Mother Base-ics

Basics: Th[Subsistence] Mother Base becomes available in and after 'mission' 2. You can manage your staff, send troops on missions, develop near essential gear and weapons, or expand the base itself. It's not necessary to be on the physical Mother Base to manage everything, which can be done on your iDroid in the field. In this section we'll go over some basics.

- Besides completing mission, side ops, and collecting items in the field yourself, Mother Base will in fact allow you to gather many more resources once you expand the base. Most important are of course the Combat Deployment assignments, from where the rewards really do add up. This allows you to re-invest in the Mother Base, spiralling everything up. Use the reaped rewards to unlock new possibilities (fundamental research deserves priority).

Staff: Most staff will be people you've extracted from the field with Fulton devices, but sometimes volunteers also apply, especially if The Boss' heroism grows. Early on, most recruits have quite poor stats. You'll want to upgrade your Int-Scope binoculars at some point, allowing you to read recruit stats and be a little bit more selective and filter the worst from the not-so-bad ones. Early on in the game you'll want to be less picky, however. Simply extract everyone you possibly can and go for quantity. Later on, be a little more selective. Once your staff arrives on Mother Base, it generally suffices to automatically assign them to one of the various facilities.

Combat Employment: As mentioned elsewhere in this guide, Combat Employment allows you to reap benefits while virtually doing nothing, or alternatively put, by virtually sending your men on missions. You should always have two active missions to maximize profits (and more once the max has been increased with Forward Operation Bases). Needless to say, aim for 95% chance of success whenever possible.

Developmen[Subsistence]: Here you can spend your hard earned GMP and resources to build new things, so it's essentially a shop. Many developments can be started as long as you have the required means, though sometimes they require a blueprint as well, which are key items found at specific locations on the map, often - naturally - in guarded areas. There are too many developments to describe here for an introductory section, but things like Stealth Camouflage are among the more interesting things. Most important is however an upgrade to your Fulton device, allowing for wider extraction possibilities (vehicles and such). As mentioned elsewhere, an upgrade to your Int-Scope is also vital, since it allows you to scan enemies' statistics, allowing you to be a little more selective, in turn leading to better development due to higher staff stats. Another good upgrade would be a solid suppressor on your favorite weapons. Naturally you'll want to be good to your buddies, or alternatively, if you're someone who only thinks in terms of self-benefit, protecting buddies is a good way to prevent them from getting killed and thus granting you the corresponding mission bonus.

- Th[Subsistence] above developments aside, expanding Mother Base is extremely important as it literally drives your progress. Building new facilities unlocks other research possibilities, and early on it's advisable to split at least half of your GMP towards building and expanding Mother Base, if not more. Of course, you'll still want to focus on key upgrades for Snake, but don't go purchasing nonsensical or marginal upgrades just because you can, because you'll only stall your own progress.