Inventory Overload: When Gear Crowds Out Ammo

[Wintermote]

I’d like to paint you an mspaint story of inventory problems that could really use some looking at.

Below you will find my loadout as a basic tech. I’m not doing anything special or crazy here besides maybe taking all the tools I’m supposed to.

Here’s the top view of the kit:

Construction pouch:

FAK Pouch:

Chestrig:

Engineer Kit:

Pistol Toolbelt:

Armor:

Drop Pouch:

Here’s my problem:

I’m left with 2 magazines for 1 of my 2 guns in a game where a realistic and effective combat load starts closer to 12 magazines than it does to 2, with every possible slot filled to the max. I could mitigate this using different restricted weapons (like a flamethrower) that are more ammo-economical, shove a bandage in my helmet, hold my screwdriver in my mouth instead of wearing a scarf, or swap the drop pouch for a brown webbing and shuffle things around a bit - but I frankly should not need to do any of that for a basic loadout like this. I shouldn’t need to hyper-optimize just to carry (only half!) the recommended first aid pouches and the standard tools and enough ammo to actually use my gun.

There has, IMO, been far too much restriction placed on marine carrying capacity. Right now things are perfectly fine - IF YOU ARE A RIFLEMAN - while every other job has mounting gear requirements that increasingly border on the ridiculous, with Combat Techs probably having it the worst, and Intel Officers or Medics after that.

In my opinion the problems come from a few places:

1. The removal of stacked inventories (medkits/trash bags/etc.) that essentially decreased your general storage capacity for random stuff
2. The arbitrary restrictions on what can go into what pouches or kits; I can’t put any of my spare rarely used tools (light replacers, nailgun, shovel), or miscellaneous items like an MRE into my engineer toolkit for example, nor will my sentry go in a construction pouch.
3. The gradual increase in necessary medical and ‘medical’ gear. Years ago you could get by with just a bicard and kelo injector (or even tricord only). Now it’s essential to have a knife, bandage, bicard, kelo, and splints - and it’s a very good idea to have spares of at least some of them (bandages and splints especially).

Here’s what I think would at least be a few good first steps to resolving the problems:

1. Merge the existing FAK’s into one single pouch that carries 6-8 items at once and can fit MRE’s, fire extinguishers, and rollerbeds
2. Let medkits and toolkits hold most miscellaneous gear (that isn’t ammo) - A medkit full of MRE’s was incredibly useful as a medic
3. Merge engineering tools together, or increase the storage capacity of the toolbelts

This should address the growing reliance on more medical gear, and the lack of space for important equipment, without directly changing the amount of ammo riflemen can carry.

[ihatethisengine]

Your loadout is just suboptimal. Use your ARMOR for mags. Armor can only fit small items but there is an exception: MAGAZINES. Putting splints/MRE/tric (the latter you can fit in helmet lol, also you can put a protein bar in helmet instead of a MRE) in your armor is just a huge waste. Drop pouch is also pretty suboptimal in this case. Instead get a webbing vest, store all the meds/binos there, put the sentry and MD in the bag. M4 armor is actually worth buying as engi, because it provides FOUR slots for your mags and also gives bigger light and better acid protection.

FAK pouch is also not good IMO. A pouch slot just for 4 tiny items you don’t always need? You can replace the entire pouch with an unga canteen. You can also just ditch sandbags and put more metal or your nailgun in the construction pouch instead.

My engi loadout is following:

M4 armor + 4 mags.
Webbing west for blowtorch, shovel, binos, MRE, nailgun
Emergency injector/unga canteen and bandages in helmet
Tools pouch for multitool, crowbar, wrench and wirecutters.
Screwdriver in ear slot.
Contruction pouch with mats (plasteel and two stacks of metal)
Engineering kit and sentry in my wielding satchel. Sometimes MD. I have extra space for another stack of metal still.
And I haven’t even used my belt slot yet! Sometimes I just put MD there, sometimes it’s XM51 belt. Depending on the map really. But basically I often have free space in my inventory. And I always have at least 4 mags + a mag in my gun.

