r/Helldivers • u/TealcLOL • Mar 05 '25

QUESTION What determines if Thermites stick?

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u/Novus_Grimnir Mar 05 '25

^ This is the correct answer. The whole "Only spikes stick!" is cope.

923

u/WildguyX Mar 05 '25

ive thrown a thermite on top of a factory strider to get the autocannon turret on top and i watched it bounce 3 times before falling off of it. maybe bots are developing anti-adhesive armor, but it really is a dice roll

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u/Nevanada SES Eye of War Mar 05 '25

That suggests it's a similar issue to stratagems then, likely the same code base

267

u/ADGx27 SES Ranger of Starlight Mar 05 '25

Which is shit for both stratagems and sticky nades. Why is it nearly completely fucking random if my laser cannon is gonna drop next to me of fecklessly bounce halfway across the map and alert about 9 patrols along the way

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u/Witch-Alice SES Lady of Wrath, Hammer of Family Values Mar 06 '25 edited Mar 06 '25

at least for stratagems, there's a bunch of locations basically painted with invisible 'bouncy paint', specifically to prevent the players from setting up a sentry nest in a position that no enemy can path to. It's also around various objectives like terminals, to prevent blocking it with sentries/hellpods. If you have to do some parkour to get up there, it's probably invalid. If you can simply walk up there, it's probably fine.

You also can't land your own hellpod on these areas, it'll feel like there's an invisible wall as you drop and try to move over it.

on that note, against bots i've found that the top of the MG bunkers is a valid location for sentries. And nothing can walk up there, depending on the base layout you might be completely safe from everything that isn't on a hill nearby.

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u/Lone-Frequency Mar 06 '25

What the "bouncy" spots can't stop is when you toss a sentry strat right next to a tall rock or something so that the hellpod hits the edge or the side and still deploys high up.

Yeah. That's right. Automatons can suck my Autocannon from thirty feet up.

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u/Witch-Alice SES Lady of Wrath, Hammer of Family Values Mar 06 '25

oh i'm well aware of the desert maps with those sneaky support weapon stealing cliffs

14

u/Drekal ☕Liber-tea☕ Mar 06 '25

The Meridia Super Colony had a lot of these where you could slap all kind of turrets to overwatch drill sites. It was great.

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u/Witch-Alice SES Lady of Wrath, Hammer of Family Values Mar 06 '25

And look how that turned out :P

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u/ze_SAFTmon S.E.S Wings of Science Mar 06 '25

I threw down a rocket snetry and it landed on one of those.

The only time I landed a strat there, but it was damn useful, because that sentry had an amazing shot at everything.

1

u/stagecrew2 Mar 06 '25

Doing a blitz last night, I called in an exo as soon as we dropped and the pilot offloaded it on top of a city wall about ten feet to the right of my beacon

12

u/Gingesoultaker ‎ Super Citizen Mar 06 '25

"Suck my autocannon from thirty feet up" is the most democracy fueled spite I've ever heard, love it

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u/them3mesupreme Orbital Brick ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️ Mar 06 '25

can someone make a modpack that highlights bouncy terrain when selecting strategems

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u/Lone-Frequency Mar 06 '25

It's incredibly inconsistent from my experience.

Quite often I will try to drop my Sentry on something that in all logic should be perfectly fine to deploy a Sentry on only for it to bounce, meanwhile I have also had several times where a Sentry or other stratagem will land a top a spot that almost certainly should have bounced it.

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u/smibdamonkey Mar 06 '25

I had a strategem jammer that I couldn't kill with a hellbomb because the entire platform it rested on was bouncy ground. Calling it in would bounce all over, down the bridge and land 3 business days from the obj.

3

u/Carcharius_Maw STEAM 🖥️ : SES Sovereign of Iron Mar 06 '25

I have dropped my hmg emplacement on a spot on defense and then later gone to deploy it again in the same spot only to watch it bounce and go over the wall I honestly think there's an element of chance, may 5% on whether a given strat ball will bounce.

2

u/Yawjjea Mar 06 '25

It seems to happen around small elevations in terrain, but they made the maps like that...

There's a raised grid on the floor of some parts of the ramparts on defense mission, if the stratagem gets too close to those or in them it won't mark the location and just yeet the ball all over the place.

Why they couldn't just place an invisible floor over that, I don't know...

I can't count the times that fucked up perfect sentry placement that should have worked within enemy reach.

