Ballistic Shield Plant
Drop your shield. Hold the line.

Ballistic Shield Plant allows players to place their SH-20 Ballistic Shield on the ground, much like the One True Flag. Instead of simply discarding your shield, you can deploy it as a stationary piece of ballistic cover by accessing your inventory and dropping it.

The shield continues to function after being placed, allowing you to create defensive positions, protect equipment and fight from behind cover without sacrificing your primary weapon.

Whether you're digging into a trench or holding a position against overwhelming firepower, your shield is now more than something you carry.

Features

• Deployable Ballistic Shield: Drop your equipped shield using the normal backpack-drop command to plant it upright on the ground.
• Functional Cover: Planted shields retain their protective functionality, allowing you to fire from behind them while crouched or prone.
• Shield Walls: Deploy multiple shields to create improvised barricades and defensive fighting positions.
• Emplacement Protection: Position shields around turrets, mounted weapons and other defensive equipment.
• Weapon Flexibility: Put down your shield and use two-handed weapons without abandoning its protection.
• Angled Protection: Planted shields lean backward approximately 15 degrees by default, allowing incoming rounds to be deflected upward or downward depending on their trajectory. This is adjustable in the mod settings.
• Vertical or Horizontal Placement: Users can toggle the shield to place wide or tall.
• Reusable Equipment: Pick up your shield and redeploy it whenever you need to reposition.
• Shield Bash: An optional override during installation allows the user to replace their headbutt animation with a jab, which pairs with the standard melee attacks and kicks.

How It Works

• Equip the SH-20 Ballistic Shield stratagem.
• Call down a shield and equip it normally.
• Face the direction you want your shield to protect.
• Use the normal backpack-drop command.
• The shield will plant itself upright, facing your character's direction.
• Pick it back up whenever you're ready to move.

No additional stratagems, keybindings or equipment are required, and it does not occupy space in your mod menu. The mod modifies the behavior of the existing ballistic shield rather than replacing it.

NEW:
An additional component adds something I am trying out for the first time- new animations! If installed, Shield-Bash will replace the headbutt animation for the "Helmet Durability Check" emote with an offhand jab. It inherits all of the same damage, push, range, and demo force from other mods, including the momentum-based damage from Tactical Combat Overhaul.

Why the headbutt?
Well, there's only a handful of damage-causing emotes in the game, and this one has the most similar timing to a jab.

What happens if my teammates don't have this animation?
Animations are handled client-side. Your teammates will see you headbutt, so it will still look sensible and work fine.

Why not replace melee attacks while holding the shield?
I considered this, but detecting when the shield is being held and applying an override takes a lot more processing power than it is worth and would lead to frame stutters. Also, the ability to bash and STILL slash/stab/pistol-whip is more of the Skyrim style I was looking for.

What if I don't have the shield equipped?
It still works; it just looks like a boxing jab.

Can you replace the kicking animation instead?
No, I've tried. The damage is set to go off on the right foot rather than the left arm. The result is no damage to the enemy and dust/sparks flying behind you.

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Requirements

• Helldivers 2 on Windows PC
• Bingus Shared Loader v16 or above / API 1
• A mod manager (HD2 Arsenal recommended)

Installation

Import the ZIP into HD2 Arsenal, enable the mod and deploy it. Install Bingus Shared Loader separately if you have not already done so.

If you have an older version of Ballistic Shield Plant installed (v0.1.x or v0.2.x), disable it before deploying this version.

Compatibility and Limitations

• Experimental: This mod uses native game functions and is dependent on the game's internal code. After an incompatible game update, the mod is designed to disable itself rather than attempt unsafe memory modifications.
• Stationary Cover: Planted shields do not attach to moving vehicles or platforms.
• Terrain: Shields remain upright rather than aligning themselves with the slope of the ground. Placement may vary on uneven terrain, rocks and vehicles.
• Animations: There is currently no dedicated planting animation. Dropping the shield uses the game's normal backpack-drop behavior.
• Shield Type: Only the SH-20 Ballistic Shield is supported.
• Configuration: Placement height and angle are fixed in this release, although the included source contains settings for adjusting them.

For troubleshooting, the mod produces Shield-Plant.log in: %LOCALAPPDATA%\CowboyBingus\Helldivers2\Logs
The log records initialization, shield placement, performance and any compatibility failures.

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Original Author Credit

Credit to the original author: Version 0.1.9 of this mod was uploaded by huff_designs, who did the foundational research into shield placement and deserves credit for that work.

This version rebuilds and extends the original implementation, including shield carry detection, ground placement, orientation, pickup behavior, error handling, performance improvements and a standalone runtime.

Additional Credits

• CowboyBingus: Bingus Shared Loader.

Not affiliated with or endorsed by Arrowhead Game Studios or Sony Interactive Entertainment.

BALLISTIC SHIELD PLANT: Why carry your cover when you can make a position worth defending?

TO DO:
- Stability fixes for multiplayer
- ability to attach shield to vehicles
- Mod menu option to draw aggro (similar to flag?)