The necessity of FOB squads: discussion

[JennerH]

The FOB needs to be guarded at all times, even if it's just a skeleton force there. To quote, "amateurs discuss tactics, whereas professionals study logistics." It's a critical part of marine supply lines, and it needs to be secure enough to allow wounded soldiers to be ferried back to the Almayer. There's really no excuse for a commander to skimp out on garrisoning it, especially since it plays a critical role in combat rotations, wherein he can just place the most damaged squad on guard duty, allowing them to recover while still serving an important role.



That's not how it works, unfortunately. Assigning a single squad to FOB duty ensures they stay together, and that you can communicate with all of them without going through several channels. Volunteers would just muck up the process, since they could be from several different squads, and are virtually untrackable, since you don't have a squad leader to call on to verify their position. Additionally, if they come into contact with the enemy, their report has to go over the general radio, which is much less likely to be acknowledged by other marines present in the FOB.

I meant SLs volunteer for the job. Like at the start over command channel the SL says "gimme FOB duty this shift" and they get it because they want it, of course command can intervene if another squad is better suited for FOB duty (has more engineers) but for the most part it'll be whoever wants it rather than forcing it on someone. Of course, if there aren't any volunteers then they'll just assign it the usual way

[Szunti]

The FOB needs to be guarded at all times, even if it's just a skeleton force there. To quote, "amateurs discuss tactics, whereas professionals study logistics." It's a critical part of marine supply lines, and it needs to be secure enough to allow wounded soldiers to be ferried back to the Almayer. There's really no excuse for a commander to skimp out on garrisoning it, especially since it plays a critical role in combat rotations, wherein he can just place the most damaged squad on guard duty, allowing them to recover while still serving an important role.

There are no supply lines. We have dropped beacons instead. Supply lines would be more interesting though.

Personally I believe it's very important to have a good 4-5 combat able people at the FOB at a time, I've learned this the hard way.

As an XO and aCO I once leaded a round, I had every squad aside from Bravo fighting at the front. Of course they got bored after awhile so I kindly let told them to go head to the front and leave only their engineers behind. The engineers were very well supplied all OP of course, finally when the Marines started losing ground I got cries the Nexus was lost.

A single hunter broken in, killed both engineers then signaled for the entire hive to flank the marines effectively trapping them in Hydro. A few were able to escape to DS-1, but the fact remains all it takes is a single hunter or spitter to ruin an FOB that's under defended.

A single hunter can't destroy the whole FOB while the main force gets back. Shouldn't it be a quick repair if you had engineers? The mistake wasn't the under defended FOB, but wasting the valuable engineers instead of privates imo.

[Youbar]

There are no supply lines. We have dropped beacons instead. Supply lines would be more interesting though.

There are supply lines. Moving casualties back to the FOB is a supply line in and of itself. If a squad leader dies, and his squad is in a remote location, the crate would have to be manually delivered. That, too, is a supply line. Even shifting manpower back and forth from the FOB is a supply line.

If the marines, while advancing to their objective, maintained a rearguard that'd watch over the route between the FOB and the vanguard, the game would instantly turn in the favour of the marines. Taking wounded back to the Nexus would no longer be a death sentence, and moving to the front lines alone wouldn't get you killed.

[Robotic Potato]

A single hunter can't destroy the whole FOB while the main force gets back. Shouldn't it be a quick repair if you had engineers? The mistake wasn't the under defended FOB, but wasting the valuable engineers instead of privates imo.

The engineers were still working on the FoB that's why I left two there, the rest were focused on Hydro and the beach head where they eventually died. I tried to call the main force back but since everyone was scream "NEXUS LOST" of course the marines were cowards even though I told them it was a single hunter. Of course then more xenos came when the marines finally retreated like I told them to so they pretty much had to quickly leave.

[Staton]

i always enjoyed the idea of squad FOB rotations. three squads go, one stays. whatever squad is getting hit the worse falls back and rotates out with FOB squad. there they restock, heal up, and then prepare to rotate out with the next squad that gets into the shit and needs recovery.

[sirhelgate]

A well Set up fob only needs one squad defending it. You can easily build up a a tight formation around the FOB, nothing in and out. Cover enough of TComs, and boom, shit's covered nothing needs to be spread thin. Build a handful of layers around the main FOB. Then shoot any xenos that get close.

[HKO20006]

Defeat in Detail: A Strategy to Defeating Larger Armies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zz3JmXSEM4o

Even worse if it is the RPG Spec to be on FOB duty. Other three squads got rolled over while he sits at FOB. And by the time he can really fire some RPGs, it's time to evac.

[oprayx73]

Marine games are lost when m56d's and sentries literally rot and sit at the lz/nexus unused for half an hour at a time.
Move your sentries up to the front lines, is all.

[Rio]

Marine games are lost when m56d's and sentries literally rot and sit at the lz/nexus unused for half an hour at a time.
Move your sentries up to the front lines, is all.

Maybe if Sentries weren't useless. I've seen young runners dash from the front and knock them over like they were nothing.