[MrMoon]

yeah lets power creep more stuff rather than look at why you are having issues carrying stuff, youre also plat and not wearing a helmet, if you cared that much about storage you would fix your issue rather than complain about it (fyi helmet can store 2 whole items like injectors so you can use your armour for mags instead :D)

Also it should be said if you really want overwhelming firepower roll for rifleman, not comtech, and to mention how you say that only rifleman can carry what he needs i will go through all my loadouts to mention how many mags i can carry

As corpsman I can carry rev mix, 4 medkits, defib, 5 MREs a full lifesaver bag, full field surgery kit, hypospray and oxy bottles for it, for that i get a mag pouch and 4 mags total for mk2 for a class that should even consider fighting first, or at all in some peoples eyes

Comtech I can bring 3 blow torches and the rest of the tools (screwdriver, crowbar, multitool, wrench, wirecutters) 2 engi kits, 1 dedicated to wires and APC boards, 1 dedicated to 3 breach charges and 4 C4, a sentry, a full construction pouch (48 plasteel 2 stacks of metal) webbing full of meds and as for ammo if i bring an mk2 and light armour then i get 8 mags total for comtech, or i switch the belt for a shotgun belt and run UBS MK1

SG sidearm belt, m4a3 the rest is SG mags, large pistol mag pouch, injector pouch or normal med pouch, machete on back slot, webbing with more meds, armour with 2 batteries leaving me with 7 mags for an m4a3 and 5 total for my SG on my person

pyro MD on belt, mag pouch flamer pouch, meds in webbing and thats 6 mags for an mk2 and 2 extra flamer fuels

scout, can take a machete pouch and still have room for optimisation for more mags outside of it

sniper, same as scout p much and too many solutions to have 1

GL rig, m79/gl gun, 2 mag pouches, meds in webbing, leaving you with atleast 9 mags

sadar, mk2 in armour slot, MD on belt, rocket bag on back, mag pouch med pouch, webbing has c4 in it along with 3 med items and you end up with 8 rockets and 7 mags

any others are pretty much rifleman and dont need to be addressed

[Pablo_Excavator]

lets not attack the engie here, plat doesn’t signify he’s a super boomer like yourself.

A few ways to increase your storage as a tip from a pro gamer:

Tech backpack, yes i know its painful to wait for it to open but it’ll save you alot of space also just take it into your hand and open it its faster that way However, from what I can see you have an M4RA, as a result that much time is worth it for 2-3 extra mags.

Helmet, you can transfer 2 of your injectors in there ,personally I like to keep 2 emergency injectors since I was so insane on playing the game 24/7 I was predicting when my oxy would run out. You can place bic and kelo in there and carry splint gauze ointment and tram in the FAK pouch. Or else, a APC board, battery and wires.

Do you really need a nailgun? You have a blowtorch and if your cades are getting pounded that bad you need a nailgun then there’s some issue with the placement of where your cade is, is it close to the enemy defences or is there a boiler? Or can you move it further back and make a backline retreat base instead? Also you can place it on your armour slot and hold the M4RA in your hand.

Now assuming you placed your tric and splint from armour into FAK pouch, thats another 2 free mag spaces.
Also you don’t really need an MRE unless your gonna get slashed alot, and by the time your gonna need it, you should be resupplying also you can also ask someone nearby for a their protein bar. So thats another magazine there.

So you should approximately have 4-6 mags. 2-3 in your backpack and 3 in your armour slot.

[tallerfission]

use mk1

[RainbowStalin]

Even with your suboptimal loadout, you could just run a HPR and now you have 900 bullets to spend to your previous what. 70?

[Tired]

Okay some arcane unga knowledge that you might not now known:

Bibles are a medium sized items that fit in your backpack. One bible can hold whole 4 small items so your LD, Roller, MRE and a mini ext or anything else. Two bibles spawn in bravo prep and some others scattered across the map (You should rush(that’s why bravo is the meta squad))

Syringe cases can hold injectors and fit in your webbing vest due to them being small sized items. (you can also fit them in the bible if you are hardcore like that)

You can invest in the M4 armor for more mags if you are willing to do some tradeoffs.

Also just so you know not running a helmet is very suboptimal due to lack of whole TWO small item slots!

