Hey guys, I've seen a lot of panic floating around about FOBs. Here's a quick tutorial on how to protect yourself from invaders, minimize damage and have the best MGSV base management experience. Any staff not under permanent contract can be stolen from the associated platform when the invader makes it to the core outside of a combat alert. You can also lose raw ressources if the invader steals containers out in the open. Might sound scary but if you manage things well invasions are not that big of a deal. Here's what you should do to prevent/minimize losses:

1. Put your best staff (S and above and A++ early on) on permanent contracts by hitting L2 (might be R2) on the staff management screen. Staff on permanent contracts won't be deployable in the field for missions or base defense but you won't lose them to any invader either
2. Build more FOB struts on platforms with more resources on them (base development, command center). Invaders have to go through all struts to get to your core and adding more struts means more guards and more security devices between them and the core
3. Max out security devices and equipment ranking for your most important platforms (the ones with resources on them).
4. Put a lot of bad staff into security so they can cover all platforms. Those guys are disposable and easily stolen by invaders. Make sure you don't send your best staff to guard platforms by caping the ranking of guards in the security settings.
5. Make allies. It doesn't seem like you can add friends to supported FOBs which is a real bummer. For now just support a bunch of random dudes and hope they'll support you back.
6. Select the appropriate range and lethal/non lethal options for your guards on a specific platform. You can always test out your setup by doing a fake invasion on your own platform.
7. Research items with green text. Those will beef up your security team.
8. If you're still paranoid about invasion you can (post mission 30 gameplay spoilers) build a nuke to drastically reduce the chance of anyone invading you. Be careful though, I hear something bad might happen when you build a nuke.

I kind of just want a way to disable FOB stuff altogether. I know you can go offline, but apparently that doesn't actually stop you from getting invaded, it just means you won't find out about it until the next time it connects.

Or at least a "pacifist" mode that you can enable to make it so you can't get invaded as long as you don't invade anyone else for X days.

*edit: But since that isn't an option, thanks for the tips!

@bbalpert: No FOB is much more debilitating than one invasion once in a while. When you build the FOB your staff limit basically doubles for almost no additional cost. That's way more valuable than anything you could lose if you put your best staff on permanent contracts.

@bbalpert: Later on in the game, you can, in fact, prevent people from messing up your shit by building a nuke as a deterrent. Only players with extremely high heroism will be able to invade you from that point onwards. This method actually ties into the end-game of the FOB stuff in a really neat way. Specifically, you'll be either stealing or dismantling nukes from other players. Be careful, though, there are some arguably cool repercussions to taking this way out.

Your heroism score drops by a good 50 k and your demon score (this is in fact a thing and is accrued by all the bad acts you commit throughout the game such as killing dudes) increases by the same amount, almost ensuring that Ahab walks around looking like a psycopath between the gigantic horn jutting out of his head and being perpetually covered in blood. You can't wash it off, it's very subtle symbolism, you see.

A couple of other general notes: Research as many of the high level "green" development weapons so that your security soldiers will have higher level gear. And with regards to the "put your worst soliders here" advice, I'm going to have to sort of half disagree. Basically, your security team will automatically be outfitted with the rejects from your combat team once it's full, as the security team's usefulness is weighted based on their combat score. So, in the beginning you will totally have trash soldiers there. However, the faster you recruit a shit ton of solid combat soliders and send the runoff to your security team, the better equipped your security will be to defend.

The faster you can get your security troops outfitted with armor and helmets the better. A lot of invaders simply won't have the gear/know-how required to deal with three or more struts full of soldiers all wearing helmets. I haven't had a single failed defense since I fully outfitted my security (both guards and traps/etc)

so why is it when my defenses successfully spot an invader they are not added to my retaliation list, but I can see how badly they've fucked my shit up? Cause that seems like the total opposite of what they were promising, that if someone was spotted that you could get a chance to reclaim your stolen property.

@atomicoldman: If you see the log and your security went into combat alert you should be able to retaliate.

@bushpusherr: So higher ranked dudes get helmets and better weapons?

