https://youtu.be/Q3N8P_74Ml8?si=pHaQZYfVqSrER5wx

Difficulty level 0 is the initial level you start on as a new player.

Screenshot of Difficulty level 0's differences

Screenshot of Difficulty level 1's differences

Screenshot of Difficulty level 2's differences

Screenshot of Difficulty level 3's differences.
NOTE: Technically, the only thing different about Difficulty 3 is that your fear meter recovers (goes down) slower in lighted areas; however, in general Difficulty 3 just feels much TOUGHER even if that's not part of its description. :)
I believe you must complete a run at the prior difficulty level - either solo or in online co-op - to unlock the NEXT difficulty level. Difficulty level 0 is the initial level you start on as a new player.


One key difference is that on any difficulty level, you can always choose on multiplayer to NOT enable Limited Ammo.

However, on difficulty level 1 and higher numbers, in solo play the Limited Ammo setting is always enabled.

You can cheese your way around this for solo play by simply setting up a Private online co-op game. Then just play solo, without checking the Limited Ammo checkbox.

I've found in a full 3-player online co-op Difficulty Level 3 really hurls the kitchen sink at your squad, including hordes of enemies from directions where you don't encounter many enemies (if at all) on lower difficulty levels. It's pretty fun, but challenging. :)

Yes, a secret level entitled "Location Unknown" is exclusive to solo play, and it occurs only in The Office level. Although in dozens of hours of playing Section 13, I've only encountered it exactly once (or may other times I just didn't understand what it was?).

It's a large white HOLE on the ground. I think you just walk onto the white hole, and then you'll see an animation of yourself falling, and end up in a unique level called "Location Unknown."

Since it's a secret, I don't want to spoil it. It's very weird. :-) Once you complete Location Unknown level, it will return you to a "new" instance of The Office, and you'll need to start over - meaning all the enemies and instances in The Office will have repopulated.

Don't cry. NO, you don't HAVE to play online co-op with others. You can play the entire game solo.

imho, certain battle scenarios with multiple incoming wave-attacks and rooms that like have multiple steam valves to turn off greatly benefit from having at least ONE other player, as do the couple boss battles, but the entire System 13 game is technically playable solo.

• 3 is the maximum number of players.
  
• You CAN start a co-op session with just 2 players.
  
• (see later entry below) A third player can ONLY join in the hub or during the first level, the Parking Lot. Changing this seems at least under consideration. :)

Yes, dear antisocial gamer, "Private Room" is a checkbox when you choose to create a game (see screenshot below). A private session WON'T show in the multiplayer games browser.
When you start the PRIVATE online co-op session, you can click the "ADD FRIEND" buttons to invite Steam friends into your game. Note that the pop-up list lists EVERYONE on your Steam friends list, although it is searchable.
Yes, the default co-op session is just the host's username/nickname. Mouse click in the Room Name text window to CHANGE the name of your co-op session.

Think of it as a way to communicate with other prospective players who might see your session name in the multiplayer games browser. I'd encourage players to change it to something at least that says what difficulty # setting you're using (zero, 1, 2, 3). A lot of newer players may not want to play higher than difficulty #1.

I also like to indicate in the session title that I'll at least try to remain in the initial station/hub until at least one other player joins me, before starting the session. (SEE SCREENSHOT ABOVE)

Unfortunately, for now you can only join an online co-op session if the players are at the main station/hub, or if they're working on the Parking Lot level (the first mission). The rationale provided by developers - reasonable enough - is they're concerned players joining later on a run would be lacking the various Nug upgrades and body/weapon upgrades that players who were there at the run's start would have and might as a result feel too underpowered. It sounds like they're at least reconsidering that. :)

If they progress past that point, then you can no longer join the co-op session; however, if you are DROPPED or if you LEAVE an online co-op session, you can REJOIN it via the game browser (see section below). Alas, as of now, the game browser doesn't provide any explanation why you can't join a game, but most of the time it's because the players have moved past the Garage level mission.

Prefacing this with, I've played a lot of co-op S13 and run into no bleeps whatsoever - afik, the game does NOT have any ability for host to KICK players from a session.

Note also if you've dropped from a co-op session, it's presumably due to some technical online connection problem, not because the host kicked you.

