The job of Staff Officer is a weird one; being a middleman between XO and SL, they just keep getting overridden or omitted.
But when playing Captain, I always find them useful, dialing OBs, sending supplies when ordered, and most importantly, making sure I don’t have to run around the CIC to answer all of the phones ringing at once.
But here is a weird thing. Whenever I play SO myself - it does feel like I’m not really being utilized to the fullest. Like if its only XO/CO doing all of the job.
Anyone can relate? Or the SO is just so boring lol
Depends of the quality of the SO’s. Some want to frag and if refused will cryo. Those are the worst. A good SO, helps the XO & CO by providing useful information to both CIC and ground side.
I can’t blame some XO’s who like to micromanage if they had to suffer poor quality SOs. Really depends on the player.
The job of a Staff Officer is simple, they have to keep the marines on task.
Your CO or XO is responsible for the overall strategy of the operation (e.g. We need to go here in order to achieve this objective that will allow us to attack this next location). Your SL is responsible for making the immediate tactical decisions (e.g. We need to fallback, I need cades built here, shoot that fucking ravager!) That leaves you in this weird limbo zone where you’re not fully responsible for tactics nor strategy, but responsible for making sure both sets of orders get followed and providing advice where and when able.
That lack of immediate responsibilities means you have a lot of freedom to play the role however you see fit. That most often takes the form of shouting out the locations of wounded marines and that annoying fucking boiler who keeps cutting off the choke with acid gas. Yes, you’re expected to send supply drops and fire on OB coordinates, but other than that you’re really as close to a sandbox role as the game allows (other than riflemen, but you have the freedoms and access of an officer).
Because the CO or XO has so much on their plate with ensuring people are on task and coming up with plans, it’s not often that they’re going to give you a direct order outside of “Fire that OB, Lieutenant.” So it’s normal to feel like you’re not being utilized to your fullest extent, but that’s because there isn’t necessarily a set blueprint of how to play SO. That’s my two cents at least.
Yeah it does suck but I see what they want, we get 5 SOs even though we have 4 overwatch computers so I think efen codewise it was kind of thought of but not to fullest.
Would be interesting to get a Field SO like role.
But what is expected from SOs is to sit at CIC is true 100%
SO is your hands.
Need to check on req? Send an SO.
Need to load an OB? Send an SO.
Need to handle brig? Send an SO.
Need someone to operate CIC while you deal with CL? Send an SO
The only reason your not being used to your fullest is most likely inexperienced XO or everything is under control.
I do mean deploy. I am referencing when we have less than 5 SOs. If you are the 5th, then an argument can be made to deploy. However, that has been a rarity to me. The situation I describer is 4 SO’s or less and one demands to deploy. If refused they will cryo. I hope this this helps clarify.
Fantastic topic that is ripe for discussion. Thank you for making it.
You can play a communicative SO that calls out enemy locations, numbering, Tier counts, dead bodies, and if your game sense is high enough you can understand when its time to push and when its time to pack your bags and retreat.
SO’s do not have the pressure of SL or XO; SL of being in constant fighting while having to understand the general battlefield, XO’s due to their need to direct the entire battlefield in a way that gets you victory over xenos. So you can basically focus on the flow of combat / momentum and general info.
Or you can deploy like Alan Jones and myself to help as SO’s get some of the best skills in the game. They are SL ++ and get access to CIC weapons, making them the closest thing to a “hero” mob that the Marines regularly see besides a deployed CO. Their orders are better than SL’s, they can defib / build, they are basically jack of all trades, and their inherent armor is B12 level good. Deployed SO’s that know what they are doing are worth their weight in gold, especially mid to late game when real SL’s start to die off and marine cohesion falls apart as most people who get assigned to be an aSL do not actually want or even can lead but are the highest rank after everyone else is dead.
I think i have enough experience on Staff Officer to say some words…
Be proactive on enforcing the correct orders, don’t be shy to ask the XO or CO on what your squad should do next, you are not helpful acting as a statue while sitting on the chair and only doing ,abcd all rounds.
It is quite hard to roleplay on said role but you can manage to have small talks with the members of your squad, the more you play, the more people will notice you and carry along your character, if someone knows what you are capable of they surely know they can trust your orders.
The XO can easily make strategic plans and enforce the entire operation with the general orders, but it’s up for the SL and SO to keep rescue of lone marines, small flanks, recon around the frontline and most important of all organizing a retreat if need be, most marines will be focused on the fight and won’t read the Comms so you have to take innitiave and warn them via the console orders while making sure the sergeant of your squad also gets the message.
Your ultimate duty is to keep the marines aware of what is going on around the operation and the entire colony.
If you do that, i guarantee you are better than 95% of all the SO’s.
Just don’t let the boring part get to you, be proactive in CIC and with your squad alike, the XO and the CO will notice and if the time comes for a SO to deploy, you might be that pick as a reward.
Don’t forget to OB the FOB at least once too, that’s very important.
SOs just give contradicting orders from the XO or CO.
Might as well send them frontline as a MEDIC + JTAC + SL++ for their respective squads
the more the bureaucracy the more the OP gets fucked.
Why do you think devs nerfed ;abcd. Cause XO mains were sweating on giving intel every 2-3 seconds with the sole CIC console camera they have.
their reason was “people were getting spammed” so they had to add a cooldown (lmao)
bro just turn off other comms then.
Less roleplay? Sure. But some people want to play the game to win it and SOs get deployed rarely nowadays.
For the most part you are extremely restricted in how you can actually help marines.
Here’s a couple suggestions:
Ghost-like observation and restrict visibility to just what marines can see. This has been done for years already now on tgstation etc. with AI and cameras. This would ease a lot of the UI problems with switching overwatch between players in the same general location.
