Commanding Officer

COMMAND
Commander	Difficulty: Very hard Supervisors: Marine Law Rank: Not defined Duties: Lead your platoon and complete the mission. Guides: Leadership ; Marine Law Unlock Requirements: Not available. Detailed Description: |__________| Not defined |__________|

"How many drops is this for you, Lieutenant?"

"Thirty-eight. Simulated."

"How many combat drops?"

"Uh, two... Including this one."

― Ripley, Lt. Gorman and Pvt. Vasquez, Aliens

No army operates without a good leadership, an army without a chain-of-command is a defeated army, it's your job and duty to represent the United Americas Allied Command and cooperate with Weyland-Yutani to solve the situation down in the planet.

The commander is held in higher standard from all the crew of Sulaco and expected to have the highest responsibilities from all other marines, because of this reason, the role is currently whitelisted, click here to go to the whitelist page.

Your Mission

You are the Commander of the USS Sulaco where you have been tasked with a mission to investigate an automatic distress call from the colony on the planet LV-624. Your mission is to command the marines to conduct a Search and Rescue (S.A.R) or a simple investigation on what has happened to the colony. Your ship contains a platoon of 4 squads of marines and the ships crew (including the MPs, bridge officers and so on) which makes up 5 squads. Your sole objective of this mission is to find out what happened, deal with the situation, possibly evacuate any ground personnel and go home with minimal loses. The lives of your platoon rests on your decisions and abilities as the commanding officer of the ship to succeed in this mission. You will also be responsible for the lives of the men and women that fall under your command.

You will also need to brief the marines on what they will be doing as in for example: "Marines we have received a distress call from the colony Lazarus's Landing where we have been dispatched to investigate.(This is just an example of what a commander could say and after that you can assign objectives for each squad). How you want this mission to go is entirely up to in order to complete the mission.

As the Commander of the mission you are to be in RP at all times from briefing the marines to ordering squads around. Don't act like an idiot! You will be held responsible for the failure of the mission if it turns south. You will possibly be demoted if you haven't met acceptable standards. Think carefully about your decisions.

Note: Do not ever commit suicide during any period of the round. You will be given a ban from all commanding roles.

Your Tools

Technically you can go to planetside and be part of the operation, provided you leave the Executive Officer in charge of the Sulaco. That's EXTREMELY not recommended, however, since you are more useful on the Sulaco for everybody - including you.

As Commander, your biggest tools are not weapons and grenades, but the leadership and all military structure under your command:

• The bridge staff: These are the direct successors of the command if you are away and have the main mission of helping the squads down below. They operate by using the overwatch consoles to support the squads and by micromanaging them so you won't have to concentrate on four squads at the same time

• The marine platoon: you have four squads under your command, each formed by 1 Squad Leader, 2 Combat Medic, 2 Combat Engineer, 1 well equipped Specialist and endless waves made from fresh reinforcements of redshirts, erm... Standard Marines. In the course of the operation, you have contact with them, give orders to them (but give them to the Squad Leader first) and generally maintain order, structure, and discipline of the Marines. They were trained for a long time to be the representation of your wrath on the battlefield, so manage as if they were your own pieces in a chess game.

• The Military Police: A handful of Military Police Marines that answer directly to you. They are here to hunt anyone that breaks the Marine Law. Use them to make sure Marines don't get unruly on the Sulaco.

• Medical staff: Since they are civilians, they don't receive orders from you, although they should listen. They are led by a Chief Medical Officer and composed of Doctors. It's recommended you let them be autonomous for roleplay and gameplay reasons, since that micromanagement can make their job worse than it is. Researcher is also medical, make sure to provide them resources and ask them for shining equipment for your goons.

• Engineering: The engineers don't do much besides setting the engine up and fixing any broken thing on Sulaco. It's important to note that you can authorize the Maintenance Technician to go down planetside to assist in the construction of the FOB.

• Supply: Supply is an important part of the Sulaco. They provide weapons, equipment, supplies, medicine, and ammo for your ship and marines. You should always have direct contact with the Requisitions Officer to coordinate supply drops and what to order.

You also have the incredibly useful communications console, with the various abilities of:

• Making a general announcement: a general announcement will be heard by ALL Marines whatever they are (but not survivors or xenomorphs). They are always a good idea to use when you want to reach all the Marines at once.

• Sending a message to USMC High Command: Even the boss has a boss. Sometimes in times of need, you need to contact the High Command to ask for their support or to inform them of something important.

• Send a distress signal: Sending a signal will spawn a crew of Mercenaries or a infected pod full of xenomorphs composed by dead players - useful for when you need help defending the ship and want to call those dead players back to the action.

• Activate the escape pods: If the aliens are infecting the ship and fighting them seems impossible, you can always use this option to attempt to preserve the lifes of your Marines and escape like a coward. The escape pods will take 20 minutes to recharge and 3 minutes to launch.

How to Lead

Okay, lets get this part out of the way: As the Commander, yes, technically everyone has to do what you say.

AH AH AH! NO! CLOSE BYOND RIGHT NOW AND FINISH READING THIS!

This is the part that some people never read past. You can recognize these Commanders because they treat the other players like slaves and never listen to anything they say. Ten heads think better than one - and the other Marines are your eyes and ears. Refusing to listen is like putting a blindfold on.

The number one rule of being Commander is: BE POLITE! It's important to remember that while other Marines have to do what the Commander says, they don't have to like it. They can bitch and moan and make a Commander's life a living hell by generally not giving it their all. As the Commander, you need to be... NICE. The Marines have to LIKE YOU. If they don't, a Commander is in for a bad time. When you hate your Commander's guts, you will, at least subconsciously, perform WORSE.

So how do you separate the good Commanders from the bad ones? Well, here is a checklist of bad Commander behavior:

• The Commander stays silent or won't talk over the console or radio.
• The Commander leaves the bridge or walks around the ship without good reason.
• The Commander doesn't give the briefing or delays deployment for no good reason.
• The Commander gives wack-a-doodle or contradictory orders.
• The Commander insults the lower ranks regularly or expresses contempt.
• The Commander insults Marines who die in battle.
• The Commander refuses to acknowledge suggestions.
• The Commander orders any lower rank who disagrees or criticizes them to cease talking.
• The Commander refuses any responsibility for failures.

If a Commander somehow does everything on this list, tell an Admin, because that's griefing. Nobody does all this on accident. Or if they do, then they need a stern talking to.

Mutinies

Mutinies are an RP scenario that can or will possibly happen if the platoon thinks you have been doing a terrible job. (If this is occurring for some pathetic reason, then it's an act of grief. Please report this to the Admins.) A mutiny can be peacefully done if you are willing to step down from command, so listen to your platoon if things are heading south. You will be given multiple chances to step down peacefully, so take them if you know what is right for the Marines.

Good luck Commander.

Sources and Reading

• Marine Combat Guide (General Tactics and Strategies)
• Doctor Bright's Guide to Proper Queen Etiquette