Mother Base (Seychelles)

"In addition to mercenaries and former government soldiers, [Mother Base] is also home to researchers and other civilian personnel. Together, they form a group without borders, ideologies or isms, with no regard to age, gender, nationality or race."

- Militaires Sans Frontières briefing



Mother Base was the base of operations for Diamond Dogs, a mercenary unit composed of surviving members of the Militaires Sans Frontières. Like the MSF before them, Diamond Dogs' Mother Base was an offshore plant comprised of several connected struts. It was located near the Seychelles off the eastern coast of Africa.

History
At some point during the 1980s, Diamond Dogs managed to situate themselves on an offshore plant modeled after their doomed prior base. Ocelot aided in the construction work for the plant, and returned after rescuing Big Boss, also showing him the base and supplied Big Boss with some Fulton surface-to-air recovery systems with the request that any soldiers or soldiers he found during his missions he can send back to expand Mother Base to build it up. During this time, only one strut, the Command Center, was remotely complete, which even then it was still under construction with white tarps. Ocelot later returned to the base again after sending him to rescue Kazuhira Miller from the Soviets in Afghanistan to retrieve a lead regarding XOF, also giving advice to Snake via radio. Eventually, their Mother Base grew large enough to install several forward operating bases and act as a major player in the world. At some point, at least one of Mother Base's forward operating bases ended up invaded by an outside party, presumably one of their competitors, requiring the base to undergo lockdown and for them to exact payback for their thefts.

Functionality and development
Similar to the Mother Base in the Carribean, the one at Seychelles contained at least seven sections, each relating to a specific function for Mother Base. There were at least eight platforms overall, six for each unit of Diamond Dogs, as well as at least two for special purposes. Overall, it included various posters and also featured portable showers. It also allowed for shooting-practice as well as other forms of training. It also allowed for various heliports, to ferry personnel between various portions of the base or to pick up/drop off departing/returning soldiers to/from various missions.

Command Platform
"Increases maximum capacity of all units."

- Command Platform description in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain Gamescom 2015 Mother Base/FOB demo

The center and proverbial brain of Mother Base and Diamond Dogs. Initially, it was the only element of Mother Base present during the 1980s, and was undergoing various development. It was marked with several towers with bridges as well as lifeboats. It had a maximum of four struts for the section, and required at most 240000 GMP, 10000 minor metals, and 20000 fuel resources to be developed to full capacity.

Combat Platform
The home base for the Combat Unit of Diamond Dogs, it comprised of various radio towers and communication arrays, cranes, and a variety of buildings.

R&D Platform
"Platform with facilities for the R&D team, which develop weapons, items, and other equipment. Higher grade equipment can be unlocked as you increase staff and unit level increases."

- R&D Platform description in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain Gamescom Mother Base/FOB demo

It was identified by a monolithic spoked building. There can be up to 4 lab struts in mother base each costing 40,000 GMP, 1,000 common metal, and 1,000 fuel. Each base takes 36 real time minutes to construct. The labs are where most scientists and researchers, including Huey Emmerich, can be found. One lab also includes a private research facility for Huey where he can develop various mechanized parts for large scale robots.

Base Development Platform
This strut contains various buildings and at least one crane. It is the home of the Base Development Unit, which is relegated to the procurement and processing of various materials to be useful for Diamond Dogs in various ways, including development of ammunition, support weapons, vehicles, and food. However, its most important function is further development of Mother Base itself. Kazuhira Miller headed the platform and the unit.

Support Platform
The home base for the Support Team, it was identified by a small building with a hangar inside, as well as two inter-connected struts, there can be up to 4 support base struts in Mother Base. As the staff increases, and their unit level goes up they can respond faster to help Big Boss. With support options like distracting the enemy by firing at them while Big Boss sneaks through another side of the level, or even shooting missles at a certain target. When leveled up enough they can change the weather into a dust storm giving Big Boss cover.

Intel Platform
The home platform for the Intel unit, some of the personnel with information or special skills were housed here. Ocelot headed the location, and the unit stationed there.

Medical Platform
Doctors and nurses were located here, as well as most recovering soldiers.

Animal Conservation Platform
The holding place for various animals captured in the field. It was one of the few Mother Base areas to not be directly connected to the main Mother Base. As such, it could only be accessed via chopper. The platform consisted of three prongs connected to a central strut.

Brig
The holding place for various soldiers who were rowdy and/or various captured soldiers who weren't initially willing to join Diamond Dogs.

Behind the scenes
The Mother Base mechanic returns in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Although similar to the base building mechanic from Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, it is far more extensive in The Phantom Pain. Specifically, the player can assign staff during a mission via the iDroid, actually visit Mother Base and interact with it, and make Mother Base in their own manner (in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Mother Base's final design was pre-decided). In the latter, it more closely resembles the Mother Base minigame from Ground Zeroes' companion app. In addition, the player can also customize their own Mother Base's colors, with orange, sky blue, and hot pink being color choices for Mother Base.

The player can assign staff during a mission via the iDroid as well as visit the base in person and manage the base with a greater depth than was offered in Peace Walker.

