There’s been a lot of let’s just say bad rep for XO’s for a while even a little bit for CO’s, I also wonder what you guys think a good CO or XO act like.
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Communicate often, and include important information like flanks, where to move, OBs, CAS being up, ect.
Good tactical calls.
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Also one very important thing that it took me a long time to learn, don’t insult marines. At all. Even if they’re being REALLLY stupid don’t insult them. It usually makes it like 200x harder for you.
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Oh hey, I know this one!
As a CIC role, your main job is just to keep people informed and make sure everything is running. Downtime should be spent asking req about their budget, asking FOB if they need supplies, reminding marines of where the frontline is and what’s happening. You’re generally not there to mastermind some incredible tactics, because marines won’t follow them, and if they do, they probably won’t work regardless. You’re just there to keep the show going and clear up some of the fog of war.
As long as you’re active with callouts, give broad push/retreat orders based on the general state of things, and don’t try to force marines into a specific plan too hard, you’re a good XO. There’s still a lot of room for improvement always, but that’s the minimum to be fine.
You always want people to know what to do, so give them as much info to make their own decisions on as possible, and guide them down the right path by telling them to “Fortify hydro” or “Push engi”, for example.
(Edit: Obviously giving marines orders they’re used to such as fortifying a place, pushing a specific area, things like that are all good. My point is just that anything too fancy is mostly done for the fun and novelty of it, and you shouldn’t expect any hyperspecific plan to ever even come close to working.)
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Coordinate the round with a coherent strategy, and do what you can to make the round better. That does not mean run a meta tryhard Strat every time, and it doesn’t even have anything to do with winning.
I like XOs and COs that communicate with the squads to do everything they can to see the rounds strategy succeed, and adapt when things change. They also fill in any gaps to ensure the round runs smooth. This can be anything from running req when needed, to delegating duties to another, or helping with intel or even deploying themselves.
Example: worst feeling in the world is when I roll SL and the XO gives a vague briefing with the orders essentially being “push east”. They then proceed to give little to no guidance, don’t callout flanks, don’t coordinate movement, and nobody has any idea wtf is going on and marines wipe to unforced tactical errors.
Best feeling in the world is when I roll SL and I get a coherent plan at briefing, CIC is continually coordinating movement and calling out Xenos, and the plan adapts throughout the round. Frequent announcements and comms, and when I call I almost instantly get a response. Those are the rounds where even if we lose it’s usually a bomb ass fight becuase we can say we “left it all on the field”.
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Maybe not every XO or CO will agree with me on this take, but a view I’ve especially been leaning towards as of late - and to some extent had at the time of my original CO application was that CIC is a support role. As much as we occasionally joke about the CO as the protagonist role, that really isn’t and shouldn’t be the case. The Squad Leader is the big guy; leadership is best done from the ground as many a CIC player will agree with me (partly why you see CO deployment as such a popular option.)
In my opinion a good Commander is someone who has a plan, and is willing to deviate from it to suit the situation, someone who is willing to go with the flow of a round and let the marines have their fun; but importantly knows when to course correct them. Losing can be fun, but losing HARD isn’t fun, much like winning the round five minutes post-drop because the xenos suicided against survivors isn’t much fun either. This is partly why I’ve turned away from the ‘hold outside the caves, fallback to FOB, bleed them off’ announcements I did a lot as XO. Yeah, they help you win - they’re objectively better strategies than pushing those caves, but no one likes being dead for the duration of your 3 hour nuke victory round because you wanted to take it slow. My personal preference is for hard and fast rounds, at roughly an hour and a half maximum.
So here’s what my opinion is, a good commander will let the SL shine, will supply the marines, clear out that fog of war and give them a sense of ‘direction.’ A good CIC tells when when men are dying on their flanks, and keeps them in the ‘know’.’ CIC lays out the objective, the ‘what’ - and the SLs lay out the how. Rounds are decided by the ability of the SL to be able to wrangle his/her goons into a fragging force. While the SL has to listen to CIC, they have the right to decide when an order is going to get them killed and importantly voice this on behalf of his/her goons.
If you want to be a good commander, start by listening to those under you. What is the situation, what do they want, do they want to push? Why do they want to push? Do they see an opening you don’t? Or are they just tunnel visioned hard?
Give the SL a direction, and watch him sink or swim. If he swims, give him everything he needs to get the riflemen fragging out - if he’s sinking, course correct and deal with the situation before its too late. You are a support role as CIC, there for damage control; not for micromanaging every aspect of the round to secure yourself a win. Most importantly, have fun and take breaks.
