Helldivers 2 – Ultimate Solo Farming Guide and Tips

This guide will show you how to gain XP, Requisition Slips, Medals, Super Credits, and all sample types when playing solo. Some say this game isn’t meant for solo play, but I’ve found joy in taking on tough challenges alone. This guide aims to help solo players overcome those challenges.

Even though these strategies are tailored for solo play, they can also be used in groups. However, it’s advisable to team up with friends for farming. Joining random players’ missions expecting them to farm with you can be unrealistic and impolite.

General Overview

Does Farming Negatively Impact the War Effort?

Yes, kind of.

Initially, there was a widespread belief that intentionally failing or abandoning missions would decrease the war score for the planet where you did so. However, the developers have clarified that this is not the case. Thus, while farming may not directly impede the war effort, it doesn’t actively contribute to it either. Nevertheless, there are other potential negative consequences to bear in mind.

Fooling the Player Base

Farming in the game can deceive players into thinking that the human offensive on a specific planet is more robust than it truly is. For instance, during a significant war goal like the liberation of Veld, there were 374,828 Helldivers actively involved in missions on the planet. Surprisingly, the war score barely budged despite this massive engagement.

It’s challenging to ascertain the precise number of players genuinely engaged in missions versus those simply farming. If we conservatively estimate that 25% of players were farming instead of actively participating, the real count of active Helldivers would drop to approximately 280,000. Thus, if you prefer farming and wish to avoid inflating the inaccurate active player count on the target planet, consider farming elsewhere.

Taking Up Server Capacity

Farming can also negatively impact the war effort by clogging up server queues, preventing players eager to engage in combat from joining. In the game’s early days, server capacity was limited, leading to long queues where players waited to assist in the war effort. This situation frustrated many, including myself (I once endured over 2.5 hours in a queue!).

Thankfully, updates implemented in February 2024 addressed these server capacity issues. Personally, I haven’t encountered any server problems since then. However, if you find yourself stuck in the server queue on a Saturday night, perhaps consider farming at a different time and jump into the battle against bots and bugs once you’re through the queue.

Benefits of Farming

You might be tempted to see farmers as the bottom of the barrel, but hold your horses! Farming in this game is actually key to accessing better gear and upgrades, which helps spread Managed Democracy faster. While I usually take a chill approach to gaming, this one demands a more active strategy. Progression can drag, leaving you stuck with basic gear for ages. Fed up with that, I sought ways to speed things up.

The irony? Even with my shortcuts, progress remains sluggish! The grind persists, but at least it feels like you’re moving forward, unlike the agonizingly slow pace the developers intended. So, if you’re itching to gear up faster and make a bigger impact in the war effort, stick around for some tips!

Things to Farm

In the world of Helldivers 2, there are seven goodies you can snag:

• XP
• Requisition Slips
• Medals
• Super Credits
• Common Samples
• Rare Samples
• Super Samples

XP

In Helldivers 2, XP doesn’t hold much weight. Character strength relies on gear, not levels. Whether you’re a Level 1 rookie or a Level 50 veteran, if you’re donning the same gear, you’re on equal footing. XP mostly helps unlock higher-tier stratagems and titles, solely earned by completing missions, not enemy takedowns.

Requisition Slips

These slips are the tickets to purchasing new stratagems. While XP unlocks the stratagems, Requisition Slips are the currency to make the buys. Earned mainly through mission completions, they can also be found at Points of Interest scattered across the map.

Medals

Medals are used to unlock items found within War Bonds. These items include:

• Armor
• Boosters
• Emotes
• Player Cards
• Super Credits
• Victory Poses
• Weapons

Medals are the keys to unlocking items in War Bonds, ranging from armor and weapons to emotes and victory poses. Among all resources, getting Medals can feel like slogging through mud, but the rewards spice up your game. Earned by finishing missions or uncovering them at Points of Interest.

Super Credits

Considered the game’s premium currency, Super Credits open doors to more War Bonds and rotating armor options. Acquire them with real money, trade Medals for them on specific War Bond pages, or stumble upon them at Points of Interest.

Common/Rare/Super Samples

Samples are the spice for ship upgrades, offering perks like quicker deployment or extra airstrikes. You’ll only find them on the map, usually at enemy bases or Points of Interest. But here’s the twist: Samples drop when you bite the dust, so you’ve got to survive and extract to keep them. This adds a thrilling edge to sample farming compared to other resources.

Guide Structure

I break down each individual guide like this:

• Quick Guide: This is a quick checklist of everything you need to do to perform the strategy. If you don’t feel like reading my long-winded explanations for each strat, you can just check this out instead.
• Full Strategy Explanation: The aforesaid long-winded explanation of the strategy. Further broken down into:
  • Introduction: An overview of what the strategy is, which planet and mission to choose, and a recommended gear loadout.
  • Strategy: A detailed explanation of the strategy and some tips.
• Rewards: The amount of resources you can expect to earn per run.

XP & Requisition Slip Farming

In this game, there are 50 levels, but only 20 of them are important. Some stratagems become available only at higher levels, yet the highest-tier ones are accessible at Level 20. After that, XP only serves to unlock player titles like “Sergeant” and “Space Chief Prime”.

