Ship Module Upgrade Guide

Ship Module upgrades purchased with Samples transform your Stratagems from baseline tools into devastating force multipliers. These permanent upgrades affect every mission you undertake, enhancing support weapons, orbital strikes, defensive emplacements, and resupply efficiency. Understanding the optimal upgrade path separates struggling squads from efficient Democracy dispensers.

This guide presents a ranked progression path optimized for general-purpose co-op utility—prioritizing upgrades that benefit any squad composition across all difficulties and enemy factions. New Helldivers should focus on ammo sustainability and cooldown reductions first, then scale into health and firepower enhancements. Veterans can reference bay-specific trees to plan late-game optimization strategies.

Sample Economy Context: Common Samples are plentiful on any difficulty. Rare Samples require Medium+ difficulty missions. Super Rare Samples only drop on Extreme+ difficulties. Your early upgrade decisions with Common Samples create the foundation for everything that follows, making the first five upgrades particularly critical to get right.

If you’re a new Helldiver looking for immediate impact without analysis paralysis, these five upgrades provide maximum value for minimal investment. Get these first, in this order, and you’ll dramatically improve your squad’s effectiveness.

This complete ranking extends beyond the quick picks to provide a full progression path from early game through endgame optimization. Each upgrade includes detailed tactical context explaining why it earns its ranking, when to prioritize it, and how it synergizes with other modules. The ranking assumes general-purpose co-op play, but individual preferences and playstyles may shift priorities slightly.

These modules form the bedrock of effective Stratagem usage. They solve the fundamental problems every new Helldiver faces: running out of ammo, waiting too long for cooldowns, and losing defensive assets too quickly. Prioritize acquiring all five foundation upgrades before investing heavily in specialization.

With your foundation established, these modules optimize specific aspects of your Stratagem toolkit. They represent meaningful power increases but require more expensive samples or longer prerequisite chains. Prioritize based on your squad’s preferred Stratagem categories and playstyle preferences.

Ship Modules are organized into five bays, each with its own upgrade tree and tier structure. Understanding these trees helps you plan sample investment strategies and identify prerequisite chains. This section visualizes the complete progression path within each bay, showing tier dependencies and sample costs.

The Patriotic Administration Center governs Support Weapon Stratagems and Resupply capabilities—fundamentally about keeping your squad armed and supplied. This bay contains some of the most universally valuable upgrades in the game, particularly at T1 and T2 tiers.

The Engineering Bay manages Sentry turrets, Emplacement Stratagems, and Resupply logistics. These upgrades transform defensive capabilities from adequate to excellent, particularly valuable for teams favoring stationary defense strategies or objective-holding tactics.

The Robotics Workshop exclusively enhances Sentry Stratagems through two tiers focused on ammunition capacity and damage output. This represents specialized optimization for teams heavily invested in automated defense strategies.

The Hangar governs Eagle airstrikes—the devastating close air support strikes including 500kg bombs, cluster munitions, napalm, and strafing runs. These upgrades maximize your ability to call down aerial destruction repeatedly and effectively.

The Orbital Arsenal controls orbital bombardment Stratagems including laser strikes, railcannon shots, gas barrages, and precision munitions. These represent ship-based fire support raining death from orbit rather than aerial attack runs.

The Bridge contains miscellaneous upgrades affecting various aspects of Stratagem deployment and effectiveness. These tend to be smaller quality-of-life improvements rather than major power increases.

Understanding sample economy helps you plan efficient upgrade paths and avoid wasteful investments. Samples come in three tiers with different availability based on mission difficulty, creating natural gates in your progression. This section provides spending strategies for each stage of your Helldivers career.

Common Samples drop on all difficulty levels and are plentiful. New players should prioritize acquiring all valuable Common-cost upgrades before pursuing Rare or Super Rare modules. This establishes capability baseline without requiring high-difficulty missions.

Recommended Common Sample Spending Priority:

First, acquire Donation Access License (Patriotic Administration T1). This single upgrade solves the most painful early-game problem—ammunition scarcity for Support Weapons. The quality-of-life improvement alone justifies making this your absolute first purchase regardless of other considerations.

Second, purchase Synthetic Supplementation (Engineering Bay T1). This cheap upgrade affects multiple Stratagem categories simultaneously, providing exceptional value per sample invested. The combination of faster Resupply drops and quicker Sentry deployment creates foundation for sustainable operations.

Third, grab Targeting Software Upgrade (Bridge T1). With only these three Common purchases, you’ve eliminated starting ammo problems, accelerated defensive deployment, and improved orbital strike responsiveness. Only Common Samples were required, meaning any new player can acquire these immediately.

