An Advanced Guide to Being a Blob

[Pckables]

So you want to be an amorphous, station devouring scourge of space? Unfortunately for you, there are a hundred other smaller, less blobby people who want your yolk-y core on a dinner plate.
The official wiki will tell you the basic functions, but what about strategies?
Alright, settle down and lets get into the specifics.

Note: Round-start blob infected people have an end goal, and will end the round after getting big enough. It's possible for a round-start blob to win before reaching the point of GAMMA Alert, and will almost never have a Death Squad sent against them.
Mid-round blob infected mice, however, have no end goal and thus continue until killed, nuked, or otherwise. The round won't end until you die, with or without the station.

-WHERE TO BURST

The core (pun intended) of a good blob is location location location. The more time spent away from fighting early on, the better; that means NO BURSTING IN HALLWAYS, and definitely don't burst near engineering without a plan, lest you want to get surrounded by welders in seconds.
Now assuming you're a human blob, obvious ideal burst locations are deep in maintenance.
- Science maintenance, a bit above solars, creates several chokepoints and breaches that creates an incredibly difficult-to-assault position, impossible without a space-proof suit. Boasts a strong early-game at the cost of a vulnerable late-game.
- Bar/Chapel maintenance can be maze-like, but lacks the size of sci-maint, and is much weaker late-game once all the walls are gone, not to mention its proximity to RnD.
- Arrivals maintenance has a shocking amount of breachable space, and all of its hallways are 1 tile wide, but consequently being in arrivals means a very low chance of being hidden for long.

However, there are multiple strong, non-maintenance areas to take advantage of:
- Toxins Test range, should you be able to get into space to reach it, can have all its cameras cut for a perfectly isolated, large blob starting point. Expanding may be difficult, and you're extremely vulnerable to space pods and jetpack nerds.
- Toxins Storage has a lot of dangerous gases that can be immediately unleashed, though you risk canisters and shrapnel being launched at your core at high speeds from the pressure.

If you're a blob infested mouse, you can even get into areas you wouldn't normally be able to as a human. Namely:
- AI satellite. The turrets do not target blob walls (they do target spores), meaning the AI is helpless against you. You can kill the AI instantly if you're feeling rude, but most people can't reach your core. If you keep the walls intact, your core will be near unnassaultable. Consequently, a skilled and organized crew can cut off your only expansion route and cause a stalemate.

Of course better locations may appear depending on the situation of the shift. An example: Permabrig is a strong spot if all of security's weapons have been destroyed. Be smart and have a location planned in advance.

-I BURST, HOW DO I START

Assuming you picked a good spot, you should have a good few minutes before someone finds you, and before someone threatening appears.
The focus of your early-game is RESOURCE MANAGEMENT. You have very few resources, so make each one count.

   -Ignore people with random blunt objects, a person whacking your tiles with a cane or a broken bottle isnt worth wasting resources attacking.
   -Build Resources/Factory NEXT TO YOUR CORE. You can destroy a tile with Alt+click if it got reinforced. Resources have MASSIVELY reduced output speed the farther away it is from a core/node. A resource 3 tiles away from a node/core might as well not exist with how few resources it creates.
   -Rally spores instead of attacking directly when you can. Spores are your main attack force, and the smoke they create when they die is DEADLY. Also they're FREE. Spending zero resources flinging an army of spores instead of 100 resources directly attacking someone with walls is the difference between a living blob and a dead one.
   -Nodes+Resource Everywhere. Nodes are how you should be expanding, and nodes are needed to get more resource blocks. You're entire goal should be to make as many nodes and adjacent resource blocks as close to you as possible. Create factories where you can, but never forget the resources.
   -SPLIT! Use your 100 resource split consciousness button on a node! It creates a SECOND BLOB controlled by ANOTHER PLAYER. You also GET THEIR RESOURCES. It's effectively doubling everything about you. It's your strongest ability, so make sure you use it.
   -DO NOT create blob tiles randomly. I know it looks pretty to fill a room with blob, but those blob tiles you spent 60 resources making can be destroyed with one laser shot each, and don't come back. Always make a node instead, which infinitely creates more surrounding blob tiles as long as its alive, and lets you make more resources.
   Use Blobbernauts, but sparingly-. While potentially strong, they are a big investment in the early game that may or may not pay off. One or Two should be enough to help defend you from short-ranged attackers, provided they don't run off to their death, or space. Create a Blobbernaut after splitting to help defend your backside, or scare away people from your expanding areas.