Following this guide, I suggest farming to Level 20 and stopping there. This method involves repeating one mission type. If you farm to Level 50 and then join missions with other players, they might think you’re highly skilled when you’re not. Stopping at Level 20 won’t give you a superhero status, but you’ll still unlock all useful XP-based content.

Regarding Requisition Slips, you’ll need plenty to unlock all the Stratagems. While I don’t have the exact total, it’s around 200,000-250,000 slips to unlock everything.

XP & Requisition Slips (Quick Guide)

1. Choose an Automaton planet, select the highest difficulty possible, and choose an Eradication mission that doesn’t have the “AA Defenses” operation modifier.
2. Choose this as your loadout:
   • Armor with one of these buffs:
   • • Fortified
   • • Engineering Kit
   • Weapons:
   • • Primary: SG-225 Breaker
   • • Secondary: P-19 Redeemer
   • • Grenade: G-16 Impact
   • Stratagems:
   • • RS-422 Railgun
   • • SH-32 Shield Generator Pack
   • • A/M-12 Mortar Sentry
   • • A/M-23 EMS Mortar Sentry
   • Booster: Hellpod Space Optimization
3. Land on the planet and place your mortars and a resupply at the top of the hill. Call down your support gear as well.
4. Let the mortars do most of the killing for you. Assist where you can and kill any enemies that make it to the top of the hill. Do not let your mortars be destroyed.
5. If your mortars run out of ammo before the objective is complete, hold the hill until you can call down the mortars again.
6. Extract once the mission has been completed.

XP & Requisition Slips (Introduction)

The most effective method for farming XP and Requisition Slips is by completing Eradication missions at the highest difficulty you can manage. With this approach, missions typically last 5-6 minutes and grant approximately 900 XP and 4,100 Requisition Slips each.

Prerequisites

To follow this guide, you must have, at a bare minimum, the following things unlocked:

• “3 – Medium” difficulty.
• “A/M-12 Mortar Sentry” stratagem.

To maximize rewards however, it’s best to follow this method on the higher difficulties. To accomplish this, you’ll need to have unlocked the following stratagems:

• RS-422 Railgun
• SH-32 Shield Generator Pack
• A/M-12 Mortar Sentry
• A/M-23 EMS Mortar Sentry

Choosing a Planet

Choose an Automaton planet and find an Eradication mission. They look like this on the planet map:

Eradication missions start from the “3 – Medium” difficulty level and above. However, for optimal farming, higher-difficulty missions are better.

Completing missions on higher difficulties increases the XP and Requisition Slips rewards due to a multiplier effect. I strongly advise unlocking higher difficulties before attempting this method to maximize rewards. For illustration purposes, let’s assume you’re playing on Helldiver difficulty, but the advice applies regardless of your current difficulty level.

After selecting an Automaton planet, you need to find an Eradication mission with favorable operation modifiers. These modifiers are additional challenges added to higher-difficulty missions. To view them, press “C” while on the planet map. They will then display in the bottom-right corner of the screen.

There are four possible modifiers:

• AA Defenses: Stratagem slots reduced by 1. (You can only equip 3 Stratagems in your loadout as opposed to the standard 4)
• Complex Stratagem Planning: Stratagem call-in time increased by 100%. (Stratagems take longer to deploy, so an airstrike that usually takes 3 seconds to hit the map will now take 6 seconds)
• Electronic Countermeasures: Stratagem codes scrambled. (Inputting a stratagem code may make you deploy something else instead. For example, putting in the code for a mortar turret may call in the Eagle to drop a 500kg bomb on your head instead.)
• Orbital Fluctuations: Stratagem cooldown increased by 50%. (For example, if you call in a mortar turret, it usually takes 3 minutes for you to call in another one – now it’ll take 4.5 minutes).

Missions may have 0, 1, or 2 modifiers applied to them based on your difficulty:

• “1 – Trival” to “4 – Challenging”: No modifiers.
• “5 – Hard” to “7 – Suicide Mission”: One modifier.
• “8 – Impossible” to “9 – Helldive”: Two modifiers.

When performing this farming method, it is imperative that you avoid doing an Eradication mission with the “AA Defenses” modifier as you’ll need all the stratagems you can get. If you can avoid doing one with “Orbital Fluctuations” as well, that would be nice too, though it’s not absolutely necessary. The other two are whatever.

Loadout

Once you’ve found your mission, it’s time to choose your loadout.

Armor

All armors are useful for this strategy except for those that give the “Scout” buff. At the time of publication, Armor is currently bugged and does not actually give you more armor (meaning…choosing anything but a Light Armor set will just slow you down). For this strategy, I usually like to choose a Light Armor with one of these buffs:

• Engineering Kit
  • Further reduces recoil when crouching or prone by 30%.
  • Increases initial inventory and holding capacity of grenades by +2.
• Fortified
  • Further reduces recoil when crouching or prone by 30%.
  • Provides 50% resistance to explosive damage.

There are a lot of enemies during this mission and “Engineering Kit’s” extra grenade allowance is nice for when enemies bunch up together. As for “Fortified”, many robots like to shoot rockets at you, so this will help you survive if your shield is down and you happen to take a rocket to the face.

