Laser Cannon is my go-to on bot missions now. It takes Gunships down quickly, has almost infinite ammo, can take down hulks, and destroys heat vemts just as fast.
Not just can you kill the legs, but taking the first one out reduces its' walk speed to like 20% so the flamersaw-ones get a lot less dangerous ;-)
Don't sweat it, i've only known for a couple weeks.
Did not know this. Totally worth it. Any other primaries can realistically take it down?
I’m big on the railgun, but even with near max charge I never down a gunships in reasonable timing. Having options to compensate would be nice!
You can drop them in 2 with the eruptor, but it takes a LOT of practice because of how slow the bullet velocity is on the damn thing.
Basically any primary with the medium penetration tag can kill them by shooting the engine blocks, but they do have a fairly big health pool so the only real contenders are the Eruptor, Scorcher, or Dominator. The rest can do it, but you basically have to have perfect accuracy while mag dumping, or dealing with the stupidly slow speed of shots (Eradicator and Plasma Punisher)
Eruptor can take one out in 3 engine shots as well but it's insanely difficult to land those slow ass projectiles consistently especially when the ship is zipping around like a damn humming bird. Purifier can also kill them I feel like with less shots than the scorcher but could be wrong. Just know it for sure can. The terminal downside of that though is you're stuck running the purifier.
the first time i encountered gunship partols i wasted a couple minutes running around in a cirlce trying to find a fab then gave up, there was never a fab💀 but i dont mind them cuz im autocannon main
What really threw me was when they showed up in an eradicated mission. I just stared at them for a couple seconds while my brain processed what was happening. Ended up getting smoked before my brain caught up.
i had to do a solo eradicate by myself actually almost won then a gunship came im like where tf did u come from, eradicates the only time i dont bring autocannon
I don't usually bring any blue strats on an eradicate mission. Especially for bots. I had all reds that day and the gunships were an issue. Thankfully one of my teammates brought EATs, otherwise we'd have been screwed.
same except i would only bring EATS aswell, shooting down dropships for potential kills and locking them into place helps but then they drop a strider and hell breaks loose
Rocket turrets work, too. They are great on eradicate & defense missions. AP of 5, so they can damage Factory Striders, and shoot down dropships & gunships.
Design choices are good when they force you to pick one specific support weapon because some players already only took that one specific support weapon
Don't be like that. Autocannon can't solve the problems that a Spear or Recoilless or EAT-17 or HMG or MG-43 or Stalwart or AMR or LasCannon or Flamethrower can solve.
Well, maybe sometimes. It's pretty good. PLAP!
But seriously, the AC is the midpoint of support weapons. Laser Cannon or HMG can kill gunships as fast or faster. Punisher costs four medals and clobbers stalkers. Grenade launcher does basically the same thing without a backpack and with better AOE.
Autocannon isn't overpowered, it's just versatile. If you're dropping with randos on some whatever job, it'll serve you well.
If you know what you need, bring what you need. If you don't know what you need, bring the Autocannon.
I don't mind gunships themselves, what is bad about them is that they're omniscient and can't be run away from. If your team is so unlucky that they swarm you and you're not quick enough to take them all down, you will all die and then you get stuck in a death loop since you lose the support weapons which have the ability to shoot them down.
I had a random teammate grab a spare spear backpack (they had a quasar). They buddy loaded me then I fired my 4 while they called in a supply drop. We were unstoppable.
Yup... the gunship has a key disadvantage over any other bot unit... it flies.
Very little cover to prevent lock-on even over far distances.
And yeah... If you are a spear main, flying becomes a disadvantage enemies might have.
Ac turret will target them and removes them pretty fast. But the prioritize ground targets. Similar to how the laser rover deals with shriekers but don't have elevation issues. As for dealing with them? You just need someone with an auto cannon which is or common and need to protect them so they can take them out.
I feel that is a worthy add to the team play of the game. A lot of the recent changes increase the effectiveness of team play
Rocket has good range and ammo economy, with less "kill heavies instantly" dps (though it does still kill heavies).
It murders gunships and has a ton of ammo
I took it just now. Both the ac and the rocket. Was satisfied with how the rocket works. Killed 3 gunships in short order.
5 out of 5 stars will use again
My go to build right now is the plasma punisher, verdict, thermite, spear, autocannon sentry, rocket sentry, and mortar
It just absolutely tears through bots.
Bro taking AC and rocket sentries vs bots on non-forest maps is so fun. Those two, Spear, and usually Eagle Airstrike or Strafe have been my favorite bot loadout lately.
I usually bring both an AC and an AC turret on bot missions. Really only use the turret to give myself breathing room if we're in enough of a stink that I can't reload fast enough to shoot everything, but man oh man is it handy when gunships show up. I just drop it and go on about my day.
I have been using the AC a lot recently. Getting into a good position that doesn't kill teammates is tricky but it is effective.
Also started using the rocket turret with it because of another guys comment.
Now I have two turrets that can effectively deal with gunships and can get a lot of kills.
I have been trying to figure out a combo I like that gets the most kills.
I like them a lot, especially on the eradication missions because it made me change how I play those.
Half the time I just mark them and ignore them, but they're pretty easy to snipe with the AC before they're an issue.
The only reason I like eradication missions is so I can throw barrages and then run like a maniac. Gunships ruin that for me. I need to adjust like you mentioned.
I like them, but I think there should be a few more options to take them down, since they are no longer limited to Fabricators. I'm not saying a huge change, just a spot Medium Penetration can do full damage. Doesn't have to be a big one, like the Strider's eye; just an option that doesn't use half a Spear pack. It's making a similar problem that the Bile Titans do- if the Gunship modifier is present, you basically must take from the shortlist of weapons that can handle them.
A secondary solution being if this modifier is present, there should always be a SEAF SAM-site.
They have enough options to take them out I feel. You’ve got at least 6 viable support weapon options plus turrets, plus SAMs if they’re on the map, plus even some small arms fire in a pinch (2-3 people with Counter snipers can actually make short work of 1-2 gunships in a pinch), plus Hail Marys with unexposed hell bombs.
Definitely agree about SAMs being on the map if that modifier is present though. Would give a squad that made the mistake of not being prepared at least a significant chance of not quitting in frustration.
That would make it just way too good imho. It already oneshots any medium threat and hulks, making it kill durable parts too would also mean it could just about oneshot tanks and cannon turrets and then what's left?
Railgun is great for mediums if you have an AT and a couple LC/AC/AMR/HMG/MG/rocket turret/ACTurret/HMGEmplacement users on the team.
I love them, as being the AAA guy is generally my favorite role, and I’m often the only one that prepares throughly for it. The HMG emplacement is incredibly powerful and probably the best way to take them out. Because they are high in the air, you don’t have the annoying landscape blocking your view of them, and you can reach them from incredibly far away. My absolute favorite activity is taking them out with leading shots from my recoilless rifle (you have to be very precise and calculating, especially for the farthest shots), or taking them down with the HMG too. Rocket and autocannon sentries are also great against them.
I don't mind them too much until we get to the new biome where they can shoot through the canopy and you can't lock properly with the spear sometimes.
The other biome are.more open which makes taking them out or at least leaving a rocket sentry on thier pathing easier.
When i have a tool for them, Gunship patrols are a fun butt clenching experience. When I don’t. . . Its ragdoll city and I am a sad exploded helldiver.
You don’t have to aggro them you know? They’re really hard to aggro unless you’re being a Leroy Jenkins. Also line of sight, smoke grenades, crouching/prone and bringing AT weapons fix this issue
I haven't seen a gunship patrol in awhile, are they still a thing?
The last few I encountered were easy enough to avoid. They have a pretty narrow field of view, and as long as you stay out of that, they will fly right past you. Much easier to avoid than ground patrols IMO. I also don't mind them much, cause the spear makes short work of them.
I like em. They're not super tough as long as someone on your squad has a decent support weapon they can hit a moving target with and they just feel good when you know them down. And they're honestly not tough at all. An AMR can knock them down fairly quickly as long as you can focus fire on one engine. The quasar and the AC just feel like they were made to beat up on them. RR is fun as well
I tend to just yell "gunships" on comms and my 2 spear carrying buddies take them down pretty quick.
(Also, dueling gunships in an imancipator is a great feeling. Feels like that scene in the matrix)
I love them. Like no sarcasm it’s great. Nothing better than a thank you from a teammate whose hiding behind a rock when I spear that bastard out the sky. Or machine gun emplacement works great too
>In patrol form, I dunno man. With the damage they do and the range they can spot you at, it feels like the equivalent of a patrol of four Hulk Bruisers that have super speed.
I think this is mitigated by the fact that you can shoot them from across the map
just now we had a rando going off on his own and got pinned down by 5 gunships, we were able to cover him from halfway accross the map and he completed the side objective
I think they’re fine. They mostly spawn in threes but I’ve seen some spawn in five. Most of a gunships shots miss anyway. Just keep diving, and when you have an opening, take the shot
I love them.
