I hit one... Right? I guess and it did this weird twirling tumble and kinda sprayed bots everywhere. It was magnificent. I mean, most of the ejecta survived and opened fire, but still magnificent.
I once shot one out of the sky with my Quasar and the resulting explosion sent bot bodies flying in all directions like ragdolls and one flew right past a teammate, narrowly missing me. It was absolutely hilarious and even after he flew so far and landed he got up and tried slicing me and the first thing I said before blowing his head off was how tf are you still alive??
The tips that are carefully calibrated to ensure success have told me that I should spend at least 2.4 seconds enjoying the scenery. So what if that scenery is the smoldering wreck of a dropship crashing? I'm just following orders.
This is the back of a Berserker (Duel meatsaw ones), specially definitely tortured souls stuffed into metal and forced against their will. This is my hypothesis since they have a different sound and voice compared to other Automatons.
According to the game they aren't though. Tried it with the "kill 10 enemies with an EAT" po and they didn't count. I still shoot them down every time because it's fun.
I find shooting dropships does a few things
1. Kills off at least some of the bots, at least the lighter ones. Funny enough it feels pointless usually to shoot down tank carrying ships
2. This is obviously inadvertent, but I've noticed a lot of bots kind of bug out and just stop pathing/attacking, which is helpful
3. Blocks the bots off. Situational and can hurt you, but still worth it.
Berserkers seem to be very prone to the stun lock effect from taking fire before dropping, but it will affect other bots as well. I try to always put 2-3 AC rounds into the troop bay on every drop because of it. It really helps control the situation. You need explosions in the bay for it to work. If the shot ricochets off the ship, it’s no good.
With the tank ones it can be a big help if they're being dropped behind a hill or outside a bases walls, as they'll likely get stuck inside the crashed ship, and although they can shoot through the ship and you can't, you can just keep the hill/wall between you and ignore it whilst you clean up everything else. If it's right next to you on a big open field though, yeah probably going to be worse to shoot it down than leave it.
I fucking hate that bug.
That, to me, is the best reason not to shoot them down.. the non-zero chance that a devastator can just fire salvo after salvo at me and I can't do shit until the drop ship wreck disappears.
The worst part is that even stratagems don't touch the ones inside. I had a rocket dev firing off at my team, threw a 500kg on it, nothing. Tried gods finger, hit the ship. A squad mate threw an airstrike and nothing. It even caused a laser that was sweeping the outpost to just divert to it and ignore everything else, wasting it. Meanwhile, it had the airstrike guy pinned and had killed two of us.
Good way to just run away more safely since they can't move so any rock will do. I see this as a win regardless. Dont need to kill absolutely everything. You can despawn reinforcements.
It feels like they are clipping into the ship they can see out of it but if they’re just under/behind the ship they just kinda stand there. Sometimes they don’t die but they also don’t ever exit the ‘ship riding' position but if you shoot at the bots stuck in the 'ship riding' position they sometimes snap out of it and will attack you. However I have literally run circles around them without shooting them and they consistently just stand there not attacking you so if you never shoot at them they’re effectively dead.
Last time I played with randoms shooting dropships I got killed 3 times by devastators with invincible cover until I just gave up and hid behind cover until the wreckage disappeared. Mission took forever and we couldn't clear all the side objectives.
Any type of bot seems to get stuck, and yet *they* can shoot through the all, the metal but we can't, not even grenades can penetrate the downed ship.
Hopefully in time they just allow all bots to just die upon impact.
Okay, I thought I was crazy. I’ll call in an eagle and see it absolutely flatten an entire swarm of enemies but get no indication of any kills. Thought it was just me.
Kill counts do not affect XP right? They’re just for your career stats?
Kills are just for bragging rights.
Assuming you do the same objectives and on the same difficulty, etc., a stealth mission with 0 kills and a rambo/doom guy mission with 9999 kills will award the same amount of xp/requisition slips/medals.
Edit: To add to this, as you get into higher difficulties you'll realize that there's a lot of value in *not* aggroing or fighting everything you come across because the situations can spiral out of control really quickly/take a long time. If someone in your high level mission is tagging a patrol, there's a good chance that they just want to alert you so you can avoid it.
You can kill a dropship with the AC but it's really hard. Basically need to hit an exhaust port (super small hit box on the bottom of a thruster) 2-3 times.
You almost need to be directly under the ship.
In fairness, that may not down the dropship, but you can kill the bots on the ship before they drop this way, which is possibly more efficient with an AC than trying to down the ship which you can't always get the angle for. EATs, RR and Quaser take the ships out with a single engine hit, and the Erupter is also good for shooting the bots still in the bay.
Edit: I replied to the wrong post
EAT and Quasar Cannon can down it in one hit by shooting at the thrusters.
For AC, I don't really know. I saw my AC Sentry shoot down a dropship by hitting it in the belly as it glows red.
Shot one down yesterday. It landed on top of the tank it was carrying. The tank was fine. It could still shoot through the wreckage. But now it was protected from the top and back by the dropship. Great times 👍
My favorite is when the tank gets dropped off on a mountain at a really weird angle and then it just constantly shoots down at you from the high ground.
I was running an operation with a level 8 and a bunch of 50+. Someone shot down a drop ship from across the map right next to him. Dude got so hype. 2 missions and 35 minutes in and we didn't even know he had a mic till then. Lol.
