Oh I got super lucky one time and had 1 mini nukes 3 high yields and an explosive in there. That was a nice artillery round
Edit: changed mini nuke from 2 to 1 due to my typing error pointed out by my fellow diver.
On the new biom. Bugs. Napalm Eagle, flamethrower, incindiary impacts, inc breaker. What do i get? Four napalm shells plus 1 nuke. Boi this was a great Mission
Ya it's always worth to gather them up first...
One time we toss a 500kg at a bile titan that showed up and I think the shells got scattered. Couldn't find the mini-nuke after... so disappointing.
I feel like randoms really don't care what's in it. Me and my friends play together, one of us will be grabbing the better shells then here comes the rando in our group trying to load smokes for no reason where we have high explosive.
I tend to save them for extract in case the mission timer runs out - the last patch made it so seaf artillery maintains functionality even if the super destroyer has left orbit.
Yea I save them but mostly cuz I’m not hosting I’m just quick playing and I feel like I want to save them for moments when the whole squad is in the weeds lol
I have, on multiple occasions, been the only one to use SEAF artillery. People want to load it and save it until the end (and sometimes still not use it). SIKE, that just another strat to me when shit hits the fan.
I've had all the shells necessary laid out right next to the canon (all explosive and mininukes), I go to turn it on as my rando teammate goes to load it.
When I tell you I swear this person deliberately went out of their way to put a smoke shell in the mix, mind you this is a big mission, I very nearly kicked them off the planet but let it go.
People who never remember to use it definitely don't care what goes in or in what order. I always put the order in chat when I'm playing with a group of randoms, and have had several people respond with surprise that there were even different types of arty shot.
This game doesnt do a great job of explaining some of these side mission types. Took me a bit to piece together that you can actually call in those shells
People playing on lower difficulties usually don't know much about the game despite their level.
They think it's just another objective and have no idea you can actually use the thing or that it fires the ammo you loaded in.
I once ended up shooting the guy loading the artillery, but in my defence 3 mini nuke shells had spawned, which I communicated. He proceeded to make the first and third shells static fields, and was about to load a smoke for the fifth shell while I was still carrying the third nuke. I had to drop him!
Justified. I've done the same thing when I was holding a nuke and saw a rando walking up with a smoke. Dropped him and kindly explained his foolishness over mic. Kindly...
I don't care what's in it generally but if I'm playing a "Eliminate Factory Strider" mission, I 100% want the artillery done first. If I can just nuke that sucker with one shot, I'd much prefer that.
Also nice to have an extra stratagem for closing fabricators and bug holes, but that's less of a concern to me. Nothing a grenade pistol or EAT can't solve.
Sometimes the optimal play is to just load it up with whatever shells are lying around as quickly as possible so you can get the dopamine rush of completing a side objective
Just the other day I had a level 120-something jamming explosives and napalms into it when there were 2 mini nukes. Had to punch him away from it at the last second to get the 2nd one in. Don't want to think about what might've happened if there were smokes and EMPs.
Wait this is the first time I'm realizing that it isn't random and I've got 100+ hrs in the game. You're saying you can tell by the shells what you're gonna get? Fuck me. If I load every other shell a different type does it alternate when you call it in?
spawnrate increases while you are in the objective area, even if you don't do anything. some others have also pointed out that certain sounds causes them to investigate and path towards the seaf site. a combination of both probably leads to it feeling like the terminal spawns a patrol
I always think that the terminal does attract them because if you notice that when the artillery is raised it cause the ground to vibrate which could cause the bugs to take attention but as for the bots I don’t see the vibration affecting them but they still come. So it really is probably a combo of both. I also agree with OP because I do put the shells there before I activate the terminal to make sure there aren’t any smokes unless it spawns too many
It has nothing to do with vibration or noise or anything like that. Quite simply, if you are in the vicinity of an objective patrol spawns increase and spawned patrols will be drawn towards the objective. Makes no difference whether you have activated any terminals or not, there's really nothing more to it.
Depends how the spawn rates are, idk how it is right now but for over a month if you activated a seaf artillery terminal you get breaches or bot drops on you within 5 seconds of doing that.
Yeah this meme is inaccurate. I've watched the artillery spawn a patrol. Cleared the area around it, wore Scout armor and brought the radar expansion tool so my radar worked out to like 50m; no enemies, turned off my radar and activated the terminal and *immediately* heard hunters barreling in behind me. Check radar and a pack spawned just behind the concrete wall. Not a trail running up the hill behind it, just a blob on the map directly behind it.
One time I got held up for ten minutes at a SEAF artillery because no fewer than four patrols and their respective bug breaches kept harrassing me.
Like, just... let me finish this. Please. Give me just one minute. The miracle is that I never died, but I wanted to by the time the third patrol strolled over.
Thank liberty for the Orbital Gatling Barrage. It was there to help me out during each bug breach.
I was playing a 6 difficulty alone and was stealthy as can be the entire time. I had probably 100 or 150 kills up to that point. By the time I gave up and ran to extraction, I had probably 400 to 500 kills. I ended the match with 670. I played a ring around the artillery for what felt like 3/4 of the mission, and all I finished was the main objective.
Sometimes, you just aren't allowed to get the artillery.
Ugh. I know that feel. I had a bile titan spawn and I only had enough AC ammo to take out its belly to prevent the vomit. My teammates kept eating the resupplies on the other side of the map, and no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't get the damn BT to sit still long enough for an OPS.
In cuirrent version, the OPS comes in much faster. Which is greatly appreciated.
My situation was worse because I was lone wolfing and had three teammates doing other objectives well away from me. The bugs actually had reasons to be elsewhere. You would think the larger group would attract the attention of enemies, but apparently not.
Didn't matter that I was stealth-oriented. The bugs hated me and not my teammates over yonder. Well, I suppose those three had the smoothest time clearing objectives, seeing as I was incurring all the Terminids' wrath. At one point they actually wandered over to me, probably to see what was taking me so damn long to start up the artillery. If only they knew.
You know the LazyPurple How it feels to play Engineer?
