Factory Strider

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Factory Strider
Faction	Automatons
Difficulty	Challenging (4)+
Size	Titan

Called "Walkers" or "Dogs" by some Helldivers, the Factory Striders are giant, heavily armed behemoths of steel and socialism. As walking Factories on legs, Factory Striders can be found at Automaton outposts or be dropped into battle, firing their cannons and dual miniguns at Helldivers and fabricating batches of Standard Devastators, or roam across the planet's surface providing supporting fire wherever it can. Due to their functionality, it is unsurprising that Automatons can quickly deploy and spread on Super Earth colonies.

Factory Striders are extremely tough targets, with many Helldivers reporting they can survive several 500kg bomb direct hits.

On April 16th, 2184, reports confirmed that the Factory Striders encountered during the latter stages of Operation Swift Disassembly were prototypes on test runs and are now being mass-produced. Reports have also confirmed that Factory Striders can be transported and dropped off by Dropships. Super Earth High Command has approved new missions targeting the destruction of Factory Striders.

Later during Operation Tormenta de Fuego, Factory Striders would be observed marching in "Strider Convoys" by Helldivers during high level operations, and even chanting, which suggests that the Factory Strider isn't a vehicle with a pilot as much as it is a giant Automaton itself. In any case, such convoys are now considered high value targets, although their targeting is complicated by the presence of a new variant: the Strider Jammer.

Currently the Factory Striders have two variants:

• Factory Strider: The main variant equipped with a large plasma cannon on its back. Striders deployed in cities have the plasma cannon removed.
• Strider Jammer: Replaces the Cannon Turret with a Stratagem Jammer that scrambles the codes of Stratagem inputs, exclusively found in Strider Convoys. The scrambling is curiously similar to the Illuminate Cognitive Disruptor. Jammer striders are unique in that they are capable of firing signal flares from their back to summon reinforcements.