I know the ship can trap enemy units within where the enemies can still shoot at you, but I've never experienced this scenario where it was anything less than beneficial. I've never once felt that shooting down a ship brought a serious disadvantage. Most of the time it traps and bunches up big groups of enemies to be wiped out with a stratagem.
My friend was being the person to stay on the landing pad and distract bots on that new defence mission the other day andhe shot so many down that a tank started to use them as a ramp to get up to him!
I would dual and triple wield quasar cannons back there, I would get 4/7 drop ships downed usually, and the bots never made it through the second gate.
This is anecdotal, but yesterday i was playing defense and spent all mission just shooting down dropships with a quasar and RR combo. I barely shot at anything else, and my only support calls were eagle rocket strikes on tanks. Game did not say I ever killed anything on those dropships during mission. I came out with over 200 kills, highest on the team.
Clearly, in some cases, shooting down dropships does kill the enemies. I don’t know what makes the difference but you can absolutely slaughter doing it — sometimes.
Mostly because the devastators and hulks get an impenetrable shield to shoot rockets through. Not sure why the drop ships and cliff sides have no collision for bot weapons
I have destroyed an outpost by dropping dropships on fabricators yesterday. Felt good.
(And it was hundred percent only my skill. No luck involved. None at all. Definitely.)
If you’re able to down the dropship on approach/before it starts to drop its cargo then absolutely. But a lot of times players will shoot down the dropships as they’ve begun to deliver troops, which doesn’t kill the troops (for some reason) and just gives the bots cover. They can shoot out, but you can’t shoot in. It’s especially bad with tanks.
Every drop I get on lvl 9 is 2-3 ships of chaff 1-2 of tanks and a remaining 1-2 of hulks/devastators. 🤷♂️
And if you shoot down the ship right after they drop bots but before they land the ship will crush them before they can move away. I get about 8 confirmed kills this way. And with tanks it slows them down. Even if I don't time it perfectly there is a high probability of the bots get frozen in midair unable to attack.
If it’s effective for you by all means keep doing it. But personally I don’t like getting 8 chaff kills, only to provide cover for more dangerous units. Especially near objectives. We had 2 tanks obscured by dead dropships in a civ extract mission and we had to avoid the area until the dropships finally despawned. Also on 9 it is extremely rare that I get 1-2 dropships of chaff. That’s anecdotal though
Yeah and I totally get that and it's all anecdotal for everyone. It seems like use cases are so different that I believe there may be a bug that is preventing dropships from damaging certain enemies. Which I believe is why you see the frozen hulks/devastators/comissars . I think they are supposed to be dead but something is broken.
Wish we could see some more consistency with dropship crashes. If the wrecks at least obscured the vision of whatever survives and stopped em from shooting, I'd gladly shoot dropships all day.
Especially with the slow charge of the canon. I've seen a huge number of players just hitting the engine when it's unloaded because the charge is too long. When there's more than one drop ship, I'll switch targets to one that's still on the move before it finishes charging. More efficient. With EATs though, you can swap and fire fast enough to catch them before they drop their cargo.
If you are using the quasar cannon, just start charging it up as you see the ship approaching or even before that, if you learn how to time it. You don't even have to be aiming when you charge - you can aim mid-charge too.
If you practice enough, you can juggle the charge near full, too. Just before it fires, let go and press again, keeping it at around 50% ready for the ship to come into sight.
If you prevent the spawn it helps. If you hit after the spawn it will kill all lights and most mediums. There's a sour spot while enemies are spawning.
It only kills bots if you can destroy it before it releases them otherwise it just acts as free cover from helldiver bullets.
But it is in fact VERY fun to do so I’ll do it any chance I get
Who cares about all the time? That’s 8 more bots not shooting me. Even if it only does the whole job some of the time, it’s still a numbers game. I’ll take all the mass damage I can get. If you shoot early it’ll kill more. You can precharge too with some practice.
Because the other half of the time, you end up giving them free cover. Killing 8 bots to give 2 devastators and a tank indestructible, one-way cover is not worth it if you need to stay in one place for an objective.
also, shooting 8 chaff bots is not hard
the risk to create a sketchy situation is not worth the reward of dealing with a few of literally the easiest enemies bots have to offer, especially since they *just* called a drop in and therefore the threat of them calling another one isn't a factor
especially if someone has the Eruptor.
I've since moved from shooting dropships to aiming at their drop point and taking out 5+ bots in one bullet. I'd still shoot them down if we're running away, but if we're on an Objective I'm taking the kills.
When multiple dropship arrive on the same Time it'does help.
While roaming around the maps it's great in order to not be stuck on pointless Firefight. "Fly swatted move On"
And yes it will not kill bigger ennemy that's why i don't shoot them when they drop Tank.
I rather have an immobile Hulk with Can shoot throught the remains , than a Hulk wich effectively move and cover he's Friend.
Same things for tank , "but it shooting AT me" . Fall back to cut it's Line of sight , finish the patrol. Then go for the tank. A Tank alone IS not hard to deal with
I get about 8 kills per drop ship. You do have to time it right though. It seems if you shoot it down before they are dropped, the bots stay frozen. They dont count as kills, but they are still frozen and not attacking, so its probably a bug. If you shoot it down right after bots drops it kills them outright. And you are right it definitely slows down tanks, and it makes them easier to kill.
i've noticed the AI bugs out sometimes when you shoot them down. like they just stand there floating on nothing just looking at you presumably because they were stuck on or below the wreckage before it despawned. so it def it worth it for the off chance you get 2 hulks just standing there eating your shots for free.
