Greetings Helldiver.

If you're here, it's for one of a few reasons.
You want to be the next legend of Super Earth (based), you hate interacting with fellow human beings (based), or you want contribute as much for liberations as a full group (based).

In any case, you're based.

• This guide WILL NOT teach you the game fundamentals, and is more so a collection of tips learned over time that changed my life as a solo Helldiver.
  
• However, this guide and playing solo in general WILL make you a super dependable and polyvalent Helldiver, able to manage anything thrown at you.
  
  For a more rewarding time spent you might as well join random groups and running away from them to play alone and advance objectives for them to speed their mission up (need to communicate that or you might get kicked lol) for more reward but less difficulty (and gigachadism (but still admirable)).
  
  Enjoy, and good luck.

First up, you need to understand what playing solo means:

The enemy forces will NOT babyproof themselves for you, and will throw the EXACT same experience as if you were playing in a full group, which means:

• Same amount of enemies;
  
• Same amount of damage dealt and received;
  
• ONLY. FIVE. REINFORCEMENTS.
  
• Same main and secondary objectives AND time given to do them;
  
• Same rewards PER PLAYER (you will NOT get x4 stuff).

WHICH MEANS the game will be MUCH MORE PUNITIVE, MUCH HARDER, MUCH MORE TACTICAL, ALL THAT FOR LESS REWARD

BUT

You will become a gigachad (money back guaranteed)

YOU WILL PROCEED DOWN WITH THIS GUIDE ONCE YOU'VE DECIDED ON BEING THE NEXT ONE MAN ARMY OF SUPER EARTH AND CONTROLLED DEMOCRACY






I knew I could count on you, soldier.

You can now go to Settings, Gameplay, and switch Matchmaking Privacy to Friends Only (may additionally delete every friend from your friend list so you're sure to ALWAYS be alone of course) then proceed with the tips.

You will have to think about the kind of mission you're getting into, and what you will need to fulfill the objective.

You have 2 types of tools you can rely on: Offline and Online.
- Offline is everything you keep on you (Armor, Weapons, Support weapon, Backpack, Grenade and their amount, Stims and their amount), that is always available/at worst require a resupply (you should almost never run out of supplies).
- Online is everything that's reliant on your stratagems to be operational RIGHT NOW: Orbital strikes, Eagle, Sentries, etc.

• I tend to think out the Offline tools I bring around survivability and ability to do objectives.
  
• I tend to think out the Online tools I bring around holding ground (if absolutely necessary at one point during the mission), getting out of high-pressure situations (killing an annoying squad, dealing with a Heavily armored enemy or a swarm that can't be dodged) or speedrunning objectives (destroying an Automaton base without a fight when the buildings are annoyingly placed, destroying a radio tower vs disabling it, etc.)

As for specific pieces of loadout, you don't need me to learn what's overpowered and why (google it to stay on page), I'll just tell you what I run.

• As for primary weapons, the AR-23 Liberator works super well until you get the SG-225 Breaker Shotgun, then you're set. Since the last nerfs, R-63 Diligence has closed in to the Breaker in terms of effectiveness but the Breaker is still insane. Go try the SG-8 too, that just got super buffed: resplenishes all ammo on one resupply, does a ton of damage, yuge stopping power and feels like the Doom shotgun.
  
  
• For secondary weapons, the P-19 Redeemer is a must as soon as you can get it.
  
  
• I like G-12 High Explosives (default grenade) because they're super reliable to destroy nests and factories but any explosive you like works.
  
  
• For support weapons:
  - The grenade launcher makes the easier difficulties a walk in the park, but makes Heavily armored enemies (Bile Titans, Tanks, Hulks) LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE to deal with without stealth or stratagems. It's also good for factory/nest destruction missions but honestly you might as well use eagle strikes or technician armor (get 6 instead of 4 grenade slots) if you'd rather not have a grenade launcher on you.
  - Else of course, the railgun can let you clutch with a few good shots to weak points situations you WOULD die in if you fought with the grenade launcher (AKA several chargers, Hulks when you can't run away etc), but you're more at risk of getting swarmed by grunts.
  Usually I tend to favor the grenade launcher and stealth for Terminids (bigger swarms, less armor, 2 shots bile spewers, lots of hard to break nests, somehow good for eggs too) and the railgun with blitzkrieg strategies for Automatons (can't kill Hulks without it, Eagle strikes destroys factories and patrols with ease), and I also favor the grenade launcher on lower difficulties and the railgun on higher ones.
  - Go try the Arc Thrower, it has infinite ammo, kills enemies super fast and can damage heavy armor like chargers and bile titans with repeated shots (you need to figure out the half charge and shooting in bursts mechanic tho, and don't expect a miracle on damage to heavy armor, it's okay for that, not broken)
  - The flame thrower has become really good too especially against bugs (just don't set yourself on fire)
  - Since the last weapon balances, the laser cannon has become good, it's basically a better LMG that melts faces off and is useful against everything that doesn't have heavy armor (including the potential friend you didn't delete that joined your game without permission)
  - I will try the SPEAR out again and update this part but as I'm speaking, despite the ammo picking fix, the weapon's still super unreliable with targeting so ehh...
  - The Recoilless Rifle one shots chargers in the face now and shouldn't bounce off of heavy armored enemies anymore, is a tiny lower grade SPEAR that doesn't have to be targeted, really good but needs a backpack just like the former
  