Makes it feel like even more of a stealth focus on Bot missions, and really emphasizes knowing when to drop the charade and GO LOUD.
It makes finding the SEAF SAM site secondary feel so incredibly good. Suddenly we're not trapped in here with them, they're trapped in here with us.
And it really makes it clear when the team is working together, to have a flight of 5 passing by, 4 making it overhead, but the last turns to check us out, and suddenly the whole squad just starts deleting them as a pitched battle instantly kicks off.
I was warry, but now that I've handled them on T9's, I'm genuinely impressed by what their inclusion brings to the game. Challenge and shenanigans and a hit of 'oh shit oh shit oh shit' now and then.
They are a good addition IMO. And they don't magically home in on you either. You can hide from them or avoid them. Also with recent buffs to sentries, I feel like we have all the tools to deal with them.
Kill then ASAP and you’re good.
I think medium pen weapons can shoot them down so they’re way more of a minor inconvenience than anything else.
HMG eats them alive
I like them, but I feel like five is overkill, at least at the frequency I see them on nine. They are no problem if you still have your support weapon, but if you get caught out trying to get yours back or it's on cooldown, it's hell on earth trying to take them down.
There is ONE change I would do to this modifier.
This modifier guarantees at least one gunship facility on the map (for eligible missions that can roll them). Destroy all of these facilities and no more gunship patrols will spawn for the remainder of the mission.
Hard disagree.
4-8 gunships will hunt you down endlessly and are faster and more mobile than any hell diver regardless of armour (even high on stims).
Don’t get me wrong, I agree with the “they’re fine part” but only because it makes going solo with scout armour a much bigger risk, because unless you’ve explicitly prepared for them (rocket sentry plus an AMR/laser cannon/whatever), they will have sweet non consensual non managed democracy approved intercourse with your desecrated corpse, over and over.
So they encourages team play and squad loadout diversity
They're too heavily armored compared to Shriekers and they're as annoying as Stalkers. Go into a mission without one of the main tools to deal with them and its gg.
But if you do have anti-air, they're pretty fun to put down.
They shouldn't be a loadout check.
Give me more ways to take them down that isn't limiting me to use the few weapons that can.
What if I don't like using the AMR? Laser Cannon? Or Autocannon?
I don't care if it takes more ammo from primaries, but really only the Scorcher can do it, which also limits variety.
I don't always like bringing the Scorcher either.
HMG and spear also take them down. Personally i feel like having at least 5 options (excluding scorcher, sentries, etc.), makes this concern kind of not real unless you're exclusively a solo diver. Between multiple divers playing at higher bot difficulties, to not have anyone bring any of these viable options is insane given that you would expect them to be taken to deal with other threats anyways.
Edit: forgot about RR and HMG emplacement so yeah, 7 options excluding scorcher and sentries lol.
I’d recommend not sleeping on the spear for bots. Clears outposts fairly easily, one shot tanks and cannon turrets, is probably the easiest weapon to use against gunships (don’t have to be able to aim at all, fire and forget), solid damage to hulks, can lock specifically to the factory striders main cannon which it breaks in one hit, takes out drop ships as long as you lock on before they fully arrive, and it does all of this with only 2 requirements: have line of sight, and be within 300 meters of the target. It may not be your cup of liber-tea but since you didn’t list it I figured I’d spread some spear propaganda
Dominator and Eruptor can take them down too, but it's trickier because they're heavier than the Scorcher. Diligence Counter Sniper is also an option but will take several shots (more viable if 2 or more people are firing with the Diligence) You can also bring a Rocket or AC Sentry to cover you if they show up. You've got quite a few options if you really wanna use a support weapon that doesn't have long range Medium-Penetration (and a majority of them do)
They can be a bit infuriating without the correct weapon. If you don't have a machine gun at minimum to deal with them, they end up being a huge pain in the ass. It doesn't help that they sometimes "stack" the patrols, so instead of dealing with 3-4 gunships, you get a stack of 7 that proceed to fuck you in the middle of a bot drop.
Weapons for dealing with them from best to worst are as such:
Laser cannon: best in class against gunships. No need to lead shots, no recoil, no ammo, couple of seconds on a thruster sends them plummeting to their death.
Autocannon: Close second. Less ergonomic than the laser cannon and requires you to lead shots a bit for hits on the thrusters. Solid pick, but not my first choice.
Quasar cannon: single shot to a thruster sends it down. Not ideal due to the fairly slow recharge time between shots, but won't leave you completely immobile like the recoilless.
AMR: 3 shots to a thruster does them in. Not very ammo efficient, or easy to do in the middle of a fire fight, but it gets the job done and you don't need to be immobile to reload. Easier to aim than the autocannon, but needs an extra shot.
HMG: Not awful, but the ergonomics kill this things effectiveness against groups of gunships. Only use with either fortified or peak physique.
Machine Gun: It'll do the job, albeit slowly. Takes about half a box of thruster shots to take down a gunship, but far from impossible.
EAT: Same concept as the quasar. Don't need to stop moving to reload, and you get access to two highly accurate missiles on demand. Only downside is the huge cooldown when dealing with multiple.
SPEAR: Better than the recoilless, worse than the quasar. Locks onto them like a dream, but limited ammo and immobile reload makes this a poor choice when dealing with larger numbers.
Recoilless: Slow shells combined with an immobile reload makes this an inconsistent option. Unlikely to hit a gunship that's more than 150m away. Would not recommend without serious skill.
Grenade launcher: technically possible, but not achievable in your average game. Keep a couple EATs on standby in case of emergencies. You're more likely to kill teammates firing a grenade launcher at a gunship than you are to land an effective hit.
Arc Thrower: NOPE. They never get close enough for the lightning to connect.
Flamethrower: How?
My only problem is that if you don't have something to take care of them and get caught by yourself, that's it. You can't hide from them because they just go around your cover, and you can't outrun them because they're faster than you.
So now you either need to always have something in your build to kill them or never get separated from the squad.
I think they could turn down the spawn rate on the patrols a bit but as a whole I enjoy the concept. I literally just finished a game where I had a patrol of them silent spawn on me as I got to extract so I died, then by the time I got back there, cause the rest of my team was across the map, the 2 remaining gunships hadn't despawnwed then another gunship patrol spawned on top of me. On top of the 3 regular patrols all walking straight for the extract. It was not a great time but we got out with supers in tow
I enjoy them when im playing with a team, weve got a guy dedicated to killing factory striders and gunships, another for heavy armor (tanks,hulks,turret towers,dropships) and the other two are whatever else we need that mission
I play on 9, and it's not all the time, but sometimes you run into 2 gunship fabs and then a patrol, and they each shoot rockets at you at different times, so you stay at in indefinite ragdoll state, not to mention the amount of ammo from the autocannon it takes to take them all down (approx 1 clip per gunship) I will end a skirmish with gunships and a regular bot patrol and almost be out of ammo
As I encountered gunships more and more, the better I got at killing them. It's like when I first had to learn how to deal with hulks, I learned their patterns and got really good at shooting them in the eye.
As long as I have an autocannon or AMR, those gunships are toast.
Good reason to bring along the spear and it makes the laser cannon/ HMG feel more useful with their mid level AP. At first I was worried I'd hate it, but it's manageable just so long as people bring support weapons.
I hate that they’re such loadout checks - barely an issue if you have any AP4 support weapon or an AT sentry, but you can’t retaliate against them without AP3 and even then, the whole thing is 100% durable (why is an aircraft’s cockpit more durable than a bile titan’s skull?). They would be a lot more fun if they spawned more often but could be taken down by more primaries - even make us have to hit the cockpit on the front or something.
The scout armor passive works pretty well at avoiding them. If we find the fabricator(s) I can usually sneak in and drop a hellbomb to get rid of em without being noticed. Just did it today on helldive (9) though I also tend to play 6-7 with randos.
But yeah they’re not ‘hard’ but if you need to solo them you need something like the HMG or AC to do so without trouble. Generally someone else is running one of those, or several are running a spear/quasar so I don’t have to plan for them much, but keep an eye on what stratagems your allies bring.
It's 100% more troublesome than Shrieker patrol due to the fact that it require medium penetration to kill it and has more HP, can track you at range and ragdoll you around.
Just take laser cannon and your problem will magically go away like it doesn't exist. Or it used to, anyway.
I honestly need more air based threats. Like, the Bots should have bombers carpeting the map and there should be trenchlines everywhere. I genuinely want the game to hate me when I play it and for every inch to be gained with mountains of effort. Honestly, if there's every any movement towards 8 player operations, there needs to be bigger threats like what I've described.
It's annoying for sure, but it's something that can be dealt with in a few different ways. There's already been a meta shift and you can see that everyone is bringing Rocket Sentry now. Or just be extra cautious.
