Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops Walkthrough

Recruiting Allies

You can't complete this game without allies. Every mission contains enemy soldiers. To put it simply, you can't capture dead soldiers. Here is how to capture an enemy soldier. First you must knock them out, then drag them back to the truck (or nearest cardboard box later in the game) before they wakes up. After you complete or abort the mission, they will appear in prison on the Squad Management screen. When a soldier is in prison you can only look at their skills, remove their equipment, change their name, and dispose of them. After a few days they will join your unit, the turn will occur faster if you have someone from the Politician career in your squad.

Special conditions

• If you rescue a captured soldier, they will join your unit immediately.
• You can recruit Unique Characters, but there are special conditions to fulfill

The following characters will join your unit immediately after you capture/rescue them:

• Jonathan
• Para-Medic
• Python
• Raikov
• Sigint
• Sokolov
• Eva
• Venus
• Teliko
• Gene (in EU version)
• any soldier you rescue during a mission
• any soldier via AP Scan
• any soldier via password (Using passwords to recruit soldiers is not recommended except for the GAKO soldier [as he is password exclusive] and Zero [if you don't own the Metal Gear Solid Digital Graphic Novel]. Every other soldier is obtainable without a password)
• any soldier who joins you of their own free will via Cyber-Survival

Career

Every soldier have his/her own career.

Cyber-Survival

After you gain allies, you can use them in Cyber-Survival mode. All you need is access to a WLAN point. There are different rules than in the main game. After you read them, assign equipment to your unit and send them online. Check your unit's condition after 12 hours. If you lose, save the battle report and read it. You might be able to spot what went wrong and how to improve it. You may capture enemy soldiers. If you're lucky, some enemy soldiers will join you of their own free will and even give you a gift. But remember, if you lose, the enemy might capture your soldiers. So don't send your favourite soldiers into Cyber-Survival mode.

Effective recruiting strategy

There are a few good strategies to recruit powerful allies.

1. Using SVD: In-game SVD does 25 HP damage when the bullet hits the target's chest. The best way to identify soldiers that have over 100 HP is to shoot them four times with this weapon and if the soldier still lives they have over 100 HP..
2. Alert: This is an exploit for a bug in the game. Go to the Airport and trigger an alert. Then use CQC throw and hold that soldier up. After you hold up every soldier, put them to sleep and capture everyone except one FOX soldier who carries an M1911. Then wake this soldier up and trigger another alert. Do this as many times as you'd like.
3. Boss Rush: By playing Boss Rush again, you can recruit new soldiers. They have at least 2 S skills, so it is an easy way to find strong soldiers.

Sneaking Unit

Each sneaking unit can have up to four members. There are three main features to look for when selecting members for your team; type, skills, and sense (SNS).

Guards will ignore soldiers that are of the same type as themselves. Later stages of the game will have mixed types patrolling the area so you should have suitable soldiers in your unit. If you do something out of character for a patrolling soldier (running around with you gun in position, roll, sneak, hanging etc.) you will lose your cover.

Sense shows how far a soldier can detect the area around him. By pressing the start button a map of the area will be displayed. The circle around the soldier represents the area they can sense. Guards show up as red dots with a smaller dot inside to show which direction they are facing. Soldiers can detect even while within a box so it is helpful to hide your extra soldiers on patrol routes.

Skills

Radar

In top right corner there is a radar. The outer ring displays noises you hear and the inner ring displays noises you make. If there are no other colours, that means there are no enemies nearby. A blue area means that an enemy is near. A red area means an enemy is very close and they will hear your footsteps.

Following the walkthrough

The radar in the right corner also functions as a compass. The center shows the direction you are facing and on the outer edge is a red "N" marking North.

in the walkthroughs the first letter for each compass direction is used to show which direction you should go. If no changes are given it is assumed you continue in the previous direction you were previously travelling. For example, if the instruction is "go N then W up ramp" you would continue North afterwards. Occasionally objects will have a direction in brackets after it e.g. "(W)" this describes where the object is in relation to you. This can help show what direction a guard may be patrolling from, care should then be taken to ensure you are not seen as you go past.

Portable Ops Plus

Portable Ops Plus is different from Portable Ops. Stages appears at random and you can't procure any items (except unique weapons such as Bowie Knife and Machete). So each mission is different from the previous playthrough. However, you can effect stages items with Arms Dealers. The more Arms Dealers you have, the more likely there are weapons in the stage.

Portable Ops Plus codename ranking

In Portable Ops Plus, you receive EXP after each mission and a soldier who completes the final mission will get a Codename bonus. There are at least 12 different codenames