  
• For armor:
  Any type of LIGHT ARMOR (for movement speed and endurance) that's suitable for your mission between:
  - Scout for stealth and avoiding combat
  - Medic to survive encounters
  - Technician for extra grenades
  - Heavy to survive a rocket to the face (could also count on shield backpack if unlocked, lets you keep the movement speed to RUN AWAY)
  
  
• For bonuses:
  - Stamina Enhancement my beloved, I almost never swap it out, 67% bonus stamina regeneration (when accounting for the extra stamina amount + regen) is NOT something you can ignore
  - Else stick to the first unlocked Hellpod Space Optimization, good argument to use it if hit with the Orbital Fluctuations Operation Modifier (TREATED IN SECTION 3) regardless of if you have unlocked Stamina Enhancement or not.
  
  
• For Online Stratagems:
  - Eagle Airstrike is INCREDIBLY good and versatile for enemies and buildings (even heavily armored enemies surprisingly but don't count on it too much).
  - Orbital Laser is super versatile for heavily armored and buildings but don't become a slave of its cooldown and LIMITED CHARGES OF 3 PER MISSION if it gets too bothersome.
  - Orbital railcannon is the tamer Orbital Laser that you can use more than 3 times if needed and shreds Bile Titans and any heavy, but it only shoots once so make it count.
  - Eagle 500kgs Bomb is what I bring usually when hit with the Orbital Fluctuations Modifier to make the best out of the shared cooldown Eagle strikes have, but if you get hit with the Complex Stratagem Plotting Modifier you might as well forget trying to hit something with it unless you're super good or lucky).
  - Since I've had my 3rd hangar upgrade that lets me have 3 Eagle Airstrikes and 2 500kg bombs on a shared cooldown, I almost always bring these).
  - If on a mission to just kill enemies and survive, Sentry mortar works super well, just stand close to it or far from enemies to not die to it.
  
  
• For Backpacks:
  Pick between Shield generator pack (the best to survive), Jump Pack (great to run away) Guard dog rover (the best to kill trash mobs, but don't let it slice -you- in half too) and Ammo pack (when leveling and if you're afraid of running out of railgun or grenade launcher ammo)
  
  In any case KEEP UPGRADING YOUR SHIP MODULES AND PICK YOUR STRATAGEMS DEPENDING ON WHAT MODULES YOU HAVE UNLOCKED (especially the ones affected by Hangar, Orbital Cannons and Robotics workshop)
  
  

Well done, you're soon going to select a mission before walking through hell alone.

As a solo player, you have mostly disadvantages (already mentioned in Section 1: THE SOLO MENTALITY), especially the fact that you'll get several times more enemy focus than in a squad, you'll be several times slower to fill in objectives AND kill enemies, you'll get several times less amount of information thrown at you (patrols, objective and landmark locations).

However, you have a few advantages:

• Stealth
  
• Easy to execute plans
  
• Very readable enemy reactions

You will need several things: A SPECIALIZED, RELIABLE and still POLYVALENT LOADOUT (seen before in Section 2), AWARENESS, good DECISION MAKING, a FOCUS ON MISSION SUCCESS and EXTREME AMOUNTS OF CAUTION.

Here are some things you can work on to increase all of these:


It is almost never a good idea to do you first dive even NEAR enemy presence. Every second spent walking is 4 times more valuable than time spent fighting.

It is almost never a good idea to die for ANY reason.

If you have to be seen by a threat you cannot deal with in less than 10 seconds (few spare enemies, an annoying patrol when you have an Eagle airstrike ready, etc.), RUN, don't fight it.
If reinforcements are called (you see a breach being formed or a flare called by an automaton officer), RUN, don't panic, you still have time to escape them and hide.
If you HAVE TO STAY SOMEWHERE and enemy reinforcements are called in on you, pray for the God of War Joel and your number of reinforcements left to let you live through it.

