Rigga's SL Guide: Part One

[sw4gbag]

GRAMMAR/TYPOS should be expected, I'm not very good with english, PM or post what needs to be fixed

Rigga’s Guide to being an SL and more.
PART ONE
1. Introduction.
2. Special equipment
3. The four squads

Introduction
So you want to be a respected, well-known SL? You’ll have to jump through hurdles of the CM community and prove yourself in someway, or simply be liked by the community, even if your performance can be subpar.
1.0 Being an SL who’s new, seen as bald, or not respected isn’t always the best experience to play in CM. A squad leader with this status or simply being inexperienced is like being a teacher in a pre-school full of children, with the children being cats you have to herd together in a group and order around. While a good majority of players new or old will follow your orders if you're new, being experienced and well known is much more better in my experience. There are a few different groups of experienced marines, mainly in Charlie/Delta, that will follow your orders differently depending how on they view you, this will be covered in the squads section.

1.1 Do not expect all your squadies to follow all orders or to stay with your squad. Additionally, you can gain a respected status by many things, but you can also gain a bad status by MANY more things. I’d recommend starting off as a PFC, CPL, or a SGT in an easy spec role and foster up as many kills as you can (this is most important in squads such as Delta and Charlie) and remember, be humble and brag your kills when appropriate, and continue practice using the M41A and shotgun as a PFC until you feel confident in your capabilities.

1.2 You’ll also need to learn when and when not to fight. There is certain fights you cannot win either 1v1 or with a handful of marines versus an equal amount of xenos. Be aware of your surroundings and double check any time you cross an empty space, lurkers usually attack people on the nexus/hydro road, prison hallways, road to the Solaris bar, etc. Avoid getting close to sentinels, spitters, and praetorians unless you have cover and a M41A or slugs. Learn and practice to side-stepping, it takes more of an acquired fast reaction rather than skill to learn.

1.3 There are a few things you should keep in mind when treating your squad.
1. Be humble, do not treat your men like shit or yell at them telling them they’re idiots. Doing anything like this will quickly upset your squad and eventually they might stop following orders or not bothering to save you when you need a help or a revive.

1.4. Be strong, many privates rely on their squad leader for morale and orders, especially on the frontline, do not charge in like an idiot, but do not be a coward either. Stay behind cades, issue orders, and motivate your men by getting a kill when possible. If you need to lead a charge, you need to be in the front initially, once you capture ground, move to the middle and start issuing orders and using your binocs to check your flanks. Prepare your men, motivate them, and decide either to push or hold, see section on tactics.

-Tips for charging. (Personal preferences)
0. Use your motion detector on long range mode to get an estimate of where and how many xenomorphs you should encounter. Plan your strategy around this and if possible, try to blow a flank via wall with C4, or ask command to send another squad to attack from another direction.
1. Do not charge in until the boiler gas hits and disappears, immediately charge in the moment it’s gone, but be wary that the next gas could hit and trap you in to your death.
2. Buckshot is very useful as most charges occur in cramped spaces on Prison hallways, Solaris caves and research buildings, and LV-624 caves. Try to point blank with buckshot(harm intent, then click on your target when it’s directly adjacent to you) when possible.
3. Issue a move order as soon as you charge to move faster and decrease the chance of xeno neruotoxin/acid spit to hit you and the marines in your sight. You can also issue a HOLD order to benefit marines with a small painkiller and damage resistance effect, the pain killing effect isn’t as strong as tramadol, but it should be enough for a few marines with minor acid burns.
4. Get cades up as soon as you capture an area like the ETA/Lambda courtyard, Ice elevator near LZ2, LV624 cave entrance, or prison civ hallways, etc.
5. Quickly tend to any injured marines with only burns/brute damage with your pill bottles.

___________________________________________________________________________________
2 Equipment
B12 armor. B12 armor is one of your most important pieces of equipment, it allows you to move much faster than a marine in standard M3 armor. It offers some better protection, which will spare you from fractures time to time, occasionally absorb lurker/runner slashes to the chest.
M11 helmet.
Not much of a difference in protection, but it can save you from getting a head fracture time to time.

Your vendor has 45 points and contains equipment that is either hard or inaccessible to get from req.
The most important of these vendor items is the motion detector (5p) and flamethrower (12p), 60 unit M240 tank (3p)

The motion detector has two settings, short range mode and long range mode, you can change it by right-clicking the sprite in your hand. Short range mode has a shorter range, mostly limited to the areas you can see by default, however it pings faster and picks up changes in movement faster, the long range mode picks up targets beyond what you can see on the screen, but pings less, not allowing you to pick up movements that have moved somewhere as fast. If you want to use it without having it in your hand, you can put it in your belt slot, some smart gunners will ask for motion detectors, SPECIAL EQUIPMENT TO TRY As SL, Requisitions and CT’s will usually give you equipment in low supply, like barrel chargers and the few special items they have in their southern vendors. Special Equipment:
M4A3 (.45) and M15

► Show Spoiler

M4A3 (.45) pistol – This is essentially a M4A3 with extra damage and armor penetration. Just like the MAR is a heavy bullet, the .45 round is identified by the game as a “heavy pistol bullet.” However, the .45 only having 7 rounds, combined with the low accuracy makes it less useful than the standard M4A3 in certain situations. But it’s advantage is the damage it can do to T1s, and being able to usually penetrate most T3s and Queen’s armor where AP M4A3 rounds can easily bounce off mature ravagers or crushers.