Early Advanced Tactics:

At this stage, people will be coming at you with welders, small laser guns, and occasionally flash-bangs.

   -Eat any weapons that fall on the ground. You will destroy/eat any object that you build a REINFORCED blob on. Use this to destroy flashbangs thrown too close and welders dropped by victims.
   -Hit welding tanks when people are nearby. Aside from destroying their source of fuel, anyone caught in the explosion will be set on fire and likely forced to retreat. Rally your spores on them if you really want to drive the nail into their coffin.
   -Put reflectives at the end of chokes/hallways. The thing that will destroy most of your tiles is laser fire. Reflectives are expensive, so try to get the most use out of only one or two. If theres a long hallway you know people will be firing lasers down, put one or two shiny new walls at the back end and watch as their forced to get into smacking range to deal with it.
   -Cut off their escape. Its a huge waste of resources to try to nip at someones back while they're running away. If you see someone diving too deep into your territory, close off, and maybe even reinforce their exit before smacking them into oblivion.
   -Make another hazard. As stated above, making breaches to space and/or busting open toxic gas canisters is an effective way on making sure the rabble leaves you alone for a long long time.
   -If someone refuses to die on the ground, destroy your blob (alt+click) and rebuild it on top of them repeatedly. Sometimes a person decides to make a blob tile their home and not die inside it. Destroy the tile on top of them and rebuild it repeatedly to keep attacking them.
   -Save up resources if you hear a mech coming. A well-built mech can be an unstoppable force even a large blob can't deal with. If you're dealing with a durand, you'll need a very large resource stockpile in order to deal with it. Try to cut off its escape and hit it as many times as possible. If its using lasers, block it with reflectives. Get your split to double-team the mech if possible.
   -Know the differences between the chemicals. Boiling Oil may be good for crowd control, but flames die in space, and you can't break bones with burn damage. Cryogenic Liquid may do tons of damage to people in hardsuits, but it's spread out slowly over time, which you may not have if they're assaulting your core. Memorize the colors and...
   -Change your Chemicals to best fight your enemies. The ideal chem may change through future updates, so know which ones best work to your advantage. If IPCs are giving you trouble, avoid being Lexorin Jelly, as both your attacks and your spores won't do much to races that don't breathe. Switching to something like Ripping Tendrils or Kinetic Gelatin will hurt them a lot more.

-I'M BIG NOW, WHAT NEXT

Once you've gotten big enough that a person with a welder is an ant squashed with a single spore rally, it's time to choose to make a play, because the station will be making theirs too. You'll experience a short lull where people are forced to retreat, but soon they'll bring in bigger guns, and the real fight starts.

