Helldivers 2 doesn’t just ship you off to planets with a shotgun and a prayer—you also have the Super Destroyer and the Eagle fighter jet on your side. The Eagle will be your best friend when it has a 500kg Bomb for you to use, so let’s make it happen.
How to unlock the 500kg Eagle Bomb Stratagem in Helldivers 2
The Eagle Bomb is the final Stratagem in the Hanger tree of Helldivers 2. In order to unlock it, you must reach level 15 and pay 10,000 Requisitions at the computer on the left side of your Super Destroyer’s main lobby.
You don’t need to purchase any other Eagle or Strategems in order to get the 500kg Bomb—as soon as you reach level 15, you can buy your mini-nukes without a problem. Once you have it, the code is as follows: ▲◄▼▼▼
This code will, after a deployment time of around three seconds, drop a bomb onto the ground. It does tiny bit of impact damage, and after about half a second, explodes with a fairly large radius. It has one charge that refreshes whenever the Eagle rearms.
How to use the 500kg Eagle Bomb in Helldivers 2
Once you’ve entered the code for the 500kg Eagle Bomb, throw it a safe distance away, just in front of where your targets are walking towards. You want the bomb shell to impact your target on the way down to cause a small stagger and increase the chance it blows up right on them. That’s because the Eagle deals massive explosive damage at the point of impact—enough to one-shot Tanks and Bile Titans. But, the Stratagem has a significant damage drop-off as targets get further from the center.
Despite its name, the 500kg Bomb is actually not fantastic for clearing out areas. The blast radius is surprisingly small, limiting how many enemies you can hit. Instead, it’s better to use the 500kg Bomb as an assassination tool—taking out a Titan or Tank that would otherwise eat up ammunition. Timing is key if you want this to trade one-for-one with a Bile Titan, which is a big deal for Suicide Mission difficulty and above.
If necessary, you can use this limited size to your advantage and throw the 500kg Bomb at your feet before running away. This might increase the chance for enemies like Chargers or Hulks to stand still and attempt a melee attack while the bomb itself is dropping. As long as you focus on sprinting, there will be enough time for you to dive to safety before the Bomb turns you to smithereens—especially if you’re rocking Light Armor.
As an Eagle Stratagem, the 500kg Bomb boasts a relatively low cooldown at around two and a half minutes. But, if you bring other Eagle Stratagems with you, you’ll have to wait until all of your Eagle Strategems are used up—or until you manually rearm your Eagle—before you can get your 500kg charge back. Balancing the number of Eagle Stratagems you bring is tricky, so be ready to Rearm during periods of calm if you want to call your jet often.
This mini-nuke is best paired with Stratagems better suited for area clearing—like the Rocket Sentry, Autocannon Sentry, Eagle Airstrike, or Orbital Walking Bombardment.
How to improve the 500kg Eagle Bomb Stratagem
The 500kg Eagle Bomb Stratagem works best after you fully upgrade the Hangar in Helldivers 2. The full Hangar upgrade costs a total of 240 Common Samples, 120 Rare Samples, and 10 Super Samples, which is a lot. But, these upgrades will make the 500kg Eagle Bomb more than twice as powerful—giving it 50 percent cooldown reduction between airstrikes, 20 percent reduction in rearm time for your Eagle, and two bomb charges instead of one.
These upgrades don’t only buff the 500kg Bomb, either. Other strong Stratagems, like Eagle Airstrike and Eagle Cluster Bomb, also get heavily buffed through this tree—more so than any other Ship Upgrade. Even if you’re not a fan of mini-nukes, getting these upgrades for other powerful mini-orbitals is a great idea.
Higher difficulties in Helldivers 2 bring a lot of threats to the table, with two to four high-priority, high-armor enemies spawning each wave. The 500kg Bomb is one of the best ways to shred them without losing a ton of Unsafe Railgun ammunition. Getting a second charge—and getting that charge back much faster—is a great idea to improve your chance at survival.