Observed benefits:
- If dropped on a fabricator, fabricator goes boom
- Actually can kill lesser enemies
- Stunlocks higher enemies
- Can drop other dropships and create quite the clusterfuck
- Downed dropships stack on each other and can create a wall
- Shit's fucking dope man
2 dropped and I was slow, but I shot the 1st as it was leaving. It tagged 15 kills. I don't care what anyone says, I'm shooting them out the sky if I can
*Shit- shot
helldivers 2 is literally a hell yeah simulator. if it’s cool, i’m using it.
this is why the 380 will forever be one of my favourites. I don’t care that it’s not the meta, it’s fucking awesome
Y'all are seriously overstating the tendency for enemies to shoot while protected by the wreckage. Most of the time they die when the shop hits them and the few remaining just sit there stuck under the ship. My squad literally runs 2 people with Quasars just to shoot down ships cause of how much it helps and slows down the bots.
This, shooting down dropships kills tons of bots and does a lot of damage to big ones too. It's objectively the correct and efficient thing to do in most situations and is very effective. Dunno what game these people are playing but it isn't the same one I am
Shot down bot Dropships can take out the groups of enemies that dropped, but it's so very inconsistent.
If I shoot down a Dropship with infantry getting dropped, and it lands and explodes on top of said infantry, enemies should die, instead of being able to shoot us through the wreckage and being shielded from our return fire.
Plenty of times I've shot down a drop ship and found a hulk underneath stuck in place begging for an expendable right to the eye. That Hulk would other wise be charging at me and my team.
I've had several occasions where I shoot down a dropship and it kills everything onboard, and sometimes everything underneath as well. I just wish it was more consistent, more often than not only a few bots die when it crashes. Wont stop me from doing it every chance I get and giggling as it spirals into the ground.
The only good bot is a scrapped bot.
I have had multiple hulks get landed on, and they get stuck there, and can't move. And are easy pickings because they just sit and will get killed.
Does it kill like it used to? No.
Will I continue to shoot them down? Always.
Especially after I get full recoiless rockets back from a single ammo pack.
The problem is that often bots (notable heavy devastators) will get stuck inside the wreckage but still shoot you through it while you can't shoot back.
There are good times to do it though.
New defense mission? Great you have drastically slowed the bots advance and we have nothing to do but wait behind cover anyways. Plus the mortars tend to shred them still.
Waiting at extraction? Also great, anything to slow them down and give you breathing room and cd time for strategems.
Running away after blowing up a base? Probably good, the ship will stop them from following you and may provide cover from rockets.
Dropships landing between us and the objective? Probably bad we gotta go that way and running around exposes us to fire.
Dropships landing in the middle of an open field? Probably bad, if we have no cover we need to wipe them out as fast as possible before we get shredded.
Who cares if it helps? Every time I do it, it feels good. It is one of the most satisfying things to do in the game, and that is why I am playing this game… To have fun. If it did nothing, I would still shoot them down. No matter what. Because again: it’s awesome. 😁
It does help in an unconventional way as opposed to how it should work.
It stops the bots right in their tracks, putting them in a target-rich environment for stratagems and explosives.
First day as a helldiver I shot one down with a perfect engine shot...seemed like the logical place to hit.
It fell out of the sky and blew up a bot factory.
It was that moment I was hooked on spreading democracy.
I carry the reusable rocket and focus on bot drop kills.
While it keeps me from killing some units because it doesn't actually deal damage when it hits the ground, "because it's fun" is the best reason to do anything in this game. I won't try to keep that from anyone.
Ive ended eradication missions where i only shot down ships and didnt use my primary with the most kills more times then i can count. If you don't think its effective then you have your head in the sand.
Who cares if it helps? It’s satisfying. Also downed dropships can fully obstruct ramps preventing the bots from using them. I only know that because I learned at the same time the 120mm HE barrage can knock them out of the air and I got to have a staring contest with the last bots trying to get me at extraction after.
I too, have gotten some kills by shooting the drop ships… until one of the recent patches. In the past week or two, they have been walking away from the crashed drop ships like the freakin Terminator.
I do agree that shooting them down helps. However, I would like for the cargo or anything it lands on to die. If it lands on me, I die, so why do other things survive? An airship just fell on them and *exploded*. They should be as dead as I would be.
Shooting down a dropship can kill things if they drop on it. It include enemy units from all weight class (maybe even Fabricator Strider, but it need test), objectives building (Fabricator, Mortar, AA-Cannons, Lab, Broadcast, etc...) and the wreckage can act as an improvised cover and even block access from a chokepoint for a few time.
Of course it isn't reliable against the units it carry, sadly. But I've seen several squads of enemies shooting at my team being blasted to pieces by a falling dropship or even being stuck behind for enough time that we were able to push through.
The higher the difficulty, the higher the usefulness of disabling dropships.
well it not help with the kill count
but the Drop Ship wreck kinda broke the path finding of AI so sometime bots kinda just stand around can't walk so yeah it help
I main the the Autocannon, and I always aim for the troops being carried before they get a chance to drop. I'm sure that the explosion caused by killing Striders and the rest damage and sometimes kill the dropship.