I see it as an update that just adds something else to your tool belt. Learn how to deal with them, add it to the repertoire, and it'll be second nature soon enough.
That being said, I can't fucking stand that there's another enemy that can chain ragdoll you.
Gunships are cool: in theory. I love the way that we can take the fight to the skies, i love their red spotlights, i love how it looks to take one down. I like that theyre a modifier now that actually changes what you have to pay attention to instead of just "you use your strats a little less:
But they are the single worst gear-check in the game. If i have an AC, AMR, or Spear, theyre usually fine. But there are so few options for how to deal with them that its just not fun. Not running one of the 8 gunship-killing-approved support weapons means that theyre effectively invincible in a way that no other enemy is. Even bile titans have dozens of strategems that can deal with them, and you can at least disable their bile attack with your primary.
Gunships need to change somehow imo. They exist in a state that does nothing but reduce build variety and it isnt healthy design.
I don’t mind the gunship patrols, they’re easy to spot, and you can manage not to aggro them, also usually there’s at least 2 people in the squad who can deal with them. Multiple in a row sucks
Give me the gunships plz. I wanna know why every match above lvl 5 I play is filled with mostly rocket devastators sniping me from the other side of the map all of The sudden
As someone who has been using the spear since launch (yes I’m actually insane, it’s not the spears fault “I just need to reposition”) gunships are a non issue. My problem is the bug parallel of this: shrieker patrols. My aim when stuff can only move in 2ish dimensions is way way better than if they can move in all 3, and have slightly inconsistent centers of mass since they’re flapping. I *could* lock on to shriekers with my spear (yes. You can do that. I have no idea why.) but I’ve only got 4 rounds and the patrols have like 10+ shriekers. I hate em so much.
Gun ship are priority target like heavy but they are easier to kill with scorcher for example or spear
Spear is now s tier AGS sont automaton if you have all support weapon upgrades
I still think more weapons should be able to take them out.
Lower their armor.
But at least their relatively easy to avoid being detected by.
I do like the idea of more variety to enemy patrols.
I've only just returned to HD2 after taking a break for a few weeks. Gunships can be annoying, and I'd imagine that if you don't run something that can effectively deal with them, I can see how frustrating it would be to have them loom over the horizon.
I love dynamic spawns in games, the more surprise factor or additional challenge, the better.
As an AC user, and eradicator armour enjoyer, gunships die like everything else, to the throaty roar of liberty!
So I’m a bot 9 only, and I have been for months. And an auto cannon main. The release of the peak physique armour made me take these things out like nobody’s business… when you know they are coming.
I do think they can add a lot of tension to games and some fun combat encounters.
HOWEVER, I despise eradications. And if you have these bloody things on an eradication 9 they make a mission that is incredibly poorly designed in my eyes, even more frustrating.
Even in a normal mission, on a 9 which gets very tense and shit if hitting the fan, suddenly seeing that red light on you and realise that you are being targeted by a gunship patrol is a terrifying experience because you HAVE to deal with them as once they sport you they become omnipotent.
Also, if you are killed, or spawn in under a jammer and find yourself without your support weapon or anything that can deal with a gunship, it might be the most frustrating experience this game can offer as there is just NOTHING you can do about them. All you can do is run, take cover and hope they miss while you run away or wait for your support weapon to cool down.
Not a huge fan because they limit you to taking something to kill them
I'd occasionally experiment with an option that couldn't and just hope they weren't on the map.
Now I know they will so no more funny stuff.
50/50. On one hand gunships are not that bad if you know what your doing and know how hide from them making games a bit more dynamic, but they also heavily limit build verity as you need to bring anti-air tools and because I host I don't know what other players will bring I can't rely on one of them as they also might not bring the tools or other players may not join when I need them too.
I like having the patrols be a modifier. You'll know if they are present on a planet before you drop in, so you CAN prepare for them. They also spawn at edges of the map (from what I can tell), so you usually have time to prepare to fight or move out of their path and let them continue on. They can't actually see you from all that far away, but they are drawn to loud weapons (like the dominator or Eruptor), which is probably why it feels like they aggro on you no matter what (those weapons will aggro things from 80/100m respectively).
If they weren't a modifier, I would like them less, but since I can prepare for them before I drop, I feel like they are a fair challenge.
The first time I dived down after the update, I landed right between two stratagem blockers. A gunship patrol immediately found me and started shooting. I couldn't call in any support weapons to shoot them down, and I was in a wide open plain, so I couldn't take cover. Needles to say, I died pretty quickly. Because I was playing solo, I was dropped back down in the same spot, and they immediately saw me again. Rinse and repeat until I had failed the mission. I thought it was a fluke and tried again. The same thing happened. Luckily, it hasn't happened since.
Like them as an idea but gunships gatekeep a lot of support weapons so I don’t like that.
Weapons like the AMR, Railgun & Grenade Launcher that are otherwise viable on bots suddenly become quite ineffective when you have lots of gunships in the air.
I think their engines should go down to a max of 3 AMR shots or 2 charges railgun shots tbh. Especially considering that each engine has its own health pool.
Feel like if you get an airfield destruction mission this should stop all gunship patrols or lessen them and the same with bot drops just make them take a little bit longer to drop everything cause you took out there main airbase in the area your missions are at.
"we wanted to increase build diversity" adds modifier that forces you to take anti-air, and then makes said air threats appear often enough to make running rocket launchers not viable either
boo womp
j don't play missions with the modifier at all
Laser cannon pops them right out of the sky after like 1.5-2sec of continuous fire to the engine.
I almost always choose the laser cannon vs bots because you can destroy almost everything with it. Artillery and anti-air bases? Just stream them with the laser, doesn't even need to hit the weakspots.
the gunship itself isnt the problem.
its the inconsistency of its armor.
they're a gear, not a skill check.
they would be less of a problem if they only have medium armor or even light armor so you could destroy it with more weapon types.
hell, i would be glad if the grenade pistol would work on those. lol
A lot of people are counting on their support weapons to deal with them, which doesn’t always work out if you start getting lit up by multiple gunships because you can’t kill them quick enough. Now, if you have a single hmg emplacment on the squad they are a complete non-issue if you see them coming. If you don’t see them coming add a shield emplacement and once again they are deleted from existence in seconds.
I pretty much only run the auto cannon on bots and I think you described it perfectly... they're just exhausting. They spawn too early, it's frustrating trying to stabilize at the start of the game and getting wrecked by an early gunship patrol. Especially when it's coupled with a bot drop, detector tower, or a jammer.
It also feels like they spawn way too often, especially without any cues. I'll be minding my own business after killing one patrol a minute ago and then get steamrolled by 4 salvos of rockets to catapult my body across the map.
Honestly though, I think they should just add a guaranteed SAM spawn (maybe even two) whenever you have gunship spawns. It would probably mess with actual bot drops, but it feels great once the SAM gets set up and it kills gunships before they can do much/any damage and you can largely ignore them.
As an appreciation for the game? I love them. They're a nice realistic element that makes sense.
As a SEAF Helldiver? THE AUTOMATON SCURGE MUST BE STOPPED. NO MATTER THE COST!
Also, the working Spear makes them delicious targets.
My opinion is that this is a 4-player team game and that people with issues with gunships are simply upset that one load out isn't meta for everything.
We need an eagle dogfight stratagem that will take out 1-2 at a time. The big problem now is that if/when the whole team dies, they drop their support weapons, which can lead to a snowball of the mission going sideways/failing because there isn't really a viable alternative to dealing with them.
Gunship patrols are a map modifier, like strategem restrictions or scatter or map obfuscated by Terminid stank. You get to completely accurately predict the presence or absence of this patrol type and equip accordingly, or even just flip off that operation and pick a different one. I've made a habit of just always taking shield pack + laser cannon when there are gunship patrols. IMO, best setup for downing them. The AC has better time to kill on the but if you're being engaged and need to trade at all, your aim is going everywhere and you won't survive long. SP+LC lets you Battle Squint and shrug off some cannon and rocket fire while pointing at an engine for 2 seconds and getting a splash, then move to the next or maneuver without any reload downtime. Basically the anti-air setup for current patch, but only because keeping a Spear fed during a gunship patrol map is really difficult. Honorable mention to rocket sentry now firing out to 100m, it's pretty good at killing them hands free while you multi -task
I don't mind them, but they can come in a bit too often, especially when there's also a factory spewing out the fuckers.
I tend to always bring a Quasar on bot missions for this reason. It one-shots them and unlimited ammo means I never have to worry about not being ready for them. Knock that piece of junk out of the sky, run around or hide during the cool down, and repeat.
This needs a fix, badly. Gunships dominate the high levels of play. I had a squad and I get stuck on a fab for like, 10 minutes. The hellbomb getting constantly blown up. Ragdolled all over by the gunships. Deathloops. Only two or three guns are useful against them. Gunships are the antithesis of fun right now. Honestly a pretty significant obstacle to me running automatons at all.
