In the current narrative of Helldivers 2, the valiant Helldivers are engaged in a long-term operation in Automaton space. Players just wiped out the mobile jet brigade, and are now striving to hold Chort Bay from flanking attacks. While the three-front galactic war rages on, developer Arrowhead Game Studios is throwing some more complications into the co-op shooter, as well as a few new tools for the battlefield.A new update, Patch 01.002.101, is set to go live this Wednesday, and it has some great quality-of-life fixes. Players can once emote while falling in order to express their dismay with the current circumstances, and jog while holding heavy items like SEAF artillery shells. Perhaps most interestingly, the new patch adds big buffs to gas weapons. These toxic weapons struggled to compete with other backpack and weapon slots, but the noxious effect now lasts longer and focuses on targeting as many enemies as possible. The full patch notes can be found on Arrowheads Steam page.At the end of January, players noticed a Spacetime Fluctuation Indicator which occasionally gave an intense glow. Super Earth command did not deign to explain this new warning sign to Helldivers, but on Feb. 4, I couldnt help but notice that it has changed to a Dark Energy Accumulation meter, with the accompanying text: The Meridia Singularity speeds up as Dark Energy accumulates. The Meridia Singularity is a wormhole that players created last year, when the planet became a Terminid Supercolony. Helldivers pumped Meridia full of dark fluid until it collapsed in on itself, and weve all been anxiously watching the gaping void in space since.On a brighter note, players are starting to discover shovels on certain maps, and are experimenting to see how they can put the tool to good use. The shovel is unavailable as a stratagem or weapon, and must be found at a point of interest on a mission. However, Arrowhead added melee weapons to the game with the Omens of Tyranny update, adding a stun lance and baton as potential picks for the secondary slot. We may see the shovel join that class of weapons in the future.Arrowhead will also release a new Warbond on Thursday, dubbed Servants of Freedom. It contains such goodies as a portable hellbomb, an armor mod that causes your corpse to explode and take out surrounding enemies, and a series of particularly troubling helmets that are carved to look like a human faces.