General knowledge, tips and tricks.

[Derpislav]

A thread for things too little/specific to give them their own pages. I'll edit all good ones into the main post. A few from top of my head to start off:

B-18 armour can dispense tricordrazine autoinjectors, either by right-clicking it and selecting the option, or using the "create-injector" verb (by hand or "object" tab).

Laptop vendors are located in tool storages. If you buy a laptop, swipe the vendor with your ID (MUST BE ID, NOT PDA) and it will automatically get filled to the brim with software based on your access. Doctors, for example, get Crew Monitoring - gives you the exact health of anyone on the same "map" as you, plus their location (name of zone + GPS co-ordinates. You can write down co-ordinates of major locations and instantly pinpoint where the wounded are).

PDA or Personal Data Assistants or something come with a built-in flashlight in the most basic version, and many more when department-specific cartridges (which research can make en-masse like PDAs) are inserted, including medical analyzers. Be wary of two things, though: pressing "crew manifest" will crash your PDA, making it completely useless, and having your ID in one will prevent Smartgun IFF from working.

Multitool disarms mines after a short delay.
Multitool on wires shows the current flowing through them, especially useful on SM.
Multitool can open fire axe cabinets without damaging them.

SMES units will not output more power than can be used, meaning that you can set them to 100% output and still have them charge if no one is running 30 coolers.
SMES set-up tip: use a multitool on the Supermatter collector wire. It will give you how much the SM is making at the moment, this number will grow smaller over time. Divide it by 5. Round that down and set core and main SMES-es to that number. Now divide it in half and set the spare SMES-es near ladders to that.

Meson scanners (and medhuds for that matter) are found in bulk on Sulaco, and research can print them like crazy. They allow you to see where you're going even in complete darkness, but don't show mobs. Limited nightvision is still good vision. They also don't show hidden walls unless you have a direct line of sight, so you can use them to find that damn hidden entrance to the FoB while an angry ravager is chasing you.

Doors can be pulsed to disable their timing mechanism, making them close as fast as possible. Use that on ID-locked doors to prevent ayys from flooding in like zergs or escaping after slashing you once. You can ID-lock all doors by taking their circuit board out (refer to Guide to Construction on baywiki) and changing it's settings. More than worth the time in you turtlefort or the shuttle. I tip my hat to Wyatt here.

Light replacers can be refilled with broken bulbs, working bulbs and sheets of glass.

Rapid Construction devices can be made in hacked autolathes and found in engineering under inflatable wall boxes in the locker area. They take apart constructions instantly and build walls, doors and many other things far faster than you could by hand. Don't forget the compressed matter cartridges.

Cell chargers can be unwrenched and wrenched over a wire again. Most notable two: Engineering, locker room. Colony Nexus, southmost office.

Paper bins can be picked up by dragging them to your character.

Autolathe can print shotgun ammo when hacked, including shotgun darts and buckshot - ammo from vendors is slugs.
Autolathe can print all basic surgery tools bar bone gel, which can be substituted for with a nice success rate with a screwdriver.
Autolathe prints welders already filled with fuel - hacked autolathe prints industrial ones, which hold even more.

Alcohol bottles can be smashed on someone's head, stunning them (if not xeno) and covering them in the contents of the bottle, plus giving you a strong melee weapon. A broken bottle does only 10 damage less than a dual-wielded axe.

The colony has a literal ton of still-working machines. Vendors in telecomms, engineering and medbay, kitchen, hydrophonics, you name it... These can give you an unexpected advantage.
Vendor food, most notably 4no raisins, contain nutritment. It will heal you a very slight amount, but most importantly, restore lost blood. Eat a bunch and go to sleep if you desperately need it and no medics are around. Just make sure you're not bleeding.

Phoron tanks will work in flamethrowers. In fact, the dispenser in Quartermaster's can be unwrenched and moved for 10 phoron tanks on the go.

The bible is a container holding 7 items.

Glass shards, bullet shrapnel and armed mousetraps make a loud sound when stepped on. Move all the glass in the FoB to the possible entry points as an early warning.

Lockers and crates can be shot open if you don't have the access. This is of course a tip for survivors. For the sake of god stop shooting captain's locker open.

Riot armour is great against melee (read: aliens), but does very little to stop bullets. You might want to consider wearing a marine helmet with it to die to friendly fire a bit later.
Riot shields block spit and have a chance to block slashes, pounces, charges and bullets.

Labellers spawn in Chemistry, Research and Cargo. Can print short instructions on literally any item - and if you care for immershuns and making medical's life a few seconds easier, you can label a piece of your clothing with your blood group.

Phoron crystals in Research are actually a stack of 25. Don't grind them all at the same time or you'll lose a huge amount.