Tactics And Strategy

• Factory Striders have "Anti-tank"-level armor, affording them a high degree of protection. However, there are still softer parts.
  • Its "eye", a benign-looking red light on the left side of its face, only has heavy armor.
  • The neck, leg joints and feet are heavy armor. Particularly, its feet are only heavy-armored and destroying a foot is enough to kill the entire strider.
  • The piston shafts from its back that move up and down, are only heavy armored. They are not practical to shoot at, however.
  • Its undercarriage or "stomach" where it deploys heavy devastators from, is only AP3 medium armored, its most vulnerable point.
  • The Strider's armor can be broken with repeated AP5 hits. Destroying the head and leg armor will reduce the damaged part to AP4 heavy, while destroying a part of the body itself will reduce it to AP3 medium.
• While an intimidating foe at first because of its size, the Strider's threat against Helldivers is significantly reduced once it is deprived of its twin chin-mounted minigun.
  • Helldivers should avoid being in front of a Strider unless its chin-mounted minigun turrets has been destroyed, as they can shred Helldivers in 1-2 seconds without cover. The miniguns are not very well-armored, and can be destroyed by any weapon capable of medium-armor penetration. The miniguns also only have a 180-degree FoV, it cannot swivel to shoot at targets behind them, without the entire Strider turning.
  • Its dorsal laser cannon turret also has "anti-tank"-level armor, but a direct hit from most missile launchers will destroy it. The turret has a 360-degree FoV and is in a very high position on the Strider, hence it is capable of engaging from long ranges. It is also capable of extreme ragdolling if their shot lands close.
  • On occasion, it will deploy a squad of 4 devastators as escorts. It will only produce standard devastators. Striders under the Jet Brigade, will produce devastators with jump packs.
  • Once all its weapons are destroyed, it will generally remain stationary and focus on producing Devastators; this can allow Helldivers to either focus on other threats or adequately move around the Strider to destroy its weak point.
• Factory Striders explode violently upon death as their generator slowly implodes. It is heavily recommended not to be near a Factory Strider once it falls over.
• The conventional way to deal with a Factory Strider is to use anti-tank rockets against its head:
  • The GR-8 Recoilless Rifle and the FAF-14 Spear take 2 hits to destroy a Factory Strider. The latter requires the player to aim in front of the Factory Strider due to the Spear's lock on targeting.
    • A single direct hit to the red eye on the front of the Factory Strider's head, from a Recoilless Rifle, will instantly kill the machine. This is risky, as you are directly exposed to the dual miniguns unless they've been dealt with, not to mention that the size of the eye makes it difficult to do from afar.
  • The EAT-17 Expendable Anti-Tank and LAS-99 Quasar Cannon take 3 hits to destroy a Factory Strider.
• A hit from the MS-11 Solo Silo will instantly kill any Factory Strider as long as they are in the vicinity of the explosion.
• The Orbital Laser alone is often enough to destroy a Factory Strider. However, the gargantuan machine takes the entire duration of the laser to be destroyed.
• Hellpods can be used to land on the Strider, whether it would be from support weapons, emplacements, or reinforcing Helldivers to the fray. It can take around 5 Hellpods of any kind landing on its back to destroy them.
• An Eagle 500kg Bomb landing directly on the Strider's face can deal tremendous damage.
• Due to their size and slow speed, Factory Striders are very vulnerable to all forms of Orbital Barrages, especially the Walking Barrage if thrown along its length.
• Anti-tank mines are particularly effective against advancing Striders, as more often than not, they'll trigger all of them all on its own. Against stationary striders, drop the mines in-front of the mech, and bait it to chase you through the mine field.
• A risky ambush tactic that is capable of quickly killing a Strider is to use an MG-206 Heavy Machine Gun set to its highest rpm and magdump the HMG until it keels over. Due to the lower amount of protection of its undercarriage, the HMG will do full damage and quickly shred through the strider's health. The gattling guns can be bypassed entirely by approaching the Strider from the sides, or rear.
• Two thermite grenades to the undercarriage is typically enough kill a Strider on their own. This, however, carries the risk of one of the grenades sticking to a devastator instead, if they are thrown while the Strider is deploying devastators.
• If one has a sharp eye, good vantage, and clear perimeter, the RS-422 Railgun can easily disarm a Factory Strider as it can reliably destroy both its laser cannon and minigun turrets from a farther distance.
• The E/AT-12 Anti-Tank Emplacement deployed at long distances is a great counter to factory striders, as is capable of destroying its main gun in a single shot, removing its only threat against you at this range. From here, the strider is a sitting duck that as it will have no way to dodge, nor fight back without slowly trudging towards your position.
  • Make sure to destroy its mounted cannon first to avoid getting killed from afar.
• If one is able to stray closer with an EXO-49 Emancipator Exosuit and get within its cannon turret's dead-zone, unloading on it is an easy affair since the suit's armor can withstand its minigun turrets.
• Stratagems such as the Eagle 500kg bomb or Orbital Laser, Eagle Airstrikes, Eagle 110mm Rocket Pods, and Orbital Precision Strikes work fine against Striders.
• Unlike other Automaton units, destroying the dropship carrying the Factory Strider before it can be dropped will instantly kill the Factory Strider.
• The laser cannon on top can be severely damaged by landing on top of it with a Hellpod. This also allows you to get on top of the machine, but this doesn't provide much of an advantage besides a clear view of its head.
• The SEAF Artillery: Mini Nuke, NUX-223 Hellbomb (also the damaged Hellbombs found around the map) and B-100 Portable Hellbomb all will instantly kill a Factory Strider even at full health, assuming they are in the vicinity of the explosion.
• Factory Striders can now be found as part of Factory Strider Convoy side objectives, with four Factory Striders and one equipped with a Stratagem Jammer. On the very highest difficulty levels, this can increase to as many as six Striders, with five of them being the standard model and one being the Jammer.
  • Jammer Striders do not prevent stratagem call downs like Automaton Jammer Towers do, but will scramble the input codes that may disrupt a Helldiver's muscle memory with calling down stratagems similarly to the Cognitive Disruptor, and will cycle different codes every 5 seconds. They are still armed with a pair of chin-mounted Gatling Guns and have the same weaknesses as a standard Strider. They should, however, be prioritized due to their ability to call reinforcements.
    • The Jammer Strider will fire multiple flare guns upon summoning a Bot Drop. Like the Bot Drop summoned by the Detector Tower, the reinforcements will be summoned close to the Helldivers instead.

• 
  Factory Strider weak points.
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  An idle Factory Strider.
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  A destroyed Factory Strider.
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  A Factory Strider being airdropped into battle.

Notes

• Factory Striders were added in the 1.000.200 Patch, on April 2nd 2024.
• Mass production started in the 1.000.203 Patch, on April 16th 2024.
• The Factory Striders bear resemblance to the AT-AT and AT-M6 from Star Wars.