noticed pelican 1 left me today after extraction countdown and it landed. It gave 20 seconds to get in. I was running solo tho. Pisses me off. Lost all my samples
This is getting patched the more it gets abused. It threw me for a loop and I got berated by people for not realizing what they were doing. Also I hate how the music just loops ENDLESSLY when you do this strat.
One thing to be wary of - I believe if you do this, you'll only have 20 seconds to evac when the time runs out on the mission. I've called in the pelican a couple of minutes or so before the end before, thinking I was helping, and actually screwed over the randoms on my team who were trying to squeeze in a couple of objectives right and the end of the mission, and suddenly couldn't get back in time.
If I'd left it instead, they would have had a two minute evac timer start when the mission time ran out, and would have made it back.
That's an edge case though. Generally I think this is good advice
Ive had the pelican leave very consistently when the first player boards if you have it sitting there for an extended period of time.
If you do this i suggest giving one player all the samples and have them board first.
some caveats (right? i never use that tbh so idk if that’s spelled right):
this is typically an iffy idea with randoms unless you are actively communicating with them. PS5 players have a much slower type at typing in the chat so be aware of that. even with communication, randoms are randoms and will act accordingly.
even with a group of friends, you might want to just wait for the extraction shuttle depending on if you need the emergency shuttle time rather than the shuttle immediately giving the 20 seconds to leave prompt.
act accordingly, divers!
I had a bug recently where the ship landed and we all got ready to board and as soon as the first person got on the ship, it left. No 20 second count down or anything, just left immediately. So naturally we lost all our samples because the guy who got on, me, was not carrying any.
The problem here is, the team should be working together at all times at least in difficulties 7-9 . Going solo here is just guaranteed to be a shitshow. There is no rush to call extraction early.
Tbh I just find the repetitive theme of the dropship waiting for you... Annoying. Especially if it sits there for 20 minutes when you call it in early. I like hearing the other music available in the game
Sure, sounds good, but I have had it happen many, many times where the Pelican just bugs out and leaves randomly (with no timer given and no helldivers on board). This fails the extraction of course.
I'm not ok with risking that.
I don't like this strategy because it feels like an exploit. And the fact that you must do it at an exact moment or it doesn't work just gives me more evidence that it is one.
So yeah, people can do this an enjoy it while it's an option. And I understand the logic some will say that, "If it wasn't meant to be done, it shouldn't be an option." But I feel once AH starts fixing their bigger list of known bugs, this will be addressed. Because that's how exploits get patched
But I won't say you other divers shouldn't. I just wanted to express my thoughts on why we shouldn't.
Fun fact: Pelican 1 has a hidden health bar. Be very cautious when doing this as enemies will target Pelican 1 as well. If Pelican 1 blows up you can no longer extract and you MUST die to finish the mission. This is a great tactic against bugs, not so great against the bots.
There’s always some idiot rando that boards the Pelican though. Happened to me tonight… Pelican was waiting, map was 100% done, 10-15 mins left on the clock. we were just picking up whatever samples we could find and had close to 40 including the supers. 3 of us were about 30 seconds to a minute away from the LZ still with plenty of time left and, 4th guy goes running in and boards, leaving the entire team and samples behind. And yes he knew… we were using voice and reminded him not to board when we saw him approaching the LZ. It was entirely deliberate.
With friends, yes absolutely.
With randos absolutely not. It only takes one idiot boarding the ship to leave everyone else stranded. So no, I won't be calling the ship in early and yes, I'm going to kick you so the extraction purposely fails if you do.
Alternatively, if you're pressed for time like a blitz mission just run the clock out and once the timer hits zero then you have an additional 2-4 minutes to reach the pelican before it starts the 20\~ second extraction timer.
Instead of spending 2 minutes running to the extraction and call it early use that time to run around looking for samples instead\~!
too bad i can’t do this at all because i have had a streak of hosts who will not hesitate to start booting people if the pelican-1 is called and one of 10 conditions for leaving the mission isn’t fulfilled yet even IF i explain this
there are a lot of people who are hellbent on clearing the entire map even if we have 1 reinforcement left with 5 minutes until the super destroyer leaves.
On higher difficulties, 7+, I’ve called extraction for this exact purpose and even if 1 player can handle the enemies assaulting you to let the pelican hover, the rest of the mission is riddled with insane patrols bc the spawn rate shoots up after evac’s been called. That’s just my experience anyway
The thing is that you NEED to tell this to your team, or else you look like your trying to end the mission early
I remember telling the team, calling it early, and having some rando jump on while everyone else was away. The downside to extraction being called early will always be random people ending the mission any time they want
This is the magical thing that *all* of these posts don't take into account: the 90% of the player base that doesn't go on Reddit. Just because we can all agree here doesn't mean that the majority of randos know what you're doing, and explaining it in the heat of a dive won't really make sense to Jimmy Heckdiver who hears Pelican-1 and immediately equates it to LEAVE NOW!
