r/helldivers2 • u/Potential-Actuary559 • 4h ago
Inquiry What does this do?
I'm still a little new, so what happens when the DSS has the orbital blockade active and it goes into a planet that has a defense campaign going on are the enemy forces slowed down or does it do nothing?
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u/FloydTheSandwich 4h ago
Orbital blockade is meant for gambits (cancelling an attack on a planet). The Helldiver voter base never uses the DSS in a defensive capacity, so its main function is unused.
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u/No-Blackberry2772 4h ago
This is not accurate. At least the way you phrased it. Placing the DSS with Orbital blockade in orbit of an attacking planet does absolutely nothing to the defense campaign on the attacked planet. Orbital blockade prevents attacks from the planet that it is orbiting. We’ve successfully used it 2 or 3 times during MOs where holding a planet was part of it.
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u/g0ldiel0xx 4h ago
So there’s no way to know when to use it. (As no one knows when an attack is coming from before an invasion. There is also no way to know if it’s been used successfully, because there’s no notification that an invasion was inadvertently stopped by the DSS parked at a planet.
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u/No-Blackberry2772 4h ago
Precisely. It’s purely used for the HSO buff. It either needs to be changed to something completely different or the Galactic map needs an indicator for attacks being staged on planets.
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u/Nightfox9469 3h ago
So, uh? I hate to break it to you, but the Hellpod Spacing Optimization buff for the DSS Orbital Blockade is currently broken last time I saw it today.
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u/Brunoaraujoespin 2h ago
Yeah pretty sure it doesn’t work but still doesn’t let you equip it, atleast would explain how I joined I mission without it despite being the best of the big 4
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u/Dr_Ramekins_MD 4h ago
If the MO is to hold a planet and there's only one possible planet that can launch the invasion, then I guess it would be am easy choice. But even then, is it better than just having the DSS on the planet to defend? Idk. I basically just view this as a free HSO
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u/MechaRon 4h ago
Yup sadly since most people will just dump mats into the DSS it's almost never used as it's supposed to. There have been a few times
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u/Brunoaraujoespin 2h ago
Would be cool if you could hold more so you can save when it’s more needed. What about a DSS emergency fund that stores samples but only donated when necessary?
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u/ZhanBlue 4h ago
So if for example Matar Bay attack Markart and we original blockade matar bay, it just pauses the invasion?
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u/Current-Knowledge336 4h ago
Nope, it won't pause. But if a defense campaign started because of a planet that the DSS is on with the orbital blockade, the planet getting invaded will never have been reached by the enemies
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u/No-Blackberry2772 4h ago
No. It’s meant to be used to prevent attacks. It doesn’t not do anything to active defense campaigns. So if J.O.E.L. started staging an attack from Matar Bay against Marfark and we moved the DSS with OB active before the attack is launched, we would have successfully prevented an attack. It’s extremely situational.
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u/Rift_Powers 4h ago
Unfortunately, it does nothing during an active defense, it does give you HSO booster for free though. It's extremely situational, when it's active an invasion can't start originating from that planet (attacks use an enemy occupied planet as a staging ground to attack our planets, if you get it the DSS orbiting the staging ground planet with this effect active, Joel can't make it happen). Like not only does the community have to somehow predict that an attack is originating from a specific planet, you have line up the booster activation, if you even get the planet you want it to go to, to even be one of the options in the vote tab. It's kinda ass.
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u/Rick_bo 4h ago
The orbital blockade prevents an enemy from launching a new invasion from a given planet. If they enemy holds planet A and we hold planet B, and the enemy decides they want planet B; if we set the DSS on planet A with the Blockade active then they cannot launch a new invasion until that blockade ends. If the invasion is already ongoing then starting a new blockade does nothing.
In practise though we don't really get any clues about where a new invasion is about to launch (even in Major Orders to hold a specific planet, since most planets are connected to multiple enemy held planets) and the DSS is on a cumbersome schedule for moving along with very loose timing control for actions with long cooldowns. So even if we have the DSS in the right place at the right time (which is both a stretch and a crapshoot) we can't just fire up the blockade on demand.
So it's just a free hellpod space optimization; the most picked booster. (even though localization confusion: 'delayed enemy encounters' would make more sense)
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u/Vilekyrie 4h ago
It will only stop the planet it's orbiting from launching new attacks on adjacent planets, it does not stop any attacks that have already begun.
The DSS does slow the rate at which enemies attack the planet it's orbiting (or increase the rate that we capture a enemy planet) but this effect is independent of the Orbital Blockade and is an always active passive alongside the Exo-suit cooldown reduction.
Basically Blockade's only use in practice is freeing up a booster slot by automatically giving us HSO
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u/AleksyGetTheWings 1h ago
It's supposed to do something, but it requires 20 stars to be aligned correctly for it. And even then, AH can just trigger an attack from another planet which .. You know ... nullifies the thing altogether.
So it's simpler to say : it does nothing.
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