janspader - Commanding Officer Application

[Shay Silverlocke]

Alright as Misty and ZAB1019 are asking the same questions, I shall answer them both together.

1: A jtac spotter lazes in an OB saying it will kill a lot of t3s and maybe even queen. You assume this due to queen being where most of the t3s are. You aim and press fire but the coords are being blocked. Turned out the coord is directly ontop of a new hive core. The coords are LAT 240, LONG 210. There is an area north of the hive core which is unprotected. Maybe 12 tiles. There are marines south, but half a dozen will be severely hurt from OB. The hive core just got destroyed. What do you do?

Answer : I would hold the OB. Given that even with helmet cams one in CIC will not have a perfect picture of groundside. I will contact the Jtac spotter to request new coords and if there is a lack of time, order the marines to pull back south and ensure they are doing so before pressing fire. 6 marines can very easily lead a semi-unstable front to collapse especially if the Xenos know exactly what they are doing and sense that your line has been weakened while medics are desperately trying to revive marines. Men are a resource not to be squandered carelessly.

2: Alpha squad has no SL. It has 12 ungas in it. You assign an aSL. Charlie Squad has 8, but an SL who seems sane. Charlie SL asks for a command headset to lead alpha squad and perhaps others. What do? Do you alter orders to keep those two squads together or do you deny? Why?

Answer: It depends on the situation. Sometimes the front requires more flexibilities. For example, 8 good marines can hold a flank in a prepared position. However, I will still grant Charlie SL a command headset as like you said, he seems sane. So the addition of a command headset will only be an advantage to the man, as now he gets access to a broader range of comm channels, integrating him further into the marine battlenet and thus allowing him to react faster to the battlefield while becoming somewhat semi-autonomous by taking his own initative.

3: A xeno boards the transport. There is not a single person on the transport. You saw it just as the transport's auto run launches it from FOB. What do you do?

Answer : Immediately open the shipside armory informing the crew on board the exact number of Xenos (In this case, one), type or caste and if possible, sub castes. ARES should automatically set Red but depending on if the game bugs out (Happened once recently when the DP launched the Alamo after a Queen snuck aboard (FOB Held) but ARES stayed on blue regardless.) set to red if need be. Depending on who is running the Op, I send any excess CIC Crew to assist if need be, such as one or two SOs, the XO if I'm in command, or myself if I late join and it's the XO running the Operation. I feel it is more important to send the SOs who arrived late as they have a lesser grasp of the situation and require time to settle in, same with an XO or CO who latejoins.

4: Its xeno hijack and the queen just crashed into the almayer. You, by chance, appear to be about 1 screen away. You have all your CO gear on you. What do you do?

Answer : Depends on the situation. If the Xenos rush in the opposite direction away from me, I sneak into the DS if it's empty to destroy the pool to aid the defending marines in their endeavors, be it holding for Evac or for a last stand (Highly unlikely as Xenos are human players too and will usually know better). If I have a horde of marines with me, I might attempt to push after a rough estimate of how many marines with me compared to Xeno numbers and terrain, focusing on the easiest Xenos to kill to lower the amount of Xenos in a fight or just do a fighting retreat till I have enough marines to stabilize the front and from there, go for kills. However, if I am alone, it's not going to help anyone for me to suicide by Xeno horde. So a tactical retreat might be the wisest option to regroup and reassess the situation. There's a time to fight, and there's a time to pull back if need be.

5: It's LV. You're slowly losing. You have a nice HE OB prepped and have been asking for coords for a while but no one gives it. The fighting is at containers/cave entrance in the north east. The marines just got pushed out of the caves and it's going to be a full retreat to hydro very soon. There aren't that many xenos left, but they're robust, queen is out and their carrier is frontline capping and putting marines in nests near the cave entrance. Those numbers will swing the balance heavily in xeno's favour. Hydro is properly caded, has no ammo and even fob has limited ammo. Hydro road isn't caded either. Nexus just barely is.

