Enemy On Board

Enemy On Board

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The basics for enemy on board
By Nevy (They/them)
A fan made text guide for the game Enemy On Board explaining the most basic features implemented in the game.
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The introduction
The lack of any practical tutorial in the game as well as overall confusion and reluctance to try out the game because of how difficult the basics are to learn for the new players inspired me to make a guide for this game. With my infamous 700 hours in the game I consider myself as a person with rather reliabe knowledge about the game.
Enemy on board is a multiplayer deception game heavily relying on a combat mechanic. The whole game is put in a bird's-eye view perspective, in order to move you have to use your wasd keys. The game takes place on an illegal space ship which has been invaded by 2 (by default) mysterious alien creatures with shapeshifting abilities who are able to disguise themself as an seventh and eighth crew member. With six crew and two unknown aliens it may seem as if the crew members' existence is doomed. Not so fast however! Our fellow crew members are not harmless and the aliens can be killed. The humans goal is to reveal the identity of two aliens and kill them before they transform into their true forms and become unstoppable. The aliens goal is to kill the crew members either after they achieve their true form or silently assasinate them when they're in their weaker disguise.

https://steamproxy.net/steamstore/app/999860/Enemy_On_Board/
The basics
In the following section I will explain the most important features of the game, in order for a new player to be able to progress through the game. The game uses the lobby system. If you want to play the game you can join a public lobby through the game itself or create a private match for your friends. Personally I strongly advise you to gather up some of your friends and create a party for the greatest experience.

Selecting your character
Upon selecting the game, you will meet the people you will play the current round with. This is the place where you can say hello (left shift to use the voice chat), select your weapons or customize your perks, which will be explained later. By default you only have few characters unlocked. Each character has their own special ability and 2 exclusive perks marked with a triangle. I recommend you to watch other players play with locked characters and save up enough credits for the character you think is your favourite. If you decide that you like the medic, the spy or the captain instead, you can immediately start leveling them up.


Scavenger items
After the character selection screen, you will start in a random spot on the map. Here you have a 75% chance to start as crew (by default) and 25% chance to start as alien and pick one of the 3 alien classes. The first thing you might want to do is to pick one of the scavenger items to fill up your second inventory slot. Some items should be used immediately after picking them up, like a camera (many new players question what a camera does, it allows you to see through the walls and in dark places, works best if you put it in some dark and/or tight area where you can look at people without them seeing you) while the other should be saved to use for later. Here it's worth to point out a very important rule of the game to never use an alien vaccine early in the game. It removes the alien transformation points they had. However, even if you use it on alien, early in the game aliens have no evolution points, thus nothing will be taken away from them. Best case scenario is that you will get ignored, however most of the time the crew will point out the fact that you wasted it and all agree to kill you.
An example of using the bandages found on the ground to regenerate your health.

Fixing the broken generators
Through the game random generators on the ship will regularly keep stopping working resulting in a total of 4 generator outages in a game. The crew's task is to fix them while aliens may use this time to gain evolution points and/or use this time to pretend to be the crew mates and help them fixing the generators. In order to fix the generator you need to grab one of the packs scattered around the whole room in the center, often referred to as the middle or the repair room.

After you grab the pack, head to one of the broken generators. You want to use the minimap in the corner of the screen to quickly navigate around the map. Step on one of the red highlighted pads of the generator and wait for another crewmate to come and help you with fixing it. If you had the backpack, the pad you are standing on should highlight itself with a green color and the generator should be fixed after 2 crew mates are standing on both the pads. Repairing the generator will reward you by charging all weapons in your inventory.


The armory phase
After 2 successful turns of generator repairs the armory will open. If any aliens have been caught during the generator breakage, this is where the crew will grab weapons from and hunt them. In armory you will find a few bandages and shield batteries, a lot of knifes, wrenches and axes and 2 heavy weapons. Heavy weapons are the special kind of weapons. Similiar to your starter weapon, they require to be charged however they deal massive damage when used, leaving the victim with a sliver of health. An already damaged crew member will be instantly killed allowing you to perform "silent" kills. Be careful with doing these because heavy weapons produce rather loud sound on use, if the crew members figure out that you were carrying a heavy weapon with you they will quickly realise that you are the murderer.