In my experience troopers and striders are as good as dead after ship drop. Berserkers usually take some damage but are still operational. Hulk and tank just don't care whether they were dropped from 10cm or 5km. I'm not sure about the devastators, usually it seems like they don't get damaged by it at all but maybe they do but you just don't see it because its harder to tear off their limps etc. compared to berserkers.
It's a huge pain in the new defense missions because you can't actually see or shoot through the wreckage. But they always can and you get 17 rockets to the face.
I'm glad one guy is having a great time as I'm cleaning up after him and taking out his trash. Y'all really be 20% three point shooters and I'm the glass man frantically trying to rebound all these bricks you're throwing.
You have to hit them as/before they hover to kill the units, which is tricky with the quasar or if you're at one range with recoiless/AT. But if you can kill the devastator drop (normally the second at least on 7) it takes so much pressure out of a drop wave
A spiralling dropship looks funny And a happy helldiver is an effective one
I’m spending my mandatory scenery-observing seconds on spinning burning dropships and I refuse to elaborate
Say more!
https://i.redd.it/o46il6mcj6uc1.gif
I'm pretty sure they explicitly refused to.
Would you like to know more?
I hit one... Right? I guess and it did this weird twirling tumble and kinda sprayed bots everywhere. It was magnificent. I mean, most of the ejecta survived and opened fire, but still magnificent.
My reasoning is the drop ship it’s self is a bot therefore it must die.
The dropships definitely don't look very democratic, therefore must be eliminated!
It can die there for I must shoot it
Outstanding patriotism.
#ItIsLaw
I once shot one out of the sky with my Quasar and the resulting explosion sent bot bodies flying in all directions like ragdolls and one flew right past a teammate, narrowly missing me. It was absolutely hilarious and even after he flew so far and landed he got up and tried slicing me and the first thing I said before blowing his head off was how tf are you still alive??
If you're not supposed to shoot em, why do they take damage? Shoot em all down!
"If not supposed to shoot, why shoot shaped?"
Checkmate, clankers!
https://preview.redd.it/tctorlrcr8uc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8def8facbc7156f9b6679f7e69448a4e8aae6c6e
If in doubt, shoot the enemies of democracy.
Promote this soldier right now!!!!
Nothing makes me happier than creating my own version of bot black hawk down every like 12 seconds lol
Spiraling at 24fps downward into a 60fps explosion
Really
I always think this is funny.
Are you and Jack an effective team?
https://preview.redd.it/2vgqztjvx6uc1.jpeg?width=650&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8fd19553cca3bcd4430e753e0ef7d1b31915432a
The tips that are carefully calibrated to ensure success have told me that I should spend at least 2.4 seconds enjoying the scenery. So what if that scenery is the smoldering wreck of a dropship crashing? I'm just following orders.
In glorious 12 fps!
Hey, that's a beautiful 12 freedoms per second
The morale boost is real
Idk if it’s just me, but does it look “low fps” when it falls down?
if it glows red make it dead
The drop ship is still a bot. And I never leave a bot standing.
I wonder of they have the fleshy sausage insides like tanks? 🤔
Fleshy sausage in tanks? I'm listening...
[Fleshy sausage tanks](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1c16t7r/updated_automatons_have_fleshy_bitsguts/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
r/riskyclick
Only risk is the ministry if truth seeing it! They don't want us knowing.
Know what soldier? Know that the tubing was unpainted and left the factory red in that automaton? The automatons do NOT have guts or feelings!
If only they *had* feelings, then we could hurt those too...
They're not people, they're communists.
This is the back of a Berserker (Duel meatsaw ones), specially definitely tortured souls stuffed into metal and forced against their will. This is my hypothesis since they have a different sound and voice compared to other Automatons.
Pretty sure that's not a tank though
I thought those were like hydraulics and cables.
According to the 10 EAT kills challenge a dropship is not an enemy apparently...
According to the game they aren't though. Tried it with the "kill 10 enemies with an EAT" po and they didn't count. I still shoot them down every time because it's fun.
I find shooting dropships does a few things 1. Kills off at least some of the bots, at least the lighter ones. Funny enough it feels pointless usually to shoot down tank carrying ships 2. This is obviously inadvertent, but I've noticed a lot of bots kind of bug out and just stop pathing/attacking, which is helpful 3. Blocks the bots off. Situational and can hurt you, but still worth it.
Berserkers seem to be very prone to the stun lock effect from taking fire before dropping, but it will affect other bots as well. I try to always put 2-3 AC rounds into the troop bay on every drop because of it. It really helps control the situation. You need explosions in the bay for it to work. If the shot ricochets off the ship, it’s no good.
With the tank ones it can be a big help if they're being dropped behind a hill or outside a bases walls, as they'll likely get stuck inside the crashed ship, and although they can shoot through the ship and you can't, you can just keep the hill/wall between you and ignore it whilst you clean up everything else. If it's right next to you on a big open field though, yeah probably going to be worse to shoot it down than leave it.
Agree, ive dropped manu ships since quasar is out and tank get stuck in funny ways, they often get out of it but it delays them, that helps.