Additional Common expenditures contribute toward unlocking Rare-tier prerequisites. Specifically, Liquid-Ventilated Cockpit (Hangar T1) costs only Common Samples and represents required stepping stone toward valuable Eagle upgrades. Similarly, High-Altitude Agents (Orbital Arsenal T1) unlocks that bay’s progression tree.

Budget Principle: Exhaust high-value Common purchases before hoarding samples for Rare upgrades. The immediate capability gain from foundational Common modules outweighs marginal benefit of slightly faster Rare acquisition.

Rare Samples begin dropping on Medium difficulty and above, marking your transition from early to mid game. At this stage, you’re making meaningful choices about which bays to invest in because Rare upgrades require more selective spending than abundant Common Samples.

Recommended Rare Sample Spending Priority:

First Rare expenditure should complete Streamlined Request Process (Patriotic Administration T2). This requires both Common and Rare Samples but ranks as second-priority upgrade overall. Faster Support Weapon cooldowns dramatically improve squad firepower recovery after deaths. Non-negotiable investment.

Second Rare purchase should be Advanced Construction (Engineering Bay T2). This also requires prior Common investment (Synthetic Supplementation) but makes sentries genuinely viable on higher difficulties through 50% health increase. Fourth-priority upgrade overall justifies the expense.

After securing these two foundational Rare upgrades, you face meaningful choices. Do you invest in Hangar progression (Pit Crew Hazard Pay at T2) or Orbital Arsenal progression (Fast Launch Tubes at T2)? This decision should reflect your squad’s preferred offensive Stratagems. Teams favoring Eagle bombardment should prioritize Hangar; teams emphasizing orbital strikes should prioritize Orbital Arsenal. Both paths are equally valid.

Alternative mid-game Rare investment includes Robotics Workshop T1 (Targeting Scanners) if your team heavily relies on sentry guns. The 25% damage increase makes turrets significantly more lethal, though this represents more specialized investment than the universal-value upgrades mentioned above.

Budget Principle: Rare Samples enable specialization. After completing the two mandatory Rare upgrades (Streamlined Request and Advanced Construction), tailor remaining Rare spending to your squad’s tactical preferences rather than following rigid prescriptive path.

Super Rare Samples exclusively drop on Extreme difficulty and above, representing endgame resource requiring coordinated squad efforts to collect consistently. These samples unlock the most powerful enhancements but demand strategic allocation due to scarcity.

Recommended Super Rare Sample Spending Priority:

First Super Rare expenditure should absolutely be Expanded Weapons Bay (Hangar T3). Despite requiring completion of Hangar T1 and T2 first, this upgrade ranks fifth overall priority. The extra Eagle airstrike use represents massive offensive power increase that justifies the entire prerequisite investment chain. This is non-negotiable—rush this upgrade once you begin collecting Super Rares.

Second Super Rare investment depends on whether you completed Orbital Arsenal progression during mid-game. If you favored Eagle Stratagems and already finished Hangar tree, now pivot to Zero-G Breech Loading (Orbital Arsenal T3) for the orbital cooldown reduction. Conversely, if you prioritized Orbital Arsenal during Rare sample phase, now you might invest Super Rares in Hangar completion. Either way, you’re working toward having both major offensive Stratagem categories fully optimized.

Third Super Rare priority is Shock Absorption Gel (Robotics Workshop T2) assuming you use sentries regularly. This completes your defensive optimization suite, creating incredibly effective automated turrets. Only pursue if sentries are important to your tactical approach.

Late-game Super Rare spending includes Superior Packaging Methodology (Patriotic Administration T4). This requires lengthy prerequisite chain through Patriotic Administration bay but solves ammunition sustainability completely. However, given the prerequisite investments required, this typically represents one of your last major upgrades rather than immediate Super Rare target.

Budget Principle: Super Rare Samples should prioritize offensive force multiplication first (Expanded Weapons Bay, Zero-G Breech Loading) before defensive optimization (Shock Absorption Gel) and finally logistical perfection (Superior Packaging Methodology). Win missions faster through firepower, then invest in sustainability.

Ship Module upgrades benefit your entire squad, but co-op teams can maximize effectiveness through coordinated upgrade prioritization and role specialization. When playing with consistent squadmates, discussing upgrade paths creates multiplicative benefits rather than redundant investments.

In organized squads where players regularly team together, coordinating who pursues which bay progression creates more well-rounded team capabilities. This approach becomes particularly valuable in mid-to-late game when sample scarcity forces meaningful tradeoffs.