Answer: I will immediately request coords directly from a specific RTO which I feel isn't in immediate danger. However, if I get no replies, I will have the engineers focus on Nexus and Cargo and to work as fast as able with what they have while I attempt a fighting retreat to save as many marines and buy as much time. While having Alamo hold on the LZ. This way I cover my bases. If the marines rally and push the xenos back, freeing the captures, Great. The best outcome. Time is the most valuable commodity here. If the marines get pushed back into Hydro. I might take the risk of them having to retreat via Fitness and West Nexus back to FOB. However it is more likely I pull them back to the Hydro road corner attempting to buy time for the Engineers directly to the south working on Central Nexus and the main hallway. Alamo being on the LZ means that in the worst case scenario, the marines can evac and pull out as the situation requires.

6: Its big red, charlie squad has no SL but spec, sg and enough support to make it still functional. The orders you made are generic bravo fob and comms and all other squads to lambda. Alpha and delta go to lambda pods just fine, but charlie ignores it and goes through filt podlocks, c4ing in and flanking east lambda lab. It seems the hive is in NW lambda, or the actual lambda lab building itself. What do you do?

Answer : As most Xenos tend to meta hold filt, and I am presuming the fact that Charlie managed to breach through filt on their own means that they are pretty capable. That said. I would probably assign an SO to keep an eye on Charlie, while assigning the smaller of the other 2 squads, Alpha or Delta, to push South East into the caves to link up with Charlie in order to give them an exit route before having the Squad rejoin with the other marines at SW Lambda. This way. I get flexibility with Charlie who has an escape route to evac if they get pushed hard. While Alpha and Delta have the numbers to attempt a hold. This also leaves Charlie in a position to cut off any retreat if the Xenos try to run when Alpha and Delta breaks through or it leaves Charlie in a position to hammer into the Xeno flank.

Even if the inital scenario has the Xenos hive camp and Charlie runs into no resistance while breaching from Filt, I would have done the same thing. I believe in being like water, freezing solid to block any advance if the situation requires it, or pulling back to avoid being broken if the Xenos intends to force their way through, flowing around resistance like water.

[ZAB1019]

Ok my post got edited due to be rude. But I'll just reiterate it here (hopefully wholesome enough so it doesn't get sent to the jungles of LV). I believe people who spend 90% of CM's time in CIC grow a bit out of touch with the common groundside marine. It also doesn't give you the full skill set required as a leader in cm to properly see what is and is not possible when conducting things in game like certain flanks, the numbers of xenos vs humans left and other things. Groundside gives you a very important game sense and brotherhood with your fellow ungas, which sitting in the cic does not give you the same skillset exactly.

I saw there were people who soyrage'd about OBs from you, so I made the questions a little OB specific. I believe a good CO is good in roleplay, an effective leadership style, and tactics of CM. People may say tactics don't matter. But the fact of the matter is no one wants a pure roleplayer CO. I don't care about how robust someone is, but if someone has 500+ hours as CIC I expect them to know how to do the majority of JTAC, and especially OBs. If they can't it just furthers my point of groundside play being very important and why sitting in cic all the time doesn't give you a good, rounded skillset.

I'll give positive, neutral or negative reactions to each question.

Anyway for the questions:

This is a reasonable answer. But what I really was hoping for. And what is straight up required sometimes by CIC, is to offset coords yourself. This comes into rounding your skillset. You said you would order marines to push back south. That's perfectly reasonable. But what I was hoping for here is you actually adjusted the coords yourself. Anyone who has a hundred hours or so should be able to do this. But it wasn't your first thing at all. Also asking for more information from a spotter is not always possible. Queen screeches make people deaf. Grenades go off and make people deaf. They just die, waiting to be revived or get captured. These are all things that happen a lot in the game, and there's probably only them spotting at that point. Nowhere in your answer did it say you were readjusting it yourself, you simply wanted the spotter to do it for you.