I'm not sure if the helmets come with higher ranked dudes, or if they automatically come equipped with the heavy armor outfit, or if lower ranked dudes will even use the heavy armor outfit or not. It's difficult for me to test at this point even in the training mode since my lowest grade soldier in my entire security staff is still an 'A'. All of this kind of came together for me at once (higher class of gear, higher class soliders) so I'm not positive which parts specifically contributed to it, or if they are dependent on each other. All I know now is that I have all A - A++ soldiers, Level-5 battle armor, and every green weapon unlocked and max security settings in every area of every strut. All my dudes have helmets and heavy armor and I haven't been successfully invaded since.

@pyrodactyl: That's been the case at least twice, yet I cannot retaliate. It's even funnier that in one instance you get a cutscene with Miller saying somebody fucked with you but it's cool, there's a plan in place to strike back. The only time I have been able to retaliate was when somebody got killed by my security staff.

Seems like most people are just throwing nearly everything on the initial platform, they all have guards looking directly at every spawn point armored head to toe, so this might as well not exist, its way too easy to build a base that cannot be attacked.

Totally not true (about the not being able to be attacked part). Upgraded rocket arm wrecks every type of soldier no matter how armored, and you can do it from a distance. You just need to pick your timing about when you pop up to deal with them permanently. Also, there is a max number of soldiers and gear you can deploy on a single platform.

@bushpusherr: Right but then a defender shows up, and the entire thing resets, except the alert state and your rocket fuel. The rocket arm is lame anyway, and there shouldn't be one necessary item to get through a mission, you should be able to sneak through

I don't think defenders get notified of your arrival until you set off an alarm. I've played total stealth and I haven't yet had a defender show up, but I've only invaded like 3 times and only ever as part of a retaliation. And I'm not sure what you mean by "rocket fuel". The stun rocket arm is infinite use, the batter recharges pretty quick.

@bushpusherr: i was just scouting from underneath the base and a defender showed up, the biggest problem with the entire thing is it having to reload the base when that happens, and you losing all your progress. i have been notified of an intruder who literally did nothing, didnt even move, then disconnected, this was a couple days ago when the servers were still a bit wonky

does anyone know what the GMP cost is? is it a one time fee, or does it expend that everytime you get invaded?

I invaded a base which was then defended, and the only thing I did was trigger reflex mode because a guard saw me. I tranqed him before the reflex timer ended, but the defender still showed up.

You sure they triggered a combat alert? Just getting spotted isn't enough. If they really triggered a comba alert and you can't retaliate then hey might have #7.

@brotherbran:If you don't care about getting seen, grenade and rocket launchers mess up any and all staff with one shot. I've yet to encounter a guard that can take a 40mm grenade, and it also works wonders against invaders.

As for the nuke, I'd argue against building one. Preventing only really advanced players (I'm 80 hours in and less than a thousand heroism away) from invading you doesn't sound like fun, as you get a fuckton of stuff for defending yourself:

And you get even more if you defend other people. More invasions are actually great (there's some sort of cooldown between invasions that is removed if you invade someone) for generating GMP, and whatever few troops you lose is relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Keep in mind that the security team is made up of people who aren't good enough to be on any other platform, and once you get pretty deep into the game, you'll be rolling in A++ and S rank troops.

Anyone have any tips for when you go head to head with a player? I feel like I get the jump on them, unload a ton of bullets into them, but it doesn't seem to do much. Then they turn around and down me in a couple of shots.

Yeah I had a similar experience with my first invasion.

The guy ran to the spot where his guard entered reflex mode, I assume because that was showing as my last known position. Luckily I had moved just outside that area to dispose of a guard's body, so I heard him sprinting into position and dropping down. I used the 3rd person camera to spot him without giving myself away, and he was crouched down (probably looking at his iDroid).

I thought it would be a good idea to just unload my assault rifle on him, but all that did was quickly chew through my suppressor and then alert every guard in the place when my gun went loud. The bullets didn't seem to affect him at all, he just turned around and CQC slammed me into the ground, then shot me in the face.

In hindsight, I would've been better off throwing a sleep nade at his feet, or charging him with CQC before he knew I was there. I'll have to try that next time.

Anyone know where the Support Platform exit is (video would be helpful)? Seems to be inside the ground.