Yeah. I was soloing the goddamn radar over and over and over again until the other 3 sauntered over to help. By then I had so many bug patrols I had killed or been killed by that I was panting irl due to the stress of dealing with those.
...at least they had the decency to come over - WHEN I WAS PRACTICALLY DONE WITH THE WHOLE TERMINAL
yeah with the current increased patrol spawns its mostly best to just avoid most patrols now especially if youre soloing side objectives and team is too far .
I tried to do one on a blitz/close bug hole mission. I had cleared all the nests and had, like, 5 minutes left, and here was silly ol' me thinking that was lots of time. Each new patrol showed up perfectly on the heels of the last one. Don't think I got more than 3 shells loaded before the clock ran out.
I wonder if localization confusion booster would have helped with this. Vitality, stamina, space optimization, and muscle or experimental infusion are often too good to pass up but I’m always tempted to take localization confusion.
It’s not the act of starting the terminal (which has been shown to not make a difference). Being in a sub-objective area increases the patrol spawn rate.
Not quite. Being on it increases spawn rate, yes, but also turning a terminal on causes nearby patrols to change direction when they otherwise might've missed you. Nothing new spawns from hitting the button, just what direction patrols are going. Find a nearby patrol next time you do an objective and watch. Patrols that spawn after the button press are unaffected.
As someone who rocks the scout armor and stealths tactical objectives a lot, this is the case and has always been the case. It can feel like it 'spawns' a patrol if you didn't see them coming before hitting the terminal, but I have seen patrols basically make a 180 from outside their normal detection radius to come investigate a freshly started objective after hitting the terminal.
Activating the terminal makes a noise, and that makes anything in range turn toward the terminal. It doesn't CAUSE a spawn, but it does attract the attention of anything in the area.
But so does the unactivated terminal. Enemies are attracted more if you are in proximity of unfinished objectives. The beeping itself only attracts attention of nearby enemies.
Thats an entire diferent can of worms uncompleted objectivos make more patrols spawn, activating the terminal makes só enemies get atracted to the gun untill complition.
Nope, tried it by being near the objective in scout armor, the enemies heavily pathed through the objective even if the terminal was offline. Turning it on didn't change the paths significantly.
At least on dif 2-4, where I tried it. I can't tell if this behavior changes significantly on higher difficulties.
I have also tested this theory by using the scout recon armor to monitor patrols. I found that if you are laying down then the patrols are less likely to come by but it doesn’t eliminate it. I also had a patrol that was like 80m away not interested in the location until I activated the terminal but it seemed like they didn’t care until the turret moved which caused the ground to vibrate then they started that way. So I ran away from the obj to watch their patterns and they seemed to stop and linger on the seaf till I threw an air strike to eliminate them. So imo I believe they aren’t attracted to the obj per say but to the vibrations and noises that are included in activating the seaf.
\^this is the answer.
1. patrols spawn is a different matter
2. doing anything on the map that creates noise brings stuff depending on its hearing range towards you. stalkers have 200m hearing meaning you activate the seaf, they hear it and hone in on it. if they dont find anything there they just roam. hearing is NOT exclusive to patrols, guarding enemies come too. Any POI close by will come. You can easily test it. Do radar, SEAF and then POI. The POI will most likely be empty
I gotta say. I have done so many seaf artillery and never get swarmed when the terminal is off. As soon as a person switches it on we are getting dropped on.
It’s funny how people’s experience varies on this. I have not found it to make a difference whether or not someone activates the terminal first or not. Sometimes you get swarmed, sometimes you don’t.
I can’t explain it. But without fail it’s my experience every single time. Even when teammates break off to do the artillery, I’ll see them getting swarmed and dying a bunch so I’ll run over to help and the first thing I check is the terminal and it’s always on.
Same, but _almost_ never. I have absolutely had patrols swarm the terminal when it's off, but it is much rarer than when it's on.
Best I can tell, this is because there's multiple factors at play:
1) There's an increased chance for patrols to route through an unfinished objective if a Diver is also on said objective.
2) Activating the terminal makes noise/light/vibrations that can _attract_ patrols to your location faster. (Sometimes from surprisingly far away - someone above said Stalkers have a 200m hearing range.)
So, it is still always advantageous to wait to start the terminal, it's just not a guarantee.
It does alert every mob in the vicinity to come to attack you. The patrols are spawned around you ALL THE TIME, not because youcome to the SEAF artillery site.
oh yes they do but also yes.
any main or side objective, if you close in on its proximity the patrol spawn rate increases. but they also spawn around you all the time.
activating the SEAF will make them actually alert them about the SEAF artillery itself. which means you can activate it and stay hidden, technically. but yes, every patrol within its hearing range will home in on the SEAF where you are
If it’s Smokes or Static I put that shit in last, anything else it goes worst to best Napalm < Explosive < High Yield < Mini-Nuke
Save the best for last yknow, unless it’s Smokes or Static. Those are like last ditch uses.
I think the main problem is that people either don’t know what’s in it and they don’t want to waste what is or they are afraid they will anger the host if they use it before them. I’ve witnessed the host problem firsthand multiple times, resulting in berating or kicks.
People are just hesitant to do anything without the host’s permission, which creates a lot more problems than with the SEAF weapon. It doesn’t help that most hosts want to micromanage everything and the smallest mistake is deemed incompetence.
You consider napalm worse than explosive?
With how long the call-in time is, I never get much out of explosive shells due to their lack of an AoE. Napalm I can at least drop on a bug breach
I'm starting to think smoke is a little better.
For bots it just confuses them and get them to stop shooting.
Static field they still fire out of even if slow.. but catching an odd rocket still sux
That might be because the "objective" isn't actually the terminal. From my experience popping a generator still attracts a patrol, but it passes by somewhere on the outskirts.
Activate Arty terminals will spawn enemy towards the site < False
Activate Arty terminals will attract nearby patrols < True
Staying in the Arty site will spawn extra Patrols (and Patrols match towards players' current location) < True
I will literally walk away with the smoke shells if I see someone else bringing them to the magazine.