As a new player you may be a little confused about what diffrent weapons do. In that case you should head to the main menu and visit the ship log. This is the place where all the characters, alien classes and weapons are explained as well as the history of your previous matches is stored.

Activating the cyborg core & escaping the space ship
After the last generator the final phase will begin. This is where the aliens pernamently transform into their true forms and will chase down the players. The crew tasks is to run away from the aliens, with all what they have got and head into the cyborg cores located on the left and the right side from the repair room. After reaching your destination you will be transformed into the cyborg - created to destroy the aliens, equipped with a powerful melee sword and a gun with infinite ammo, slowing the enemies on hit. Your damaged health will be partially healed and you will be able to receive around twice as much hits from aliens as you were before. The cyborg phase is supposed to be a reward for crew members for completing all the generators before being kiled, however don't go ahead of yourself. A one versus one fight against an alien is a tough and balanced fight where wins the person with the most experience. If your partner dies, trying to reach the cyborg core, you're going to have to fight the alien alone and if there is still two aliens left, you're most likely going to get overwhelmed in the fight.

If the fight is not over in time, the space ship will enter the self destruction mode. Everyone alive will need to run towards the ship exit located at the bottom left of the map through one of the two available exits. If you fail to run away from the ship in time, you and everyone else left outside will die the doors to the exit will close.

Sudden death
If there is only one crew member left on the ship, the sudden death phase will begin. As soon as the generators break, the screen will go dark and the remaining aliens will pernamently transform into their true forms but this time, cyborg cores will not be activated. This is a practical game over since one crew member is practically unable to kill a transformed alien, not to mention two. Because of that the alien will either instantly attack you or toy with you before he kills you, knowing that he has already won. If you're lucky enough you may be able to kill the alien using your starter weapon, heavy weapon and the axes from the armory. This is a very difficult action to perform but at this point it is your last hope as well.
Perks
Perks are a very special feature in the game, granting you various passive abilities in the game and able to have a massive impact on your character performance. In the progression tab in the main menu you can select what character would you like to to level up. Each character has 3 slots where you can unlock your perks. Leveling up your character costs credits which you earn after completing a round and the price increases as you level up. Upon reveling up you will be presented two level 1 perks which you can choose. If the choice is too hard for you, you can just press escape and exit this screen. The next time you try to level up you will be charged no credits and be presented two the same perks. At level 6 and 11, you will be presented 2 perks exclusive only to your character which are often related to your character's active ability. By managing your perks in the progression tab, any changes you have made will be saved as a default and will be easily accessible when you start the round, so you won't have any problems by having to re-select your perks at the beginning of the game.

Ascending your character
After reaching the maximum (20) levels on your character, your character is not finished yet. Here you are presented with an option to ascend your character. Ascending your character is free. It levels up your active ability by one (up to three maximum) and ereases all the perks you had. However after leveling up your character, you will notice that the chance of getting higher leveled perks is increased and the character exclusive perks will be guaranteed to be leveled up by the number of ascension + 1 to the maximum of level 3. Each time you ascend the perks will keep getting more and more expensive.

Alien classes, tips how to detect them and how to use them efficiently.
Currently in the game there are 3 alien classes with their own and unique ways of fighting, gathering evolution points and in game lore descriptions.

