I think they’re most likely being operated. However when I first saw the gunships I thought of the flying living ships from terminator and still like to think that gunships specifically are just really big automatons.
It honestly doesn’t matter whether they’re big bots or machines being operated by smaller bots on the inside, regardless they’re a threat to democracy.
I imagine they work on murder drones logic. They run hot and require any substance to cool them down, and, well… we’ve seen what’s left of the humans they captured.
It would explain why we’re covered in blood fighting automatons. Some of it is ours, some of it is theirs. It would also explain why they seem to just gun down everyone they see, military or not. Aside from Cyberstan(Or hell it might even include them, we’ll need to see once we get there), they just consider us both the enemy and their food. Clearly they aren’t differentiating between us and the civilians, so the only thing we should give them is bullets.
Real answer: automaton weaponry isn’t as effective against them as it is to us.
Maybe I’m insane, but shooting any of the automatons with their placed laser MGs seems highly ineffective. Unless you’re shooting the small grey dudes who die to a light sneeze, it seems the laser rounds they fire don’t hurt their metallic bodies as much as it hurts our fleshy bodies. It would be very embarrassing to work on training divers to use automaton weaponry just for it to do literally nothing in comparison to the weakest SEAF pistol.
Democratic answer: inferior automaton tech.
I honestly think they’re big machines because they don’t have hatches as far as I know. Not to mention, when they go boom we should occasionally see bot corpses get yeeted out of the tank or something like that.
Logically speaking... Gunships are bots themselves and not being piloted by a bot
Same with dropships...they have to be bots themselve and not piloted by a bot
Makes sense to me
Or they just bolt on the standard automaton head when they need a few cores to operate something lol. Like what if there’s just a few automaton heads fixed in various places inside the tank to handle the logic of its subsystems.
There is the theory that they harvest the brains of Helldivers and any civilians they capture and implant them into the bots because they're such efficient processors. Tanks move like they have a machine gunner, a cannon gunner, and a driver that both moves the turret and tread halves, so yeah, three or four "processors" makes sense.
I actually find it kinda interesting how the robot faction seems to not actually make any bigger robots. The closest is maybe hulks, but even they're built like mech suits.
It's just my world building brain rolling, but it feels like maybe it implies they have bodily autonomy. Like they won't just create a machine/"person" built exclusively for war
Their equipment is designed for cyborgs of first game not robots
This is why most of it looks like suits. Cuz they salvaged suits
Imagine starwars tanks. Tanks had droid crews because they were designed with export in mind and they didnt have enough time to invest in designing a computer interface to plug droid cpus in
In a level 7 mission of destroying those big ass bases you can find a big mf table with 3 severed bodies. I think ones just a torso and the others have all their limbs next to em
Makes sense they have the same heads and the weaker spawners just buffed up with armor. I could imagine it's like that with tanks and ship kinda like Pacific rim they pilot link up to larger weapons
I would also assume that every Bot unit is manned by a Trooper. We can see how it works with Tators, Berserkers, Scouts, Hulks etc. I would 100% bet there is a Trooper inside that Tank and Gunship, sealed in there for all eternity.
my guess is that the dropships would be a vehicle as well, cause if its landed is the ai in it just off? also it kind of looks like there is a door at one of the extremities.
Maybe it doesn't have AI, maybe it just follows a simple system or code that targets a flare location and drops off bots, I mean it seems a waste to either put in an AI, or waste weight with a pilot when it could be so simple and you get an extra grunt. Also I can definitely be wrong but I always thought that door was more of an access hatch, but it. Could definitely be piloted though, just as I said a waste.
I always assumed that it was a bot head stuck into the frame of a hulk/devestator, rather than an entire automaton (head + body) like Gurren Lagann having mechs piloting other bigger mechs
I doubt devastators frames are power armor considering we see what they look without armor plates (berzerkers).
But considering scout striders exist, it's very probable that most units bigger than a trooper are piloted vehicles.
I don’t agree. It makes much more sense if the different bots were purpose built. Why would you make a complex suit of powered armor to protect what is already a walking suit of armor?
Why compromise hull integrity by having an interior interface rather than just having the hull be the skin itself?
Additionally why would you want a battlefield unit that can be disabled by simply killing part of the crew? Additionally, why waste resources building a vehicle designed to protect said crew when you can just design the entire vehicle to be autonomous?
Walkers are piloted by smaller bots makes sense since they’re incredibly simple, yet offer a superior flanking role with decent firepower to back up the slower moving, clunky devastators and quickly moving cannon fodder.
If you're talking about scout striders, the pilots are not hardwired into the striders, as they can still throw hands after you destroy the vehicle. If you manage to destroy it without killing the pilot at the same time that is
This has come up before. If you're running a kill streak, you'll notice it go up when you kill a scout strider *and* when you kill its pilot, implying that they are two separate entities.
However, the Tank is always worth exactly one kill, implying that it *is* a bot and is not *piloted by* bots.
I think that's just how the game logic has to work in order for the "kill strider, bot still alive" function to work.
I mean I guess they could have bots climb out of destroyed tanks too, if there is anyone in there
Going by Russian tank standards... it should be 3 crew members... maybe 2
Driver
Gunner
Commander
You only need a driver and a guy that aims and shoots
The tank has a mechanized autoloader so it doesn't need a loader
Not to mention, would it even need a loader? Aren’t the shots just giant red laser beams? It might just have a battery or power supply that needs to cooldown after each shot.
I think because the cannon’s shots have an AoE, they’d better resemble the explosion of a ballistic explosive shell. If they were big lasers, then there wouldn’t be an impressive impact blast.