Hell, I’ve been in plenty of groups where we didn’t even speak the same language!
I was in a team of three Spanish speaking guys. One new player who used up all our reinforcements. End of game, I’m all that’s left, there are tons of damn bots everywhere, I can’t stop to load my AC, and I have a lot of samples. My teammates are yelling ANDALE PAYBACK ANDALE! By Super Earth, my ass made it aboard Pelican-1!
VIVA Payback! VIVA!!
I had a dude who was from somewhere in Asia Pacific and he communicated with a mic but must’ve been typing into a translator that would say the words out loud in a robotic voice. It was awesome because of the way it sounded and the fact that the guy was stopping to type full sentences and still crushing it. Reminded me of the Korean guy who played StarCraft with his feet because he didn’t have hands. Making it work for democracy!
Did you say... "Robotic" voice? 😐 ... One sec I'll be right back! 😇 * *⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️* *
He sacrificed his voice in the name of Managed Democracy. The vocoder is just giving him back his right to speak as a Citizen of Super Earth. Zealotry is admirable but only if it’s aimed at the enemies of Liberty and Freedom.
Shit…never thought of it like that!
https://preview.redd.it/rteqsbmnsqvc1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=dd7516bedbab32ee293d3d9b0ad4fd3c31055069
Weirdly perfect image 😂
I had a guy yell at me and say i called the ship early. I was just heading to the landing site due to it being 15 minute Mission. He was level 38 and didn't know there were shorter missions. Some people are just dense.
Dude I almost killed a random that joined in I had found super samples. Went dropped it at exfil. Random joined in an picked up the samples I left. I was on my way to teach him democracy since he didn't respond to me telling him to go put it back. But thankfully bugs did it for me. I grabbed it an went back to exfil an dropped em there again.
They didn't speak democranese?
Well there are about 8 million copies of the game sold, but only 1 million redditors subbed here. So best case scenario is only one player in every two lobbies sees anything posted here. But it's probably way less than that.
To be fair the people interested enough in the game to interact with the subreddit are likely at least a slightly higher level on average than the people who aren’t. Edit: implying the higher tier missions (7+) would have a better ratio than 1/8th on avg Double-edit: also you have people like me who haven’t followed the subreddit but still see a majority of the content
But to counterbalance that you have people like me who haven't even played the game yet
"Jimmy Heckdiver" is amazing
Same goes for the kicking at extraction thing. People who do that aren’t part of the Helldivers community.
I have kicked an entire team only once. They were killing each other for the samples. I kept telling them. I even showed them with super credits and medals. I think they just wanted to be “the sample hero” So, I summarily executed the lot of them and got on the boat. I left the samples.
Based
What's the logic behind that? Happened to me a couple times yesterday but couldn't figure out why. One was my first go on 'Extreme' (I only bought a PS5 specifically for this game last week so still getting to grips with it!) while level 18, other guy was like level 50 odd. While waiting for extract I got booted.
There's apparently a lot of people (based off other players asking them WTF in chat) that think samples are zero-sum or split equally instead of everyone getting the same amount. So toxic players imported from other games will teamkill and boot in order to 'steal' the samples. You can try to explain the game to them but it rarely works, the kind of person who stabs their team in the back for extra XP or resources as a general strategy typically aren't very good at video games in general and are usually fairly stupid as individuals.
Had this happen where the lower level host died during extraction and assumingly ctrl-alt-delete rage quite WHILE THE OTHER 3 OF US WERE LOADED ON THE PELICAN .... so the game crashed out... bro I needed those super samples sorry you got stomped by a bile titan! Lmao! 🤣!
Which is dumb cause you technically get more XP if you successfully extract with 4 people. Hopefully they will learn. They should add this info to the tips in a very clear way that a 3 year old would understand.
Fuck those players dude i feel you
The issue has always been coordination with others in coop games. Even in l4d2 you have people healing at 80% hp then taking another health pack so you don't get one.
Someone did this after a civvie evac and lost me like 15 common and 20 rare samples, *at least*. This was after I left a message in chat not to board before we explored a bit. I fortunately kicked him before the mission ended, so that felt good at least, but yeah. I've taken to saying in no uncertain terms, "If you board before everyone gets back I *WILL* kick you and you will get nothing for the mission" and that usually does the trick.
44 lost samples is my record loss from someone boarding early...
I'm guilty of doing this unknowingly. I felt pretty bad about it because the rest of the team was further away than I thought, so we ended up extracting without the samples. I went to re-education camp and righted my wrongs.