YES! If your connection dropped or you manually left the session, the game returns you to the hub. From there just return to the game browser and rejoin the session you were in. It will be labeled as RECENT SESSION, per screenshot below.

Just click the join button icon (right-facing ARROW) to REJOIN the online co-op game you were in. Just note that in my experience sometimes if I've dropped from a session, it's due to a poor connection with the host player, and I end up dropping from the session repeatedly.

On all difficulty levels, the HOST player has a checkbox option to ENABLE Friendly Fire from weapons (by default it's NOT checked). Currently, this isn't indicated on a session listed on the multiplayer games browser, though you'd probably notice it's enabled in the session pretty quickly.

I *don't* recommend Friendly Fire option in Section 13 because many battles take place in small rooms, hallways and tight quarters, and it's just too difficult to avoid inadvertent, weapon-based friendly fire. That's in contrast to Helldivers, where most of its battles - other than City Defense - take place in wide open areas, where it's easier to avoid inadvertent Friendly Fire.

Tactical Gear WARNING: Even if you DON'T have friendly fire enabled, all Tactical Gear grenades that do damage (so, expect for the one that just illuminates an area) WILL damage other yourself AND other co-op players. However, the drone turret seems smart enough to only target enemies with its gun.
No, dear Helldivers haterade questioner, Section 13 does NOT have forced "same screen" online co-op play. You can wander off on your own if you want, but I think generally S13 does a good job of encouraging players to stick together without resorting to a "stay within a screen length" forced limitation. :)
On 1-Difficulty and higher difficulties, the HOST player also has a Limited Ammo checkbox. This means each weapon has a limited ammo pool indicated by a large number in the weapon's UI panel. You can replenish this from ammo boxes dropped by fallen enemies, which occurs pretty frequently during combat.

If the ammo pool reaches zero, you can no longer fire that weapon until you click on a dropped ammo box.

I usually prefer to NOT use this option because Section 13 is plenty challenging without worrying about ammo running out altogether. :)

Take a chill pill, dude! :-)

Your online co-op session squad will return to the starting hub, and you can either say goodbye from there and leave the session, or you can start a new run. :-)

Yes. Note that it has separate options for enabling voice chat (so you can hear other players, or choose not to), and for enabling your own voice mic.

So if you're OK hearing other players but would rather yourself not use a voice mic, you have that option.

I believe on PC, it's "push to talk"

Controller doesn't have a button designated for push to talk, so I guess it's automatic when you speak into your headset.

Yes, it has a large text chat window on the left side. Your OWN text chat will show as GREEN text, so it stands out. Other players' text chat shows as white.

The chat text will fade automatically if nobody text chats and no interaction text displays for a while, as the text chat window is also used to indicate certain types of game interactions, similar to how it works in most MMORPGs.

YES, and they're quite useful and fun to hear. :-)
On kb/m, press C to pull up the quick comms dial. Then gently steer your mouse in the direction of the quick comm voice line you wish to use. These are prerecorded in the character's voice, and there are at least two variations for each choice.

These are the quick comm voice line options on the dial:

• Greeting (just to say hello)
  
• Thanks (most often useful for thanking another player for Reviving you after you've been offed. :-)
  
• Apology (mainly useful if the co-op session has Friendly Fire enabled)
  
• Help (useful if you're low on HP or maybe have wandered off and need some combat aid)
  
• Low Ammo (useful if the co-op session has Limited Ammo available and you're struggling to find ammo box drops)
  
• Low HP (useful to let other players know you really, really need a medkit)
  
• Praise (if things went well, let other players know)
  
• Ready (mainly useful in Safe Rooms to indicate you're ready to move to the next level)

Yes, while I'm not sure what to call this menu of pointers accompanied by short prerecorded voice lines, I call it the Pointer Menu Dial.
To pull up the Pointer Menu Dial, confirm your weapon crosshair is wherever you want to drop a pointer icon on the ground, then press Mouse Wheel Button to pull up the menu.

Then gently move your mouse in one of the four directions to pick the pointer icon you want to drop on the map.
These are the four choices (all have an accompanying pre-rerecorded character voice snippet, with a couple variations):

• Alert! (useful for warning other players about a tough enemy or a big swarm of enemies)
  
• Draw Focus (good for just directing other players to a location, like a shop, door etc.
  
