Finding a server
To find a server, use the Enlist button on the Hell Let Loose main menu. That opens the server browser, where you can browse listings and filter by region, player count, map, and more. The most important thing for maximizing your experience, though, is playing on community servers.
Community servers are run by groups who care about their regulars. They almost always have a team of admins (often tied to a Discord), clear rules, seeding expectations, and someone you can ping when something breaks or a player is out of line. That makes them a strong choice when you want a stable place to learn and squad up - and it keeps your experience as consistent as possible.
Avoid official servers. Although the name sounds official and these are from Team 17 themselves, they do not have active admins. That allows for rampant team killing, throwing, hacking, and similar behavior with no reliable way to counter it in the moment.
On PC, if you want a home server with active staff and a tactical crowd, try Draft Haus (search the browser for Draft Haus). It’s the official server of Armor Hub and the first home of Armor Only Events. Draft Haus regularly seeds and hosts events - so if you’d like to be featured in videos, hang out with cool people, or just say hello, stop by. You can join the Discord here, and read more in Armor Hub’s Draft Haus section.
Game modes
Knowing the mode tells you where the fight will move next - which is half of “where are the enemies?” Below: how each mode is won and how capturing actually scores.
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Warfare - Both teams fight over the center objective at the start; it begins neutral. After the first cap, two objectives are always active at once. Your job is to attack the enemy’s objective or defend yours as the line moves.
Win condition: Hold the center objective before time runs out, or capture all five objectives and push the enemy team off the map.
Capturing: A point takes two minutes to flip at minimum - it cannot be captured faster than that; defenders can only slow or stall progress, not speed the attacker’s tick. The capture zone is the four squares around an objective: one player = one capture weight in that ring. Inside the strongpoint (the black circle), each player counts as three capture weight.
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Offensive - One attacking team and one defending team. Only one objective is active at a time, and the sector can flip in 30 seconds (unlike Warfare’s longer tick).
Win condition: Attackers must capture all five objectives before their timer runs out. If the timer hits zero, the match doesn’t end on the spot - it continues until the attackers’ manpower is fully exhausted; if manpower is still left, the game can enter overtime. Defenders win by holding any objective until the timer is exhausted.
Capturing: Progress counts only inside the strongpoint - no capture weight is added from the ground outside the circle, so commit to the strongpoint itself in this mode.
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Skirmish - A smaller, faster format with fewer caps and tighter fights on a reduced slice of the map.
Win condition: still driven by manpower and holding objectives, but on a quicker timeline - check the server’s mode card for player counts and rules.
Spawns: Frontline garrisons are part of this mode’s toolbox (see spawns below), unlike the standard large-scale Warfare/Offensive flow.
Comms - mic and why it matters
Hell Let Loose is built around squads and command channels. Text chat is available on PC, but not on console.
- Use a microphone when you can, but avoid overloading squad voice chat with constant chatter.
- Be mindful of voice volume: this setting increases mic gain and can cause severe peaking, making you harder to understand in-game.
- Default PC voice keys: V = proximity chat, C = squad chat, X = command chat.
- If you are an Officer, use command comms to coordinate with other squad leaders and mark enemy spawn points or vehicles.
Spawns - garrisons, OPs, and frontline garrisons
Garrisons and Outposts (OPs) are how your team keeps people in the fight. Officers and Commanders place them with support from teammates and supplies.
- Garrisons - This is your bread and butter, the main team spawn point. They must be placed in valid territory: either the blue zone or the first two red sectors closest to the blue zone. These require 50 supplies in blue territory or 100 supplies in red territory to build, and can be built by a Commander, Officer, Artillery Observer, or Spotter. If an enemy is within 100m of a red-zone garrison, it cannot be spawned on; in blue zones this is reduced to about 15m. Garrisons can be destroyed by large explosions or by enemy combatants holding the action button on them. Note: a long burn (a manual garrison takedown that takes a long time) usually means the garrison is deep behind enemy lines, farther back than the first two red sectors. Best practice is the pyramid method: build three garrisons around an objective in a triangle so your team has backups if territory is lost, and alternate spawn options if a bombing run hits center objective.
- Outposts (OPs) - Squad-level spawns, faster to put down and easier to hide, but easier to destroy. Same broad idea: valid ground, not too close to enemies, and placed so your squad can re-engage quickly without feeding a spawn camp.
- Frontline garrisons - These show up in Skirmish only. They are not tethered by the 100m or 200m threshold regular garrisons are held to. Instead, they can be placed fairly close together and functionally sit almost in the middle ground between outposts and garrisons.
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