Also you could run a webbing vest for your meds and then use the spare pouch slot for a mag pouch and then stuff your items from the drop in to the backpack (also tric is not really that needed if you are not a frontliner in need for a quick heal you can ditch it).

At the end of the day if you just run a mk2 with 3 ext mags you should be fine as a engi.

[MeH0y]

Heres my two cents on what I’d to fix it while keeping your little headphone drip, spending no additional points, and not carrying around the word of our lord and savior.

Firstly the FAK pouch is terrible, we’re gonna move some things around and create more space to keep everything you want in this loadout and more.

Drop the FAK pouch and the drop pouch, replace your chestrig with a RTO pack, gives you more storage and additional utility. You can get em for free in the squad vendors.

RTO pack will be able to take your sentry and MD from the drop pouch as well as TWO engineering kits and your nailgun.

Drop pouch becomes a 5 piece webbing containing your injectors and bandage.

Armor will hold your LD, MRE, and a mag.

Replace your FAK pouch with a magazine pouch since you want more ammo.

I think the combat toolbelt sucks but if you really want the pistol then the only thing that bugs me there is the fact you can put the screwdriver in your ear and take another blowtorch. Also I’d lose the light replacer.

These little changes double your magazine capacity and give you enough space for another engineering kit which you can replace with any other item you want.

[kooarbiter]

you can put your screwdriver on your ear, freeing up a toolbelt slot

you don’t need so many APC boards, 2 and 2 high cap cells will do you just fine

you don’t need a tric injector, you have one of each bica/kelo/tram/emergency

If you plan on running the nail gun, you should swap the sandbags (only half a stack) for more metal, if you don’t have the points, scrap metal in maints

[Catzonwheelz]

My two cents on the matter is that as tech you shouldn’t need that much ammo… your job is to build not fight.

still there are ways to improve your load out greatly, many others have alright pointed this out. my thoughts are simple… just main line a gun with better ammo economy, we have such guns exactly to solve the inventory issue.

and if you say you don’t want to use such weapons then why are you even playing tech? like really ONLY ONE CONSTRUCTION POUCH?! FOR SHAME! FOR SHAME I TELL YOU! but all jest aside if you want to play tech lean into the roll and don’t try to fight it… than or be crazy person like me and drag a around trash cart filled with all the ammo you will ever need.

[PWNRA]

I usually agree with you, but there’s a lot of questionable stuff in this loadout as others have addressed. Honestly a change I would like to see is the pistol tool belt accepting c4 like the normal toolbelt.

[Swagile]

My personal CT loadout is:

Back - Fuel backpack (large)
Belt - construction belt with all mats and the flamer turret so I can access it quickly (optional to get nailgun in there if I do not scrap enough metal in maints)
Pockets - One full injector pouch with double emergencies and 1 bic 1 kelo (put the extra kelo and bic you get from double injector pouches vended into helmet). Vend a shotgun ammo pouch from general vendor and fill it with buckshot.
Armor - medium or light armor; my loadout already gives plenty of space anyway. Fill it with splints and 1-2 items of choice depending on armor chosen.
Suit Storage - Shotgun with mag harness, miniflamer, bayonet (so you can do a lot of close up damage and area denial from afar).
Webbing - Small tool webbing with the screwdriver in ear so you can fit the E-tool.

This loadout is one of the best for conserving space (since buckshot and flamer are very ammo efficient, especially with a big fuel backpack and picking your battles), and allows you to do something when you run out of materials.

Swap out the shotgun, shotgun ammo pouch, and first aid injector pouch for a mk1, autoinjector pouch, and large mag pouch with 2 extra mk1 mags from req, mag harness and underbarrel shotgun, 1-2 buckshot ammo packets in armor and 2 in helmet, and you can be a riflemen for a long time if you run out of materials and there is no easily scrappable items near the front / your stuck in FOB.

Is it annoying you have to build your loadout like this? Yes, which is why I play CT when I am in the mood. But it is doable to have a proper loadout that has tons of fight in it without sacrificing material space.

Oh and the backpack can hold whatever extra you need. Engineer kit with all your electricals in it + space for other materials or tools like light replacer, more ammo, whatever you want. Its extra space for items you do not need to grab in the heat of battle.

