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Thread: The "Ideal" FOB layout, and how Bravo can build it

  1. #1
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    Question The "Ideal" FOB layout, and how Bravo can build it

    So, I like Bravo, I "Like" making FOBS and building things, and we need to become better at it.


    Hi, Murphy here.

    This game has become a bit of an addiction for me, but in a constructive way that lets me exercise my mechanical engineer's mind on designs while having fun with the rest of you autistics buggers. This guide here is, I believe, one of the most important things that Bravo mains need to read:

    //showthrea...57-On-FOB-duty

    I have gone through the roller coaster ride of becoming a Bravo main, an engie main, and now an SL for Bravo all in the period of about 6 months. This guide needs more attention, as I know we have engie mains again (I know you're out there, Song Wu), and these cade principles need to be reinforced. Moreso, this guide should be read by EVERY Bravo main, as this information and the knowledge in it is NOT being used by the rank and file in Bravo at this time, and i would like to turn this situation around. Bravo, being the FOB squad, is always going to get called cowardly and bald, but dang it, I want to build FOBs that LAST, or that actually allow us to Evac the troops from the planet with minimal losses.

    Part of this, I believe, is that we are building the FOB WAY too big at this point. On Big Red (and this is something that I am guilty of), the FOB extends WAY too far south, so that we lose contact with either or both Tcomms and the north tunnel cades. I have just re-read this guide and have wanted to get our new gen of FOBbits to understand some of these principles, but I think some of this may come down to delegating and teaching our autistic FOBbits-in-training exactly how to build FOBs.


    Now we come to the point in this post that made me take this out of the guide thread, and put it into the General Discussion forum: How should we lay out our cades in FOB?

    Should we be doing a double strength wall (Metal cade inside wall, with a sandbag wall exterior 1 tile in front of it), more lines of single wall cades, or something else? How many tank-sized doors? How many Comrade Sentries should we have ("All of them!" is the correct answer, but that won't happen again after the 9 sentrie MEGA FOB on Big Red caused so much Xeno Salt)? How many '56D's should we keep on the FOB and then send the rest out?

    There has been a LOT of bad/wrong/out-of-date information going around, and I only play in the evenings (7pm EST and onwards) where we have almost TOO many people to keep control and focused in our construction. I am gonna start focusing more on being an engie again for a bit, so I can test/prove out the best cade designs, but we NEED to build better FOBs. Heck, I would like to get input from the Xenos players as well, as I know I don't know everything (if college taught me anything, I learned that I am NEVER the smartest person in the room); so I beseech the trolls and denizens of these forums: How do we Make Bravo Great Again? ( )

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    In the guide/thread you referenced, this comment:

    Quote Originally Posted by ChengChan View Post
    Guide is useful for new players of Colonial Marines and hopefully they're willing to read and follow this guide.
    The problem is that no one wants to read. I propose that the basics are made into a one-pager like these:

    https://i.redd.it/0d64afaancrx.png
    https://www.questlabs.com.sg/wp-cont...r-of-Draw2.jpg
    https://cdn.sparkfun.com/assets/c/d/a

    Yeah, it's incomplete. It's hard to compress a lot of information into something card sized. But it's easy to link to and save and images spread easier. The hardest part will be deciding what to put on it. That's my idea anyway.

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    It's a good guide and I agree with almost everything in it, especially the whole principle that FOBs have gotten too big. However, I feel like from a communications perspective some pictures and visual examples could help to break up the wall of text.

    Also, I feel like you're harsh on walls. Sure, walls are kind of situational but I think there are definately examples of effective and useful walls.

    If I get some time to play bravo engineer, I'll take some screenshots and try to argue this one properly.
    Last edited by Surimi; 02-20-2020 at 03:33 PM.

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    More visual examples is always a good idea. The wiki does a very good job giving some good basics: https://cm-ss13.com/wiki/Squad_Engineer

    It's a lot of good information. The wiki page also links to this, which helped me understand the threat of building cades in a way that would invite marines to be body-blocked and trapped by crowding:
    https://cm-ss13.com/old/viewtopic.php?f=135&t=16412

    I really agree that FOBs have a tendency to grow too big. When a FOB falls, it's because it has the same problem the Alamo had: Too big to defend with defenders too scattered. It's frustrating as an engi to run around like a chicken with your head cut off to put out fires across the map. Nothing like discovering cades and an MD dissolving simply because no one was watching. Don't honestly know how you go about solving this problem. Maybe more specific orders from the SL? The SL already has enough to do as it is. How do you keep from micromanaging? Do you have a fire team as a roaming perimeter guard for big FOBs?