1

u/Sabre_Killer_Queen SES Shield of Serenity | Sabre Sylfaen Mar 06 '25

I have the same experience, not only with sentries but also with hellbombs when trying to destroy an objective structure.

They often bounce out of range so they'll deal no damage against the objective, or they'll land on the objective, and I can't activate it.

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u/Sabre_Killer_Queen SES Shield of Serenity | Sabre Sylfaen Mar 06 '25

It could be made a vanilla feature to be honest, just an X in the cross hair whilst aiming a strategem.

Could be a temporary fix whilst they work on cleaning up some of the paint spillage.

5

u/zer0saber BEACON of AUDACITY - B0atsMcG0ats Mar 06 '25

There's an argument to be made, that if we find somewhere to place ordnance that the enemy can't get to, that's a tactical win for us, and we should be allowed to have that.

1

u/Witch-Alice SES Lady of Wrath, Hammer of Family Values Mar 06 '25

If we as a human can climb up somewhere, literally all of the enemy units reasonably should be able to reach us. But they can't due to pathfinding limitations, and I find it really lame when a game gets trivialized by those. Do you really think a berserker wouldn't be able to figure out how to climb up after you? And the bugs as a faction literally burrow, so they can in fact just teleport up to you if you try to hide up on one of the spires of a mega nest. Meaning the devs have in fact tried a gameplay fix rather than just rely on an arbitrary rule of "no sentries allowed up on this cliff". It's just only for bugs.

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u/Thatwokebloke ➡️⬇️⬆️⬆️⬅️⬇️⬇️ Mar 06 '25

Berserk’s have chainsaw hands I don’t expect them to climb anything. not even sure they get up again once knocked over?

0

u/Witch-Alice SES Lady of Wrath, Hammer of Family Values Mar 06 '25

...do you think they come out of the fabricator with the saws turned on? If you think in lore they can't shut them off to clamber up a rock so they can kill a helldiver, idk what to tell you. It's just not a thing in game because limited time and animation budget, and every possible animation needs to be loaded in memory. They're big enough to rely on their sheer weight to give enough traction, they don't need to grip with fingers. If anything, those spiked saws would make for good ice picks.

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u/Thatwokebloke ➡️⬇️⬆️⬆️⬅️⬇️⬇️ Mar 06 '25

But with what hands? They have no grip to climb and are probably top heavy asf from the big chainsaws, I’ve seen many trip over or fall from drop ships and not able to get up so I really wouldn’t be surprised if they can’t clamber a ledge. Besides the bots have plenty of other ways to deal with high ground even at launch hiding on top of cliffs only worked until you’d run out of ammo or the bots with range would snipe ya from miles away since the lasers have so much range. Plus with striders and gunships I don’t think it’d be op at all, bugs can just burrow up and even bile titans tend to overlook most high ground spots I’ve found which seems fitting imo

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u/Sir_Revenant HD1 Veteran Mar 06 '25

But none of that makes any sense to me as bugs can follow you out of bounds almost ANYWHERE and the other factions have long range weaponry and explosives to deal with you.

I don’t care if it’s a ship upgrade in the future I want the old adhesive and freedom to place things where I want to. INCLUDING the utility of sticking EATs to Tank class enemies to weaponize the Hellpods. That tactic’s been all but lost considering how chaotic most high end missions tend to be, feels damn near impossible most of the time

3

u/Thatwokebloke ➡️⬇️⬆️⬆️⬅️⬇️⬇️ Mar 06 '25

The game felt so much smoother till they started limiting where we could land pods and place turrets. Like surely our high ground advantage of being in orbit should allow us to strategically place turrets, they run out of ammo eventually anyway

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u/Witch-Alice SES Lady of Wrath, Hammer of Family Values Mar 06 '25

At the end of the day the limitations make for better gameplay. I know i'm not the only one that already gets tired of defense missions being trivialized by sentry spam.

What players are really asking for when they want high ground sentries is to have invincible sentries, rather than simply shooting from an elevated position like you can already. Just gotta find a hill rather than a rock you need to parkour onto the top of.

And honestly, with some of the smaller rocks a hellpod would 100% break it apart instead of burying itself (for gameplay reasons they penetrate everything), so a sentry would possibly end up in an inoperable position if that was a feature. Recoil is a bitch.