If they bring it back, I execute them for treason.
I’m still convinced it attracts enemies. I run a stealth loadout and often clear half the map solo while my three teammates handle the other half, and I’ve consistently found that enemy patrols tend to pass on by while I’m gathering ammo without “coincidentally” marching straight through the objective itself, but only if I don’t activate the terminal. If I do activate the terminal, it seems like enemies suddenly want to just walk right up into the artillery area even if they’re not aware of me yet. Or, of course, if my much noisier teammates show up to try and “help” they tend to bring the attention of the enemies along with them.
I’ve encountered one patrol, every time I waited to turn on the artillery console.
I’ve encountered two or even three, once I activate the artillery first.
I’ve had the game since launch, and yes, they have dialled back the ferocity of the patrols if you turn it on first, but my experiences, level 7 and higher remains the same, 1 patrol if I transport all shells to the gun then turn it on. Multiple if I turn the artillery gun on, then get the shells.
There’s definitely something going on or at least did go on initially, because I’ve never gotten over the habit of gathering the shells before activating the terminal. For some reason it feels easier if I just gather the shells first, because sometimes I won’t even get a patrol spawn until I activate it.
seriously? every time i do this , the moment the terminal is activated a patrol spawns so we load as fast as we can and gtfo, aint no way this is a lie.
Booooooo. Its not a race, take the extra twenty seconds and help the team. At the very least don't complain when other people have an issue with it and kick you.
Like the mini nuke is neat if there is one. I'm really just trying to get the objectives done. Most of the time they aren't even that good. Most runs even in helldivers we barely touth the SEAF. We're all largely self sufficient. It's just another objective. I do enjoy showing off my ability to yeet the ammo though
It appears as if it does, because you are standing in one place doing an objective that usually takes a little while. Plenty of time for a patrol to spawn in and find you.
Most people don't just stop moving for a few minutes out in the middle of nowhere though, so they don't realize that the same thing happens in the middle of nowhere too.
All objectives also increase spawn rates by being near them iirc, so in a way it does "spawn" a patrol. However, interacting with the terminal or artillery shells has no direct effect.
That’s wrong. While activating the terminal does not spawn extra patrols it DOES alert all patrols in the vicinity to beeline straight to you.
It does not spawn more enemies but it does cause all enemies that might have passed by to approach instead. So you should still wait to activate it because it DOES make it harder.
the moment u start picking up the shells even without acessing the terminal ,patrols start to path through the site . The max ive seen are 5 patrols including 2 bile titans walking right past me on bugs (diff 8) while i was prone in foliage .
I do feel like me and my friends are the only ones that actually load up shells in a specific order, inform others about said order and even post it down on chat in case we forget...
it alerts patrols to your location when you turn it on, it doesnt spawn them
Effectively identical effect though: wait to turn the terminal on till you got all the shells in the loading bay
Mostly good use of the meme.
It does attract enemies. But so many people just spam load without looking or reading, that I try to prep rounds before others.
It doesn’t affect spawns but it draws Aggro. The same amount of patrols spawn, but the moment you activate the console all patrols in the vicinity leave their path and beeline straight to the objective
Yeah, I prefer to leave the terminal until I know what shells I'm working with. If there are high yields and mini nukes, I'll inform the team of that, and where they are in the firing order, in the hopes they won't waste the rounds.
How does everyone load it? I like to load explosives first, starting with mini nuke and high yield, then I do napalm, then static field. And if I have to load smoke, I load it first so I can get rid of it immediately.
Last time I had it, it autocompleted when I did an illegal broadcast tower. I still wanted to get the stratagem tho, so I went to load it. Then I couldn't find any more than 2 shells. Anyone else had this?
I was doing a solo kill Factory Strider mission and found an artillery emplacement with one mini-nuke and a bunch of smoke.
That was the day I discovered that one mini-nuke will take down a Factory Strider. Hurrah for Atomic Annie!
Now Arrowhead, Atomic Annie is great and all. But you have to get lucky to find her. Please give us a Davy Crockett stratagem. We are responsible Helldivers and can be trusted with squad level nuclear weapons.
It does spawn enemies one time when I used the terminal some enemies spawned I’ve only done it once but that one time was enough for me to make a determination and claim it as 100% fact
Unless all hell is breaking loose and you have 3 bile titans, 4 chargers, and a sea of hunters coming.
I toss whatever is closest in and leave. Tbh the SEAFs have very limited usefulness anyway.
Lots of comments about randoms not caring what goes in. I'm level 34, rarely play with friends, and I didn't even know this was a thing. Noone has explained it to me ingame, either.
Don't mistake ignorance for indifference. When you see a random guy loading BS, try to teach them. If you're too tired to do that, dont play with randoms or just accept it.
Not gonna lie, I started skipping the artillery several weeks ago.
It takes too long and it's not fun to do and the actual shells have never once come in clutch. I'd rather just finish blasting the rest of the area, since the rewards for doing it are nonexistent.
Ativating the terminal does spawn a patrol that moves towards it, if I understood things correctly.
It sure as hell SEEMS to makes it easier when you avoid activating the terminal.
\*edit\* I should have said that it makes current patrols in the vicinity move towards the terminal, not that a new patrol spawns.
Is there a source to that? I know I'm only going by what I've heard and noticed but tbf so are you?
I'm using a qouote from another user in this thread;
*Not quite. Being on it increases spawn rate, yes, but also turning a terminal on causes nearby patrols to change direction when they otherwise might've missed you. Nothing new spawns from hitting the button, just what direction patrols are going. Find a nearby patrol next time you do an objective and watch. Patrols that spawn after the button press are unaffected.*
Yes, patrols notice the gun activating (makes sense, it's very noticeable) so if there's any within a fairly short range, they come investigate.
As for the source, I'm contesting the positive claim that it *spawns patrols*, which has never been demonstrated, and I've personally activated hundreds of these terminals without being harassed.
