The guide has been updated to the second edition.


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To all new players: make sure that you complete the "Welcome to Project IM" mission and read the guide found behind this link. This guide specifically details tactical strategy, not gameplay elements.

Interstellar Marines puts a heavy focus on team-based multiplayer gameplay. Co-Op missions pit a fireteam of 4 players against hoards of bots in an attempt to either clear the map or complete objectives. The game's heavy focus on realism can make this a daunting task, but there are certain strategies that can greatly improve your likelihood of completing the mission, and living to tell the tale. In this guide I will highlight some strategies that I have both discovered and learned from my fellow players, and while I will not give a walkthough of each (or any) of the maps (as that would ruin the fun, now wouldn't it?), by the end of this guide I hope you will have a better understanding of the most effective ways to lead a squad, and accomplish the mission.

This guide will be updated alongside the game and will be improved as new strategies are devised.

If you would like some practical training and advice contact one of us here.



The guide is up-to-date as of update 17.

While Interstellar Marines does not explicitly appoint a squad leader upon the beginning of a game, among the players there tends to be an individual who the others follow, and becomes the defacto fireteam leader.


These players tend to be more experienced with FPS's and Co-Op strategy games, as well as more familiar with Interstellar Marines specifically. Without one, strategy (if there is any) begins to fall apart, and as individual players spread around the map, making reviving impossible, the fireteam will be picked off one by one until the entire team is out of the game.


A squad leader's responsibilities include motivating the other players, issuing orders, and planning strategies. In order to be effective, the commander must be competent, decisive, and calm. He or she must be able to consider the position and state of all players, and ensure that every one of them gets action consistently. Excluding or not utilizing a player can disgruntle them, resulting in a drop in moral and often the refusal to follow instructions by that player and, occasionally, other members of the team as well.

Communication is likely the most important factor in a fireteam's success. Without it, the squad leader will be unable to coordinate the team. It is advisable to use voice chat, as text is awkward and takes longer, pulling the player out of the action and left helpless until they finish typing their message. This both hinders the team, as they have one less gunner, and one less person to revive others, and leaves the messaging player open to attack. They become the proverbial 'sitting duck'.


Voice communication is far faster than text, and often more precise as it does not suffer from spelling errors. For those reading the messages, when using text, they must look to the top of the screen, which can distract them from being effective and active as members of the fireteam.


Voice also allows for status updates. It is advisable to call “Reloading!,” “Eyes On!” or “Enemy Down!” during a firefight, as this indicates when teammates should cover each other, the location of enemies, and when the threat has been neutralized respectively. Voice allows the commander to issue real-time commands, instead of stopping to type a message or setting up the players and assuming that nothing changes, or that if some factor does change, the players will be able to deal with it without coordination from a leader.

Always be sure to tell your team when you go down, they may not notice it in the middle of a firefight.

Update 17 brought us a brand new feature: sprint. In keeping with the game's central premise, sprint has a great amount of tactical emphasis put on it in the form of stamina.

Update 17 also brought along a new accuracy system, which works in tandem with sprint, or, more precicely, stamina. As the player sprints or jumps they loose stamina, which, in turn, deteriorates accuracy, just as it would in real life (why dont you try sprinting with an SMG or assualt rifle and aiming down those sights, those things are heavy to begin with, before factoring in fatigue from running). As a result it is important to conserve your stamina. Sprint is very good for covering open spaces with little cover, but using it for long periods will leave you out of breath and unable to aim effectively. The aiming update has also changed recoil behavior, increasing it significantly, as well as crosshair drift when aiming down sights. The assault rifle reticule was also changed.


Note that jumping takes far more stamina than sprinting, so if you can't jump over an obstacle, try to go around to avoid loosing too much stamina. I advise that you experiment a bit with sprint and stamina to get a feel for its mechanics.


In conclusion: Sprinting: "You'll go pretty fast, but ya ain't gonna hit ♥♥♥♥ when ya get there."

