So lads what do you think is better trying to RTS the cats or just let the cats go where they wish. Now to clarify what i mean, passive doesn’t mean to not do callouts or just not doing anything. more so just not trying to give orders and direct movement, instead focusing giving support and feeding info.
Passive command is better.
Active command is better.
I don’t ever follow orders so it doesn’t matter to me.
0voters
Of those who voted also do this one as well. ( I.E if didn’t vote up top please don’t vote here)
I play command rolls (This includes queen)
Unga bonga ( i don’t really play command rolls)
I gave myself brain rot and like herding cats ( are XO, CO, Queen mains)
0voters
Now i for one like playing more as passive support, both when i play as aCO (i never play XO really, but do play as low pop command backup if need be) or when play as queen. i find its much too hard to herd players to do what you want in timely and cohesive manner. Yes the moves you can pull, can work out great… but half the time you can only get 1/3 to 1/2 of what you need meaning that what ever plan you had ether fails or you got to call it off.
so i largely try to just let the ungas do as they please with in reason, after all many times its hard to get and sort info in a timely matter for your calls to be good. but on the other hand the front will grown and shift on its own as needed, you largely just need to keep a eye for flanks.
Edit: BTW i not saying i think active commanding is bad, i just think passive is generally better.
Edit 2: so i see the most like active command and we got it from a good broad pick of players. Now i taken note that many are saying a mix of both is best and frankly i agree, but this tread from more general terms.
Now after i have thought about it i think my idea what kind of command is better is getting skewed to the fact i only play as a back up command player… meaning that i only ever play when CIC is empty, which means low pop!
I think a combo of both is required. Sometimes it’s best to command them to keep doing what they’re doing. In cases like these, I like to provide other information which the marines may have forgotten about. I.e. backliners, using mortar/CAS, getting barricades, clearing structures, dead marines, etc.
Why not have a balance? Command should be passive when marines are where they should be, and be active when shit is getting fucked up and marines NEED orders to avoid dying / getting flanked / faltering.
yeah a good balance is usually the best, but largely meant from more general terms other then never doing one or the other. like how do you spend most the round being passive or active. but yes
is right. that’s also usually i when start being active, when i need to call for fallbacks.
I prefer passive, I like to think that marines, or atleast their SNCOs (SLs with a shted of experience) are skilled enough to handle the minor adjustments needed to make a plan work if i give the basic plan and information about flanks ect.
However I have had alot more successes managing the operation actively, e.g go here, avoid this choke,do xyz after thie ob, squad C form a rear guard to protect from a potential flank from XZY.
Both are valid. Both work. Im just starting to feel perhaps the one marines have more success with is active.
From the queen side, active all the way. Its why you can fight.
funny thing is i tend to have more failures when i am trying to be real active. but you also got to keep in mind i will only ever play command when its below 100 pop( but most the time when its 90 and below) so i am dealing with under staffed ship.
that and the fact most the time its just me in the CIC or with only one SO. soo… likely what’s happening for me is that just don’t have the manpower to start with to do anything more then a deathball.
also just want to say SO don’t get enough love, they make it so much easier to be active as they can deal with feeding info well you are busy giving orders.
It is the duty of CIC to feed information to marines and coordinate between squads so everyone is on the same page. You should be giving info on casualty locations, tacmap updates, overall outlook and queen rotations.
You should also be giving explicit orders to push, retreat, rally (this is very important) and hold, as well as directing marines to fix comms when it dies.
A player in command who fails to do both will have a detrimental effect on marine capabilities. Whilst SLs are mostly autonomous for better or worse (They can just ignore your brilliant plan and throw the op, or refuse to follow your god-awful suicidal orders and save their squad from you), you are still responsible for the broader picture so everyone knows “we should be doing X.”
Of course, if you’re a CO or an XO under a CO, you can solve everything by deploying as an uber-competent SL with absolute authority, massive morale boost, access to all intel and a fragger gun. In that sense, neither active nor passive is best, rather direct command is objectively the best for winning.
In my SL opinion a commander should stay on more passive side.
Passive playstyle does not infringe on SLs role of commanding and micromanaging his squad. Its easier to focus your marines on a task as a SL when you are not having your SO/XO scream at you from up high CIC while not being 100% in the thick of the situation you might be currently finding yourself in. Shouting orders without the full view of the fronts situation or swapping SL the split second you go down breaks cohesion and leads to slow dissociation of the homogenous mass that your squad was once before. (If you were a good leader and not “HEHE MK2 KIT GOES BRRR”)
That being said mister RTS commander I have 1000hr in insert a random RTS game here can come useful in some cases. You being in the thick of the fight is your greatest strength but also your biggest disadvantage. I often find that my mind goes blank and conscious fades away as my body drift to autopilot mode making my MK1 magically stop becoming a tool of my profession but a extension of my consciousness as it takes control over me and commands me to shoot. In that cases when your SL becomes a “unresponsive unga” mister RTS commander can and should bring allot to the table when the SL is lacking. In that case giving out more micromanaging orders is of good use ant intention.
