Either die a hero and get banned (bob cross) or live long enough to become a plat neverplayer CO
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If you’re XO you’re practically playing five nights at freddy’s but you just spam your quirky unique announcement template every time the queen takes a step
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Recognizability is an important factor in a commanders appeal. Get ppl to know u and they will trust you or like you more: thus being a better XO/CO. People will try their best to claim its anything else but most players just simply wont process your existence otherwise.
This can be gained thru good play tho, by helping people and stuff. Reputation of competency is important.
There is nothing more valuable as a commander then your troops trust as that indicates they will work with you instead of against you
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Honestly, recognizability is a bit overrated. I actually tested that back in the day, by playing on a few disposable alts. Fundamentally most players don’t particularly care who the CO\XO is and they’re gonna follow all the typical orders in their typical manner. It only starts mattering when you start going very unorthodox. Like Juro, where people would know the upcoming stupidity and follow his orders ironically. Then yeah, trying to do something like that as a noname, may be much harder. Or if you generally managed to farm that meme reputation, like Carson\Cross\Kleiner. Oh, and there’s a positive version of that too, where a few COs who are particularly beloved by the troops can always expect a tangibly better than average compliance to their plans.
And on the general note: for XO the best thing is trying to be the most reliable officer on the Almayer. Anything you have to do, you get done. Anyone needs anything from command - you make sure to answer.
On the CO level it’s a lot harder, because the best COs are those who have something somewhat unique going for them. And that’s a very individual thing, so just completely imitating someone else just wouldn’t work, for a variety of reasons.
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I would have to disagree. Being notable is a very big difference, starting at how marines conduct themselves near you, at briefing, how SLs interact with you, to squads actually following your orders. I have noticed this very strongly from when i am playing on my alt and my main. Having a decent reputation makes people more RPish, they act mostly respectfully, especially so from plat marines. This may seem insignificant, but if you have respect from plat SLs that means the OP is going to be more smooth and fun.
I think being a good XO/CO is mostly how you conduct yourself infront of marines, on comms and in CIC. You don’t need to be the best tactician or the best player skillwise.
Be direct with your orders, if SO or SL is giving contradicting orders notify them they are being wrong.
Check tacmap every 20 seconds.
Your job is to be the bridge between Almayer and marines on the ground. You are logistics, OB support and their eyes.
Play Xeno Queen.
Study the map you are going to play.
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So here is a fun fact. The only thing all good commanders have in common is that they’re trying to make the game more engaging and memorable for other people.
Being recognizable or notable does not matter. Being the reincarnation of Napoleon does not matter. Doing wacky and zany plans does not matter. If you are trying to engage with other people as CO or XO, trying to create memorable moments that are fun for people and not just different, and trying to maintain and uphold the atmosphere of the round, you’re a good commander. Simple as.
Literally nothing else matters. You just need to understand the basics of CIC and put in an actual effort to make the round more fun for people. That’s it.
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The job of the XO and CO in CM-SS13 is to simply lead the marines. Either to victory, defeat or mutual annihilation.
Unless you’re roleplaying a character, you might want to stick to the usual meta but if you are willing to take the risks necessary to assemble interesting plans and a personality, it always provides memorable and different rounds. Even the way you talk or act are capable of influencing your reputation.
The worst XOs are the ones that do not communicate at all. Either through baldness or by simply being overwhelmed, you need to provide information about the battlefield and support the marines to the best of your ability, even if they are getting their asses kicked in the area of operations.
There are two kinds of people. The ones that like to do the same thing every round, moving to specific places with their friends and the ones that like to do different and unique things to stand out from the rest of their previous rounds in some maps. Making both of these people happy is hard, if not impossible. But the most important thing is to decide which one you are.
The absolute thing that makes a XO, CO and SL stand out is the ability to make decisions. Either good, or bad. Decide what to do, where to move, how you are going to do all that is up to you as you are the leader of the marine force. Your SLs are your auxiliary forces to get marines where you want them and if they fail to move where they are supposed to, the entire plan goes out the window.
An example I like to bring up is Lieutenant General Mark Clark of the US during WW2. While he took several decisions, both bad and good, he was too afraid of defeat to take the risks necessary for victory.
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,abcd CHAAAAAARGE
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You can just use CM examples:
Celestine plat XO or Windhealer CO.
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Poor Celestine. Bro tried so hard… actually feelsbadman
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The hit list did not help.
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CM boomer moment. I now remember celestine
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Late to the thread in-fact very late lol.
But a good commander (on my books) is always communicative, dont insult marines and overall y’know command the op.
People worry sometimes, that you maybe be over-announcing, but pleaase.
keep marines informed, at all times.
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1000 hour plus XO. Wild times.
1200+ XO hours near his disappearance.
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I have a question on how to be XO. How do you make rounds interesting without doing a plan that will fail, or piss off the marines? How do I make things more interesting than same old meta strats? I want to play XO more but I feel like it’s just the same exact thing over and over again, unless I intentionally do something different which may just cause a sub 1hr speedrun of hijack
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Be like Greg Lauffer, make 30 mins briefing and marines will lost all will to oppose you and will listen to your every words.
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I’m not the person to ask about going off meta but a good start is not sending the Marines to the same locations + trying to justify your plan and the entire operation in a wider context.
I don’t remember the name of the XO but one round we hunted for Narcoterrorist John McBaldie on CC, starting at A-Block Dorms to try catch him asleep before checking the Hive for him, then sweeping Security to see if he was caught.
Changed nothing about the round in the grand scheme of things, but something silly and some context to RP over made the round far more interesting (and is why I can remember the round but not anything else about it).
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I personally use all the information i get and make a plan based on that. For example:
Spawn in as XO, hear the ares annoucment, uknown distress signal called by WY colonists. Ok let’s look at the tacmap. A lot of dead colonist lifesigns inside ETA. That is either the source of the distress signal or we will find out more by investigating it. Ok let’s make a plan to go there.
Rule of thumb check squad rosters, on low pop you always want to take things slow. Less people = more time needed to build fob/setup comms. I usually try to put 2 squads on fob and 2 on comms and slowly build the plan from there.
Low pop is where one mistake can cost a lot.
On high pop theres a lot of competent people, no need to worry that much, just let them do their thing.
Making round interesting is not making off meta plans. Its doing the best you can, that you know will work. Paradropping marines behind nemy lines is is not interesting. It is reckless low effort plan, that if not planned very in depth will most likely result in 00:30 evac
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Ship side RP, you cannot and should not aim to please everyone, I just focus on making ship side memorable. I do it basically every ship side role I can think of, and is why I think the best RP role in the game is doctor, and MT
1 Like