   -Invest in reflectives around vulnerable points. This includes openings to space and windows, ESPECIALLY NEAR YOUR CORE. It's extremely common for a single person with a laser to shoot your core from behind, so nip that in the bud early.
   -Build a couple of storage blocks. Place these close to your core, but proximity to nodes doesn't matter, they just need to stay intact. Should you get even bigger, your resource input might be too high for a limit of 100 to handle. There are advantages to having large resources pooled up as well, as we will get into later.
   -Build MORE Blobbernauts. Should you have a high amount of resources flowing in, blobbernauts become a nicer investment. Blobbers will start acting like deterrents, forcing people to attack blob walls less while spores continue to spawn and whittle down enemy health. Ghosts will also be appreciative of being given something to do.
   -Always check up on your core. Again, you never know when someone jetpacks in from space with a big ol' gun to drill right into your core. They WILL do that, so don't get too distracted; use your "Jump to core" button frequently.
   -Expand towards vital station areas. Cloning, cargo, science, whatever is closest you should take out. If you're feeling cheeky, you can forget nodes and just tile rush straight to it.
   -Know your enemy. If they're shooting you with lasers, build a reflective wall. If they're not using lasers, build reinforced. Keep rallying spores if they're humanoid, and save up resources to rapid-smack mechs and cyborgs. Remember that if a mech only has lasers, then reflectives shut them out 100%.
   -Keep expanding. There is NO LIMIT TO YOUR POWER! Keep expanding until...

- THEY CALLED IN GAMMA

If you've made it this far, congratulations, you're a real, bonified threat. But unfortunately that means the stations called in its big guns, and its big cyborgs. The time for expansion has stopped. Now its time to hunker and survive.

   -Immediately surround your core with reflectives. They WILL attempt to laser into your core from space now more than ever. A core not surrounded by reflectives during GAMMA is a dead core.
   -If you're not under pressure and you're close to a vital machine, like cloning or robotics, try to rush it. They took their kids gloves off, now its time to take off yours. Hit the station where it hurts, and break open toxins plasma canisters while you're at it. Just make sure you aren't going half-way across the station to do it.
   -Check all your sides. You will be fighting a multi-front war, and it's a battle of attrition now.
   -Know who to rally your spores against. If to the east is a small team of ERT, and to the west is a durand, rally your spores against the ERT, who are vulnerable to the smoke, whereas the durand is immune.
   -Understand that you WILL lose a large portion of your mass now. Its a fight to see who gets whittled down first. Reinforce and build more nodes/resources close to your core and don't try to expand while under attack.
   -Kill those GAMMA borgs! These borgs now get really deadly lasers, which you will need to build a ton of reflectives to fight against. Take any opportunity to smack a borg around. Enough hits and you can destroy them for good.
   -A single reflective tile can be deadly. And I do mean a single tile. The weakness of GAMMA is that it can be over-reliant on lasers, meaning a single reflective tile in the middle of the room may be impossible to take out without getting into melee range. Take advantage of this.
   -Whats that? MORE BLOBBERNAUTS!? If your walls are not under direct assault, have one blob core expand/rebuild while another starts pumping out even more blobbernauts. The ERT only have so much ammo, and blobbernauts can eat up a lot of that without dying.

GAMMA essentially ends up becoming an inbetween of Early blobs resource management, and late blobs mass resource expenditure. It will be a constant back and forth between the blob and the station until either the station runs out of ammo and manpower, or the blob dies. Don't give up hope, because when you least expect it, everything might suddenly get quiet...

- THEY CALLED IN A DEATH SQUAD

What now?

   -Build Huge reflective walls in the hallways and watch them friendly fire themselves to death. Many of them forget they have a ballistic pistol and an energy shield. Use your abundance of resources to block off areas completely with reflective walls, likely causing friendly fire. When they stop shooting, crawl a couple tiles forward before building another reflective tile that they cant destroy. Repeat with spores being flung at them and they'll soon be backed into a corner.

   -Die.
They're called the DEATH squad for a reason.

 

CONGRATULATIONS!
You're a successful blob now!
If you make it far enough to be nuked, that's still a victory!
If you make it far enough to need a Death Squad called in, that's the biggest victory you can get!
Now go out there and be a menace!

Edited May 27, 2021 by Pckables
Secure Storage no longer good burst spot.

[Rurik]

Instructions unclear, killed by mech with infinite flashbangs

Great guide, hopefully we can see some more mlg blob pros in the future. Or just people who split

[MetalClone]

Really comprehensive guide. This actually changed my mind on blob being boring and looks more like a strategy antagonist. Terrific work