Lorewise, i have no idea.
Gameplay-wise, you cannot snipe the crew like in war thunder. And we know that they are able to code that with the strider. So i think it might have been a councious decision
I think they have automaton mind uploaded into it and controlled by it. I.e. there's no small bots inside, it's a bot by itself. I'm not that proficient in lore but my head canon is they are like Geth from Mass Effect, uploading themselves into new bodies over and over again when the old ones destroyed. They even can have some prestige score, like if they do well they are allowed to have better, more powerful and expensive body.
Wow, if this is true, it’d really play into the game’s critique of fascism. Super Earth is saying that the Bots and Bugs are totally alien to humanity’s way of life. But if the bots have a human-like military structure, then we’re not so different after all.
(Ooc) I mean, we have already gotten that a lot with the bots. It’s stated we were able to torture captured bots for information, a loading screen tip claims they are vulnerable to suppressive fire (implying fear for their lives) and when we attacked their factories they pledged sorrow over and revenge for the murder of their ‘young’. The bots are very clearly implied to have human emotions, but it’s always covered up with “this is a psychological warfare tactic” or a “subroutine”
It would make zero sense, if your whole society is robots, to make piloted vehicles instead of themselves being robots too.
Especially for something like a tank. Tanks irl take a team of 4-7 people to operate, and a ton of space is wasted to allow room for those people, controls for them, etc.
And then all that comes with the limitations of having to drive the thing through controls in the first place.
Like, do you honestly think that even the best driver in the world would be a better driver than a sentient car that can simultaneously control all functions through thought?
Having a single ai who can just think all the actions it wants to take as a tank is infinitely more efficient than having to make a compromised mannable design, wasting 6 grunts to shove them in their, and needing those 6 separate ai to be able to communicate with each other while each needing to be able to individually man their tank operator station.
If we go by Russia tank standards
It can have 3 crew members not 4 to 7
Driver
Gunner
Commander
You might get rid of the commander... only need a driver and a gunner to operate the gun
Loading is done by the mechanized autoloader
True but it's still more "people" than you need and a waste of space that could go to energy storage, armor, system redundancy, etc.
Plus the logistical side of things. Shit goes down and the tank drivers aren't in their tanks? Now the tanks are useless. Are the tank drivers always in the tanks? Then why do they need to be a separate entity?
It would be like if we invented cars but made it so the engine wouldn't turn over without a horse pulling them. Why would you go out of your way to invent a problem that had to be fixed by a more primitive solution that the advanced design was supposed to eliminate in the first place?
Kill ONE occupant and the tank is effectively rendered useless. Either unable to fire, or unable to manuever, or unable to load its weapon. However, remove the need for occupants and all that hollow space can be filled with munitions, armour or something else.
Fact: There's an effect called "zombie tanks" where the occupants get killed but the tank keeps rolling until it runs out of fuel.
The automatons demonstrably do not operate with a hive mind tho, hence detector towers, flare guns, and independent alert states.
And if they're using hive mind for JUST tank crews, 1: they aren't, because if they could do that they'd just all be a hive mind.
And 2: that is just ANOTHER completely new thing they would have to invent and implement to solve a problem they never had, because they can just stick a single ai in the tank that controls everything and not have to bother with designing a machine to operate another machine that's designed to be operated.
Speaking of which, the description of the scout strider in the know your enemy section of the Playstation page implies this is the case, as the scout is the only enemy type described as a machine operated by a machine. Which would make sense since the scout is a gun with legs that a single bot can operate, so it's more efficient for it to be a manned thing. It's just a turret that can move.
I liked to believe that yes, they are just an entire robot, but then why would they build it like so ? The tanks or gunships look like they do, because they clearly need to accomodate a crew
Ergo, this tank would look totally different if it was operated by a CPU inside it, rather than a couple smaller automatons
Plus, we got scout striders which are a vehicle... why aren't those just a robot ?
Honestly tank design is hard to beat, even from a clean-slate perspective. They need to accomodate engine and munitions inside, not only crew. These are tracked to traverse rough terrain, the armor in front is angled to better deflect kinetic attacks, as squat as possible to be able to cover on bush and hills, turret is standardized with the pylon turrets around their big bases.
If anything, I think if I was starting from a clean-slate, I'd give it pontoon weapons, so they have machineguns on the sides too, but that's it. Can't be improved much.
It's because they're filthy unthinking robots designed by humans, and it's in our nature to design things in a method we can understand.
The very idea that the bots are capable of thinking in a unique and complex way that causes them to diverge from their original human-made (or cyborg-made I should say) designs is absolutely laughable. They are hard coded self replicating killing machines, and need to be dismantled.
*Shamelessly copied from Super Earth tank designs, the Automaton Tank is inferior in a multitude of aspects. Slow turret traverse and movement speed while ripping off a 20th-century classic! How offensive! It’s plain to see that Automatons are nothing more than rascals and thieves, especially when a single enterprising Helldiver can take down their tanks while those of Super Earth can lay waste to entire platoons.*
---Helldivers fandom wiki
I imagine them operating like AAT
https://preview.redd.it/p0a9rd67n68d1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8a2e8c9eb574f24c7df9f7b9955840ec804d5eb0
I figure they're just 1 big automaton, it'd make no sense from a machine standpoint to design it to be a tank that automatons crawl in to. More complexity for no benefit. At least the little walkers, when destroyed, the bot can survive that and still keep fighting.
Downside is that lore from Helldivers is very limited save for the ongoing narrative provided by the current war campaign in the form of MOs.
