Commander (CO) Strategies & Tactics

[Exploding_Silver]

How about this for CO to SL VOIP comms;

Idea 1
Say who you are, how do you know they won’t confuse your voice with a squad member
“Commander to … “

Idea 2
Say who you are talking to, to make sure you get their attention
“Commander to squad 3 … “
“Commander to 3 … “
“Commander to squads 1 and 4 … “
“Commander to 1 and 4 “
“Commander to all squads … “

Idea 3
Instruct clearly on what you want over & above simple defend/attack orders
“Commander to 3, stay on defence at offices … “
“Commander to 3 and 4, move closely together in force up the west flank and take the offices … “
“Commander to squad 3, you’re defence order is on the offices, where are you going? … “
“Commander to all squads, we’re 60 points up, good work, continue to hold your positions on top of the hill and let them come up into our kill zone …”

Idea 4
OUT = communication over, no response required
OVER = you expect a response
“Commander to 3, stay on defence at offices, out“
“Commander to 3 and 4, move closely together in force up the west flank and take the offices, out“
“Commander to squad 3, you’re defence order is on the offices, where are you going? over“
“Commander to all squads, we’re 60 points up, good work, continue to hold your positions on top of the hill and let them come up into our kill zone, out”


To speak all squads;
Press the ‘B’ key (if you were squad leading, this would be the talk to commander key)

To talk to one squad;
Highlight that squad in the command screen in the top left, then
Press the ‘V’ key (if you were in a squad that would be the talk to squad key)

To talk to multiple squads;
Highlight multiple squads in the command screen in the top left, then
Press the ‘V’ key (if you were in a squad that would be the talk to squad key)

[Exploding_Silver]

.

Forget Bleed ?

Originally Posted by Bommando

The no bleed on assault maps is there so noobs can get their fix on nade spamming and C4 chucking. If any of you have ever played on a ranked Karkand map, the fighting never leaves the hotel. Even worse is Minsk conquest 64. That is one hellish map. I have never seen the EU win that one.

Who cares if you have a 1:1 KD ratio as long as you're racking up a high SPM. That's how it works.

Originally Posted by BHack

If you are on a map with only ONE UCB: and you are not the team that has it, stop attacking. If you are on the team that does have it, you only need to get ONE other flag and then stop attacking.

This game is silly - the assault maps have no bleed. I guess everyone else knew this but I was just sort of ignorant.

The only maps that have bleed are when both teams have a UCB, then taking and holding the majority of the flags is important.

Originally Posted by Arf

I like the lack of bleed. On a regular bleed map if you commit to a poorly executed assault the extra losses you inflicted on your team can be soaked up by the bleed and damage you do to the enemy trying to retake the flag. If your defending a flag you can be getting completely pounded but there's no reason to retreat because the bleed is equalizing the losses. On a non-bleed map you have to be more cautious because those unnescessary losses while defending or attacking can turn into a Pyrrhic victory.

Originally Posted by Jepzilla

If there are two UCBs on the map, then you have ticket bleed if you hold less than half the flags.

If there is one UCB on the map, then you bleed tickets if you control no flags (excluding the UCB).

On our ranked 2142 servers we cannot alter how bleed works.

On TG unranked BF2 we have custom scripts to make bleed more..well er…bloody, so winning came from a combination of two strategies; bleed & kill zones. Fundamentaly it was get more flags than them then, your kill zones were around your flag as they approach to attack your flag. They had to attack to stop the bleed on them. On BF2142 bleed is so pitifully weak compared to ‘kill zones’ that as a commander you might as well forget bleed as a viable strategy and just go for creating kill zones whether or not they have more flags.

This is my opinion, comments ?

[Bommando]

In regards to the "Commander to ..." thing, why not just use this method I proposed earlier? Doing the whole "Hi, this is your friendly Commander speaking" thing seems overly wordy. Who else precedes their comms with "Squad X"? It would be pretty easy to distinguish you from others while being less verbose.

[Eroak]

One quick question? If you highlight one squad and hit "V" to talk to it, does the squad hear it or just that squad leader?

[Rick_the_new_guy]

the following assumes you are the CO:

Highlight the squad you are interested in on your screen.

press the button you use to talk to players while in a squad. Doing so will get you a live mic to the squad leader of the squad you clicked or highlighted.
No one else can hear what you guys are saying.
______

No matter what squad you highlight, when you press the button you use to talk to a CO with when your a squadleader, every squad leader will hear this.

So if your outside your CO screen and need to talk to someone on the fly, every SL will hear this.
____

Lastly if you want to check at the squad make ups, and see who the SLs are and the name of the squad, press the enter button. This is important to do during the countdown timer in order to understand your support squads and such.

PS this worked in Van, I do not know about 2142.

______________
The following assumes you are no longer the CO:

For me my squad comm button is V. I found this much easier to talk and fight with. Everyone knows i talk a lot.
I changed my SL to CO comm link to B. This is a longer reach but i spend 98% of my time not pressing this when communicating on VOIP so i am good with that.

Therefore as a CO I use the V button to talk to one squad leader at a time. I press B to talk to every SL at once.

[Bommando]

I think Rick confused you even more

Very simple, in BF2142:

As CO, the B key talks to all Squad Leaders at once. Only SLs will hear these comms.