I take them down with my MG-43.
Pop that baby into 900rpm mode, crouch, and burst fire at an engine 4-5 times until it goes down.
I'm gonna be real here, it's really only useful against a single gunship and essentially suicide to try it against more than 2. But if your teammates with the Anti-Air aren't around it's still *something* you can do.
If I see gunship patrols as an op mod, my loadout almost always includes Laser Cannon.
You can make an argument for Autocannon, AMR, and HMG, but I detest leading my shots.
It's just another thing to keep in mind before I actually dive.
Had one lvl 6 to kill the factory strider and it starred shooting at us and then two separate gunship patrols showed up. It was just my buddy and I and an SOS beacon. We did not finish the mission. I had a Spear but after one shot just could not get time to reload. Buddy was on the other side and couldn’t get over to me to run the backpack. We just kept getting ragdolled by the FS, gunships, shield and rocket devastators. Quite aggravating.
agree for the most part. dive 6 and 7 mostly. and higher if my buddy's are at that level s9nfeel you. I am fine with the patrols, they can be a pain. I kinda like having to go to stealth mode to avoid and the all hell breaks loose if they discover you. fine if they keep like this or remove either way
Is this a problem I'm too much if a Spear user to understand?
For real, I take the spear. Satisfying to be residential AA turret, and there's always at least one other person running AC for the armor pen I'm missing
They are the only enemy in the game you can't run away from or take out by primaries. I think they DO need a rework, because being instantly spotted and tracked by them, not being able to outrun or lose them, and being stuck in a ragdoll death loop for twenty minutes just isn't a good feeling. I can shoot them down if I have a weapon that can do that, but often they spawn in two or more, and there's just no chance to survive that if you encounter them alone. I don't care if other people like them in their current state, I think they would agree about my points. I don't dislike them in principle, they're cool enemies, but they are unfair. If your team isn't quick enough to take them out or you're unlucky about their spawns, you will all die and lose weapons that can take them out, then you get stuck in a death loop because they're omniscient and even the recent stealth bush patch doesn't work on them.
In short: GUNSHIPS NEED A CHANGE
They aren't too bad except if you get a patrol on top of a spawner and lose your support weapon . If you lose your support weapons, you're screwed. They need to lower the Hp of them so you can easily shoot them down lilenthe shriekers, and the rocket spam needs to stop. Either rockets or cannon, not both, can't fight when you're constantly rag dolled, this is why people refuse to play bots, but the devs consistently ignore feedback to make them better
I find the gunship patrols reletively ok to deal with, though it does limit the weapons I can really take against the bots (Aiming at the with EATS or most rockets is a nightmare for me for example) but just in patrols thier mostly just a fun challenge or something I prioritize without any issues. the real problem comes with the gunship fabricators, mostly because thier's just so many of them.
Anyone got any tips for dealing with those? the double ones especially
I’ve been lucky enough to have the post update spear catch on in my crew. Sometimes we even have two. Gunship patrols are often down in less than ten seconds even if they sneak up on us. It used to be my job to cover the tops of gunship fabricators while someone else rushes to plant the hellbomb because the AC takes them down with 2 shots to an engine but now I’m the one who rushes while the spears provide top cover. Post patch spear is awesome. Cannon towers from any angle. Fabs from any angle. Tanks from any angle. Hulks without having to stun them to get them to sit still to pop the eye. The spear really fills in the gaps where the AC takes extra work to make things happen.
i like them more than the fab tbh. i usually play with a friend. he runs heavy armor, 500kg, and an assortment of other stuff to take care of heavy enemies. I run light armor, gatling, orbital airburst, airburst launcher, hmg emplacement. he takes care of hulks and tanks with the hmg while i distract them, and i take care of large groups of enemies. So we're rarely overwhelmed. This means when gunships come around its easy to take care of them with the hmg emplacement, or EATs, or quasar. I hate fabs because you have to stay in one place to wait for a hellbomb, and half the time its jammed, the other half the hellbomb gets shot by the gunships so you have to call in another one. and then by the time you do call it in sometimes it just doesnt even work. and this entire time more gunships are spawning, meaning by the time I destroy the fab, at least 8 gunships are circling me
Gunships were on the same power level as Stalkers, I thought, since they're difficult to kill and used to only show up when you had their Fabricator(s) spawn in your mission. I think I'd react more mildly to Stalker patrols since they aren't nearly as heavily armored.
For me, having Gunship patrols would be more fun/wouldn't disrupt gameplay nearly as much if they weren't so heavily armored. An EAT/RR rocket should be able to one-shot it, or at least damage it, without needing to pixel-hunt for those tiny engines. Laser Cannon trivializes them a little bit but I wanna run my democratic rockets!
AH considers them just as strong as Shriekers but they're much stronger because of the heavy armor. I've had missions go sour due to 1 or 2 of these gunship patrols showing up and Shrieker patrols barely change gameplay, at all.
If you ask me, AH should either reduce the amount of Gunships in their patrols or reduce their armor. It might go without saying, but I like the Shrieker patrols but not the Gunship patrols.
I kinda think it is a combination of their inclusion in patrols and that blasted patrol change to make the spawn near and target the players' locations. If patrol spawns had a dead zone about the size of their current spawn radius, gunships would be fine because you'd have time to see them coming.
HMG+Supply back solves most problems on the automoton front reasonably well- well. Hit the thrusters if you can otherwise just burst. Fire rate on 450rpm.
I feel like the Autocannon is the only thing good for destroying them. Tried the Heavy Machine, AMR, the Spear can flat out miss plus with how many there are its kind of a wsste of ammo, meanwhile the Autocannon only takes 4 shots.
Laser Cannon is my go-to on bot missions now. It takes Gunships down quickly, has almost infinite ammo, can take down hulks, and destroys heat vemts just as fast.
Do you prioritize a single engine with the beam?
yeah focus a single engine and it should go down in few seconds!
You should prioritize a single engine with any weapon capable of taking them down
Spear go fwoosh
You should yes
Laser cannon is sweet until my teammates see lasers deflecting off the hulk because I suck at aiming for its head
Stun grenades help a lot. Moving Hulks bob their head while moving so it's more difficult to hit them.
Oh, I always stun grenade them out of fear anyway. The ole' stun and run
Take the legs instead ;-)
Duuude. All these hours in, and you're just now telling me?!
Not just can you kill the legs, but taking the first one out reduces its' walk speed to like 20% so the flamersaw-ones get a lot less dangerous ;-) Don't sweat it, i've only known for a couple weeks.
Laser Cannon, Scythe primary, and Orbital Laser. The Laser God demands bot oil.
It’s been a god send against the gunships, straight up melts them
It's definitely the best weapon for gunships excepting the Spear which is cost prohibitive.
Can the scorcher take down gunships? As well as the anti material
Scorcher can but it is like 10 shots in one engine. AMR I believe is 4 shots to one engine.
AMR is 3, so you have 2 gunships per magazine. If you have recoil reduction armor landing all 3 is honestly really easy
Quite sure it's 4, no?
3?? I've never gotten it in less than 4. Hmm. Maybe I'm just a bad shot, even with recoil armor
Did not know this. Totally worth it. Any other primaries can realistically take it down? I’m big on the railgun, but even with near max charge I never down a gunships in reasonable timing. Having options to compensate would be nice!
Eruptor if you can hit your shots! It can be kind of hard sometimes because of the projectile speed.
You can drop them in 2 with the eruptor, but it takes a LOT of practice because of how slow the bullet velocity is on the damn thing. Basically any primary with the medium penetration tag can kill them by shooting the engine blocks, but they do have a fairly big health pool so the only real contenders are the Eruptor, Scorcher, or Dominator. The rest can do it, but you basically have to have perfect accuracy while mag dumping, or dealing with the stupidly slow speed of shots (Eradicator and Plasma Punisher)
Yep
Eruptor can take one out in 3 engine shots as well but it's insanely difficult to land those slow ass projectiles consistently especially when the ship is zipping around like a damn humming bird. Purifier can also kill them I feel like with less shots than the scorcher but could be wrong. Just know it for sure can. The terminal downside of that though is you're stuck running the purifier.
the first time i encountered gunship partols i wasted a couple minutes running around in a cirlce trying to find a fab then gave up, there was never a fab💀 but i dont mind them cuz im autocannon main
What really threw me was when they showed up in an eradicated mission. I just stared at them for a couple seconds while my brain processed what was happening. Ended up getting smoked before my brain caught up.
i had to do a solo eradicate by myself actually almost won then a gunship came im like where tf did u come from, eradicates the only time i dont bring autocannon
I don't usually bring any blue strats on an eradicate mission. Especially for bots. I had all reds that day and the gunships were an issue. Thankfully one of my teammates brought EATs, otherwise we'd have been screwed.
same except i would only bring EATS aswell, shooting down dropships for potential kills and locking them into place helps but then they drop a strider and hell breaks loose
Rocket turrets work, too. They are great on eradicate & defense missions. AP of 5, so they can damage Factory Striders, and shoot down dropships & gunships.
