Building a FOB that survives the first attack
A Forward Operating Base is a permission slip: drop one and your team can build inside its square. The studio has priced it and pitched it, but not explained how it works, so the working knowledge comes from players, and most of it was written before the price tripled.
What changed at launch
| Item | Beta | Now |
|---|---|---|
| FOB, per purchase | $2,500 | $7,500 |
| Large Hammer, per purchase | $1,600 | $2,400 |
| Large Hammer, Support unlock | $25,000, level 7 | $75,000, level 8 |
| Medium Hammer, Support unlock | $10,000 | $25,000 |
Every figure from Steam announcement — Pre-Load Live & Season 1 Changelog The studio’s stated reason was to make the FOB and the Large Hammer “more of a choice”. If a guide tells you a FOB costs $2,500 or the Large Hammer comes at Support 7, it was written in the beta.
The build order
- Buy the kit. The FOB takes a two-by-three space, which GameSpot says the free backpack will not hold. Bring a hammer of your own if you have the Large one; the FOB comes with at least a Medium hammer inside, and GameSpot and Geck0 both say a Small one too.
- Choose the ground before you drop it. It can go anywhere on the map, including outside the Control Zone, but not in your spawn and not close to an enemy FOB, according to GameSpot. Think about where the supply trucks will come in.
- Place it and check the square. A square appears on the minimap, and close up you can see its edge on the ground. Walls, gates, emplacements and stations go inside it; sandbags, wire and recon tents do not need it, per Overgear’s beta-era table. None of the guides gives the square’s size.
- Take the hammers out. They sit in the FOB’s own inventory, and the Reddit builders’ guide says to grab them straight away.
- Wall in the core first. The FOB’s centre can be hacked, and whoever holds it controls the base’s doors. G2A’s first rule is not to build from the outside in, and StoneProtocol, StratzFPS, Geck0 and Mattzila 999 all make the same point in their videos.
- One gate, few doors. A single vehicle gate with a choke or airlock behind it, room for a truck to turn, and doors that open the right way round. Keep them shut.
- Close the perimeter, then top it. No gaps (snap is on B), barbed wire on top of walls a vehicle could be parked against, and wire outside where attackers could hug the wall.
- Overwatch, then weapons. Towers and bunkers at the corners and the gate, looking out rather than in. Anti-air and mortars only after that, with ammo supplies to feed them. The mortar has its own page.
- Keep a reserve. Build supplies also repair what gets damaged, so do not spend the last of them on another wall.
Which hammer builds what
| Hammer | Builds |
|---|---|
| Small | The basics: barbed wire, sandbags, simple barriers, and recon tents. The slowest to build with. |
| Medium | HESCO walls, doors and vehicle gates. |
| Large | Everything, including anti-air, mortars, refuel and repair stations, bunkers and the drill. The fastest. |
That split is how a Reddit builders’ guide and StratzFPS describe it; G2A agrees on doors and gates needing the Medium hammer and on the mortar and anti-air needing the Large one. When a video calls something a level three hammer it means the Large Hammer, not Support level 3.
Supplies: four kinds, and they are not interchangeable
| Supply | What it is for |
|---|---|
| Build | Every structure, and repairs to them |
| Ammo | The emplacements: anti-air and mortars fire from the FOB’s ammo, not your magazines |
| Fuel | Refuelling vehicles, and running the drill |
| Mechanical | Vehicle repairs and drone launches |
The quick way in is a pallet, which holds 1,800 of one kind according to two guides written in the beta, as are the drill and drone details in the table. A URAL truck carries two pallets, and you empty one into the FOB with F at the pallet: GameSpot says press it, the Reddit guide says hold it. Who gets paid for the delivery, and how to level a role doing it, is on the levelling page; the trucks and helicopters that carry them are on vehicles and helicopters.
Is a FOB a spawn point?
Not on its own, on the better-supported reading. What GameSpot and Geck0 describe is the spawn vehicle parked inside the FOB’s square, which gives your team a protected place to spawn; a beta-era guide says outright that you cannot respawn at the FOB itself. No announcement or official video settles it.
The drill
A drill built at a FOB pulls the Hot Zone towards it, bringing the part of the zone that counts double to the base. It is a Large Hammer build that runs on the FOB’s fuel. The two sources that give a fuel threshold to start it disagree, 2,000 in Mattzila 999’s guide and 1,200 in another, and both were measured in the beta. The towers that do the same job from fixed positions are on the towers page, and what a Hot Zone is worth is on the scoring page.
How bases actually fall
The failures Geck0, G2A, GameSpot and StratzFPS describe between them are dull ones. A core left open while the team builds a big outer wall. Doors left open behind someone running out. A wall low enough to climb from the roof of a truck parked against it. A base too big for the people defending it: Geck0 and G2A both argue for smaller perimeters with better coverage, while a Reddit guide says to build right to the edge of the square. And anti-air with nothing to shoot, because nobody brought ammo supplies for it. Geck0’s five mistakes shows several with footage, recorded before launch.