Weapons

Your mortars will be doing most of the killing during this mission. However, some bots will reach the top of the hill and you’ll need to dispatch them quickly. Therefore, I recommend the following:

• Primary: SG-225 Breaker
• Secondary: P-19 Redeemer
• Grenade: G-16 Impact

The Breaker shotgun is borderline broken and can rip anything to shreds (even from long-range!). The Redeemer is great for annihilating anything if you happen to run out of shotgun shells in the heat of battle. As for the Impact grenade, it explodes once it hits the ground or a target, so you’ll want to bring that over a standard fuse grenade if you have access to it.

Stratagems

These two stratagems are absolutely necessary for this method to work:

• A/M-12 Mortar Sentry
• A/M-23 EMS Mortar Sentry

If you’re playing on a lower difficulty, you can probably get away with using just the standard mortar sentry.

Besides those two, I highly recommend the following:

• RS-422 Railgun
• SH-32 Shield Generator Pack

Bigger enemies (Hulks, Tanks, etc.) may occasionally reach the top of the hill, so you’ll want the Railgun to take them out quickly if the mortars aren’t able to dispatch them in time. As for the Shield Generator Pack, that is basically mandatory when fighting robots. Otherwise, one rocket is able to kill you.

Booster

Choosing a booster isn’t super important, but if you get overwhelmed at the top of the hill, “Hellpod Space Optimization” is great for getting you back into the action with full ammo if you happen to get killed.

XP & Requisition Slips (Strategy)

There are two different defense maps when fighting the bots. Neither one makes much of a difference in terms of how this strategy plays out.

When you land on the planet, drop your two mortar sentries in one of these locations (depending on the map that you’re playing on):

Naturally, you will also want to call down a Resupply, your Railgun, and your Shield Generator Pack nearby.

Now all you need to do is kick back and let the mortars do most of the work for you. The EMS Mortar will slow enemies down to a crawl, preventing the hill from being overrun (for the most part). The standard mortar will then blow everything that was slowed down to smithereens. Help out where you can though – if you see a Hulk entering the fray or a bunch of bots in a cluster begging for a grenade, take them out. This will conserve the ammo of your mortars.

Your #1 objective is to keep your mortars alive.

While focusing on eliminating distant enemies, periodically check your hilltop position to ensure no enemies have breached and are heading toward your mortars.

Eventually, your mortars might deplete their ammo before reaching the required kill count for mission completion. At this point, things might get intense. Maintain control of the hill using your Breaker, Railgun, and grenades until the mortar cooldown finishes and you can redeploy them.

If the hill gets overrun and either you or your mortars are taken out, your situation depends on how many kills are left to complete the mission. If you still need around 50-60 kills, it’s probably best to abandon the mission and start over. However, if you only need a few kills, consider deploying your hellpod near the hill’s edge or at the bottom where fewer enemies are gathered. From there, you might be able to toss grenades up to the overrun position or pick off low-level enemies with your shotgun.

Remember: killing a standard rifleman bot and killing a Tank both count as only one kill.

If you only need a few more kills to finish the mission, try to avoid engaging the larger robots.

Now, why do I suggest doing this on an Automaton planet? Here are the reasons:

• The bugs are fast and can outrun the EMS mortar, which makes it easier for the hill to get overrun.
• The enemy bots occasionally drop Tanks into the base, causing “traffic jams” that prevent other bots from reaching the hill. Besides securing your position, this clustering of enemies allows the mortar to eliminate large groups at once without using much ammo. Furthermore, destroyed Tanks create obstacles that impede troop movement. Check out this impressive three-Tank traffic jam:

Once you’ve reached the required kill count, the extraction pod and Pelican will land shortly afterward (there’s no need to manually call in the Pelican). Whether you extract or not doesn’t matter much—you’ll still receive rewards either way. However, failing to extract may cost you some extra XP and Requisition Slips.

XP & Requisition Slips (Rewards)

Here is a screenshot I took from one of these missions played on “9 – Helldive” difficulty:

It took me 4:27 minutes to complete the mission and I received:

• 945 XP
• 4,305 Requisition Slips
• 8 Medals

This is likely one of my best outcomes (from the same mission with the three-Tank traffic jam, making it difficult for the bots to advance up the hill). However, some missions may not go as smoothly, resulting in being overrun. In other cases, bots may drop a Tank right at the top of the hill while you’re already contending with a flamethrower Hulk, putting you in a tough spot. A typical mission usually lasts 5:30-6:30 minutes, and the rewards will resemble something like this:

Pretty similar results…just took a little bit longer.

Medal Farming

Regrettably, farming Medals isn’t as straightforward as farming XP and Requisition Slips. Although this method enables you to acquire significantly more medals than completing missions, it’s still a lengthy process. At the time of writing, there are two War Bonds where you can spend Medals. Here’s how many Medals you’ll need to unlock everything:

• Helldivers Mobilize!: 2,015 medals
• Steeled Veterans: 686 medals
• Total: 2,701 medals

Unlike my other guides, farming medals is done in conjunction with one of my other strategies:

• XP & Requisition Slip Farming: about 70-80 medals an hour after accounting for the time it takes for you to get in and out of the missions + if you don’t fail and have to restart them.
• Super Credit Farming: about 30-50 medals per hour.

