Fickmacher's Handy-Dandy Guide to Surviving!

[Fickmacher]

Alright, so you got lucky enough to be a survivor! What now? Well, there are several strategies to being a survivor, and I'll go over the different viable routes that are available. Anyways, hope this helps!

So, you spawned as a survivor. What now?

What a lot of people don't consider is where they spawned. It is totally dark, most likely. Look for light. If it's too dark, use your alt click to examine the environment. Hopefully, you eventually find a flashlight this way. After getting a feel for your surroundings, try to find a jumpsuit and flashlights. Here are some good locations that I know of for these:

Jumpsuits:
You can find bathing suits and pajamas at the dorms, north of the bathrooms.
The changing area south of primary tool storage has a variety of clothing to choose from, including an Executive suit.
Southeast maintenance tunnels, near science, there are lockers with jumpsuits in them.
Engineering maintenance tunnels also tend to have clothes.
There are other places where you can get jumpsuits, but you'd need to either hack or take down the walls to get to them, so I wouldn't recommend them.

Flashlights:
Every single maintenance tunnel has flashlights!
Primary tool storage also has some.
There are also lamps at both arrivals and the library so you can have some light while you figure things out.

Okay, so I have my clothes and a light, what now?

Now, we have to consider where you spawned.

Escape:

If you're at escape, alt click your way to finding that gun and the clip. With it, you have a pretty good chance of taking on a Drone (and winning!) If one of the Drones either spawned at the Church or ventcrawled there for the monkey, then stand your ground. He knows you have the gun, but is likely going to call for backup. Do NOT go into the south maintenance tunnels. It's dark, and the Drone will corner you. What you should do is either take the gun or the extended oxygen supply tank, open either the church or hallway airlock, and bust down that roundstart resin membrane and bolt!

The Bathroom:

This is probably by far the worst spawn location. Drones often spawn here, and aliens tend to always check dorms. You need to BOLT to avoid the Drone. If you don't see any aliens around, I recommend quickly going to either the pajama or athletic wear locker and grabbing a jumpsuit. The one good thing about this spawn is that gauze and ointment are immediately livable, and there's a hard-to-find flashlight in the tunnels next to sec.

Construction Area:

Welcome to Valhalla, you lucky son of a bitch! You want to immediately bust grab a welder and take down the wall north of you (even with no goggles, using it like this won't cause any ill effects yet.) Grab the insulated gloves, a toolbelt, and either hidden door or hack your way out of there, towards maintenance. I recommend hidden walls, because then the girder will allow you a peak to look for aliens possibly lurking on the other side. Since you already have a welder, you can then weld the door and buy yourself some time.

If you've successfully made it to the maintenance tunnels with your loot, head south. If you don't have a flashlight, there is one slightly north in the tunnels, so grab that. You'll find a locker filled with clothes for you! From here, you can put on the belt. Now, skip on down to Engineering. There is a brief moment of risk due to the monkies in the assembly line drawing attention from Drones, but these are either quickly taken care of or neglected, so they are low-priority monkies. Once you get to the Engineering door, you can either check the doors on it, or, as I like to do, pulse the one right next to it to check the wires, then just hack open the Engineering one. Immediately close and weld it behind you.

Now what?

From here, this is player choice. You can either be a coward, or a badass, and I'll give advice for both.

Being a Baby Back Bitch

Aliens can't see through lockers, but they do know to check them. You still probably want a jumpsuit and flashlight to see, but once that's done, you decide that you want to hide and wait for safety. Here are some general guidelines there:

You can hide in disposals, but if you don't shut it off first, it will most likely kill you, especially any near Sec, as they go through the entire station, for some reason.
Always, always, always avoid Xenobiology and Virology. Besides having monkies that the aliens love to infect, both of these locations are easily the two most popular hive locations, and even if the Queen didn't designate it, there's a pretty safe bet that it's a backup hive for some enterprising Drone. Avoid this side of the map at all costs.
Do not hide in arrivals lockers. Alien players know that you want a free ride home, and will be sure to check all of the O2 and clothing lockers at arrivals and the clothing area. However, there are two odd exceptions to this: two are the O2 lockers on the escape pods. I rarely see Xenos bother with them. The second is the locker right next to the suits and the washer. For some reason, after looking through all of the clothe ones, they rarely bother with them.
Other than that, a good place to hide is Cargonia, once the heat's died down. If you weld down the wall and make a false wall, you can jump into one of the loading bay lockers, which is almost never, ever checked.
Dorms are often checked, as is Security. While the bar back room is a nice spot, you run the risk of some alien deciding to make it a back-up area and aciding you where you hide!