Consider a four-player squad where players specialize their Ship Module progression. Player One focuses on Patriotic Administration and Engineering Bay, ensuring excellent Support Weapon sustainability and defensive capability. Player Two prioritizes Hangar completion, maximizing Eagle airstrike effectiveness. Player Three emphasizes Orbital Arsenal, optimizing orbital bombardment frequency. Player Four pursues Robotics Workshop and utility upgrades, perfecting automated defense and quality-of-life features.

This specialization means when Player Two calls Eagle strikes, they have maximum uses per rearm and fastest cooldowns. When Player Three calls orbital bombardments, those strikes arrive with minimal deployment time and reduced cooldowns. Player One keeps everyone armed and supplied with full-ammo Support Weapons and optimized Resupply drops. Player Four’s sentries are tankier, deadlier, and longer-lasting than baseline.

The result is a squad where each member excels at different aspects of Stratagem deployment, creating diverse tactical options rather than four players with identical moderate capabilities across all areas. This specialization particularly matters in endgame where collecting enough Super Rare Samples for every player to complete every tree would require hundreds of missions.

Practical Coordination: Before beginning session, briefly discuss which bay progressions each player is pursuing. This prevents redundant investments and ensures squad collectively covers all Stratagem categories effectively. Even casual coordination produces better outcomes than uncoordinated individual progression.

Players who primarily queue with random teammates rather than consistent squads face different optimization considerations. Without guaranteed team coordination, generalist upgrade paths provide more reliable value than hyper-specialized progression.

Solo queue players should prioritize upgrades with universal impact regardless of team composition. This means emphasizing Patriotic Administration and Engineering Bay progression heavily, as Support Weapon sustainability and defensive capability benefit every possible squad configuration. These upgrades improve your personal effectiveness and provide value to randoms regardless of their loadouts or upgrade states.

Avoid investing heavily in specialized offensive trees (Hangar or Orbital Arsenal) until you’ve completed foundational upgrades. Random teammates may already have those trees completed, making your partial investment redundant. Alternatively, they may lack those upgrades entirely, meaning your specialization doesn’t create multiplicative team benefit. Generalist progression ensures you’re always contributing optimally regardless of teammate choices.

Late-game solo players should complete one full offensive tree (Hangar or Orbital Arsenal, personal preference) but avoid pursuing both until all universal upgrades are acquired. This creates personal offensive specialization without sacrificing baseline capability across other areas. You become the reliable Eagle strike specialist or orbital bombardment coordinator for your random squads.

Solo Strategy: Universal value over specialization until late game. Prioritize upgrades that improve your personal effectiveness and provide passive benefit to any team composition. Only specialize offensively after establishing complete foundation.

Regardless of whether you play with organized squads or random teammates, using voice communication or the ping system to coordinate Stratagem usage multiplies upgrade effectiveness. Ship Modules make your Stratagems more powerful, but tactical coordination determines whether that power translates into mission success.

Examples of coordination-enhanced module benefits include alerting teammates when you’ve called Resupply drops so they don’t waste their cooldowns on redundant resupplies. With Synthetic Supplementation and Superior Packaging Methodology, a single coordinated Resupply can fully arm the entire squad—but only if everyone knows it’s coming and positions to use it.

Similarly, coordinating Eagle airstrikes prevents wasting your Expanded Weapons Bay bonus charges. If three teammates independently call Eagle strikes on the same bug breach, you’ve used three separate Stratagem cooldowns on a target that one coordinated strike would have eliminated. Better to communicate target priorities ensuring Eagle charges hit maximum-value targets.

Sentry placement coordination maximizes Advanced Construction and Shock Absorption Gel benefits. When teammates place overlapping sentries creating crossfire zones, the durability and ammunition improvements create genuine defensive strongpoints. Uncoordinated random sentry placement wastes those enhancements by leaving gaps in coverage or creating redundant firing lanes.

Communication Principle: Ship Module upgrades provide the tools. Team coordination determines how effectively those tools get employed. Brief callouts about Stratagem usage, target priorities, and positioning dramatically improve upgrade value realization.

Beyond the top ten ranked upgrades, several additional modules provide meaningful enhancements for specialized playstyles or specific mission types. These represent optional optimizations rather than core progression path milestones. Advanced players should consider these based on personal preferences and squad tactical doctrine.

Both offensive Stratagem categories contain additional tier upgrades beyond the primary progression path. These modules offer incremental improvements that matter most to players who heavily favor one offensive style over the other.

