Looks like we may soon be getting more things to buy using samples and requisition slips. The Catalog Expansion has no cost, and buying it does nothing. The Upgrade Effect text must be null for Catalog Expansion, that field just shows the effect for whichever upgrade was previously selected.
Edit: It’s been acknowledged on the official Discord, looks like it’s unintended:
ALERT: ROGUE ITEM DETECTED. The Ministry of Truth has confirmation that a rogue item called the “catalog expansion” is temporarily visible in the Ship Management menu and, in accordance with regulations, we instruct all Helldivers to avoid this rogue item until further notice. The Ministry of Truth cannot confirm the reliability or safety of this item, nor can they confirm its origin.
Mech seems like a waste unless it’s an extermination mission. The cooldown just feels too long to be useful.
The mech can be really good for any mission type where you need to spend an extended period of time on an objective. Off the top of my head I’d say that includes civilian rescue (all variants except the 15-minute bot one) and geological survey, in addition to the eradication mission type you mentioned. You’re going to spend a significant amount of time on the extraction / main survey site, with multiple patrols / dropships / breaches. You can get a lot of value out of a mech call-in during that time.
If it were up to me I’d change the mech strat to work like the orbital laser. Shorten the cooldown but cap the number of mechs you can deploy during a mission. The 10-minute cooldown feels overly punishing if you do the main objective shortly before extraction.
There already is a cap of 2 mechs per stratagem per mission.
I didn’t even realize, that cooldown is so long I’d be hard-pressed to use it more than twice.
In my humble opinion the mech should have unlimited deployments because it’s entirely possible to get completely fucking cucked on your strategums in this game, teammate steals it, you get merked before you can claim it, etc.
I think the meta for skilled teams was two mechs and two quasars, but I am not even lvl 20 yet so not totally sure.
I’m at level 65 and I’d say the whole notion of a single loadout meta died with the OG Railgun. We might have been on the cusp of a Slugger meta when that got nerfed (RIP my beloved, that stagger was so good), but it wasn’t as prevalent as the Railgun. I don’t see much mech strat usage now, the 10-minute cooldown just feels too long. The mech is less fragile now than it was initially, but the rocket aiming is a lot worse after the most recent changes so it’s a real mixed bag. Still potentially worth taking on any mission where you’re going to spend a long time on an objective (e.g. civilian extraction, geological survey).
I see a fair amount of variety in loadouts, it’s more like there’s a range of preferences that end up dictating each player’s loadout:
I play on difficulty 7 and agree with everything you said. My typical load out for any of the 40 minute bug missions is typically: Rover, Quasar, Eagle 500kg, Orbital Rail Cannon. If I have to close bug holes, I’ll switch the 500kg for the Air Strike. I’ve also been messing with changing out the Orbital Rail Cannon for the Autocannon Sentry, just because the cooldown is so long (like you mentioned).
If you’ve gotta kill 2 Bile Titans and 3 Chargers at once, which is pretty common, the Orbital Rail Cannon only does so much.
That’s really cool in my opinion. A single load out meta will get boring. I love the autocannon but the backpack is so restricting. I kind of hate the quasar but I have been trying to get better at it because meta. Suppose I’ll try more out.
That’s interesting. The mechs feel slow to me when navigating certain areas. Even if you stretch out a mech’s lifespan it means more time being unable to use strategems.
This is the worst change from Helldivers 1. There you could still throw strategems out of a mech, it had this little catapult on the back. No idea why they got rid of it.
Nope, move fast, don’t trigger alarms, and if you do, bring hellfire on them. Mechs are slow and fragile, they do about the same as a gatling turret (which you can also throw to cover your retreat). You can’t fight every fight on Helldive, since the timer between drops / breaches is so low, you probably won’t get to kill them all before a new one pops in.
Honestly, exterminations are a joke mission on higher difficulties. With two people, you fight untill the map is full of enemies (and it will be). Then you throw the 380 and the smaller artillery, and orbital lasers after. With two people, it either gets you 100% or very close to it. Easiest mission in the game lol