Urit

Now, I'm most likely preaching to the choir here, but I'll do it anyway.

There's this thing called situational awareness. It helps you in 3 ways:

1. You don't get shot as much (because you see them first)
2. You shoot them more (because you see them first)
3. You can be a better squad member (because you can see where your squad is)

There's 3 tools for this in BF2142: The mk. 1 eyeball (your normal view), netbat (the red triangles on your normal view) and the minimap.

The most important and accurate one is of course your eyes. However, they can't see through walls, nor can they see certain shapes, for example a sniper hiding in a bush. Your eyes also cannot mark targets for your squadmates.

Now, the electronic aids to targeting have to be used together to get a true 3D picture. Your minimap provides 2 dimensions: Distance and direction. You can see how far something is away from you, and what direction it's in. The compass above the map will provide precise directions. Netbat provides 2 dimensions as well: height and direction. It does NOT provide distance information.

Now, if you use these two aids together, you'll get a full 3d picture of the battle. Combine the distance and direction from the minimap with the height and direction of netbat and you have the distance to, height of and direction to your target. Now, netbat is kind of hard to use, I admit. Either you hold your crosshairs on the target for a second (in which time you could be shooting them) or the SL's Otus drone or the support's pulse scanner provides netbat SNAPSHOTS rather than a moving target. Despite these limitations, it's still useful, as you can get the general location of incoming enemies at least.

Of course, now that you know HOW to find an enemy's 3d position, you need to know what to DO with it. Firstly, if you know it's a fresh contact, please call it using DIRECTIONS. "Incoming infantry over there" is not very helpful. "Incoming infantry ruins left building balcony" is decent (if you are facing the Ruins flag, there'll be a building to the left, but it's not much help if you're facing away from ruins and turning towards it, because you'll be turning towards YOUR left.) "Incoming infantry NW door" is MUCH better. "Incoming infantry ruins west" is also great because it provides a flag location and a direction.

Helping your squad is all well and good, but you personally need to stay alive. There's a great way to do this called "scanning". I don't mean UAV scanning or PDS scanning or whatever. I mean using your eyes to scan your screen.

Exhibit A - a standard Camp Gibz screenshot:


We have the chat in upper left, minimap in upper right, ammo in bottom right, not much in bottom left and crosshairs center. The concept of scanning is to be constantly looking at ALL information presented. I use a scan cycle of about 3 seconds. 2 of those seconds are spent checking the screen/crosshairs area for anything coming at me. The last second involves me checking the chat, then the minimap, then ammo, then back to crosshairs.

Your eyes should follow a pattern like this:


First, chat window for anything interesting (squadmates killed, control point dropped, etc), minimap to check for enemies/stuff coming/control point loss/gain, ammo and hp to check THAT, back to crosshairs.

What this does is involves the minimap in your view, which provides so much info that it's not even funny when people ignore it. Enemies charging you while you're capping a flag? Minimap! Enemies around the corner? UAV sees em, minimap says they're there. Nades out!

Basically, I'm saying that the scan needs to be made a part of everyone's play. There's too much information to ignore, and too many people DO ignore it. Now, I'm not perfect, I've ignored the scan while I was gunning people down, and gotten taken out for it. Just take that 1 second out of every 3 and check your minimap. It helps so very much.

draeh

In CQC conditions, do not forget to zoom that minimap ('N' key) so that the contacts you see are guaranteed to be in your direct vicinity. As infantry moves up, I zoom the minimap to get a better distance relationship.

__________________

Zoraster

i think this is good except I never, ever waste my time on the chat window. I'm sure I miss quite a bit, but I just don't have the time to spare to look at it. if it's something important, i expect to hear it via VoiP.

__________________
|TG| Zoraster | Tactical Soccer Managing

P.Drona

I also mostly ignore the chat.

The minimap can also help you vector onto downed friendlies for revive, ailing teamates in need of health up, or soldiers requesting resupply.

I also make it a habit (even when squad member) of frequently checking the overall map just to get a sense of the whole fight. As you move up to squad leader and commander that higher level awareness will be required to succeed.