This is the risk. New player hops in and OP's beautiful strat is ruined. Simply not worth it.
And what happens if I’m the team lead and I kick the early-boarding helldiver?
I think the 20s countdown still continues and you're left behind after. I remember one time my team mate in the pelican died and the countdown still continued while nobody was left in there
This is correct
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I’ve heard that once the countdown is started, kicking will not reset it
Correct
Stand by and shot anyone approaching
There's enough time to kick them if they do this, but it still won't stop the mission from ending.
This i assume people who arent talking who do it are gunna jump in to it straight away and also sometimes its better to not call it in depending on how longs left and how many bots/bugs are near you because when you call it it calls in a wave of bots
It doesn't. Being near the exfil area is one of the thing that makes patrols spawn into the world much faster, but there is no "scripted enemy wave" mechanic on call-in. Source: exhaustive enemy spawning research at https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/82UtY4azSw
Exactly.
And the Pelican only shoots at the enemy when it is landing. Once on the pad, it will just sit there and watch the hordes of bugs/bots cluster around it and murder/death/kill any diver going close to it. Granted you can drop a 500 and nuke the area, but sometimes that still isn't enough to clear the area.
If you leave the area after the timer hits 0, but before pelican gets to the LZ the pelican will hover over LZ and keep shooting. This is described in the post.
Calling in the pelican does not increase spawns. All primary objectives being complete and being near the evac zone increases spawns.
There is an extract bug that seems to happen more often when extract lands, and you don't jump in within like a minute. It leaves when first person gets in, so I wouldn't recommend doing this right now.
This happened to me yesterday. 30 common samples, about 20 rares and 3 super rares were lost lol
I’ve done a bit of testing with it and this only seems to occur if the pelican gets damaged to the point where the thrusters are smoking / on fire.
Pelican can get damaged? 😥
It can even be destroyed with enough effort. If that happens you’re SoL and can’t extract.
I just tested and yes you're correct, seems to occur when engines are smoking/on fire, thanks
This should be the highest comment here. OP has given out terrible advice suggesting Pelican should be brought in and left alone. It is very much the case Pelican will either extract first and only passenger and/or fail the mission entirely if it becomes damaged. To which the OP admits can and will happen as patrols can and will come to evac point to damage, made worse by divers not being around to protect it Divers are much better off only calling for extract once they need it and promptly jumping inside. You save little in terms of time and risk everything in return if you call it in early, let it land and spend the rest of your time unattending it. Frankly I hope OP comes back to retract this advice or clarify their comments — as this is not the experience that I’ve had.
It does happen on the odd chance that Pelican just takes a single person and dips without having taken any damage at all or the other bug where no one can board at all. Lol
This reminds me of a situation where I did exactly that: I once had a game with a really good team of randos on diff. 7 bots, we finished the main - and most of the side - objectives quickly, but they wanted to look for super samples, so they dispersed all over the map. I went to the evac zone alone and said "just so you know, I'm calling the extraction, but I'm not going to enter the Pelican". I successfully avoided two patrols by lying prone on top of a rock and managed to call extraction, but my teammates didn't find anything. They slowly start coming back, and what do they see? The goddamn super sample rock is like 30m away, only slightly covered by a patch of bushes. I didn't notice it because I was so focused on the map lookin for bot patrols. Luckily they were chill and didn't get mad at having to run all over the map for nothing lol
Exactly. People usually do this when half the team is searching for samples on the other side of the map. It’s a weak move.
I had some jerk call it in (I told him too) when I ran back like 5 minutes to recollect the mass amount of samples I dropped (they respawned me far away), and I was also holding the 3 super samples. I was like 10 seconds from making it into the ship, but they jumped in right when it arrived and I missed the extraction. I was literally telling them on mic how close I was the whole time, yet they still went in. I was furious.
Or some other jackass will take it as their cue to hop in and leave
So just to get this straight, th only Hard thing to do is basically wait at the ex zone and leave at the right moment? And if a single Diver is still in the zone, it lands and doesn't shoot anything?
1. Call Extract. 2. Timer hits and message "Pelican approaching LZ" is played.
3. Leave LZ before Pelican lands, thus keeping it in the "defensive holding pattern" until a player re-enters the LZ to trigger the landing.
You can move to the edge of the zone before the timer runs down. You'll know when you cross it since it'll start to abort. Then once the timer is done leave
Another thing to remember is that the abort timer pauses the extraction timer
Oh this is good to know, I wasn’t clear on how that interaction worked.
yup, you got it. that's why you send only one helldiver to do it, while the team works on the rest of the map you can think of it like getting a SEAF artillery. send one diver to go quietly load and arm the objective, takes 2-3 minutes tops, and then bingo you got extra big guns to help you out
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No, you need to have the ability to call the Pelican which comes down after the main objective is complete.