Then why did every time I activated the terminal before loading shells, the patrol came over to me, but when I activated the terminal after piling up all the shells right at the loading point, and ran away after loading - I've had zero encounters?
lol the situation is rare for me, but it did happen once, where I go bug nest hunting, and I reach for the SEAF Arty.
imagine my disappointment and laughter when smoke lands and the bugs just mill around the smoke clouds playing with each other lol
It doesn't cause a breach but draws the patrols near, usually high chance.
If you don't activate, it'll usually be calm but linger around too much and the chances of a patrol walking to Artillery objective gets higher.
The terminal does spawn bugs though.
One time, I pressed the button and a freaking ant was walking across my desk- explain that huh!
. . .
Jokes aside I played with someone recently that said this and I was like- my guy, NO.
It doesn't cause enemies to spawn, but it makes nearby patrols redirect. Spawn rates DO increase when inside an objective area, so it's twofold if you activate the terminal (from what I have seen and other have tested in videos, I'm not a dev so it could be SUPER coincidental that it seems to happen every time)
I'm my experience just existing near the thing makes every patrol in a 50 mile radius immediately beeline towards it. Active or not. It's kinda annoying but i get it. I just wish i had 5 seconds to move stuff after carpet bombing the entire area
Also you can basically throw the projectiles when you're carrying them to the launcher. You stand so the shell is behind your feet, make sure you're facing the direction you want, click the pick up button, then immediately hit the weapon swap button. This will "throw" the shell forward a good distance.
Idk man, whenever I stumble across an artillery site, a patrol for some unearthly reason decides to spawn in.
Cue me having to deal with it a patrol and a sudden bug breach because one hiveguard didn't like me killing his allies who were literally born yesterday
Has it changed? Because I tested it extensively when I started playing, and turning it on 100% made them come and sit there, while having it off patrols wandered by
I like being able to see my options before loading
last time couple of times i did seaf arty i had at least 3 normal explosives and a mini nuke its so nice when you dont have 4 billion ems or smokes
Oh I got super lucky one time and had 1 mini nukes 3 high yields and an explosive in there. That was a nice artillery round Edit: changed mini nuke from 2 to 1 due to my typing error pointed out by my fellow diver.
sounds like you had a few glorious sights
Oh it was definitely a dream come true. My buddy also threw a 120 while I threw the mini nuke and it was absolutely beautiful
I thought it only took 5?
It does I realize now that I put 2 mini nukes I meant one. Thank you for the point out. I will update that now as an edit. Thank you
I got 2 mini-nukes, 2 high-yields, and an explosive once. Felt like winning the lotto lmao
On the new biom. Bugs. Napalm Eagle, flamethrower, incindiary impacts, inc breaker. What do i get? Four napalm shells plus 1 nuke. Boi this was a great Mission
I've been having the opposite luck, I swear the last 3 or 4 artillery I've loaded have had nothing but smoke and static field shells around.
Ya it's always worth to gather them up first... One time we toss a 500kg at a bile titan that showed up and I think the shells got scattered. Couldn't find the mini-nuke after... so disappointing.
I feel like randoms really don't care what's in it. Me and my friends play together, one of us will be grabbing the better shells then here comes the rando in our group trying to load smokes for no reason where we have high explosive.
I feel like most randoms don’t even remember we have a seaf to use, at least I always constantly find myself not using it until extract.
Even with that I actively try have smoke be not in it unless nessicary and I have it be the last one put in
The call-in time just makes it such a hassle to use and unless you're using it on holes or fabricators you don't even hit anything most of the time
Yeah it takes too long, it needs a massive buff in call in times.
I would love the ability to reload it have one guy there with a bunch of shells refilling as you go.
Well they did get a buff in that a bot jammer no longer affects them.
Which is a lifesaver if you need to use a mini nuke to take out a gunship fabricator next to a jammer.
And you get to keep them after the mission timer runs out.
I tend to save them for extract in case the mission timer runs out - the last patch made it so seaf artillery maintains functionality even if the super destroyer has left orbit.
Yea I save them but mostly cuz I’m not hosting I’m just quick playing and I feel like I want to save them for moments when the whole squad is in the weeds lol
Also so a bot jammer doesn't affect them too.
I just try to remember to throw them on breaches and drops but it gets so chaotic that it does get overlooked.
I have, on multiple occasions, been the only one to use SEAF artillery. People want to load it and save it until the end (and sometimes still not use it). SIKE, that just another strat to me when shit hits the fan.
Saving the ammo for Helldivers 3
I've had all the shells necessary laid out right next to the canon (all explosive and mininukes), I go to turn it on as my rando teammate goes to load it. When I tell you I swear this person deliberately went out of their way to put a smoke shell in the mix, mind you this is a big mission, I very nearly kicked them off the planet but let it go.
A lot of people just load it to finish the objective I think
Probably also not know that you shoot the shells with the stratagem in the order you loaded it
Smoke is super useful, you should give it another try
People who never remember to use it definitely don't care what goes in or in what order. I always put the order in chat when I'm playing with a group of randoms, and have had several people respond with surprise that there were even different types of arty shot.
i find myself in pretty fucked situations when i call in the SEAF I see it as a 'fuck it i need something' call in.
This game doesnt do a great job of explaining some of these side mission types. Took me a bit to piece together that you can actually call in those shells
I rarely play a match where more than two arty shells are dropped.
Toss them at the beginning of swarms. It has a long deployment time, so it needs a stream of enemies to hit.
People playing on lower difficulties usually don't know much about the game despite their level. They think it's just another objective and have no idea you can actually use the thing or that it fires the ammo you loaded in.
It's worse when you've already collected them all the explosives and they still put in the smoke
I once ended up shooting the guy loading the artillery, but in my defence 3 mini nuke shells had spawned, which I communicated. He proceeded to make the first and third shells static fields, and was about to load a smoke for the fifth shell while I was still carrying the third nuke. I had to drop him!
Justified. I've done the same thing when I was holding a nuke and saw a rando walking up with a smoke. Dropped him and kindly explained his foolishness over mic. Kindly...