Infestor





Infestor is commonly known for being a powerful early game alien. He's the fastest out of all three aliens. Aggressive infestor is able to transform before first generator outage even starts, but keep in mind that by doing that you will be revealed rather immediately.
Gathering evolution points: Infestor gains his evolution points by standing in the middle of a crowded place and activating his alien ability. A purple haze will be visible around all affected victims to you and your alien teammate only. After 7 seconds pass, the victims will play a ticking sound and the purple haze jojo reference will be visible to everyone.
Pinging more people awards more evolution points.
How to spot an infestor: Observe people who are carelessly standing at the very middle of the repair room and in front of armory doors since this is where the most ticks will happen. For example if you and the other person on the other side of the room will be affected while there was a person between you, you can be sure that it's the person who was between both of you. If you are playing widh headphones, you can even use the sound of ticking for your advantage. If you didn't ping, but you heard someone behind a wall do, ask them if they pinged. If they say they did not, you can accuse them of lying. This strategy won't work while you were affected by the infestor due to the sound of you pinging will overlap the sound of the people near you ticking.
Special ability: Ground slam strongly damages everyone around you and slows them down.
How to play infestor: Avoid performing obvious infests. Standing and not moving in the middle will immediately cause every crew member to suspect you or even call you out. Running away from the repair room a few seconds before the ping happens will attract the crew members attention on you especially if not many people were affected. Try to find situations where you can sneak up to a group where people are very tightly gathered around themself to not attract as much attention on yourself. You can use cameras to your advantage, you can solo ping people through the wall to make them have no idea who just infested them.
Best character to use as infestor: Silas - you can use your invisibility to sneak through a group of people and ping them all without anyone even noticing. Keep in mind that people can still see you pinging even if you're invisible.

Spider





Kakyoin, did you lay this egg?
Spider is an alien who stays away from the group, spends his time laying egg traps which award him evolution points upon being stepped on.
Gathering evolution points: Activating your alien ability will make you unable to move for 1 second, perform a crouching animation and play a very silent squishy sound effect. Upon being stepped on, the egg will become visible to everyone for a short time before dissapering and you will be awarded around 25 evolution points.
How to spot a spider: Keep an eye for people who are not coming to the repair room after generators break. Remember who's coming from which direction, if someone is coming back very lately, go back to the location they were to check the area for eggs. Go in that direction to check if there are no eggs. A smart tactic is to place 2 cameras in two opposite corners of the repair room and hide in the smoke area under the room instead of doing the generators. Some spiders choose to lay eggs at middle while everyone go out to fix the generators to get easy evolution points. You can ruin their plans by camping that room while remaining hidden. You can also burn spider eggs (which can be spotted by using the camera) with a molotov cocktail.
How to play spider: Usually you want to lay eggs in places that are often used by the crew such as middle, generator pads, paths to the generators or inside doors. Laying egg in an obvious place at the beginning may be a very risky tactic because crew will most likely point out your absence. Instead try laying the egg in one of the upper armory doors, some rarely used paths or at the middle after everyone went out. Beware of the Triss character. Her radar is able to track every player's location on the minimap for a short amount of time. If you lay an egg and hear the triss using her ability (it's rather loud, can easily be heard from the other side of the map) rush to the place where you laid the egg and step on it yourself without calling it out.
Special ability: Spitting a spider web which creates an aura which slows down everyone inside it except the aliens. On direct hit it stuns and deals medium damage to the victim.
Best character to use as spider: Triss - you can use your radar ability to make sure if no one is nearby to lay the eggs in peace.
Monkus - With a right combination of speed perks, preferably epinephrine 3, you're able to quickly run away from the egg you just laid.
Silas - By activating your invisibiltiy you're able to lay an egg before or after laying an egg to make sure that no one sees you around.