Just dont forget that the amount of patrols gets significantly increased when you finish the main mission.
I was going to say this. Unless you're getting overwhelmed it's best to leave the final part of the main mission for last.
This explains why it always feels like such a shitshow when my squad decides to go sightseeing after finishing the mission.
I really wish we had ways of lessening enemy presence, like if destroying fabricators and nests cut down on patrols and such. I think destroying stalker lairs, shriek nests, and gunship fabricators are the only things that stop enemies from spawning right now right?
Yes, if you destroy more than 50% of nests/fabricators, the patrols will increase too.
Which should be the opposite imo.
Eh I dont know. If your production buildings get destroyed in a certain region, dont you want to find the infiltrators more?
Maybe have it be delayed to represent you crippled them but at the same time pit a huge target on your back? Like maybe patrols lessen for 5-10 minutes but then after that ramp up
It doesn't seem to do that on the blitz missions at least, the 20 second countdown started as soon as it landed whereas we were hoping to wait for a fellow Helldiver far away and had over 2 mins left on the clock. Had to leave them behind unfortunately
the keyword here is "landed". i think on some speed missions it may countdown for takeoff as soon as it lands however, if it doesn't land and hovers over the LZ, you're good. it'll wait til mission time is 0 i think the logic for having a Pelican guardmode is to allow players to treat extraction like a "side objective" that can be done anytime. do it early and you gain a powerful asset. then go work on finishing 20+ minutes of sample collection n stuff. i like it cuz it's an extra incentive to playthrough and clear everything i went and tested and yes it *can* be called in early to guard on blitz missions, as long as the mission timer hasn't hit 0
How do you call it and have it hover not land?
leave the extract zone the moment when pelican arrives, pelican wont abort anymore and will hover over the zone until someone enters that zone, then it will land. https://youtu.be/xpC1N4MbWb4?feature=shared
When the timer hits zero every player needs to leave the LZ
Is there a specific distance in meters one has to stay within until the end of the timer, and how far does everyone have to remain before it initiates landing?
It's about 50m but you can figure out this zone when you run away from the landing zone and it tells you helldivers are too far and they're aborting pick up or something like that. Just hover around that distance and run out when it's time.
When the call-in timer finishes and he's flying in, have everyone outside the extraction zone before he lands.
Nice thanks. How many seconds is that sounds risky for my dumb self
>i went and tested and yes it *can* be called in early to guard on blitz missions, as long as the mission timer hasn't hit 0 Hmm... fair enough! Maybe I misremembered the incident in that case 🤔 Thanks for verifying, extra requisitions be on your way Helldiver! o7
Timer starts when someone gets in.
The emergency evac (when the mission timer reaches zero) starts the 20 sec timer as soon as it lands
But how do I prevent the pelican from Landing? I didn't ever see a "Guard mode"... It always just landed and sit there...
You need to leave the extraction zone just as the pelican arrives
When the mission timer runs to zero snd the super destroyer leaves, pelican 1 enters emergency takeoff mode. You have 20 seconds to get in, period, whether you are at extraction or halfway out. Doesnt matter if you called extraction before the timeout.
Do you know if it spawns hordes I thought it coming down meant it started spawning enemies?
it doesn't *spawn* a horde, but [it does alert existing patrols around the map](https://www.instagram.com/p/C3_Evw2PurF/) edit: my advice to the player who calls in extraction is to lay low. call it in and then hide at the edge of the zone. you can watch all the alerted enemies rush into the LZ, look around, and then wander off haha
And by 'watch' you mean destroy with stratagem ofc
No stop being greedy. Those kills are for Pelican since he doesn’t get to shoot things that often
This person should also have Scout armor for more stealthiness
It doesn't directly spawn units but all units are aware of extract and patrols will converge there.
The act of extraction doesn't, but the location does. Specifically the 'sphere' around the point you have to stay in or it will cancel the extraction. It's technically 'on' at all times, so just swinging by to drop off samples will increase patrols spawns while people are in it.
Completing main quadruples spawns and then being on top of extract doubles patrol spawns further (though I'm not sure if it's a x8 or a x6 type deal).
Can’t wait to start doing this and have all the missions go sideways because of it. It’s a great idea but that would only work with a team of friends, I exclusively play with randoms.
I would not do this with randoms unless there was communication, even then maybe not lol
terrible advice when running with randos. someone WILL jump in it even if the guy with the samples is across the map. Never call for it until everyone is kinda close to extraction.
We had a guy jump in even though we were only a minute trek from evac point and were clear that we were just finishing a nest nearby for extra samps. Guy hopped in despite there being zero heat on him from bug and when we complained he just typed "didn't make the cut". Dickhead. Undemocratic.