I've literally seen sentries kill only two xenos in the time since they were nerfed. One time was a Spitter that critted a marine about to throw a grenade and got served up for a sentry, the other was a rav that ran into two sentries in a hallway and bot bodyblocked by a crusher.

[oprayx73]

Maybe if Sentries weren't useless.

They're 100x more useless back there doin' nothing anyway. as a xeno, they do decent damage and keep you away. They're nice to deny an area, but it won't outright kill stuff.

[Rio]

as a xeno, they do decent damage and keep you away. They're nice to deny an area, but it won't outright kill stuff.

Except when they don't, because not every round lands. I've seen xenos attack them from the front and topple them over more times than I've seen one kill a xeno. An area of denial asset is only good if it is effective at denying entry. a turret with a short range and low accuracy doesn't inspire the same level of fear they did when hits were guaranteed and range was a full screen.

Sentries were once the bane of T2s, and could take on T3s and be the thing that help decisively swing a battle in favor of the defenders. Now they are effectively useless, and their inadequacies are now emboldening xeno players to attack the frontlines more and flank less because nothing aside from marines pose much of a threat.

[PerfectDeath]

One important thing to keep in mind is combat width, you can only fit so many marines in a firing line, especially in narrow fronts. This can result in a lot of clogged marines trying to deliver their full force of arms. In the end there is an optimum number of marines for a front, their immediate reserve, and the rear guard. Too many boots in the place and no one can move properly, begging the xenos to AoE.
FOBs are a good way to store the excess manpower so the front can keep lean and effective, the challenge is then the FOB needs to support the front in a timely manner or else the front can get overrun / overextended.

[kooarbiter]

I'm beating a dead horse here, but like others have said, having a squad stationed at the FoB can be quite useful. I myself normally enjoy FoB duty due to the more relaxed nature of it (provided I am able to find something to do, such as setting up light defenses).

Of course, you don't nee a lot of marines to GUARD an FoB, so when I go commander and there is a lot of action at the front lines, I tend to request my NCO at the FoB to send a fireteam up to the front to assist. After all, if the FoB team happens to have a GL or RPG in their team, it would be an awful waste to have them sitting around at the FoB, so might as well send the heavy weapons to the front while the grunts watch the base.

Of course, this brings me to another issue: Building oversized FoBs.

More often than not, I notice that FoBs tend to be made way larger than can be supported, where a single squad sometimes isn't even ENOUGH to cover all of it. Why do we build big fortresses that cannot be fully manned when we can just build a series of pillboxes, checkpoints or other smaller firing positions in tactical locations? I myself designed a 5x5 pillbox that can take up to 4 marines and a sentry/MG can hold off against xenos just as well as your average, 500+ metal FoB. A concentrated defense in a small area can sometimes do more than a great wall of barricades that often just gets melted when marines aren't looking.

Maybe it is just me, but I think we need to build smarter, not bigger.

pillbox idea sounds nice til the boiler decides to target it and the marines inside die to help shuffling or pushing each other out of the way

[HKO20006]

Xenos know LZ/FOB is fortified so they will only poke there once in a while, and they are way more likely to pick off softer targets like reinforcements, medics and wounded on the supply route.
On the marine side, placing a squad to guard the FOB is assigning a disproportionally large force to counter a token force while ignoring the greater threat targeting the most vulnerable part of your force.
Better build cades and guard sections of the supply route, not just the FOB.

[Heckenshutze]

just send bravo on FOB duty

[Slywater]

They're 100x more useless back there doin' nothing anyway. as a xeno, they do decent damage and keep you away. They're nice to deny an area, but it won't outright kill stuff.

I found that that using a select group of marines (about 3 or 4 usually) to patrol and watch the FOB works quite well (eg. FT1 of Alpha squad). They can watch the flanks, and the blind spots of the sentries. Worst case scanario, they can request support, and pull back the rest of the squad / another squad (depending on the severity). It's a pain in the ass to arrive at the FOB, only to find that some runners have been tirelessly clawing down the (undefended) defences. True, it's a waste to keep an entire squad behind, but the FOB shouldn't be unmonitored.

[Urytion]

To me, the FOB is a fallback point and is supposed to be the only truly safe place on the map. You leave a medic, an engineer, and a couple privates there to cover it. The medic allows you to pull people back for medi-evac, the engineer maintains the defenses from individual runners or hunters trying to be a sneaky, and the privates shoot baddies and hopefully score a couple kills. If the FOB becomes threatened, you call for help and retreat.

[PerfectDeath]

To me, the FOB is a fallback point and is supposed to be the only truly safe place on the map. You leave a medic, an engineer, and a couple privates there to cover it. The medic allows you to pull people back for medi-evac, the engineer maintains the defenses from individual runners or hunters trying to be a sneaky, and the privates shoot baddies and hopefully score a couple kills. If the FOB becomes threatened, you call for help and retreat.

