How to not be a useless PFC?

[xenofood]

I've got some 60+ rounds behind me now, managed to get a good grasp on combat and stuff, not enough to call myself robust, but enough to not be a danger to other marines and actually manage to kill a xeno here and there.

So my question is, what now? Let me paint you a scenario that mostly happens in early combat encounters:

Once we have first contact and start fighting xenos, there's usually too many marines in front of me on the front lines, so in the interest of not getting FFed or FFing them, I just stay back, but what to do then?
I usually default to one of the following, or switch between them as necessary:
- grab whatever corpse or marine I can safely reach and drag them further back for the medics or whoever wants to take them to be picked up
- throw flares
- watch flanks
- wait for push to happen to join in the rush
- if a marine retreats, I take his place on the front line

So yeah, question to SLs and more experienced marines: When a PFC can't safely join you on the front, what should he be doing? Or did I somehow get it right by common sense alone?

[Moosetasm]

I've got some 60+ rounds behind me now, managed to get a good grasp on combat and stuff, not enough to call myself robust, but enough to not be a danger to other marines and actually manage to kill a xeno here and there.

So my question is, what now? Let me paint you a scenario that mostly happens in early combat encounters:

Once we have first contact and start fighting xenos, there's usually too many marines in front of me on the front lines, so in the interest of not getting FFed or FFing them, I just stay back, but what to do then?
I usually default to one of the following, or switch between them as necessary:
- grab whatever corpse or marine I can safely reach and drag them further back for the medics or whoever wants to take them to be picked up
- throw flares
- watch flanks
- wait for push to happen to join in the rush
- if a marine retreats, I take his place on the front line

So yeah, question to SLs and more experienced marines: When a PFC can't safely join you on the front, what should he be doing? Or did I somehow get it right by common sense alone?

If you’re pushing the front lines, then everything you’ve listed is good. If there’s too many marines on the front line, all crammed into a chokepoint, rushing with them might not be the best. In that case, you can see if anyone is willing to try to flank with you.

[Tharinoma]

Shoot or knife walls down

[Enyonggg]

be a good spotter for CAS and mortar using JTAC kit. it'll be a big help for frontliners to push

[Lagfnacy]

Just cover medics and engineers if you in the rear, you'll eventually join the front

[mat13295]

Knife down weed nodes, it helps marines push and pull back without being slowed down enough to get sprayed by acid tiles.

[ladwhy]

If you get bravo PFC, there will be always something for you to do. Sandbag duty, watch the flanks, roleplay, organize the ammo and the backpacks etc. If you're in the unga squads, you're good with what you listed.

[xenofood]

...you can see if anyone is willing to try to flank with you.

Huh, flanking, I never thought of that. It's mostly because I rarely, if ever, suggest a course of action or issue orders. Except that one time I was temporarily promoted to aSL and all I did was highlight SO's orders, yell at half the squad to rally on me and hold, and "Anyone who can't shoot safely, drag corpses or throw flares!". I lost an arm, but we survived, so I suppose I didn't do -too- poorly, considering command gave me aSL back when I got back from medbay, we organized a push and then won. But that was probably because of other marines being more competent than I.

be a good spotter for CAS and mortar using JTAC kit...

That's something I'd first have to learn, I'm pretty sure I'd cause a loooot of deaths by poor coords. Maybe I could dip into a PFC engineer kit and put down cades sometime. I know a lot of times when we're pushing, I'm thinking that a barricade or two would be helpful.

Just cover medics and engineers if you in the rear, you'll eventually join the front

A good plan, yeah. Especially if there's unsecured side routes we could get flanked by.

Shoot or knife walls down

Knife down weed nodes...

Yeah, I do that. Especially now that I learned that clicking on a tile (not mob) next to you doesn't fire a weapon. That's a huge QoL thing for slicing weeds with a bayonet. Still gotta be careful when slicing weeds and not click in the center, in case a marine decides to walk right in front of me and into an accidental PB.

If you get bravo PFC, there will be always something for you to do. Sandbag duty, watch the flanks, roleplay, organize the ammo and the backpacks etc. If you're in the unga squads, you're good with what you listed.

Hell yeah, I've been in Bravo a lot in the earlier rounds, having tons of fun on guard duty. My best one was guarding East of LZ1 on LV, mostly alone there, mostly quiet, but occasionaly I got a spitter harassing me. Every few minutes I was calling out my status and how everything is okay (mostly just for myself cause I was bored not having anyone to talk to, but also cause I thought it'd be useful) and when an attempt at a push happened at my guard post, all it took was one yell for help and six marines arrived within 10 seconds.

[50RemAndCounting]

From my experience, having a motion detector and watching your swuad's flanks is often the best way to help them. And if not at least for them you can at least save yourself and fall back to somewhere defensible instead of dying because your squad overextended

[Just L]

Huh, flanking, I never thought of that. It's mostly because I rarely, if ever, suggest a course of action or issue orders. Except that one time I was temporarily promoted to aSL and all I did was highlight SO's orders, yell at half the squad to rally on me and hold, and "Anyone who can't shoot safely, drag corpses or throw flares!". I lost an arm, but we survived, so I suppose I didn't do -too- poorly, considering command gave me aSL back when I got back from medbay, we organized a push and then won. But that was probably because of other marines being more competent than I.



That's something I'd first have to learn, I'm pretty sure I'd cause a loooot of deaths by poor coords. Maybe I could dip into a PFC engineer kit and put down cades sometime. I know a lot of times when we're pushing, I'm thinking that a barricade or two would be helpful.



A good plan, yeah. Especially if there's unsecured side routes we could get flanked by.




Yeah, I do that. Especially now that I learned that clicking on a tile (not mob) next to you doesn't fire a weapon. That's a huge QoL thing for slicing weeds with a bayonet. Still gotta be careful when slicing weeds and not click in the center, in case a marine decides to walk right in front of me and into an accidental PB.



Hell yeah, I've been in Bravo a lot in the earlier rounds, having tons of fun on guard duty. My best one was guarding East of LZ1 on LV, mostly alone there, mostly quiet, but occasionaly I got a spitter harassing me. Every few minutes I was calling out my status and how everything is okay (mostly just for myself cause I was bored not having anyone to talk to, but also cause I thought it'd be useful) and when an attempt at a push happened at my guard post, all it took was one yell for help and six marines arrived within 10 seconds.

Instead of knifing weed nodes, take a blowtorch or an industrial blowtorch and use it to destroy purple sacs, destroy them in one hit and a single blowtorch can clear like 40+ purple sacs, I believe.