A good rule-of-thumb is to grab a radio and stick it in your pocket. That way, when the marines show up, you can be a whiney crybaby and wait for them to escort your pathetic ass back to Sulaco.

BEING A BADASS MOTHERFUCKER:

So, you've come to realize that even if you make it back to Sulaco, you're either just going to RP with bored LOs, or join the fight as a milquetoast marine (which, why did you even check off Survivor in your preferences if you wanted to do that?) Well, time to give these monsters hell! Here is the multi-pronged attack plan titled "Rambo's Fury".

If you spawned in the bathroom, grab a swimsuit. You ain't no pajama wearer, you need a swimsuit so that you may bathe in green blood! Next step, bolt for EVA. Grab yourself the toolbelt, multitool, welding goggles, and and the toolbox. You don't have time to be wasting on bullshit, so put the tools into your belt as you move along. If at any time you see a survivor, tell them to go with you if they want to live. IIf they can't keep up, then free bait, but do not waste time on their whining and locker-hiding! From there, either grab a flashlight from one of the above spots, or just book it for the Construction area. This is the only way to get those sweet, sweet insulated gloves. As stated above, grab your kickass prize and head to Engineering. Bust that bitch open, grab a hardsuit, and do one of two things: either grab an extended supply oxygen tank by hacking to the first room of Engineering, or simply use one or two emergency tanks found in the airlock corridor. Now that you're in goddamn space (you went from naked to in fucking space, you badass!) turn on your internals, magboots, and hang onto the station where you will hug it until you get to escape. Grab that goddamn pistol that so many of your brethren died trying to retrieve. Now exit back into space, head to the security airlock, hack your way into maintenance, and then go north. Place either the water tank or fuel tank behind you so no dirty Xenomorphic assholes can catch you with your pants down. Now hack into Sec from the far east side, and you know where to go...the sweet, beautiful vault. Conveniently, there are also flashlights and radios here, so you can contact the marines if you're bored. Before you get there, grab one of the locked lockers there and drag it with you. Now, head to the vault, hack it open, and weld the vent and door. That'll buy you time! If you have the pistol already, destroy the locker and grab the backpack since you have a second to breathe. Break down the windoors, most likely with your oxygen tank, and gather all of the ammo and guns. Now, from here is up to you. Maybe the marines arrived. Maybe you want revenge. Either way, you have all that you need to kick Xenomorph ass!

If you spawned at Escape, grab the gun, follow what I said, and either take the main corridor or the maintenance tunnels to EVA. Follow as above.

If you got secure tech storage, get into Engineering, follow as above.

Anywehere else, you generally want to go to EVA for those welding goggles.

Getting to Sulaco:

If the marines are half-competent, then you should immediately be getting an escort back to Sulaco with a couple armed marines. Stick with them, book it for the nearest shuttle, strap yourself in, and avoid aliums at all costs!

General Tips:

On other survivors: in my experience, most survivors will either leave you to die or keep you lingering. While it's not a bad idea to have a competent buddy, don't rely too much on them to save your skin. If they follow your lead, let them tag along. If not, you're unlikely to see them again later. Also, if you get swarmed with Xenos, don't expect him or her to help.

On welding doors: this can be a good idea to make sure you're not followed, but if you haven't been discovered yet, welded doors are a big tip-off to Xenos. Only do it if you're being followed or in inconspicuous locations.