Not everyone will agree that a medic in the FOB is a good idea, from personal experience being assigned as a FOB medic you are bored, bored, bored until all is lost and the FOB is just there to delay eventual evac. I mean, casualties that go through the FOB are going to the DS and generally the wounded going through will have been stabalised outside of the rare case someone was attacked in between the FOB and the Front. This means that the medic can't heal the internal damage and broken bones, that marine has to go up with the DS.

Now, if medical assigns a doctor to man the FOB and they bring some basic surgery kit they can filter out more casualties from having to go up the DS compared to 1 of 8 total medics. Those medics are pretty valuable on the front. =P

You will really want to guard that doctor as stealthy hunters will have MASSIVE xeno boners for that doctor decap. I've seen it happen right between nexus and the LZ1 where no one guards the hallway and a transparent hunter insta-decaped our FOB doc. xD

[Kesserline]

FOB fortress are useless and unmannable unless the rest of the planet is already lost (so you have all the marine force at FOB because they were repelled everywhere else).

FOB strongpoint is good, as long as you have allied forces getting the attention of the main forces on the frontline, away from the FOB.

I hate, as RO, when engies want big fortress that no PFCs will man for fucking 4 hours, because that's normal. They don't play to watch their screen and not moving. They log in to play, to RP, to move, to talk. Sitting a single point (and often, alone, without any other sentinel PFCs around) is boring as hell.

Causing blitzkrieg or catastrophic morale impact on the Hive prevents lone-wolves aliens to attack your supply lines, as they feel the need to help on the frontline. But, if the marines are cut in a stalemate when they can't really advance, and Xenos main forces can't really advance neither, lone-wolves or even small packs will attack your supply lines and outflank your different fortifications (e.g. Hydro).

Textbook LV Round :
- If marines are winning over the river, they have to take Tfort. If they can, they will attack containers, if they win ? They will attack caves. If they lose ? They'll return to containers, if they lose again, to tfort, and so on. Until they come back routed to Hydro, and probably directly to Nexus.
- If marines can't advance, the frontline is fixed. Then, smart marines will try to flank (but they'll get fucked). So, Xenos will flank and harass supply lines and lone marines.

You can't do anything about that. Logistics can't allow Marines to deploy/regroup/fortifiy anywhere else than Hydro. Manning Hydro AND Medical is risky, manageable, but risky. Your objective is to take the fight across the river to relieve the stress of possible attacks on your frontlines. The more you take the war to the enemy's territory, the less the attacks will occur on your rearguard.

Just pay attention to the frontline status. If it's a stalemate ? Be ready for harassments and lurkers on your supply lines. Never travel alone, exception if you are a badass guy that'll kill any X-rays on his path.

If the frontline is at the cave ? Just run to the frontline, risk for you to get ambushed is largely reduced.

FOB Fortress are only good when enough Xenos make enough mistakes to get them killed, reducing their numbers and allowing a counter attack. You cannot expect to win on the defensive, you can only expect for enough enemy mistakes to allow you to get back to having the upperhand.

[NethIafins]

FoBs are useless. Temporary entrenchments are much better tactics wise. You spend less resources and you have plenty of points where you can take retreat

[edda]

FoBs are useless. Temporary entrenchments are much better tactics wise. You spend less resources and you have plenty of points where you can take retreat

Not totally useless - I can count many games where a robust FOB changed the course of the game - but I do feel a trail of entrenchments is a better option for a good CO.

[Surrealistik]

FoBs are useless. Temporary entrenchments are much better tactics wise. You spend less resources and you have plenty of points where you can take retreat

Unbelievably wrong.

They're your primary secure casualty/supply dump, field surgery and mortar fire base, and a routing point for marine traffic.

They're also an anchor for creeping/branching fortifications and supply lines.


That said, push bases/outposts are incredibly important for maintaining a marine offensive, but Engis should be supplied with enough metal to create both or Command and/or Req aren't doing their jobs.


When it comes to FOB squads, a skeleton crew that can assure basic FOB security is best (or at least hold out long enough for reinforcements to arrive), and it should generally consist of one Engi, and PFCs; everyone else should be projecting force.

[NethIafins]

You have casevac. You have orbital supply.
While FoBs are great classic Jack of All Trades solution, it is not the best. Yes you spend less metal to cover bigger area, but then you can be attacked from many sides.

[Surrealistik]

You have casevac. You have orbital supply.
While FoBs are great classic Jack of All Trades solution, it is not the best. Yes you spend less metal to cover bigger area, but then you can be attacked from many sides.

Neither of these things are enough (Casevac gets choked, supply beacons are finite), and you still have to secure the outflows of stuff and people from the DS.

If you don't even bother fortifying the LZ of your main dropship, you will get fucked by any remotely competent xeno opposition that understands how to fundamentally exploit this, nevermind denying yourself the benefit of mortars, field surgery, and MT assistance.

Again, you should have more than enough metal to secure an FOB at the LZ _and_ create push bases/secure supply lines because metal is cheap ASF, especially post-rebates. If you don't have enough metal, Command and/or Req aren't doing their job; it is that simple.

[NethIafins]

Alright, I can agree to that