The V key talks to selected SLs only and from what I have gathered, only works in the CO screen (this is worth testing). You can either select squads with your mouse or use the number keys. You can also Ctrl-Click to select non-contiguous units or Shift-Click to select ranges of units from the list at the top-left of the CO screen.

Note that for some reason, these keys are reversed from BF2.

[Rick_the_new_guy]

Originally Posted by Bommando

Note that for some reason, these keys are reversed from BF2.

This is the first thing I did when i got BF2. I refuse to reach all the way over to B when talking to a squad member. So my set-up is like 2142.

V is much closer.

Good to see EA got it right this time.

Although it would have been easier to keep it the same and just have people change it again and save the confusion.

[Rick_the_new_guy]

Originally Posted by Rick_the_new_guy

I refuse to reach all the way over to B when talking to a squad member.

Ohh man, another good Anonymous quote written.

[Gillespie]

You should only really have to introduce yourself as the commander once. After that, preceding your statement with the squad name or the squad leader's handle should be sufficient.

[Eroak]

You know.. What do you do when you have 2 squads who don't follow orders at all? That happened to me tonight and that was my only loss the night for 3/4 games of CO'ing. I had to ask one "vet" non-TG squad to move to a back flag to protect it and I got cursed at because it was to far across the bored.

It was a very frustrating round for the first time as CO and I felt kinda bad for issuing that order to that "vet" squad.

Whats a CO to do? I let things linger, I just need to move on and get over it

[Bommando]

Originally Posted by Eroak

You know.. What do you do when you have 2 squads who don't follow orders at all? That happened to me tonight and that was my only loss the night for 3/4 games of CO'ing. I had to ask one "vet" non-TG squad to move to a back flag to protect it and I got cursed at because it was to far across the bored.

It was a very frustrating round for the first time as CO and I felt kinda bad for issuing that order to that "vet" squad.

Whats a CO to do? I let things linger, I just need to move on and get over it

Have you read the Reporting Infractions thread? It's my favourite least-viewed sticky in these forums.

If you need to rely on a clutch squad to make up for the shortfalls of others, you should express this by voice or you'll get an unfavourable response. I know if a voiceless CO sets me a waypoint over the opposite side of the map, I just assume they're high or retarded.

So, when I CO and have to rely on one elite squad to do most of my dirty work, I verbalise this to them:

"Guys, I'm gonna have to rely on you to do some running around because you're my only go-to squad here. Keep a buggy handy and be ready to move for me when asked."

I know I take a lot of pride being the go-to SL for a team and if the CO makes it clear that the orders aren't just random sputem, I'll be happy to oblige. Just make sure they have transport before you send them trudging across the map and that they have your full attention when moving through hostile territory. With increased performance should come the lion's share of the assets.

[Eroak]

Thanks Bommando. I been trying to read as much as possible. I guess that one did miss my eyes. I'll keep up TS for that reason. Other that that I never used it so I kept it off.

[experiment626]

Originally Posted by Eroak

Thanks Bommando. I been trying to read as much as possible. I guess that one did miss my eyes. I'll keep up TS for that reason. Other that that I never used it so I kept it off.

Interesting to note...that Bommando's post and mine are similiar...in different locations...hmmmm. You ever notice how you never see xprmnt626 and Bommando in the same place at the same time....

[Thanatos]

Great ideas for communication standards. I think most of our regular commanders have taken to habit of calling out squads by number.

You know - it's too bad there's no way to restrict the CO chair to someone with a mic.

Let's talk about some other things that may make the CO's life easier though...I want to get some opinions on the EMP strike...

I find that I've been typically reserving the EMP strike for use on enemy high priority vehicles, like walkers or tanks. But lately, I'm thinking that there may be better uses for it. The effect that the EMP strike has on vehicles doesn't seem to warrant the time needed for the asset to recharge.

I read on another forum that some people have have been using the EMP strike to disrupt the views of defending squads just before friendly squads are about to move into an area. This might be a better use of the EMP strike...whenever I'm on the receiving end of it, the visual glitching is pretty annoying and disruptive...but what if I couldn't see while a full squad was bearing down on me? Perhaps this is the replacement for smoke grenades in BF2142. Thoughts?

[Revark]

Originally Posted by Thanatos

Great ideas for communication standards. I think most of our regular commanders have taken to habit of calling out squads by number.

You know - it's too bad there's no way to restrict the CO chair to someone with a mic.

Let's talk about some other things that may make the CO's life easier though...I want to get some opinions on the EMP strike...

I find that I've been typically reserving the EMP strike for use on enemy high priority vehicles, like walkers or tanks. But lately, I'm thinking that there may be better uses for it. The effect that the EMP strike has on vehicles doesn't seem to warrant the time needed for the asset to recharge.

I read on another forum that some people have have been using the EMP strike to disrupt the views of defending squads just before friendly squads are about to move into an area. This might be a better use of the EMP strike...whenever I'm on the receiving end of it, the visual glitching is pretty annoying and disruptive...but what if I couldn't see while a full squad was bearing down on me? Perhaps this is the replacement for smoke grenades in BF2142. Thoughts?

I do this too. Especially if I see no vehicles that are a direct threat. I know as a foot soldier I hate when I get EMPed.