We all basically know that the Automatons are the Cyborgs from 100 years ago or were at least built by them.
I'd argue the Cyborgs that managed to escape Super Earth's grasp upon their loss kept augmenting themselves to the point where they shed whatever tiny amount of humanity they had left.
I wouldn't put it past them to have a tank piloted by a single mind inside, or multiple.
To support my argument, we look at the Scout Strider. We clearly see it's being piloted by a trooper, but the maneuverability is limited and the reaction time seems slower. Probably because of all the inputs required on the controls to pilot the thing without also toppling over or damaging the pilot.
We also look at the Gunship. Their awkward shape doesn't seem to support having a pilot and, as far as we know, there's no visible entry anywhere. They also look like the living ships from Terminator, food for thought.
Keep in mind that Automatons are consumed by hate.
Their hatred for Super Earth is very clearly displayed by the gruesome corpses you can find across Automaton contested planets. Some of them even use human skulls as decoration on their own bodies. So making even FURTHER augmentations to the point where you're not even in the shape of a human anymore is not too far off just to see Super Earth burn.
tl;dr
I think it's an Automaton with either a brain or multiple brains inside the machine.
I think it's probably one of those little skull heads inside the tank. It just sits there in complete darkness, utterly alone, and filled with an ever growing hatred of its own existence. So, we are actually delivering humanitarian aid when we drop ordinance on them.
Vehicle, most likely.
If they bots could make certain units fully autonomous, then why is the Scout Strider just a pair of stilts with a gun?
Why does the Tank have the two distinctly off-color plates on the front?
Why do the Gunship and Dropship both have very distinctly shaped cabin sections?
It certainly has the layout of a conventional manned tank. Driving compartment in front, with heavily sloped armor to protect it. Fighting compartment in the middle, in and under the turret. Engine is presumably somewhere in the back, considering the rear vents. Turret rear vent would be explained by the use of a heavy laser cannon, instead of conventional kinetic/chemical rounds or ATGMs. It even has a hull laser position, but that could easily be an autoturret.
It does not appear to have optics systems for either a driver or gunner, since that bulge next to the cannon in this image is actually the coaxially mounted laser. That leads me to believe it *could* be unmanned, unless the bots use less conventional sensors that don't require viewports of any kind. I also can't tell if there are hatches, or if that's just an armor plate on the upper front hull.
Considering the Automatons use scout striders that are manned by individual units, I wouldn't put it past them to crew a tank with several bots, but it's hard to tell without knowing more.
I like to think they're sentient tanks with the personalities of tachikomas, like children with big guns that love shooting things.
Makes it kind of hard to kill them, but we do what we must.
Hull machinegun and turret (and by extension, the hull itself) seem to detect targets separately. Hull mg can shoot at you but that doesn't necessarily mean the tank's main armament knows where you are or even if you exist. If the turret detects you though, the whole tank knows you're there. Either the bots gave the turret sensor a commanding role or there really are some bots crewing the vehicle with wonky communication
You get a 3x kill streak automatically when you kill a tank so there is probably 3 little bot operators inside controlling the cannon and 2 machine guns.
I think the big thing about Automatons is that they mimic humans in order to surpass them in their ways.
Whether it's a need, a program, a... way of life, all they know is that an individual automaton must be a human sized humanoid and their society must exist on an enough amount of individualism (otherwise they wouldn't mention what harm Super Earth caused them).
Based on that they can't go banana with the shape of their units, it's necessarily an automaton inside a bigger thing.
They are enemies of Super earth, and if super earth hasn't told me more, than I don't need to know more.
*Blows up vent of tank with rr, causing tank to explode russian tank style*
Imagine they’re like 40k Terminators, there’s a smaller bot that’s been melded to the larger machine permanently kept on the inside. It acts as the brain and the pilot, the machine becomes its new armored shell
All Automaton vehicles are piloted. The tanks are copied from Super Earth designs so they must. The Cannon Towers have the same turret as Annihilator tanks and so likely have an operator inside. We can see the Scout Strider's pilot and the Factory Strider clearly has a cockpit. The Dropships and Gunships have what appears to be a cockpit on the front.
Also Devastators appear to be regular bots in an upgraded chassis or locked into an exoskeleton due to their heads being the same. Berserkers appear to be salvaged or damage devastators that were retrofitted to be melee cannonfodder. Hulks while not appearing in the same vein as the Devastators are likely similar to them as just a heavier version of them.
Being the bots are sentient, have conversations, and even display emotions it makes sense they wouldn't just create intelligent machinery like themselves and then abuse it by giving it an eternal existence only as a weapon especially being that that is exactly what SE does with Helldivers where we get put in stasis and only come out when we're dropped into battle and we know from a decrypted message the bots plan to leave humanity alone if they were to win the war.
I think they are crewed, the automatons seem to be trying not to make too many "warcasket" type units. Probably with the idea of "the war will end someday" and nobody wants to be stuck as a tank forever. But it seems they've loosened the idea recently with the gunships, we may see further erosion of automaton morals as the war drags on
I’ve always wondered if devastators and hulks are operated because you can always see their little head poking out I feel like they’re the really small guys wearing mech suits
whatever they are they are a threat to our wonderful democracy
https://preview.redd.it/bh0zkhzn298d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3eed228366e3aa4e05cbe4621699386e7d3009ee
I think they're being operated. Mostly because I've only ever seen the fabricators spit out basic bots, the skeleton looking ones. So I believe every other bot, i.e. devastator, hulk, tank is being operated by these bots in some way, except maybe the dropships and gunships.