Super Credit Farming

The easiest way to farm Super Credits is to be rich and purchase them from the Super Store using real money. However, if you’re poor like me, farming them is thankfully not the worst thing in the world.

Super Credits (Quick Guide)

1. Choose a “DEFEND” planet and select a “1 – Trivial” Evacuation Mission.
   • If this is unavailable, choose a mission on a Moor-type planet in which the main objective is in the center of the map and there is little-to-no water.
2. Equip your fastest Light Armor and the “Stamina Enhancement” Booster if you have it. The rest of your loadout doesn’t matter.
3. Land outside of the Evac Zone if you’re doing an Evacuation mission. Otherwise, land wherever.
4. Do a loop around the main objective, looking for Points of Interests on your compass.
5. Open pods and storage containers to collect their contents.
6. Abandon the mission once you think you’ve visited every POI.

Super Credits (Introduction)

The best way to farm Super Credits is to choose a “1 – Trivial” difficulty Evacuation mission on a “DEFEND” planet and to run around the map looking for Points of Interest.

Choosing a Planet

Unfortunately, you are completely at the mercy of the devs when it comes to finding a “DEFEND” planet. They look like this on the map:

The appeal of selecting one of these planets is that they usually generate a circular map, facilitating a loop around to locate Points of Interest. However, there might not always be a “DEFEND” planet available on the galaxy map. If that’s the case when you attempt this method, opting for any other mission is acceptable, although there may be fewer Points of Interest on the map compared to selecting an Evacuation mission.

Regarding planetary conditions, opt for one that is a Moor. Some Moor planets include:

• Angel’s Venture
• Crimsica
• Hellmire
• Popli IX
• Ubanea

If you’re not sure what type of planet you’re on, go to the terminal where you can upgrade your ship and take a look at the lower-right corner of the “Destroyer” tab:

Opting for a Moor planet is advisable because they typically feature minimal rough terrain (such as mud or snow) and foliage, which can impede your movement. Additionally, they usually offer good visibility, with no large mountain ranges or fog to obscure Points of Interest on the map.

As mentioned earlier, if you’re unable to undertake an Evacuation mission, it’s acceptable to choose any other type of mission. However, it’s essential to carefully observe the map generated when selecting a mission to undertake.

This type of map is essentially the most optimal for a run, as it resembles the typical Evacuation map, with the objective situated in the center surrounded by a ring of Points of Interest:

Avoid choosing any maps that have a lot of water or multiple objectives on it (POI’s don’t spawn near enemy bases or objective points).

Loadout

Since this is a “1 – Trivial” mission which we don’t plan on completing anyway, choose your fastest Light Armor and the “Stamina Enhancement” Booster if you have it. The aim of this strategy is to move as fast as possible.

Super Credits (Strategy)

If you’re embarking on an Evacuation mission, select a location outside of the Evac Point. Apart from random patrols, enemies typically won’t bother you if you steer clear of the base. For other mission types, landing at the Evac Zone is suitable because it often provides a broad view of the surrounding area.

While traversing the map, Points of Interest will appear as question marks (?) on your compass:

There are many kinds of POI’s on any given map, most of them being useless. There are two that we are primarily interested in.

Pods

Pods are easy to find as they flash a light into the sky and can be heard beeping when you get near them. Interact with them to loot their contents.

Storage Containers

Storage containers are often found near blue buildings, but can also be dug into rock faces. They can be either red or blue and look like this:

If you lob a grenade at them, they will open to reveal their contents:

I don’t have all of the weapons unlocked so I’m not able to test it completely, but I know that at least one weapon can shoot the door off if you’d like to save a grenade: the SG-8S Slugger shotgun.

Bunkers

There is another POI too which I’ll mention even though this guide is focused on solo players: the bunker. Unfortunately, you’ll need a friend to help you open it. If you don’t have a friend with you, have a small cry and move on.

Strategy, continued

Pods will give you one reward, Storage Containers will give you two, and Bunkers will give you three (I think…honestly, it’s been awhile since I’ve opened one of those things). What these POI’s dispense is totally randomized, but you can receive one of these things:

• 1-3 Medals
• 10 Super Credits
• 100 Requisition Slips
• Rare Sample (on harder difficulties)
• A random support weapon (Flamethrower, Machine Gun, etc.)

Once you’ve landed on the planet, dash around fervently to uncover Points of Interest (POIs). Disregard any samples you encounter since you can’t collect them when employing this strategy. The game doesn’t explicitly inform you if you’ve discovered all POIs, but you can typically make an educated guess by assessing the map. Here’s a rundown of the map I previously shared with all POIs pinpointed:

After you believe you’ve located all the POIs, abandon the mission. This strategy is tailored for farming Super Credits, so we’ve disregarded sample collection and mission completion. Following this strategy will only require a few minutes for each run, allowing for quick repetition. However, collecting samples will significantly slow down the process for the following reasons (yes, I’ve timed some of these for you):

• ??? for you to gather all the samples at the POI’s + evac point + objective location
• ??? for you to complete the objective
• 2:18 minutes for the Pelican to land and the back door to open
• 1:18 minutes to watch the Pelican cutscene, Mission Completed stats, and to get back to your ship

I timed myself doing two missions on the planet Mantes (which is a planet I wouldn’t recommend farming on, but my options were limited) to see what the time comparisons were between farming for Super Credits vs. gathering samples and completing the mission. Here’s what I recorded:

• 3:30 minutes to just farm Super Credits
• 11:15 minutes to gather everything + complete the mission (9:57 to complete the mission + 1:18 to go through the end-mission cutscenes)

That was an extra 7:45 minutes just to collect 13 lousy Common Samples! Not worth it bro, not worth it.

