Sentries. You gotta bring sentries to defense missions.

Earlier this evening I was playing my last game of the day. It was a bot mission, the last out of a trio of Super Helldive missions. The one that pays out the most medals. It was time to go to sleep. I have to go to work tomorrow. But, you know, a defense mission is a bit less than 20 minutes, right? And you gotta finish what you started, right?

So here I was in my ship with a random. A level 30. His level didn't surprise me. After all I did my first Super Helldive at the young age of level 14, and it went pretty well. So I launched the mission. I picked out my usual loadout for defense missions : basically a shitload of sentries. Sometimes alongside an AT weapon like the RR, but not this time.

But then I saw my teammates' unusual picks.

It was nothing but orbital barrages. All red. All booms. Nothing else. A napalm, a 380, a 120, and a laser. Once again, only red.

While this made me hesitate a bit, I refrained from saying anything. After all, everyone plays like they want. Who was I to hell him how to play? Maybe it was just his playstyle? Maybe he knew something I don't? Maybe he was trying out things, and so I had to let him see that it doesn't work, so he can learn by himself?

I launched the mission without further thoughts, putting my full and unconditional trust in this all-orbitals-or-nothing helldiver.

The mission played out like an ordinary defense mission. I ran around, calling sentries and the SOS beacon, while he ran around, doing nothing. He only had orbitals, after all.

The wave began. I made use of my HMG emplacement, and started killing bots. But then, to my surprise, I got killed by a random explosion. "Damn" I said, "Those bots ain't joking". Until I understood that what killed me was no bot, but my level 30 teammate's 380mm orbital barrage. "Welp" I said, "It happens".

That was when I noticed something a bit more unpleasant. Mister Orbital-Barrage's 380mm took out, alongside my previous Helldiver, ALL my sentries that I carefully laid out beforehand during the prep phase.

The thing is, this was a Super Helldive mission. It's supposed to be hard. And this supposition was confirmed when I saw, from the corner of my screen, a Factory Strider getting dropped onto the battlefield. "Oh" I said, "We gotta kill this thing quick".

However, as I pressed the CTRL key to take out my stratagems, I was reminded of a small detail : all my sentries were on cool down. It was obvious, after all, I had just placed them a few 30 seconds ago. But then, how were we going to kill the strider ? My dear level 30 teammate only brought orbital barrages, which are not powerful nor precise enough to kill a factory strider on their own. And thus, the tall canine made out of iron waddled its way into our fortress, killing us both.

That's when I started to regret.

I began thinking of all the possible ways to counter this extremely powerful offensive of one (1) factory strider. I thought of every way, every action, every plan but alas, only a miracle could help our poor souls. And a miracle is what came forth : two brave Helldivers came and answered the SOS beacon that I launched at the beginning of the game. We were saved ! Through the tears of joy flowing out of my eyes and streaming down my cheeks, I looked at our heros' loadout, to see what instrument of democracy they had brought to deal with the bigdogmachine. And then I saw it. It was blurry, indistinct, hard to distinguish through the the waterworks coming out of my eyes, but I could still make it out.

Red stratagems. It was all red stratagems. God, answering my prayers, gave me two other orbital-filled helldivers. He was nice enough to make one of them have two (2) sentries, yet, the party of four that was assigned to this mission only had me as the sentry guy, and everyone else appointed as our team's dedicated orbtial-calling red button.

To make the matters worse, someone (of our three obtial heroes obviously) had called a napalm barrage right in front of us, in hope of killing the Factory Strider. So now, alongside having to retreat, we couldn't take back our strategic positions when the metal doggy finally gave its last robotic breath.

We had a second chance of getting back at those clanckers when my sentries' cooldown were finally down to zero. And so, launching all my arsenal, I took position again in order to defeat the enemy. This chance was short lived, when a 5500°C high powered laser divided my helldiver by 0 and forced down my sentries down their pod. It was one of my teammates' orbital laser, in case that wasn't obvious.

And so I pondered all my choices. Do I kick them all out, in hopes of getting reinforced by better suited helldivers? Or do I place my already broken trust in them, and fully embrace the orbital cult in this damned defense mission ? I chose the latter. Because I'm a good guy at heart, and because I believe in the potential of humanity. I believe that our peers should be given the chance to prove their worth, and not be condemned to be seen as useless because of one wrong experience. One does no throw the basket away because of one rotten fruit. And so I believed in them. And God, seeing my pure and untainted trust being given to these good souls, took action in this fearsome journey that was this 5 minutes old defense quest. By giving me a cck in the as. We lost the f*cking mission.

130 hours into the game, I had never lost a defense mission. Because it's impossible to lose a defense mission unless you're braindead. But who was really braindead in this story? My full-of-f*cking-orbitals teammates? Or this gullible and easily duped person that I was?

Bring sentries and AT to defense missions. Please