@fredchuckdave: There's a staircase in the warehouse along one of the interior walls. My first infiltration had me knock out all of the guards in two minutes, and then run around like an idiot for the next 20 until I stumbled on it.

@mirado: I was midway through doing that when the game disconnected me.

Well I finally unlocked FOBs last night. FOB infiltrations are almost like a completely different game! Not only do you not have access to a buddy, which in a lot of cases can make this game into easy mode, but the soldiers you're facing off against seem a lot more lethal as well. In my training run against my own FOB, my troops had body armor, NVGs, and scoped light machine guns. It was pretty rough, to say the least, and I didn't even have any security upgrades or anything like that researched yet.

@brotherbran: @mirado: I took the liberty of making a video for the Support Platform, it really is in an asinine location, albeit if you can get there stealthily there's usually no guards down there:

@bushpusherr: @brotherbran: I think you guys might just be on different wavelengths here, the fully armored guards (i.e. helmets that cover their face) are definitely bullshit even if the rocket arm is also bullshit; being virtually unable to incapacitate them in any other way is a bit of an issue. Early on there were a bunch of platforms to invade that were from people that obviously spent money on the game and also got the game early so every platform was 3/4 with UA Drones, Security Cameras, the laser gates, and so on; and those were fun to invade except for the bullshit guards (which aren't always there even on super high security platforms); I wasn't aware of the rocket arm at the time though. Now almost every invasion option is just single platform and just a breeze to get through; but the huge FOB missions definitely have potential, up until another player defends it and you have somewhere around a 1-2% chance of success because it's ridiculously easy to defend in this game. Players definitely can interfere even if the enemy hasn't spotted you as well so there's no reprieve even if you play perfectly.

So I think I'm missing something. I just did my first real FOB invasion and things were going quite well. I cleaned out two entire platforms worth of cargo containers and soldiers, and had made it all the way up to the top of the command platform. Well, I was spotted somehow and the place went into lockdown. I couldn't figure out how to get into the core...I spent the next 15 minutes running around and looking for enemies to kill or remove, I turned off the power, nothing worked. Eventually time just expired and I lost. Am I missing something obvious?

Exactly when does fob stuff open up? I think I just did mission 20 but afraid to do any more than that.

I still don't have a clear picture of how this stuff works at all! I wish they would do a ql of fob gameplay or something.

@devil240z: you only have 1 to 2 more missions before FOB unlocks

@devil240z: You're almost there, just keep going. It'll show up soon. I'm not sure what you meant by being "afraid to do any more than that" though.

@Mike: Like I don't want to unlock that stuff because of the negatives it will cause and that I don't fully understand what/how the fob stuff works. I don't want all my progress to get robbed away by invaders. Is there a guide on what do do/have before it opens up. How many resources/mortars/stuff I should have stockpiled to get a good start on defenses and whatnot?

Did my first infiltration and it was awesome. I totally messed up and alerted the guards until the FOB had a real player(supporter) come in. I shot him in the face with a tranq, worm-holed him out and reached the goal.

So if I'm online long enough to build an FOB, then play offline for the foreseeable future I should be okay as far as any negatives, right? I am benefiting from the resources and spots for soldiers. I realize when I go online everything I own may be stolen but I just don't want to deal with this mode until I've already beaten the game or at least not for a while.

Man...so much about FOBs doesn't make sense. I was just about to finish another infiltration when a defender came into the game, and it reset my position and put me way back on another platform about 150 meters away from where I was before he loaded in. Security staff ended up finishing me off when I got into a cross-platform gun fight with him.

I still ended up getting a ton of resources out of the deal that I had stolen before he showed up, but...eh. I just wish I knew more about how all these systems worked, they really don't surface much of anything to the player.

I really don't think that's how it works. I just infiltrated a friend's FOB and it indicated he had like 250,000 Fuel resources. He has more lik 1,000. I stole about 5,000 from him and he didn't end up losing anything from his stockpile of resources.

@Mike: For lockdowns you have two options, one is wait out the alert (it's more like an old Metal Gear alert that takes forever to dissipate) and the other is neutralize all guards on the platform, which can be quite a lot sometimes. Souped up guards also tend to have weaponry that kills you in 2 hits.

