The secret to winning your map with your marines is one, solid thing:

Constant, frequent, and supporting communication with your entire squad.

The commander's voice is heard above all and is considered the most, so therefor it most be heard the most. Don't let your teammates do the talking for you, you do the talking for them.

Constantly barraging your marines with WHAT you want done is a sure-fire way to get it done. Also, giving some supportive moral boosting will also help put things into motion. Here are some things commanders should do when communicating.

• Give your orders frequenty.
• Say "Good work" or "Nicely done" or "Good job, team" when commanding units in the field.
• Always give your team tactical knowledge on everything, no matter how large or small. Example: "Our res node in Eastern Entrance is under attack."
• When the action is hot, repeat your orders and encouragement quickly, such as: "Block him in! Block him in! Dont let him go! Get him!" All of this said in 5 seconds. A slow commander is going to make for slow marines.
• When doing something big, like taking out a hive or chasing down an Onos, repeat what you want done and how you want it done several times over. "Shoot the hive. Dont shoot the aliens! I said shoot the hive."
• Whenver killing a higher lifeform or hive during the course of the game, find a small amount of time to congradulate or reward your marines. This improves their moral and spirit, and sometimes yours.
• ALWAYS keep in touch with your marines.
• When the action is hot, or something isnt getting done, adress your marines by name and give them specific orders.

These small, but helpful tips, can often lead to a very good game of NS. I'm definately not the best comm in the world, but when I was in constant communication with my team and always aware of their progress, I played for 3 games of NS and won all 3. Teams changed a lot too, so it wasn't the same aliens or the same marines. Lets see, we played Eon, Nancy, and Hera. I had never seen a marine team win on Eon until now.

Just keep these in mind and you are sure to play a large role in your marine's domination over the aliens.

Yes you spoke the truth. this is the very basic element needed as a pub comm, though i always see lots of comm without it. Instead, they just put waypoints on targets. Well, waypoints are supplementry only imo

Call your marines by name. Saying, "I need someone to cap station access" is about as good as not saying anything at all.

Call every marine by name and always give specific orders.

I find that verbally abusing my marines, questioining their sexuality, legitimacy of their birth, and their general manliness and singling them out is the best way to go.

Yes a commander with voice can be a good motivation like that and make the games lil bit more fun even when you're loosing.
But still using your voice too much can be bad too, as the better players need their sound to locate any aliens, and a comm that talks alot of stuff especialy stuff like "Block the onos!" (come on every halfway good marine should know that by know) can get muted by them very fast.

As my voice lags anyway when i'm in the cc i mostly use the chat. Poor thing is that most marines tend to ignore chat message except you WRITE THEM IN CAPS and repeat them serveral times...

Funny thing is how fast your marines kill a lerk if you tell em stuff like "No medpacks until that lerk is death!" 30 seconds later it's death most times :>
Saves alot of res on medpacks ^^

I think this thread should be entitled "How to spam the mic so your marines cant hear skulks coming"

Though I agree in constant communication, what you've basically said is 'Never shut up'

I have not. Did I say hold down your mic button and constantly barrage your marines with comments and useless spam?

No, I did not. Notice how most of my sentences begin with something like "When the action is hot" or "When you're doing something big". Does this occur throughout the course of the game? Yes, but not every second. In fact, hive rushing or sieging occurs likely (maximum) of 5 times a game at tops. (1 at minimum).

Saying that I am telling a comm to mic spam is probably the most useless comment I have heard on this thread so far.

I've found (by watching good comms and by a little bit of nub comming) that comms that drop meds and ammo frequently tend to win for the same reasons. I don't mean carpets of spam, but if a marine makes a kill, the comm drops 2 ammo packs and a med chop chop then zooms off to whatever else he's doing. Or they'll drop you a few ammo packs when you're knifing an rt and tell you to shoot it down. Some comms always keep you at full hp and with enough ammo without ever being asked. It really feels nice when you're a marine knowing that your comm is taking care of you.

Waste of res or not? Rfk is nice, but the real value isn't measured in res. Position is important (3 res saving a marine on the other side of the map leads to another res node capped for instance and the one he just built saved). And happy marines obey you more.

it helps. On pubs I win atleast 9 out of 10 of my matches. And I spam so much info over voice I am damn sure I am the only one using a mic due to the flood.

helps though, aslong as you make one thing happen. If you make there hearing less by spamming voice, back them up by hearing for them. FTW

I didnt mean it in an offensive way Recoup, but things like "ALWAYS keep in touch with your marines." or constantly say the same thing over again can get very spammed.

Im not saying its a bad thing to keep in touch with your marine, but if your marines dont block the fade the first two times you bark at them, yelling a whole lot more isnt going to do jack except **** them off.