Maintenance tunnels or main halls?: I've found that this depends on your location. Any tunnels near sec are risky, but the ones near arrivals and engineering are generally safe. Never go towards medbay or science. The main hallways near the bridge are risky, but using them instead of breaking into cargo to get to tech storage is safe. Almost never use the Engineering corridor as well, because aliens will be planting weeds here either while going to grab a monkey, or in anticipation of a FOB being made there (Engineering tends to be the most popular location for such.)

Communication: if you have a radio and you aren't hiding in a locker, make sure to be in contact every so often to help other survivors or search for marines.

Where to go, where to avoid: Avoid arrivals as much as you can, unless you think the marines have arrived. The Drones know that you want a free ticket home and will probably sweep here at least once. Due to Virology and Xenobiology having too many monkies and being popular hive locations, avoid both departments as a whole. Security and Engineering are probably ranked moderately high as far as hive spots, so if you start seeing a lot of purple on your way to either grab guns or hardsuits, ditch and come up with a back-up plan. Other than the monkies there, the Cargo bay is often neglected, so feel free to hide out there, and possibly make use of the autolathe. Always avoid the bridge, between Ian and the fact that AI Upload nests are not unheard of, not to mention that Xenos can see through walls, and you're almost guaranteed to get caught heading to the bridge.

What you know: until the new update is released, giving us jobs and knowledge, survivors are free to know all about facehuggers, chestbursting, Queens, castes, and really all of the important Xeno stuff. Use it to your advantage when surviving. Weld vents, use masks, do whatever you can.

Roleplaying a Survivor:

You have access to be almost any Nostromo job, and with all of the gear just waiting for you to loot, there are many options availible. Remember, not only did you survive, but the humdrum of playing an alien or marine is temporarily taken away from your shoulders. Have fun with it. You don't have to follow marine law. Are you driven nuts from alien whispers, are you the HoS who got pinned in the vault, the Chief Engineer who was lucky enough to be working on solars, or just some greytide with robustness? It's all up to you, so have fun with it!

Spilling the beans: Now, most likely, when you get to Sulaco, someone will want you to spill the beans. Craft a story with it, but keep in mind your character. If you just tell them flat-out everything, you'll soon have nothing to do and realize that you were just a cog in the machine. And remember, if you think Command is incompetent, you don't have to follow their orders. Just make sure to get an LO to make you an ID first.

[TopHatPenguin]

You are missing the part where you get rushed by drones, then spam tackled ,nested and infected.heh

[Mizari]

Not a half bad guide to be honest.

[Butterrobber202]

+1 Good Guide. To bad it will become shit when the Ground map is installed :3

[DesFrSpace]

Most of this is true, today I got killed by Survivor via Escape, D@m escapes. RIP Drone +1 hopefully Marines won't use this by Meta.

[Fickmacher]

Too lazy to add this in at the moment, but I've recently discovered that you can take a locker to the Singularity emitter shield area and blast it open with the emitter gun. Definitely do this for a backpack and even the headset (if you have a buddy.)

[Fickmacher]

Another tip that I need to add in: drag things behind you, and keep a table part in your offhand. If a Drone catches you in the tunnels, you can get your back covered and then close the door, then buy yourself time as the Drone is forced to move your box or tank. A table part will allow for an instant barrier to also help delay the Drone.

[Lostmixup]

Quick tip: You can grab a knife from the kitchen to break through windows. While not effective as hacking, and somewhat slower at times it can be helpful later down the road. It also allows you to break into chemistry and grab the spare medical headset! While it's meta to set it to the sulaco frequency, with it you can now scream where you're at and talk to other survivors roaming around.

[DesFrSpace]

Quick tip: You can grab a knife from the kitchen to break through windows. While not effective as hacking, and somewhat slower at times it can be helpful later down the road. It also allows you to break into chemistry and grab the spare medical headset! While it's meta to set it to the sulaco frequency, with it you can now scream where you're at and talk to other survivors roaming around.

Good one #reallyNeededTIP
Why? Because on ocasion that you some how RANDOMLY become a survivor.

[Lostmixup]

Good one #reallyNeededTIP
Why? Because on ocasion that you some how RANDOMLY become a survivor.

I don't see the problem.