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Gonna give the answer that nobody wanna hear but gotta be said:
Reputation
It’s such a simple and yet broad answer that some people might feel that this post is just meaninglessly bumping the thread. However if I gotta spoonfed you the meaning of that then you either are way too new or you just aren’t meant to get it.
Because what most people are describing isn’t what makes good XOs or COs but rather the very job of CIC, they aren’t really answering the question so don’t be deceived.
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Charisma
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Going to plug this as a long-form answer for what makes a really good XO:
What They Don’t Teach You in XO Guides
However that’s primarily about skill that most U.N.G.As won’t recognise, to get your boots off the ground with being perceived as an XO people won’t deeply sigh when they see:
- Reputation: Consistently putting any effort into RP
- Reputation: Consistently not wiping Marines out
- Reputation: Consistently not raging IC, OOC or in DChat
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This is very well put. The reality of the situation as cic is most of the time you have less impact compared to ground troops but when they need you- you matter alot.
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fun gimmick, unorthodox strategies
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deploying to give xenos a free cap carry the marines
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“lets say bad rep” is not a very accurate way of saying it. It’s more a feeling you’re getting. Let me clear up the command staff ideally should be doing.
So when you look at the position of a CO/XO, you have to notice it’s inherently a leadership role that is presented with an objective and a certain amount of resources and means.
Your goal in that position is to find a way to achieve that goal by utilizing those resources in the most efficient and ideal way relative to the situation presenting itself.
In practice this translates to you having access to the feed of every deployed marine, a tac map and direct lines of communication via phone and multiple channels for every squad.
Likewise you have authority over all departments and systems and are at the top of decision making.
Your tasks here:
Acquire information, process it, detect problem, find solution to problem, re-direct the solution to the deployed marines in steps that are easy to follow.
Keep in mind that “operational” failure is not your fault. After all you do not have some magic hand to shoot the xenos for the marines on the ground from the CIC windows. However it is your responsibility, when something goes wrong, or against what was planned and expected, that you take immediate action to deliver new instructions to marines to make sure the appropriate steps to correct the course are taken.
How and to what level it is absolutely up to you. Some people have a stick up their ass about announcements. Some prefer squad radios and messages, or even the telephone. Whatever works best in your given situation.
Lastly you are also the connection point between ship-side and ground-side. You need to ensure logistics and medical/engineering assistance is being provided timely and effectively. This helps maintain combat effectiveness at high levels for the people ground-side.
After all you cant sustain a push if medics are dry or doctors are in shortage. You cant shoot if no ammo is delivered. You cant coordinate if there’s no one to keep comms up. You can’t defend if there’s no one to build cades and defenses.
These are all areas you need to make provisions for and make sure that they are being done right. Otherwise you have to interfere.
How an XO/CO does that is up to them. As long as they get it done.
As for the rest? It’s up to the ground-side marines. We can’t shoot the xenos for you from the CIC.
The ground-side part relies more on the job of SLs or any other role that takes up some kind of organizational duties. Some certain FTLs or JTAC marines who call in for fire missions.
In the end it is up to the SLs and ground-side marines to do the fighting and make the right tactical calls right there and then which you can support via CIC if it aligns with the path to the goals. And this is where deployed command comes in. Often a CO or some SO is deployed to interpret the happenings of the situation up front and make tactical calls directly for the whole picture, lessening the burden on SLs.
Remember:
Acquire information, process it, detect problem, find solution to problem, re-direct the solution to the deployed marines in steps that are easy to follow.
What this does is bring a shorter delay between acquiring, processing and re-directing information to the combat units doing the fighting.
Other than that you also need to remember that XO/CO players are also there to play their part and couldn’t give much of a shit about the feedback coming in from the opinions of backseat gamers on how they should be doing the leading, what calls they’re supposed to make, or if they did good or not.
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Alan Jones does not miss.
Don’t fucking lie (too much) to marines. If I know situation is shit and you spew propaganda that we are actually winning, expect (in time) that no vet marine will ever listen to you.
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Your drip
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A good XO or CO for me would get you banned like the rest of the legends. I feel every command its just a copy pasta of the 90% of the 5000 rounds, only difference is how they write. I have not seen a CO or XO that honestly stand out of the rest anymore but I am in cm for fun not to win, but that is a me issue. I miss a coward xo that hides in a locker and telling the coward marines to attack the xenos while he tries to bail the ship so he lives.
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