Hell Let Loose – How Do Resources Work?

Ever wondered what resources do in this game, and how to get them? Look no further! Includes other gameplay info that you may not already know!

Intro

Note: Credit goes to BoxOfAids

This guide is intended for beginner to intermediate level players, to help explain some of the less-well-known mechanics of the game.

How to Generate Resources

If you’re reading this guide, you probably already know how to build resource nodes, but just in case…

Resource nodes are built by the engineer class. They can only be built on flat ground, within range of supplies. It costs 50 supplies to build a resource node.

Nodes cannot be built in an HQ (main team spawn) sector, and are limited to 1 of each resource node per sector elsewhere; you can have 1 manpower, 1 munitions, and 1 fuel node per sector. There may also be a limit on the total number of each node that can be active at once (needs testing for confirmation). The amount of resources a node generates per minute is equal to the number of sectors it is distant from your HQ, times 5. For example, a manpower node built 2 sectors from your HQ would generate +10 manpower per minute, while a manpower node built 3 sectors from your HQ would generate +15 manpower per minute. This is capped at either +15/min or +20/min on the furthest nodes, due to map size (you can’t build one far enough away to get +25/min).

If you lose control of a sector, even if you are now unable to move into that sector due to the “turn back or get killed” countdown, resources nodes are not DESTROYED like OPs and Garrisons are. They stay alive until they are destroyed.

You also get a small amount of resources for holding some sectors; if there’s a manpower/munitions/fuel icon on the sector, it gives a flat +3/min bonus of that resource just for owning it. Thus, your team’s total income for each resource is the sum of the bonus from all of your team’s constructed nodes, plus the sum of bonuses from all sectors controlled. There is no “base” income of resources; all resource generation comes from these 2 sources. If your team owns only your HQ sector and no resource nodes, you will have 0 resource income besides maybe a small manpower income from holding your HQ sector.

Commander Powers

The commander role has a set of powers that cost either manpower or munitions, with varying costs for each ability. As far as I can tell, commander powers are the only way to spend manpower resources (though manpower drains from team deaths as well, explained later). There are other guides that explain the powers in more detail and how best to use them, so I’ll be listing mostly just a quick description of their effects, their resource costs, and cooldowns.

Manpower Abilities

• Reinforce – 30 manpower – Your teammates who are holding a friendly point are worth more in the calculation of which side has more soldiers on a capture point, thus it’s harder for enemies to outnumber you and capture the affected sector. Only works on a single sector at a time. 5 minute cooldown.
• Encouraged – 30 manpower – If you capture a sector while it’s active, it generates more of that sector’s listed resource, for a short time. Not super useful, and you’d have to be fairly sure you’re going to cap the point. 10 minute cooldown.
• Final Stand – 30 manpower – You lose no resources for a while. Spam arty, respawn tanks for no fuel cost if you keep track of when they died. 10 minute cooldown.

Munition Abilities

• Supply drop – 15 munitions – Drop 100 supplies at a designated location. Good for getting down garrisons or resource nodes in areas where you don’t have supplies. American and German supply drops look different, so you can identify enemy drops. 2 minute cooldown.
• Strafing Run – 25 munitions – Kills infantry in a line. Needs to hit very close to kill, but does brief heavy suppression in a wide radius. 2 minute cooldown.
• Bombing Run – 75 munitions – Drops bombs with a pretty large AoE in a long line. Destroys tanks and buildings with a direct hit (center of the line on the map), but don’t count on landing a direct hit on a moving tank. Does no damage to tanks if not a direct hit (doesn’t deal splash damage to them). 10 minute cooldown.

Fuel Abilities

• There currently are none! Fuel is only used for respawning tanks at this time.

Other Resource Usage

Manpower

Every time someone on your team fully dies from any source (can no longer be revived by a medic), 1 manpower is consumed from your team’s pool. It’s not fully clear how having no manpower affects respawn times, or if it even does at all. This will need testing or dev response for clarification. In any case, your team being slaughtered can make it hard to use manpower commander abilities, especially if you’re lacking manpower nodes.

Munitions

Every artillery shell and anti-tank shell loaded into a cannon costs munitions, even if the shot is never fired.

• Explosive artillery shell – 3 munitions
• Smoke artillery shell – 5 munitions
• AT gun shell – 5 munitions

Fuel

Whenever any tank dies, it respawns after 5 minutes from the time of death, assuming there is enough fuel in the team’s resource pool. The fuel is immediately taken from the team’s fuel pool on spawn. Heavier tanks draw more fuel to respawn, so constant tank deaths can quickly drain a team’s fuel stores.

• Light tank respawns – 30 fuel, 5 minute respawn timer
• Medium tank respawns – 60 fuel, 5 minute respawn timer
• Heavy tank respawns – 100 fuel, 5 minute respawn timer

Miscellaneous Tips

If all you’re interested in is resource mechanics, you can stop reading now! This section is dedicated to random tips that may or may not be common knowledge, but will likely help some people out regardless.

• Garrisons can be destroyed by explosives. Landing a grenade, rocket, artillery shell, or bombing run near a known garrison location can be an effective means of taking it out, even if you can’t safely get close to it. Squad outposts cannot be destroyed in this way; they need to have infantry take them out by walking close.
• Tanks don’t destroy outposts or garrisons by driving near them, but the crewmen will remove them if they hop out. Only infantry can remove the spawn points, vehicles don’t.
• American grenades can’t be cooked, but German grenades can. Right click tosses a grenade underhanded, a very short distance… useful for tossing nades through windows or over small obstacles, into trenches you’re prone near, etc. Be careful of bush hitboxes, it’s hard to underhand toss one over hedgerows, they tend to roll back towards you due to weird hitboxes. You also can’t throw grenades as far while crouched or prone, due to the limited throwing angle.
• You can press the Use key to disassemble enemy nodes and supplies you find. Any class can do this, not just engineers.
• Squad leaders can hold the Use button to pick their outposts back up; this fully removes the cooldown for placing a new one, so you can drop another one immediately. You can drop your outpost, spawn your squad on it, then pick it back up to be ready to place in a more useful location shortly after.
• Engineer AT mines can be detonated with explosives (and maybe bullets too?). They kill some or maybe all tanks with just one mine. If you can get close to an enemy tank as an engineer, you can drop a mine next to them and try shooting it to detonate it, or have a teammate toss a grenade. This can be a sneaky way to take out stationary and oblivious enemy tanks without having any AT nearby.