The new Helldivers 2 mech is awesome, but ammo capacity remains an issue

Helldivers 2 players triumphed once again in the latest Major Order targeting Valyria 5, and were promptly rewarded for their efforts. The new mech is an awesome auto-cannon-sporting killing machine, and though players are satisfied with its overall quality, ammo capacity remains a critical issue.

The Emancipator Exosuit, as the new mech is called, was introduced to the game on May 27 after players liberated the suit’s factory on Valyria 5. It sports several auto-cannons on both sides, maneuvers quite similarly to the Walker Exosuit introduced a couple of months earlier, and is an overall beast, especially against Automatons. A Reddit thread posted on the day of the mech’s release into the wild shows how it performs on Helldive difficulty with endless swarms of bots emerging on all sides. And, though it can dispatch or “emancipate” them quite quickly, the suit runs out of ammo after a whopping 50 seconds of continuous use.

Since mechs in Helldivers 2 are locked to two per match, that means players have a grand total of 100 seconds of continuous and non-stop usage of two mechs during an entire match, which can sometimes last for up to 40 minutes. On higher difficulties, this is particularly gutting, since Automaton enemies can easily overwhelm players and beset them from all sides, preventing any significant progress. Naturally, the limitations on mechs have been put in place for the sake of “balance,” but I think it generally ruins the fun when you’re forced to abandon such expensive and powerful hardware simply because it has “no ammo.”

In a game where ships drop resupply pods from orbit, I think there’s room for a mech resupply so long as the suit remains intact. One player suggested Arrowhead should add a “Mech Rearm” Strategem that drops Mech Resupply pods to be manually loaded by players, similarly to some other Strategem weapons. Or, if Arrowhead would like to prolong the time to reload a mech, a Pelican-1 can swoop in and pick it up, or rearm it with an animation similar to how Pelicans are refueled on some missions.

My addition to the idea would be to allow rearms perhaps only on the second mech if “balance” remains an issue. It would create a new point of tension and make players genuinely have to fight to preserve their boosted hardware. But Arrowhead would also need to make the effort worthwhile and boost the default ammo capacity of the mech.

So long as the mechs remain so limited by ammo, there will be a multitude of Strategems higher on the tier list.