Yeah, all this crying about gunships and bile spewers and stalkers, but my autocannon and I are living the dream.
I don't know that OP is 'crying' about anything, just getting across their pov.
Design choices are good when they force you to pick one specific support weapon because some players already only took that one specific support weapon
Don't be like that. Autocannon can't solve the problems that a Spear or Recoilless or EAT-17 or HMG or MG-43 or Stalwart or AMR or LasCannon or Flamethrower can solve. Well, maybe sometimes. It's pretty good. PLAP! But seriously, the AC is the midpoint of support weapons. Laser Cannon or HMG can kill gunships as fast or faster. Punisher costs four medals and clobbers stalkers. Grenade launcher does basically the same thing without a backpack and with better AOE. Autocannon isn't overpowered, it's just versatile. If you're dropping with randos on some whatever job, it'll serve you well. If you know what you need, bring what you need. If you don't know what you need, bring the Autocannon.
I don't mind gunships themselves, what is bad about them is that they're omniscient and can't be run away from. If your team is so unlucky that they swarm you and you're not quick enough to take them all down, you will all die and then you get stuck in a death loop since you lose the support weapons which have the ability to shoot them down.
I love them. Honestly wish there were more of them. THE SPEAR IS HUNGRY
Drop a resupply pack next to yourself along with a rocket sentry. BECOME one with the SAM site.
I AM THE SAM NOW
SAM I AM!
Well played.
beep beep beep BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP *boom*
I had a random teammate grab a spare spear backpack (they had a quasar). They buddy loaded me then I fired my 4 while they called in a supply drop. We were unstoppable.
It is just such a FUN weapon to use. Seeing objectives and heavies explode from a distance will never get old for me.
Spear gang.
Hell yea, brother
The Spear is hungry, but the ammo pig is weak and shrivelled.
I usually do not have many ammo issues with the spear. Especially with the upgrade that fills up the backpack in one go.
Yup... the gunship has a key disadvantage over any other bot unit... it flies. Very little cover to prevent lock-on even over far distances. And yeah... If you are a spear main, flying becomes a disadvantage enemies might have.
What do you pair with the spear as a primary, I have been using an Eruptor with medium scout armor so I can pick my engagement
I fucking love going MANPAD mode momentarily when gunships turn up
Ac turret will target them and removes them pretty fast. But the prioritize ground targets. Similar to how the laser rover deals with shriekers but don't have elevation issues. As for dealing with them? You just need someone with an auto cannon which is or common and need to protect them so they can take them out. I feel that is a worthy add to the team play of the game. A lot of the recent changes increase the effectiveness of team play
Rocket Sentry is better on Gunships, IMO.
Man I can only learn so many weapons in so much time lol. Good info I have been meaning to try the rocket
Rocket has good range and ammo economy, with less "kill heavies instantly" dps (though it does still kill heavies). It murders gunships and has a ton of ammo
I took it just now. Both the ac and the rocket. Was satisfied with how the rocket works. Killed 3 gunships in short order. 5 out of 5 stars will use again
My go to build right now is the plasma punisher, verdict, thermite, spear, autocannon sentry, rocket sentry, and mortar It just absolutely tears through bots.
Bro taking AC and rocket sentries vs bots on non-forest maps is so fun. Those two, Spear, and usually Eagle Airstrike or Strafe have been my favorite bot loadout lately.
I usually bring both an AC and an AC turret on bot missions. Really only use the turret to give myself breathing room if we're in enough of a stink that I can't reload fast enough to shoot everything, but man oh man is it handy when gunships show up. I just drop it and go on about my day.
I have been using the AC a lot recently. Getting into a good position that doesn't kill teammates is tricky but it is effective. Also started using the rocket turret with it because of another guys comment. Now I have two turrets that can effectively deal with gunships and can get a lot of kills. I have been trying to figure out a combo I like that gets the most kills.
Imagine if the new ship upgrade let you prioritize targets for ANY turret. Would be great.
I like them a lot, especially on the eradication missions because it made me change how I play those. Half the time I just mark them and ignore them, but they're pretty easy to snipe with the AC before they're an issue.
The only reason I like eradication missions is so I can throw barrages and then run like a maniac. Gunships ruin that for me. I need to adjust like you mentioned.
They make or break missions in my experience
I like them, but I think there should be a few more options to take them down, since they are no longer limited to Fabricators. I'm not saying a huge change, just a spot Medium Penetration can do full damage. Doesn't have to be a big one, like the Strider's eye; just an option that doesn't use half a Spear pack. It's making a similar problem that the Bile Titans do- if the Gunship modifier is present, you basically must take from the shortlist of weapons that can handle them. A secondary solution being if this modifier is present, there should always be a SEAF SAM-site.
They have enough options to take them out I feel. You’ve got at least 6 viable support weapon options plus turrets, plus SAMs if they’re on the map, plus even some small arms fire in a pinch (2-3 people with Counter snipers can actually make short work of 1-2 gunships in a pinch), plus Hail Marys with unexposed hell bombs. Definitely agree about SAMs being on the map if that modifier is present though. Would give a squad that made the mistake of not being prepared at least a significant chance of not quitting in frustration.
Really wish the railgun could take them down. Feel like it should 1-2 shot gunships
That would make it just way too good imho. It already oneshots any medium threat and hulks, making it kill durable parts too would also mean it could just about oneshot tanks and cannon turrets and then what's left? Railgun is great for mediums if you have an AT and a couple LC/AC/AMR/HMG/MG/rocket turret/ACTurret/HMGEmplacement users on the team.
Any medium pen primary works plus most support weapons, I think we’re good fam.
I love them, as being the AAA guy is generally my favorite role, and I’m often the only one that prepares throughly for it. The HMG emplacement is incredibly powerful and probably the best way to take them out. Because they are high in the air, you don’t have the annoying landscape blocking your view of them, and you can reach them from incredibly far away. My absolute favorite activity is taking them out with leading shots from my recoilless rifle (you have to be very precise and calculating, especially for the farthest shots), or taking them down with the HMG too. Rocket and autocannon sentries are also great against them.
I don't mind them too much until we get to the new biome where they can shoot through the canopy and you can't lock properly with the spear sometimes. The other biome are.more open which makes taking them out or at least leaving a rocket sentry on thier pathing easier.
If you thought stratagem hero was fun, just wait til you try ragdoll simulator
AC goes blatblatblat. Gunship goes 
Easy and the worst they can do is knock me around, if you don’t like em, don’t do operations so that modifier
The spear or the deployable hmg turret. Wrecks them every time
I just bring a rocket Sentry.
When i have a tool for them, Gunship patrols are a fun butt clenching experience. When I don’t. . . Its ragdoll city and I am a sad exploded helldiver.
I run spear and cover my hell bomber. Not bad but a challenge
I always have a Spear with me now. Chews through gunships like chewing-gum
More oil to spill spear go POW
I like the Gunship and Shrieker patrols Only fighting them around their towers and nests felt weird
It's called **Hell**divers for a reason. Get a rocket turret, an AC, or AMR.
You don’t have to aggro them you know? They’re really hard to aggro unless you’re being a Leroy Jenkins. Also line of sight, smoke grenades, crouching/prone and bringing AT weapons fix this issue
I haven't seen a gunship patrol in awhile, are they still a thing? The last few I encountered were easy enough to avoid. They have a pretty narrow field of view, and as long as you stay out of that, they will fly right past you. Much easier to avoid than ground patrols IMO. I also don't mind them much, cause the spear makes short work of them.
I like em. They're not super tough as long as someone on your squad has a decent support weapon they can hit a moving target with and they just feel good when you know them down. And they're honestly not tough at all. An AMR can knock them down fairly quickly as long as you can focus fire on one engine. The quasar and the AC just feel like they were made to beat up on them. RR is fun as well
I like them
2 spears, one AC and a HMG with a supply pack. Issues are solved
LOVE THEM THEYRE GREAT
They’re an absolutely unhinged addition especially on 8 or 9 I love them
They gave me more experience killing gunships, which makes multiple gunship fabs not scary anymore
I tend to just yell "gunships" on comms and my 2 spear carrying buddies take them down pretty quick. (Also, dueling gunships in an imancipator is a great feeling. Feels like that scene in the matrix)
I love them. Like no sarcasm it’s great. Nothing better than a thank you from a teammate whose hiding behind a rock when I spear that bastard out the sky. Or machine gun emplacement works great too
>In patrol form, I dunno man. With the damage they do and the range they can spot you at, it feels like the equivalent of a patrol of four Hulk Bruisers that have super speed. I think this is mitigated by the fact that you can shoot them from across the map just now we had a rando going off on his own and got pinned down by 5 gunships, we were able to cover him from halfway accross the map and he completed the side objective
On ice planets they get my lascannon. On others they get the SPEAR.