• Gather (good for rallying everyone to one spot)
  
• Retreat (if your group's overwhelmed, useful for directing players to a safer spot)

It's important to note that on EVERY run your weapons start with NO Perk slots enabled and NO Weapon Perks unlocked.

You can ONLY purchase/install perks using weapons vouchers at a Weapons Bench in the Safe Rooms between levels, and then only if you have the necessary Weapon Perks unlocked, which you may find as loot when killing an enemy and sometimes in shops on a level.

Note also that if you have not Unlocked at least the first set of available perks for a weapon, then even if you have a Perk item to unlock a slot, you'll have no actual unlocked Perk to install in it.

No. However, at the Armory you can temporarily install unlocked Perks and then test the Perk-upgraded weapon at the shooting range across from the armory OR at the simulation area against enemies to the right/west of the Armory.

To test available perks, pull up a weapon at the Armory, then EQUIP the weapon, then you can enable up to the number of available Perk Slots that the weapon has (typically 3 or 4) for testing at the Range or in the SImulation Area.

Dev explained to me that Right Mouse Button makes a much shorter grenade toss, although I still need to backtrack away from enemies a bit to get the grenade down in front of them or on them.

When you unlock the 2nd Tactical Gear slot, two slot windows will overlap each other a bit.

Tap the Tactical Gear key twice quickly ("3" by default on kb) to toggle between the two gear items available to you, assuming you've obtained two gear items to use.

YES, all grenades that do damage or that stun cause friendly fire in online co-op in S13.
I believe the only Tactical Gear that damages only enemies is the drone turret, which is smart enough to only target the bad guys.

Other Tactical Gear that won't cause friendly fire are non-damaging items like the Decoy, the Arc shielding and grenades that slow, stun or just illuminate an area.

No, tactical gear item rewards from loot instead auto-drop on the floor. Use the interaction key on it to put it in a slot. If you have two slots, then check first to make sure you don't accidentally swap out a tactical gear item you wanted to keep slotted.

It won't auto-swap with a gear item that's already in a slot.

Chill, dude, don't freak out until you reach the Exosuit boss fight. :p

Fear Level is indicated by the purple meter just below your HP meter.

You see this in TWO places - just below the HP meter that's above your actual character model in the game.
And also on the larger player info panel in the lower right corner of the screen.
When you're in the dark areas of a level, your Fear meter gradually grows.
You are CORRECT - when your Fear meter goes Full, you.... PANIC!

System 13 indicates PANIC with clear audio and visual changes:

• Loud, pumping heartbeat sound.
  
• Slow motion vision.

PANIC mode causes many, many bad things.

[CREDIT TO: uhluminati for explanation]

Originally posted by "uhluminati":

The fear meter will fill, then you enter panic mode, making accuracy worse, [and you] take increased damage.

Not sure if its x2 or x3 damage, but its pretty much 1-shot if you get hit on [Difficulty Tier 3], and also healing basically doesn't work.

• Move back to a lighted area, meaning near some sort of light source. If it's sufficient, you'll see your Fear meter decline either slowly or rapidly, depending on how bright the light source is.
  
• Drop a Meteolight to illuminate an area, and then step into the light to get your Fear Meter down. I'm posting my Meteolight video from my Tactical Gear game guide for some context. :)
  https://youtu.be/HMycC87BPsA?si=UmZMdPytln-x8get
  
  
• Some dark rooms in levels like The Office, Supermax Lab and Isolation Chamber have some lighting that can be turned on with a light switch on the wall. The location isn't always obvious, and you may mistake the Power Switch for a Door Switch because they both look the same.

NOTE: I may eventually spin this off into its own game guide. :)


NO, happily enough. The game has some branching areas here and there where you get a couple different choices on what level to fight on next. This helps make replays a bit fresher and less predictable imho.


A few ways...
The first level - The Garage - actually has TWO possible variants, and the way you'll know they're different is initially very subtle.

1. If the initial Garage path heads in a slightly northEAST direction (a bit left>right), and you encounter a fenced-in area early, then you'll initially have one choice for an EXIT to a Safe Room leading to the NEXT level.
   