I'll give a neutral on this question, as what you said is okay, but it could be better. What I think the correct answer would be is thus: I specifically said there is an area north of the hive core which is 12 tiles north from it. Hive core got destroyed but there are still 6~ marines who may get hit if the OB is on the hive core's location. The correct answer here is to adjust the coords yourself. I hinted at this by giving you the exact coords. Adjusting coords is a complex and required skill for any CIC main. Combined with telling marines to move back a bit. Adjusting LAT 240, LONG 210 to LAT 240, LONG 222 Would be enough leeway to kill the hive. A marine or two may be killed, if they are not careful, yes. But the question specifically stated that multiple t3s will be killed, and maybe even queen. The size of a HE OB for example is 32 diameter. Which would be enough. Same for cluster. Incend would be a little tricker to gauge, but 1-3 marines dying (which can be revived most likely) to kill multiple t3s and some t2s? Worth. These are the tactics you have to think about in command.

2: Its important to give leadership to people who actually want it, regardless if someone clicked a leadership role. If they clearly want it and look like they would do a good job. You might as well let them, otherwise you're shooting yourself in the foot. This is a good answer and its a positive from me. You didn't actually say if you gave charlie command over alpha or changed orders, so it could be better but whatever.

3: I think the important thing is you didn't even think about locking down the hanger. Which depending on the xeno, and amount of marines, is very important. If its a burrower, won't really matter. But the opening steps of a runner or lurker being on the ship are critical, because if they're robust, you will lose countless ship side marines to them. Checking how many marines are in the hanger is also very important when you do this. If there's a dozen marines in the hanger when it comes up? A lockdown is easy. Just lock it and they will kill it. 2 Marines? Maybe don't lock it down. It may be better to have the free movement of marines moving around to patrol the ship for it instead. Again this question doesn't really have a right or wrong answer. And you answered it good, but you didn't even think of using a big red button in the cic bubble. so I'm gonna give a neutral for this one.

4: The DS is basically never going to be empty when it just lands. Xenos go in all areas around it almost always. Sneaking onto the DS when it's 1 screen away is extremely unlikely. Personally I believe the right answer is to announce on the command tablet the location. And do a tactical retreat to get to the nearest group of marines to do a counter attack. If facing heavy resistance, maybe retreat some more and get some more marines. I deem it very important to have the CO alive in hijack as its a morale booster and a good centre piece to rally behind. And possibly the only person which has comms, via the command tablet. I said you were in full CO gear, so you were ready for fragging. You realize that fragging and dying soon after isn't good for the team. So im giving a small positive for this one. You never actually explicitly said you announced the location or number or make up of xenos. Which I think is important. But you still realize the importance of an alive CO.

5: I think you need to read the question properly. It says a retreat will happen very soon. Eg. The marines aren't pushing unless the xenos throw, and you can't base tactics around that. So the marines pushing them back really isn't going to happen.
Your process is all defensive, and it relies on people who are probably dead by this point. In this scenario its clear that there is a severe lack of supplies. So the amount of time to cade a bit more isn't going to work well. But its great you know fitness may be an option if hydro road is fucked.

Again. By this point you almost 100% have hydro coords jotted down somewhere if its caded and (previously) had ammo sent to it, (which is now used up). The correct answer here is to open up your notepad with coords on it, get hydro. Offset it to hit NE containers and kill the captures. If you dont have a notepad opened with coords and names for them jotted down. You should. You have 1000 hours as XO and you should be doing that 500 hours ago. If you don't, you can ask req for hydro coords. Which is easy. If hydro begins to fall, you should send the OB to containers and kill the caps which were for some reason put there. If you don't. You will almost definitely die in 15-25 minutes, regardless. As they will just have an extreme numbers advantage. Going to have to rate this a neutral as well. But its close to being a negative.

6: The xenos are most likely holding lambda podlocks. I've never seen a lambda hive where this is not the case. Filt xenos is debatable when its lambda. This means both alpha and delta are most likely engaged and fighting at lambda pods. Pulling back isn't really an option. If that happens. A large amount of the marine force will no longer be on the frontline. And I extremely doubt that they will actually pay attention to those orders to go to filt when they are actively engaged in lambda pods and are starting to go inside.

