XOs acting as CO. AKA: "I never asked for this."

[liltiptop]

Many times when I play XO, the CO will need to leave for cryo due to some unknown reason, when this happens, It makes your job as XO go from hard to VERY HARD. As XO, you're expected to fill in for the CO in the event of them either dying, having to leave, or going to ERP the queen. Basically you need to step up and lead a whole bunch of marines, either a full force or the few remaining survivors, to victory (which can be REALLY hard to do). Many XOs feel overwhelmed with this sudden "promotion" and begin to panic, so for this topic, post your ways that an newbie or low experienced XO can succeed at guiding marines to victory, unfucking a FUBAR situation, or cowering in fear.

[DriedMilk]

Do not get salty when the CO tells you to take command, Afterall, it's your job.

As for suggestions, think and consult, always.
Any sudden strategies you are willing to make should be consulted with the SLs and SOs as they know what if happening on the ground.

Keep annoucements tidy, well written and spaced.

And make sure to focus on the morale of the ungas dungas, even if they like to overexagerate shit such as a single PFC dying and then shouting on on comms: ''OP IS FUBAR, SQUAD WIPED.''

[getfreur]

First know yourself - ask for all information about your manpower available, defenses and unit locations.

Know the the enemy - ask for information about how many still left, locations that are under enemy control, confirmed casualtys and behavior.

After you get those informations the quick as possible, make a plan that most suit the situation.

[Kerek]

Guve constant orders and keep a supply chain even if it means brigging all of cargo and doing it yourself.

Also never take the XO position unless you think you can handle taling complete control of the Almayer.

[Counter-Terrorist]

If you are ever suddenly promoted to aCO due to the previous CO's downfall. Always ask for the SOs for status updates on each squad every so often, asking about their manpower, status of their objective, where the enemy is coming from, what areas do the enemy control, etc. While taking into account what the SLs and LTs tell you, begin making a plan to either rout or crush the enemy. As you do this, other situations may arise from medical, engineering, req, or security. Leave this to the leaders to handle unless you have nothing to do at all. Always communicate to req to make sure they are on task and doing their jobs effectively as a steady stream of supplies heading down to the marines is definitely a good thing. Make sure the POs are making frequent trips as you wouldn't want the transport DS at one location for an agonizingly long time as it can seriously affect the outcome of a round.

[Cobraman202]

What to do when you become the CO, in 10 easy steps!

1. Make sure everyone knows your in charge

2. Get reports from your SOs

3. Figure out how fucked you are

4. Determine if your being boarded and/or the situation requires red alert

4a) If it doesn't go to step 6

4b) if it does, go to step 5

5. Send out a distress beacon

6. Use the reports from step 2 to unfuck yourself

7. Yell at cargo to do their job

8. Appoint a SO to become the XO

9. Fax USMC High Command

10. Determine the alien threat

10a. If you have no hope of surviving, and the Xenos are on the ship. Have all the marines retreat to the SDD and blow it up

10b. If your currently kicking alien ass, hold a memorial for the former CO.

[nerocavalier]

First, find out what you're dealing with, ask your SOs. Check if your squad's are a-ok or if everyone's deceased and the rest are scattering. If they're alive, great, get them back to work and find out what they need to keep on trucking. Normally, I'd suggest delegating but at this point you don't know if everyone can be trusted so go pay Req a visit and go from there. If they have everything handled, go back to bridge. Otherwise, lend them a hand and get them running.

But the most important thing is probably knowing when to order a retreat after the Commander led his glorious charge with his band of marines and they all died to a man.

[x31stOverlord]

Attention all prospective Lt. Cdrs. This is Wolfgang Schneider speaking, you may or may not recognise me from my many games as XO. Either as the right hand for such stars as Cdr. Kennel, Cdr. Meuller and Cdr. Carson. Or as the aCO from round start.

Firstly. I welcome thee to the, (arguably) hardest role shipside.