One of the most critical elements in Interstellar Marines tactics is the concept of stealth. Enemies will detect flashlights, lasers, and gunfire, and are most sensitive on realistic mode, where a sniper may shoot you from accross the map after seeing your laser. I, personally, have seen many situations where a player firing without a silencer draws aggro from multiple enemies around the map, resulting in the now aggroed bots converging on the player from all directions, and in turn risking the rest of the fireteam as they too are detected, or while trying to revive the player who the bots first aggroed to.


Basically: silencers are your friend. ALWAYS use them in COOP, there is no reason not to unless you are drawing bots into a defended position to clear an area up ahead, in which case, only fire a few shots. Putting out lights will also help you. Make sure, however, that you don't shoot out too many, or the map will become too dark to navigate without flashlights, which the bots detect far easier than a player with a light shining on them.

One of the most important aspects of Interstellar Marines gameplay is the concept of reviving a downed player. For the purpose of this guide, I will use the terms “down” or “downed” and “dead” or “killed” to mean when a player is incapacitated but can be revived (down), and when a player can no longer be revived, and enters spectator mode until the end of the match (killed/dead).


When a player takes a certain amount of damage (presumably when their health reaches zero or lower) they loose control of the character, which becomes a ragdoll physics object and a "Hold <INTERACT KEY> to revive" message appears on the other player's HUDs (<INTERACT KEY> is replaced with whatever you have it set to in you settings, default E). The downed player's screen fades to black and the HUD is completely disabled. However, voice and text chat remain functional. If one of the other players is able to reach the downed player and press interact (default E) while targeting them, a white circle will begin to draw on the screen. The circle serves as a timer indicating how long untill the downed player will be revived. The amount of time required to revive a player increases along with the difficulty level (where Easy is the shortest and Realistic is the longest). After the circle is fully drawn, the downed player will regain control of the character with full health (as far as I can tell), and fully functional HUD. As of update 17, when a player is revived weapons are un-silenced and flashlights and lasers are turned off, regardless of their state before the player is incapacitated. If, however, the other members of the fireteam are unable to revive the downed player within 15 seconds, the player will no longer be able to be revived, and moves to spectator mode. Text and voice chat still work while the dead player is spectating. There are a few bugs associated with reviving, including the player being moved to spectator and the screen returning to black after being revived. Update 17 has reduced the frequency of these bugs drastically, but they have not been eliminated (hint, hint, wink, wink, ZPS) despite the fact that the developers reported in the changelog that these glitches had been fixed.


Downed players are inevitable. Being downed does not make you any less an FPS or Interstellar Marines player. In fact, it is an important part of the game's gameplay. So, the question is, how will you deal with it?


Firstly, the frequency in which players are down can be reduced by using stealth techniques, strategies described in this guide, and by exercising general caution. The most important factor in dealing with downed players is sticking together. On realistic difficulty, a single bot can take out two players before they can react, and if these two are on the other side of the map, the other pair will not be able to revive them in time. The entire fireteam should stick together at all times. Secondly is the 7 second rule. This rule requires that a player must be no more than 7 seconds away from the rest of the team. This allows double the time required to cover the distance to a downed player with an extra second to spare before the player bleeds to death.


Reviving a player puts the entire fireteam at risk. The reviver must leave cover and often cross open ground to reach the downed player. The reviver's battle effectiveness is reducedt to zero while reviving, as firing a weapon or looking away from the downed player resets the revive process. putting the rest of the fireteam at risk as they try to accommodate this loss of effectiveness, making revival management a critical aspect to be considered when leading a fireteam.



Reviving a player halts the 15 second timer untill the downed player bleeds to death, but does not reset it. If a revive is stopped midway, the timer will resume where it left off before the revive process was started.




One of the main advantages of the 7 second rule is that it gives the rest of the fireteam time to secure the area and make it safe enough to revive the downed player. The enemy that downed the player should be taken out ASAP, unless it leaves the area, at which point the team should excersize extreme caution as it is likely the AI will attempt to flank or ambush the fireteam. The offending enemy should not be persued as it breaks up the fireteam and reduces defences around the reviver, and leaves the separated marines highly vulnerable and isolated.