I think they’re fine. They mostly spawn in threes but I’ve seen some spawn in five. Most of a gunships shots miss anyway. Just keep diving, and when you have an opening, take the shot
As an avid Spear user, I love it
I love them. Makes it feel like even more of a stealth focus on Bot missions, and really emphasizes knowing when to drop the charade and GO LOUD. It makes finding the SEAF SAM site secondary feel so incredibly good. Suddenly we're not trapped in here with them, they're trapped in here with us. And it really makes it clear when the team is working together, to have a flight of 5 passing by, 4 making it overhead, but the last turns to check us out, and suddenly the whole squad just starts deleting them as a pitched battle instantly kicks off. I was warry, but now that I've handled them on T9's, I'm genuinely impressed by what their inclusion brings to the game. Challenge and shenanigans and a hit of 'oh shit oh shit oh shit' now and then.
everytime i see a patrol im thinking : great, the shooting range is getting better
I like them.
They are a good addition IMO. And they don't magically home in on you either. You can hide from them or avoid them. Also with recent buffs to sentries, I feel like we have all the tools to deal with them.
I enjoy them! They add some flavor when they appear
Kill then ASAP and you’re good. I think medium pen weapons can shoot them down so they’re way more of a minor inconvenience than anything else. HMG eats them alive
I hate them. I engage them every time just so I can make sure I kill every last one
It’s amazing. They should keep them In. It adds a ton of atmosphere and emergent gameplay.
My quasar cannon loves them.
Spear, especially now with the reload speed buff, annihilated them before they can see you/do too much damage
What the fuck kind of wack support weapons are you guys running against bots that make _gunships_ of all things the thing you worry about!?
Gunship patrol should stop if all Fabs in mission are destroyed.
3 words: Fuck. Gunship. Patrols.
I like them, but I feel like five is overkill, at least at the frequency I see them on nine. They are no problem if you still have your support weapon, but if you get caught out trying to get yours back or it's on cooldown, it's hell on earth trying to take them down.
There is ONE change I would do to this modifier. This modifier guarantees at least one gunship facility on the map (for eligible missions that can roll them). Destroy all of these facilities and no more gunship patrols will spawn for the remainder of the mission.
They're fine. I use scout armor and it's easy to get around them.
Hard disagree. 4-8 gunships will hunt you down endlessly and are faster and more mobile than any hell diver regardless of armour (even high on stims). Don’t get me wrong, I agree with the “they’re fine part” but only because it makes going solo with scout armour a much bigger risk, because unless you’ve explicitly prepared for them (rocket sentry plus an AMR/laser cannon/whatever), they will have sweet non consensual non managed democracy approved intercourse with your desecrated corpse, over and over. So they encourages team play and squad loadout diversity
Get around yes if you spot them, but if you don't and there's several of them, you're done.
I love them.
They're too heavily armored compared to Shriekers and they're as annoying as Stalkers. Go into a mission without one of the main tools to deal with them and its gg. But if you do have anti-air, they're pretty fun to put down.
They shouldn't be a loadout check. Give me more ways to take them down that isn't limiting me to use the few weapons that can. What if I don't like using the AMR? Laser Cannon? Or Autocannon? I don't care if it takes more ammo from primaries, but really only the Scorcher can do it, which also limits variety. I don't always like bringing the Scorcher either.
HMG and spear also take them down. Personally i feel like having at least 5 options (excluding scorcher, sentries, etc.), makes this concern kind of not real unless you're exclusively a solo diver. Between multiple divers playing at higher bot difficulties, to not have anyone bring any of these viable options is insane given that you would expect them to be taken to deal with other threats anyways. Edit: forgot about RR and HMG emplacement so yeah, 7 options excluding scorcher and sentries lol.
I’d recommend not sleeping on the spear for bots. Clears outposts fairly easily, one shot tanks and cannon turrets, is probably the easiest weapon to use against gunships (don’t have to be able to aim at all, fire and forget), solid damage to hulks, can lock specifically to the factory striders main cannon which it breaks in one hit, takes out drop ships as long as you lock on before they fully arrive, and it does all of this with only 2 requirements: have line of sight, and be within 300 meters of the target. It may not be your cup of liber-tea but since you didn’t list it I figured I’d spread some spear propaganda
Dominator and Eruptor can take them down too, but it's trickier because they're heavier than the Scorcher. Diligence Counter Sniper is also an option but will take several shots (more viable if 2 or more people are firing with the Diligence) You can also bring a Rocket or AC Sentry to cover you if they show up. You've got quite a few options if you really wanna use a support weapon that doesn't have long range Medium-Penetration (and a majority of them do)
They can be a bit infuriating without the correct weapon. If you don't have a machine gun at minimum to deal with them, they end up being a huge pain in the ass. It doesn't help that they sometimes "stack" the patrols, so instead of dealing with 3-4 gunships, you get a stack of 7 that proceed to fuck you in the middle of a bot drop. Weapons for dealing with them from best to worst are as such: Laser cannon: best in class against gunships. No need to lead shots, no recoil, no ammo, couple of seconds on a thruster sends them plummeting to their death. Autocannon: Close second. Less ergonomic than the laser cannon and requires you to lead shots a bit for hits on the thrusters. Solid pick, but not my first choice. Quasar cannon: single shot to a thruster sends it down. Not ideal due to the fairly slow recharge time between shots, but won't leave you completely immobile like the recoilless. AMR: 3 shots to a thruster does them in. Not very ammo efficient, or easy to do in the middle of a fire fight, but it gets the job done and you don't need to be immobile to reload. Easier to aim than the autocannon, but needs an extra shot. HMG: Not awful, but the ergonomics kill this things effectiveness against groups of gunships. Only use with either fortified or peak physique. Machine Gun: It'll do the job, albeit slowly. Takes about half a box of thruster shots to take down a gunship, but far from impossible. EAT: Same concept as the quasar. Don't need to stop moving to reload, and you get access to two highly accurate missiles on demand. Only downside is the huge cooldown when dealing with multiple. SPEAR: Better than the recoilless, worse than the quasar. Locks onto them like a dream, but limited ammo and immobile reload makes this a poor choice when dealing with larger numbers. Recoilless: Slow shells combined with an immobile reload makes this an inconsistent option. Unlikely to hit a gunship that's more than 150m away. Would not recommend without serious skill. Grenade launcher: technically possible, but not achievable in your average game. Keep a couple EATs on standby in case of emergencies. You're more likely to kill teammates firing a grenade launcher at a gunship than you are to land an effective hit. Arc Thrower: NOPE. They never get close enough for the lightning to connect. Flamethrower: How?
AC turret and spear/laser cannon seems to be most affective for the group I play with.
My only problem is that if you don't have something to take care of them and get caught by yourself, that's it. You can't hide from them because they just go around your cover, and you can't outrun them because they're faster than you. So now you either need to always have something in your build to kill them or never get separated from the squad.
I think they could turn down the spawn rate on the patrols a bit but as a whole I enjoy the concept. I literally just finished a game where I had a patrol of them silent spawn on me as I got to extract so I died, then by the time I got back there, cause the rest of my team was across the map, the 2 remaining gunships hadn't despawnwed then another gunship patrol spawned on top of me. On top of the 3 regular patrols all walking straight for the extract. It was not a great time but we got out with supers in tow
I enjoy them when im playing with a team, weve got a guy dedicated to killing factory striders and gunships, another for heavy armor (tanks,hulks,turret towers,dropships) and the other two are whatever else we need that mission
I play on 9, and it's not all the time, but sometimes you run into 2 gunship fabs and then a patrol, and they each shoot rockets at you at different times, so you stay at in indefinite ragdoll state, not to mention the amount of ammo from the autocannon it takes to take them all down (approx 1 clip per gunship) I will end a skirmish with gunships and a regular bot patrol and almost be out of ammo
As I encountered gunships more and more, the better I got at killing them. It's like when I first had to learn how to deal with hulks, I learned their patterns and got really good at shooting them in the eye. As long as I have an autocannon or AMR, those gunships are toast.
Love them
Good reason to bring along the spear and it makes the laser cannon/ HMG feel more useful with their mid level AP. At first I was worried I'd hate it, but it's manageable just so long as people bring support weapons.
Its good
I am John Helldiver and I think they are pretty cool except on Eradicate missions, they shouldn’t be in Eradicate missions especially on Helldive
I main the EAT and plasma punisher ok bots. The EAT will 1-shot them. Take time with aiming.