Super Credits (Rewards)

Since POI’s are randomized, it’s impossible to expect a set amount of Super Credits per hour. However, I’ve counted up a few runs and it’s come out to something like this:

• 300ish Super Credits per hour doing Evacuation missions
• 200ish Super Credits per hour picking random missions

So let’s meet in the middle and say that it’s reasonable to collect about 250 Super Credits per hour. I’m not sure how much future War Bonds will cost, but I’ve seen the armor sets range in price from 600 credits to 975 credits, so it will take you about 3-4 hours of farming to buy all available armors until the next rotation. Or you could spend 5 seconds whipping out your credit card. Your call!

Common Sample Farming

Farming for Common Samples follows a similar approach to farming for Super Credits, but this time, you’ll want to complete the mission. Unlike other resources, samples aren’t added to your inventory unless you extract with them.

However, unless you have a specific need for them, I wouldn’t suggest exclusively farming Common Samples. Instead, I recommend following my Rare Sample Farming Guide. This guide allows you to obtain both types of samples during the same run, albeit at a slower rate compared to focusing solely on Common Samples.

Rare Sample Farming

Farming for Rare Samples is both stressful and exciting. Unlike the other resources mentioned so far, there is a decent chance that you may die and lose everything using this strategy. However, the alternative is to spend 40 minutes running around a map destroying bot outposts or bug holes. Ain’t nobody got time fo’ dat.

Rare Samples (Quick Guide)

1. Choose an Automaton-controlled “DEFEND” planet and choose an Evacuation mission that is either “4 – Challenging” difficulty or “6 – Extreme”.
2. Take this loadout with you:
   • Armor: Light Armor with Scout Buff
   • Weapons:
   • • Primary: SG-225 Breaker
   • • Secondary: P-19 Redeemer
   • • Grenade: G-16 Impact
   • Stratagems:
   • • RS-422 Railgun
   • • SH-32 Shield Generator Pack
   • • Whatever else you want. Choose the two mortars if you’re not sure.
   • Booster:
   • • Stamina Enhancement if the planet has easy terrain.
   • • Muscle Enhancement if the planet is sandy or snowy.
3. Land outside of the base and start making a loop around it, looking for POI’s.
4. Keep running and gunning, not allowing yourself to get bogged down by enemies.
5. When the mission timer is almost at zero, kill any remaining enemies that are chasing you and go prone.
6. Crawl to somewhere outside of the base but near the evac zone.
7. Stay out of sight until the Pelican is about to land. Dying now will make you lose everything.
8. Run to the Pelican without alerting any enemies. If the enemies are directly in your path and you have no choice, throw a grenade and do your best to run past them – you don’t have time for a shootout.

Rare Samples (Introduction)

The best way to farm Rare Samples is to choose an Evacuation mission on an Automaton-controlled “DEFEND” planet and run around the map screaming while trying not to get your head blown off.

Choosing a Planet

Unfortunately, the only way to run this strategy is to do an Evacuation mission on a “DEFEND” planet. If a “DEFEND” planet is unavailable to you, you’ll have to wait for one to become available. If you actually have multiple planets that are able to be defended, choose one with favorable terrain. The game is still young so we haven’t been able to visit all the planets yet, but my order of preference for running this sort of strategy would be:

1. Moor with no fog (has little water and not a lot of mountain ranges)
2. Arctic with no blizzards (lots of snow to trudge through and mountain ranges blocking you from seeing POI’s, but visibility is otherwise good)
3. Sandy with no sandstorms (lots of sand to contend with and the heat will kill your stamina quickly, but no mountain ranges)
4. Primordial with no fog or rainstorms (the foliage will block you from seeing POI’s and slow you down…good luck if this is your only option)

As for difficulty, there are three main choices to go with:

• 4 – Challenging: about 13 Rare Samples per map.
• 5 – Hard: about 18 Rare Samples per map.
• 6 – Extreme: about 20 Rare Samples per map.

I wouldn’t recommend doing difficulties 7-9 unless you’ve got a group with you. Super Samples are easy enough to gather on their own using a different method and the difficulty spike for a solo player would be brutal.

As for what to choose between difficulties 4-6, “5 – Hard” feels basically the same as “6 – Extreme” to me, so I would rule Hard out. As for the differences between 4 and 6, I would break down the two experiences like this:

• 4 – Challenging: A somewhat leisurely stroll through the countryside.
• 6 – Extreme: Running through the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942.

