It's not looking good: Helldivers 2 players lost another Super Earth city, so now they've got reduced ammo and Stims – oh wait, they're back to normal and we've got free napalm too

Things haven't been looking good for us Helldivers 2 enjoyers. The Illuminate's invasion of Super Earth continues, and they've just taken another Mega City. And, until now, we've been going into battle with 50% less ammo and two fewer stims than usual, making the battle even harder. Thankfully, we got some free Orbital Napalm Barrages to compensate us, and our ammo and stims are back to normal after a few painful hours.

Until now, there'd been two ongoing Major Orders: Destroy 200 million Automatons so we can use their scrap in the war effort, and hold Super Earth. Game master Joel has been deliberately splitting us over two fronts to make things more tense, and it's been working.

Rather than presenting a simple pass or fail, the fall of another Mega City led to some consequences that made fighting harder, but luckily, Helldivers are a smart bunch and came up with some ways to save ammo – be sure to take notes should the Illuminate have us cornered like this again in the future.

Well, shit. from r/Helldivers

Over on Reddit, one player recommended we start using the laser weapons as these simply overheat rather than using up ammo. Overheating does use a heatsink, which is like a magazine, but keep the temperature under control and you can blast all match. The downside is they're not all that good, and one of them even burns you right back, meaning you need to eat through stims to keep firing.

Some had suggested using Guard Dog stratagems, as these autonomous backpack drones don't use any ammo either. "Arc thrower and Blitzer it is," writes one player, clearly favoring electrical damage over fire.

helldivers from r/Helldivers/comments/1kxhjmr/due_to_ammunition_shortages_please_familiarize

Another ammo-saving strategy is the revelation you can use a portable hellbomb to take out a Leviathan. Place it on the ground and then call in a stratagem pod right on top of it. When the pod comes out of the ground and pops its lid off, it'll launch the portable hellbomb, hopefully into the path of a Leviathan.

Hellbomb Trebuchet Leviathan from r/Helldivers

And don't forget, you can command the SEAF soldiers to make them follow you and help deal with enemies. They're the real heroes.

Now, the DSS is back online, and you can thank those who've been busy scrapping the 200 million Automatons needed in order to fix it. "BOT DIVERS YOU ABSOLUTE LEGENDS! The DSS is back online!" one Reddit user celebrates. With ammo and stims back to how they were, there's no reason not to get back out into the fight, Helldivers.

If you've abandoned Super Earth, you could always check out some of the best online games you can play instead.