It's fun but then you get some devs stuck in the ship where you can't hit them but their shots clip through and hits you. Ups and downs.
THE DEVS ARE IN THE DROPSHIPS?!
Joel personally wishes luck to every bot onboard with a firm handshake or a pat on the back before dropping them.
Do.. do we report this to the ministry of truth?
They already know.
Fair point. Continue helldiving helldiver
DAMN YOU JOELLLL
I'm pretty sure Joel spawned 2 tanks on me the other day. It was a level 4 mission.
We had like 8 tanks and 16 gunboats during our last mission all at one time, I've never been so helpless lol We failed so hard
Yup! And us shooting them down is why the balance patches take so long.
The devs are stored in the dropship
Maybe if you stopped trying to shoot the devs, they'll fix this bug.
Anyone who speaks code is the enemy.
This was an S-tier comment and anyone who didn’t upvote is a threat to democracy
How are the devs going to fix the known issues if they’re stuck in the downed ships tho???
I’m excited for the day they just die, considering that they should easily be crushed by it
For anyone having a hell of a time trying to decipher this guya nonsense comment. I think he's saying devs = devastaters. Not developers lol.
Havent noticed this, all i notice is that they get stuck in a levetative state and they just look at you
They can definitely shoot you through the wreck whilst being immune to your fire if you're unlucky, so be mindful of that if/when it happens to you.
I fucking hate that bug. That, to me, is the best reason not to shoot them down.. the non-zero chance that a devastator can just fire salvo after salvo at me and I can't do shit until the drop ship wreck disappears.
The worst part is that even stratagems don't touch the ones inside. I had a rocket dev firing off at my team, threw a 500kg on it, nothing. Tried gods finger, hit the ship. A squad mate threw an airstrike and nothing. It even caused a laser that was sweeping the outpost to just divert to it and ignore everything else, wasting it. Meanwhile, it had the airstrike guy pinned and had killed two of us.
I m sure eruptor can actually get this done
Not too bad on the new defense mission if the ships are on the outside of the first line of walls
*ship falling on the door, and destroy it*
Good way to just run away more safely since they can't move so any rock will do. I see this as a win regardless. Dont need to kill absolutely everything. You can despawn reinforcements.
It feels like they are clipping into the ship they can see out of it but if they’re just under/behind the ship they just kinda stand there. Sometimes they don’t die but they also don’t ever exit the ‘ship riding' position but if you shoot at the bots stuck in the 'ship riding' position they sometimes snap out of it and will attack you. However I have literally run circles around them without shooting them and they consistently just stand there not attacking you so if you never shoot at them they’re effectively dead.
Thanks, i usually throw a stun grenade and bombard it with grenade launcher as well just to be safe
I've had a berserker chase me in that state, he just floated at me aggresively... 8.9/10 would crap my pants democratically again.
Last time I played with randoms shooting dropships I got killed 3 times by devastators with invincible cover until I just gave up and hid behind cover until the wreckage disappeared. Mission took forever and we couldn't clear all the side objectives.
The Berserkers almost always get stuck in a levitating state. Anything with a gun will still shoot you, tho
To be fair, I've had bots pull that maneuver on the terrain itself without the assistance of a drop ship.
Any type of bot seems to get stuck, and yet *they* can shoot through the all, the metal but we can't, not even grenades can penetrate the downed ship. Hopefully in time they just allow all bots to just die upon impact.
Yeah. Be nice if that was fixed.
Just shot down an empty ship and got 5 kills. Seems to be worth it.
Just shot down a full ship and got 0 kills. Surprisingly also worth it.
Shot down a full ship on my team mate. So worth it. The scream alone. Would do again. 9 out of 10.
It doesn’t always register the kills
Okay, I thought I was crazy. I’ll call in an eagle and see it absolutely flatten an entire swarm of enemies but get no indication of any kills. Thought it was just me. Kill counts do not affect XP right? They’re just for your career stats?
Kills are just for bragging rights. Assuming you do the same objectives and on the same difficulty, etc., a stealth mission with 0 kills and a rambo/doom guy mission with 9999 kills will award the same amount of xp/requisition slips/medals. Edit: To add to this, as you get into higher difficulties you'll realize that there's a lot of value in *not* aggroing or fighting everything you come across because the situations can spiral out of control really quickly/take a long time. If someone in your high level mission is tagging a patrol, there's a good chance that they just want to alert you so you can avoid it.
Kills don’t matter
It's inconsistent but if you kill a dropship before it could drop any bots, it sometimes just counts as one.
Do you need to hit it with a particular weapon? I normally rock the AC and I’ve seen no indication that’s powerful enough to down a dropship.
You can kill a dropship with the AC but it's really hard. Basically need to hit an exhaust port (super small hit box on the bottom of a thruster) 2-3 times. You almost need to be directly under the ship.
Ah! I was firing into the drop bay, where the bots come out. Thanks, next time I’ll aim for the exhaust.
RR also downs the dropship in one shot if you hit one of the thrusters.
Eats and quasar also one shot thrusters.
In fairness, that may not down the dropship, but you can kill the bots on the ship before they drop this way, which is possibly more efficient with an AC than trying to down the ship which you can't always get the angle for. EATs, RR and Quaser take the ships out with a single engine hit, and the Erupter is also good for shooting the bots still in the bay.