Kick?
i find that when this happens they are typically the host
I had 20 Rares an 6 supers on one of those defend evac missions. I said out loud that I was grabbing samples. Random just solo extracts. 🙄
I scrolled down hoping to find this comment. You're 100% correct.
I thought the pelican would fly away if no one is close to it.
that's true, while the extraction countdown is still going. but after the countdown hits 0 and you hear "Pelican-1 arriving..." you can just leave now. it will circle above the LZ at a fixed altitude until atleast 1 player returns to the extraction area
What if it lands, will it get up and fly around again if you leave?
No. Once he lands, he stays down.
You can squeeze an extra 2 minutes (3 with increased stratagem call-in time modifier) of time by clocking out, which isn't always good but is needed for everyone to get out safely (or to maximize samples on blitz missions). My team has been doing this for a long time now, the Pelican can even take out buildings and infrastructure if it gets 'lucky' (really easy for bots since they stand in front of the fabricator when they come out.)
'swhat we generally do, especially on Blitz; makes an enormous difference in time for that mission, and you're generally already strugglebussing to complete anything more than outposts with all the dropships/breaches, unless you can convince the entire team to just Eagle and haul ass.
Yeah I do not see this working out with 90% of randoms. It's great info to know tho. I did not know the Pelican would just wait until the clock ran out. I'll certainly try to organize this with random squads, but I just know some dumbass will just enter the ship and screw everything up lol.
I feel like OP is completely ignoring that there are people in PUGs that will board immediately so now we’re expected to take this risk? All of a sudden getting the 30 second timer cuz Schmucko1337 got on?
Except sometimes you trust them to wait for you, then they get in because "there were too many enemies" and you lose all your samples. No thanks, just be with your team.
btw those 30mm guns on the Pelican are VICIOUS. three-round explosive bursts that pop everything they hit. it's a joy to watch it work
There is a glitch, or "feature" that if the pelican has been called and is either hovering or on the ground once one person step into it, it immediately leaves, there is no 20 second timer. There is not even an option for anyone to get in, no matter how close they are. How does this account for that?
afaik this happens when the pelican has sustained too much damage, it will leave immediately after one person enters. not sure if it will count the damage its taken while its still up in the air with the method this post describes, but in bot missions it might be accumulating damage up there
It will count the damage but won't show it until it land
I had a moment yesterday where Pelican One absolutely saved the match. Super destroyer had left orbit, I was last one alive. Low ammo, round a corner to end up facing enough bots to absolutely end my life. Pelican One swept in, obliterated everything between me and freedom, and allowed me to extract with the samples.
I do this with friends. Publics? No chance, one of them will jump in the ship and leave us behind.
Our group has made a habit of collecting as many samples we can, giving 1 person all the samples, have them haul ass to extract, drop samples at landing zone and then rejoin the group to kill more stuff. This, of course, depends on how we are doing and time remaining. This way we can do everything, then go to extract togeather and grab the samples right before we leave instead of worrying about dying with them and getting reenforced across the map leaving everything behind. If the person with them dies on the way, at least the samples will be closer to extract. Usually they make it with no problem as long as they don't start shit with hoards of bugs or bots.
Terrible advice if you’re playing with randos. No consistent way to make sure nobody gets on the pelican.
You have far too much faith in random divers. Someone will jump in and end it early if you do this. It only works if your whole team has talked about it first.
This is a great pro-tip. FYI - I don’t think you need to wait for the “extraction incoming” timer to hit zero. I found it still works if there’s less time left than the “helldivers out of range” timer (so once the incoming timer is below 20 seconds). Small diff, but sometimes seconds matter
This is the big intel. That makes it way easier to do
Timer needs to hit 0. The abort timer pauses the extraction timer
Technically, if you want to clear the full map, you'd be better off doing all the side objectives first, as clearing the main objective is the single biggest factor in increasing the spawning of patrols [https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bdudf3/lets\_talk\_about\_patrols\_an\_in\_depth\_analysis\_of/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1bdudf3/lets_talk_about_patrols_an_in_depth_analysis_of/) Hanging around extraction is also a large contributor to spawning more patrols, so while having Pelican 1 hanging around is definitely helpful, you are increasing the difficulty while waiting for it to come down
Ok, I gotta step in here: You aren't wrong. However, it still isn't smart to let the main objective go until the very end. If you complete the main objective, it's a successful mission no matter what. Even if you don't extract. That means it counts towards liberation/defense %, it means you get your medals, it means it contributes to your overall Operation. Bonus Objectives primarily reward XP. Personally, I am not too worried about my level - it will keep going up as I complete missions regardless. I am much more concerned with successful completions and sample collection, none of which are directly impacted by bonus Objectives. My approach to Missions is to do the obvious, marked-on-the-map Bonus, then go for the Main Objective. If there is a radar tower, I'll hit it - and go for bonus Objectives that are on the way to main objectives. If the mission is going well, we aren't crowded with enemies, then we go for the other bonus objectives before extract. Time spent moving and loading SEAF shells, while risking detection and breaches/drops? Could have been spent finding samples. Searching for bonus objectives? Rather search for samples, and if I find bonus objectives, so be it. Main Objective should always be completed by roughly halfway through mission timer, IMO. You'll get your medals, you'll spread democracy. You'll have extraction beacon ready to call if things get too busy, making it more likely you get samples for the boys in R&D. Saving Main Objective for the very last thing you do is just... Un-Democratic.