So realistically marines aren't going to go half the map around to help charlie. And if they do. The frontline will lose a lot of support. Potentially collapsing because you ordered half the squads to not be on the frontline for a while. You can only be flexible by so much because you only have so many marines. Not once in this did you actually ask the marines groundside the situation. Which is important in all the questions, but doubly so if a squad if flanking by themselves. Maybe look at the other squads and see how heavy the resistance is. If it looks like all the xenos are attacking alpha and delta. Charlie doing a hive dive might be a very good idea. Or flanking from east in general. But by the time that happens, the marines pulled off from alpha and charlie won't make it in time. Giving a SITREP with a screenshot of the tac map and xeno locations is also a very good thing to do here. As it would give everyone good reasoning for flank potential or falling back.

To reiterate, pulling a whole squad from the frontline probably won't work. They are actively fighting. If it *does* work. The frontline is bare and will probably collapse. Meaning the two flanking squads will probably get surrounded and die. If it does work in your scenario, you just have charlie rejoin the other squads at lambda anyway? What about flanking east? Seeing how the fight is going and any openings in the xeno defences? You failed to communicate and adapt to the fly on the battlefield and give new orders to them. All what you essentially did is tell them to unga ball. Going to have to give a negative on this one.

Generally I think you still lack the skill set required for a CO. You need more groundside hours. As well as hours leading grounside. As well as hours into JTAC, CAS isn't too important. Mortars kinda are. Because they're basically OBs but smaller. Some may say JTAC isn't that important as a CO. But you are THE person who is responsible for a bad or good OB. I think you need to learn more about that. As well as adapting your orders on the fly and communicating with your marines. Asking them if the ground is possible to hold and for how long, or giving information on the xenos local to them in squad chat if conducting a flank. I believe you are an XO that may just sit on helmet cams without actually asking the opinions or communicating with the rest of your team. There are ways to get around not having a live spotter. You can ask req for coords. IF you're decent at JTAC, you can use those coords to win where you straight up would lose, as you would have no spotter.

Combined with the previous posts on here, I think you need to work on your team work and talking to other people on your team directly. An over reliance on Helmet cams and rushing into req to do their job without even talking to them if they need help is not what a good CO would do. A good one works alongside the team and reinforces it. Generally if the same result would've happened if command didn't do anything, then command is pointless in their job. Which is why its often said by ungas that "command bad". But that's a different matter. I think you are smart and know what to improve on from reading this, and I'm sure you will get CO eventually. But I think just sitting in CIC and only learning CIC skills and not much else is not the way to go about it.

Of course people will disagree with the questions' answers and that's ok. They're meant to give feedback for myself and other players to properly look at your style of CIC. But with 3 neutrals, 2 positives and a negative. It just barely scrapes by. There's more learning still needed to have more positives. And I think the previous posts in this thread have convinced me to give a slight -1. Just to comment on the others, I think wordlessly modifying your gun while mutineers are actively pointing their guns at you is absolutely ridiculous. They gave you plenty of leeway to roleplay that out and show your RP skills. But you just ignored the multiple guns pointed at you and acted like it was nothing in silence. Mutinys are a great thing to RP, and you just... didn't?

Also your name is copied from someone from Warhammer 40k. You are actively breaking rule 9: Ranked, titled, honorific, offensive, famous and pop-culture names are not allowed. Saint Celestine is a MAIN CHARACTER. And you took their name, and their nickname. They have multiple straight up books just about them. There's an entire faction which is entirely made to preach and praise Saint Celestine. The Order of Our Martyerd Lady. She is commonly known to have cherubs fly past her all the time. Idk how staff haven't enforced this rule yet. She even has a very popular model: https://www.games-workshop.com/en-AU...ing-Saint-2018

[Stagda]

+1 from me based on my experiences with Celestine as XO when I play CMO/RO. You have made improvements in your communications and keeping them consistent. In particular it seems that you’ve made more an effort to engage with departments in regards to communications but not getting directly involved unless needed.