Secondly, the remainder of the fireteam (those not downed or reviving) should take up defensive positions around the occupied players to cover them from any new enemies or an enemy that may have been aggroed and left the area.

This is a basic door breaching strategy. The images in this section were created using Blender(R)[blender.org] or were captured in-game.


FIG 1

The 4 objects to the left of the wall (colored blue, red, white, and green) represent the players. The convex face of the shape indicates the orientation of the player. The White, Green, and Blue marines are crouched.

Green and White are oriented such that when the door opens their combined field of view is very wide. They are also out of direct line of fire to an enemy directly in front of the door. By crouching they allow Red to have a clear line of fire over them, reducing the risk of friendly-fire. Should Red go down (this player is the most likely to be incapacitated in this formation), Green (closest to the door control, or White if the door control is on the left side of the door) should close the door and begin the revive process.

After it is deemed that the area is secure enough to move through the door, White should proceed first, passing through the and crossing in front of red. Green follows, doing the same thing but crossing to the left side. At this point Green and White should be on the left and right sides of Red, respectivally. Next is Red, who should simply walk forward. Be sure that there is enough space on the other side for Blue to remain behind Red. After all players have passed through the door, Blue closes the door and the team proceeds. The team should end up in positions as shown in FIG 2.

FIG 2

Remember that players in front should crouch at all times to avoid friendly-fire.

This formation must be altered under different conditions, such as the shape of the environment, width of hallways, if the door leads to an open room or a hallway, or if there are less than 4 players present. These alterations are up to the player's discretion; If I tell you how to do everything then that ruins the fun, and besides, I cannot outline every situation in this guide, the game is simply too variable.


Always make sure that your team is ready before you open doors, activate switches, or enter potentially hostile areas.

The most important tool in any FPS is, by far, human eyes and ears (I mean your IRL ones, just to be clear). They are more reliable and detailed than any motion tracker or map, and far more responsive and sensitive.

I will start with the eyes.

In a FPS game it is important to be able to take in as much of the environment as possible. To this end, the player should not focus on a single object or area, as they will loose focus on the rest of the area of vision. Firstly, turn up your field of view as far as you can, or untill any further would become too disorienting. It may take a little getting used to, but it pays off in the long run, especially in a game like Interstellar Marines, where environmental assessment is critical (note: this feature is not currently implimented on Interstellar Marines, but it is still worth mentioning). The human eye is very good at noticing movement, better than shape or color. Be mindfull of your surroundings and you will have a much better time in all manor of FPS games.

Also be sure to keep your eyes out for things that just appear out of place, these can be indicators of enemy presence, such as an open door, or an ammo or health cache, in some games, even lead you to easter eggs and collectables. Hallways that lead off the main path and doors in odd places often lead to helpful items or collectables.This is also very useful in games like Minecraft, where noticing out of place objects on the edges of your vision often leads to important resources that would otherwise have been missed. Careful observation will often reveal muzzle flash, and helps determine the location of enemies, which I have used to great affect in many different games.

Secondly is hearing.

In Interstellar Marines hearing allows the player to estimate the number of enemies in the area, as well as to guess at there approximate locations. Additionally, an agroed enemy emits specific sounds. When a CTR detects an enemy, they emit a tone of increasing pitch over about 1 second. Careful listening will also help you determine when a bot is flanking or ambushing you.

You should also learn to identify weapons. The AR sounds more like a snare drum compared to the SMG. This can tell you what kind of enemy is shooting at you; a gunner, or a sniper. If its either, run.



Then take cover and shoot back.

I hope this guide has helped you, at least a little, to enjoy Interstellar Marines and games like it. I will add to this guide periodically with new information and to stay up to date with the latest version of the game as updates are released.

If you have a comment, question, or suggestion feel free to leave it in the comments section below. I will try to respond as soon as I can.

Remember: be nice, and have fun!