Okay, to take saik0's idea a step further, what about this?


Inside Battlefield 2, C-Team is comprised of four squads:

- "C-Team Squad Leader"
- "C-Team Alpha Team"
- "C-Team Bravo Team"
- "C-Team Air Support"

In the "C-Team Alpha Team" squad are the three members of that fireteam plus the Alpha Fireteam Leader. The Alpha Fireteam Leader communicates on two channels -- one channel is for talking to the Squad Leader and other Fireteam Leaders (using Teamspeak), and the other channel is for talking to the members of his fireteam (using Teamspeak).

In the "C-Team Bravo Team" squad are the three members of that fireteam plus the Bravo Fireteam leader. The Bravo Fireteam Leader communicates on two channels -- one channel is for talking to the Squad Leader and other Fireteam Leaders (using Teamspeak), and the other channel is for talking to the members of his fireteam (using Teamspeak).

In the "C-Team Air Support" squad are the guys flying the chopper(s). The Air Support Fireteam Leader communicates on two channels -- one channel is for talking to the Squad Leader and other Fireteam Leaders (using Teamspeak), and the other channel is for talking to the members of his fireteam (using Teamspeak).

And finally, in the "C-Team Squad Leader" squad, there is only one person, and he is the actual Squad Leader of the entire C-Team. He communicates on two channels -- one channel is for talking to the Fireteam Leaders (using Teamspeak), and the other channel is for talking to the in-game Commander (using VOIP).


In this scheme, each player has at most two comm channels to manage, and the majority of players (the squad members) have only one. Thus, the amount of comm management is no different from using VOIP inside Battlefield 2.

As saik0 mentioned, having the Fireteam Leaders show up with a number next to their names in-game will make it easier for them to be identified by the fireteam members as well as by the overall Squad Leader, and the Squad Leader will also be easily recognizable to the FireTeam Leaders by the number next to his name in-game.

With this scheme, the Squad Leader should not have to micromanage. He can interact with the Commander and then implement the Commander's orders using the fireteams. He'll issue orders to his Fireteam Leaders, and then he can depend on the Fireteam Leaders to figure out how they should manage each of their teams to achieve the objective. This allows the Squad Leader to observe the Fireteams and help support them more effectively based on what threats he sees, and it also frees him up to coordinate close air support. Basically, the Squad Leader becomes a "mini-Commander" who acts as a coordinator between the Fireteams and the overall Commander.

This scheme provides THREE different spawn points for the overall squad. Even if two entire ground fireteams were taken out, the overall Squad Leader could still put pressure on an objective by using the Air Support Fireteam while the two ground fireteams made their ways back to the fighting.




In Teamspeak, the channels would be set up as follows:

-- C-Team Squad (parent channel with the overall Squad Leader in it)
- Alpha Team (child channel with Alpha Fireteam members in it)
- Bravo Team (child channel with Bravo Fireteam members in it)
- Air Support (child channel with Air Support Fireteam members in it)

The Fireteam Leaders would make themselves Channel Commanders in their respective channels, and then they would bind a key to talk to the other Channel Commanders. The overall Squad Leader would make himself Channel Commander in his channel, and he would bind a key to talk to the Channel Commanders under his parent channel. The comm nets would then look like this:

- The overall Squad Leader would be on a separate comm net with the Commander.
- All of the Fireteam Leaders and the overall Squad Leader would be on one separate comm net together.
- Each Fireteam Leader would be on a separate comm net with his fireteam members.


The hardest part of doing all this would be setting it up. I think once we had it set up, and once each person knew his job in the overall scheme (and only worried about his job), the scheme would work. It would probably be a really good idea to figure out the fireteam setups for a given night here in the forums before we actually joined Teamspeak. That way, each Fireteam Leader could create his own fireteam channel under the main C-Team Squad channel, and everyone assigned to those fireteams would know which channel to join. Obviously, the Squad Leader and Air Support guys would know which channels to create and/or join.

We would all need to be on the same team in Battlefield 2 (this will probably be the REAL hard part), and each of the Fireteam Leaders and the Squad Leader would need to create their squads in-game so that fireteam members could join them as appropriate. As such, it may be best to try this scheme on nights when the TG Battlefield 2 server is password protected.

It would also be a good idea for everyone except for the overall Squad Leader to disable VOIP in Battlefield 2 before joining the TG BF2 server and trying this stuff out. Doing this should prevent anyone from having any conflicts between Teamspeak and Battlefield 2 VOIP. Obviously the Squad Leader would need to be someone who has no trouble running Teamspeak and Battlefield 2 VOIP at the same time.

What do you guys think?