Commanding Officer

COMMAND
Commander	Difficulty: Very Hard Supervisors: Marine Law, USCM High Command Rank: Not defined Duties: Lead your small battalion 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 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 Almayer and expected to have the most top 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 Almayer where you have been tasked with a mission to investigate an automatic distress call from the research facility on the planet Big-Red or another map that you're playing. 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 facility. Your ship contains a platoon of 4 squads of marines and the ship's crew (including the MPs, Staff Officers and so on) which makes up five 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 rest 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 research facility Solaris Ridge 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 you 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 commit suicide without a valid RP reason; otherwise you may end with a command job ban. If you are unsure about your RP reason for suicide, you can ahelp any of the staff online to make sure you won't be job banned for it.

Your Tools

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

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

• The Command staff: These are the direct successors of the command if you are away and have the primary 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 to 4 Squad Medics, 2 to 4 Squad Engineers, 1 Squad Smartgunner, 1 well equipped Squad Specialists 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 and their leader, the Chief MP 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 Almayer.

• 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 Almayer. 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 Almayer. 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.

• Synthetic: A stronger version of a human made from silicone and science, they're programmed to assist the Almayer in various supporting tasks and are not meant for combat situations. Remember, they completely understand Marine Law and never break it, so as long as your orders do not conflict with Marine Law, (or the rules) they will be followed through.

• The Tank Crew: One of the deadliest weapons fielded by the USCM. Having competent Tank Crewman can turn the tide of any battle, if you're losing on the front your tank will be able to hold any enemy back.

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 USCM 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 Responders or an 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. This will also allow the Almayer initiate its Escape Pods.

• Initiate the Almayer's escape pods: When everything goes haywire, you can always use this option to attempt to preserve the lives of your Marines and escape like a coward. The escape pods will take 3 minutes to launch. Note that you can only occupy three people inside the pod; otherwise the pod's thrusters will blow up due to overload capacity. One must send the distress signal to Initiate evacuation.

• Activate the Almayer's Self-Destruct Mechanism: If the aliens are infecting the ship, your crew evacuated and fighting them seems impossible, one can raise the security level to Delta and engage the Self-Destruct Mechanism. The Self-Destruct Control Panel will open, and one can activate the Self-Destruct System, every 10 minutes, a safety rod will pop up and can be activated. After activating all 6 rods, one must go to the Self-Destruct Control Panel and can detonate the entire ship if they think the mission is a lose. Remember to build defenses around and inside the SD room to have a better chance of detonating the ship.

• Award Medal: Commanders (and ONLY Commanders) can award medals for various marines through their heroic acts. See below for more information.

Supply Beacons and Orbital Beacons

Squad Leaders begin the game with 3 Supply Beacons and 1 Orbital Beacon in their vendor. The beacons are a one-time-use item, but more can be ordered from Requisitions. Supply beacons allow the squad to resupply in the field by airdropping supply crates, and Orbital Beacons enable the Almayer's heavy cannons to lock on and fire at the beacon's position.

Supply beacons

When the crate is ready to launch Squad Leader deploys a Supply Beacon, the overwatch Supply Drop Status will then update. Requisitions Officer moves the crate full of supplies onto the squad's launch pad, the overwatch Launch Pad Status will then update Staff Officer (you) launches the crate The crate will then be dropped near the beacon, it could even land in walls, so it's best to make sure the squad leader set the beacon in an open area Supply drops can penetrate up to glass ceilings (examine the floor tile to see the ceiling type). Five-minute cooldown between launches

Offsets

The X and Y offsets allow a SO to target a specific location relative to the beacon. +X is east, -X is west, +Y is north, -Y is south, up to 5 tiles. The SO can coordinate with the SL to set appropriate X and Y offsets if it's necessary to drop something a good distance away from the beacon itself. Offset Graph:

Orbital Beacons

Orbital bombardment is ready to fire Squad Leader deploys an OB and gives you the offset Staff Officer (you) inputs the offset Staff Officer (you) fires upon the Squad Leader's request Orbital Beacon can penetrate up to underground (but not deep underground) ceilings (examine the floor tile to see the ceiling type). When triggered, the Almayer will fire its heavy cannon after a short delay and target roughly the position of the beacon. Here is where X and Y offsets are significantly significant -- it's very dangerous in approximately a six tile radius (13x13) around the beacon itself, depending on the munition in the cannon, so using X and Y offsets is an excellent way to ensure your squad doesn't accidentally get annihilated. The Orbital Cannon will then need to be reloaded by the maintenance technicians.