[masterhavoc]

I am disappointed in all of you.

Helmet holds 4 slots, not 2. You put in 2 flasks filled with unga, and 2 colaritos (burritos with cola): get vending machine burritos and fill them up using soda fountain with what you like. No need for MREs.

edit: I guess while mentioning it, I can also add in the super cursed tech: helmet blood smokes. Instead of a burrito a cigarette case can fit in your helmet’s swag spot. Each cig can have 15U of a chemical in them after you dump out the nicotine. You can fill each cig with blood from an O- blood bag with a syringe, then syringe marines in the battlefield to restore their blood using the blood cigs.

[doctoramazing]

my comtech loadout never fails me- and as a comtech, I hardly ever run outta ammo.

M39 pouch rig on suit slot, construction belt which takes sentry, light replacer, materials, and other miscellaneous engi stuff. Construction pouch for more materials, and an injector pouch on my hip alongside it.

Take a normal chestrig, or keep your spawn satchel/grab an RTO and grab the welder chestrig to hold in your hand and take down. Blowtorches are NOT hard to find on maps, you never ever need to sacrifice back space for welding fuel unless shit is beyond fucked, and then you probably have bigger problems.

Engineer kit goes in bag, alongside medical items. Spare magazines go in your armor, as the others say. ET can go in your construction pouch or belt- If you end up with more materials, it’s only a small item, so it’s more efficient to keep in your bag if you have something worthwhile to put on your belt or in your pouch. Sandbags are more powerful than you’d think, so try not to just drop them in prep (or let me have them- I’ll gladly use 'em :3)

I like to take two flasks of UNGA in my helmet, but with this loadout, you really easily have space in your backpack for one or two, and that’s on top of all your injectors. If you really wanted, keep a bandage and some splints in your bag and put another pouch on your hip to replace stuff in your bag, or drop part of the injector pouch to put your bandage and splints in. I’d visualize it for you if I could, but I have no localhost and I’m going to work soonish.

All in all, while everyone’s got vicious dark evil tech, I think this is an easily followed loadout for crazy storage without kneeling to bibles or blood cigs. Just please wear a helmet or leave some of your kit out to scavenge on the ground.

Also- SCAVENGE ON THE GROUND! Wrench tables, wrench chairs, wrench window frames, blowtorch apart machine and computer frames. Electrical (Yellow) Toolboxes always have an APC module and some tools, Mechanical (Blue) Toolboxes always have a welder. These are fucking everywhere on maps. There’s a lot of room for improvement if you look out for it!

[PurpleCIoud]

Honestly the core equipment of an engineer consists of his tools and metal, everything else is moreso optional depending on what type of support build, however as an engineer or even a medic you are not expected to be the firepower as what the rifleman is.
Fun facts for engineer knowledge:
Machine gun belt can carry an engineers core tools becides S.A.T.
Engineer toolkit (the restricted storage that can be found in the tool machine in prep) holds C4, batteries, wire and boards; can fit in a backpack or satchel.
The weapons that have a holster (M39, All pistols) store a sizable amount of ammunition with the weapon in your suit storage saving space.

[unknown920]

Nobody has mentioned how they have 2 open hand slots that can be filled with literally anything. literally toss in a mr4a 16x or 10x24mm box in your hand and drop it whenever you reach the frontlines and you’ll have solved your ammo problems.

It’s really not that hard to solve your “oh god my inventory is overflowing” issue the moment you realize you can just… hold stuff in your hands. I do it all the time when playing marine. You can even carry an imp ammo rack in your hand to hold 3 boxes (I typically pick flare + 10x24mm + ammo of my choice) to be deployed at the front.

If every marine took 60 seconds out of their “AFK in dropship/brief” time and spent it filling an ammo/flare box to be carried inhand until they reach the front, req wouldn’t even have a job.

[doctoramazing]

In the same vein, a single M41A extended magazine or Mark 1 mag allow you to take out the rounds (in the same caliber as the M4RA!) and hand load magazines for the M4RA. That doubles or triples the magazine amounts per slot. Very very underrated way to save on ammo slots especially when you start to vulture up dropped magazines for a few rounds each, or even half or full mags when people reload prematurely reload or fumble a mag.

