A couple tactically sensible 'cade layout tips

[FreeStylaLT]

Greetings! As a consistent Engineer player I've noticed a few faults in the most common designs and I didn't notice these being commented on the other Cade / FOB threads, so I've decided to chip in.

First off, let's start with a basic layout that you're likely to see on most maps, Big Red especially, as an FOB layout:

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Now, obviously, it's just a rough representation, in practice you'd have more layers / sandbags / sentries / turrets, but that's not quite what this post is about, so let's move on and populate it by the front lines, where you'd expect most marines to be stationed at.

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Pretty standard, if a bit crowded, now, let's get to the brass tacks.

Here are the straight firing lines of every one of those dudes, obviously not a direct representation of where they can fire, but rather where they have a direct, easiest shot at and the main direction they cover:

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Beyond the poor front liners who are likely to get shot at by accident or not, we also have the disenfranchised Marine in the corner:

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While each marine has a clear single line to cover, the corner dude can not only get boxed in, but has to cover -two- sides, each of which can also be shot by other marines by him, possibly FF'ing him.

But that's not all, let's also take the basic lines of movement one would take to get out of this setup, if it let's say.. got swarmed:

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As you can see, everyone only has one tile to really move to that's not going to push anyone, and since everyone will be moving there, everyone will get pushed, so a boiler will be able to properly screw over this setup in a jiffy, that's not even counting the forced turns you have to take to get through the cades.

Oh, and that corner guy? Yeah..

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Literally doesn't have any way out. So he gets double the firing duty and none of the quick evacuation possibilities.

Conclusion? Corners suck, two-tile gaps suck and corner Marines get shafted extra hard.

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What's the Solution?

Well, it's actually as simple as literally moving two cades in the corner, aligning the doors and increasing the gap:

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With this the Lines of Sight become:

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With TWO people covering the same corner, with their lines overlapping, it is also far clearer where you can or cannot shoot just by looking at the cades, which isn't as clear in the regular corner setup.

A slightly more clear representation:

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The movement lines with this become:

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This essentially becomes a regular 3-tile wide hallway on any other SS13 station -- there's a reason those are consistently 3 or more tiles wide - they allow you to walk around each other reliably, as you have far more room to do so.

This may seem obvious, but I have personally very seldom seen these corners used, I assume because "omg you're gonna be shooting at the cade reee" which in this case would only happen if you were literally aiming at the cade.

Main takeaways here would be:

A) Don't make hard-corners unless you will -not- be manning them (It's for an MD / Sentry)
B) Make sure the gaps between layers, if they are meant to be manned, are at least 3 tiles wide
C) Align your entrances, you aren't as much making the enemy maneuver more as you are making your own marines get moshpitted

That would be it for now, I am fairly certain most of these are obvious when looked at, but I didn't find any explicit mentions of these in previous threads, so putting this out there might hopefully help some of the current / future Engies.

Feel free to share your own tips, too.

[immaspaceninja]

But all these little dudes arent even supposed to stay at the same tile as the cades. Baricades wont protect them from anything if they do that, especially from the queen's screech.

[Freedominspace]

Great ideas. This seems like a simple way to increase an FOBs effectiveness. I rarely play engineer, but I'll try this next time I do.

[NethIafins]

Wow epic stuff. Possibly has more place in guides, but here fits too

[Vampmare]

Good stuff here, it is mostly how I do things when I engineer. I disagree with the corners because of what immaspaceninja said, but they do look nicer. In the end, FOB is all about making a good looking fort, making it practical is second.

[spartanbobby]

This will sometimes block bullets when firing at some angles it's best to avoid doing it.

[Sulaboy]

I just want two lines of cades one right after the other, and a lot of space behind. It also is sometimes better to take people off a cade line just to free up movement. Less marines needed on a case line means more marines getting to get themselves killed in a hive assault. Just two lines of cades one after another the marines can then hug the cade line and still be safe. Safe from crushers and spit. Only thing to worry about is boiler bombardment, but if you don't crowd the cade line and leave space the marines ought to be able to move. In the end this won't withstand a Xeno attack because they can break the cades while the boiler lays cover, but it will buy time.

[Arbs]

Actually placing a "double layer" of barricades can also help. Technically standing in the same tile as the barricade gives you a chance of getting hit or slashed. Placing two barricades next to each-other allows you to have some more distance from the xeno's melee range and spit as well as allowing a squad engineer to repair the front cades behind cover.

As a squad engineer I once managed to keep defenses running in three directions in the Ring section of the prison map against Boiler Gas and Crusher rams using this technique.

Also instead of making a barricade castle by yourself, make as much use of your environment and surroundings as possible. Use walls, rocks and areas where xenos cant plant weeds to your advantage.

[Surrealistik]

This will sometimes block bullets when firing at some angles it's best to avoid doing it.

This.

But yes, engineers should aim to build in layers, and the ideal depth (balancing density and overwatch/coverage vs congestion) of each layer is usually 3 tiles; you can get away with 2 but it's sub-optimal due to congestion reasons.

[Sulaboy]

Snip

I haven't played a ton of engineer but as a marine what I like about cafe lines is space to move around. A straight two layers is fine for the most part as guns can do most of the defending. Three deep makes the line hold much longer against crushers and the like. I would have to say a line of two thick cades held by some competent marine can hold for asking as they have ammo. Only problems are when marines decide they want to sit on the front cade line, that fucks up firing lines and movement for a lot of marines. In the main post's diagram of how marines are stationed having every space controlled by a marine is a bad idea, it is good to give marines a space on not sides because it gives them better firing lines without the worry of ff and the ability to move somewhat if say a queen comes in and screeches. An ideal way to hold one of these Cade lines would be more akin to trench fighting in ww1. You have your men facing no mans land, but you also have men in reserve waiting behind the front trench. When the soldiers run out of ammo or are injured the reserves come in to keep up the defense. In colonial marines this would mean a marine can drop out when they get hit with acid and need to ointment themselves off of the Cade line, or if they run dry on ammo. The greatest defense marines have are their rifles, the cades are just a tool to enable them. A Cade line should always fall eventually, but should provide defense for a counter attack to be organised. Also on a kinda unrelated note It's a great feeling to fight off the crushers that are fucking with your cades by hitting them with your blowtorch, I have gotten a kill that way with the help of a nearby marine.
TLDR 2 cades= good 3= also goodish

[Kesserline]

Also this boys.

