[FOB] Different types of cheaters and how to counter them

Those who use this cheat will more or less be unkillable no matter how much lethal damage is dealt to them. You will know when someone is using this cheat when the text saying that the intruder has been eliminated appears but they are still alive and the FOB session has not ended. Although this may sound like an annoying cheat to deal with, in reality it is actually quite easy to face against. For starters, this cheat does not render the user immune to being stunned or tranquilised. Additionally, if they are eliminated whilst they are knocked out they will be unable to do anything whilst you can keep on killing them for espionage points.

Alternatively, you can choose to fulton the cheater to bypass their immortality. If they are in the state of being dead and unable to do anything, fultoning them normally will not be possible but a fulton launcher will be able to fulton them. I have heard that throwing them into the water is not effective as it will result in you having to wait until either the timer runs out or the intruder quits.

An immortal cheater will also leave traces in a security log, if you see in the security log that the intruder is neutralised multiple times it is very likely that they were using an immortal cheat.

The following video showcases an immortal cheater.

This is not a cheat I have come across personally so I will be relying on what I have seen on videos. With this cheat the cheater can still move around even if they are tranquilised or stunned, essentially rendering them invulnerable to stun/sleep and being fultoned (outside of the fulton launcher). However this ends up causing some weird behaviour when the cheater is killed as they can still move around but will not be able to interact with anything. As such using lethal weapons against them seems to be the best approach to dealing with them.

The chicken hat is something you can use in the main story missions which when equipped will result in enemy soldiers laughing when they spot you - thus not raising an alert. Although this is not normally usable in FOBs, cheats exist that allow one to use it when infiltrating FOBs. This has the same effect as it does in the main missions, when the cheater is spotted by a guard no alert will be raised hence significantly decreasing the difficulty of coring the FOB. The intruder can reach the core without raising an alert to defend provided that security challenge is not enabled, you do not have a nuclear weapon, and no security equipment was destroyed.

If you are able to deploy to defend whilst a cheater is using the chicken hat cheat, you will be able to observe your guards laughing as seen in the video below.

Traces of the cheat can also be observed in security logs. The key giveaway is if it reports that the intruder was spotted multiple times successively which can be seen in the following video.

The cheat has its weaknesses, however. The cheater can still be spotted by UAVs and security cameras as they are unaffected by this cheat. Additionally, defenders can spot them as usual. Once the cheater has been spotted the guards will act as normal and target the cheater.

This cheat will be quite obvious when you deploy to defend. You will find all of your guards stunned across all platforms no matter where the intruder is. A key sign of this cheat is that even if you try to wake the guards up (e.g. by kicking them) they will remain stunned.

On the security log you will be able to see that numerous guards are neutralised all at once from a variety of positions, pointing towards this sort of cheat. Just like the chicken hat cheat, the intruder can still be spotted via UAVs and security cameras. However, even if the intruder is spotted the guards will not wake up so unless a defender deploys they can easily reach the core regardless.

This is one of the most dangerous types of cheaters as they can instantly teleport themselves to the core even if the FOB is in combat alert.

Unfortunately there is not much that can be done to counteract against this sort of cheat. The only thing you can really do is hope to neutralise them before they teleport to the core.

As the name suggests, these sort of cheaters are able to wake up quicker than normally possible. With a keyboard and mouse the fastest one can normally recover from stun/sleep is around 3 seconds. Anything shorter than this raises suspicion to the individual cheating. With this sort of cheat it becomes very difficult to fulton the opponent.

Whilst not specifically a cheat, uncapping the frame rate of the game to go above 60 FPS has the side effect of allowing one to wake up than what is normally possible under the 60 FPS cap.

If you suspect that a player is waking up faster than usual, I would suggest avoiding trying to fulton them as they are likely to wake up before you are able to do so. Instead, eliminate them via lethal weapons as you can probably still shoot them before they recover from sleep/stun.

Lagswitching refers to when an individual deliberately introduces lag to either create favourable situations for themselves or to force a disconnect from the other player. This is probably the hardest cheat to prove its usage, ultimately one can only suspect if someone is using it and it is very difficult to definitely say if someone is using a lagswitch. A sign if someone is using a lagswitch is if you disconnect right before you are about to eliminate the player. If this happens with the same person repeatedly chances are they are using a lagswitch.

It is possible for cheaters to set their emblem to an invalid one which can cause issues when the game attempts to load them in the FOB menu. This will either result in the FOB menu unable to load the tab with the invalid emblem or possibly crashing the game. This can be particularly problematic if a cheater with an invalid emblem is in your wormhole list or on security challenge; locking you out of most of the FOB menu.

Unfortunately there is not much one can do to counteract this. Typically you would have to wait until the player with the invalid emblem disappears from the FOB menu. Supposedly Dmitiry77's cheat tables[www.nexusmods.com] can counteract this cheat, however I am not able to test it myself since they do not work when playing with the Japanese dub.

Chances are you have come across players with blank PF ranks. This typically means the player is 'PF banned', which results in the banned player only being able to infiltrate other banned players or players via the nuclear weapons or security challenge tab. Additionally they do not leave retalitory wormholes.

Whilst someone being PF banned is a sign that the individual has used cheats, it is not a sure giveaway. A player may never use PVP cheats but rather resource cheats or mods to unlock everything. If this is done on a fresh profile this can result in the player getting PF banned.

As such, when you come across a player that is PF banned bear caution but keep note that they may not always be a cheater. Besides, there are many cheaters that do not end up getting PF banned.

With the previously discussed types of cheaters, one weapon can counter them quite effectively - namely the fulton launcher. The fulton launcher bypasses energy walls, auto-wormholes, immortality cheats, and so on. If you successfully hit an opponent with the launcher you can instantly neutralise them.

The fulton launcher is not without drawbacks however. On top of its slow fire rate and reload speed it can be countered. The fulton launcher uses the fultons of the person it hit in an attempt to extract them. For example, if the fulton launcher hits a player with wormhole fultons equipped then they will be extracted via a wormhole fulton. Conversely, if they have regular fultons equipped then they will be extracted via a regular fulton which can fail if the player is under a ceiling. Additionally, if the player depletes all of their fultons before getting hit by a fulton launcher then they will only be stunned when hit, not fultoned.
In this video you can see that I deplete myself of all of my fultons and even when I get by a fulton launcher like at 3:20 I am only stunned.

Even with these limitations in mind, I would highly recommend having at least one loadout that has the fulton launcher equipped. This way when you are defending and realise you are going against a cheater you can change to that loadout to neutralise them.

If you are worried about incurring a lot of losses from cheaters, you can consider purchasing insurance on your FOBs to mitigate damages caused by intruders. When you have insurance staff and materials stolen by intruders will be compensated back to you as long as the insurance is active.

Outside of the first time purchase it costs MB coins to get insurance, which means unless you have saved up enough MB coins from the ones given out each week (you can get up to 80 per week for free) you will have to spend real money to get enough MB coins to purchase insurance.

This guide has not gone through every single cheat possible in FOBs, either because they are obvious (e.g. rapid fire cheats, infinite ammunition/supplies, no reload cheats, etc.) or I have no first hand experience against them. If you would like to suggest a cheat that should be added to this guide please comment it below.