Remember while up there in CIC you do no get the fine picture of the situation, down here on the ground you do not get the bigger picture. That being said CIC should focus on big scale aka: telling marines where to go, where the hive is, what and how many backliners there are, whos squad should focus them, position of the queen and other important information’s and suggestions. While they should leave it to SLs to tell who to go, when to get in to the hive, telling the squadies who of them will hunt the backliners and who of them will go face down the queen. Forgetting your role in this information exchange may lead to frustration of both sides and xeno win rates magically rising.
TLDR:
Command - Passive preference, active if SLs are incompetent, if overactive when SLs are competent expect being ignored.
SLs - Active preference, take over the task of the big picture orders if command incompetent, Interpret the orders if command is over active and judge if they are reasonable or not.
I tend to be on the passive side simply because I trust in the SLs and FTLs to manage their squads on the tactical scale. But, when I’m on the ground myself, I do tend to perform better when I’ve got somebody in my ear telling me specifically where the fighting is and what needs to be done. So it boils down to “i’ll trust in the more experienced player” in most cases, being more active as command if I feel a squad lacks adequate leadership and being more autonomous as a marine if I feel the orders being given are going to ultimately result in worse outcomes.
The idea is to provide the players with a general direction and objectives that they need to get done, and trust that they will do them.
Reason I’d say passive command is because it is necessary to grant squad leaders and their squad members the operational freedom to adapt to the situations as they see it fit. After all they are in the contact line and have to react and adjust quickly.
Additionally, you have to understand that it’s a video game and the players are impulsive human beings, not some NPCs that will sit still and idle like in some RTS game. And that’s not a bad thing, it’s what makes it interesting. You’re working with others to the goal.
So in short, the idea is to not micromanage people. Let them have operational freedom at the contact line, as it’s their job to figure out how to handle what is thrown their way. What you have to do is look at the bigger picture of the operation (meaning new developments or variables that are not visible to the squad level) and use that information in the form of orders to make adjustments that puts the marines in a better position to handle their situation on the ground.
Passive if the SL’s, FTL’s, and SO’s are good and know how to adapt to a changing battlefield.
Active if they are new or do not see something that I, as XO, can see (such as the fact that half the front is near crit or critical and no Queen is in sight; if no one says Queen flank I will say it).
You cannot convince marines to do anything unless you have good SL’s or you get a rare round where every marine is willing to listen to command; you mostly only get people who listen to orders later in the game when half the marine force is wiped (the ones that did not listen) so you work with what you got.
I think active commanders actively (wow same word crazy) makes the game more interesting, too often we have CIC or the queen being entirely passive and just going from time to time ,abcd PUSH!!!
There’s nothing more annoying watching marines skirmishing badly at LV624 containers for 1h without any results just because command either don’t know (or can’t be bothered) to switch tactics.
Furthermore, I say that the people who actively take control of the OP have a better chance to make the round actually better than your typical boring meta slop (,abcd push!!!).
Concerning marines not following orders, I am of the opinion that passive command players make it worse by making marines get used to just do whatever the fuck they want. I think if we had way more people actually leading actively, the current disciplinary issues wouldn’t be this dire.
that’s a good point, but the issue is we lack a means to enforce discipline if go off the rails. partly why i am in favor of being marked for insubordination to take away the ability of geting SL order buffs.
but to get back on point, yes i do agree it can harm long term discipline issue is if you can only get 2/3 or 1/2 of the apes following orders it can lead to defeat in detail. so playing passive is a case of short term benefits of maintaining combat mass/ cohesion but losing the potential tactical benefits.
Until there are better measures to punish marines besides the CO whitelists BE feature (which is heavily scrutinized so its rarely used anyway so only the worst insubs get BE’d since CO’s do not want to lose their whitelist), marines will continue to disobey orders and its unironically built into the game as a balancing factor right now.
If marines always followed (good) orders, stuck together, helped each other up when downed, and used all the tools at their disposal, xenos would lose every round even if both sides were evenly skilled.
Same can be said about xenos. But there is less xenos and individuals have much more power than individual marines, so it is easier to be more cooperative on xeno side.
Command should be more, or less active for SLs and passive for basically everyone else below. Then there is no need for command to punish marines for not following orders, SLs literally have to do it by DA ROOLEZ.