I know the way I play the video game is insane but inventory space is fucking NOTHIN when you take a little time to reload by hand.

[Wintermote]

Thanks, I get that this loadout might look questionable but that’s actually the point I’m driving at.

I deliberately grabbed the basic, useful items the game hands you as a Tech, and what I’m left with is 2 magazines to fight with even despite actually skipping a couple items. Sure, I could stop, rethink, drop gear, switch bags, swap pouches, grab a bible, and put stuff in my helmet - maybe squeeze 4-5 magazines instead of 2 if I shuffle things a bit.

But I don’t think a player should NEED to hyper-optimize just to carry what the game suggests as a baseline.

That people see this and immediately jump to “you’re optimizing wrong” instead of “maybe these constraints are too tight” just proves my point. We’re all so used to ultra-packing every slot that anything less than min-max perfection looks wrong. But - why is that the default? For techs especially, there’s almost no wiggle room. Who actually takes tramadol, ointment, or even tricord these days? Hardly anyone. Splints and bandages get left behind a lot too(!). Are they useless? No - they’re just not worth the slots to a lot of people.

Then there’s the stuff you “should” take, but can’t without sacrifices: Shovels, sandbags, light replacer, multitool, APC boards, power cabling, nailgun, batteries, tramadol, tricord, MRE, and ointment, and people seem to pick either E. injectors or bicard/kelo, but not both. Optimizing helps, but Techs are at a breaking point even when you’ve optimized it.

Storage options have been consistently shrinking over time, and we’re far more likely to see things like screwdrivers in your ear/mouth or bandages in your helmet, or bibles in your pack removed than what I’m suggesting here; which would take an already borderline situation past the breaking point, and given there’s an entire upcoming LZ/cade revamp we will probably be seeing new tools/gear to carry, and god forbid some of the “useless” stuff actually gets buffed.

I’m just raising a flag here. At least three jobs are already stretched thin and the trend suggests its going to get worse and not better. I think it’s time to rethink the storage limits, or start merging some items together, because right now the default is asking players to do too much with the space they actually have.

[Common_House_Plant]

People are gonna bitch all day and night about whether or not its the most optimized loadout but seriously if you’d just take a few minutes to sort your shit out I promise you you’ll end up with more space than you know what to do with.

Honestly its the best part about playing Marine is just having to have all your stuff in order or getting beat to shit so you have to scrounge for more. If you really want some help with your loadout you can get great suggestions especially in game if you run with Bravo for a couple rounds.

[Catzonwheelz]

@Wintermote

I deliberately grabbed the basic, useful items the game hands you as a Tech, and what I’m left with is 2 magazines to fight with even despite actually skipping a couple items.

no you made one of these worst load outs, to the point i would almost think you were trolling.

first off no helm… you should be wearing a helm, if you don’t want to wear one for style, that is fine… BUT don’t start making a fuss about a lack of inventory space, you don’t need to super unga magic stuff, just using the 2 slots for a bandages and a injector. just doing that will free up a good deal of space, for making load out.

@MrMoon

yeah lets power creep more stuff rather than look at why you are having issues carrying stuff, youre also plat and not wearing a helmet, if you cared that much about storage you would fix your issue rather than complain about it

at first i thought that MrMoon was being to harsh…

@Wintermote

Thanks, I get that this loadout might look questionable but that’s actually the point I’m driving at.

but you are just shooting your self in foot with using this loadout, simply just taking a larger bag could solve many of your issues. i get the point you are trying to make but falling on deaf ears as you are not doing very basic things.

you picked the worst main gun for ammo economy, you picked to toss away your helm and its 2 slots, you filled your engineering kit with a unnecessary amount of APCs, you put mags in the bag and small items in your armor.

There are many small things you did that are simple just BAD. We have means to carry both good amount of ammo and other stuff. again like i said just take larger bag and most of your issue will be solved. the small bags are there for sake of convenience, you take them as you willing to sacrifice load out space for convenience.

frankly your point is null and void to me if this is going to be your example, and before you say i am asking for hyper optimization… just using a bog standard Welder pack is not what i would call hyper optimization.