While it’s true that Extreme difficulty puts more guaranteed samples on the map, the difficulty between 4 and 6 is so large that you probably won’t have the time to actually find and collect the extra samples. You spend much more time hauling ass and beating back foes on 6 than you do on 4, and if you play on 4, you can usually make up for the lack of samples by collecting some in pods and storage containers. On that last point, in case you didn’t know: Rare Samples that appear in pods and storage containers aren’t a part of the guaranteed Rare Sample pool, so you can actually collect more Rare Samples than what the game tells you are there on the map:

So if you’d like a less-stressful experience where you might get a few less Rare Samples per run, I’d recommend “4 – Challenging” difficulty.

Loadout

Now that you’ve chosen your mission, it’s time to choose your loadout.

Armor

This is important: choose a Light Armor with the “Scout” buff. This may seem odd as you’ll be doing a lot of running and gunning, but stealth becomes critically important near the end of the run. The “Scout” buff also includes another nifty feature that I’ll explain in more detail below.

Weapons

I recommend the standard blitzkrieg loadout:

• Primary: SG-225 Breaker
• Secondary: P-19 Redeemer
• Grenade: G-16 Impact

The Breaker will allow you to clear out enemies quickly and the Redeemer will get you out of a bind. The Impact grenade is necessary for blowing open storage containers and for deleting enemies who get in your way.

Stratagems

There are two stratagems which I highly recommend taking on this run:

• RS-422 Railgun
• SH-32 Shield Generator Pack

You will encounter a lot of the bigger bots on this run, along with a ton of pesky Walkers. You may even run into a Hulk or two. As for the Shield Generator Pack, that’s basically mandatory on higher-difficulty bot missions to prevent you from being one-shotted by rockets.

As for the two remaining slots, it’s up to you but here are some suggestions:

• A/M-12 Mortar Sentry + A/M-23 EMS Mortar Sentry: I’ve recently started using these two stratagems for these runs and have been finding them really useful. The EMS mortar will slow enemies down while the other mortar blows them up. After you set them down, you can start sprinting towards the next POI. Even if your enemies manage to get through the EMS field, they’ll focus on destroying your mortars while you’ll be long gone by then.
• Eagle Airstrike: Good for sending groups of bot troopers or larger enemies to Hell quickly.
• Eagle Smoke Strike/Orbital Smoke Strike: If you’re getting overwhelmed, dropping one of these and hauling ass should get you out of the fight quickly.
• Orbital EMS Strike: Will slow enemies down to a crawl, letting you run for your life in peace.
• Orbital Laser: If you find yourself facing a large group of enemies and a Hulk (or, God forbid, a Tank), the Big Reset Button in the Sky will clear the way for you. Can really only be used once per run though.

Booster

Depending on the type of planet you’re visiting, I would go with either the “Stamina Enhancement” Booster or the “Muscle Enhancement” Booster (if the planet is sandy or snowy). There’s no time to stop and smell the roses on this run – you’ve got to move fast and not let yourself be bogged down by enemies.

Rare Samples (Strategy)

You’ve got two choices when it comes to the landing zone:

• Land at the Evac Zone for a moment’s worth of safety, but farther away from a POI.
• Land outside the base where you think a POI is but into potential danger.

I typically opt for the latter approach, although I’ve been caught off guard a few times (landing next to a POI guarded by multiple rocket bots was definitely not cool).

Once you’ve landed, swiftly gather all the necessary gear and start running a loop around the map, searching for POIs. Unlike the Super Credit Farming run, POIs on harder difficulties are guarded by enemies, so you’ll need to deal with them at each stop. While this can be frustrating, it does offer a small benefit – if you’ve chosen an Armor with the “Scout” buff, placing tags on the map will reveal enemy locations, which can help you locate POIs. I don’t recommend constantly stopping to place tags on the map since time is limited, but dropping a few tags here and there while prone might assist you if you’re unsure where the next POI might be.

Whatever you do, don’t allow yourself to get bogged down. If you see a drop ship releasing troops, run. If you accidentally stumble upon a bot patrol, run. Not only is there insufficient time to deal with all these enemies, but the situation can quickly escalate – the drop ships are relentless during this mission. Sometimes, despite your best efforts, things can spiral out of control. For each POI, you’ll need to stop to clear out enemies and then gather the resources. Many times, I’ve found myself trying to clear a POI when a bot patrol passes by, only to be interrupted by two drop ships unleashing more foes. In such cases, it’s often best to cut your losses and run. It’s disappointing to miss out on resources, but it’s worse to die and respawn back into the same battlefield with depleted supplies. Just run, my friend.

As the mission timer approaches one minute remaining, it’s crucial to mentally prepare for the toughest challenge yet: extraction. Once the timer hits zero, you’ll run out of reinforcements and stratagems, meaning that being killed will result in losing everything. It’s time to take a deep breath and focus.