Leech





Leech is the strongest out of all the aliens, extremely effective and fearsome in the late game. It has more HP than the two other aliens, but gains evolution points by a risky and difficult way. He leeches off unsuspecting crew members and uses his insane strenght to charge right into them, dealing massive damage.
Gathering evolution points: By using your alien ability you will start leeching off the nearest person and progressively gaining evolution points for around 3 seconds. A pink line will appear between both of you and will be visible for as long as you're leeching in front of everyone except the person who is getting leeched.
How to spot a leech: Keep an eye for people who are walking in pairs. You can use the triss ability to track people on radar who are too close to each other and walk up to them. Similiar to the spider spotting strategy, you can start camping the repair room and check if anyone leeches off someone else when they think they are alone. Stay cautious about being left alone with someone else. Try to break the distance where the leech line could have happened. If they follow you while you're trying to cut the distance, call them out for following you and vaccinate them. (In some cases it's even fair to kill them for that)
How to play a leech: Playing as a leech is an extremely risky tactic because you never know if someone else will interrupt you trying to leech somebody. Leeching people while doing generators is the most efficient but there is a risk that someone will walk into you while you're leeching the other crew member. The best tactic is to gain trust of the crew member, let him know that you won't hurt him and find a reason to call him out as 100% innocent to make him trust you as much as possible. By doing this you will not only find a leech victim, but you will also find a crew mate who's going to be ready to help you at all cost until you betray him in the end.
Special ability: Brutally charges into a crew member, dealing massive damage and stuns on impact. While mid charging you move at twice as fast speed, have decreased movement and you don't stop until you hit something. If you hit a wall you get stunned but take no damage.
Best character to use as leech: Triss - using the radar when you're about to leech someone will take away all the risk of being spotted. Silas is not a good choice because people can still see a leech line even if you're invisible.
Iridium
Iridium is a premium currency available to get only through in game purchases. It allows you to buy special skins for your character with unique and standing out appearance. Some skins affect even the apearance of your backpack grabbed from the repair room. Currently the only way to earn iridium is through the in game purchase. The developers have stated however that in the future there will be a way to gain iridium for free.
Tips & strategies
Just like in every game, implementing your strategies into the game could grant you some kind of advantage over the others. Personally with my around average combat skills in the game, I achieve my goals by combining my knowledge about the game, analysing other people's behaviour and a good selection of perks,

To find out find out the alien, think what the aliens would do
Analysing other people's movement and actions has arguably the strongest impact on my performance in every game. Putting yourself in someone's position and finding a reason to their actions will help you prove others innocent and call out aliens without any direct proof. I'll write down some examples to better explain my point:
Is there any chance that he would be alien if:
  • Called out and proven an alien?
  • Stashed important items in the left exit such as bandages or heavy weapons so cyborgs could use them?
  • Went to the place where you were before with intentions to check if you didn't lay any spider eggs?
Consider using a vaccine at some point of the game if you see someone:
  • Trusts you a ltitle too much, is confident to follow you without keeping the distance at which he could leech you.
  • Doesn't do anything to stop the aliens gaining evolution points (stands in the center of the room when there is confirmed infestor, keeps wandering off when there is confirmed spider)
  • Tries to unnecessarily waste an useful item, using bandages when there's a medic right next to him, use up the charges of a med kit when someone dropped it on a wall.
Naturaly, the lack of any solid evidence will always put you in a risk of killing your teammate instead of an alien, but the risk is the fun part, isn't it?

8 Comments
Lunar 25 Sep, 2021 @ 11:12am 
wack just rdmh
Nevy (They/them)  [author] 15 Jan, 2021 @ 1:36pm 
Updated the introduction (again) since the game got updated. Welcome back public lobbies :btd6stunned:
Moonionist 12 Jan, 2021 @ 8:12am 
pogchamp guide
WHOLF 17 Dec, 2020 @ 1:40pm 
This is really on point Machie. Enemy on Board is kind of hard to get the hang of, but this helps a lot. Anyone reading this should install.
Ano1010 17 Dec, 2020 @ 12:35pm 
hello this is not so PVT Ano1010 i got forced to like or my bobux will get taken please note to like or you lose bobux
360GoatScope  [developer] 17 Dec, 2020 @ 9:44am 
This is dope. Very informative
Soy 17 Dec, 2020 @ 7:19am 
Damn this is good
cloudfox 17 Dec, 2020 @ 7:16am 
Nerd