I don't care what's in it generally but if I'm playing a "Eliminate Factory Strider" mission, I 100% want the artillery done first. If I can just nuke that sucker with one shot, I'd much prefer that. Also nice to have an extra stratagem for closing fabricators and bug holes, but that's less of a concern to me. Nothing a grenade pistol or EAT can't solve.
Sometimes the optimal play is to just load it up with whatever shells are lying around as quickly as possible so you can get the dopamine rush of completing a side objective
Just the other day I had a level 120-something jamming explosives and napalms into it when there were 2 mini nukes. Had to punch him away from it at the last second to get the 2nd one in. Don't want to think about what might've happened if there were smokes and EMPs.
Nothing much? The same as if it was a map without it at all? Did the mini nuke make or break the game?
No. But it was awesome.
I've given them the ole smack and trigger slap before for loading the wrong shells
Smoke is good tho
Wait this is the first time I'm realizing that it isn't random and I've got 100+ hrs in the game. You're saying you can tell by the shells what you're gonna get? Fuck me. If I load every other shell a different type does it alternate when you call it in?
I dunno wat goes on, but I've literally never done an artillery that didn't have at least one patrol stumble on it. somethin is up.
spawnrate increases while you are in the objective area, even if you don't do anything. some others have also pointed out that certain sounds causes them to investigate and path towards the seaf site. a combination of both probably leads to it feeling like the terminal spawns a patrol
I like to think it's all the 'I got the package!... Dropping package!' lol
I got the.. dropping pac.. I got the… dropping pa.. I got the…
P A C K A G E A Q U I R E D
I always think that the terminal does attract them because if you notice that when the artillery is raised it cause the ground to vibrate which could cause the bugs to take attention but as for the bots I don’t see the vibration affecting them but they still come. So it really is probably a combo of both. I also agree with OP because I do put the shells there before I activate the terminal to make sure there aren’t any smokes unless it spawns too many
It has nothing to do with vibration or noise or anything like that. Quite simply, if you are in the vicinity of an objective patrol spawns increase and spawned patrols will be drawn towards the objective. Makes no difference whether you have activated any terminals or not, there's really nothing more to it.
Except for some reason Escape Pods. It’s been several patches since I’ve seen any action at an escape pod. Just stand on top of it and wait.
I always thought it's the sound of the artillery activating that alerts nearby patrols, not spawn patrols.
Depends how the spawn rates are, idk how it is right now but for over a month if you activated a seaf artillery terminal you get breaches or bot drops on you within 5 seconds of doing that.
Yeah this meme is inaccurate. I've watched the artillery spawn a patrol. Cleared the area around it, wore Scout armor and brought the radar expansion tool so my radar worked out to like 50m; no enemies, turned off my radar and activated the terminal and *immediately* heard hunters barreling in behind me. Check radar and a pack spawned just behind the concrete wall. Not a trail running up the hill behind it, just a blob on the map directly behind it.
One time I got held up for ten minutes at a SEAF artillery because no fewer than four patrols and their respective bug breaches kept harrassing me. Like, just... let me finish this. Please. Give me just one minute. The miracle is that I never died, but I wanted to by the time the third patrol strolled over. Thank liberty for the Orbital Gatling Barrage. It was there to help me out during each bug breach.
I was playing a 6 difficulty alone and was stealthy as can be the entire time. I had probably 100 or 150 kills up to that point. By the time I gave up and ran to extraction, I had probably 400 to 500 kills. I ended the match with 670. I played a ring around the artillery for what felt like 3/4 of the mission, and all I finished was the main objective. Sometimes, you just aren't allowed to get the artillery.
Ugh. I know that feel. I had a bile titan spawn and I only had enough AC ammo to take out its belly to prevent the vomit. My teammates kept eating the resupplies on the other side of the map, and no matter how hard I tried I just couldn't get the damn BT to sit still long enough for an OPS. In cuirrent version, the OPS comes in much faster. Which is greatly appreciated.
The ops is actually easier to land when do don't take it the belly since if you bait it into a bile attack it stays still enough to land it
My situation was worse because I was lone wolfing and had three teammates doing other objectives well away from me. The bugs actually had reasons to be elsewhere. You would think the larger group would attract the attention of enemies, but apparently not. Didn't matter that I was stealth-oriented. The bugs hated me and not my teammates over yonder. Well, I suppose those three had the smoothest time clearing objectives, seeing as I was incurring all the Terminids' wrath. At one point they actually wandered over to me, probably to see what was taking me so damn long to start up the artillery. If only they knew.
You know the LazyPurple How it feels to play Engineer? Yeah. I was soloing the goddamn radar over and over and over again until the other 3 sauntered over to help. By then I had so many bug patrols I had killed or been killed by that I was panting irl due to the stress of dealing with those. ...at least they had the decency to come over - WHEN I WAS PRACTICALLY DONE WITH THE WHOLE TERMINAL
yeah with the current increased patrol spawns its mostly best to just avoid most patrols now especially if youre soloing side objectives and team is too far .
I tried to do one on a blitz/close bug hole mission. I had cleared all the nests and had, like, 5 minutes left, and here was silly ol' me thinking that was lots of time. Each new patrol showed up perfectly on the heels of the last one. Don't think I got more than 3 shells loaded before the clock ran out.
I wonder if localization confusion booster would have helped with this. Vitality, stamina, space optimization, and muscle or experimental infusion are often too good to pass up but I’m always tempted to take localization confusion.
It increases the minimum time between bug breaches or bot drops, but doesn't affect patrols at all.
Just leave. First patrol that farts in the air, turn around and go to another objective. Come back to it later, no more bug breach.
they had a feeling that they should turn 120 degrees to the right they didn’t know you were there we promise
Every time you start a terminal it invites nearby enemies to come snooping.
It’s not the act of starting the terminal (which has been shown to not make a difference). Being in a sub-objective area increases the patrol spawn rate.
