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METAL GEAR SOLID V: THE PHANTOM PAIN > Guides > Ember's Guides

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Advanced Game Mechanics

By Ember and 7 collaborators

We're a group of dedicated TPP players who are committed to discovering and documenting all underlying game mechanics in MGSV: TPP.

Award

Created by

~}A{~TF2
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LegendarySnakeV
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R!SK
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Ajaxe
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๖Leelah
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Ember
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Maniac
In-Game
Assassin's Creed

Frank Castle
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Category: Gameplay Basics, Secrets

Languages: English

Posted

Updated

4 Oct, 2015 @ 5:43pm

1 Oct, 2021 @ 7:53pm

40,628	Unique Visitors
1,877	Current Favorites

Guide Index

Overview

In Memory of R!SK

General

Strategy/Stratagem

Getting the most out of Snake's arsenal

Fun Stuff

Comments

In Memory of R!SK

One of our contributors, Ricardo Jorge Amaro Coelho, better known as R!SK, suddenly passed away in July of 2021. He was a young and talented man whose light will be missed by many.

I won't scatter your sorrow to the heartless sea. I will always be with you. Plant your roots in me. I won't see you end as ashes.

General

Recruits that cannot be assigned to a unit are automatically dismissed when you're at the staff limit for your Mother Base.
Enemy guards will sometimes despawn if repeatedly killed/fultoned. If this occurs in a mission, complete the mission and all spawns will be reset.
Improved Weapon Stability While Moving is a static enhancement, so Sharpshooter's Stock 2 is no different than Sharpshooter's Stock 1.
Nuclear weapons will grant you protection from FOB opponents with less than 150,000 heroism.
You lose 40 heroism on FOB missions if you kill a critically wounded soldier.
Some neutralization techniques result in a longer incapacitation period than others. From top to bottom:

Longest
-Five hit CQC combo
-CQC choke
-Tranquilizer round headshot
-Tranquilizer round body shot
-CQC throw into a wall
-CQC throw to the ground
Shortest
Consecutive CQC is not based on how close Snake is to soldiers, but how close the soldiers are to eachother. For example, if 4 enemies are standing in a line, 5 meters apart, and Snake starts a CQC chain, he can get every single one of the soldiers, even if the 4th soldier is 15 meters away. Despite him being 15 meters away, for some reason he'll teleport to Snake to get CQC'd.
You can unlock a door faster by rapidly tapping the unlock button, but at the cost of creating more noise. Alternatively, you can get a guard to unlock the door for you if you create noise to lure him out.
Anything that is destroyed during combat like watchtowers, antennas, power systems, etc., will be repaired and replaced after five missions.
The Boaster skill disguises abilities and ratings. Enemy soldiers will sometimes have this skill, and when they do, their abilities and ratings will appear higher than they actually are. However, when viewed from the Staff Management screen, their actual abilities and ratings will be displayed.
Assigning a Gunsmith (Weapon Type) to your R&D Unit will lower the GMP cost of that weapon type by 3%. This effect can be stacked up to 10 times.
Your Base Development level determines the time it takes to process resources. Below is a chart with the levels and times.

Levels 1–4 - 60 minutes
Levels 5–13 - 48 minutes
Levels 13–24 - 36 minutes
Levels 25–40 - 25 minutes
Levels 41–60 - 15 minutes
Levels 61–84 - 12 minutes
Levels 85–99 - 10 minutes
GMP is capped at 30 million while online and 5 million while offline.
You'll obtain 100,000 GMP every time you count on /r/counting. /s
D-Walker can strafe when in first-person mode. This makes getting through tight spots a breeze.
D-Dog [NAKED] can stun wolves and jackals by the "Keep'em busy" command.
Quiet's health is tied to the battle suit that you have developed, so she can be extremely tough if you develop battle dress to 11.
Cardboard boxes fall apart/break when in the rain.
Hitting a hostile dog with an empty magazine seems to make it run away.
While holding an enemy up above a pool of water and tell them to "get down" it will actually drown them after a short period of time.
Your guns will have less bullet spread if you shoot in first person.
If you hold up an enemy and do not see their marker turn from red to cyan or don't see [Heroism +5] it means they have a chance to knife you. Dive into them to knock them to the ground and hold them up again.