__________________

Fehmart

Right on, Urit. Too few people use all of the information provided in 2142 to their advantage. Everyone has their own routine, of course, but incorporating his suggestions to your playing will help yourself and your team.

I would add a couple of things:
-especially as a SL, but even as a SM, keep checking the overall map of the battlefield. This will keep you informed as to where there are gaps in your defense or the enemy's, among other things.

-The minimap is awesome. I have rebound my map zoom key to something much more convenient than 'N', because I find myself resizing the map constantly as I enter and leave buildings, etc. Also, note that teammates that suddenly "turn north" have just died (or they're climbing a ladder, or something; 2142 is weird like that). If you're guarding an area, and someone dies somewhere near you, it might be a good idea to check the chat to see if that person died and how, and/or investigate that area.

DirtyLude

This is one of the most difficult things to learn, and I don't know if it can all be sumed up in a thread. Knowing where you are in relation to all your squad mates, where danger is coming from, where danger is likely to come from, and where you want to go, seperates the men from the boys in this game.

Keeping your attention on all these things without being distracted or too focused on one thing is difficult. You get caught up in a firefight or look for that sniper on the monorail only to find your squad went somewhere else, or the flag you are on actually turned without you knowing it.

Being an SL takes this all to a new level as you also need to make assessments based on other flags around you. It's not so easy and something I need to work on.

EDIT: You might want to add the 'N' control to the OP. It resizes the minimap. In tight situations, like inside central camp I will zoom the minimap in to be able to see positions better.

__________________
The Dirty

Tarenth

I tend to scan 4 for close contacts, look to 3 for proximity contacts, check 1 for any vital information, then glance at health/ammo which I should be automatically topping off anyways.

It is important to check the chat box because sometimes you get people without mics (like me) or pubbies who type things out quickly. Basically check if you see any green (squad) or yellow (commander) text and you'll be fine. Everything else you can ignore somewhat unless you want to see what killed who so you can figure out the composition of the opposition kit and any possible armor they may have (which would take a LOT more practice with a glance than I have).

__________________
My sanity is not in question...
It was a confirmed casualty some time ago.

Zoraster

get a mic, tarenth!

__________________
|TG| Zoraster | Tactical Soccer Managing

Exploding_Silver

Situational awareness for the squad leader is different and much more map focused. I look at the minimap and main map 30-40% time.

If you are assault then you can see friendlies go down and they become a blue circle with a cross on the minimap. You can estimate from this where the enemy are. If a lot of friendlies go down quickly then they have bumped a full squad at close range and got wiped. This is a supplement to the UAV.

__________________

Tsuoz250rdrK

My mini-map is my best friend. The only complaint I have about it is when I climb ladders it always zooms out on its own.

__________________

MenacingVitamin

Right on. This function is so important to me that I have it set to left-Alt so I can constantly zoom with my thumb.

Good discussion in here. Situational awareness is so very important.

Icehawk217

does pressing 'n' make the minimap take up the whole screen or does it just zoom in in the little box up left?

And how much do you tend to trust the commander in situational awareness, as squad leader? If the comm is a TGer id expect VoiP telling me a squad got thru or is capping something. but i also have found that many commanders dont say much at all (If youve ever SLed with Acreo as the Comm, hes good but he doesnt often shut up, just saying) especially those who are not TG guys. So should the Comm be more responsible for keeping the team aware than he may be?

^^Sorry if thats confusing, read it a few times

__________________
"Give a man a match and he'll be warm for a minute. Light the man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life"

Anospa

Makes it zoom in, while 'm' blows it up to take up much more of the screen.

__________________

Icehawk217

Ok thanks, ill have to try remapping it somewhere. Does BF2142 recognize pressing the mouse wheel sideways (on a G7 or G5?)?

__________________
"Give a man a match and he'll be warm for a minute. Light the man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life"

Zoraster

well, you can just program the G5 or G7 sideways thing to a certain key like the n button and that'll accomplish the same thing.

Mine is the G button

__________________
|TG| Zoraster | Tactical Soccer Managing