For a few years now, I’ve been working on a fun gimmick, the plan is to deploy to the ground as a PFC on med/high pop and only using what you find on the colony, to different levels of success and preparation. I am going to go through some of my ideas on how to do this so that others can share this dumb idea.
I think this is a good approximation to a beginner survivor role, as if done properly you will need to utilize some of the same skills, that being improvisation and working efficiently under pressure. It could also be helpful to learn map layouts, especially for IO.
To begin, understand that to do this you MUST play PFC, to not waste any special roles, and you must not take anything limited from prep or req that you can’t get in your own vendor. Understand that if command catches this you will very likely be arrested for cowardice. Importantly, you should make sure that when you do this, the frontlines are somewhat stable with the expected back and forth; if the frontline retreats too much, you will find yourself swamped in attacking xenos and will very likely be cut off from the fob or anyone else, and if the marines do really well and push you will be even more useless as the round will be over before your gophering is done. One last note is that if you are worried about getting arrested before deploying, get in uniform compliance and simply drop what you dont want to take on the floor at fob. Mps can’t arrest you outside the fob and command would never divert SLs to you just to arrest you, so as long as you don’t return shipside you have nothing to fear*
*You may get your J’s creased by runners, predators, CLF survivors, and admins themselves not understanding the gimmick.
That all being said, here’s the strategy.
In my experience, the absolutely least you should take is a uniform, which will allow you to wear belts and pouches and most forms of armor you’ll find down there, boots to not actively slow you down and make movement hell, and a flashlight because the colony will be dark.
Additional things to take with you but not essential:
Light armor, for extra light, storage, and protection.
Helmet, for storage and decap protection.
Crowbar, to open doors and crates
Bootknife, to break windows and weeds, add wire to make a bayonet.
Flares, if a single flashlight won’t do you, since you won’t likely find them outside FOB.
A document pouch, so you aren’t completely useless to the operation in case you survive.
a handgun/PDW, if you lack faith in your scavenging abilities.
A rifle/shotgun, if you need to destroy walls.
MRE, to keep your movement speed up, might prevent you from dying to bloodloss for better (medics) or worse (being captured).
Ammo belt/backpack, to store magazines (not neccesary but nice to have).
Assorted pouches: various uses, especially medical ones, also not neccesary.
Things i would recomend you get: A motion tracker, some explosives, a buddy (don’t metacoms and make sure they are also not wasting role slots or limited supplies).
Now here is the general strategy itself, keep in mind this is all in service to getting geared so you can go contribue to the operation itself, there’s no point in getting geared up to go sit in fob or die in a corner of the map. The fob itself will likely have a lot of supplies, but this is not really scavenging if you are being spoonfed. Additionally make sure that if you are looting a corpse that they CANNOT be revived.
Once you deploy, get to engineering, if there’s a locker open then grab insulated gloves (possible that survivors shocked doors), the locker itself will have webbing and pouches, so take your pick. If the locker is closed, skip to the next section. Go to whatever amounts to an armory on your map. If you can get there and get inside, you’ll be looking for a close quarters weapon if you don’t already have one, and an ammo efficient weapon like a semi auto rifle to ward off runners and break open walls/doors. If the engineering lockers were locked, use a gun to open them, yes that was the secret. Once you have a gun, some pouches, maybe some food along the way, here are some things you might want to look for: backup light sources, medical supplies, a backpack, some armor (riot suits slow you down too much, and many other armors are really weak and dont protect limbs). If you are ready, head to the frontline with what you have and see how much you can make happen. Keep an eye out for perma dead marines for an easy supply of attachments and special ammo.
For a real challenge, go in with absolutely nothing and survive on the colony the whole round (assuming it isn’t a marine major steam roll). If you can do this you are ready to play survivor I’d say.
Additional achievements:
Survive a 2+ lurker ambush
Save a teammate or recover their body without being told they were there/needed help
Duel a predator
Scare an IO
Find the survivor enclave if it hasn’t already evac’d.
Gain some premo equipment (rare weapons/ammo/explosives).
Kill a xeno with a predator weapon (one exists in the sand temple on LV).
Fortify an area in the colony (buy sandbags or borrow them) and have it survive the round.
Get a fully kitted out loadout just from scavenged things.
Kill a T2/3 with a pistol
Defeat a group of CLF survivor
get each major limb broken in the colony. splint them yourself, and make it back to fob without dying.
Find the hive before the rest of the marines do, without getting killed or captured.