If you are to defend, for example, this escape pod.

Top : you allow 3 attackers to attack your cades, including you, and they can attack you from the sides.

Bottom : you only allow 1 attacker to get in your cade, he has to expose himself. (It's better to have 2 tiles space behind your cade to allow moving AND not being reachable by CQC attacks)

Think this way as much as possible when you're doing frontline fortifications : force your opponents to expose themselves, do not let them covers, do not let blindspots in your defenses.

[HKO20006]

Good tips. Gonna add them to the Engineer wiki.
How do you make these though? An environment to spawn the cades/SO/xenos.

[TheDonkified]

Good tips. Gonna add them to the Engineer wiki.
How do you make these though? An environment to spawn the cades/SO/xenos.

Aren't there pics of these things with transparent backgrounds on the wiki? If there are, you could just save them and use a photo editing program.

[nerocavalier]

This will sometimes block bullets when firing at some angles it's best to avoid doing it.

Yeah, if a xeno moves up a tile from that corner as you fire on it, it'll make you hit the barricade.

[zoboomafoo]

More plasteel cades = better.

That is, as long as people close them.

[EXOTICISME]

This will sometimes block bullets when firing at some angles it's best to avoid doing it.

I never get tired stressing this one out, people dislike this kind of cade because of same reason they always tell me "The cade will block the bullets". Well perhaps don't try to do everything yourself then? When defending marines will get lined up next to the cades, if you see your line of fire is blocked by cades then don't shoot, let other marines that are in better position to shoot the xenos. If you stop shooting when people or wall is in front of you why don't you stop shooting if cade is in the way? Just my unpopular opinion in this case.

The reason why we always see the same old boring one line barricade for FOB is because everytime you try to do something different you will get alienated.
"The cade will block my bullet"
"You are doing it wrong"
"Our engi is retarded look at their retarded defense"

[TheDonkified]

You should always be ready to move cades. Seriously, sometimes engis build cades in temporary positions to create a fallback, but when they don't need to be there any more, they leave them or they don't move them up to catch up with the push.

[Jesus Merryman]

Quite a few thing mentioned here that I'll have to take into mind as an engie.

[Shuffl3]

Ive got some thoughts on door placement.

Gates in the center draw retreating marines into the volume of defensive fire while gates at the outsides draw retreating marines away from the volume of defensive fire.




And, gates against walls make it less of struggle to get inside

[Surrealistik]

I never get tired stressing this one out, people dislike this kind of cade because of same reason they always tell me "The cade will block the bullets". Well perhaps don't try to do everything yourself then? When defending marines will get lined up next to the cades, if you see your line of fire is blocked by cades then don't shoot, let other marines that are in better position to shoot the xenos. If you stop shooting when people or wall is in front of you why don't you stop shooting if cade is in the way? Just my unpopular opinion in this case.

The reason why we always see the same old boring one line barricade for FOB is because everytime you try to do something different you will get alienated.
"The cade will block my bullet"
"You are doing it wrong"
"Our engi is retarded look at their retarded defense"

They're not wrong.

[HKO20006]

"let other marines that are in better position to shoot the xenos." Then that position becomes a weak point of the cade line as marines are unable to project their full firepower there. And why they block bullets? 90% of times because they are protruding = it's more vulnerable due to closer to enemy cover & you have a smaller killing zone.

[EXOTICISME]

"let other marines that are in better position to shoot the xenos." Then that position becomes a weak point of the cade line as marines are unable to project their full firepower there. And why they block bullets? 90% of times because they are protruding = it's more vulnerable due to closer to enemy cover & you have a smaller killing zone.

I can't help but assume you are thinking like this.

This one is weak vulnerable and pathetic that xeno can steamroll easily.

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This one is marines kill zone which project marines full power up to 200% and guarantee all xenos death.

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Apparently one corner make such a big impact on how effective your FOB, all other element is disregarded because corner is the number one issue.

it's more vulnerable due to closer to enemy cover

If you looks closely there's no difference between two design except the inner line is one tile further from outer line.

you have a smaller killing zone.

In my opinion there's really no big difference in the killing zone, unless you want to unload your gun from let's say east side to the south side where all marines is standing right there.

[HKO20006]

I actually think OP's idea is great as it solves the corner marine problem and makes it slightly harder to break through the corner.

You made a complaint of marines complaining bad cade lines, I explained why bad cade lines (protruding ones) are indeed bad, it's not meant for OP's which nothing is protruding.

To make my points clearer, I am talking about this type of cade line (protruding) I saw in a recent Prison Round.



Red are walls, green are cades. Walls at both ends serve as cover to attack cades, bad. The middle blocks bullets, bad.

[EXOTICISME]

Oh well, sorry for being slightly aggresive then. I got some bad experience with marines and their complaint. Once when i play engineer i tried to do some new cades layout for the sake of researching the best placement, but this PFC keep shouting in radio about how retarded i am to the whole squad instead of giving constructive opinion.

Which why im a filthy benos main now

[DeusMortis]

To be fair, you're expecting sacks of salt to give you constructive opinions.