23/08/2025:
- Slight edit to CO section thanks to @sg2002
- Slight edit to Requisitions section, adding focus to making sure Requisitions is operational.
Intro
Hello.
I am Danger!, some of you might know me as “Salazar ‘Cyclops’ Petrovich” or other characters. This mini-guide is to pass on some of the wisdom of ‘CM Leadership’ from 400 hours I have played the two leadership roles.
A lot of very smart and kind people have gone out of their way to write beginner guides for XO and CIC at large, however a lot of “intermediate” and “advanced” skills for XO are something left for you to pick up as you play more and more. I hope to codify some of these things to help newer players, even though you will still need experience and practice to get used to the hot seat.
Communication
Vibes
People will tell you to talk a lot. You should. Talk to everyone and everything, however the trap to avoid that many people do (even experienced players!) is to NOT assume that your cameras give you omniscience over the battlefield. Helmet cams are a small snapshot of what is going on, often only useful for checking positions faster than someone can type it. However, as you will learn from experience planetside, there is a ‘feel’ … a ‘vibe’ to the Marines and their situation. It is hard to put into words, however you can feel when Marines are going to lose their position - even if there is more than enough of them to hold it. This feeling you can pick up easier planetside than you can through snapshots of the battlefield. This same lack of qualitative understanding of the situation is what leads to XOs who order pushes and holds when the situation is collapsing, or XOs who order the Alamo to be held as the Hive has already locked the dropship. Another example are XOs who see full barricade lines, but in reality the Hive is breaching them out-of-sight of cameras.
What is to be done?
The simple way is to talk to Marines. Your best Marines to talk to are your NCOs - Non-Commissioned Officers, everyone who is Corporal and higher. Speak to Squad Leaders regularly, ask them for their thoughts and opinions on the situation where time allows. They are planetside, they understand the situation and ultimately they will carry out whatever order you tell them to. I have a personal preference for the phone. Understanding the vibes of the situation planetside, if Marines are holding well or barely holding on will inform you of what can be done next, letting you prepare for the situation as it will go on.
Phone or Radio?
I use the phone wherever I don’t need an immediate answer. You can find your own way with the radio, if your character doesn’t take a liking for the phone.
However, I find that many many people easily miss any radio communications, especially planetside with how much the game loves to spam you with useless information like people bandaging or reloading. The phone forces them to read chat and interact with you, which is far more productive for passing information up & down as both players are forced to stop and talk.
The Commanding Officer
At first, they are intimidating. They can behead you if you annoy them. Your first step is to clarify how much control of the operation they want to delegate to you. If they want the reins, then you should act within their limits. Talk to them regularly, feedback information to them like an SO would feedback to you. If you feel the need for retreat, let them know early and discuss it. COs, despite their threatening aura, do not want to take all the gameplay away from you. They are there to co-operate with you. You are also there, as a “Chief of Staff” as @sg2002 puts it, managing the SOs and playing to sweep up mistakes and messages the CO misses themselves. Avoid the mistake of waiting for their decision if the situation calls for it, if they are AFK or Busy then you need to act.
If they give the reins to you, that means they are going to deploy planetside to be in the highlight reel, or they are going to walk around shipside roleplaying. Act as normal, keep them in the loop or ask them for advice if you wish.
Delegation
Furthermore, one of your key capabilities (on some rounds) as XO is delegation. Your Staff Officers are there as extensions of yourself, to assist in communication with squads and to watch cameras more consistently, as well as to fire OBs and relay squad traffic to wherever it is needed. When time allows (outside of imminent collapse), delegating to Staff Officers lets you focus back on the situation planetside while making the Staff Officer do the work they are tasked with.
As an example, you can make Staff Officers cold-call (call every phone until someone picks up) NCO phones to hunt for OB co-ordinates, rather than begging on the radio for everyone to ignore you. As another example, you can ask the ASO to check in with Requisitions or other departments to make sure they are operating effectively, if you hear complaints.
Knowing your team
An admin once told me that:
(Paraphrased) “Your character has been on this ship for at least a few months in-game. They know the crew, they know who everyone is and what they are like. It is acceptable to know what, as an example, how competent a Squad Leader is as your character will have seen them before.”
which leads to an important note of playing XO:
Learn your crew.