Strategy/Stratagem

If you find yourself struggling on a difficult mission, and you don't want to have to repeat a part every time you die, you can manually trigger a checkpoint by running away from the area and entering another unmarked map "zone". This works for most but not all missions, and will not work at all on some extreme missions.
On FOB missions you don't lose any heroism at all if you throw people off the edge.
On FOB missions, throwing people off the edge allows you to kill without a retaliatory wormhole opening up.
When you get dropped off by the helicopter, before it flies out of the area, make it fly to another landing zone (best if it's far away, but that depends on how long you intend to stick around), and continue sending it to other landing zones everytime the helicopter reaches one, until you are finished and want to set a real landing zone for yourself to depart. It won't cost anything to do so. There is an inherent danger involved in doing this, so proceed with caution.
During Side Op 143, using a lethal weapon against the pod will cause it to speak lines from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Peace Walker. You can only initiate this once on the battlefield. However, the moment you send it back to Mother Base you’ll only be able to use non-lethal, penetrating weapons to set off the quoting again.
Low-voltage overhead power lines are a useful tool when it’s raining. If you knock one down it will create an electrical disturbance in the area around the damage, shocking and stunning any unconscious enemies nearby.
The Stun Arm, when charged to the second level, can take out anyone in a cone with a length of 5 meters and a width of 3 meters.
Stun Arm (Grade 4) can be used to conjure a lightning storm that stuns all enemies within your vicinity, it has a range of 50 meters.
Enemy equipment upgrades (response system) cannot be reduced completely. However, completing or aborting a mission with the chicken hat equipped will result in a reduction in the response level.
If Snake is covered in blood in between missions you can switch to a different uniform and switch back and he's clean. However he will still eventually get flies buzzing around his head.
You can clean the blood off Snake in the field by standing out in the rain.
Staff recently recruited from your FOB jail should be sorted by health so that you can spot the sick/injured and move them to the sick bay. If you just auto-assign them, then some may die of injuries/disease.
If you don't like the automatic selections for Combat Deployments, sort by Persuasion (Health may also work). For whatever reason, that appears to be how the game selects them, so it is easy to quickly clear those selections and pick your own.

Getting the most out of Snake's arsenal

While using a Cardboard Box to sneak around, if an enemy spots you he will report the sighting to their commander, who in turn will tell them to stop messing around. HOWEVER, if he and his buds decide to pay you a visit, keep calm, place a Sleeping gas mine right in your cardboard box position and slide out of there before they reach you. What this does is pretty obvious when the spotter pops open the cardboard box.
While traversing through slopes and hills to plain ground, you can use the Cardboard box to slide down the terrain quickly.
Using the water resistant cardboard box while in a rainy environment will allow you to use cardboard boxes without it falling apart
Approaching Wandering Old Mother Base Staff (Side Ops missions) with a cardboard box makes them approach you, and they will even say something interesting.
While reflex mode has its advantages (but seriously lol, turn it off), one of its most hilarious uses is to knock out an enemy using a Magazine . Huh? When an enemy spots you, enter reflex mode, quickly aim and throw a Magazine at his head. If done right it can result in a quick STN for a few minutes without wasting a bullet.
It is possible to hijack a jeep while creeping behind it with D-Horse .
What you need to do is ride D-Horse at same speed as any nearby jeep. Then you need to pull alongside the driver. Before you see that ! , you need to press the contextual button which will result in that cinematic slo-mo scene where Snake takes the wheel and gets rid of the driver.
You can use your Fulton/Wormhole to get yourself out of a hotzone to ACC (Aerial Command Center). Simply locate a Resource cargo container, get on top of it, choose to Fulton it, and then hold down the contextual button prompt to extract yourself out of there for a mere 10000 GMP. This is very useful in missions where you need to cut down on time for that S Rank, or your position is compromised in sprawling bases like the Wakh Sind barracks. Make sure you have developed the tech though as it doesn't work on the default Fulton equipment.
Never underestimate the... Water Pistol . This is one thing you can carry for your Non-lethal, No alarms, silent runs.
Once you develop it, you can use it to distract enemies. In reflex mode it can temporarily stop the enemy from alerting others, giving you that window to CQC the hell out of him.
Electronics like comms stations and power generators can be fried without alerting everyone. Note: nearby enemies will still investigate the noise.
Need those pesky fire barrels to be taken care of? The Water Pistol does that.
The Lvl 3 version is useful in temporarily stopping the Skulls from attacking you in close quarters.
One of the main purposes of this "weapon" is that it can defeat one particular... entity, in the mid-game, no matter how much Ocelot despises it.
On fire? Stop, get into the prone position, and start rolling.
This trick has been shown before in pre-release footage, but still... To get rid of choppers without being detected, strap some C4 to anything that can be Fultoned. Wait till the chopper positions itself above that object, and then call D-Dog to Fulton it via the "Do it" command. If done right, the chopper should be destroyed. It's extremely tough to pull off, but is immensely satifying to watch yourself do that.
You can pop your own stun decoys and trigger the stun effect. This can be useful if an enemy is taking his time popping it or is putting his attention elsewhere, like waking up a comrade previously knocked out next to it.
Snake has a default speed of 30km/h. To increase that, you would need to develop Mobility+3 for Bionic arm . Later the Cyborg Ninja skin will provide a boost of up to 39km/h, and ultimately the Raiden Suit amps it up to 45km/h.
It is possible to blind the hell out of troopers using your Flashlight attachment on weapons in close-quarters. This trick works effectively on especially those who are equipped with Night Vision goggles.
Showering enhances Snake's Health capacity, regeneration and reflex duration. Not taking a shower in a while can cause flies to hover around him. What that does is enemies can detect Snake easily when he is in the vicinity. Also, wildlife won't get shooed away as easily by Snake, which can result in easy captures.
While on Assault raids using D-Walker, your back will be vulnerable to attacks. Be sure to equip PB Shield to have your back protected.
After adhering to a particular playstyle, you'll find landmines or M-21 Mine lying around in some areas.
You can avoid them entirely if you spot one. HOWEVER, if you can get close to it carefully, you can disarm it to add it to your current inventory, and that'll net you Heroism +30.
One of the fastest way to regenerate health is to get to a safe place, go prone and hold down the action button.
Note that after Snake absorbs a significant amount of damage, the blood splatters on screen will take some minutes instead of seconds to be cleared away, or they simply won't go away. This is where you need to apply that trick, which causes the screen to become normal.
Throwing Smoke 'nades on a water puddle will cause reduced smoke cloud intensity in the area. Depending on how deep the water may be, the grenade might not even work.
Lets talk about Utility tapes now. These are special tracks on your iDroid that you can collect in various parts of the world. Playing them on iDroid's speakers has some surprising effects. Be warned, however, that playing utility tapes too often will eventually cause them to break.