Cease searching for more POIs and begin making your way toward the base. However, do not enter the base. When the timer hits zero, eliminate any remaining enemies and then go prone. It’s time to utilize your Scout armor. Stealth is incredibly effective in this game, and the Scout armor nearly renders you invisible when prone. While outside the base, crawl toward the vicinity of the Evac Zone. Do not crawl directly to the Evac Zone; just stay nearby. The evac terminal drop will have alerted any enemies inside the base, and they’ll likely be swarming the area where the Pelican will land. You’ll want to be close to the Evac Zone but not too close, like this:

Enemies will continue to roam around the base, and patrols may enter or leave, so keep an eye on your map for the next two minutes and avoid their path if necessary. Once the Pelican is about to land, it’s time to make your move. If the Pelican pilot is cooperative, they might clear out some nearby enemies to assist you. Nearly all of my extractions have gone smoothly, but there was one instance where a large group of bots stood between me and the Pelican. If you find yourself in a similar situation, shout “For Democracy!”, throw a grenade at their feet, and then stride over their fallen bodies on your way to victory.

Rare Samples (Rewards)

Depending on the difficulty selected, you can usually collect approximately 15-20 Rare Samples (and an equal number of Commons) from each run. Once you factor in the hellpod loading screen, Pelican evacuation, and Mission Completion screen, each run typically takes about 20 minutes, resulting in approximately 45-60 Rare Samples per hour… provided you survive each mission. Good luck out there, brother.

Super Sample Farming

If you can believe it, collecting Supers is much easier than getting Rares. The hardest part about obtaining Super Samples is unlocking the higher difficulties in the first place. Let me tell you, dawg: completing an entire “8 – Impossible” operation solo just for the privilege of unlocking “9 – Helldive” difficulty was not fun.

Super Samples (Quick Guide)

1. Choose an Automaton-controlled planet and select a “Blitz: Search and Destroy” mission on “9 – Helldive” difficulty that does not have the “Complex Stratagem Planning” modifier.
2. Take this loadout with you:
   • Armor: Light Armor with Scout Buff
   • Weapons:
   • • Primary: SG-225 Breaker
   • • Secondary: P-19 Redeemer
   • • Grenade: G-16 Impact
   • Stratagems:
   • • RS-422 Railgun
   • • SH-32 Shield Generator Pack
   • • Whatever else you want.
   • Booster: Hellpod Space Optimization
3. Call down your gear immediately upon landing.
4. Go prone and search for the Chicken Leg Rock in the interior of the map or around its edges. Look for it where you’d expect other POI’s to spawn.
5. Once you’ve acquired the samples, sneak back to the Evac Zone.
6. Find an elevated position that you can perch on and wait for the mission timer to run out and for the Pelican to arrive.
7. Extract out of the mission.

Super Samples (Introduction)

The best way to farm Super Samples is to choose a “Blitz: Search and Destroy” mission on “9 – Helldive” difficultly, become a ghost, locate the samples, and then extract from the mission.

Choosing a Planet

Super Samples appear on difficulties 7-9:

• 7 – Suicide Mission: 3 samples per run.
• 8 – Impossible: 5 samples per run.
• 9 – Helldive: 6 samples per run.

I would recommend avoiding “7 – Suicide Mission” altogether since the payout is poor. Instead, focus on either difficulty “8” or “9”. The payout doesn’t differ much between the two difficulties, but the actual difficulty level is the same. So, if you’ve unlocked Helldive, you may as well choose that one. However, if you’ve only unlocked Impossible, that’s fine too.

The most critical factor in successfully following this guide is visibility. Super Samples can only be found at a special POI that looks like this:

I’ve heard many colorful names for this rock, but I like to call it the “Chicken Leg Rock”. I’ve seen people online mentioning that they’ve seen this rock spawn multiple times with only one of them having the samples around it, but in my experience, I’ve only ever seen it once per map. I think this may be because I mostly fight the bots though… here’s an image I found from a reddit post:

It seems that on Terminid planets, the Chicken Leg Rock may spawn in two different configurations – a “good” version and a “corrupted” version – and only one of these will have the samples nearby. However, I obtained all my Super Samples from running Automaton missions, so I can’t personally confirm this.

Aside from this duplicate Chicken Leg trickery, I don’t recommend farming for Supers on bug planets for several reasons:

• The Spore Spewers severely limit visibility, and you don’t want to attract attention by destroying them.
• No matter how stealthy you are, Stalkers will inevitably find you and attack.
• Bile Titans are a nightmare to deal with. I’d rather face half the robot army and a Balrog than one of those beasts.

Regarding other planetary details, I primarily did my farming on the Arctic planet of Vandalon IV. While the rocky mountains occasionally made finding the Chicken Leg Rock challenging, the clear air provided perfect visibility across the map, and the rock always stood out among the rest. Sometimes, I even got lucky and could see it directly from the Evac Zone:

Since you’ll be crawling throughout most of the mission, the snow that would typically slow you down on a map like this is a non-factor.

Apart from visibility, the most crucial aspect to consider when selecting a planet and operation are the operation modifiers. I provided a detailed explanation of how these function in the XP & Requisition Slip Farming Guide section if you want more information on them.

Avoid choosing an operation with the “Complex Stratagem Planning” modifier.

Oddly, the game treats the evac terminal as a “stratagem”, so playing a mission with this modifier turned on will delay the Pelican’s arrival time to 4 minutes instead of 2. If you’re thinking this is a bug, it’s sadly not – the radio commander actually says things like, “ETA 3 minutes,” so the developers recorded these lines expecting this behavior. Waiting 4 minutes for the Pelican to arrive on Helldive difficulty is pure torture.