Moral is one of the biggest factors in a pub game, and if a comm is constantly talking then it will start to annoy people. I try to keep talking to a minimum, but still make sure everything important is said. You cant baby your marines into every position, they got to be able to do some things themselves on their own thought.

think of it this way, by the time you tell 5 marines what they are doing while dealing with ups and calls, the first marine you gave an order to will need another order. Keep calling them by name, and give them specific orders. Its a hard groove to get in to because commanding can be such a mental overload. Just spend a couple games doing steam of consciousness. By that I mean every single thought thats relevant for marines to hear you say outloud. You will improve as a commander faster than just about any other way if you do that.

You're the commander.

Not my mother.

Stop acting like it.

Get upgrades, spam meds, and let us know when an rt is under attack or you're PG rushing. When I play aliens I don't have some idiot telling me what to do every 5 seconds, and when I do he gets muted. If I'm on rines and some commander thinks he is the l33t of l33tness and spams his inane commands all game I can't hear skulks and gorges.

Marines win games because [t]Mustang or exi.Civilian camps the hive, not because the comm mic spams. Please don't let the title "Commander" get to your head. If I made this game I'd call it "Med ****."

Good post! (The original one, not the rather sad one right before this)

I think it's spot on. Lots of people completely underestimate the value of communication. I'd much rather have a Com with good communicating skills than one who can hit a JP'er buzzing thorugh Via with a med pack. A Com like this both give Marines a good chance of winning and practically guarantees a fun game no matter what the result.

Yeah, it's annoying when you get your butt bitten because you didn't hear the skulk over the voice-com but not even half as frustrating as the deafening silence that often follows a "So what's the plan Com?"

I'd like to add that it's good to give your team a general idea of what you're trying to do right from the start.

C'mon, someone has to agree with me. Does everyone like comms who just talk and talk and talk? My main beef with "over commanding" is that it creates a pro-dimwit atmosphere. Players don't need to be babied, they need to be thrown out into the cold dark night and forced to learn the ins and outs of this game without depending on someone who may or may not be smarter than them. Sorry if my first post was overly sarcastic, but this was the point I was hoping to make.

Comm just needs to give important info out of the mic.

ex)

1) This RT is under attack
2) I'm planning to move through cooling to smelter and cap res along the way, everybody guard the RT till its up then move on
3) Build the TF ,everybody who spawns in keep phasing don't get ammo there's no time
4) armor1 on the way

etc... just general comments like that i don't need to spam *OMG CAN'T YOU GUYS SHOOT!? GOD every time they fail

Generally i try not to med rambos unless they turn out to be useful. If you don't give constant direction in pubs people wander off and get killed because they usually don't stick with another teamate.

Of course you dont insult them when they dont manage to kill anything. (Example, 4 marines being taken down to 1 skulk). Sure, it sucks, but what can you do?

Just give encouragement when needed (which should be often) and stay in constant communication with your team and their whereabouts.

Router Box. Nothing more to add to that tbh.

I'd like to remind you all that even with the godly tactics there is always chanse and skill involved...
sometimes just bad timing of attack can fall the whole house down

..and sometimes the other team is just better to counter all your tactics and your marines\kharaas'

but helpfull tips are always welcome, of course

judging from this thread post NS has gone long way from the 1st days
where commander just needed to shutup, get electrified RTs up and spam HMG's

Commanders need to play an active role in their marine's involvement in the game or the marines wont know what the commander is planning next. If the marines would just listen to the commander, they would have a better chance of surviving than if they all just rambo into the level.

A commander's role in a game is just that...to command.

A bad comm will complain about everything that doesn't go his way
A good comm will dismiss it while keeping a positive attitude
A great comm will say "Don't worry Joe, it happens" or "Joe keep up the good work, here's a sg"


Heh, you guys made me come out of lerking the boards.

(Typo on purpose)

Shouting to a marine helps alot to get them to follow orders! Whenever I'm like everyone move to processing we gonna siege and I see one dude moving to archiving a little verbal abuse including their name turns them in the right direction in a jiffy.

Also giving your marines ammo and medpacks before they can ask for it seems to keep their motivation at a high lvl.

Also I let the marines know when I'm researching stuff and if the AA is almost done. The ID they can play around with hmg in a min is also good for motivation.

I like to joke around with my team as well, this keeps the atmosphere very friendly.

And last but not least. I NEVER siege the last hive (unless those n00bs are dropping like flies) when I got mapcontrol. Killing the last hive is a fragfest, party time! Lotsa mines shotguns grenade launchers and jetpacks is tha way to do it! Even extra Ip's if necessary. Once I've been called a Santacomm for dropping so much goodies

I'd like to point out that communication is important for everyone, aliens too.

Games are boring when noone talks on the mic... The games seem to be always the same: First 5 minutes everyone runs around in no more than groups of 2. Comm gets 5 RTs, some upgrades, builds base... Then PG up at 2nd hive; beacon; shotguns; comm typing "PHASE PHASE QUICKLY!!!" or "Don't get ammo, kill the hive!" and only two people phase in. The rest hump at the armory. When full with ammo, two more people phase to the hive while the rest walks out of MS to continue ramboing. And this is telling from the perspective of a soldier, not a comm... It's just sad and is the main reason for so many lost marine games.