Cryo won't work if the patient is wearing an insulating suit, for example a firesuit or a spacesuit.
Cryo is getting slowly overrun, and you have to retreat to a "last stand" location, but managed to save some beakers? Showers can be wrenched to dispense freezing cold water, working as good as cryo and for free. Just inject them, or alternatively, mix very little amounts of the cryomix with smoke. This will allow you to give the cryomix to many people at once and due to the fact it's both inhaled and applied on contact, might make it more efficient.
Cryo can be given tiny amounts of (efficient-least efficient) hyperzine, coffee or tea to make patients wake up faster. Alternatively you can feed them with aforementioned chems with the addition of dylovene and carbon after they're out of the cell.
Cryo with nutriment(grind food to get it) and iron will make patients regenerate blood at a really fast rate. Really fast. Might even counteract bleeding.

Cloning is the only thing your forward base is missing? Researcher can make all clone machine components for an engineer planetside to assemble. Combine with tip above to crank out fresh marines faster than aliens can infect them.

Hyposprays can be drained of tricordrazine and refilled with a mixture of inaprovaline and dexalin+ (inject hypospray with 20 units of inaprovaline and 10 of dexalin, or 24:6 if you like perfect ratios) to create an instant, super-robust lifesaving tool.

Gas coolers will waste insane amounts of power when set to below 3 degrees kelvin.

All small items can be implanted, and almost all will continue working. Flashlights, remote grenades, tape recorders, station-bounced radios, penlights, you name it. There are three implant zones in order of size of items that can be inserted: chest, groin and head. Inserting an item close to the max size will cause internal bleeding, apply Fix-O-Vein.

Vendors and a ton of other machines can be hacked - pulse the wires until you find the one that makes options surrounded by red asterikses (*) show for a second, then cut it. This is GREAT on medical vendors (including wall-mounted ones) and gives you access to some interesting stuff in other cases.

Large beakers from sleepers can be removed by putting a dead body, someone SSD or your co-worker in for a moment to unlock the interface. Dialysis is very rarely used, and you could use these for cryo.

Need blood? Set an IV drip to drain, label an empty blood bag with a pen or a labeller, insert it into the IV and hook a dead body up. They won't mind.
Synthflesh can be made in bulk by filling a beaker to the max capacity -5 (55, 115) with clonexadone, then putting it in an IV set to drain and attaching a dead body. This will create stacks so large right-clicking them will lag or even crash your game.
Synthflesh is used in 3 slabs per clone. A single unit of clonexadone is consumed per slab, so do the math on how long that will sustain you yourself.

Toxic chems and overdoses can be removed instantly by making someone swallow the reagents for "smoke" reaction.

Doctor's delight can be made with equal amounts of lime, tomato and orange juice, cream and tricordrazine. That essentially makes your tricord supply last five times longer and gives you a potent all-spectrum med.

[ZDashe]

Rapid Construction devices can be made in hacked autolathes. They take apart constructions instantly and build walls, doors and many other things far faster than you could by hand. Don't forget the compressed matter cartridges.

A RCD is already available inside engineering at round start. It's on the table just below the Welding Supplies locker, hidden under the inflatable barrier box.

[Halinder]

Another survivor tip. The fuel tank in engineering and the frag grenades at tablefort/the crashed dropship can damage or completely destroy reinforced walls. Either use them to break into the secure armory for C4, or use them to get into secure storage.

Also, welding helmets take 2 huggers to break instead of the standard 1 hugger for marine helmets. This means that if you hack one of the really bulky engineering vendors down on the colony (found in comms and engineering) it becomes impossible for any one alien to infect you. You don't need the vision, either -- keep it down at all times.

There is a tank storage unit in the Quartermaster's office of the colony. You can wrench it to move it around and wrench it somewhere else. It also has 10 plasma tanks, making it ideal to mix with the flamethrowers in Secure Storage or at Tablefort while also being used as an easy barricade (flamethrowers shoot over most things like girders and crates).

Aliens can and will hide huggers underneath water tanks, fuel tanks, supply crates, ore boxes, table parts.. anything big and bulky, they'll use it. Make sure to right click these objects to see if there are huggers beneath them when you're passing outside the territory of the rest of your FOB.

[Stivan34]

Ayy, no cryo for planet clones.

[Halinder]

Stivan, as Derpislav said, you can inject people with cryoxadone/clonexadone and then place them under a wrenched shower. The shower will freeze them, lowering their body temperature so that the cryoxadone/clonexadone works. Just be prepared to treat freeze burns.

[TheSlapDoctor]

Just be prepared to treat freeze burns.

Wait, won't the clonex heal the burns as they form? As long as the clonex isn't fully metabolised, it'll still work a little as they warm back up.

[Halinder]

Good point. I forgot that clonex metabolizes very slowly.

[Yottawhat]

I don't see enough alien tips in here.

GENERAL Throw huggers instead of clicking marines with them. All you have to do is click the tile the marines is standing on and you'll get a hit. If you miss, you'll leave behind the hugger which has a change to infect the marine as well.

HUNTERS/RUNNERS If you leap or pounce on a marine, you'll be stuck for a few seconds but if leap NEXT to the marine you can still throw your hugger and get out of dodge.

SPITTERS/PRAE When you get the chance, use your heavier spit on e-grilles, it takes four hits from a spitter to break it and two from a prae,

DRONES/HIVELORDS For the love of God, don't put nests right next to each other. If a marine breaks out, all s/he has to do click on their buddy's nest and you'll be dealing with a unnestable marine for a minute. A checkerboard pattern with doors surrounding the marine is best, but a 2x1 is also alright. If you go around making 3x3 rooms of nests, slap yourself because you're just wasting time and space.