Static: A person who plays often, usually under one character. Typically experienced, due to playing often.
Whenever you play, take note of names, especially important characters:
- Squad Leaders
- Smartgunners
- Weapon Specialists
- Combat Technicians
- Staff Officers
- Intel Officers
- Quartermasters
- Cargo Technicians
Learn the names, make a judgement on how they play, and in the future you can tailor your plan around the crew that wakes up with you. You will quickly learn the “statics” that play, especially around the time of day you play. When you wake up, you can see that Charlie and Delta have Squad Leaders that you know play well, so you can assign them more difficult roles in your plan - while you don’t know the Squad Leader for Alpha, don’t dismiss him but exercise your caution, you can often talk to Squad Leaders and pass some sort of judgement by seeing how they roleplay and how they interact with their own squad.
“Logistics”
Attrition
As a note about statics, attrition is the limiting factor for what stops Marines from completely stomping the Hive. Loss of key personnel:
- Squad Leaders
- Fireteam Leaders
- Smartgunners
- Weapon Specialists
leads to a BIG reduction in combat capability for squads - a leaderless squad will struggle to rotate to wherever they are needed, leaving gaps in your defense against the Hive, while Smartgunners and Specialists are key combat classes for the Marines.
Shipside Management
As the Executive Officer, you are in charge of the ship itself. That ultimately means it is your duty that things are running shipside. You need to recognise, as noted in attrition, that Marines are only limited in power by attrition of people and supplies.
Guns use ammo, reviving Marines takes battery power and limited-use medical supplies. Barricades take metal. Breaching resin takes explosives. Marines are only ever going to complain about ammo, they consider everything else nice-to-haves. Corpsmen will never tell you if they are low on supplies.
You should endeavour to make sure Requisitions is operational, and that front supplies are ready to drop as often as possible. One part of this is ensuring Requsitions is manned, and by someone who knows what they are doing. Privates, typically, do not know what they are doing. ASO (and then SOs) exist to delegate Requsitions to, if needed. Talk to Requisitions, tell them what is needed. Often you will need to co-ordinate Medical, Engineering and Requisitions to make sure what is needed arrives to Requisitions. Cargo Techs are not going to walk to Medbay to get Medical supplies.
Once combat starts, you have limited room to impact what happens, that is down to the Marines planetside. However, you can try your best to put them in the best position to win.
You don’t need to feed the Marines into a small chokepoint.
Every map has several sections with chokepoints, in order to force a decisive move from the Marines, and how the Marines manage it is what separates bad XOs from good XOs. One of the biggest traps that people fall into, is feeding Marines through a small chokepoint. Captured Marines, with recent changes, lead to two new Xenos. This will quickly snowball into disaster if you let the Marines feed themselves inside. Telling them not to die does not work.
When at a choke:
- Scan your manifest, and whatever information you have about the Hive from bioscans or visual reports. You can ask Squad Leaders to get a headcount on the Hive using binos.
- I recommend a 2:1 ratio of Marines-Xenos minimum to attack. 3:1 or higher is ideal.
- Check how severe the shortages in Squad Leaders, FTLs, Weapon Specialists, Smartgunners are.
- Make a judgement, if you believe you can push then get an OB inside the chokepoint, specify to the Marine to aim behind the Hive in order to force them out of the choke or much further up the choke.
- If Marines are able to break the choke and push inside, continue to push. Keep in contact with Squad Leaders, the Marines must withdraw before they get encircled and trapped past the choke.
- If Marines fail to break the choke, withdraw
Chokes are designed to attrition Marines. If you fail to break it, or begin to take heavy damage past it, you need to withdraw. The Hive cannot fight in the open, they are a defensive faction. They also cannot fight without heavy weeding. Withdraw to a better position, telling Marines as soon as possible so they can withdraw safely. Somewhere you have built-up between FOB and the choke, or even FOB itself. An example is the River on LV, as Xenos cannot weed the River. Take down their numbers to a more favourable ratio, and move back to the choke.
Outro
Thanks for reading, feedback is appreciated. I’ll update this document as I think of more things, I’ve tried my best to stick to a few key topics that are somewhat objective where possible - I recognise I play XO differently to some.