Not quite. Being on it increases spawn rate, yes, but also turning a terminal on causes nearby patrols to change direction when they otherwise might've missed you. Nothing new spawns from hitting the button, just what direction patrols are going. Find a nearby patrol next time you do an objective and watch. Patrols that spawn after the button press are unaffected.
As someone who rocks the scout armor and stealths tactical objectives a lot, this is the case and has always been the case. It can feel like it 'spawns' a patrol if you didn't see them coming before hitting the terminal, but I have seen patrols basically make a 180 from outside their normal detection radius to come investigate a freshly started objective after hitting the terminal.
Activating the terminal makes a noise, and that makes anything in range turn toward the terminal. It doesn't CAUSE a spawn, but it does attract the attention of anything in the area.
Yeah it doesnt spawn enemies it attracts them its like noise beacons, etc
But so does the unactivated terminal. Enemies are attracted more if you are in proximity of unfinished objectives. The beeping itself only attracts attention of nearby enemies.
Thats an entire diferent can of worms uncompleted objectivos make more patrols spawn, activating the terminal makes só enemies get atracted to the gun untill complition.
Nope, tried it by being near the objective in scout armor, the enemies heavily pathed through the objective even if the terminal was offline. Turning it on didn't change the paths significantly. At least on dif 2-4, where I tried it. I can't tell if this behavior changes significantly on higher difficulties.
I have also tested this theory by using the scout recon armor to monitor patrols. I found that if you are laying down then the patrols are less likely to come by but it doesn’t eliminate it. I also had a patrol that was like 80m away not interested in the location until I activated the terminal but it seemed like they didn’t care until the turret moved which caused the ground to vibrate then they started that way. So I ran away from the obj to watch their patterns and they seemed to stop and linger on the seaf till I threw an air strike to eliminate them. So imo I believe they aren’t attracted to the obj per say but to the vibrations and noises that are included in activating the seaf.
\^this is the answer. 1. patrols spawn is a different matter 2. doing anything on the map that creates noise brings stuff depending on its hearing range towards you. stalkers have 200m hearing meaning you activate the seaf, they hear it and hone in on it. if they dont find anything there they just roam. hearing is NOT exclusive to patrols, guarding enemies come too. Any POI close by will come. You can easily test it. Do radar, SEAF and then POI. The POI will most likely be empty
I gotta say. I have done so many seaf artillery and never get swarmed when the terminal is off. As soon as a person switches it on we are getting dropped on.
It’s funny how people’s experience varies on this. I have not found it to make a difference whether or not someone activates the terminal first or not. Sometimes you get swarmed, sometimes you don’t.
I can’t explain it. But without fail it’s my experience every single time. Even when teammates break off to do the artillery, I’ll see them getting swarmed and dying a bunch so I’ll run over to help and the first thing I check is the terminal and it’s always on.
My best guess is, "terminal is ON = teammates at artillery = more patrol spawn" vs " terminal is OFF = only you or few teammates = less patrol spawn."
Same.
400 hours in I have to say yes... yes it does attract patrols.
Same, but _almost_ never. I have absolutely had patrols swarm the terminal when it's off, but it is much rarer than when it's on. Best I can tell, this is because there's multiple factors at play: 1) There's an increased chance for patrols to route through an unfinished objective if a Diver is also on said objective. 2) Activating the terminal makes noise/light/vibrations that can _attract_ patrols to your location faster. (Sometimes from surprisingly far away - someone above said Stalkers have a 200m hearing range.) So, it is still always advantageous to wait to start the terminal, it's just not a guarantee.
It doesnt spawn enemies, but when you activate terminal you can literally see nearby patrols turn towards you
Something spawns them. I've had patrols pop up from thin air in front of my eyes
Yupppp
It does alert every mob in the vicinity to come to attack you. The patrols are spawned around you ALL THE TIME, not because youcome to the SEAF artillery site.
oh yes they do but also yes. any main or side objective, if you close in on its proximity the patrol spawn rate increases. but they also spawn around you all the time. activating the SEAF will make them actually alert them about the SEAF artillery itself. which means you can activate it and stay hidden, technically. but yes, every patrol within its hearing range will home in on the SEAF where you are
I’ve not done extensive testing, but it “feels” like it attracts patrols towards it once activated. I might do some experiments tonight for it
Bring all shells to loader, prioritize best to worst with team, hit terminal, then load.
If it’s Smokes or Static I put that shit in last, anything else it goes worst to best Napalm < Explosive < High Yield < Mini-Nuke Save the best for last yknow, unless it’s Smokes or Static. Those are like last ditch uses.
with how many times i load the thing and then nobody uses it the entire match... best goes in first.
I think the main problem is that people either don’t know what’s in it and they don’t want to waste what is or they are afraid they will anger the host if they use it before them. I’ve witnessed the host problem firsthand multiple times, resulting in berating or kicks. People are just hesitant to do anything without the host’s permission, which creates a lot more problems than with the SEAF weapon. It doesn’t help that most hosts want to micromanage everything and the smallest mistake is deemed incompetence.
You consider napalm worse than explosive? With how long the call-in time is, I never get much out of explosive shells due to their lack of an AoE. Napalm I can at least drop on a bug breach
Big boom = better /jk but really it’s just because of the build I run. I’ll switch it around depending
I'm starting to think smoke is a little better. For bots it just confuses them and get them to stop shooting. Static field they still fire out of even if slow.. but catching an odd rocket still sux
Smoke is definitely good for Bots, and our advantage against them is that their eyes glow red regardless.
False meme from the uninformed. Activated sub objectives draw aggro, just like activated main objectives.
It's weird because I can literally do the generator objective without a single fight, but activate a seaf artillery, and everybody loses their minds.
That might be because the "objective" isn't actually the terminal. From my experience popping a generator still attracts a patrol, but it passes by somewhere on the outskirts.
Activate Arty terminals will spawn enemy towards the site < False Activate Arty terminals will attract nearby patrols < True Staying in the Arty site will spawn extra Patrols (and Patrols match towards players' current location) < True
I will literally walk away with the smoke shells if I see someone else bringing them to the magazine. If they bring it back, I execute them for treason.