Ad-hoc task forces - let the SO select a specific group (let’s say everyone within 10 tiles of a designated person) and dynamically form an impromptu squad channel for them (e.g. :z) that lasts for the next 5-10 minutes. This helps address a situation where you have 3 bravo, 2 delta, 1 foxtrot, 1 echo marine all together, but no SL and no way to cleanly communicate with JUST this group of players. (So it could be like, everyone nearby gets a ping, a short flashing yellow highlight around everyone, “you are temporarily designated task force x-ray, follow the SO’s orders on channel :z”)
The ability to drop visible markers at tiles on the map. Like a more strategic form of SL arrow markers. Stuff that can designate important information, fallback directions, enemy locations/directions, etc. and is directly visible on the screen itself without opening the tacmap. Even just an SO ‘ghost’ flying around dropping arrows like an SL would still be a huge improvement without even getting to ‘hold this position’ or ‘enemy in arrow direction’ markers. (So for example something like a “hold position” marker drops at a tile, anyone nearby hears a beep and sees the marker on their screen if they’re wearing a HUD)
Priority alerts to singular specific marines - there’s an option for doing this with SL’s, but there’s no way to quickly and cleanly direct specifically one person. Maybe something like a specific context-sensitive one-way overwatch channel (:t ?) that will message the person actively overwatched by that SO at that console. (so all SO’s can use :t at the same time but message different players)
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In general, SO just lacks the ability to meaningfully interact and direct players. It’s 1 or 2 steps too abstracted from the ground. It is genuinely the case right now that marines would be better off sending 2/3rds of their SO’s planetside to directly fight than to keep them in the CIC.
I personally want to see SO’s and their overwatch consoles become so important that even during hijack you want to keep CIC staffed to direct people around. When that’s the case, I think SO will finally be in an OK place.
Id just like to point out that TGMC has done a few of these ideas and actually makes commanding way more intuitive and fun.
FC (field commander) has rally that pings every single marine and points them to the rally point so you know where to go.
Captain and SO’s can set Rally points as well.
There should be more visual cues in general for CM command players to use; the whole reason why a deployed XO or Major that knows what they are doing is so powerful is because they are a moving, visual reminder of where to be at all times. If CIC had more visual abilities like rally points, and better ability to see things like AI sight that TGMC has similarly, then CIC would actually be so much more fun AND effective.
Right now CIC depends way too much on the literary ability of marines to read their text box thats getting spammed by healing, shots fired, getting hit, other people yelling, etc. to convey important information that might be outdated in 10-30 seconds.
I feel like everyone wants this and know it should probably be a thing, but no one implements it because its “good” that marines have poor ability to lead. Smh, that’s why we have no one listening to SLs, COs, XOs, etc!!! That’s why marine teamwork sux horribly and has terrible feel to play around if ur allies don’t know what they’re doing.
new leadership tools mean u reach a wider audience with ur announcements!
SO job realy is not the OB supply and picking up phones, that is the bare miniumum and I would even consider it failing their job. The main job I see for SO is to keep their squad informed about their position, position of other squads their state what enemies they are fighting and where dead bodies. The thing is that when I play SL I do not have such SO to help me keep informed and it is hugly missing when you want to perform any task otehr then ungaball
The reason this is a thing as someone who plays a lot of CIC currently is that you are LUCKY to get ONE (1) SO in CIC, let alone two. Three is rare, four is legendary in rarity, five is mythical.
So most of the time, its ONE or TWO SO’s manning double / quad consoles, so we do not have the time to pay attention to singular squads and directing them / giving them personal information like where is every other squad in relation to them.
Even IF you get ALL 4 SO slots, its a question of competence. You might have 4 SO’s but 1 of the SO’s is new and accidentally OB’s the front, rarely if ever speaks, does not know how to input orders or squad messages, etc. So even if you have a full roster, you as a SO might have to pull double duty regardless on TOP of having to wrangle a new SO to teach them the ropes or if they are unteachable, get the XO or CO to get them out of CIC, which further puts a strain on CIC.
Recently, I have only had, in about 30 or so rounds, a SINGLE fully staffed CIC (CO not included, im talking 4 SO’s and a XO), every other round im XO or SO I have to juggle consoles.
There’s a reason why I play a lot of SL over SO nowadays; you have so much to track and even then your efforts feel minimal since the round moves so fast nowadays that info you got 30 seconds ago is now outdated.
One of the reasons I don’t play SO much is that you have little meaningful or interesting impact on the round, yet at the same time doing overwatch and trying to communicate is exhausting, and ALSO because devs hate SO’s for some unfathomable reason and you’re forced to jump through hoops just to have your basic equipment ready.
Someone tried to solve that last problem by putting some gear in the vendors you’re not allowed to use until hijack but it doesn’t work nor help because gearing up properly with tools and meds takes 20 minutes, not the 5-10 you actually have during hijack; and is best done in any case at the start of the round.
Until such a time that SO’s are more interesting to play and aren’t treated like the unwanted stepchildren of the almayer (no access to anything anywhere), I don’t think you’ll see many people playing the job. For whatever reason the role is severely overtuned on top of their command tools lacking any lustre or serious importance.
Frankly, it’s hardly noticeable when CIC lacks SO’s. The job that actually matters there is the XO/CO because of the command announcements exclusively. If you have an XO who can read the tacmap and watch cams, and click the Fire OB button, and use the command announcements appropriately there is literally no need for any staff officers at all and every staff officer you have would impact the round to a much greater degree if they simply deployed planetside.
Until SO tools are improved, their weird unwanted relationship with access and gear on the almayer are resolved, or they’re regularly deployed planetside, I don’t think you’ll be seeing too many SO regulars. It is in essence, not a particularly fun job.
