Rifleman

MARINE
Standard Marine	Difficulty: Easy Supervisors: Squad Leader Rank: Not defined Duties: Follow orders. Don't get yourself killed. Don't shoot your squadmates. Guides: Bullet Paths and Friendly Fire Unlock Requirements: Not available. Detailed Description: |__________| Not defined |__________|

"How do I get out of this chickenshit outfit?"- Hudson, Aliens

You're in the United States Colonial Marine Corps. Follow your sergeant's orders and don't ask too many questions. Whether you've been to Hell and back or you're fresh out of Boot, you're expected to maintain a level of professionalism. Do your job, follow orders, and maybe you'll go home in one piece.

This guide assumes you have finished the Marine Quickstart Guide and will hopefully help you transit out from being a baldie.

Your Squad

Once you have your earpiece on, you will see the Squad HUD. Your squad is led by Squad Leader , try to stay in his vision so SL can see you too. Second in command is Squad Specialist , try to distant yourself a few tiles away from the Spec and don't be in front of them, as they tend to be too focused on the targets in sight and friendly fire the marines in front. Squad Medic are prime targets for the enemies, stay near them to guard them (and the wounded) when you are not pushing the enemy, same goes to Squad Engineer . Squad Smartgunner can shoot pass marines so try to be in front of them to protect them during an assault. If they are ahead of everyone, point at them (shift + middle click) to remind them they are out of position.

The Weapons

In Marine Quickstart Guide, M41A is recommended as the weapon of choice due to its versatility and ease of use. However, you may find other firearms more appealing to use. Below is a list of standard weapons to choose from, just click expand.

Basic Weapon List:

M4A3 Service Pistol High Supply Ammunition: A reliable fallback weapon that uses 9mm handgun ammunition in a 12 round magazine. Reloading: If you have just vended the M4A3 Service Pistol, swap to your empty hand and vend a fresh magazine. Once vended pick it up and then click on the gun with the magazine. After the magazine has either been auto-ejected or you have Eject-Magazine.png manually ejected it, swap to your other hand and take out a fresh magazine from your ammo belt and click on the M4A3 Service Pistol to load the magazine in. Attachments: The attachments for this weapon can be viewed here. M4A3 Magazine: Single Projectile. Average damage. Use on low armored targets for maximum effect. M4A3 Armor Piercing Magazine: Single Projectile. Armor piercing. Less damage. Use on highly armored targets for maximum effect. For a list of all available ammo types for this weapon head here. M44 Combat Revolver High Supply Ammunition: Deals significantly more damage per round than the M4A3 at the cost of ammo capacity and recoil. It uses .44 rounds, usually held in speed loaders, and holds a maximum of 7 bullets. You can duel wield them but your accuracy will be heavily decreased. Reloading: Click the revolver with an empty hand to open the revolving cylinder, vend a fresh speed loader, click the revolver with the speed loader in your active hand, click the revolver again with an empty hand to close the revolving cylinder. Attachments: The attachments for this weapon can be viewed here. M44 Speed Loader: Single Projectile. Average damage. Use on low armored targets for maximum effect. M44 Marksman Speed Loader: Single Projectile. Armor piercing. Less damage. Use on highly armored targets for maximum effect. For a list of all available ammo types for this weapon head here. M39 Submachine Gun High Supply Ammunition: Allows you to have high mobility but lacks raw power and armor penetration. Good for chasing down fleeing enemies. You can duel wield them but your accuracy will be heavily decreased. The M39 uses 10x20mm SMG rounds, and holds 48 bullets with an optional 4-round burst fire mode. Reloading: If you have just vended the M39 Submachine gun, swap to your empty hand and vend a fresh magazine. Once vended pick it up and then click on the gun with the magazine. After the magazine has either been auto-ejected or you have manually ejected it, swap to your other hand and take out a fresh magazine from your ammo belt and click on the M39 Submachine Gun to load the magazine in. Attachments: The attachments for this weapon can be viewed here. M39 Magazine: Single Projectile. Average damage. Use on low armored targets for maximum effect. M39 Armour Piercing Magazine: Single Projectile. Armor piercing. Less damage. Use on highly armored targets for maximum effect. For a list of all available ammo types for this weapon head here. M41A Mk2 Pulse Rifle High Supply Ammunition: A reliable, robust and overall effective standard issue weapon, comes with a 3-round burstfire capability as well as a standard-issue UGL which starts unloaded, but can be loaded and reloaded with HEDP grenades (ask RO for grenades). Reloading: If you have just vended the M41A Mk2 Pulse Rifle, swap to your empty hand and vend a fresh magazine. Once vended pick it up and then click on the gun with the magazine. After the magazine has either been auto-ejected or you have manually ejected it, swap to your other hand and take out a fresh magazine from your ammo belt and click on the M41A Mk2 Pulse Rifle to load the magazine in. Attachments: The attachments for this weapon can be viewed here. M41A Magazine: Single Projectile. Average damage. Use on low armored targets for maximum effect. M41A Armour Piercing Magazine: Single Projectile. Armor piercing. Less damage. Use on highly armored targets for maximum effect. For a list of all available ammo types for this weapon head here. M37A2 Shotgun High Supply Ammunition: This weapon is powerful in close quarters combat and is capable of killing even the strongest of hostile targets. Due to its sheer power, the M37A2 is capable of stunning even the mighty Xenomorph when fired from close range, though users should still keep in mind that the M37A2 must be pumped after every shot. You can duel wield them but your accuracy will be heavily decreased. Reloading: Hold the shotgun shell box with one hand, then swap to your other hand and click the shell box to take out a handful of shells. Drop the shell box and pick up your shotgun and load it with the shells one by one (M37 can hold eight shells plus one in the chamber). Pump the shotgun with Unique Action Button , you need to pump it after each firing. Using Macros to bind a hotkey for it is a must to use shotgun effectively. Attachments: The attachments for this weapon can be viewed here. Slug shells: Single Slug Projectile. Effective in ranged combat. Armor Piercing. Less damage. High knockback chance from range. Buckshot shells: Fires multiple small projectiles. Powerful in close range. Massive damage, with a rapid damage fall-off at range. Fires in a 15-degree radius. If you're looking to use the most effective ammo variant as deemed by the community, see the latest replies to this thread: Buckshot vs Slug: The final debate. For a list of all available ammo types for this weapon head here. M240 Incinerator Unit High Supply Ammunition: The incinerator is good at incinerating hostiles and clearing unwanted vegetation with a moderate range of 5 tiles. Squad Leaders may hand out the two incinerators that are in their vendor (with 8 fuel tanks in total). Welder fuel is weaker than the original thick sticky napthal fuel that the incinerators start with. More incinerators can be ordered from requisitions. Reloading: Incinerator Units can only be refuelled once a tank is completely out of fuel. Once emptied, pull out the Incinerator Tankby either unloading the weapon or clicking the incinerator unit with an empty hand, then clicking on a fuel tank, welder pack or welding tank with the tank in your hand. Once refuelled just click on the incinerator unit with the fresh tank. Attachments: The attachments for this weapon can be viewed here. Incinerator Tank: Ultra-Thick Nepathal fuel that can stick to anyone. Effective in Area Denial situations. Has a chance of burning anyone on contact with the flames on each tic.

Loadouts

Your playstyle will be determined by the weapons you carry, the attachments on them and the items you have in your bag. Everyone's got their favorite loadouts but it all boils down to what you prefer. Trial and error is the best way to know what you like and don't like.

Attachment

The RO may hand out up to two attachments, a webbing, a holster/scabbard and two grenades. Some RO's may allow you to take a third attachment if it's a low demand one i.e. Suppressor, Extended Barrel and Angled Grip.

Secondary weapon

You should have a secondary weapon in your suit storage, ideally with Rail Flashlight and Bayonet attached, be it a M41A, M37 or a flamer. The Rail Flashlight has no drawback while vastly improving your light range so it's always good to take..

Adjust your loadouts

Reflect what limitations you faced in the previous rounds. Ran out of ammo? Get a webbing from requisitions, and use a backpack . Ran out of flares? Use a backpack and fill it with 7 flare packs.

In the field

You have superior firepower and can fire across the screen, the limiting factors are lighting, vision, and terrain.