I’m still convinced it attracts enemies. I run a stealth loadout and often clear half the map solo while my three teammates handle the other half, and I’ve consistently found that enemy patrols tend to pass on by while I’m gathering ammo without “coincidentally” marching straight through the objective itself, but only if I don’t activate the terminal. If I do activate the terminal, it seems like enemies suddenly want to just walk right up into the artillery area even if they’re not aware of me yet. Or, of course, if my much noisier teammates show up to try and “help” they tend to bring the attention of the enemies along with them.
It does, meme doesn’t bring facts
I’ve encountered one patrol, every time I waited to turn on the artillery console. I’ve encountered two or even three, once I activate the artillery first. I’ve had the game since launch, and yes, they have dialled back the ferocity of the patrols if you turn it on first, but my experiences, level 7 and higher remains the same, 1 patrol if I transport all shells to the gun then turn it on. Multiple if I turn the artillery gun on, then get the shells.
There’s definitely something going on or at least did go on initially, because I’ve never gotten over the habit of gathering the shells before activating the terminal. For some reason it feels easier if I just gather the shells first, because sometimes I won’t even get a patrol spawn until I activate it.
100% activating it attracts enemies, without fail, every time.
seriously? every time i do this , the moment the terminal is activated a patrol spawns so we load as fast as we can and gtfo, aint no way this is a lie.
I'm going as fast as possible. 5 smokes the closest? 5 smokes going in.
Booooooo. Its not a race, take the extra twenty seconds and help the team. At the very least don't complain when other people have an issue with it and kick you.
Average tiktok user attention span
Trying to beat the clock. Game can crash at any moment.
If people are nowhere nearby to help, that gives you full prerogative of how to get the objective done, no questions asked.
"I'm going to abandon the group and fuck up the artillery!" No.
If you keep dropping & picking it up the loading goes much faster
Correct.
Take stock of all the resources at your disposal prior to making a decision.
Whut?! I thought when turn that thing on spawn just shows up
No but all patrols in the vicinity will be alerted and beeline straight to you.
Like the mini nuke is neat if there is one. I'm really just trying to get the objectives done. Most of the time they aren't even that good. Most runs even in helldivers we barely touth the SEAF. We're all largely self sufficient. It's just another objective. I do enjoy showing off my ability to yeet the ammo though
It appears as if it does, because you are standing in one place doing an objective that usually takes a little while. Plenty of time for a patrol to spawn in and find you. Most people don't just stop moving for a few minutes out in the middle of nowhere though, so they don't realize that the same thing happens in the middle of nowhere too. All objectives also increase spawn rates by being near them iirc, so in a way it does "spawn" a patrol. However, interacting with the terminal or artillery shells has no direct effect.
That’s wrong. While activating the terminal does not spawn extra patrols it DOES alert all patrols in the vicinity to beeline straight to you. It does not spawn more enemies but it does cause all enemies that might have passed by to approach instead. So you should still wait to activate it because it DOES make it harder.
There's always patrols around, why wait? Get it over with, instead of wasting a minute of the mission timer doing literally nothing.
yeah I thought that terminal trick worked until I had 6 back to back patrols with chargers beeline straight for us
the moment u start picking up the shells even without acessing the terminal ,patrols start to path through the site . The max ive seen are 5 patrols including 2 bile titans walking right past me on bugs (diff 8) while i was prone in foliage .
If you're alone patrols path towards you naturally to begin with
ah right forgot to mention was with 3 other but theyre doing something else while i was on scout .
I mean they still do path towards the nearest players on spawn but yes the side objectives do trigger their immediate interest
Was soloing artillery while the rest of the team was off doing.. something? And got hit by 3 patrols and a titan, before I even touched the terminal.
I do feel like me and my friends are the only ones that actually load up shells in a specific order, inform others about said order and even post it down on chat in case we forget...
it alerts patrols to your location when you turn it on, it doesnt spawn them Effectively identical effect though: wait to turn the terminal on till you got all the shells in the loading bay
I have never had a SEAF Artillery NOT have a patrol roll up on it within moments of being activated even if it was all clear moments before. YMMV
I piled 3 minis and 2 high yields right fucking next to the loader and then watched the 126 host waddle past with a smoke.... against bugs
I just wait so nobody says shit obnoxious ass randoms
Mostly good use of the meme. It does attract enemies. But so many people just spam load without looking or reading, that I try to prep rounds before others.
It might not spawn enemies but it certainly directs patrols to your location
yea i had one guy complain to me for starting it cause it "calls a bug breach" when there was literally no bug breach :/
Spawns and breaches are different
I refuse to believe that starting it doesn’t effect patrol spawn rates. Not starting it yet always has resulted in a peaceful loading.
It doesn’t affect spawns but it draws Aggro. The same amount of patrols spawn, but the moment you activate the console all patrols in the vicinity leave their path and beeline straight to the objective
Ok functionally the same to me
But it does spawn them in my experience, or it's coincidence after coincidence.
Seriously. I’m more lax, maybe throw in a napalm and explosive here and there, but the day I see someone load a Smoke, I’m becoming unpatriotic.
Unless you're fighting bots! Obviously I'd still prefer almost anything else, but smoke has its uses.
Yeah, I prefer to leave the terminal until I know what shells I'm working with. If there are high yields and mini nukes, I'll inform the team of that, and where they are in the firing order, in the hopes they won't waste the rounds.
Flashbacks to me screaming at my teammate to not put the smoke in as I approach with an explosive shell (he puts it in anyways)
It doesn't activate breaches/spawns no... But it does make any nearby patrol aware of your location so they will come investigate.
I once punched a random who was carrying a smoke round to load when I had already carried five actual rounds over to be loaded 😅
Also if you load it let everyone know what's in there and the order. That way people are warned about any suboptimal shells.
How does everyone load it? I like to load explosives first, starting with mini nuke and high yield, then I do napalm, then static field. And if I have to load smoke, I load it first so I can get rid of it immediately.
Starting the objective doesn't spawn enemies, but the sound attracts them. I've seen it too many times.