Secondly. If you don't like the sound of that, consider playing SO a bit more until you feel comfortable with how an Operation feels both when you are winning or when you are losing. Trust me you can tell the difference from just listening to comms of squads how they are faring.

Thirdly. If you are still here welcome to my actual advice for XO:

So. The round has started, you wake up in you bunk room, all dressed up and ready to rock. The announcement has been made that Cdr. Meuller is on deck! Awesome. So you are not top dog this OP. That's fine! It is now your job to make his job as easy as possible.

You do this in a few steps:

Gauge the SOs you have - Do you have a full staff of SOs?

Yes? This is good, you won't have additional workload. Check how communicative they are, the more informaion they pass to you and thr CO the better the Op will go, put the best SOs with he squads that will be doing the most work. It'll help that squad perform better.

No? Well. Alongside everything else you might have to man a console or two. Don't let that put you off, as an XO you should be able to multitasking multiple squads. Speaking from experience I have led an entire OP as XO where I had no SOs and had to run all four squads alone! It's !fun!

Communicate with your CO - He might be top dog but you are his second, get your SOs on their consoles and getting their squads ready. Then go and sit down with the CO and come up with the battle plans for the Op, this is vital for yourself in the event that the CO goes Cryo/dies as you will be entirely aware of what the operation should go like. Who should be when and where!

Comms. Comms. Comms. - I advise you get used to all comms channels up at once on high pop, although not always necessary, I listen to all comms as XO so I can gauge how well an Op I'd going and to relay inforation to other squads if need be along with ensuring any supplis the squad needs are passed to reqs. Let pilots know when CAS or Medivacs are required or to simply let the marines know I am there this is important for:

MORALE - Yes. Marines can be fickle things, it is your job as XO to ensure the marines are pumped and actively robust the xeno scum. Keeping the supplies coming, air strikes flying and medical emergencies treated is a good way to ensure the marines actively listen to your orders and will ensure that they are fighting knowing you are incharge!

Tactics! - Continually pushing marines through a choke point into boiler rain and ravager country is a bad way to get a job done but has an incredible effect of making your marines ignore your orders and crumble. Assess the situation and get some flanks going! Send squads around the back of the Xeno front line to strike them where they are exposed. Once the xenos realise they are flanked, many of them will react and run to face the new threat. Push with the other squads then and they will have a hard time holding you all off!

Relay information! - Keep your CO informed of any changes to the operation and how it's progressing. Inform your SOs of squads pushing and if OBs are about to be deployed. Inform your squads on status of their supply orders. Keep information flowing and others will do so more proactively!

If you do all this you will be a rooting tooting XO in no time and once you get good at it you won't even notice not having a CO or when he/she dissappear.

Dismissed!

[Bancrose]

Sometimes you guys think I'm fucking with you when I go CO and tell the XO to take the helm but its honestly to get some of you use to the rigors of leading. When your the XO and there is no CO. You are the CO minus the BE and mateba. So please do be prepared to micromanage or DELEGATE. You got SO's, a CMP, CE, CMO, RO, PO's for a reason. Sometimes if you got a synth. Consider yourself lucky because they can do all that and more.

Just please don't be a cunt to the marines because morale is one of the most important things when you are in command if you want your men to follow your orders.

[Skimmy2]

While I cant add anything to whats already been said, ill recommend that anybody who mains Officer Roles to read this.

Its not unheard of for a SO,CE, or god forbid a PO has to become the aCO.

screams internally at the times iv had to lead as a PO

[Arbs]

Well i could go on writting paragraphs on being and XO, but heres a few key things.

The only thing that a CO has more than you is the BE that gives him more authority. However you can compensate for it by using the MPs and appearing competent. Or if you have the misfortune of having no MPs, using a metal baseball bat will solve the problem.

Often you will find yourself starting out as an XO without a CO in the first place.

The idea here is for you to get an understanding of the initial plans of action and to transmit these orders to the squads accordingly.

