Mechanics

Both of our Phantom Pain mechanics pages are unlock lists. The codenames and emblems guide holds three tables, 26 codenames and 75 emblems, each row a condition. The Mother Base guide is longer and looser, but it is the same thing underneath: departments that open as you expand, 36 team functions that missions unlock, and 51 specialist skills that arrive with the right recruit. So this page sorts everything the two pages list by what the game asks of you first, from the cheapest ask (play a certain way for three missions) to the dearest (build a platform out to its fourth deck).

The Asks, Cheapest First

Codenames: Three Missions of Habit

The codenames page makes one point before its table, and the table only makes sense with it: a codename is awarded at the end of a mission, but most of them judge the previous three missions rather than the one you just finished. Twenty of the 26 are the same sentence with a different weapon class in it. Use lethal handguns on most of the people you neutralize and you are Bee; submachine guns make you Scorpion, shotguns Piranha, sniper rifles Wolf, missiles Shark, placed explosives Spider, thrown weapons Orca, nonlethal weapons Octopus. The buddies each carry one too: D-Horse rams for Hog, D-Dog’s ‘Do it’ command for Hound, Quiet for Butterfly, D-Walker for Ostrich. Helicopter support gives Hawk, Fire Support bombardment gives Whale, vehicles give Tortoise, and grabbing people rather than shooting them gives Puma.

The other six are feats. Chick simply means you have not finished Mission 06 yet. Chicken means you wore the chicken hat at least once. Fox is for never being detected, and Foxhound for taking the ‘Perfect Stealth, No Kills’ bonus on the last three missions running. Eagle wants 90 percent of your kills to be headshots, and Bat wants you to spread ten kills across several techniques rather than settling on one. The page notes that every animal you save also unlocks a codename and an emblem in that animal’s shape, which is the one route to a codename that never touches the last-three-missions rule.

One row to read with care: the page gives Doberman and Raven the same wording (the Gatling gun, AA cannons, turrets and other lethal machine guns), so it does not settle which of the two a machine-gun run actually earns.

Emblems: S-Ranks on the Front, Task Lists on the Back

An emblem has four parts, a back pattern, a front pattern and two words or digits, and you assemble it in the Aerial Command Center while flying between missions. The page lists only the parts you have to earn. The back patterns are the plainer set, 31 geometric shapes, shields, barrels and card suits, and every one of them has the same kind of price: complete all tasks in one named mission. The Star comes from Mission 3, the Dog Tag from Mission 2, the Flag all the way out at Mission 45, and the eight numbered Shields stretch from Mission 18 to Mission 43. Mission 25 pays two of them, Shield 05 and Arrowhead 01.

The front patterns are the 44-row table and the reason to chase S-ranks. Thirty of them want an S-rank in a named mission: the Sword from Mission 7, the Axe from 8, the Tank from 9, the Wings from 10, the Spear from 14, the Walker Gear from 15, the Handgun from 21, the Musical Note from 45. Some missions pay twice (Flower and Skull Front both want Mission 6; Archangel and Arm both want Mission 25) and Mission 43 pays three ways, Diamond and Garland for finishing it and Chick for S-ranking it. Four are given for completing a mission or side op, two for 150,000 Heroism, and eight are picked up at Mother Base itself: the Cardboard Box on the Command Platform, the Gas Mask on the Quarantine Platform, the Sheep Fulton on the Animal Conservation Platform, the Parachute in Quiet’s cell once Side Op 111 is available, and the Assault Rifle, Soldier Fulton, Fighter Jet and Battleship on the Command Platform once its second deck (the first two) or fourth deck (the last two) is finished.

Mother Base: What Missions, Recruits and Decks Each Open

The Mother Base guide starts from the Command Platform, which is all you have early, and says expansion in each direction costs money and time. Two things feed it. Soldiers arrive by Fulton, and the page's advice is to check a soldier's stats with your gadgets before spending a balloon, since balloons per mission are limited; the support team can also go looking for volunteers. Materials arrive through the Base Development unit, and each platform can be upgraded four times, each deck costing its own materials and GMP and raising the staff that platform holds.

Six departments are described: the Medical Facility, Information Retrieval (plans, blueprints and intel for the areas you operate in), Base Development, the Support Unit (Fulton, airstrikes, translation, distractions and fire support), the Combat Unit and Research and Development, where more staff means faster development. The functions those teams perform are listed separately and unlock through missions: two for the Combat Unit, seven for R&D (one development line each for weapons, the helicopter, D-Horse, D-Dog, Quiet, D-Walker and security devices), six for Base Development, twelve for Support, five for Intel, two for Medical and two for Security. The Support Unit's twelve include Comms Support in four languages, Russian, Pashto, Afrikaans and Kikongo, and those are exactly the four interpreters the first four side ops in our side ops walkthrough have you extract.

Specialists are recruits with a named skill, and the page splits them into 11 action skills, which work when that soldier is deployed instead of Snake (Athlete for 20 percent more movement speed, Tough Guy for 20 percent more HP, Fortunate for half the injury chance), and 40 base skills, which work when the soldier sits on the right team. Twenty of the 40 base skills are a development gate: a Masters Gunsmith allows weapon customization, a Parasitologist the Parasite Suit, a Mechatronics Specialist the Stealth Camo, a Zoologist the Bait Bottle, a Cybernetics Specialist the medical prosthetic arm. Eight Gunsmith skills each cut development GMP by 3 percent for one weapon class, and four Interpreter skills match the four Comms Support functions. Three recruits are liabilities rather than assets: Trap Specialist, Troublemaker Unsanitary and Troublemaker Violence each have a chance to hurt, sicken or traumatise their own teammates.

The page's development order, for anyone who wants one, begins with the Fulton Recovery Device and the WU S. Pistol and ends with support helicopters, with a sniper rifle, decoys, a primary weapon, a rocket launcher and sleeping grenades and gas mines in between; weapons climb from Level 1 to Level 6. Weapon customization itself is done at the Aerial Command Center and only after Side Op 109. Forward Operating Bases are the online layer: other players can infiltrate yours and you theirs, a defender who dies comes back as another security member while an attacker gets one life and loses everything stolen, and the page is explicit that Mother Base itself cannot be attacked.

Reading Order

Read the Mother Base guide first, because its team functions and specialists decide what you can develop and the emblems page assumes you already have decks to build. Then the codenames and emblems page, ideally before your next three missions rather than after, since that is the window the codenames judge. The tapes and invoices that fund a fast travel run are on the tapes and invoices guide, and the Phantom Pain guide lays out where each of these pages sits in a mission loop.

Unlock Questions

How are codenames decided?

By the method you used on most of the enemies you neutralized, judged over your previous three missions rather than the one that just ended. Six codenames use a feat instead, such as never being detected or wearing the chicken hat.

What is the difference between Mother Base and an FOB?

Mother Base cannot be attacked by other players. A Forward Operating Base is its online extension, built once you have the resources, and it can be infiltrated and defended, with the defender respawning and the attacker getting a single life.

What should I develop first?

The Mother Base guide's list starts with the Fulton Recovery Device and the WU S. Pistol, and it says to check the iDroid for a development's requirements before committing, since some of them are a specialist skill you may not have yet.