   That will be The Lobby, which you move to after the Power Station battle instance, and unlocking the large gate to head north (see above screenshot)
   
   However, once you earn the combination to unlock the Cargo Elevator battle instance, once you fight through that instance, you'll exit the elevator to an exit that takes you to 1-2 Nethercubes and then an Exit to the Safe Room leading to The Office.
   
   
2. If the initial Garage path heads in a slightly northWEST direction (a bit right>left>, with no early fenced in area, you'll fight along a different Garage map that eventually leads you along an overturned tractor trailer bridge to a wide platform.
   
   If you head left/west from that platform, then you'll head to the LOBBY area. That's the area with two areas cordoned off by large glass shielding that can be activated/lifted by switches.
   
   If you head right/EAST from that platform, you'll find the tall, circular entrance to the SANITATION TUNNELS.
   
   However, regardless of which way you walk off the platform, you'll eventually find a NORTHERN pathway that lets you then choose EITHER the LOBBY or the SANITATION TUNNELS.
   
   Per this VIDEO below:
   https://youtu.be/Q3N8P_74Ml8?si=v1GG3f6In3QoFE9Z
[/list]

At a 300-coins cost, use your mouse to highlight the "reconfigure" button and activate it (spacebar on kb) to sort of slot machine-change the Floor Tiles Room to a different difficulty and reward. I often try this to see if I can get the Easy variation that rewards with a welcome Large Medkit, but the reconfigure results are random, and you won't always be able to get the reward you want/need.

No, even if you don't have long-enough range weapons to clear enemies from the far side, in a reasonable amount of time, the full floor path will eventually morph into place, enabling you to reach the reward item at the far end of the room.

When floor tiles animation creates a 2-tiles-wide bridge to the reward item (Nethercube, medkit or other item), that means you've essentially "completed" the Floor Tiles instance.

However, you may still need to eliminate some straggler enemies near the reward item.

Use CAUTION when moving along this narrow bridge because it's easy to accidentally step or roll off the bridge to your doom. :)

If you encounter a large, gold square outline in the middle of the Floor Tiles Room, then all your co-op players need to gather inside the gold square outline in order for the floor tile instance battle to commence.

This seems to only appear on Difficulty Level 3 levels, so expect the game to throw the proverbial Kitchen Sink at you when this map instance battle commences. :)

Section 13 lets you create three Slots. Each is essentially it's own completely separate savegame, I would call it. When you set up the 2nd and 3rd savegame slots, you'll need to re-do the tutorial and initial playthrough of the game.

I think the additional slots are useful because the first time you play the game, you might be trying to unlock all the weapons and Tactical Gear items in the base Armory; however, on a subsequent playthrough, you may NOT want to spend the currencies to unlock all those things. Instead, you may just want to unlock your favorites.

The ESC menu pulls up this menu seen in the screenshot.

Click on the SLOT entry to see your three slots.

The slots menu page will show the three slots, including the one at left that is your original slot for playing.

Follow the "Create" icon prompt (spacebar on keyboard) to create a new slot and go back again through the initial tutorial.

Before reading my wall of text answer below, please note that the USB stick drive currency is NOT used to buy ANYTHING that affects actual gameplay. You could just completely ignore the USB stick stuff unless you want to learn more about the back story of each character.

You use the USB stick currency at the center console in your base/hub to view the Character Casefiles for EACH character. Note that EACH character has a UNIQUE USB stick currency. So you can ONLY use a character's unique USB stick currency to unlock its OWN Character Case files.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3488380306

1. Use the Center Console at your base/hub. When you spawn at the base hub, you walk up from the southern door entrance and there's a center console in the middle of an open area. You can also interact with this to view the in-game database of enemies encountered, among other things.
   
   https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3488375856
   
2. Click "Agent Casefiles" (top menu choice)
   
   https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3488376868
   
3. Resulting screen shows the characters. Note that you earn USB sticks for the SPECIFIC character you played as; you can't use USB sticks unlocked by ONE character to unlock casefiles for other characters. So there is no "common pool" of USB sticks for each character to use as currency. I guess this is some (arguably misguided) notion to encourage you to play EACH character enough that EACH can get enough USB sticks to view all his/her character casefiles.
   
   https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3488377505
   
4. On the character's casefiles screen, select a casefile to view, the USB stick (or Pendrive, whatever they call it) cost is listed on the right. These are mostly text and maybe some audio to provide some back story.