SOs will be of help in terms of making sure that squads fall in with the orders, have their supplies and guide them through.

In any case its important to keep in touch with whats going on in the ground. Dont sit on that announcement console unless you have something to do. Instead constantly check on each squad console to see their staus and location.

Based on that relay new orders and instructions to SOs and SLs and make an announcement.

Remember that youre the mastermind of the OP and communicating is cruicial.

[ValGarilovich]

The way I see it, playing XO IS asking to end up in command, one way or another. Even when there is a CO they could be trying to RP with survivors, or they could deploy and lead a charge or improve morale, but as XO you do not have as many freedoms as the CO, ultimately however the responsibility of command is on you the moment you choose to join as XO.

Many of the most recently whitelisted COs played as XO, not because they would be second in command, but because they knew they would be commanding the majority of the time, honestly if you arent ready for full command, go SO and observe what the XOs and COs do.

[Sargeantmuffinman]

It's simple, delegate who overwatches who, call on requisitions to load supplies, fix the engines when there's no MT or CE, RP with the CL about anything (although I rarely do it if I'm the acting CO), think of command decisions of the on going battles planetside, assume your plan is good and order the squads to commence your plan, if all else fails, order a general retreat, when the ship crashes order marines to rush it and fix the APC in T-comms if it's not damaged, if that fails order all men to SD including the SOs, lock yourself in CIC to prevent the aliens from taking out SD activation, valiantly fight to the death or hide in disposals to fix the APC and start SD if you hadn't already, robust your way to SD, pull any stragglers you find with you to SD and either take down the aliens or die trying, only to buy more time for the marines hold up in SD.

Oh, also, if there's no SO around, manage all overwatch consoles simultaneously.

[edda]

I play XO regularly nowadays, and I observe my winrate with COs who are present but not active is much lower than without any COs at all. Which is to say, while it's better to have a fully functional CO, it's better to be aCO than to be an XO with a CO who doesn't really want to be there.

[Emmanuel Bassil]

I only play XO here (Since I can't play CO); and when I'm not here all I play is CO/Captain. (On other servers.)
Here's the secret no one is mentioning.
A good XO should know more than the CO while he's awake, so much so that if the CO kicks the can there will be nearly no difference in quality coming out from the CiC in terms of situational awareness.

The CO is the order man. The big picture. The strategic vision. That is the only thing that should be negatively affected when the CO kicks the can. After all, when you apply for CO, one of the main questions on that form is basically "What is your strategy". While you, the XO, are so focused on how each squad is faring and who's dead and who needs supplies; you're letting the CO focus on who needs to be where. That's his job. If he gets out of his comfy chair to go give some orders or check on some squad, you're failing him as his XO.

When I XO, I'm in charge of the SOs. I don't let the COs even talk to them unless he's more assertive than I am. I relay between the SOs and CO, and fill in gaps where my SOs fail.
In fact, I'd argue that losing SOs when one is XO is much more crippling and overwhelming than losing your CO.

Briefly, the best way to be prepared for a lack of CO is behaving as if the CO doesn't exist in the first place. All he should be to the XO is a source of orders and strategic vision.

[Ttly]

I had a round being aCO, the first time as one in fact, as the only SO.
It wasn't that hard, I just told each squad their assignment (just think it up on the fly, remember those briefings you had as a standard), went back to CIC, start listening and typing out stuff for them.
Now managing three (one is at FOB) squads at time will be hard, but on lowpop (where empty CIC usually happens) makes it more doable than it sounds.

Hell, my only problem was that I couldn't think up an order once they kicked ass, got marine major on Ice too by sending them on underground assault (the FOB was untouched) after the first bioscan reports are in.

[solidfury7]

As Commander, I prefer to set a plan of action and have my XO enact it once the operation is underway, allowing me to step in when needed.

I think having the XO deal with the more menial tasks allows you the chance to pay attention to critical things you'd normally miss in the chaos of the operation.