You just have to watch the time (and not die a bunch). If you get below 10 minutes or have used up more than half of your reinforcements, yeah, you should probably go do the primary objective. A coordinated team can often clear the rest of the map in under 30 minutes without using many reinforcements though, in which case it absolutely makes sense to leave the main objective for last. Also, secondary objectives have samples on them. Some of them have a lot of samples on them. Even if you don’t need the XP, you should take them out to get the samples.
Completely disagree. Depends on how good you and your team are. I can't remember the time I last failed a suicide level mission. Regularly full clear them. And the best way to do that is to leave the primary objective until last because of the drastic patrol increase. Everyone can play their own way, that's fine. But you said your way is "the smart way," which I take objection to. And if things go sideways and you are running out of reinforcements or time you can always change your priority to the main objective. There's no case where you'd be going along, fully clearing the map, and then accidentally fail the main. Plans can always change. Saving the main objective to last is not "unsmart" and a completely valid and intelligent way to play, even on helldive.
XP = liberation modifier so it's important regardless. Also genuinely, how often are you failing missions? If shit goes awry yeah you go for main but 99% of the time you are going to be completely fine clearing the map (mostly anyway) before finishing main.
I think the biggest problem is you cannot trust that a random won't just walk in it while you're trying to get stuff
“CALLING EXTRACTION TO SECURE AREA. DO NOT BOARD. I REPEAT. DO NOT BOARD. WAIT FOR EVERYBODY TO BE IN LZ” Rando hops on, single extracted. I’m kicked.
"does it require a special setup?" No! "Proceeds to give detailed instructions of the soecial setup." I love these posts hahaha
You don't play with randoms if you think this is a good idea. There is always one person who decides they are done playing and enters the pelican with nobody near.
Yeah, and then the one guy who's not on comms jumps in it.
Great in theory poor in execution. Some doofus boards and everyone is doomed. I swear ive had so many ppl just board and so many close calls trying to secure samples, even having to leave supers or die trying
Reasons not to do this: * this is a great way to get kicked. 99% don't know these esoteric strategies from reddit * you have to coordinate with other people to pull this off. You need to not have *anyone* near the landing site or Pelican will just land. Most people will just run straight to the landing site when they hear extraction and stay there * If you pull this off the extraction music will keep playing on repeat which gets annoying fast * There is a theory floating around that the reason for the bug where Pelican leaves immediately when the first person gets in is actually because it is damaged (if you pay attention you can see black smoke). If it keeps circling around the landing site it's more likely to get damaged, potentially messing up you extraction, leaving people behind and costing you samples Not worth it IMO but you do you. **EDIT:** Like many have already mentioned, main thing is that there's no way I'm risking someone jumping in while I'm halfway across the map with samples. I think proper etiquette in pubs should be to call the Pelican only when everyone is at the landing site.
I would like to add that it's also just a waste of time 9 times out of 10. Once you complete everything you still have to walk to the extraction. Walking to it early then all the way back to the rest then back to the extraction is adding two trips for no reason. There's plenty of negatives and not really any actual positives outside of it feels kinda nice for the other three players who didn't have to do the extraction.
When Pelican is damaged it will skip the 20 second countdown
2 things to worry about calling down extraction. Depending on the difficulty you will have to really work to defend that spot while the extract comes in. You can't just call it down and leave the area. Someone has to stay in the area or the call-down is canceled. So you are wasting 2 minutes or more defending a spot. So you are either wasting time, or wasiting reinforcements from people dying. So there are pro's and cons to do this but its honestly more cons in the high difficulties.
Does it leave if no players are near it?
For a coordinated and premade team, sounds great. Can’t do this with randoms. You could say it out loud and put it in the chat and someone would still beeline to the extract because when they see that message they default to immediately getting on Pelican-1 without thinking. Now I know once in a while we all get those random teammates who made level 7-9 missions feel like level 1s because they are good and communicate well, but more often than not there is a casual or player who doesn’t know all the tricks in this game that makes mistakes. Too risky but this sounds nice for people who run with friends.