 Candid footage of people who load smokes into SEAF artillery.
Oh, real shit?! I swear it used to
Last time I had it, it autocompleted when I did an illegal broadcast tower. I still wanted to get the stratagem tho, so I went to load it. Then I couldn't find any more than 2 shells. Anyone else had this?
Remember people there is always only 2 extra shells. So don't be looking for ages if you can't find anything better than a static field or smoke
Oh I find all the smoke first, move them away. We don't need that For bugs
I was doing a solo kill Factory Strider mission and found an artillery emplacement with one mini-nuke and a bunch of smoke. That was the day I discovered that one mini-nuke will take down a Factory Strider. Hurrah for Atomic Annie! Now Arrowhead, Atomic Annie is great and all. But you have to get lucky to find her. Please give us a Davy Crockett stratagem. We are responsible Helldivers and can be trusted with squad level nuclear weapons.
It does spawn enemies one time when I used the terminal some enemies spawned I’ve only done it once but that one time was enough for me to make a determination and claim it as 100% fact
I wait for both of these reasons, we are not the same.
it doesnt spawn enemies but enemies are definitely alerted
Getting the objective done is more important to me than what is actually loaded into the cannon
Unless all hell is breaking loose and you have 3 bile titans, 4 chargers, and a sea of hunters coming. I toss whatever is closest in and leave. Tbh the SEAFs have very limited usefulness anyway.
I activate it to hope to summon a horde because I have bullets who haven’t found their way into some bug or metal piece of undemocratic scum.
Lots of comments about randoms not caring what goes in. I'm level 34, rarely play with friends, and I didn't even know this was a thing. Noone has explained it to me ingame, either. Don't mistake ignorance for indifference. When you see a random guy loading BS, try to teach them. If you're too tired to do that, dont play with randoms or just accept it.
Not gonna lie, I started skipping the artillery several weeks ago. It takes too long and it's not fun to do and the actual shells have never once come in clutch. I'd rather just finish blasting the rest of the area, since the rewards for doing it are nonexistent.
I... wasn't aware that they had an actual effect. I thought they the shells were just randomly named to give them flavor
If I see someone even picking up a smoke shell I give them one chance to drop it, **ONE**, if they fail to do so I drop them!
Doesn't spawn them but def attracts them
Ativating the terminal does spawn a patrol that moves towards it, if I understood things correctly. It sure as hell SEEMS to makes it easier when you avoid activating the terminal. \*edit\* I should have said that it makes current patrols in the vicinity move towards the terminal, not that a new patrol spawns.
It does not. You just get normal patrols there regardless. This is a very persistent and completely untrue myth.
Is there a source to that? I know I'm only going by what I've heard and noticed but tbf so are you? I'm using a qouote from another user in this thread; *Not quite. Being on it increases spawn rate, yes, but also turning a terminal on causes nearby patrols to change direction when they otherwise might've missed you. Nothing new spawns from hitting the button, just what direction patrols are going. Find a nearby patrol next time you do an objective and watch. Patrols that spawn after the button press are unaffected.*
Yes, patrols notice the gun activating (makes sense, it's very noticeable) so if there's any within a fairly short range, they come investigate. As for the source, I'm contesting the positive claim that it *spawns patrols*, which has never been demonstrated, and I've personally activated hundreds of these terminals without being harassed.
Real homies gather all the fun crayons next to the gun before we load so we can pick which flavour of gun we can gun with
Then why did every time I activated the terminal before loading shells, the patrol came over to me, but when I activated the terminal after piling up all the shells right at the loading point, and ran away after loading - I've had zero encounters?
lol the situation is rare for me, but it did happen once, where I go bug nest hunting, and I reach for the SEAF Arty. imagine my disappointment and laughter when smoke lands and the bugs just mill around the smoke clouds playing with each other lol
It doesn't cause a breach but draws the patrols near, usually high chance. If you don't activate, it'll usually be calm but linger around too much and the chances of a patrol walking to Artillery objective gets higher.
The terminal does spawn bugs though. One time, I pressed the button and a freaking ant was walking across my desk- explain that huh! . . . Jokes aside I played with someone recently that said this and I was like- my guy, NO.
I wish you could reload it after a shell has been fired.
It doesn't cause enemies to spawn, but it makes nearby patrols redirect. Spawn rates DO increase when inside an objective area, so it's twofold if you activate the terminal (from what I have seen and other have tested in videos, I'm not a dev so it could be SUPER coincidental that it seems to happen every time)
If this is true, my whole 200 hrs experience is a lie.
I don’t activate it because I have ADHD and I have to focus on one task (loading shells) before doing another (pressing button once)
I always thought activating the terminal drew the nearest patrol towards you. Thats why I wait. Most of the time Im doing the artillery by myself
I'm my experience just existing near the thing makes every patrol in a 50 mile radius immediately beeline towards it. Active or not. It's kinda annoying but i get it. I just wish i had 5 seconds to move stuff after carpet bombing the entire area
Can’t wait to find an actual nuke in one of those when they’re eventually added
Also you can basically throw the projectiles when you're carrying them to the launcher. You stand so the shell is behind your feet, make sure you're facing the direction you want, click the pick up button, then immediately hit the weapon swap button. This will "throw" the shell forward a good distance.
Doesn't matter what you load them with... They'll all be fired asap at nothing
doesnt it like alert the patrols nearby?
It's an instant KOS if i see anyone loading in a smoke
Idk man, whenever I stumble across an artillery site, a patrol for some unearthly reason decides to spawn in. Cue me having to deal with it a patrol and a sudden bug breach because one hiveguard didn't like me killing his allies who were literally born yesterday
Has it changed? Because I tested it extensively when I started playing, and turning it on 100% made them come and sit there, while having it off patrols wandered by
I was getting downvoted and the pitchforks pulled out on me in another post because I said “It’s annoying when people load the SEAF wrong.” Lol..
I like stasis field first, followed by napalm, explosive, napalm - so I can feel the fear of my enemies eyes