Two items you should ALWAYS pack as a marine.

General Discussion
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Title. Feeling burned down from a xeno major? Well as a crusher main (and also someone with plat SO), I’m here to help you.

Here are two items you should always bring to help you be a way more effective grunt.

Binoculars.

EVERYONE should bring a pair of binoculars. The utility and intelligence you gain from binoculars is insane.

You could see a queen flank from much further then you otherwise would with your eyes. Also you could see a boiler preparing a gas, or a charger zipping in, helping you have more time to react. Among other things. Your view increases by a LOT, and the amount of information you can gather from that is immense. No matter what groundside role you decide to play, bring binoculars.

Bring a machete (or bayonet your primary).

The point here is bring weed demolition equipment. All riflemen should equip a machete. You can also bayonet some primary weapons like the m39 and mk2. When I am a squad lead I bring a machete to lead by example. Machetes or attaching a bayonet to your primary lets you one tap weeds and break down resin walls MUCH easier. If you are a higher educated role like SL or FTL, C4s and breaching charges can also help you take down annoying walls that you otherwise would struggle to break.

I cannot stress how important it is to break weeds and resin walls, denying the xenos a ground to rest is vital. Tier 3s can’t do jack if they don’t have a safe weed place to rest and recover in, and focusing more on destryoing weeds and resin walls can help reduce the xenos’ territory immensely.

Edit: This section is more useful to riflemen in particular, but still. You’re less obligated to bring a machete as a corpsman or comtech, but still. Roles like riflemen, squad leader, and FTL could really benefit from a machete or a primary with a bayonet.

Edit: XM51 is very strong, if you use it, you’re greatly helpful to the corps considering how it makes easy work of any walls. If you can fit a secondary primary, I highly recommend this one.

Thank you for coming to my marine TED talk.

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As someone who’s not very robust at all in combat, on top of not ideal ping and hardware performance, I’ve found binoculars to be an effective way to help without shooting my gun. Definitely recommend packing binocs whenever you can.

Folding stock M39 + bayo can one-shot weed nodes but not folding stock M41 + bayo. :frowning:

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Bring a metal baseball bat.

Batter up.

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binocs are so good… Every marine a binoc!

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Oh really? I didn’t know m41 + bayo can’t one-tap weeds. Shame.

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Yeah, you need Solid Stock M41 + Bayo to one-shot. Kind of weird but I personally don’t really have a problem with it.

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Bring a rollerbed always.

You don’t really need a machete, I never carry one and don’t regret it.
Binos are really handy though!

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Flares and a basic medical hud are way more important, then destroying weeds

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these, you can find them in the hangar if you’re quick enough

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Meds + Flares.( this is defo not me trying to get more marines to get flares so I don’t have to.)

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Devs, nerf everything here. They’re all bad anyways.

Marines only need 5 MREs, no armor and all that bullet jank.

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real marines bring aIMP rack of flare boxes, flare gun belt and 2 flare pouches, webbing + ext webbing for utilities and a pistol belt for suit slot

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Bootes and Rikka have nailed it with the bino suggestion. I find binos a key component to most gear loadouts, specifically for medics. They are super helpful to knowing where you are needed and to located dead marines without risking yourself.

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Flares and personal meds are things less players bring that are both far more important. Binoculars mean nothing if you’re staring into darkness and a machete is useless if you can’t splint your fractures to push.

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Maybe you could, if she isn’t flanking from darkness. But you can hear her moving and your ears come in a standard package, not wasting small storage slot.

Also ears and also doesn’t work in darkess.

Only if you are a type of marine who hangs in the back, or have NVGs. Otherwise you are at front, with no light source further than you can throw a flare.

This is why instead of wasting space on binocs, simply bring MD, if you do not use mag harness, you can safely stick it into your armor slot and just carry your gun in hands.

Bayonet on anything else two-shots weeds anyway. If you really need one-shots, just bring a welder that is more convinient to store than machete, that at the very least takes pouch slot.

I do not get where yall get that binocs are so super good. Like literally, I find them almost completly worthless due to darkness. If there is light somewhere, there are marines there and if they shoot, you know xenos are there, all info you need.
Both xenos and marines move so fast that even in a perfect scenario of everything being lit up, it is still better to have MD and working headphones.
Maybe for a medic, or engi, this can be usefull, dead guys and cades don’t happen to zip around the map.

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Two things for me:

  1. Unga juice flask - in the helmet as God intended.
  2. A rail flashlight - in the helmet too, for extra light and that drip.
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I’d argue you need to fit splints in there somewhere. Better to move slowly than die during a push from your lungs popping.

Also use your MRE spork to eat food. Fills you up faster/more, arguably negates the need for bandages.

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There’s no WAY eating with your fork is better. I thought it was just a flavor (heh) thing???

Also, medkit pouch with 1-2 emergency pens, splint, and 1-2 tricord will handle almost all injuries from an Op. put bandages in your helmet. God bless.

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Cabal, really gotta say the darkness is not that much of a factor for binocs general usage

Its become pretty routine for me to call out flanks as SL by just peering out to the side with my binocs every now and then. I’ve also been able to save countless of riflemen and medics this way just by observing lurkers with binocs and running over when they pounce.

Not a big thing about her pushing from the dark, but its shocking how 9/10 marines (even big names who are seemingly competent players) literally DO NOT call out a queen positions or xeno movements untill the whole front is dead. So you having binoculars and being proactive instead of trying to get a frag is where its at.

Also ontop of that, my rfn and comtech loadout all bring waist MD and binocs so using those together basically doubles the range at which I can see bad guys…

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If I’m reading this somewhat right, eating with a spork will refill 25 nutriment (Reagent_Nutriment, 1 x 25).

I find that I can devour a whole MRE with my hands, versus one or two bites with a spork.

This trick allows one MRE to last the entire operation, and give more nutriment to boot.

In any case, if you’re disturbed by eating noises like some people I know, this might be a good tip anyways.

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