8 Player Mod (8PM) 1.0

Description
The mod was designed with one goal in mind: to let everyone play with 7 friends instead of only 3. It's been a long time coming: we've been building and testing 8PM for about a month now. I am so proud to be able to release it! Design space has no limits. Please support us through Ko-fi. Also, join our Discord.

Installation Instructions

1. Add the mod to your HellForge launcher.
2. Everyone in the squad needs the mod, on the same version, and the same gameplay mods. HellForge won't let a player without it join (HellForge's auto-downloader probably doesn't work for this mod, so have everyone install it first).
3. Turn OFF "Run the game sandboxed" in HellForge's settings. Sandboxed, your game can't use Steam's direct links, and with 5+ players that can get players kicked or stuck in space.
4. Be Steam friends with the host: HellForge only lets the host's Steam friends join.
5. Invite your friends through Steam. In-game invites past the 4th player won't work because of the game's cap (we may add support for that later).
6. Enjoy!

Recommended Specs
A decent to beefy computer: 8-player missions need more CPU and GPU than 4-player ones.

Main Features

• 8 player squads: one ship, one mission, one extraction
• 40+ reinforcements
• Double stacked hellpods (two to a hellpod)
• All eight Super Destroyers in orbit, and players 5-8's map marks and compass pips on everyone's HUD
• The ship's player list shows all eight players
• Special colors for the 5th to 8th players (White, Cyan, Red, and Purple)
• All eight players' cursors on the galaxy map
• FLIP view in the Loadout: press F (or click the F FLIP half of the bar) to flip the cards to the other four players and see their Helldivers, armour, stratagems, boosters and READY state. Press F again to flip back. (R while flipped flips back first and opens your own Equipment.)
• Mission complete: players 5-8 stand in a back row behind players 1-4, and F shows the other group's Helldivers, names and stats
• Split HELLDIVERS EXTRACTED icons on the mission-complete screen: one half per group, darker for a player who didn't extract

Requirements
The HellForge launcher is the only thing that's directly required. Incompatibilities are still being ironed out, so please let us know so we can patch them out ASAP.

Recommended Settings
Set these with the HellForge editor:

• Lower the resupply cooldown from the default to 2:00
• Play on higher difficulties (difficulty 11 is EXPERIMENTAL in 8-player lobbies: see Mod Compatibility)
• Lower Orbital Laser uses from 3 to 2 per mission

Have fun!

Known Issues

• The escape menu's SQUAD list shows only 4 players (the game's own list); the Loadout shows all 8. Two columns of four are coming in an update.
• Viewing a flipped player's full Equipment isn't in this version (coming back once it's safe)
• If another mod that changes the Pelican sits above 8PM on HellForge's Mods page, players 7-8 can't board it: move 8PM above that mod
• Six or more friends joining together as one Steam party won't get in (the party join fails safely): join one at a time
• If F is bound in your Loadout controls, FLIP is unavailable (F isn't a Loadout key in the game's default controls)
• If the lobby you're in moves to another host, you can be dropped and then not let in to the new host's game. That's how HellForge handles a lobby moving. Workaround: restart the game, then join the host again.
• Why "Run the game sandboxed" has to be off: the sandbox stops your game from connecting straight to the other players through Steam, so everything you send has to pass through the host's HellForge first. With 5 or more players, that detour can lose a connection, and then the game kicks someone or leaves a rejoining player stuck in space. That's a HellForge limit we can't fix from inside the mod, so 8PM shows a warning box when the sandbox is on.
• Your own screen always shows your real loadout; only another player's card can be out of date
• A Loadout card can briefly show the wrong booster for another player (cosmetic; their real booster is the one that applies)
• With 7+ players, the stratagem panel can stay on screen during the Pelican extract and on the mission-complete screen (cosmetic, a fix is coming)
• Another player's Loadout card can miss their READY state or ready-up animation, or briefly show someone else's loadout after a rejoin; press F twice to refresh it (cosmetic)
• With 5+ players, the mission modifiers (e.g. Extreme Cold) overlap the squad list on the HUD (cosmetic, a fix is coming)
• A ping shows at most 3 acknowledgements
• Joining within ~30 seconds of starting your game can freeze your camera: restart the game, wait ~35 seconds on your ship, then join
• When a player leaves, a card in the Loadout can lose its Helldiver model; press F twice to bring it back
• Two players joining (or rejoining) at the same moment can leave one stuck on the ship view or floating in space: join one at a time, and restart the game if it happens
• If your connection to one of the other players drops at launch, the game can send you back to your ship: rejoin the host
• A very long loading stall can make HellForge drop the host for that player: rejoin the host
• If the host leaves mid-mission and the lobby moves to a new host, the old host can't rejoin (the game does this without the mod too)