I'll might add more tips later. Probably not but uh.

EDIT: Updoot for Sentinels.

[Azmodan412]

Alien tips I can think of:

General Huggers, when stationary, latch on to any hosts adjacent. When leaving the hive, if it is big enough, go in groups of two or three. Four is the largest group one can be in and still be stealthy. If the hive is being assaulted, attack their rear and catch the marines in a pincer.

Runners and Hunters You are fast and effective at hunting, but you are wet paper towels! Tanking is not recommended, and you need to use your speed to your advantage (Water is your enemy here). For the love of the Queen-Mother, DON'T DIE AS RUNNER, you deprive the hive of a Ravager or even a Crusher.

Drones and Hivelord Build, build, build. You have ONE job and that is to build the hive. Sticky resin under nests, under doors, just make it all sticky resin'd. It is okay to make clustered nests for monkeys/farwas/naearas/stoks, but not marines. Try doing a jail cell style 'prison' for marines, with membranes between each cell, about 4 on the same tile so they look like walls. Membranes, currently, are aesthetic only so use them sparingly. Funnel hivelords plasma because they can build much faster than a drone and funnel the Queen plasma for eggs/jelly, both valuable resources. NOTE: Jail cell style prison nests are for those who fuckin' hate checkerboards, like I do.

Carrier As a Carrier, you are literally fucking cancer to the marines. Carrying six huggers on top of two in both hands can spell doom for lone marines up to groups of three. Two carriers are even worse to attack forces. You'll want to make sure there's a healthy supply of eggs though because all carriers are egg-sluts.

Ravagers viewtopic.php?f=94&t=5270 Enough said.

Crushers Crushers are literally the salt-mines of the xeno team. With the power to shatter any FoB with their charges, and shattering any hive assault with the hilariously powerful stomp.. yea. They are walking tanks, able to take a fuck-ton of bullets, more than any other xeno, but ONLY from the front. Make sure you have backup if you attack as a Crusher and watch out for the self-stun.

Queens You are the be-all, end-all of the hive. Your word is law and your will is their command, so don't fuck up. The hive depends on you to lay eggs/jelly so be cautious. Fortune does not favor a rambo-Queen. Always make sure there is at least ONE drone for only they can evolve to your position aside from Adminbus. If you squirt out some jelly, for some odd damn reason you can put an egg in the same exact tile so abuse away! When you assault the Sulaco, DO NOT DELAY FOR ANY REASON! Delaying gives marines time to fortify an E-grille rape-cage or Plasteel rape dungeon.

[forwardslashN]

The most important xeno tip: say *dance

[TheSlapDoctor]

four on the same tile

Pretty sure that's a bug exploit, and a bannable offense if done repeatedly.

[Yottawhat]

Pretty sure that's a bug exploit, and a bannable offense if done repeatedly.

Yep, if there's every a stack of huggers, an admin will delete. Seen it happened with a Queens who just use a egg room, they re-lay eggs on top of huggers create big stacks.

So Queens, make sure to spread out your eggs through out the hive. Especially near the front of the hive and any tunnels that way, Hunters can grab huggers faster.

[Wickedtemp]

Toxic chems and overdoses can be removed instantly by making someone swallow the reagents for "smoke" reaction.

Which will then be breathed back into the body in the form of smoke.

[Seehund]

You can click the jumpsuit you're wearing with another in your hand to instantly switch them.

If this doesn't change the world, I don't know.

[Hycinth]

You can click a jumpsuit with another in your hand to instantly switch them.

If this doesn't change the world, I don't know.

You what.

[Inspiregona]

You can click the jumpsuit you're wearing with another in your hand to instantly switch them.

If this doesn't change the world, I don't know.

Oh my garsh... You've made things so much easier....

[Rey]

Still drops the items in pockets and ID.

[monkeysfist101]

If you're a SL, use the notes section to keep track of your squad.

[Boltersam]

If you're a SL, use the notes section to keep track of your squad.

Shoot me if I got my facts wrong, but how long has this been in? And for how long did none of us know?

Godamn man, I have heard no mention of this useful thing before now.

[Gentlefood]

Shoot me if I got my facts wrong, but how long has this been in? And for how long did none of us know?

Godamn man, I have heard no mention of this useful thing before now.

Notes have been in for a really long time. They're part of most, if not all, base sources.

[Boltersam]

Notes have been in for a really long time. They're part of most, if not all, base sources.

I meant the fact that useful information unique to this server is displayed in them, everyone knows about notes!

[ZDashe]

Well, as an engineer, I use notes to keep track of wiring colors on hacking. They can be as useful as you want them to be I guess.

[Egorkor]

don't think it's coded to appear in the notes, think he means that you add the people into the list that you yourself make up every round.

[Zilenan91]

^^^^ Add Note command is so fucking useful.

I put door wires and safe codes in there every time they're relevant.

[monkeysfist101]

Remember to update your list as late-joins enter.