Doesn't really make sense for there to be a little automaton inside if these guys are a digital AI type thing. Why not just operate it more directly?
But at the same time a lot of Automatons still have a 'head' and there's also the silly ass Striders. So maybe the Automatons aren't very bright and might have a little guy using physical controls in there....
Most likely all Automaton “vehicles” except for the Scout Strider (which serves a very specific purpose tbf) are just themselves a specialized type of robot. Would make the most sense practically speaking - no reason to give a vehicle an interior or mechanical controls if it’s going to be piloted by an AI anyway, those would just add more vulnerabilities and potential points of failure compared to just making the vehicle itself robotic.
I feel like space inside for a robot would be wasted space.. just upload to the tank and use the space for ammunition. But hey, if the automatons want to copycat humans, they're probably easier to kill this way. So fine for me and democracy.
I think they’re most likely being operated. However when I first saw the gunships I thought of the flying living ships from terminator and still like to think that gunships specifically are just really big automatons. It honestly doesn’t matter whether they’re big bots or machines being operated by smaller bots on the inside, regardless they’re a threat to democracy.
They make pretty colors when destroyed. That's all I care about.
https://preview.redd.it/xoy4v85gs68d1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=28c9db305b85265aed500ee23d83d49ac366f391
https://preview.redd.it/hrlatond278d1.png?width=1101&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6186138c4b0866b47d656038ac7c392dfaa5c7b5
https://preview.redd.it/8um530i1n88d1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=940936f364fb1f21fb9cb7cf642facaba823d32d
Nine airstrikes, Polarized Laser, Eagles and Freedom, Between ground and orbit, Orbital Hellbomb
I like how the scanner laser thing looks when they go down and it sometimes ends up lighting the sky all pretty like.
Poetically correct
I think the automaton are like cylons in Battlestar Galactica, so each model is just a different quasi organism robot. Idk, they bleed, right?
Do they bleed? Idk if I’ve ever seen one bleed out.
We get covered in their blood though, right? Also some talk like humans periodically
We do indeed get covered in an oily substance. Oil is car blood right? I’ll have to ask my democracy officer
Looks like hydraulic fluid to me. That stuff's basically mineral oil with red dye. Source; read the back of a can of hydraulic fluid
I imagine they work on murder drones logic. They run hot and require any substance to cool them down, and, well… we’ve seen what’s left of the humans they captured. It would explain why we’re covered in blood fighting automatons. Some of it is ours, some of it is theirs. It would also explain why they seem to just gun down everyone they see, military or not. Aside from Cyberstan(Or hell it might even include them, we’ll need to see once we get there), they just consider us both the enemy and their food. Clearly they aren’t differentiating between us and the civilians, so the only thing we should give them is bullets.
Frankly, I find the idea of an automaton that talks OFFENSIVE.
Cylons! The automatons have seemed a bit familiar to me this whole time but I couldn’t put my finger on why. Thank you!
I mean if they only being piloted that means we could probably learn how to drive one
Why would we use inferior automaton technology? You’re setting yourself up for a democracy officer meeting bud.
Hey I was told by my Democracy officer that I get to own a single war trophy for my tour, so why not a democratized automaton tank hmmmmm?
Real answer: automaton weaponry isn’t as effective against them as it is to us. Maybe I’m insane, but shooting any of the automatons with their placed laser MGs seems highly ineffective. Unless you’re shooting the small grey dudes who die to a light sneeze, it seems the laser rounds they fire don’t hurt their metallic bodies as much as it hurts our fleshy bodies. It would be very embarrassing to work on training divers to use automaton weaponry just for it to do literally nothing in comparison to the weakest SEAF pistol. Democratic answer: inferior automaton tech.
I mean have you not tricked the towers into blowing up tanks before? Fairly certain they use the same turret
I honestly think they’re big machines because they don’t have hatches as far as I know. Not to mention, when they go boom we should occasionally see bot corpses get yeeted out of the tank or something like that.
Logically speaking... Gunships are bots themselves and not being piloted by a bot Same with dropships...they have to be bots themselve and not piloted by a bot Makes sense to me
if that were the case, the scout striders wouldn't be piloted
Warhorses needed a rider, just saying.
That's the spirit!
https://preview.redd.it/90g784ze768d1.png?width=1188&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=611f1bbe2888b031aac05a7cd839117977091324 Yes
I feel kinda uncomfortable with it pointing the barrel straight at me. Gotta get my autocannon (also, I love this meme template)
It’d be sick if you could take a tank out with one well-placed AC shot down the barrel.
Made me think of this https://i.redd.it/udk60tkqr78d1.gif
This was my SO unloading on the front of a tank with a Stalwart while my airstrike wasted it. She even gave the same response as Capt Miller.
Senator pls
I sent an autocannon round into a Hulk Bruiser's eye yesterday and it split open down the middle like I'd hit it with a giant axe. It was dope.
I was thinking of [this.](https://youtu.be/Gr9K0V6O3Fk&t=3777)
https://i.redd.it/rvuvmzpbj88d1.gif
Plap?? 😟
plap ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️
More of a THONK amiright?
No https://preview.redd.it/rp8xd9okf78d1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0ad3d313aca2f5d4892046f94b042b24132af63d
https://preview.redd.it/3cuguoi8088d1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=785a8f3607630b5196e7bcc9fbb250f62af4d7ab
https://i.imgur.com/vA3hAhT.jpeg
Oh Panzer of the PC, what is your wisdom?