Lighting

Shoulder Lamp Range

Rail Flashlight Range

To overcome low visibility of the battlefield, you need a rail flashlight and flares. Rail flashlights not only extend your light range, it also extends your throw range (you can only throw/shoot at tiles that are lit), allowing you to throw flares further thus even more light. Rail flashlight increases your throw range from 3 tiles to 6 tiles (one tile into the dark).

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Inventory management

What to recover from a dead marine

Notable items to recover are:

• Squad Leader: Orbital Beacon, Supply Beacon, Tactical Binoculars, Motion Detector, Whistle, B12 armor and B11 helmet
• Squad Engineer: Building materials, explosives, just take them out from backpack/pouches and give/drop them to other engineers
• Squad Medic: Roller Bed, first aid kit (keep one or two advanced kit, standards can use them)
• Squad Specialist: Battle Sights, they have limited night vision capacity
• Recover empty AP magazines, they can be refilled with AP ammo box (click the ammo box with the magazine in hand).

Logistics

Everyone who outranks you has their own tasks to handle, leaving only standards free enough to handle supplies.

The flow of supplies

Bring supplies (supply crates, ammo bags, etc) from hanger onto the dropship, and unload them to the FOB when dropship arrived. Bring wounded marines, empty crates, empty Smartgunner powerpacks onto the dropship. When you set off from the FOB, bring some supplies with you, be it an ammo/flare bag, a roller bed/stasis bag or pull a crate of supplies (if the front is established and you have few marines protecting on the way).

Organization

To make sense of all the bags lying around, you can drag a bag, take one item then drop it on the bag, signifying what the bag contains. Throw the empty bags away to a corner.

Recover empty crates

Bring crates back to the FOB and load them onto the dropship. You'll want to load any crates you find as the RO can send them down the elevator for supply points. Use (:i) to tell RO there are crates in hanger.

First aid

Helping others

Before pulling a downed marine back in the front, use point at (shift + middle click) to show your intention of going in or to urge the nearer marines to pull them. As you are pulling the downed marine back, shift + click to check the marine, bandage the bleeding wounds when it's safe. If the marine is conscious (not seems to be asleep), shake them with Help intent to get them up, get them to a medic if he doesn't get up. If the marine has no pulse, get them to a medic then remove their armor (drag their sprites onto yours to open their equipment window, click ExoSuit: M3 armor) so that medic can immediately revive them (can't revive with armor on).

• Get splints , you can split the stack by holding it in the active hand then click it with another hand, restock the new stack (one splint) to a NanoMed then you keep the rest.
• Get a roller bed in your bag so you can quickly transport wounded out in an emergency (being overrun/no Medic/no CASevac).
• Marines whose revive timer ran out, without a head, chestbursted and turned gray (aka husked, too much burn damage) are unrevivable.

Your Skillset

To find out about how the skill system works head over to the skills system page.

Tips

• Only take what you need. You're going to need somewhere between zero and one armor piercing magazine in the field for heavily armored enemies and probably more if you see tin men in the field. For everything else, soft point ammunition to hollowpoint to incendiary is superior.

• Stick with your squad at all times, a lone Marine is a dead Marine.

• Follow the chain of command. If someone tells you jump, you'd better ask how high on the way up.

• Use appropriate titles. Your Squad Leader is Staff Sergeant, or Squad Leader. He's not an officer so don't call him "Sir" and he's not in the Army so don't call him "Sarge."

• Be useful. Offer to carry extra engineering, medical, or some specialist/smartgunner supplies. Those guys are already carrying more weight than you'll ever be able to.

• Keep your superiors informed. Stay on the radio and keep the squad and command up to date on what's going on. Do you see movement outside the perimeter? Let your fireteam know. Did Private McFuckface blow his hand off playing catch with a grenade? Let your squad leader know. Did your staff sergeant just get his head taken off by incoming artillery? Let command know.

• Stay in the light. There ain't many things out there scarier than marines and they all like the dark. Keep your shoulder lamp on and pop a flare whenever you're stopped for more than a moment.

• Use single fire for long to medium ranges and burstfire for CQC and close range engagements. By doing this you conserve ammo but can still dish out the pain to incoming hostiles.