• Playing the “Recorded on the Toilet” Cassette Tape while hiding inside a portable toilet can stop enemy soldiers from checking it out. Johnny Sasaki...Wait, is that you?!

• The "Love Deterrence" tape will attract the Wandering prisoners while in the "Extract the Wandering Prisoner" side ops, saving you all the hassle of chasing them all down.

• Playing Quiet's humming will steady your aim while performing those calculating, long-distance sniping shots... or just, you know, while tranqing an enemy next to you.

• "Afghanistan Lullaby" and "African Lullaby" are pretty self-explanatory. Play them when you haven't been detected to cause a ZZZ status on nearby troops, in their respective zones. The former works in Afghanistan, and the latter works in the Angola-Zaire border area.

• Playing "Enemy Eliminated" will cause enemies to stop pursuing Snake.

• Bird, Goat, Horse, Wolf, and Bear tapes cancel enemy suspicion while not in Combat Status.

Fun Stuff

You can ram a jeep to the back of an armored vehicle and jump out and extract it before the driver would see you or drive away.
If you shoot someone in the face when they're next to a railing if they fall they'll still scream on the way down.
It's possible to clean up blood splatters with the water pistol.
You can use the water pistol to detonate placed C4.
Shooting the FOB intruder with headgear in the head with the water pistol will cause his helmet to fall off. You can keep shooting over and over again for more helmets.
If you find slightly elevated spot, you can load enemies on the back of the truck, and then extract them all together.

134 Comments

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registole 9 Nov @ 8:28pm

Cool info, but unfortunately on FOBs 90% of the time you'll get an alert if you're spotted in the cardboard box. I always hope to get that dialogue where CP doesn't believe the soldier. I have yet to hear the female soldier variant of the dialogue though.

niralamart000 9 Nov @ 3:24am

While using a Cardboard Box to sneak around, if an enemy spots you he will report the sighting to their commander, who in turn will tell them to stop messing around. HOWEVER, if he and his buds decide to pay you a visit, keep calm, place a Sleeping gas mine right in your cardboard box position and slide out of there before they reach you. What this does is pretty obvious when the spotter pops open the cardboard box.

this i don't get, if you equip a sleep mine then use it, snake would just stand up in the box

also what about sharpshooter stock 3, does that improve stability?

morbid 23 Jun @ 11:51am

It doesn't really belong here but D-Horse will continue to run alongside you if you whistle for him, so you can put an unconscious soldier on the back of D-horse and carry another to the LZ if you can't fulton either of them.

ShockFyre 19 Jun @ 6:31pm

Thank you for your service Ricardo Jorge Amaro Coelho

Zenf 17 Jun @ 1:27pm

rip Ricardo

jkPeepo 7 Jun @ 9:58pm

>"place a Sleeping gas mine right in your cardboard box position and slide out of there before they reach you. What this does is pretty obvious when the spotter pops open the cardboard box."

Can someone explain how this works?

- Place a Sleeping Gas Mine, equip Cardboard Box and "Crawl" over the set Sleeping Gas Mine, do the "Dive" action to crawl out of the Cardboard Box carefully

WillKill 14 Mar @ 11:02am

"place a Sleeping gas mine right in your cardboard box position and slide out of there before they reach you. What this does is pretty obvious when the spotter pops open the cardboard box."

Can someone explain how this works?

GAT0 GATL1NG 9 Jan @ 2:44pm

nah imma keep reflex on actually

Watereaters 13 Jan, 2023 @ 12:45am

I get that this guide is old, but I wanted to say a few things:
-If you want to save fultons when saving a prisoner loaded into a truck, extract the vehicle with the prisoner still loaded in the back and it will count as extracting the prisoner
-The posters on the box have practical uses
-You can extract tanks (and similar), but you have to sneak up on them without being spotted and strap a fulton to the back

AshleyIsWasted 9 Dec, 2022 @ 6:28pm

wow. i had no idea the game had this much depth

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