Loadout

• Your objective is to remain hidden throughout the entire mission. Therefore, stealth armor is your friend here.

Armor

• Choose a Light Armor with the “Scout” buff. This will turn you into a ghost and let you sneak around the battlefield, Solid Snake-style.

Weapons & Stratagems

• Bring whatever you want. The point of this mission is to not use any. I’d recommend taking the loadout recommended in the Rare Samples Farming Guide just in case things get dicey for whatever reason.

Booster

• “Stamina Enhancement” is always nice, but since you’ll do most of this mission crawling, it isn’t totally necessary. “Hellpod Space Optimization” might not be a bad idea if you’re afraid you’ll screw up and find yourself in combat.

Super Samples (Strategy)

Landing on a bot planet on Helldive difficulty is a gamble and there are a lot of things that can ruin your day right off the bat:

• Typically, an Evac Zone is safe, but sometimes the game will screw you over and you’ll find that the Evac Zone has been taken over by the bots for them to use as some sort of pseudo-base. Worse yet, the game doesn’t tell you this when you’re choosing a place to land on the map.
• If you choose to land outside of the Evac Zone, you may end up landing near a bot base or bot-protected POI instead, which is just as bad as landing into an occupied Evac Zone.
• No matter where you land, you always run the risk of landing within range of an enemy mortar base (this includes the Evac Zone!). Dealing with a base like that is a risky endeavor on Helldive difficulty, especially if you’re unable to call down your support weapons to deal with it.

With all of that said, I would just choose to land at the Evac Zone and hope for the best. If it’s occupied by enemies or within range of a mortar base, just abandon the mission and try again.

Now that you’ve successfully landed and kissed the ground, call down your support gear immediately (Resupply, Shield Generator Pack, etc.). Ideally, you won’t need them, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. I recommend calling them down immediately because bot patrols will start walking by the Evac Zone soon after you land and you don’t want to draw their attention with the sound of your drop pods landing.

After you’re geared up, it’s time to hit the bricks and start looking for that rock. The Chicken Leg Rock can appear wherever any other POI can spawn, so it will always be some distance away from enemy bases on either the fringes of the map or within the interior. From my own experience, I usually found it by heading inland and just looking around.

Thankfully, unlike other POI’s on harder difficulties, the Chicken Leg Rock will have no enemies guarding it. It will still be a challenge getting to it however. Besides your typical array of enemy bases and guarded POI’s, the bots have a few other delightful defenses which you will need to be on the lookout for.

Cannon Turrets

Cannon Turrets can merk your ass from a mile away if you let them spot you. They can’t see you if you’re prone though (the position you’ll be spending 90% of the mission in), so unless you feel like it’s completely safe for you to stand up, remain as low to the ground as possible.

If a Cannon Turret spots you, the light on the front of it will glow red and it will turn to face you. At this point, you have about 2 seconds to make either one of these important decisions:

• Leap behind a rock and wait for it to give up on killing you.
• Quickly make amends with Jesus Christ and accept your fate.

Thankfully, it doesn’t take long for the cannon turret to lose track of you once you go into hiding, so you should be good to go if you can leap out of sight in time.

Detection Towers

Resembling the Eye of Sauron atop Barad-dûr, Detection Towers will call in drop ships if they detect you. If the Chicken Leg Rock happens to spawn near a Detection Tower base, wait for the tower’s gaze to point away from the rock before crawling over to collect the samples. I think the only way to destroy a Detection Tower is to call in a Hellbomb next to it (which would entail killing everyone in the base first), so don’t risk it and just try to get in and out. If you do get spotted by a Detection Tower, run for your life before the drop ship armada arrives and wait for things to blow over before heading back out again.

Strategy, continued

Once you’ve collected the samples, it’s time to slowly make your way back to the Evac Zone. Don’t do anything stupid and crawl all the way back there if you need to. Once you’re back to the Evac Zone and the coast looks clear, you can spend some time looking around for some Rare Samples (there’s usually about 4 lying around on Helldive difficulty).

Now you need to wait for the mission timer to run out and for the Pelican to land. If you can, find a nice perch like this to wait things out on:

Enemies typically won’t be able to spot you when you’ve got the high ground like this. If you can’t get yourself to a higher position, keep your eyes glued to your map and avoid any incoming enemy patrols. Like in the Rare Sample Farming Guide, you’ll want to be close to the Evac Zone, but not exactly where the Pelican will land. It’s possible that multiple enemy patrols will criss-cross the base while you’re waiting for extraction. Once the Pelican is about to land, get down from your perch and start crawling towards it to leave the battlefield behind.

Super Samples (Rewards)

Depending on the difficulty chosen, each run takes about 20 minutes (factoring in cutscenes and extraction time) and will net you either 5 or 6 Super Samples, equating to about 45 or 48 Super Samples per hour. Since higher-tier ship upgrades only need 5 or 10 Super Samples each, you don’t really need to farm very many of them. I recommend knocking out a few of these runs when you get tired of farming other things.

Concluding Remarks

Thanks for reading my guide! If I get some more time, I’d like to write more guides in the future (maybe on weapons or how to complete missions solo). Let me know what you think in the comments section or if there’s any better farming techniques that you can think of.