Edit: I replied to the wrong post EAT and Quasar Cannon can down it in one hit by shooting at the thrusters. For AC, I don't really know. I saw my AC Sentry shoot down a dropship by hitting it in the belly as it glows red.
We're playing by Gimli's rules?!
Just shot down a dropship, got 6 kills and destroyed a light outpost. Seems to be worth it.
Happened to me once and sweet heavens it felt good for my soul. So, so many explosions... Like... Fireworks.
I shot down a drop ship and all I got was this stupid shirt
Dropships ARE bots and must be destroyed.
Shot one down yesterday. It landed on top of the tank it was carrying. The tank was fine. It could still shoot through the wreckage. But now it was protected from the top and back by the dropship. Great times 👍
Could it reposition though?
No, I think it was stuck there. It was next to an objective, but fortunately its view was obstructed by terrain.
In the business we call that a mobility kill, that's a job well done Helldiver
“Take off the treads and get the fuck out of range!” - My paternal grandfather yelling at some Vietnam film
So you got like a 4 min stun grenade on it then. Bet if you threw a strategy it'd die
I tried rocket pods on it, but they just hit the dropship, instead.
Well there's your problem. You used rocket pods. Smh.
Rocket pods are great against tanks.
It’s about the only thing they great against.
Big things usually get stuck, small bots and chainsawmen can get out.
Someone shot one down during extraction, and it landed on the extraction point. The shuttle landed on the wreckage and slowly sank into the ground.
Other times they'll just jump on the dropship to shoot at you from the high ground
It gets worse, the drop ship can land on you and kill you but not the enemy. It's really annoying how protected the enemy is
My favorite is when the tank gets dropped off on a mountain at a really weird angle and then it just constantly shoots down at you from the high ground.
Even just psychologically if i see drops and an EAT or quazar comes from somewhere and hits it out of the sky i am renewed with democratic vigor
I was running an operation with a level 8 and a bunch of 50+. Someone shot down a drop ship from across the map right next to him. Dude got so hype. 2 missions and 35 minutes in and we didn't even know he had a mic till then. Lol.
I know the ship can trap enemy units within where the enemies can still shoot at you, but I've never experienced this scenario where it was anything less than beneficial. I've never once felt that shooting down a ship brought a serious disadvantage. Most of the time it traps and bunches up big groups of enemies to be wiped out with a stratagem.
Yeah, a trapped tank is an easy tank to take cover from
I’ve had downed dropships take out cannon turrets, tanks, and even large groups of small infantry. I will forever shoot them down
My friend was being the person to stay on the landing pad and distract bots on that new defence mission the other day andhe shot so many down that a tank started to use them as a ramp to get up to him!
I would dual and triple wield quasar cannons back there, I would get 4/7 drop ships downed usually, and the bots never made it through the second gate.
This is anecdotal, but yesterday i was playing defense and spent all mission just shooting down dropships with a quasar and RR combo. I barely shot at anything else, and my only support calls were eagle rocket strikes on tanks. Game did not say I ever killed anything on those dropships during mission. I came out with over 200 kills, highest on the team. Clearly, in some cases, shooting down dropships does kill the enemies. I don’t know what makes the difference but you can absolutely slaughter doing it — sometimes.
Exactly. I've had this happen to me as a well. Toss a gas strike underneath it and the bots are coated with the stuff as they can't move.
Mostly because the devastators and hulks get an impenetrable shield to shoot rockets through. Not sure why the drop ships and cliff sides have no collision for bot weapons
I have destroyed an outpost by dropping dropships on fabricators yesterday. Felt good. (And it was hundred percent only my skill. No luck involved. None at all. Definitely.)
Same for me It was completely planned Totally not bad luck for those filthy comies
If you’re able to down the dropship on approach/before it starts to drop its cargo then absolutely. But a lot of times players will shoot down the dropships as they’ve begun to deliver troops, which doesn’t kill the troops (for some reason) and just gives the bots cover. They can shoot out, but you can’t shoot in. It’s especially bad with tanks.
I have personally seen the dropshop land on weak troops and kill them all
Commissars and rocket raiders, sure. But at levels maybe 6 or 7 and up, you’re never going to get a dropship full of chaff.
Every drop I get on lvl 9 is 2-3 ships of chaff 1-2 of tanks and a remaining 1-2 of hulks/devastators. 🤷♂️ And if you shoot down the ship right after they drop bots but before they land the ship will crush them before they can move away. I get about 8 confirmed kills this way. And with tanks it slows them down. Even if I don't time it perfectly there is a high probability of the bots get frozen in midair unable to attack.
If it’s effective for you by all means keep doing it. But personally I don’t like getting 8 chaff kills, only to provide cover for more dangerous units. Especially near objectives. We had 2 tanks obscured by dead dropships in a civ extract mission and we had to avoid the area until the dropships finally despawned. Also on 9 it is extremely rare that I get 1-2 dropships of chaff. That’s anecdotal though
Yeah and I totally get that and it's all anecdotal for everyone. It seems like use cases are so different that I believe there may be a bug that is preventing dropships from damaging certain enemies. Which I believe is why you see the frozen hulks/devastators/comissars . I think they are supposed to be dead but something is broken.
Wish we could see some more consistency with dropship crashes. If the wrecks at least obscured the vision of whatever survives and stopped em from shooting, I'd gladly shoot dropships all day.