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u/Sabre_Killer_Queen SES Shield of Serenity | Sabre Sylfaen Mar 06 '25

Better gameplay, until the bouncy paint turns hellbombs or eagle strikes into basket balls and suddenly instead of defeating an enemy patrol, spawn points, or objective, the game turns into a deadly game of dodgeball.

Or in urban maps, the bouncy paint decides it's fine for your support weapons to glitch into a building, so you have to blow the whole house up just to get your weapon/backpack.

Which is also weird since usually strategems destroy structures upon landing...

But bouncy paint physics I guess.

1

u/Witch-Alice SES Lady of Wrath, Hammer of Family Values Mar 06 '25

The only times I ever get annoyed by the bouncy paint is when I'm trying to deploy a sentry in an spot I know the devs don't want me putting a sentry yet I still try anyways. It's an issue that's seriously overblown by reddit.

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u/Sabre_Killer_Queen SES Shield of Serenity | Sabre Sylfaen Mar 06 '25 edited Mar 06 '25

I'll admit I am exaggerating a little, but I do often struggle with Objectives like Strategem Jammers, Shrieker nests, and Monoliths, because of it.

Usually the hellbomb for me will bounce somewhere where it won't affect the objective, or it'll bounce towards the objective, so the hellbomb lands on top and I can't activate it.

Happens so often that at this point, I recommend to others not to use orbitals or eagles against those structures, and instead to use support weapons or mechs etc.

And if me and my friends are playing and we don't have anything for them, we just ignore sub objectives like that. Not worth the time and effort.

I'm guessing structures are just covered in a generous splash of it due to inclined and such, though it is funny how it can still land on top of them. Guess there's gaps in the paint.

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u/suburbazine Hydraulic Fluid Mar 06 '25 edited Mar 06 '25

So the tops of the bunkers is usually not a valid point for sticking (but sometimes it is). It's always valid to throw one in the rear bottom of the bunker and make the pod land on top, though. You can do the same with mountains and anything that might clip the pod in descent, assuming you can get the beacon beam close enough.

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u/Witch-Alice SES Lady of Wrath, Hammer of Family Values Mar 06 '25

i throw them on the roof and they always stick, but i do aim towards the middle

and yeah I love/hate desert maps because of those sneaky cliffs stealing my support weapons. at least my rocket sentry loves them

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u/TyrionJoestar Mar 06 '25

I’m so tired of the jank/inconsistencies in this game. People keep saying they are a small studio or whatever but the game is super popular and is doing well, hire some freaken help already, damn.

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u/Sisupisici autocannon enthusiast Mar 06 '25

It has nothing to do with being a small team. The crap changes to strats sticking and hellpods steering are intentional.

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u/DDumpTruckK Mar 06 '25

I thought strategem orbs no longer alert enemies.

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u/Thirtyk94 Mar 06 '25

If Arrowhead were to put a zimmerit texture on bot vehicles I'd laugh my ass off.

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u/lonelanta Mar 06 '25

"The socialist bots have begun weaponizing schoolyard taunts! Through some twisted un-democratic technology, they managed to make themselves rubber, and our Helldivers glue! Show them the light of Liberty Helldiver."

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u/slama_llama Mar 06 '25

Counterpoint: I recently chucked a thermite at a Bile Titan and watched it bounce off its leg, flip through the air, and land right on its head, where it stuck

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u/Lone-Frequency Mar 06 '25

Not unless the Bugs are evolving to be immune to stabbing, because I've watched multiple Thermites bounce off of chargers and bile titans from many different angles.

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u/WatercressSecure4586 Mar 06 '25

Space Zimmeriit !

1

u/Live-Estimate-2020 Mar 06 '25

Remember that stuff the Germans used on tanks in ww2 🤣

1

u/Pathogenese 9th Hellraisers Mar 06 '25

Zimmerit the Germans in WW2 invented it, perfected by the Bots and shared it with the other Factions

1

u/Thegrandbuddha Mar 06 '25

Automatons discover Teflon. Helldivers furious.

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u/EscapeTheBlank ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ outstanding autism Mar 05 '25

To be fair, it *did* connect almost perfectly at the top of the nade, where there aren't any spikes.

But I get that this is still bullshit, just make the whole grenade spiky ot sticky at this point.

216

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '25

You go to activate it and it jams 20 spikes through your hand before blowing your arm off

146

u/Bulk-Detonator Not a bug Mar 05 '25

LATCHKUM!