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    I believe that offense is the best defense, so recently as a Bravo SL I've been trying to build the basic FOB quickly and then move onto cading the area that's a responsibilty of some other squad, since xenos generally won't bother attacking the FOB if it has the basic defenses set. SL, three engineers and a couple of mini-engies can build a massive amount of defenses really quickly. So here's a few Bravo SL and SO tips:
    1. Ask your engineers to vend you a tools pouch. Otherwise you can vend one from req and fill with tools in the autolathe south of medbay on Almayer.
    2. Put people on sentry duty. Bravo has really compliant privates, you just have to order one in person, then maybe come by later and thank him for his service. As SO try getting a medal to some PVT who spent the whole game guarding some flank.
    3. Put a private on sandbag duty.
    4. Build defenses in sections and announce to everyone on which section the squad is currently working. Try to keep your engineers with you and working on that section.
    5. Calculate the required supplies and be proactive in ordering them. Basically engineers should only use their personal stash as a backup and all supplies should be provided to them in advance.
    6. Keep your mats in one crate that you drag around the territory you're working on. I recently started experimenting with this and it worked great. Ideally you'd put a private in charge of dragging it and refilling it with supplies from drops \ sandbags from the sandbagging team. Also you can have someone premake the barbed wire.

    As for the cading itself here's one thing that I rarely do, but it works well, and was not really discussed in other guides, that is creating firing nests. Here's an example:
    MCX
    MCX
    OCC
    OPNC

    Hopefully this notation is understandable. Marine in the N position is able to shoot the entire xeno line attacking the cades. Plasteel barricade behind the N marine is there for when xenos focus the position with gas. It's also important to find such positions where they naturally exist on the map.
    Roman 'Fire' Kacew

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    Quote Originally Posted by sg2002 View Post
    I believe that offense is the best defense, so recently as a Bravo SL I've been trying to build the basic FOB quickly and then move onto cading the area that's a responsibilty of some other squad, since xenos generally won't bother attacking the FOB if it has the basic defenses set. SL, three engineers and a couple of mini-engies can build a massive amount of defenses really quickly. So here's a few Bravo SL and SO tips:
    1. Ask your engineers to vend you a tools pouch. Otherwise you can vend one from req and fill with tools in the autolathe south of medbay on Almayer.
    2. Put people on sentry duty. Bravo has really compliant privates, you just have to order one in person, then maybe come by later and thank him for his service. As SO try getting a medal to some PVT who spent the whole game guarding some flank.
    3. Put a private on sandbag duty.
    4. Build defenses in sections and announce to everyone on which section the squad is currently working. Try to keep your engineers with you and working on that section.
    5. Calculate the required supplies and be proactive in ordering them. Basically engineers should only use their personal stash as a backup and all supplies should be provided to them in advance.
    6. Keep your mats in one crate that you drag around the territory you're working on. I recently started experimenting with this and it worked great. Ideally you'd put a private in charge of dragging it and refilling it with supplies from drops \ sandbags from the sandbagging team. Also you can have someone premake the barbed wire.

    As for the cading itself here's one thing that I rarely do, but it works well, and was not really discussed in other guides, that is creating firing nests. Here's an example:
    MCX
    MCX
    OCC
    OPNC

    Hopefully this notation is understandable. Marine in the N position is able to shoot the entire xeno line attacking the cades. Plasteel barricade behind the N marine is there for when xenos focus the position with gas. It's also important to find such positions where they naturally exist on the map.
    you'd have to be very careful about making sure they turn off burst and have low spread weapons, that could very easily hit the main cadeline or the marines behind it

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    Maybe an easier way to go about this is to list the bare minimum standards for what constitutes a workable fob. But then I feel the wiki already has this.

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    No cafe line can resist railgunners or queens or crushers forever. Always have emergency sandbags in case holes appear. Also try not to leave pointed out areas, those can be weak points. You want a lot of distance from Cade to aliens to increase effect of suppression. Sentries prioritized on flanks to discourage lone sentinals aciding it. Pray to the almighty you don’t see three railgunners

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    So, here is a point of contention: do we have a double wall with cades FACING eachother, ( such as ][ ) or IN LINE (such as [ [ )? i know it has been debated before, and i am of the school that you do IN LINE cades, but i would LOVE some input.

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    Having cades face eachother is a bad idea, since you'll just shoot the second cade.

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