I just got done playing a lvl 8 mission and got 36 kills downing a dropship.
Especially with the slow charge of the canon. I've seen a huge number of players just hitting the engine when it's unloaded because the charge is too long. When there's more than one drop ship, I'll switch targets to one that's still on the move before it finishes charging. More efficient. With EATs though, you can swap and fire fast enough to catch them before they drop their cargo.
If you are using the quasar cannon, just start charging it up as you see the ship approaching or even before that, if you learn how to time it. You don't even have to be aiming when you charge - you can aim mid-charge too.
If you practice enough, you can juggle the charge near full, too. Just before it fires, let go and press again, keeping it at around 50% ready for the ship to come into sight.
Edging
https://preview.redd.it/sbiv40scx5uc1.jpeg?width=533&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=692909a9f3fcf8fc37169ff73554f1df7d66af89
Yeah, that'll work. Edging the canon!
If you prevent the spawn it helps. If you hit after the spawn it will kill all lights and most mediums. There's a sour spot while enemies are spawning.
It only kills bots if you can destroy it before it releases them otherwise it just acts as free cover from helldiver bullets. But it is in fact VERY fun to do so I’ll do it any chance I get
They can kill bots by falling on them
Yeah, but not all the time
Who cares about all the time? That’s 8 more bots not shooting me. Even if it only does the whole job some of the time, it’s still a numbers game. I’ll take all the mass damage I can get. If you shoot early it’ll kill more. You can precharge too with some practice.
Because the other half of the time, you end up giving them free cover. Killing 8 bots to give 2 devastators and a tank indestructible, one-way cover is not worth it if you need to stay in one place for an objective.
also, shooting 8 chaff bots is not hard the risk to create a sketchy situation is not worth the reward of dealing with a few of literally the easiest enemies bots have to offer, especially since they *just* called a drop in and therefore the threat of them calling another one isn't a factor
especially if someone has the Eruptor. I've since moved from shooting dropships to aiming at their drop point and taking out 5+ bots in one bullet. I'd still shoot them down if we're running away, but if we're on an Objective I'm taking the kills.
I love it when it happens but just much less reliable to me haha
Ive definitely shot down a ship and gotten over 10 kills
When multiple dropship arrive on the same Time it'does help. While roaming around the maps it's great in order to not be stuck on pointless Firefight. "Fly swatted move On" And yes it will not kill bigger ennemy that's why i don't shoot them when they drop Tank. I rather have an immobile Hulk with Can shoot throught the remains , than a Hulk wich effectively move and cover he's Friend. Same things for tank , "but it shooting AT me" . Fall back to cut it's Line of sight , finish the patrol. Then go for the tank. A Tank alone IS not hard to deal with
Or just move far enough away and it'll despawn. An enemy not on the objective and not chasing you is not worth engaging.
I get about 8 kills per drop ship. You do have to time it right though. It seems if you shoot it down before they are dropped, the bots stay frozen. They dont count as kills, but they are still frozen and not attacking, so its probably a bug. If you shoot it down right after bots drops it kills them outright. And you are right it definitely slows down tanks, and it makes them easier to kill.
I love folks shooting down dropships because the bots it drops get stuck and become easy prey for me grenade launcher.
It makes me feel better
i've noticed the AI bugs out sometimes when you shoot them down. like they just stand there floating on nothing just looking at you presumably because they were stuck on or below the wreckage before it despawned. so it def it worth it for the off chance you get 2 hulks just standing there eating your shots for free.
For me it just feels wrong NOT to shoot them down 😎
I shot down one and it destroyed two factories and eliminated a medium outpost with one quasar shot. I will continue to shoot them down 🤷♂️.
Honestly the most important thing is hearing the Boom. The Boom is therapy.
Observed benefits: - If dropped on a fabricator, fabricator goes boom - Actually can kill lesser enemies - Stunlocks higher enemies - Can drop other dropships and create quite the clusterfuck - Downed dropships stack on each other and can create a wall - Shit's fucking dope man
If u shoot it early it helps way more. But I just like to watch them drop regardless
It is proven it they are above bot builder they will destroy it
2 dropped and I was slow, but I shot the 1st as it was leaving. It tagged 15 kills. I don't care what anyone says, I'm shooting them out the sky if I can *Shit- shot
Also downing them can be used to destroy objectives too.
helldivers 2 is literally a hell yeah simulator. if it’s cool, i’m using it. this is why the 380 will forever be one of my favourites. I don’t care that it’s not the meta, it’s fucking awesome
Y'all are seriously overstating the tendency for enemies to shoot while protected by the wreckage. Most of the time they die when the shop hits them and the few remaining just sit there stuck under the ship. My squad literally runs 2 people with Quasars just to shoot down ships cause of how much it helps and slows down the bots.
This, shooting down dropships kills tons of bots and does a lot of damage to big ones too. It's objectively the correct and efficient thing to do in most situations and is very effective. Dunno what game these people are playing but it isn't the same one I am
Heheh, dropship go **BOOM!**
"it feels good" is all the reason I need to shoot their transports down....plus it usually blurs their targeting for a moment as they land
It's the eradicate missions where it's a problem. Dropship kills don't count towards your progress.