Hangar Advanced Options: The Hangar tree contains alternative upgrades like Incendiary Bombs Enhancement or Cluster Bomb Optimization that improve specific Eagle Stratagem variants rather than universally affecting all Eagle strikes. These become relevant if you consistently use particular Eagle loadouts. For instance, if your squad always brings 500kg bombs rather than cluster strikes, the 500kg-specific enhancement provides more practical value than cluster-focused upgrades despite similar sample costs.

Orbital Arsenal Advanced Options: Similarly, the Orbital Arsenal tree includes upgrades benefiting specific orbital types like extended gas cloud duration or improved railcannon targeting. Players who reliably include gas strikes in loadouts benefit substantially from gas duration extension, while those who never use gas-based orbitals gain zero value. Evaluate these specialized modules based on your actual Stratagem usage patterns rather than abstract optimization principles.

Selection Guideline: Review your post-mission statistics showing which Stratagems you actually deploy most frequently. Invest in upgrades that enhance your proven usage patterns rather than theoretical optimal loadouts you don’t actually employ. Your consistently-used Stratagems deserve enhancement priority over situationally-equipped alternatives.

Some Ship Modules provide quality-of-life improvements rather than direct combat power increases. These upgrades make playing more comfortable but don’t directly improve your ability to eliminate threats or survive combat. Advanced players must decide how they value convenience versus raw effectiveness.

Quality-of-Life Examples: Seismic Probe Calibration (Bridge T2) increases Stratagem map icon visibility range, making coordination slightly easier but providing zero combat benefit. Hand Carts (Patriotic Administration T3) reduces Personal Order cooldowns, which includes non-combat Stratagems like Upload Data. These improve experience smoothness without enhancing combat capability.

Combat Effectiveness Priority: Until you’ve completed all combat-effective upgrades across relevant bays, quality-of-life modules should remain lowest priority. Samples spent on convenience represent samples not spent on firepower, durability, or sustainability. Only pursue QoL upgrades after exhausting combat-relevant options.

Exception Case: If you and your squad have completed all primary combat upgrades and accumulated surplus samples with nothing critical remaining to purchase, quality-of-life upgrades become reasonable investments simply because the alternative is leaving samples unused. Better to have improved map icon visibility than unspent samples sitting permanently in your account.

While this guide emphasizes general-purpose utility valid across all enemy factions, advanced players might consider faction-specific optimization if they reliably know which enemy type upcoming missions will face.

Terminid Optimization: Bug planets heavily favor defensive setups with area denial. Prioritizing Engineering Bay and Robotics Workshop upgrades maximizes sentry effectiveness for holding ground against swarms. Similarly, gas-based orbital upgrades gain value against Terminids since gas clouds effectively control bug approaches.

Automaton Optimization: Bot missions emphasize precision firepower and anti-armor capability. Hangar and Orbital Arsenal upgrades providing direct damage improvements matter more than defensive enhancements. Railcannon-specific orbital upgrades particularly benefit anti-bot loadouts given railcannon effectiveness against heavy armor.

Illuminate Optimization: Illuminate forces mix swarms with shielded elites requiring balanced approach. Generalist upgrades maintaining offensive and defensive capability serve better than extreme specialization. However, AoE-focused orbital strikes become particularly valuable, making orbital cooldown reduction high priority.

Practical Reality: Most players won’t reliably know enemy faction before queueing missions unless exclusively playing organized squads with predetermined mission selection. This makes faction-specific optimization less practical than general-purpose progression for majority of players. Only consider this if you genuinely commit to faction-focused grinding.

Ship Module progression gates access to higher difficulties and more challenging content not through explicit requirements but through practical capability thresholds. Understanding which upgrade milestones enable which difficulty ranges helps you gauge readiness for stepping up challenge levels.

After acquiring Donation Access License, Synthetic Supplementation, and Targeting Software Upgrade using only Common Samples, you’ve established baseline competency for Medium difficulty missions. These upgrades solve fundamental problems that cripple new players on early difficulties.

You no longer spawn Support Weapons with partial ammunition, eliminating immediate resupply pressure. Your defensive and logistical Stratagems deploy more frequently via cooldown reduction, maintaining better battlefield control. Orbital strikes land more responsively, improving emergency response capability. These enhancements transform struggling new Helldiver into functional squad member.

Recommended Difficulty Range: Trivial through Challenging difficulties should feel comfortable with just Common upgrades complete. Medium difficulty becomes accessible rather than overwhelming. Focus on learning enemy patterns and Stratagem fundamentals rather than rushing into Hard difficulty prematurely.

