I’m close to platinum staff officer, been grinding lots of staff officer hours recently. I already made an ideasguy post about buffing crusher, so I want to talk about buffing my favorite marine role in CM13, staff officer.
And this involves the OB console.
As of now, if you hit fire in any coordinates that isn’t underground or blocked by hivecore, it fires. One click is all it takes. And there’s nothing you can do about it. This is a very dangerous feature, especially for less experienced SOs who may accidentally OB a supply drop crate area or FOB in the heat of the moment, as staff officers are expected to do two coordinates systems almost always at once (OBs and supply drops from req).
Because of how dangerous OB’s are for marines, I feel there should be more safety features implemented to prevent mass ff.
The current OB ui feels not realistic to the US military whatsoever. For big bombs being dropped, I imagine there are multiple safety features and warnings BEFORE the big bomb is dropped.
Maybe what could help with OB safety is a mini camera view of the OB target, though I feel an issue is people are gonna use that to exploit for xeno intelligence.
A better idea would be a big warning thing when you click fire, saying “ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO FIRE IN THIS TARGET?” It would help reduce the amount of accidental FOB/supply crate OB casualties immensely.
Some may argue OB ff is part of the charm of the game, but it doesn’t feel realistic in accordance to a competent military, and I’m sure the many marines who get injuries by OB would be happy to have more faith in their SOs and OBs.
Honestly I don’t think this is really that much needed but it’d be quite soul that you need to use your ID to turn a random mechanism in the console. Aslong as your not in litteral hurry like I was a long time when I was sending supplys to FOB but accidently sent an OB instead ( I call it, heavy weapon supply inbound ) . The most best way I can think of how to avoid it is to seperate the OB tab from the overwatch console and move it to a different location while leaving supply tab there. So the OB console is a seperate entity on its own. OR, Don’t be in a hurry (impossible when your doing your job too good).
This series is based off a book by a journalist in Iraq, in this scene the FORECON commander orders a strike that would have killed him and his team, however thankfully the commander was so utterly incompetent they ended up not getting anyone killed.
Danger close happens all the time in the military, it’s a real thing, this honestly sounds like an a post you made because you got arrested yesterday for obing a bunch of marines on accident.
I’m not saying it never happens.
But with how much technology and the US military has strengthened, I feel it’s more realistic that there would be more safeguards in place to protect their own riflemen from getting struck.
The thing about a “Are you sure about this”, is that most people who OB FOB is already sure that it was the right coords. Unless the message is “Do you want to OB LZ1 alamo landing zone?” or something similar, nothing will really change except for the very nieche ones.
also you are working off coords and unless it says the AREA ur obing in that warning it wont do much and i personally think OBing the front is SOVL and FUN so we should keep it ingame
Firstly from a UX perspective, most users will automatically click the confirm button without thinking because they have already committed to the action.
Secondly if I’m calling in an OB I need it done as quickly as possible because the window of opportunity for it’s success will quickly close. Especially if I’ve waited on a xeno push to make sure they get trapped in the OB.
I’ve got a fair few hours as XO, CO, and SO, here’s my take on making sure you don’t fuck up an OB.
When dropping an OB you should receive positive affirmation from the XO and CO, don’t just listen to the random screaming groundside. If you get permission from them and read back the coordinates that you have put in and intend to fire at to confirm (you should always do this, there are probably going to be corrections or other fire orders that can get lost in translation) there is no way that a bad OB can be interpreted as your fault. If you are not firing with direct permission from the CO or XO or by them ceding the fire order to someone groundside you are wrong.
As XO or CO. You should be also be reading back coordinates, confirming target description and where its going to land and making sure the person calling it in isn’t a PFC or someone you may doubt the competence of before announcing and firing. It’s really not that hard to take a moment to ensure that any potential miss isn’t the fault of the CIC. (This doesn’t apply for panic-firing to save the front, but in that case a miss really doesn’t matter as much).
Misfires on supplies happen yes. It was much worse with the UI. Arguably there should be a confirmation for orbital fire and not supply. Having to “arm” the OB from the UI and then physically push a big red button on the desk to confirm its launch would be pretty fucking soulful though. I support that.
Yeah as others said adding safety features will not reduce OB mass casualty incidents significantly. The vast majority of OB FF involves incorrect information, or misunderstandings. In these cases, the OB operator is convinced the coordinates are valid and safe, so they’ll just bypass the safeties immediately.
Having to go through a proper arming procedure for an OB would be soul but also awful to deal with after maybe the fifth time, especially considering how little procedure there is for arming a straight-up nuclear bomb by comparison.
Most of the time, it’s just plain confusion that leads to a misfired OB, I’ve only seen it be a proper misclick maybe twice compared to how often it occurs because somebody was shouting supply coords in one ear and OB coords in the other. It’s very annoying to suffer a marine wipe to somebody’s bad coordinates but it’s not like CIC doesn’t have half a dozen other ways to cause that without having to direct hit the FOB.
You need to swipe your ID to open an instant OB launch mod with a shipside announcement (tells everyone you are firing it when you hit the big red button). So all the shipside crew have enough time to check the kitchen TV and see the show of FF mas-cas. (just joking)