As far as waiting out the alert be aware that even if they're shooting the shit out of nearby where you are it doesn't necessarily mean that they can actually see you. For multi platform infiltrations the best place to sit is on the connecting bridge on the lower level underneath the wires (?), never, ever been found there.

@fredchuckdave: Ok...do you know how defending works? I've got dozens of people on my Steam friends list who play Metal Gear, a lot of whom I know for sure have FOBs already. But I can't seem to be able to set them as Supporting. Is that just not a feature in the game?

lol I don't get the FOB mode! So I will stay offline I guess.

@Mike:

1- How did you infiltrate a friend's FOB?

2-You get a fuckton of ressources when you make it to the core

3-It's all raw materials gathered by your FOB and not your main base though.

I went to the list of infiltration targets and saw him there, so I infiltrated him.

@Mike: It's definitely a feature, not really sure how it works but some of the alliance people might know. I haven't "joined" as of yet since I think Infiltrators have the hard job anyway. I've tried to defend once and it "failed to create session," never had another alert pop while I was playing though my base has been attacked like 6 or 7 times and I have done a few retaliation missions.

Just due to the nature of the game being so big and this aspect being unlocked midgame it's going to take a while for everyone to start participating or even opting out of participating in FOB missions.

@fredchuckdave: Yeah so far I haven't seen any alerts pop up for me to go defend anything, I've only seen Indirect Retaliations available from the list.

@devil240z: Don't worry about it. You just need to put your important staff on permanent contract and probably build a second FOB command platform so it's not super easy to invade your one strut. Put security maxed out on that and research battle dress and you should be good.

You can fiddle around from there. I would recommand building 2 struts for every new platform you build in your FOB so it's harder to invade. Just max out security and start fultoning every guy you see in game. You'll need them for some useful security upgrades

So...this has to be someone cheating with CheatEngine or something like that, right? I mean, come on.

@Mike: More than likely. The resources in particular are very easy to find, but I have no idea about all the S++ guys. File editing, maybe? Dunno how secure those are.

Someone posted on Jeff's tumblr that they could pretty easily modify the files to this end. Haven't done it myself.

So I've heard that at least one person built there FOB but didn't do the mock invasion for it and then never got invaded. Can anyone confirm if that works? I don't really care about the resource boost you get from building out the FOB development platforms I'd be fine with just the staff boost but I'm also hearing that if you don't have enough online resources materials that equal the amount they steal then you loose single player offline resource materials. This plus the fact that not only can you not turn off auto assignment of recruits, meaning that your waiting room is only useful for housing excess staff, but even if you could your staff pool is shared between motherbase and fob so those ten recruits that a successful invasion could give could be your best guys.

Are those ten recruits able to be taken back? Guh this whole thing is stressful and it's fucking infuriating that you have to build the FOB right away. I've gone ahead and developed my FOB, because the game doesn't give any other option, and started development on a second command platform. It's going to take 4 hours but there's a symbol next to the timer is that implying that development occurs in real time instead of game time for FOB construction?

So much unexplained about this mode. Is this the point in which everyone got to and started nonstop shit talking this game? I've loved it up to this point but this puts itself above ME3 readiness decay levels of frustrating.

Yeah, I was talking about the over 700 S++ ranked soldiers that guy has. Now, I'm not at the end of the game or anything and I know there are people who have played way more of Phantom Pain and are much better at it than I am, but I've never even seen a single S+ in the wild yet, let alone an S++. Forget about that many of them. And I know soldiers can be ranked up, but that's just ridiculous.

As far as the resources go, there is something strange in general going on with resource counts for FOBs. I mentioned earlier that I had invaded my friend's FOB when I saw him on the invasion target list, and it showed me that he had FAR more resources than he actually did. It wasn't just a little bit more, it was orders of magnitude more. Like for Fuel, the FOB screen showed that he had over 250,000 units of Fuel, but in reality he only had around 1,000. I stole about 5,000 units during my invasion, and he didn't lose anything from his personal stash.

There is so much for us to figure out about FOBs, and this game in general. So far, none of this is working how I would expect it to. Oh well, that doesn't mean it isn't fun!