Once you’ve acquired the top five priority upgrades (adding Streamlined Request Process, Advanced Construction, and Expanded Weapons Bay to your Common purchases), you’ve reached mid-game competency threshold. This represents having invested both Rare and Super Rare Samples for meaningful power increases across multiple categories.

Your Support Weapons arrive fully loaded and redeploy faster after losses. Defensive sentries survive significantly longer under sustained fire. Eagle airstrikes provide extra bombardment capacity before requiring rearm. Collectively these improvements enable reliable performance on Hard difficulty and initial attempts at Extreme difficulty.

Recommended Difficulty Range: Hard difficulty should feel appropriately challenging but consistently completable with competent squad. Extreme difficulty becomes accessible for experienced players with these upgrades, though success requires good tactical execution rather than just upgrade power. This represents the threshold where you’re no longer upgrade-gated from content—skill becomes the primary limiting factor.

With all ten ranked priority upgrades acquired, you’ve achieved late-game mastery baseline. Your ship operates at high efficiency across all Stratagem categories with maximized ammunition sustainability, minimized cooldowns, fortified defenses, and optimized both orbital and Eagle strike capabilities.

This level of upgrade investment makes Extreme difficulty reliably farmable with competent squads. Helldive difficulty becomes theoretically accessible, though success at that level demands excellent tactical execution and team coordination beyond what upgrades alone provide. You have all the tools—execution determines outcomes.

Recommended Difficulty Range: Extreme difficulty should feel challenging but consistently completable, providing reliable Super Rare Sample income for pursuing remaining specialized upgrades. Helldive difficulty is accessible when your squad wants maximum challenge, with upgrades ensuring you’re not mechanically disadvantaged. Success requires masterful play but upgrades ensure that mastery is sufficient.

Players who complete entire bay progression trees represent the pinnacle of Ship Module investment. Every relevant Stratagem category operates at maximum possible efficiency with no mechanical limitations. At this point, the only remaining constraints are player skill, team coordination, and tactical decision-making.

This level of upgrade completion takes hundreds of hours across dozens of high-difficulty missions. Most players never reach this milestone, nor do they need to—the top ten ranked upgrades provide sufficient capability for all practical purposes. Complete bay optimization represents perfectionism rather than necessity.

Reality Check: Don’t feel compelled to complete every single upgrade before attempting highest difficulties. Helldive difficulty has been successfully completed by squads with only top five upgrades acquired. The ranked priority path provides sufficient capability—additional upgrades represent incremental optimization yielding diminishing returns. Play the difficulties you find engaging rather than grinding upgrades as prerequisite to enjoyment.

New Helldivers frequently have similar questions about Ship Module optimization strategy, sample collection efficiency, and upgrade priority adjustments. This section addresses the most common upgrade-related questions to clarify potentially confusing aspects of the system.

Ship Module upgrades transform Helldivers 2 from a challenging cooperative shooter into a precision-tuned war machine. The difference between a fresh Helldiver with no upgrades and a veteran with optimized modules is dramatic—faster cooldowns, fuller ammunition reserves, sturdier defenses, and more devastating firepower compound into significantly higher squad effectiveness.

This guide provides a proven progression path from struggling new player through endgame mastery. Following the ranked priority sequence ensures you solve fundamental problems first (ammunition sustainability, cooldown responsiveness) before pursuing specialized optimizations (offensive firepower maximization, defensive perfection). The top ten ranked upgrades represent the sweet spot of effort-to-benefit ratio, providing the vast majority of practical capability improvement for reasonable sample investment.

Remember that Ship Modules provide the tools but your tactics determine outcomes. No amount of upgrade investment replaces learning enemy patterns, mastering Stratagem timing, or coordinating effectively with squadmates. Treat modules as force multipliers for skilled play rather than replacements for learning fundamentals.

Coordinate with your squad when possible. Discuss upgrade priorities before sessions to avoid redundant investments. Specialize your progression paths to create diverse team capabilities. Communicate Stratagem usage to maximize upgrade value realization. These coordination multipliers dramatically exceed raw upgrade power in determining mission success.

Most importantly, enjoy the progression journey. Collecting samples and unlocking powerful upgrades provides excellent motivation for pushing into higher difficulties. Each new module acquisition feels rewarding, providing tangible power increase you immediately experience in subsequent missions. This creates positive feedback loop where upgrades enable higher difficulties, which provide better sample income, which funds additional upgrades.

Now get out there, collect those samples, and build your ship into the Democracy-dispensing war machine it was meant to be. Freedom never comes free—you have to upgrade for it. Dive hard, Helldivers.