During the main story of The Phantom Pain, Mother Base can be attacked in retaliation to the player's actions during the missions, such as shooting up a hostile base instead of sneaking into it. The player can personality defend the base themselves or ignore it.

Hideo Kojima stated during interviews after the 2015 Taipei Game Show that Mother Base in The Phantom Pain will feature a zoo to house recovered animals. He also revealed that the Mother Base infiltration game mode is entirely optional and Mother Base can be enjoyed offline if the player wishes.

Like the previous Mother Base, this Mother Base shared similar design details to the Big Shell from Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. During a Live IGN demo for The Phantom Pain at GamesCom 2015, Sean Eyestone and the IGN interviewer even directly compared the base to Big Shell.

Journalists covering gameplay of The Phantom Pain have confirmed that, besides the Mother Base in the main game, the online version has a similar mechanic called the Forward Operating Base. A promotional pamphlet for The Phantom Pain implies that the Forward Operating Base is the only part of a player's Mother Base accessible during online mode. The Official PlayStation Magazine and Official Xbox Magazine confirmed that the Mother Base was near Africa, more specifically around the Seychelles archipelago. It also revealed that certain actions by the player can cause lowered morale among the troops, particularly if Quiet is among the members of the base or if the player is gone from the base for far too long. Both sources also implied that similar to Dark Souls, the invasions on Mother Base can be switched off by the players.

The site JunkerHQ implied on their Twitter account that Konami was working on a gameplay demo relating to Mother Base development. This was later confirmed by Konami on July 30, and also revealed to be shown on August 5.

Layout
The layout of the Diamond Dogs' Mother Base is determined and customized by the player, and as such there is no standard canonical appearance. However, the following components are true of all Mother Base builds shown thus far: It is unknown if the interior of Mother Base is accessible during multiplayer game modes. However, two interior locations have been confirmed so far: There has been no mention yet as to the new Mother Base's capacity to hold Metal Gears. However, Mother Base can hold weaponry with nuclear strike capability as the player can obtain nuclear weapons throughout the game. In addition, the E3 2015 trailer briefly featured a yet unspecified Metal Gear-model at the base, as well as what was presumably the Metal Gear ST-84.
 * Unlike the previous Mother Base, it was built from irregular-octagon shaped struts.
 * At least one (two simultaneous confirmed possible) Command Strut (of which two varieties are known), plus a variety of Regular Struts connected via bridges, some of which can stretch for great distances with bridge columns or smaller struts along them. Struts under construction are not always connected, however.
 * At least two colors of the paint scheme can be customized, as well as a custom emblem for multiplayer distinction, featuring an image and two words. (animal, adjective, same animal).
 * Cranes (which in the Ground Zeroes app were used to salvage resources from the seabed). Multiple cranes can be seen attached to a single strut.
 * Large storage tanks, silos and other buildings on top of Regular Struts. These assets appear to be mix-and-match in placement, with tanks and silos taking up 1/4 of a strut, and an unknown grey building taking up 1/2 of a strut.
 * Space for at least five helicopters (including Pequod).
 * One helipad per Regular Strut, two per Command Strut.
 * One unknown custom colored building on the edge of each Regular Strut.
 * Security measures such as cameras (static, rotating, gun), laser barriers, mines, spotlights and combat drones.
 * Jeeps and APCs can be recovered back to Mother Base via Fulton Recovery and are stored on the base's struts. The vehicles can also be driven by the player and NPCs.
 * Some artillery weapons can also be equipped on the base after being retrieved from a mission (via Fulton Recovery), which can be used for defense.
 * Shipping containers, obtained via Fulton (which can be stolen by other players during the Mother Base multiplayer infiltration mode).
 * Some of the struts also contain enclosed lifeboats.
 * Shooting Ranges located on the upper and lower decks of Struts, where the player and NPCs can train. Shooting ranges are determined by what shape the strut they are on so the medical strut has a different different range than the research and development strut.
 * Recovered non-player characters (such as extracted soldiers and even wildlife) populate Mother Base, but as the base gets filled to capacity new struts will be needed before more non-playing characters can be added.
 * Critical non-player characters such as Ocelot can be found in Mother Base (Ocelot in the Command Strut), and will interact with the player at times.
 * Hangars - Where many scenes from trailers have been set, such as the torturing of Huey Emmerich and Quiet, as well as a scene in which shows Big Boss mounting a combat mech.
 * Main Area - An open space where several Diamond Dogs soldiers are seen fighting and rioting.
 * Possible photos of the Animal Conservation Platform can be seen onboard Snake's helicopter in the beginning of the E3 2015 gameplay video demo.

Multiplayer
When the player has reached a certain point in the game, the multiplayer mode will become available. One of the known modes is Invader vs. Defender, where one player invades another player's base and tries to steal their items and personnel. Once the invader is spotted, they will have a red radius on the iDroid map that shows their last known location. A timer will then show how much time they have before the base is surrounded. During this time, the guards will hunt for the invader. However, the guards may get wounded and need to be Fulton lifted to the medical strut before they die. Invader vs. Defender will allow players to use a large range of gadgets. Even with a large army helping the defender, it can still be challenging due to the fact that the base is large, and there is only one person that needs to be found.