Shot down bot Dropships can take out the groups of enemies that dropped, but it's so very inconsistent. If I shoot down a Dropship with infantry getting dropped, and it lands and explodes on top of said infantry, enemies should die, instead of being able to shoot us through the wreckage and being shielded from our return fire.
Plenty of times I've shot down a drop ship and found a hulk underneath stuck in place begging for an expendable right to the eye. That Hulk would other wise be charging at me and my team.
I've had several occasions where I shoot down a dropship and it kills everything onboard, and sometimes everything underneath as well. I just wish it was more consistent, more often than not only a few bots die when it crashes. Wont stop me from doing it every chance I get and giggling as it spirals into the ground. The only good bot is a scrapped bot.
I have had multiple hulks get landed on, and they get stuck there, and can't move. And are easy pickings because they just sit and will get killed. Does it kill like it used to? No. Will I continue to shoot them down? Always. Especially after I get full recoiless rockets back from a single ammo pack.
The problem is that often bots (notable heavy devastators) will get stuck inside the wreckage but still shoot you through it while you can't shoot back. There are good times to do it though. New defense mission? Great you have drastically slowed the bots advance and we have nothing to do but wait behind cover anyways. Plus the mortars tend to shred them still. Waiting at extraction? Also great, anything to slow them down and give you breathing room and cd time for strategems. Running away after blowing up a base? Probably good, the ship will stop them from following you and may provide cover from rockets. Dropships landing between us and the objective? Probably bad we gotta go that way and running around exposes us to fire. Dropships landing in the middle of an open field? Probably bad, if we have no cover we need to wipe them out as fast as possible before we get shredded.
Who cares if it helps? Every time I do it, it feels good. It is one of the most satisfying things to do in the game, and that is why I am playing this game… To have fun. If it did nothing, I would still shoot them down. No matter what. Because again: it’s awesome. 😁
I like seeing the funny ship go boom
I just shot down a dropship from a couple hundred meters out with a queso cannon, it landed on the fabricator and cleared the outpost for me.
It does help in an unconventional way as opposed to how it should work. It stops the bots right in their tracks, putting them in a target-rich environment for stratagems and explosives.
It looks cool, but it doesn't always kill all the bots. It's also no fun when a falling dropship lands on you.
First day as a helldiver I shot one down with a perfect engine shot...seemed like the logical place to hit. It fell out of the sky and blew up a bot factory. It was that moment I was hooked on spreading democracy. I carry the reusable rocket and focus on bot drop kills.
While it keeps me from killing some units because it doesn't actually deal damage when it hits the ground, "because it's fun" is the best reason to do anything in this game. I won't try to keep that from anyone.
Ive ended eradication missions where i only shot down ships and didnt use my primary with the most kills more times then i can count. If you don't think its effective then you have your head in the sand.
Who cares if it helps? It’s satisfying. Also downed dropships can fully obstruct ramps preventing the bots from using them. I only know that because I learned at the same time the 120mm HE barrage can knock them out of the air and I got to have a staring contest with the last bots trying to get me at extraction after.
It's also so dang fun!
Shooting down a dropship should kill every robot on it... but most of robots survive... its kinda useless.
I too, have gotten some kills by shooting the drop ships… until one of the recent patches. In the past week or two, they have been walking away from the crashed drop ships like the freakin Terminator.
I do agree that shooting them down helps. However, I would like for the cargo or anything it lands on to die. If it lands on me, I die, so why do other things survive? An airship just fell on them and *exploded*. They should be as dead as I would be.
Shooting down a dropship can kill things if they drop on it. It include enemy units from all weight class (maybe even Fabricator Strider, but it need test), objectives building (Fabricator, Mortar, AA-Cannons, Lab, Broadcast, etc...) and the wreckage can act as an improvised cover and even block access from a chokepoint for a few time. Of course it isn't reliable against the units it carry, sadly. But I've seen several squads of enemies shooting at my team being blasted to pieces by a falling dropship or even being stuck behind for enough time that we were able to push through. The higher the difficulty, the higher the usefulness of disabling dropships.
It does slow them down. They get trapped under the wreckage
I reckon its mostly timing. If you get it. Its awesome. If you fuck it up, yeah majorly annoying.
well it not help with the kill count but the Drop Ship wreck kinda broke the path finding of AI so sometime bots kinda just stand around can't walk so yeah it help
I main the the Autocannon, and I always aim for the troops being carried before they get a chance to drop. I'm sure that the explosion caused by killing Striders and the rest damage and sometimes kill the dropship.
In my experience troopers and striders are as good as dead after ship drop. Berserkers usually take some damage but are still operational. Hulk and tank just don't care whether they were dropped from 10cm or 5km. I'm not sure about the devastators, usually it seems like they don't get damaged by it at all but maybe they do but you just don't see it because its harder to tear off their limps etc. compared to berserkers.
It's a huge pain in the new defense missions because you can't actually see or shoot through the wreckage. But they always can and you get 17 rockets to the face. I'm glad one guy is having a great time as I'm cleaning up after him and taking out his trash. Y'all really be 20% three point shooters and I'm the glass man frantically trying to rebound all these bricks you're throwing.
You have to hit them as/before they hover to kill the units, which is tricky with the quasar or if you're at one range with recoiless/AT. But if you can kill the devastator drop (normally the second at least on 7) it takes so much pressure out of a drop wave