HAVING TO STAND YOUR GROUND AND FIGHT
The most dangerous instances of this happening are extractions and civilian rescue missions.

• For extractions, you could pray your extraction location has good hiding and cover spots and try to run inside the ship at the last second or just fight and tank you possible deaths with your remaining reinforcements.
  
• For civilian rescue missions, just try to do them as fast as possible, and consider the mission to be 3-4 levels above the difficulty shown on screen (in short, they're hell). Quick tip could be to bring in as many smokes as possible to make room for the civilians to run through the enemies (but that's not reliable, needs you to kite enemies outside of the location to come back stealthily, and long to do)
  
• For literally anything else, if you're interrupted when trying to fill in an objective and you see reinforcements, run, go do something else to get the most out of your time, and try to sneak your way back in. Or just tear through them without dying and make a Tiktok out of it like idk

When picking a mission, ALWAYS READ the mission's effects (Environmental conditions of the planet and possible Operation Modifiers for the 5-9 difficulty gigachads) and adapt.

The most unplayable operation modifiers in order are:

Complex stratagem plotting: Twice the time for calling in stratagems doesn't sound too bad until you realize it applies to some mission objectives AND ALSO EXTRACTIONS and no one wants a 4 min extraction.

AA Defenses: One less slot for stratagems. No counterplay. Just suck it up.

The most playable ones are:

Electronic countermeasures: random stratagem called everytime you try to call one, this one is super easy, whenever you need a stratagem, just spam your easiest to type stratagem (like Eagle Airstrike), check on the left if you got dealt the one you want, and keep trying again until you get the one stratagem you need. Can cost you 5 to 20 seconds in a mission, but never a big deal if you plan your stratagems in advance. It got removed from the game!

Orbital fluctuations: Worse than AA defenses if you don't adapt, but stacking on Eagle stratagems and dropping orbital strikes will smoothen this modifier down a lot because ALL EAGLE STRATAGEMS SHARE COOLDOWNS AND RELOAD TIMES, just don't lose your backpack and support weapon because you'll most likely only get to call 1 more of them in before the mission ends. Watch out for your ammo counts too, supplies will be scarce and you might have to scavenge a bit but nothing impossible to deal with.




If you have no reason to be sprinting, keep your map open at all times to dodge patrols using the radar.

You can spam ping everywhere on the map (not patched to this day) to reveal secondary objective locations.
When you click on a hidden secondary objective, your map marker will magnet a square marker to the location instead of the normal marker), cheers to Death Captain Marshall Space Chief Prime Chief Sergeant Kuro for finding this one out.
This will let you even out a bit the lack of info you have on objective locations.

Keep in-game music on and listen to it, it WILL SAVE YOUR LIFE especially in solo since it's so much reliable and precise compared to in squads (enemies aggroed to your teammates near could not know you exist and you'd still get combat music).
Music lets you know:
- If you're near a large unsuspecting group of enemies or not
- That you've been spotted and need to bolt
- That you're in the clear and dropped aggro

What music doesn't let you know:
- During extraction, you lose control over the info music gets you, so always act as if you're in danger and hide behind cover until you're seen
- After a chase with a group of enemies, if you successfully leave their line of sight and you're being looked for, the music will continue for a while. Always consider hiding if you're not sure that they know where you are.

Open your eyes, open your ears, nothing is random if you know what you're fighting.

DECISION MAKING

• HOW MUCH TIME DO I HAVE LEFT?
  
• HOW MANY REINFORCEMENTS DO I HAVE LEFT AND CAN I AFFORD DYING?
  
• WILL I NEED THIS STRATAGEM AGAIN BEFORE IT HAS REFRESHED?
  
• DO I NEED TO TAKE THIS FIGHT OR CAN I RUN?
  
• IS KILLING THIS ONE BIG ENEMY IN THE MOB GROUP CHASING ME WORTH HAVING THE REST OF THE GROUP RUN ME OVER BEFORE I'M DONE WITH IT

FOCUS ON MISSION SUCCESS

Honestly in solo, getting all objectives done is super hard. Never lose track of it, and a glorious sacrifice will always be worth more than having that one more earlier death that led you to failure on the main objective. Don't expect to always extract or even extract often on higher difficulties. Live with honor, die with glory, and remember everything comes at a price.

This is all I have collected for now, feel free to communicate in comments additional tips related to your own experience that I could add up to the guide.

Good luck on the battlefield, soldier.

As a bonus for your departure, here's a little something you could find a use for. I know I said you should keep in game music on, but you know what they say about guides on the Internet...

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkNd_U-6I0l5T6NT8v5AjTfsKRtEWBled&si=mm5dY6IXrU3TctxM