Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain

• Enemies don't shoot down balloons unless they see it and have time to react. If they catch the tail end they'll radio in an alert but unless someone is 10m away and looking right at you they probably won't shoot the balloon. You can totally fulton the world and everything is reset when you replay a mission.

• Night vision is really only functional useful at night. Eventually they can be upgraded to Ground Zeroes style where they're basically permanent Predator-vision but at the start they're not a crutch you can rely on.

• Named areas on the map usually have an anti-air radar that looks like a trailer with a giant dish on top. They're not the same as the comm units which are platforms with a little radar on top. Destroying them lets your helicopter land closer which is useful during side ops.

• Changing to a higher level helicopter is done from the "Customize" menu in the ACC or Mother Base.

• Pressing triangle/Y while prone plays dead but it somehow reduces your profile to nothing. At night, enemies will practically step over you.

• Holding L1/LB brings up the commands screen where you can "knock" anywhere. It doesn't require you to be pressed up against a wall so split up guards with magazines and knock to draw them out one by one.

• Flare grenade supply is the best item. You can instantly get your current loadout to top off on suppressors, ammo, and fultons without having to fumble through the menu to call in a supply drop.

• You can also quickly call a supply drop (and do other things) by pushing up or down on the D-Pad on the map screen.

• 2 of the 4 buddies are unlocked automatically through story progression. One is unlocked by making a certain choice during a story mission involving them, and the last must be found and Fultoned at specific points around the map (keep an eye out for small animals around the LZ north of Spugmay Keep).

• If you're strapped for cash then sell off weapon emplacements and unnecessary plants. They're worth quite a bit.

• If a mission tells you to assassinate someone, no matter how explicitly, don't. They generally have obscenely good stats in at least one field, so Fulton them instead.

• Once you press up against cover, you can let go of the control stick and don't have to keep pressing against the wall

• Upgrade the Cargo Fulton to max before doing anything that involves eliminating vehicles, especially the side-jobs that aren't repeatable. You can steal them instead for yourself, or for profit. Yes, even a Tank.

• Anytime you get a sidequest or even a story mission that says "Eliminate X", tranq and Fulton them instead. They generally have insanely good stats (At least one A+/A++). Their surrounding guard squad usually each have at least a B in something as well.

• D-Dog is your best Buddy. He'll point out every enemy in visual range, and once you give him a Sneaking Suit of his own DD can make silent assassinations with a knife. DD is a Good Dog .

• You may notice that your guns make mention of accessory slots but can't do anything with them, along with mention of specific stocks/scopes/etc. You can fully customize your weapons by completing the Legendary Gunsmith sidequests.

• The Base Development team automatically mines resources as well as refining them, the frequency depends on the team's level.

• Learn how to use the tranquilizer's delayed effect if you want to take out guys in a group without them all shitting themselves because one dude fell asleep in front of them. A round of chest shots to all involved will quietly send them all to slumberland near-simultaneously with a bit of patience.

• Vehicles cost nothing to deploy, so don't fret about having to bring out D-Horse just to travel around. Fulton yourself a Jeep and you're set.

• Once you get to the point that you can make multiples of struts at Motherbase upgrading the Command Platform gives +5 capacity to each team, so it might be worth prioritizing.

• Guards are fairly adaptable to your bullshit although they only do so between deployments (i.e. when you return to the ACC). So those tactics that they use which are indicated on the map screen are a result of your actions. Use headshots a lot and they'll get helmets, attack at night a lot and they'll get flashlights and NVGs, and other things like bullet proof vests, riot suits, shotguns, machine guns, security cameras, etc. They'll also start investigating things in pairs if you like to split them up.

• So you can either try changing up your tactics OR once you get a Combat division you can eventually send them on Combat Deployments to destroy the enemy's supplies (helmets, vests, guns, etc). The supply ones are always at the bottom of the list.

• You don't need to use non-lethal weapons to capture Quiet, the point at which you make the decision to recruit her or not is extremely obvious.

• To that end there's an option to re-auto-assign everyone in Motherbase, so if you move a bunch of people around to departments that aren't their specialty to up the levels for development projects, it's easily undone. Although you'll still have to move the direct contract people you've locked down, or at the very least Miller and Ocelot who are direct contracts by default I think.

• Once you get the Fulton device, pull everyone out that you can (yes, even the E-rank trash soldiers) until you fill up every slot in every team. That way, instead of the game putting your new A-rank R&D guy in your combat unit because there's no room on the R&D team, it'll automatically put them in the right place and knock the lowest skilled guy on that team into the waiting room.

• You can't complete all the objectives on some missions on your first attempt. Some require tools you won't acquire until much, much, later on like the Cargo Fulton.

• Try out all your tools in various ways, for example smoke grenades can be used for concealment, but also to help take out a group of unsuspecting enemies while they're distracted or incapacitated by one.

• It's worth interrogating guards whenever possible, since often they'll permanently mark things like resource locations and hidden diamonds on your map. The "Capture a Russian interpreter" side op is worth doing early to understand the Soviet soldiers.

• Knocking people out before fultoning them stops them from shouting for help, attracting less attention.

• In freeroam you can return to the chopper instantly from the pause menu without having to call one in. Make sure to get to a checkpoint first though.

• Riding an enemy vehicle out of the hot zone after finishing a mission counts as capturing that vehicle even before you can start fultoning them.

• Long-range headshots with the tranquilizer gun (i.e. ones fired outside its "red aiming reticle" range) are both an effective way to take out helmetless guards safely, and on missions also worth an easy +2000 points from the score bonuses of a headshot and a Tactical Takedown.

• The game is very lenient about what counts as a "kill" for scoring purposes. Lethal things that do not count as kills include amongst other things deaths by barrels or vehicles exploding, watchtower collapses, friendly fire, getting drowned, or falling/getting tossed off a lethal height. Destroying "closed" vehicles like gunships or APCs also don't count as kills.

• Watching the distances from which guards react to various things makes it easier to avoid surprises and plan stealthy approaches. For example the sound of an unconscious guard getting fultoned will usually get investigated from 30 meters away even if no one can see it, useful for luring out more balloon victims.

• One of the prisoners in the main mission 10 ("Angel with Broken Wings") is always a Transportation Specialist which is the skill that unlocks fultoning heavy equipment and vehicles, making the mission and his rescue worth prioritizing before the rest.

• Enemies have less time to react to grenades if you throw them in a longer arc.

• Destroying certain base infrastructure like communications equipment or power systems in a base will have them remain disabled for a time even if you initiate a new mission there afterwards. This does not apply to base equipment tied to mission objectives, and only anti-air radars will remain destroyed indefinitely.

• It's worth visiting Mother Base occasionally for various events and such, especially as you build up new facilities. Some items including rough diamonds can also be found there, and interrogating the staff there can give you their locations as well as various tips.