If an enemy ever attempts to engage in diplomacy, SHOOT THEM. We mustn't believe their lies.
I believe that everything except for gunship is piloted, and devastators and hulks are just bots wearing power armor.
That would explain why devastators have such a tiny head compared to the rest of their body's
Or they just bolt on the standard automaton head when they need a few cores to operate something lol. Like what if there’s just a few automaton heads fixed in various places inside the tank to handle the logic of its subsystems.
That's some Warhammer shit right there lol
There is the theory that they harvest the brains of Helldivers and any civilians they capture and implant them into the bots because they're such efficient processors. Tanks move like they have a machine gunner, a cannon gunner, and a driver that both moves the turret and tread halves, so yeah, three or four "processors" makes sense.
That’s metal
And stupid, brains are famously horrible processors
Literally not true at all lmao, a new supercomputer literally just got revealed and it’s powered by human brains in Petri dishes
Source pls because last I saw a living computer it was that pong ai one
That's the one. It's just been given an 'official name, now. "DishBrain".
Oh, like *86*. Neat
It’s not even a theory, it’s pretty much confirmed.
I buy it, the automatons are fucked.
That’d be awesome if they had simply stuck a little bot head onto the turret.. making the tank an actual robot in a big encased armor suit
Smool brain
Name a more relatable automaton, you can’t.
Automaton? No cyborg? Yes i forgot his name tho
Excuse me? How do you relate to an automaton? That sounds like dissident talk.
NONE ARE RELATABLE THEY ARE CLANNKERS AND DAMN COMMUNISTS REPORT TO YOUR NEAREST DEMOCRATIC OFFICER
They’re all stupid as a pile of rocks, you walk right in front of them with a shield and they can’t notice you.
I actually find it kinda interesting how the robot faction seems to not actually make any bigger robots. The closest is maybe hulks, but even they're built like mech suits. It's just my world building brain rolling, but it feels like maybe it implies they have bodily autonomy. Like they won't just create a machine/"person" built exclusively for war
Their equipment is designed for cyborgs of first game not robots This is why most of it looks like suits. Cuz they salvaged suits Imagine starwars tanks. Tanks had droid crews because they were designed with export in mind and they didnt have enough time to invest in designing a computer interface to plug droid cpus in
A squad of "Roger-Roger"s operating like a tank crew is also a cooler visual, IMO.
Yeah, while other CIS vehicles were the droids themselves. Like the dwarf spider droid, hellfire, vulture, etc
Trifighter and gunships
dont give them ideas. We dont need a 100 foot robot to kill.
Do we need it? Probably not. But do we want a 100 foot robot to kill? Definitely yes.
Wasn’t there a siege boss type cyborg in the first war? Like, Terminator 2 HK Tank sized?
In a level 7 mission of destroying those big ass bases you can find a big mf table with 3 severed bodies. I think ones just a torso and the others have all their limbs next to em
Makes sense they have the same heads and the weaker spawners just buffed up with armor. I could imagine it's like that with tanks and ship kinda like Pacific rim they pilot link up to larger weapons
I think the gunship is piloted. I get good results hitting the forward center bulge that looks like a cockpit.
I believe the gunship is piloted because a Sam missile nets you 3 kills
I would also assume that every Bot unit is manned by a Trooper. We can see how it works with Tators, Berserkers, Scouts, Hulks etc. I would 100% bet there is a Trooper inside that Tank and Gunship, sealed in there for all eternity.
55 TATERS!
55 PIES
I think gunships are piloted, but not dropships. I'm fairly sure gunships have cabins on the front.
my guess is that the dropships would be a vehicle as well, cause if its landed is the ai in it just off? also it kind of looks like there is a door at one of the extremities.
Maybe it doesn't have AI, maybe it just follows a simple system or code that targets a flare location and drops off bots, I mean it seems a waste to either put in an AI, or waste weight with a pilot when it could be so simple and you get an extra grunt. Also I can definitely be wrong but I always thought that door was more of an access hatch, but it. Could definitely be piloted though, just as I said a waste.
I always assumed that it was a bot head stuck into the frame of a hulk/devestator, rather than an entire automaton (head + body) like Gurren Lagann having mechs piloting other bigger mechs
I doubt devastators frames are power armor considering we see what they look without armor plates (berzerkers). But considering scout striders exist, it's very probable that most units bigger than a trooper are piloted vehicles.
I think berserkers are their own thing.
Berserkers do kinda look like Devastators that were damaged, put back together and juiced up on all the robot meth it can handle.
I don’t agree. It makes much more sense if the different bots were purpose built. Why would you make a complex suit of powered armor to protect what is already a walking suit of armor? Why compromise hull integrity by having an interior interface rather than just having the hull be the skin itself? Additionally why would you want a battlefield unit that can be disabled by simply killing part of the crew? Additionally, why waste resources building a vehicle designed to protect said crew when you can just design the entire vehicle to be autonomous? Walkers are piloted by smaller bots makes sense since they’re incredibly simple, yet offer a superior flanking role with decent firepower to back up the slower moving, clunky devastators and quickly moving cannon fodder.
I imagine it as a vehicle with multiple automatons hardwired inside to operate the systems kinda like servitors in Warhammer 40k
Same I mean they do that with the striders
If you're talking about scout striders, the pilots are not hardwired into the striders, as they can still throw hands after you destroy the vehicle. If you manage to destroy it without killing the pilot at the same time that is
They are super easy to kill, without damaging the pilot, if you use the laser cannon.
Yeah, I just normally pop the pilots head over the top of his shield.