All this being said, while I have not directly noticed the issues Molto raised recently, I had seen them in the past around the time of your previous application. I would advise you to take his feedback to heart.

I’m not going to comment on your answers to the questions asked previously because if you ask 5 people how CIC should/should have handled a situation you’ll get 20 different answers. Also Celestine is not solely a name from fiction.

[ZAB1019]

Saint Celestine in warhammer has cherubs commonly follow her around. It isnt a coincidence.

[Taketheshot56]

Look Ive been CO for a long damn time, too long perhaps and Ive seen hundreds of COs come and go over the years, theres such a thing as a bad CO/Command player and I honestly dont believe Celestine falls into that category, Ive CO'd for them numerous times and while the criticisms levelled above can be accurate at times Ive also seen Celestine command operations very well, with and without a CO. Obviously this is one alot of people have opinions on but to be brief and utterly honest in my opinion.

Give Celestine a shot, they put the work in, developed a good app got some good hours and genuinely could do the role well I think.

+1

[Enyonggg]

I vote yes

[NuggetsOnToast]

-1

You have over 1000 XO hours yet you still can’t optimally play the role. Your announcements are scarce, late and normally useless. You favour calling on players specifically with names you recognise for information ignoring other sources and you spend the first half of your round fully gearing up your character with combat gear just to sit in CIC all round.

You also have a serious problem with using LOOC in game and being just generally weird to people in DMs which I think displays along with your hours an overall unhealthy and not positive approach to the role your playing. You seem to think it’s an actual job with no room for error which is ridiculous. If you get CO you should be able to roll with the punches instead of over dwelling on a loss.

Half the people who have commented on this application are staff never players who see the 1000 hours as a reason to just let you in for your unhealthy “dedication” to the role.

It’s harsh but it’s true that playtime does not translate into ability and in your case it hasn’t.

Nothing in this application has changed from your last one apart from the hours, you are still the exact same player you were who treats the role as an auto fill auto pilot role which you play half arsed. I as a PFC personally would not want to see you as a CO until you actually make some changes other than sinking more hours in.

[ChiChii]

I cannot in good conscience support this application, due to your persistent defeatist mindset.

What's that? It's stuff like this:

"There's nothing we could do, Chi was queen!"
"There's nothing we could do, DP was warrior!"
"There's nothing we could do, w/e robust player is on!"

I do not think any command player should have this mindset: constantly giving up, never trying to improve, never trying anything new because they just play the round the same way over and over, giving up from the start. This has been pointed out by a few other individuals in this thread, and I fully agree with them. You just give out standard orders as XO, or just order marines to stay in the fob. No flanks. No pinchers. No baits. That is my experience playing against you.

I think you need to get WELL out of this mindset and learn proper leadership skills before applying for CO.

Stop giving up because you see anyone competent on the other side. COs are meant to be leaders and your mindset prevents you from being a good one.

LOOC: Celestine 'Cherub' Chyler: I know it's Chichii speed running
LOOC: Celestine 'Cherub' Chyler: So I'm at the point where I really fuck care

^ I'm sure staff can actually pull a lot of these looc defeatist quirks.

-1, I don't want any more defeatist COs. There's enough as there is.

[GhostGhost360]

Hello,

I just had a few questions for you.

1. What do feel are the differences between an XO and CO? I don't mean the rules (WL, ML, SOP), equipment (Mateba, etc.) or rank.

2. Why do you want to become a CO and why is this not something that could be done as an XO?

3. In what instances would you role XO over CO if you had the WL?

Thank you,

[MayorofKenya]

What do you think are viable options for Hijack Holdouts? Do you think that there are great places to hold? Are there any that you would try that you haven’t seen people do yet? If so, Why?

Would you be willing to BE a well known Marine if you knew that they committed an action that was BEable but would cause a fit amongst the Marines?

What is one thing you could change about the Whitelist if you had the power to do so?