What is a FOB and how does it work? A FOB FAQ for new players.

After seeing many folks on this sub and in-game express their confusion around FOBs, I put together a short FAQ for new players. Hope it helps you!

What is a FOB (Forward Operating Base)?

A FOB is a building which can be placed anywhere in the playable map (except in bases, or overlapping with another FOB’s area of effect. Within its area of effect, your team can build structures and enemy teams cannot.

How do I build a FOB?

The FOB item must be purchased from the equipment vendor. It takes up 2x3 slots in your backpack. It will not fit in the free backpack. In order to place the FOB, press the corresponding hotkey (press tab to see which hotkey it is bound to) to get it in your hands, then hold left click to place it. The FOB has an inventory which includes a free small and medium hammer, and some light infantry supplies.

What’s the point of building a FOB?

The FOB creates a small zone of influence (a square will appear on the map) where your team can build walls, defenses, various prefab buildings (such as bunkers and towers), emplaced weapons (mortars, AA, etc), and structures such as refueling depots or drills.

FOBs allow your team to create fortified areas on the map. A well fortified FOB can act as an offensive or defensive stronghold, allowing your team to establish a foothold within the control zone. They provide both tactical and strategic advantages, allowing sustained offensives for your vehicles and infantry.

Parking your team’s APC inside a FOB can keep the APC safe while allowing your team to spawn directly into the control zone.

Where should I build a FOB?

• A common place to build a FOB is at a tower. Doing this allows your team to fortify the tower and more easily retain control of it. Towers are indestructible (unlike built structures or non-landmark structures in the world), so having a defensive perimeter around them makes for a more robust tower.

• Churches (and similar landmarks) are common FOB locations. As landmark locations, their innate structures are indestructible. They’re also often located at tactically advantageous locations (high ground, naturally limited access points, roads that go to them).

• Building FOBs outside the control zone isn’t always a great idea - but there can be times where it’s helpful. For example, if one of your FOBs is being shelled to death and you’re unable to counter-mortar - find a cheeky place to establish your own hidden FOB mortar nest and destroy the enemy mortar FOB. This kind of play can give your primary FOBs some respite to recover and build defenses/offenses. Resupply FOBs for your armored vehicles can be kept very small and allow them to operate in the field for much longer without needing to travel all the way back to base. This is very effective for your mobile artillery, who are often significantly outside of the control zone. Or, as /u/Astricozy said in the comments, setting up AA/Drone FOBs between an enemy base and the CZ can be used to cut off air/land routes and choke enemy teams!

• Get creative with your FOBs! They can be placed anywhere and are only limited by your strategic thinking and creativity! Just try to avoid placing excessive FOBs that don’t serve your team in any meaningful way.

What can I do to support my local FOB?

There are three primary ways you can be helpful at a FOB.

• Be there! Fight to defend it.

• FOBs need constant supplies. They’ll need a lot of build supplies to get started, and then constant ammo supplies to run their weapons. Mechanical supplies and gas supplies are also useful if your team is going to build more advanced support/strategic structures such as the anti-armor drone launcher or the drill (which pulls the hot zone to your FOB when activated). You can be helpful by driving logistics trucks with pallets of supplies, or flying hueys with a pallet of supplies back and forth from the home base to the FOBs that need them. A pallet of supplies costs $400, and you’ll get $2500 just for dropping each pallet off within a FOB’s zone of influence! Keep an eye on chat, FOBs will often call out for what they need.

• Be Bob the Builder! Buy a hammer at the equipment vendor before you leave the main base - every buildable requires a hammer to place and build. The bigger your hammer, the more options you have for building things and the faster you’ll build them.

What should I build in a FOB?

This depends on what the purpose of the FOB is. A large construction crew can work on perimeter defenses, offensive equipment, and support structures simultaneously - but a small crew has to prioritize effectively or risk being overrun. In my opinion, the priorities of a team’s first FOB are as follows:

• The builder radio. How can a construction crew effectively build without some bangin’ tunes!?