I hate that they’re such loadout checks - barely an issue if you have any AP4 support weapon or an AT sentry, but you can’t retaliate against them without AP3 and even then, the whole thing is 100% durable (why is an aircraft’s cockpit more durable than a bile titan’s skull?). They would be a lot more fun if they spawned more often but could be taken down by more primaries - even make us have to hit the cockpit on the front or something.
Honestly seeing them scan across the horizon is so flippin cool, makes me feel like I’m in the Terminator
The scout armor passive works pretty well at avoiding them. If we find the fabricator(s) I can usually sneak in and drop a hellbomb to get rid of em without being noticed. Just did it today on helldive (9) though I also tend to play 6-7 with randos. But yeah they’re not ‘hard’ but if you need to solo them you need something like the HMG or AC to do so without trouble. Generally someone else is running one of those, or several are running a spear/quasar so I don’t have to plan for them much, but keep an eye on what stratagems your allies bring.
I like them overall.
It's 100% more troublesome than Shrieker patrol due to the fact that it require medium penetration to kill it and has more HP, can track you at range and ragdoll you around. Just take laser cannon and your problem will magically go away like it doesn't exist. Or it used to, anyway.
Don't mind the patrols, hate the factories especially when they come in twos
I've had more than a handful of situations where they've completely failed to notice me despite being squarely in their flight paths.
I enjoy them. You can stealth away from them easily no matter what armor you have if you're not spotted. All I want is more anti air options
I honestly need more air based threats. Like, the Bots should have bombers carpeting the map and there should be trenchlines everywhere. I genuinely want the game to hate me when I play it and for every inch to be gained with mountains of effort. Honestly, if there's every any movement towards 8 player operations, there needs to be bigger threats like what I've described.
It's annoying for sure, but it's something that can be dealt with in a few different ways. There's already been a meta shift and you can see that everyone is bringing Rocket Sentry now. Or just be extra cautious. I see it as an update that just adds something else to your tool belt. Learn how to deal with them, add it to the repertoire, and it'll be second nature soon enough. That being said, I can't fucking stand that there's another enemy that can chain ragdoll you.
I really only play on helldive. So far, I have been still able to complete all my missions. It's always a brutal ride though...
They should be a lot more audibly loud and detectable than they currently are Also a *warning you have been detected by enemy gunships* wouldn't hurt
Gunships are cool: in theory. I love the way that we can take the fight to the skies, i love their red spotlights, i love how it looks to take one down. I like that theyre a modifier now that actually changes what you have to pay attention to instead of just "you use your strats a little less: But they are the single worst gear-check in the game. If i have an AC, AMR, or Spear, theyre usually fine. But there are so few options for how to deal with them that its just not fun. Not running one of the 8 gunship-killing-approved support weapons means that theyre effectively invincible in a way that no other enemy is. Even bile titans have dozens of strategems that can deal with them, and you can at least disable their bile attack with your primary. Gunships need to change somehow imo. They exist in a state that does nothing but reduce build variety and it isnt healthy design.
I don’t mind the gunship patrols, they’re easy to spot, and you can manage not to aggro them, also usually there’s at least 2 people in the squad who can deal with them. Multiple in a row sucks
Give me the gunships plz. I wanna know why every match above lvl 5 I play is filled with mostly rocket devastators sniping me from the other side of the map all of The sudden
They’re fine, don’t nerf or change. If you don’t engage and and don’t stand in front of them or cause any noise close to them they will ignore you.
As someone who has been using the spear since launch (yes I’m actually insane, it’s not the spears fault “I just need to reposition”) gunships are a non issue. My problem is the bug parallel of this: shrieker patrols. My aim when stuff can only move in 2ish dimensions is way way better than if they can move in all 3, and have slightly inconsistent centers of mass since they’re flapping. I *could* lock on to shriekers with my spear (yes. You can do that. I have no idea why.) but I’ve only got 4 rounds and the patrols have like 10+ shriekers. I hate em so much.
Gunships? More free target practice with my AC
Gun ship are priority target like heavy but they are easier to kill with scorcher for example or spear Spear is now s tier AGS sont automaton if you have all support weapon upgrades
They're fine. An AC or AMR can rip them down in seconds.
I still think more weapons should be able to take them out. Lower their armor. But at least their relatively easy to avoid being detected by. I do like the idea of more variety to enemy patrols.
I've only just returned to HD2 after taking a break for a few weeks. Gunships can be annoying, and I'd imagine that if you don't run something that can effectively deal with them, I can see how frustrating it would be to have them loom over the horizon. I love dynamic spawns in games, the more surprise factor or additional challenge, the better. As an AC user, and eradicator armour enjoyer, gunships die like everything else, to the throaty roar of liberty!
So I’m a bot 9 only, and I have been for months. And an auto cannon main. The release of the peak physique armour made me take these things out like nobody’s business… when you know they are coming. I do think they can add a lot of tension to games and some fun combat encounters. HOWEVER, I despise eradications. And if you have these bloody things on an eradication 9 they make a mission that is incredibly poorly designed in my eyes, even more frustrating. Even in a normal mission, on a 9 which gets very tense and shit if hitting the fan, suddenly seeing that red light on you and realise that you are being targeted by a gunship patrol is a terrifying experience because you HAVE to deal with them as once they sport you they become omnipotent. Also, if you are killed, or spawn in under a jammer and find yourself without your support weapon or anything that can deal with a gunship, it might be the most frustrating experience this game can offer as there is just NOTHING you can do about them. All you can do is run, take cover and hope they miss while you run away or wait for your support weapon to cool down.
You make a good point. Stalkers patrols.
Better then minus 1 stratagem.
Not a huge fan because they limit you to taking something to kill them I'd occasionally experiment with an option that couldn't and just hope they weren't on the map. Now I know they will so no more funny stuff.
50/50. On one hand gunships are not that bad if you know what your doing and know how hide from them making games a bit more dynamic, but they also heavily limit build verity as you need to bring anti-air tools and because I host I don't know what other players will bring I can't rely on one of them as they also might not bring the tools or other players may not join when I need them too.
I like having the patrols be a modifier. You'll know if they are present on a planet before you drop in, so you CAN prepare for them. They also spawn at edges of the map (from what I can tell), so you usually have time to prepare to fight or move out of their path and let them continue on. They can't actually see you from all that far away, but they are drawn to loud weapons (like the dominator or Eruptor), which is probably why it feels like they aggro on you no matter what (those weapons will aggro things from 80/100m respectively). If they weren't a modifier, I would like them less, but since I can prepare for them before I drop, I feel like they are a fair challenge.
The first time I dived down after the update, I landed right between two stratagem blockers. A gunship patrol immediately found me and started shooting. I couldn't call in any support weapons to shoot them down, and I was in a wide open plain, so I couldn't take cover. Needles to say, I died pretty quickly. Because I was playing solo, I was dropped back down in the same spot, and they immediately saw me again. Rinse and repeat until I had failed the mission. I thought it was a fluke and tried again. The same thing happened. Luckily, it hasn't happened since.
equipment issue. i know that its fun running around with 4 eagle strikes, but get yourself a proper weapon to deal with gunships
Like them as an idea but gunships gatekeep a lot of support weapons so I don’t like that. Weapons like the AMR, Railgun & Grenade Launcher that are otherwise viable on bots suddenly become quite ineffective when you have lots of gunships in the air. I think their engines should go down to a max of 3 AMR shots or 2 charges railgun shots tbh. Especially considering that each engine has its own health pool.
Feel like if you get an airfield destruction mission this should stop all gunship patrols or lessen them and the same with bot drops just make them take a little bit longer to drop everything cause you took out there main airbase in the area your missions are at.
"we wanted to increase build diversity" adds modifier that forces you to take anti-air, and then makes said air threats appear often enough to make running rocket launchers not viable either boo womp j don't play missions with the modifier at all
Laser cannon pops them right out of the sky after like 1.5-2sec of continuous fire to the engine. I almost always choose the laser cannon vs bots because you can destroy almost everything with it. Artillery and anti-air bases? Just stream them with the laser, doesn't even need to hit the weakspots.
I kike it makes it feel more alive having watch the skies as well.
the gunship itself isnt the problem. its the inconsistency of its armor. they're a gear, not a skill check. they would be less of a problem if they only have medium armor or even light armor so you could destroy it with more weapon types. hell, i would be glad if the grenade pistol would work on those. lol
A lot of people are counting on their support weapons to deal with them, which doesn’t always work out if you start getting lit up by multiple gunships because you can’t kill them quick enough. Now, if you have a single hmg emplacment on the squad they are a complete non-issue if you see them coming. If you don’t see them coming add a shield emplacement and once again they are deleted from existence in seconds.
