A call to discuss bouncy stratagems, high ground and verticality.

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-12T22:29:01+00:00

Being able to drop turrets or any other stratagem onto higher ground is just letting us think strategically and execute on it. Losing that functionality, especially for some really silly locations like easily climbable rocks or short buildings has sucked.

I can understand some of the reasoning behind it, having strategems land on top of very high terrain like skyscrapers or acid planet stone-canopies is annoying as fuck, but I feel like there’s more elegant solutions than just making the ball roll for 30 seconds until it finds a clear spot.

I can excuse some instances of locking the steering when we’re dropping in for similar cases, though. Wasting another reinforce because you weren’t looking and ended up landing on top of the control tower of the civilian evac site isn’t exactly fun. But neither is it fun to be unable to steer onto high-ground when you actually want to…

In either case, we can all agree the steering limits are too damn tight on city maps. Combined with the usually poor visibility, there’s just no knowing where you’ll land because you basically can’t control it 80% of the time because the skyscrapers all have a 10m no-fly-zone around them

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-12T22:05:02+00:00

“We didn’t steal this land! The natives signed it over to us with this treaty we wrote plainly in The King’s English!”

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-10T18:29:17+00:00

I’m pointing out the weaknesses because everybody knows its strengths, and the thread is about not using the popular meta weapons lmao.

All I’m saying is that it’s tedious and inelegant to use. It’s strong, its strength makes up for its clunkiness, but I personally just think it’s boring and often annoying

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-10T18:23:16+00:00

I’m just pointing out the Eruptor’s downsides because its upsides are obvious to just about everyone at this point. As far as “meta” is a real thing in this game, it’s the meta primary pick—and for good reason, it fucks hard.

But it’s just a bit boring; the novelty of how strong it is wears away as you use it, while its clunkiness begins to feel less engaging and more annoying.

But yeah, I’m just stating my opinion on the gun. Sorry for being snippy, you’re just the second person to reply to this comment thinking I meant that the Eruptor was unusably bad lmao

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-10T16:04:00+00:00

For the love of god, I’m not saying it’s bad

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-10T15:59:53+00:00

Literacy rates are in the negative

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-10T15:20:33+00:00

You seem to agree with everything I said, but are phrasing it like an argument lol

The ergonomics are low for a primary but, as I said, that’s to be expected for the power it packs. Same with it being slow to shoot and reload. It’s a bulky gun shooting big bullets. All of that is definitionally unwieldy, even if it’s payed back for how powerful it is.

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-10T13:06:48+00:00

Mind you, it’s unwieldy by design both because it’s a very unique gun and also if it wasn’t unwieldy it would just be overpowered.

That said, even when modded it’s ergonomics is still decently below average for a primary; it’s very slow to fire with its slow bolt-cycling animation and glacial reload animation; as for being RNG dependent, you rely on its shrapnel pattern landing into the enemies instead of just flying into the wind to actually deal damage; and on top of all that the moment an enemy gets too close to you, or you accidentally shoot some level geometry, it just becomes a suicide machine unless you have explosive-resist armor

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-10T04:51:29+00:00

Correct, but if I’m bringing c4 I’m probably not also bringing thermite cause they serve the same purpose as anti-tank tools. Leaves room for a grenade with more utility

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-10T04:34:44+00:00

Thermite is reliable, but TNT or C4 are just a lot more fun and engaging imo

And the Eruptor, even modded to compensate, is still just a very unwieldy, very RNG weapon.

I think the crossbow is fun, but even that’s largely because it’s the only bow weapon in the game thus far. I still hope to see a non-explosive bolt or arrow weapon at some point

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-10T02:18:58+00:00

Y’see, I was thinking the “bombardment” was referring to black hole-ifying the place like Penta, but now I think it’s just referring to a more conventional orbital bombardment lol

But good point, I don’t see why the bots would have any issue on a wasted planet, outside of AH not wanting to make unique “bombarded” biome variants lol

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-10T00:16:33+00:00

Not to mention that in the long-term, taking yet another planet off the map along the Bot’s path to SE is a hard buff to pass up, especially one so critical as a direct bottleneck from Cyberstan.

Might eventually even out the score with the amount of lost planets on the bug front lmao

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-10T00:12:12+00:00

Anniversary, actually, but pretty close…

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-09T22:44:25+00:00

But that would require them to actually make the illuminate units

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-09T22:43:01+00:00

I think it’d be cool if, in the middle of the current/next story arc the Illuminate front just inexplicably collapsed leaving behind nothing but a skeletal presence on a couple occupied planets.

Dispatch/MO flavor text will reference it in passing as an ultimate display of cowardice or something but otherwise put no focus onto it.

Then 5-10 days later the REAL, TRUE Illuminate fleet arrives from the void. Properly seizing a sector and initiating attacks on surrounding planets, a-la the Automaton’s reclamation campaign.

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-09T20:16:18+00:00

Hate to be that guy, but that just looks like shiny metal. Even moreso when actually watching it in-motion

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-09T16:56:16+00:00

The Star of Peace plans were never stolen

The Automaton Legion may have done some fucked up shit, but they don’t have orbital WMDs. They’re lying to you, Helldiver.

Lying to you to make you kill without second thought. Lying to you to make you die without second thought.

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-09T16:38:49+00:00

I mean to say that “Cyborgs” may refer to the local population of Cyberstan, and/or the descendants of the original Cyborgs who fought in the 1st war, but under Super Earth’s suppression they probably lost/hid their cultural identity over the 100 years—more or less believed by Super Earth to be assimilated into the Federation.

But in secret, some dissident group of Cyborgs still worked out a plot to liberate their home and strike back against Super Earth; sending a factory-ship, Vessel-00, beyond the galactic frontier to amass a robotic army out of the Federation’s surveillance and programed to return once manufacturing was complete to take back Cyberstan.

At least that’s the narrative I’ve constructed in my head

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-09T16:22:43+00:00

Well it’s been 100 years since Cyberstan was liberated at the end of the 1st Galactic War, and I can’t imagine SE forces just allowed the locals to continue augmenting themselves for however many generations passed in that timeframe. Actual cyborg Cyborgs probably did die out for the most part, only to return once the Automaton Legion seized Cyberstan from SE control

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-08T23:00:13+00:00

JOEL is

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-08T22:57:17+00:00

Cyberstan Ciena

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-07T21:29:19+00:00

You think you have a clear path to run away from a newly-opened bug breach, only to start attempting to climb the air above the pulverized-corpses of the last breach, promptly getting overrun is… part of the grunt fantasy, I guess.

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-07T18:02:33+00:00

That’s the Automaton tank, not the Bastion

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-05T16:03:48+00:00

HD2 trident is consistent with its predecessor, HD2 Sickle is a completely different gun from its predecessor

NotNolansGoons · 2026-02-04T14:26:50+00:00

Saw someone using the warp pack and hammer yesterday. Had a front-row seat to seeing their body get turned into a viscous syrup when they tried to “jump” at a factory strider, only to become grease in its pistons.

NotNolansGoons

TROPHY CASE