• Perimeter defenses. High walls with barbed wire on top, minimal doors (these can be blown up by the enemy team), and ONE main entrance gate which allows logistics trucks to enter the FOB and drop off supplies.

• Offensive capabilities. SAMs and mortars can change games. Sniper towers or high vantage points allow your team to defend the walls and reach out beyond the FOB to put the hurt on your enemies.

• Strategic capabilities. The drill! Getting this built early and triggering it whenever possible will allow your team to sit in a well defended hot zone and rack up the points.

• Support capabilities. Refueling stations and similar buildings. These are mostly a luxury unless the FOB is purely dedicated to supporting armored vehicles - in which case they’re a major priority.

What are best practices for perimeter defenses?

• High walls with barbed wire on top are critical. If an enemy can climb over your walls (due to the environment or something like driving a car up to the wall and climbing on its roof), they’re not doing you any favors.

• Minimal entrances! The more doors you have on your perimeter, the more potential locations there are for your enemies to quickly blow them down and assault you. Less is more when it comes to entrances. It’s easy to build in a way that allows you to hop over your own walls from the inside, it’s very hard to defend several entrances. Some players are opposed to entrances altogether, preferring a 100% walled perimeter - this is ultimately the most secure, but does not allow your FOB to be used as a fallback/resupply location by your ground infantry without significant administrative effort.

• Airlocks are critical! Anywhere you have an entrance (whether it’s a door or a gate), you need to have at least two consecutive doors or gates that have to be gone through to get in your FOB. This is critical. A friendly who opens a door with no airlock and then dies, has created free access to your base for the enemy team. With an airlock, there is still a closed door between your enemies and the inside of your FOB. Airlocked gates allow your logistics trucks/armored vehicles to pull into the airlock, be sealed in, and once the exterior gate is closed the interior gate can be opened safely. USE AIRLOCKS!

• Every time you go through an entrance, CLOSE THE DOOR BEHIND YOU. Every time. Even if you’re just running out really quick to grab some supplies from a crate and run back inside, close the door. It only takes a second for enemies to swarm through an open entrance and overrun your FOB.

• Build vantage points inside your FOB that allow your team to shoot downward along the exterior perimeter. You will often hear the scurrying of enemy infantry outside your walls, and you need a way to deal with them without leaving the safety of your FOB.

• If you have the luxury, surround your FOBs exterior (OUTSIDE the walls) with barbed wire. This keeps infantry off of your walls and forces them to be easier targets when they try to assault your base. Barbed wire even affects infantry who are in vehicles if the vehicle tries to drive up to your walls and gets into the wire.

• If the layout of the FOB supports it, build barbed wire funnels on the INTERIOR of your entrances. (Imagine two parallel lines of barbed wire which run perpendicular to the sides of your entrance, creating guardrails to your entrances) This forces any enemies who use an entrance into a narrow passage. Without this funnel, they can immediately run left or right of the entrance once inside, take cover, and be a real problem. This one is kind of tricky to get right, but when done properly is absolutely devastating to intruders.

• Keep it simple. Try not to clutter the interior of your FOB with tons of walls. If enemies get in, they can use your maze of walls for cover quite easily while assaulting you.

A few other notes on FOBs

FOBs can win games with drills to pull the hot zone to them. Without drills, FOBs don’t usually win games. Simply FOB camping is often not the way to win your games. Get to the hot zone or bring the hot zone to you - don’t just sit in a FOB all game!

There are many ways to build FOBs; experiment, listen to experienced builders, and learn how to build the best enclosures for all of your various offensive capabilities and structures. Remember that your FOB will be shelled by artillery, and how you design it to withstand this shelling can make all the difference in your FOBs resilience!

This is all my opinion based on about 35 hours of in-game experience. PLEASE feel free to disagree or drop your own knowledge in this thread!

Hope this has helped at least a few of you, and hope to see you in the CZ in a few weeks!