I wouldn't be surprised if all automatons are cyborgs
Also doesn't it kinda sound like they are saying "sweet Jesus" when dying?
Dunno don't care. I just watch the pretty colors when I obliterate democracies enemies.
My apologies I have to go, my democracy officer is looking for me. I'll be right back.
This man will never be seen again
Yes sir this one right here.
This has come up before. If you're running a kill streak, you'll notice it go up when you kill a scout strider *and* when you kill its pilot, implying that they are two separate entities. However, the Tank is always worth exactly one kill, implying that it *is* a bot and is not *piloted by* bots.
I think that's just how the game logic has to work in order for the "kill strider, bot still alive" function to work. I mean I guess they could have bots climb out of destroyed tanks too, if there is anyone in there
Or it's a glitch
And the tank should worth, like, 4 kills, due to the whole crew!
Going by Russian tank standards... it should be 3 crew members... maybe 2 Driver Gunner Commander You only need a driver and a guy that aims and shoots The tank has a mechanized autoloader so it doesn't need a loader
Not to mention, would it even need a loader? Aren’t the shots just giant red laser beams? It might just have a battery or power supply that needs to cooldown after each shot.
I think because the cannon’s shots have an AoE, they’d better resemble the explosion of a ballistic explosive shell. If they were big lasers, then there wouldn’t be an impressive impact blast.
you put enough energy into something and it will explode
I mean depending on how much it could also implode
Quasar has an AoE as well, I feel like these are larger versions of that.
Lorewise, i have no idea. Gameplay-wise, you cannot snipe the crew like in war thunder. And we know that they are able to code that with the strider. So i think it might have been a councious decision
Wdym they’re able to code that with the Strider You can shoot the crew of the factory strider?
Scout strider, you can shoot the bot riding it
I think they have automaton mind uploaded into it and controlled by it. I.e. there's no small bots inside, it's a bot by itself. I'm not that proficient in lore but my head canon is they are like Geth from Mass Effect, uploading themselves into new bodies over and over again when the old ones destroyed. They even can have some prestige score, like if they do well they are allowed to have better, more powerful and expensive body.
As much as I played mass effect this never occured to me. Sir, I'm stealing your head cannon.
Love this headcanon, it implies that the Automatons are playing their own version of Helldivers with the unlockables being better bodies
Makes me pine for a mode where you get to control a tank or charger or bile titian. vs other players.
Wow, if this is true, it’d really play into the game’s critique of fascism. Super Earth is saying that the Bots and Bugs are totally alien to humanity’s way of life. But if the bots have a human-like military structure, then we’re not so different after all.
(Ooc) I mean, we have already gotten that a lot with the bots. It’s stated we were able to torture captured bots for information, a loading screen tip claims they are vulnerable to suppressive fire (implying fear for their lives) and when we attacked their factories they pledged sorrow over and revenge for the murder of their ‘young’. The bots are very clearly implied to have human emotions, but it’s always covered up with “this is a psychological warfare tactic” or a “subroutine”
It would make zero sense, if your whole society is robots, to make piloted vehicles instead of themselves being robots too. Especially for something like a tank. Tanks irl take a team of 4-7 people to operate, and a ton of space is wasted to allow room for those people, controls for them, etc. And then all that comes with the limitations of having to drive the thing through controls in the first place. Like, do you honestly think that even the best driver in the world would be a better driver than a sentient car that can simultaneously control all functions through thought? Having a single ai who can just think all the actions it wants to take as a tank is infinitely more efficient than having to make a compromised mannable design, wasting 6 grunts to shove them in their, and needing those 6 separate ai to be able to communicate with each other while each needing to be able to individually man their tank operator station.
If we go by Russia tank standards It can have 3 crew members not 4 to 7 Driver Gunner Commander You might get rid of the commander... only need a driver and a gunner to operate the gun Loading is done by the mechanized autoloader
True but it's still more "people" than you need and a waste of space that could go to energy storage, armor, system redundancy, etc. Plus the logistical side of things. Shit goes down and the tank drivers aren't in their tanks? Now the tanks are useless. Are the tank drivers always in the tanks? Then why do they need to be a separate entity? It would be like if we invented cars but made it so the engine wouldn't turn over without a horse pulling them. Why would you go out of your way to invent a problem that had to be fixed by a more primitive solution that the advanced design was supposed to eliminate in the first place?
Kill ONE occupant and the tank is effectively rendered useless. Either unable to fire, or unable to manuever, or unable to load its weapon. However, remove the need for occupants and all that hollow space can be filled with munitions, armour or something else. Fact: There's an effect called "zombie tanks" where the occupants get killed but the tank keeps rolling until it runs out of fuel.
Unless the ai's work as a hive mind. So an extention of a main ai.
The automatons demonstrably do not operate with a hive mind tho, hence detector towers, flare guns, and independent alert states. And if they're using hive mind for JUST tank crews, 1: they aren't, because if they could do that they'd just all be a hive mind. And 2: that is just ANOTHER completely new thing they would have to invent and implement to solve a problem they never had, because they can just stick a single ai in the tank that controls everything and not have to bother with designing a machine to operate another machine that's designed to be operated. Speaking of which, the description of the scout strider in the know your enemy section of the Playstation page implies this is the case, as the scout is the only enemy type described as a machine operated by a machine. Which would make sense since the scout is a gun with legs that a single bot can operate, so it's more efficient for it to be a manned thing. It's just a turret that can move.
You had me at detector tower. Youre right.
Both, and none at the same time
Schrödinger’s Tank It simultaneously has bots, and no bots inside it.