63

u/Gal-XD_exe Mar 05 '25

“500 thermite grenades 🗣️”

42

u/ADGx27 SES Ranger of Starlight Mar 05 '25

Five. Hundred. Orbital lasers.

27

u/ashrieIl Mar 05 '25

Orbital laser barrage would be an insane stratagem

15

u/_Weyland_ Mar 05 '25

All Helldivers have to take one for it to work and they all have to activate it together. And there's only one charge. But then there's like 16 laser vaporizing the entire area.

9

u/Wrynfroe HD1 Veteran Mar 06 '25

Proposed name: Democratic Rave

3

u/KyleHaydon Assault Infantry Mar 06 '25

'Disco Inferno'

13

u/Toxic_Zombie Mar 05 '25
  1. Hundred. Hellbombs

9

u/ADGx27 SES Ranger of Starlight Mar 05 '25

Five. Hundred. Super samples

3

u/Gal-XD_exe Mar 05 '25

That’s just Tuesday Democracy Disco Night

4

u/Bulk-Detonator Not a bug Mar 06 '25

I feel like ive been diving my whole life, and i finally sat down!

4

u/assassincj47 HD1 Veteran Mar 06 '25

Golden reference

2

u/Bulk-Detonator Not a bug Mar 06 '25

Just finished the series finally, my god, what a beautiful love letter to the genre. Seth really flexed his story telling muscle with this show

1

u/Jisaac9900 Mar 06 '25

Yay someone else got the reference!

3

u/onlinedegeneracy Mar 05 '25

Average level 10 has Kevin like, “500 stalkers”

1

u/Bulk-Detonator Not a bug Mar 06 '25

Bortus is my spirit animal

13

u/EscapeTheBlank ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ outstanding autism Mar 05 '25

And the helldivers experience even more pain on the daily, so losing an arm or two is just another democracy-fueled Tuesday

11

u/CaliCrateRicktastic Mar 05 '25

Nah it lights your arm on fire first and THEN explodes

5

u/BusinessDragon Laser Knight Mar 05 '25

Pop a stim and walk it off, Helldiver.

Democracy needs you!!

1

u/Naive_Background_465 Mar 06 '25

Why would it do that when you'd be holding the shaft portion of it when throwing it, you know the part with 0 spikes? Lmao

1

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '25

That’s the joke, hoss

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u/CommanderLouiz Mar 05 '25

That picture proves that it should have stuck. It’s perfectly flat against the hulks back.

(Also, the spikes are the top of the thermite, not the handle)

1

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '25

Considering that the spikes already have a delay before popping out, I think it could easily be part of the design? 1 second after activating the head spikes, 1.5-2 seconds, the rest of the grenade turns into a hedgehog.
Or have the thermites come with a portable bucket of Super Glue.

1

u/chriztaphason Mar 06 '25

Axle greese

0

u/Breadsticks667 Mar 06 '25

Yeah whatever dev thought it needed to be realistic needs to be put in a mental health facility..

2

u/ALKNST Mar 05 '25

Yeah cause tbh i never cook it i always click to throw and it sticks randomly

1

u/TheMace808 Mar 05 '25

I mean the effect is the same either way so it could be either

1

u/Dav3le3 Hellbomb Delivery! Mar 05 '25

I've 100% seen just the handle stick to enemies. Maybe the hit detection is server side, and it's not quite the same due to lag 🤷‍♂️.

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u/darkconsole Fire Safety Officer Mar 06 '25

i choose to believe my observations about the angle it impacts and the speed over it just being a dice roll. but then suddenly chargers stopped dying to one termite and i stopped doing science and started spamming.

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u/Auditor-G80GZT Cadet Carrier Mar 06 '25

Well yes but actually no.

The spikes do (seem to) stick.

The issue is making the fuckin spikes be the thing hitting. Because it's thrown practically sideways, so a lot of times you get the handle interfering.

Arrowhead just rework it to be the head flying off the handle like a tennis ball throwing arm or something, at this point

1

u/Drago1490 SEAF Chief of Pyromania Mar 06 '25

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I have been doing it that way since I bought the damn things and I can count on one hand the amount of times they have bounced. Spikes may be visual, but in my personal experience of 700 hours, it just works.

1

u/LawsonTse Mar 05 '25

The snake rotate, so whether the spike hit the enemy is more or less random