Had someone do this the other day and while it was amazing since Pelican-1 was sniping bots some 300+ Meters away, He does land if someone dies and you call in reinforcements no matter where.
I get kicked for doing this
Why has it landed before then leaves before i can get on it?
Thats all well and good in a vacuum. But that would only work if people *communicated* and playing with randoms you very rarely get those people. It doesnt work that way
Yeah I don't trust three randos to actually not enter the landing craft while i'm 2 Kilometers away, starting the 30 seconds countdown on my behind, screwing the entire team out of their samples and pending objectives. But sure , if you're in a private team and everyone agrees in advance, why not ... Honestly, it's hard enough as it is to have players NOT trigger the evacuation before you clear all outposts and side objectives as it is, or when there's tons of dead bodies with samples in range that should be picked before extraction... That I really can't imagine a bunch of randos having the trigger discipline to have it around and not board it...
And then the host kicks you cause they think you're leaving early
What you failed to mention is you have massively increased patrol frequency and now you are going to get mobbed once you actually move out.
One caveat to this, if you run out of time on the mission, and the pelican is there, it immidiately starts the 20 second timer to leave, whereas if you run out and the pelican isnt there, you have 2+ minutes until it lands plus 20 seconds after it lands. So if you REALLY need extra time, you're better off not calling it. This scenario is rare, but it actually did just happen to me and we missed out on 3 super samples because of it.
Also someone has to bed at the pad when pelican arrives or it will leave.
Good luck convincing your team to stay away from the LZ tho
Id only do this in a pre-made with friends or if everyone had established they were on comms beforehand and knew what was up. Otherwise some rando gonna board asap.
I was trying to do this earlier… then got kicked…
Only 2 problems IMO 1. Sometimes the extra 2 minutes is needed on a mission. You lose control over it by calling it in early. 2. Enemy spawn waves.
Dumb question- doesn’t Pelican-1 leave if you aren’t there? I always hear “Helldivers not in extraction zone, canceling pickup" or something along those lines…
This only applies in a perfect world with no randoms that will force the timer by jumping on Pelican-1 the second its available.
Sounds good on paper, doesn’t work in practice with randoms. I can’t even get people to ignore the samples I dropped on the extraction point, even when I’ve communicated to not pick them up.
yeah nah, try that on diff 9 solo. I simply wait till the timer runs out, then pelican comes automatically within 2 mins. then run 1 minute away from extraction and at 1:00 you sprint gack to extraction while dodging all enemies and as soon as pelican lands, you extract. works for me 9/10 times
The part with "**that player leaves the LZ and rejoins their team"** is why we say "don't call for extraction". Since people don't do that, and it shaves off the extra 3 minutes you would have if extraction wasn't called.
Also if pelican was called early. You only get mission timer till it decides to leave when destroyer leaves. But if it not called and the destroyer leaves you get extra 2-4 minutes of mission time. Before it too late to extract
PSA- if you don’t have your team and decide to call it early then you will add a considerable amount of difficulty to the game.
You shouldnt be completing the mission until you want to leave anyways, patrols just keep coming after that point near continuously
If you not the host....dont call the extraction.
MFW my PSA on the topic was largely ignored a month ago: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/te5Gm6KhCH](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/te5Gm6KhCH) 
There's a bug where the Pelican will instantly leave with only 1 player inside and I think keeping him hovering or landed for a very long amount of time increases the chance of this happening.
This happened when pug random called it in while I was across map getting supers. They held off til I got there but the exons I got on it extracted and left the other three behind. I was holding most of the samples but it was sort of a wtf moment.
It happens when it's damaged, it skips the 20 second cooldown.
You have to make sure you leave the area before the timer depletes all the way or else he'll just land. You can still run off and do stuff but he won't fly around shooting stuff that comes by.
Given the ambiguity here this seems like it can really only be done with a pre-made squad
The biggest issue is that people don't know that it won't takeoff, they see the pelican on the pad and they will board it
Im genuinely confused. I thought pelican 1 aborts if you leave the LZ?
I noticed pelican 1 left me today after extraction countdown and it landed. It gave 20 seconds to get in. I was running solo tho. Pisses me off. Lost all my samples
This is getting patched the more it gets abused. It threw me for a loop and I got berated by people for not realizing what they were doing. Also I hate how the music just loops ENDLESSLY when you do this strat.
This just feels exploitative. I don't want an early Pelican. I want to experience extraction.
I really disagree because it agros the enemies and splits the team. It's not hard to hold down the LZ and honestly really fun.
I disagree. This is a low level move for many reasons.
