Strategy:Phobos Base Entry

0.9.9.7

Ultra-Violence

The layout of the first level can be luck-based in spite of being generated, with some timelines offering you no time at all before the Formers start finding you, where you have no time to get to cover and they're able to shoot you more accurately than you can shoot them unless you went Eagle Eye first, but sometimes they wander inside to grab the med-packs instead, where their AI can be more easily exploited. You can either restart repeatedly until you get the one you want or roll with it.

Unfortunately, no matter what, you'd have to have RNGsus' most sacred blessing for the two small med-packs and armor to not be taken right away. That means your first order of business is to try to rescue them from the hands of the enemy. This can be done, but only if you get to cover that breaks Line of Sight! Whatever you do, don't stand out in the open against multiple enemies, you'll lose about half your health before they start to die.

First thing's first, you'll need to lure enemies in close to you WITHOUT damaging them or sticking your head out and getting shot. Damaging them makes them likely to USE those med-packs before they walk over to you, and getting shot at is likely to make you need to use one of yours. You need to conserve med-packs as much as possible right now. Luckily, the solution to this involves an alternate use of a med-pack! Giftdropping! Find some cover and drop a small med-pack near an opening. Back up two spaces away so you can still see it, and run > wait (comma > period) until you see a guy show up. If none of them shows up, lucky you! They're inside. Go knock on the front door and do this again, but be sure the door is closed while you're setting it there. If a guy does show up, run into melee range with him immediately. He will resort to weakly punching you over all else rather than pick up your med-pack or shooting you, and you'll be close enough to hit him with your pistol reliably without needing to aim. If you get REALLY lucky, the first guy you lure in will be a shotgun guy.

If all goes well, you should be able to kill at least one guy before he has a chance to use a med-pack, especially if you took Son of a Gun at first level. If you didn't, you'll have to hope to pull a Shotgun Guy who doesn't have a med-pack, kill him, and take his shotgun and ammo. Now you can reliably kill all the next enemies you lure in one shot except the one wearing the armor. Don't poke your head out yet, go back to waiting two spaces away from your med-pack and wait until they get close so you guarantee a one-shot kill.

It's entirely possible to lure all the enemies to your one med-pack in quick succession and kill them all before you go inside, while also liberating both med-packs from them. Unfortunately, it's also very possible that the turn you walk up to the guy you lured in, two shotgun guys spot you and blast you before you have a chance. This can be good for you, however, if it kills someone right beside you holding a medpack or a shotgun. Saves you the RNG. Ya Girl Juniper (talk) 08:55, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

I find the most efficient way to handle Phobos Base Entry is to immediately activate run, and rush towards the base towards the upper or bottom end in a zig-zag manner (significantly increases the chances that you'll dodge the Former Human's bullets or they'll miss), while hoping the Shotgunners don't come out immediately and that you don't have more than one Former Human trying to shoot you at the same time. Once you get behind the top or bottom corner of the base's front and kill whatever Formers are in range, you'll be in a safe spot that can then allow you to handle the rest of the enemies here with minimum to no damage, while you can utilize gift dropping to lure the remaining Formers to you (just remember to manually deactivate Run if it's still active when trying to shoot a Shotgunner, as Run being active makes your shots a lot less accurate, while their shotguns aren't affected by the accuracy penalty enemies have when you're running). And once you kill one of the Shotgunners to get their Shotgun, you can radar shoot into the rooms to flush more of the Formers out. If the Shotgunners do come out of the building early and I get shot up too much, I just immediately Q+Y out and try again. No matter what approach you take, it'll be heavily luck-based to get through Phobos Base Entry in good shape, as there's nothing you can do if the Shotgunners do decide to come out early when you're out in the open with no real cover and have such little firepower, so a fast strategy will waste less time with resets and will thus get you a good Phobos Base Entry in less real time than a more methodical yet slower strategy will.

As Juniper noted above, getting the Small Medkits is completely luck-based, but I'll note that it'll always be Shotgunners that grab them, as two of them spawn closest to the Small Medkits. If you can kill the first Shotgunner and grab his Shotgun before the second sees you, you can near guarantee getting the second small medkit from him as the Shotgun will almost always one-shot a Former at close range. Killing the first Shotgunner though without him using his medkit is a big draw of RNG unless you're playing a challenge that starts you with a Shotgun; you can increase your odds of getting that first medkit by having your first trait be either Finesse (as faster attacking speed can allow you to get an extra shot in before the Shotgunner can use his medkit), Son of a Bitch (that +1 damage does substantially increase the odds you'll kill the Shotgunner with two Pistol shots, when failing to otherwise guarantees he'll get to use his medkit), Son of a Gun (essentially combines both Finesse and Son of a Bitch on a Pistol), or Eagle Eye (more accuracy means less chance of missing that second Pistol shot before the Shotgunner heals), but ultimately I don't find getting a measly Small Medkit to be all that important and will almost never reset for it. If you are however playing a difficult challenge where having that extra Small Medkit can be actually important (such as Angel of Purity, where powerups no longer work and so you're entirely dependent on medkits for healing), consider opening with whichever of the aforementioned traits that is the most important part of your planned build. As for the third Shotgunner, he'll always have the Green Armor, and it's important to note that he can survive a point-blank Shotgun blast, so if you're luring him from behind a corner, shoot him when he is two tiles away rather than when he is in your face, otherwise he can survive the point-blank shot and the knockback will push him away diagonally, where he'll then be able to retaliate with a close Shotgun blast of his own that will really hurt when you have no armor.

For one last note, if you get the variant of Phobos Base Entry that has the two pillars in front of the building, they are not safe cover; if you decide to try taking cover behind them, a Former will often pop up in a position where you cannot avoid fire from them, or you may even get pincer'd if two Formers approach from opposite sides (and if you try camping behind the narrow center opening, there's a diagonal blind spot where a Former will be able to see and shoot on you while you can't see them). If you get this variant, ignore the pillars and keep running towards the top or bottom of the building, though I find this variant causes me the most resets, as it also pushes the building farthest from the spawning point, so you'll often have to reset on this variant regardless. Omega Tyrant (talk) 04:08, 2 June 2025 (UTC)

0.9.9.8

Phobos Base Entry has been horizontally mirrored; it now plays left to right. This doesn't change it gameplay-wise, but longtime returning veterans will surely find it disorienting at first. It should be noted that getting through Phobos Base Entry without getting shot up is more likely in your favor however, due to a bug in this version that will give you a 95% dodge rate against everything regardless of any dodging boosts. So when doing the above "make a mad dash for the center building" strategy, you can avoid the vast majority of bullets shot your way. Unfortunately you still can't dodge Shotgun blasts, and so it's still purely RNG if the Shotgunners will come out early and pelt you with unavoidable shrapnel or not. Also if you play Nightmare! (or Angel of Darkness), the bug that prevented corpses on the very edges of the map from reviving has been fixed, so you'll no longer be able to effectively dispose of the Formers' corpses by killing them on the edges of the level. Omega Tyrant (talk) 04:08, 2 June 2025 (UTC)