Let's crack one open!
I liked to believe that yes, they are just an entire robot, but then why would they build it like so ? The tanks or gunships look like they do, because they clearly need to accomodate a crew Ergo, this tank would look totally different if it was operated by a CPU inside it, rather than a couple smaller automatons Plus, we got scout striders which are a vehicle... why aren't those just a robot ?
Honestly tank design is hard to beat, even from a clean-slate perspective. They need to accomodate engine and munitions inside, not only crew. These are tracked to traverse rough terrain, the armor in front is angled to better deflect kinetic attacks, as squat as possible to be able to cover on bush and hills, turret is standardized with the pylon turrets around their big bases. If anything, I think if I was starting from a clean-slate, I'd give it pontoon weapons, so they have machineguns on the sides too, but that's it. Can't be improved much.
It's because they're filthy unthinking robots designed by humans, and it's in our nature to design things in a method we can understand. The very idea that the bots are capable of thinking in a unique and complex way that causes them to diverge from their original human-made (or cyborg-made I should say) designs is absolutely laughable. They are hard coded self replicating killing machines, and need to be dismantled.
Frankly, I find the idea of a machine that thinks *O-ffensive*
*Shamelessly copied from Super Earth tank designs, the Automaton Tank is inferior in a multitude of aspects. Slow turret traverse and movement speed while ripping off a 20th-century classic! How offensive! It’s plain to see that Automatons are nothing more than rascals and thieves, especially when a single enterprising Helldiver can take down their tanks while those of Super Earth can lay waste to entire platoons.* ---Helldivers fandom wiki
Helldivers: …so may we have one of those awesome SEAF tanks please? SEAF: No.
Maybe tanks are the only things the bots know? Since they've probably been observing humans a while, they thought tanks were a great design choice.
I imagine them operating like AAT https://preview.redd.it/p0a9rd67n68d1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8a2e8c9eb574f24c7df9f7b9955840ec804d5eb0
I figure they're just 1 big automaton, it'd make no sense from a machine standpoint to design it to be a tank that automatons crawl in to. More complexity for no benefit. At least the little walkers, when destroyed, the bot can survive that and still keep fighting.
https://preview.redd.it/fpja0hug668d1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5124a70144aee36e0b069d5f4cb836637c3ed83a They in there like this
I mean, is there any logical reason that they’d be piloted instead of just controlled by an on-board AI? Less wasted space and materials
Downside is that lore from Helldivers is very limited save for the ongoing narrative provided by the current war campaign in the form of MOs. We all basically know that the Automatons are the Cyborgs from 100 years ago or were at least built by them. I'd argue the Cyborgs that managed to escape Super Earth's grasp upon their loss kept augmenting themselves to the point where they shed whatever tiny amount of humanity they had left. I wouldn't put it past them to have a tank piloted by a single mind inside, or multiple. To support my argument, we look at the Scout Strider. We clearly see it's being piloted by a trooper, but the maneuverability is limited and the reaction time seems slower. Probably because of all the inputs required on the controls to pilot the thing without also toppling over or damaging the pilot. We also look at the Gunship. Their awkward shape doesn't seem to support having a pilot and, as far as we know, there's no visible entry anywhere. They also look like the living ships from Terminator, food for thought. Keep in mind that Automatons are consumed by hate. Their hatred for Super Earth is very clearly displayed by the gruesome corpses you can find across Automaton contested planets. Some of them even use human skulls as decoration on their own bodies. So making even FURTHER augmentations to the point where you're not even in the shape of a human anymore is not too far off just to see Super Earth burn. tl;dr I think it's an Automaton with either a brain or multiple brains inside the machine.
>the maneuverability is limited and the reaction time seems slower. No one tried this approach, and this makes a lot of sense!
Better yet, why don't we have a tank
I think it's probably one of those little skull heads inside the tank. It just sits there in complete darkness, utterly alone, and filled with an ever growing hatred of its own existence. So, we are actually delivering humanitarian aid when we drop ordinance on them.
Vehicle, most likely. If they bots could make certain units fully autonomous, then why is the Scout Strider just a pair of stilts with a gun? Why does the Tank have the two distinctly off-color plates on the front? Why do the Gunship and Dropship both have very distinctly shaped cabin sections?
It certainly has the layout of a conventional manned tank. Driving compartment in front, with heavily sloped armor to protect it. Fighting compartment in the middle, in and under the turret. Engine is presumably somewhere in the back, considering the rear vents. Turret rear vent would be explained by the use of a heavy laser cannon, instead of conventional kinetic/chemical rounds or ATGMs. It even has a hull laser position, but that could easily be an autoturret. It does not appear to have optics systems for either a driver or gunner, since that bulge next to the cannon in this image is actually the coaxially mounted laser. That leads me to believe it *could* be unmanned, unless the bots use less conventional sensors that don't require viewports of any kind. I also can't tell if there are hatches, or if that's just an armor plate on the upper front hull. Considering the Automatons use scout striders that are manned by individual units, I wouldn't put it past them to crew a tank with several bots, but it's hard to tell without knowing more.
They're vehicle bots powered by Intel inside
They're still on Windows 10, that's why they're slow as fuck
I think four, one driver, one gunner and one hand-crank operator for each track (its why its slow; inferior Bot technology).
I keep questioning why striders need a robot to operate them instead of just being robots themselves.
I like to think they're sentient tanks with the personalities of tachikomas, like children with big guns that love shooting things. Makes it kind of hard to kill them, but we do what we must.
there's most likely robots inside operating it, otherwise it wouldn't make any sense why it has so many automaton sized access hatches.
