Steam Community :: Guide :: Guide to fortifications using sacks and fences.

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Guide to fortifications using sacks and fences.

By PMBELL

As the title says.
I am not good with words so forgive me if I am blunt.
But please comment!
Thank you!

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PMBELL
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Languages: English

Posted

Updated

21 Mar, 2016 @ 2:29pm

25 Jul, 2016 @ 10:25am

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Guide Index

Overview

HOW TO BUILD FORTIFICATINOS:

PROTECTION CONFERRED:

USING COVER:

FORTIFICATION PLACING ADVICE:

TACTICS:

Comments

HOW TO BUILD FORTIFICATINOS:

To place sacks (AKA sandbags): have a shovel in hand, right click on it and select dig. You can then store it by clicking on the belt and selecting "Hide Knife" (the shovel is treated as a knife, but is very bad as a weapon).
To place fence: have a toolbox in hand OR on shoulder/neck, right click on it and select build obstacle. I.e.: you can easily build any fortification by having a shovel in the hands and a toolbox on the shoulder).
Press "[" and "]" to rotate, pgup to raise, pgdn to lower, click to end placement of the fortification.
Any merc can build fortifications. Not just the PC.
The time to build sacks and fences is 30 seconds in battle and none in real time.
Fences are a bit longer and can be built a bit higher than sacks.
Fortifications cannot be stacked on top of each other to build high walls or bunkers. But you can place it on top of a rock (as is considered ground terrain) high enough to cover a merc's head while crouching.

PROTECTION CONFERRED:

Sacks stop line of sight, movement, thrown items and bullets including grenade fragments.
Fences stop ALL of the above except line of sight, but a merc will lose aim of a target if looking through them (maybe because it has wires?).
None of them stop explosion blast (unlike big rocks and trees that do stop it).
Sacks hide a soldier while prone and the height can be adjusted to be right below the weapon while crouching.
The highest you can place sacks covers up to the waist while standing, blocks fire while crouching and is too low to fire from below them while prone.
The highest you can place fences also blocks fire while crouching but you can shoot (and be shot at) from below them while prone.
Sacks and fences cannot be destroyed by any means and will stay where you put them forever.
Any thrown missile (grenades, rpg or inventory items) hitting the sacks or fence will drop directly to the ground (do not bounce off it). This makes thrown grenades, RPG and grenade launchers especially dangerous for anyone right behind the fence/sacks as the explosion is not stopped.

USING COVER:

POPPING UP AND DOWN:

This technique minimizes time out of cover and has a wide arc of fire but has a low fire rate, needs a stationary target (or running from/towards you) and a separate spotter (if not behind a fence).
Start prone, ready the weapon, aim at a point (where the enemy is), then crouch, shoot (in 0.06 seconds), wait for the shot to finish (the weapon's rate of fire) and get back prone.
Changing most heights (prone->crouch<->stand) keeps the weapon ready and aimed, but going prone resets it. So after popping down you will need to aim again.

FIRING FROM THE SIDE:

This technique minimizes the silohuette exposed to enemy fire, has the best accuracy and rate of fire but has a narrow arc of fire. While prone you can keep the weapon ready/aimed without getting exhausted. But if the target moves to your left you lose sight and if it moves to your right you lose the protection of cover.
Get prone, move close to the right side of the cover, look in the direction of your target, stop the time, alt+click on a place perpendicular your facing (clicking far will make it easier), decelerate the time 7.5x, switch to first person view ("E"), start the time again, wait until you see the target and stop the time. If you are pleased with the field of view/fire cancel the roll (backspace), restore time to 1x, ready the weapon ("p") aim and fire.
If the target moves you can roll again to gain sight or get better cover.
If the target moves to your left you can crouch and shoot from above the cover.

FORTIFICATION PLACING ADVICE:

Put your team in place in the desired firing positions first and then place the fortifications around them.
When placing sacks on a slope or hill, adjust the height to confer the best body coverage without blocking the line of fire uphill or downhill.
Adding two lines of sacks one behind the other makes no sense, as fortifications are indestructible, and the first line will not stop thrown objects aimed at a merc behind the second line.
Adding a fence to cover the head makes little sense since it should be above the eyes in order not lo lose sight of the target. The forehead is easily covered with a good helmet and the fence will prevent a crouched merc from firing a grenade launcher.
If you place more than one fortification in a line the awful pathfinding will get confused and allow anyone to walk though them. Even if you place them with great overlapping.
Try building very loose distributions of fortifications in order not to mes up the pathfinding algorithm of NPCs.
Oddly enough, you may build fortifications that block fire while prone/crouching to force the enemy to crouch/stand behind them which makes them a bigger target and have less accuracy.

TACTICS:

Have one merc with good sight and a machinegun firing from the side of cover serving as a spotter and pinning the enemy down with automatic fire. Then have another merc with a precise and powerful rifle popping up and down killing pinned down enemies with aimed shots. With six mercs you can make 3 groups of a side shooter and a popper, two groups of a side shooter and two poppers or six side lone shooters.
If there is only one eneny target and you hit it, the shock generated will allow you to keep shooting until you miss before needing to get behind cover again.
Soldiers behind fortificatinos are easier to hit with grenade launchers. You can aim a direct shot at the base of the fortification (shots tend to go higher than expected) and you have higher chances of scoring a hit, especially because it is a wider target than a lone merc. You can shoot while prone or pop up behind cover (you can ready the weapon but you cannot pre-aim in with grenade launchers). Airbursting grenades are prefferred (VIG-25P or M397A1) as these will jump 2 meters high when they hit anything and explode possibly hitting with shrapnel enemies behind cover.
Non-airbursting grenades arm themselves at 27 m so if you aim to the ground in fron of you, the grenade will ricochet and fly parallel to the ground and explode at 27 m or closer if it got stuck because it hit a fortification. In this case you should use the M406 instead of the M433A1 because it has longer blast range.

2 Comments

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[KHP]Iztecteocuitlatl 6 Jul, 2016 @ 12:06am

Useful, great.

Woozle 25 Mar, 2016 @ 1:53pm

Excellent guide!

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