Hi everyone,

in an effort to make subsistence an interesting and fair challenge run, and more consistent to how the game works, we are presenting new rules for it:

• complete the minimum mission requirements in the fastest time possible in a single segment
• all weapons and items OSP (on-site procurement)
• you MAY deploy with weapons in your loadout, but you MAY NOT use them and MUST swap them for other weapons you find during the mission.
• you MAY NOT deploy with items or support weapons in your loadout.
• you MAY deploy with whatever tools in your loadout.
• you MAY NOT deploy with a vehicle, but you MAY use any vehicles found during a mission.
• you MAY start a mission from the ACC or Free Roam.
• use of the Chicken Hat, Reflex Mode, Supply Drops, Buddy Deployment, Support Helicopter Air Support, and Support Strikes is NOT ALLOWED
• use of Support Helicopter Pick Ups is ALLOWED
• use of any uniforms but Olive Drabs is NOT ALLOWED
• use of Bandanas or Balaclavas is NOT ALLOWED
• use of any bionic arms but the standard Bionic Arm, or it's Silver or Gold variants, is NOT ALLOWED
• use of Mother Base Soldiers is ALLOWED
• use of preemptive weather modifications are ALLOWED
• use of the "Wrong Start" glitch is NOT ALLOWED
• strats that allows for an instant/trivial automatic completion with very little or no dependence on execution within the timed portion of the run, WILL NOT BE ALLOWED

(It should be added that the use of D-Horse at the start of Phantom Limbs is allow - feel free to voice your opinion on this decision)

Most of the rules reinforce what was discussed in the original forum post by @CPZXIII. I also wanted to reinforced that achieving the No Traces or Perfect Stealth, No Kills bonuses is not a requirement. However, one rule changes it all: you are only allowed to use Olive Drabs. Why? The game forces you to use it when you start a subsistence mission, and it also prevents the use of other uniforms with different camo indexes and swimsuits, which increase the movement speed of mother base soldiers. This means that all previous runs that used a different uniform will be removed.

This is a list of runs that will be removed once the new rules are put in place:

EP1 Phantom Limbs by @CPZXIII; Reason: Uses swimsuit. EP1 Phantom Limbs by @CPZXIII; Reason: Uses swimsuit. EP3 A Hero's Way by @CPZXIII; Reason: Uses swimsuit. EP4 C2W by @CPZXIII; Reason: Uses swimsuit. EP10 Angel with Broken Wings by @CPZXIII; Reason: Uses swimsuit. EP14 Lingua Franca by @CPZXIII; Reason: Uses swimsuit. EP31 Sahelanthropus by @Salok; Reason: Uses DD, which is already banned. EP42 Metallic Archaea Extreme by @Salok; Reason: Uses fatigues different then Olive Drabs. EP44 Pitch Dark Total Stealth by @CPZXIII; Reason: Uses swimsuit. EP47 The War Economy Total Stealth by @CPZXIII; Reason: Uses swimsuit. EP48 Code Talker Extreme by @CPZXIII; Reason: Uses swimsuit.

As you could tell these are all the subsistence runs currently submitted to the boards. You could argue that some should remain on the boards, but I don't want to start a trend and allow runs that break the rules - for example: using DD during Sally's fight, it's silly but the rules must be enforced.

Feel free to ask any questions or give suggestions. Thank you.

Since you created this thread, I'll put my opinion here.

This category meant to be "equipmentless", which means that you have to deploy without nothing. Subsistence was closest category so it was probably named by it. In my opinion, it should be completely ok to start with any camo/swimsuit but forcing runner to use default uniform - why not, sounds challenging. Also, dismissing DD during Phantom Limbs - for me, its bigger challenge but nothing happens if you remove this rule. After years, Im grateful that someone took that idea and gave it new start :)

I agree that not using D-Horse would be more challenging since you wouldn't be able to use him to avoid soldiers* with its "new breed of stealth". But it's there, no reason not to use him.

I understand that it was supposed to be "equipmentless", but I guess the old mods decided to name it "subsistence" instead, which in turn created some confusion. I mean, with a name like that you would expect it to have the same rules as the game's. This is all because someone reached out to me asking why swimsuits are allowed 😂

I guess that if you agree with it I'll have some peace of mind, I don't want to remove old runs without a reason.

It has been over a month since my initial post - and I think that all interested parties have said what they think about the topic - the new rules have been put in place and they'll start being enforced.

Appreciate @CPZXIII for your input, hopefully you'll come back to the game some day.