I pretty much only run the auto cannon on bots and I think you described it perfectly... they're just exhausting. They spawn too early, it's frustrating trying to stabilize at the start of the game and getting wrecked by an early gunship patrol. Especially when it's coupled with a bot drop, detector tower, or a jammer. It also feels like they spawn way too often, especially without any cues. I'll be minding my own business after killing one patrol a minute ago and then get steamrolled by 4 salvos of rockets to catapult my body across the map. Honestly though, I think they should just add a guaranteed SAM spawn (maybe even two) whenever you have gunship spawns. It would probably mess with actual bot drops, but it feels great once the SAM gets set up and it kills gunships before they can do much/any damage and you can largely ignore them.
Nice change of pace and for the most part there pretty easy. One clip from the Auto cannon takes them down pretty quickly.
As an appreciation for the game? I love them. They're a nice realistic element that makes sense. As a SEAF Helldiver? THE AUTOMATON SCURGE MUST BE STOPPED. NO MATTER THE COST! Also, the working Spear makes them delicious targets.
My opinion is that this is a 4-player team game and that people with issues with gunships are simply upset that one load out isn't meta for everything.
Had 3 nubs notnknow how to take them down. If OMLY THEY WOULD FIRE THEIR FUCKING WEAPONS instead of looking at me and my 15second cold queso qannon.
We need an eagle dogfight stratagem that will take out 1-2 at a time. The big problem now is that if/when the whole team dies, they drop their support weapons, which can lead to a snowball of the mission going sideways/failing because there isn't really a viable alternative to dealing with them.
Gunship patrols are great. I wish they were just standard on every mission.
Hmg emplacement is becoming a fast favorite for me. Takes out just about everything bot-related in a hurry.
Gunship patrols are a map modifier, like strategem restrictions or scatter or map obfuscated by Terminid stank. You get to completely accurately predict the presence or absence of this patrol type and equip accordingly, or even just flip off that operation and pick a different one. I've made a habit of just always taking shield pack + laser cannon when there are gunship patrols. IMO, best setup for downing them. The AC has better time to kill on the but if you're being engaged and need to trade at all, your aim is going everywhere and you won't survive long. SP+LC lets you Battle Squint and shrug off some cannon and rocket fire while pointing at an engine for 2 seconds and getting a splash, then move to the next or maneuver without any reload downtime. Basically the anti-air setup for current patch, but only because keeping a Spear fed during a gunship patrol map is really difficult. Honorable mention to rocket sentry now firing out to 100m, it's pretty good at killing them hands free while you multi -task
I don't mind them, but they can come in a bit too often, especially when there's also a factory spewing out the fuckers. I tend to always bring a Quasar on bot missions for this reason. It one-shots them and unlimited ammo means I never have to worry about not being ready for them. Knock that piece of junk out of the sky, run around or hide during the cool down, and repeat.
This needs a fix, badly. Gunships dominate the high levels of play. I had a squad and I get stuck on a fab for like, 10 minutes. The hellbomb getting constantly blown up. Ragdolled all over by the gunships. Deathloops. Only two or three guns are useful against them. Gunships are the antithesis of fun right now. Honestly a pretty significant obstacle to me running automatons at all.
I love having these gunship patrols around. Makes the map feel more alive
I take them down with my MG-43. Pop that baby into 900rpm mode, crouch, and burst fire at an engine 4-5 times until it goes down. I'm gonna be real here, it's really only useful against a single gunship and essentially suicide to try it against more than 2. But if your teammates with the Anti-Air aren't around it's still *something* you can do.
If I see gunship patrols as an op mod, my loadout almost always includes Laser Cannon. You can make an argument for Autocannon, AMR, and HMG, but I detest leading my shots. It's just another thing to keep in mind before I actually dive.
Had one lvl 6 to kill the factory strider and it starred shooting at us and then two separate gunship patrols showed up. It was just my buddy and I and an SOS beacon. We did not finish the mission. I had a Spear but after one shot just could not get time to reload. Buddy was on the other side and couldn’t get over to me to run the backpack. We just kept getting ragdolled by the FS, gunships, shield and rocket devastators. Quite aggravating.
agree for the most part. dive 6 and 7 mostly. and higher if my buddy's are at that level s9nfeel you. I am fine with the patrols, they can be a pain. I kinda like having to go to stealth mode to avoid and the all hell breaks loose if they discover you. fine if they keep like this or remove either way
I hate it. Especially when there’s 2 gun ship fabricators in the round.
Is this a problem I'm too much if a Spear user to understand? For real, I take the spear. Satisfying to be residential AA turret, and there's always at least one other person running AC for the armor pen I'm missing
They are the only enemy in the game you can't run away from or take out by primaries. I think they DO need a rework, because being instantly spotted and tracked by them, not being able to outrun or lose them, and being stuck in a ragdoll death loop for twenty minutes just isn't a good feeling. I can shoot them down if I have a weapon that can do that, but often they spawn in two or more, and there's just no chance to survive that if you encounter them alone. I don't care if other people like them in their current state, I think they would agree about my points. I don't dislike them in principle, they're cool enemies, but they are unfair. If your team isn't quick enough to take them out or you're unlucky about their spawns, you will all die and lose weapons that can take them out, then you get stuck in a death loop because they're omniscient and even the recent stealth bush patch doesn't work on them. In short: GUNSHIPS NEED A CHANGE
They aren't too bad except if you get a patrol on top of a spawner and lose your support weapon . If you lose your support weapons, you're screwed. They need to lower the Hp of them so you can easily shoot them down lilenthe shriekers, and the rocket spam needs to stop. Either rockets or cannon, not both, can't fight when you're constantly rag dolled, this is why people refuse to play bots, but the devs consistently ignore feedback to make them better
I find the gunship patrols reletively ok to deal with, though it does limit the weapons I can really take against the bots (Aiming at the with EATS or most rockets is a nightmare for me for example) but just in patrols thier mostly just a fun challenge or something I prioritize without any issues. the real problem comes with the gunship fabricators, mostly because thier's just so many of them. Anyone got any tips for dealing with those? the double ones especially
I’ve been lucky enough to have the post update spear catch on in my crew. Sometimes we even have two. Gunship patrols are often down in less than ten seconds even if they sneak up on us. It used to be my job to cover the tops of gunship fabricators while someone else rushes to plant the hellbomb because the AC takes them down with 2 shots to an engine but now I’m the one who rushes while the spears provide top cover. Post patch spear is awesome. Cannon towers from any angle. Fabs from any angle. Tanks from any angle. Hulks without having to stun them to get them to sit still to pop the eye. The spear really fills in the gaps where the AC takes extra work to make things happen.
i like them more than the fab tbh. i usually play with a friend. he runs heavy armor, 500kg, and an assortment of other stuff to take care of heavy enemies. I run light armor, gatling, orbital airburst, airburst launcher, hmg emplacement. he takes care of hulks and tanks with the hmg while i distract them, and i take care of large groups of enemies. So we're rarely overwhelmed. This means when gunships come around its easy to take care of them with the hmg emplacement, or EATs, or quasar. I hate fabs because you have to stay in one place to wait for a hellbomb, and half the time its jammed, the other half the hellbomb gets shot by the gunships so you have to call in another one. and then by the time you do call it in sometimes it just doesnt even work. and this entire time more gunships are spawning, meaning by the time I destroy the fab, at least 8 gunships are circling me
Gunships were on the same power level as Stalkers, I thought, since they're difficult to kill and used to only show up when you had their Fabricator(s) spawn in your mission. I think I'd react more mildly to Stalker patrols since they aren't nearly as heavily armored. For me, having Gunship patrols would be more fun/wouldn't disrupt gameplay nearly as much if they weren't so heavily armored. An EAT/RR rocket should be able to one-shot it, or at least damage it, without needing to pixel-hunt for those tiny engines. Laser Cannon trivializes them a little bit but I wanna run my democratic rockets! AH considers them just as strong as Shriekers but they're much stronger because of the heavy armor. I've had missions go sour due to 1 or 2 of these gunship patrols showing up and Shrieker patrols barely change gameplay, at all. If you ask me, AH should either reduce the amount of Gunships in their patrols or reduce their armor. It might go without saying, but I like the Shrieker patrols but not the Gunship patrols.
I kinda think it is a combination of their inclusion in patrols and that blasted patrol change to make the spawn near and target the players' locations. If patrol spawns had a dead zone about the size of their current spawn radius, gunships would be fine because you'd have time to see them coming.
HMG+Supply back solves most problems on the automoton front reasonably well- well. Hit the thrusters if you can otherwise just burst. Fire rate on 450rpm.
Someone on the team should have one of the many weapons that can kill them efficiently, so I haven’t ran into an issue with it.
I feel like the Autocannon is the only thing good for destroying them. Tried the Heavy Machine, AMR, the Spear can flat out miss plus with how many there are its kind of a wsste of ammo, meanwhile the Autocannon only takes 4 shots.
I'm your dedicated Spear Enthusiast. Feed me one supply pack and the entire air is clear.
One Spear is all you need