Not the mod's, so please don't report these: a crash on Alt+F4 (OptiScaler / NVIDIA DLSS), the "Level 0" rank, the Stats button staying grey until you hover it, and re-entering a hellpod clearing your picks. They happen in the game without the mod too.

Mod Compatibility
Other mods, one by one: whether each works with 8PM, what 8PM already changed for it, and anything left that only that mod's author can change.

• HellForge and its editor: works.
• Vanilla Plus (bundled with HellForge): works.
• Hell Forge Difficulty (difficulty 11) in 8-player lobbies: EXPERIMENTAL. In 8-player lobbies the HellForge mod loader can leave some mods' stratagem edits unapplied on some PCs (missing picks, mismatched tables). That's the loader, not Hell Forge Difficulty itself, though D11 is still young on its own too. Play it at your own risk for now; D11 testing continues after 1.0.
• Vanilla Plus Megapack, Match Your Colors: works for players 1-4. 8PM copies their colour data back to where the Megapack reads it. Players 5-8 aren't recoloured: the Megapack reads the game's old four-player spot, and only its author can make it read the other four.
• Vanilla Plus Megapack, Better Lobby Management (Disband Squad): works, but its disband only removes players 2-4; players 5-8 stay. Use kick or leave instead. Only the Megapack's author can widen it to 8.
• Mods that add their own stratagems (Optical Cloak and others): works; nothing is needed on their side.
• Stratagem Extra Pairs: no crash, but the extra pairs don't reach the other players. The game's own code takes at most 16 entries in a player's loadout, with or without 8PM, so 8PM refuses the oversized list instead of crashing everyone, and that player's gear may look default to the others. Only the mod's author can keep what it sends within the game's limit.
• Pelican model or skin mods: works when the mod sits BELOW 8PM on HellForge's Mods page. Above it, its Pelican replaces 8PM's, which has the two extra seats, so players 7-8 can't board.
• Mods that change loadouts, boosters or items (Unrestricted Loadouts, Booster Buster, Cut Content Adder and similar): not tested together yet. 8PM size-checks the network messages these could change, so an oversized one is refused instead of crashing, but the flipped Loadout cards may show their extras wrong. Please tell us what you see.

Found a clash with another mod? Send your 8PM log and your mod list (see Reporting a Bug).

Coming Soon

• An upgraded Super Destroyer with 8 separate hellpods (Looking for a modeler to do this)
• All 8 Super Destroyers on the loading screen and in the cutscenes
• The escape menu's SQUAD list in two columns of four

Reporting a Bug

1. Note the time it happened, and take a screenshot if you can.
2. Grab your 8PM log: in HellForge's folder, logs\sessions, open the newest folder and take mod-aht.eight-player-expansion.log (or use HellForge's "Collect logs" and send the zip).
3. Send it with a short note on what you saw, in the Posts tab here or on our Discord.

Credits
Coders

• Michael Townley
• Slayer Son

Assistant Developer

• Alazynoob

Test Coordinators

• May, for getting the testers together even when I was out
• Stratos Dragon, for doing the same

Testers

• Michael Townley
• Slayer Son
• May
• Stratos Dragon
• Revolution
• PhoneticDragon
• Misfire
• LeadingShip0017
• RG066
• manmanstephen
• Alazynoob
• 1nfernalox
• fluffy cloud 331
• Jesus Christ
• Jjohnisme
• mostlycloudy
• Pragmer -v
• spirits~
• StellaeVarius
• super evil gang automaton 9000
• TheFirstRate
• WeiWagger
• xXFroggyToadXx

Special Thanks

• ka1anz, my friend with an 8 player dream who got me into this in the first place. I'm glad I could bring this home for us both.
• manmanstephen, for the cinematic shots
• emotionless, for the info on 8 player work that got the mod working
• RG066, for taking the fall for just about every single problem we've ever had in mod development (you're a really good sport)