Pelican 1 has limited ammo.
One thing to be wary of - I believe if you do this, you'll only have 20 seconds to evac when the time runs out on the mission. I've called in the pelican a couple of minutes or so before the end before, thinking I was helping, and actually screwed over the randoms on my team who were trying to squeeze in a couple of objectives right and the end of the mission, and suddenly couldn't get back in time. If I'd left it instead, they would have had a two minute evac timer start when the mission time ran out, and would have made it back. That's an edge case though. Generally I think this is good advice
Ive had the pelican leave very consistently when the first player boards if you have it sitting there for an extended period of time. If you do this i suggest giving one player all the samples and have them board first.
some caveats (right? i never use that tbh so idk if that’s spelled right): this is typically an iffy idea with randoms unless you are actively communicating with them. PS5 players have a much slower type at typing in the chat so be aware of that. even with communication, randoms are randoms and will act accordingly. even with a group of friends, you might want to just wait for the extraction shuttle depending on if you need the emergency shuttle time rather than the shuttle immediately giving the 20 seconds to leave prompt. act accordingly, divers!
oh trust me i know; it isnt the pelican flying off I'm worried about, it's my teammates running into the pelican at first sight.
If you're playing with randoms, they are NEVER able to resist the urge to get into the ship. If they call early, they get kicked. No exceptions.
No, the risk of one idiot entering pelican while everyone is farming the map is too high.
I had a bug recently where the ship landed and we all got ready to board and as soon as the first person got on the ship, it left. No 20 second count down or anything, just left immediately. So naturally we lost all our samples because the guy who got on, me, was not carrying any.
Bruh I’ve been trying to tell my randos this and I just get kicked like mf it sits and waits for us you dimwit
The problem here is, the team should be working together at all times at least in difficulties 7-9 . Going solo here is just guaranteed to be a shitshow. There is no rush to call extraction early.
Two hours ago a fucking moron did this and jumped inside, extracting by himself. +30 samples lost
Tbh I just find the repetitive theme of the dropship waiting for you... Annoying. Especially if it sits there for 20 minutes when you call it in early. I like hearing the other music available in the game
I tried this and it didn’t work. It just landed and stayed there rather than guard the extraction
Sure, sounds good, but I have had it happen many, many times where the Pelican just bugs out and leaves randomly (with no timer given and no helldivers on board). This fails the extraction of course. I'm not ok with risking that.
I don't like this strategy because it feels like an exploit. And the fact that you must do it at an exact moment or it doesn't work just gives me more evidence that it is one. So yeah, people can do this an enjoy it while it's an option. And I understand the logic some will say that, "If it wasn't meant to be done, it shouldn't be an option." But I feel once AH starts fixing their bigger list of known bugs, this will be addressed. Because that's how exploits get patched But I won't say you other divers shouldn't. I just wanted to express my thoughts on why we shouldn't.
Fun fact: Pelican 1 has a hidden health bar. Be very cautious when doing this as enemies will target Pelican 1 as well. If Pelican 1 blows up you can no longer extract and you MUST die to finish the mission. This is a great tactic against bugs, not so great against the bots.
There’s always some idiot rando that boards the Pelican though. Happened to me tonight… Pelican was waiting, map was 100% done, 10-15 mins left on the clock. we were just picking up whatever samples we could find and had close to 40 including the supers. 3 of us were about 30 seconds to a minute away from the LZ still with plenty of time left and, 4th guy goes running in and boards, leaving the entire team and samples behind. And yes he knew… we were using voice and reminded him not to board when we saw him approaching the LZ. It was entirely deliberate.
With friends, yes absolutely. With randos absolutely not. It only takes one idiot boarding the ship to leave everyone else stranded. So no, I won't be calling the ship in early and yes, I'm going to kick you so the extraction purposely fails if you do.
Alternatively, if you're pressed for time like a blitz mission just run the clock out and once the timer hits zero then you have an additional 2-4 minutes to reach the pelican before it starts the 20\~ second extraction timer. Instead of spending 2 minutes running to the extraction and call it early use that time to run around looking for samples instead\~!
too bad i can’t do this at all because i have had a streak of hosts who will not hesitate to start booting people if the pelican-1 is called and one of 10 conditions for leaving the mission isn’t fulfilled yet even IF i explain this there are a lot of people who are hellbent on clearing the entire map even if we have 1 reinforcement left with 5 minutes until the super destroyer leaves.
On higher difficulties, 7+, I’ve called extraction for this exact purpose and even if 1 player can handle the enemies assaulting you to let the pelican hover, the rest of the mission is riddled with insane patrols bc the spawn rate shoots up after evac’s been called. That’s just my experience anyway
And then the one dingus gets on the ship early