Your Actual Tools

As the Commander, you have access to a few unique items. While you should always be leading from the Almayer, however, there may be circumstances where you may need to lead the Marines from the front, either on the colony or on the Almayer itself.

You spawn with a special issue Mateba, an extremely powerful auto-revolver that can dish out massive damage, its powerful enough to knock a Human off of their feet. You also have access to a Whistle for coordinating the marines and a special issue Command Smartgun with its respective kit in the command armory, and appropriately you are one of the few people trained to operate a Smartgun in the field. Finally, you spawn with binoculars, for long-range recon.

How to Lead

Now that the Commander is a whitelisted role, some basic things don't need to be said anymore. Don't go AFK, don't be a super-dictator. As a fresh CO, there are some things you need to keep in mind. One, you might be called the Commander, but you're more suited for the title coordinator. Don't see your SLs and SOs as pawns, but rather valuable tools (that sometimes talk back to you) who have a mind of their own. With this in mind, you'll have two overarching leadership styles:

One, being a gentle guiding hand for the marines. This involves giving your squads and SOs some leeway to perform what they think is best, as they're the ones on the ground so they'll know a little bit better than you will. This, in essence, is being firm; but polite, as no marine respects a Commander who is excessively strict and hostile towards them. If you're going to go this way, I would suggest giving the two chattiest/competent squads semi-autonomy objectives, whereas the less chatty/competent squads are given things such as FoB or Power duty.

Two, be a dictatorlike Commander who is incredibly strict and stomps dissent with his Military Police. This works exceptionally well if you have compliant and quiet squads who won't be likely to oppose you. You'll want to threaten no support, brig times, and other horrible things in the hopes of getting your marines to follow your orders. With this kind of control scheme, you'll be wanting to have no autonomy for your marines and be continually giving them orders, or they'll stop listening to you. As a note, this can and will result in a disastrous mutiny that will get BOTH sides killed. Be warned.

Here are some things you'll want not to do when you're a Commander, lest a mutiny happens or the marines flat out ignore you:

• 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 provides wack-a-doodle or different 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 you as a player see a Commander checking off most of this box, alert staff via an "Ahelp" as this will allow them to take action if needed, and if it's severe enough they might be taken off the whitelist.

Mutinies

Mutinies can happen for many reasons, but it's mostly due to the marines not liking something you did. Expect there to be a mutiny because you didn't hand out a particular drug, didn't call up the shuttle instantly. Whatever the case may be, you have two options of handling it. Conceding to their demands and stepping down, or fighting them off - with lethals or not. If you decide to fight fire with fire, remember that the Military Police will always be on your side.

Taking on the mutiny head-on can be scary at first, but remember that you've got an always loyal crew of MPs and possibly bridge staff, and an easily defendable location. You'll be able to funnel them in and hopefully tazer them down, arresting them in progress. If it comes to guns, you'll be ready to fight them off if the mutiny is relatively small. Make sure to announce over the command system that a mutiny is happening, and for any free marines on the Almayer to assist. You'll have plenty of loyalists ready to die for you and the Corps.

Of course, the best course of action is to prevent the mutiny outright. Make sure you treat your marines right, and they'll treat you right.

Abilities: Orders

Orders are a timed active ability that characters trained in leadership can activate. The duration of the ability is related to how high the character's leadership skill is, an example being that the Commander's order will last longer than a Squad leader's order. The leadership skill also determines the intensification of the ability, the higher it is, the more intense the effects of the order are on surrounding players. Note that these abilities do not stack and that the abilities cover your visual view range and no further.

Orders:	Description:
Move!	Increased mobility and chance to dodge projectiles.
Hold!	Increased resistance to pain and combat wounds.
Focus!	Increased gun accuracy and effective range.

Medals

To show that a member of the Almayer's crew has gone above and beyond during the mission you can log into the communications computer and use it to submit an award. This award then appears after the round, and it will also print-out an actual award that can be pinned onto the deserving players. Note that abusing the system or making tons of fake awards will result in removal from Commander whitelist.

Your Skillset

To find out about how the skill system works head over to the skills system page.

Sources and Reading

• Marine Combat Guide (General Tactics and Strategies)
• Commander Discussion Thread (Tactics, tips, and tricks)

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Good luck Commander, you'll need it.