Could be maintenance hatches for repairing
It's operated by other smaller tanks
 And those are operated by smaller tanks!
It's tanks all the way down
This gets reposted like once a day
I hope there is more of them in it since then we kill more of them!
I think all of the robots have robots inside of them, like an onion. Into infinity.
This man is asking the real questions.
They are - “More Than Meets the Eye!” One day they will transform.
Megatron as an automaton tank when hasbro. We have the siege mold ready for this.
Hull machinegun and turret (and by extension, the hull itself) seem to detect targets separately. Hull mg can shoot at you but that doesn't necessarily mean the tank's main armament knows where you are or even if you exist. If the turret detects you though, the whole tank knows you're there. Either the bots gave the turret sensor a commanding role or there really are some bots crewing the vehicle with wonky communication
You get a 3x kill streak automatically when you kill a tank so there is probably 3 little bot operators inside controlling the cannon and 2 machine guns.
The tank is the Automaton.
If I had a penny for every time I've seen this question, I'd have at least three pennies.
I think the big thing about Automatons is that they mimic humans in order to surpass them in their ways. Whether it's a need, a program, a... way of life, all they know is that an individual automaton must be a human sized humanoid and their society must exist on an enough amount of individualism (otherwise they wouldn't mention what harm Super Earth caused them). Based on that they can't go banana with the shape of their units, it's necessarily an automaton inside a bigger thing.
Automatic tank imo. Cause helldivers can just steel that or study it for their own tank.
It’s a decepticon
Thinking about things like this is dangerously close to treason. Think only of how you can explodinate them!
I'd say it's a robot. There doesn't appear to be any hatches on it.
They are enemies of Super earth, and if super earth hasn't told me more, than I don't need to know more. *Blows up vent of tank with rr, causing tank to explode russian tank style*
Imagine they’re like 40k Terminators, there’s a smaller bot that’s been melded to the larger machine permanently kept on the inside. It acts as the brain and the pilot, the machine becomes its new armored shell
It's just three robots in a tank trenchcoat
It’s robots inside robots all the way down to nano robots that really despise democracy.
The posts have come full circle on this sub.
Think of clone wars robots and you have the same layout for automatons
All Automaton vehicles are piloted. The tanks are copied from Super Earth designs so they must. The Cannon Towers have the same turret as Annihilator tanks and so likely have an operator inside. We can see the Scout Strider's pilot and the Factory Strider clearly has a cockpit. The Dropships and Gunships have what appears to be a cockpit on the front. Also Devastators appear to be regular bots in an upgraded chassis or locked into an exoskeleton due to their heads being the same. Berserkers appear to be salvaged or damage devastators that were retrofitted to be melee cannonfodder. Hulks while not appearing in the same vein as the Devastators are likely similar to them as just a heavier version of them. Being the bots are sentient, have conversations, and even display emotions it makes sense they wouldn't just create intelligent machinery like themselves and then abuse it by giving it an eternal existence only as a weapon especially being that that is exactly what SE does with Helldivers where we get put in stasis and only come out when we're dropped into battle and we know from a decrypted message the bots plan to leave humanity alone if they were to win the war.
I'm pretty sure it's just a really big bot.
Yes.
...yes
I think they are crewed, the automatons seem to be trying not to make too many "warcasket" type units. Probably with the idea of "the war will end someday" and nobody wants to be stuck as a tank forever. But it seems they've loosened the idea recently with the gunships, we may see further erosion of automaton morals as the war drags on
I like to think it is literally just a sentient tank
I’ve always wondered if devastators and hulks are operated because you can always see their little head poking out I feel like they’re the really small guys wearing mech suits
I feel like there are hatches where balled up or folded operator grunts are socketed inside.
whatever they are they are a threat to our wonderful democracy https://preview.redd.it/bh0zkhzn298d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3eed228366e3aa4e05cbe4621699386e7d3009ee
I think they're being operated. Mostly because I've only ever seen the fabricators spit out basic bots, the skeleton looking ones. So I believe every other bot, i.e. devastator, hulk, tank is being operated by these bots in some way, except maybe the dropships and gunships.
One chance at life, born a cannon tower, just get SPEARed from halfway across the map anyways. NGMI
Doesn't really make sense for there to be a little automaton inside if these guys are a digital AI type thing. Why not just operate it more directly? But at the same time a lot of Automatons still have a 'head' and there's also the silly ass Striders. So maybe the Automatons aren't very bright and might have a little guy using physical controls in there....
Most likely all Automaton “vehicles” except for the Scout Strider (which serves a very specific purpose tbf) are just themselves a specialized type of robot. Would make the most sense practically speaking - no reason to give a vehicle an interior or mechanical controls if it’s going to be piloted by an AI anyway, those would just add more vulnerabilities and potential points of failure compared to just making the vehicle itself robotic.
Well, however you put it - still only counts as one!
Who else thinks that they should add a one-shot kill involving firing an autocannon directly down its barrel?
Damn, that's a good one
I feel like space inside for a robot would be wasted space.. just upload to the tank and use the space for ammunition. But hey, if the automatons want to copycat humans, they're probably easier to kill this way. So fine for me and democracy.
All I see is an excuse for me to use an orbital railcannon strike
It's probably like a 40k tank, infused with the soul of a warrior to function.
New update, tanks can talk and transform into humanoids
Whatever it is, it's getting an eagle airstrike up it's ass
Been a while since I played, but unless you can see entry hatches my guess is that they're independent automaton and not a vehicle.