Good loadouts for the M4A3 (.45)
+ +
(+Massive damage for a pistol + shots should rarely bounce +conserves ammo by firing slower – BC cancels out the RDS accuracy and only leaves you with the wielded slight increase in accuracy, or great increase in accuracy for one handed from the laser sight.)

+ OR +
The second loadout will help with one handed accuracy somewhat, but I’ve found it within 5 or more tiles, the bullets miss, try to fire it wielded when possible.
Do not use a quick fire on the .45, even if you aquirred 5 mags, you would only have 35 rounds to fire.
(RDS/EB/LS) +Major increase in accuracy + Most accurcate attachment loadout for the .45 -slight decrease in damage)
(RDS/Suppressor/LS) +Great increase in accuracy, less than the EB + Bullet spread and scatter decreased + silences the distinct M4A3 .45 firing sound, -slight decrease in damage)

M15’s – M15 nades are essentially buffed HEFA nades with more range and damage with a 4 second timer, time it right and throw it under the feet of a T1 and it’ll put them in crit. Req usually starts off with at least two. Do not throw if anyone is in front of you or less than 4 tiles around or behind you.

M240A1 and medical equipment

► Show Spoiler

M240A1: Your essential kit in your prep vendor comes with one M240, you can buy more tanks for three points and M240’s for 12 points. The M240 has a range of five tiles with standard naphthalene fuel, if you refill an empty tank from a welding tank qor an engineer’s welderpack, if you do this, the new fuel will have a 4 tile range and will not “stick” as easily to mobs, this means it does less damage, sometimes will not light the target on fire, and from my experience, seems easier for a xeno to extinguish themselves from.

Medical equipment: Squad leaders can use all autoinjectors (except for the anesthetic I think) and pill bottles, but they do not have the same training as a medic, nor can they use the medical HUD or use the advance trauma or burn kits effectively, however, being able to use pill bottles and having a health anlayzer is all you typically need to heal you or others.
Grab an empty first-aid kit, health analyzer, and optionally a medkit pouch, then ask a doctor for either a m276 medical rig or kelotane, tramadol, and bicardine and optionally quick-clot/perixadon pill bottles from the MarineMed vendors. Buying the advance first aid kit from your vendor is a WASTE OF POINTS, you can find one first aid kit in the firing range, and one by chemistry on a table, empty it except for the health analyzer and put your pill bottles and one stack of splints in it

PART 3
Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, and how they differ and act.
Each squad acts differently, and if you decide to main one squad, you should know the basics of how they act. This part will go into basic detail of each squad.

► Show Spoiler

Alpha: Alpha will usually follow orders. But they are a bit of a wildcard and can either be reliable or very unreliable. Alpha’s performance like Bravo, depends on the performance of the other squads. I’ve taken to Alpha as my preferred squad, as it seems less toxic of Delta and Charlie, and not as bald as Bravo. It’s a decent squad to be in to learn the ropes of being a marine, even though you will find yourself occasionally wiped out with the whole squad on some rounds.

Alpha players are typically either new or somewhat experienced, it’s not uncommon to see crewcut baldies making up 1/4th of Alpha on high-pop rounds, however, a handful of alpha players are decently robust and experienced, and occasionally a few experienced players from other squads make there a way into Alpha, if they don’t roll their preferred squad.

Bravo: Bravo is bland. Many marines in bravo are chosen to be in it by not having a squad preference, naturally this means a lot of new players are bunched in it. Bravo seems to follow orders OK and sometimes the new players can be very reliable in terms of following orders(but oblivious on how combat works),they’ll tend to trust their Sls and follow your orders. Expect to be put on FOB if you play a bravo SL.

Where your respect and social status in CM matters the most is in Charlie and Delta. Before you understand Charlie and Delta, keep in mind many older players from Delta have flocked to Charlie, such as Noah 'Biceps' Cruz and a few others, as crewcuts, "tryhards" and new people have joined Delta, this doesn't mean Delta is necessarily bad or Charlie doesn't have these players, but there is a minority of new and bad players in Delta, just like any other squad.

Charlie:
Charlie is fairly reliable and follows orders, secondly, a good amount of PFCs and Charlie SL mains are typically experienced and fairly robust, such as Alice or Windhealer, they will judge you and try to feel out if you're inexperienced or not, secondly these people can be somewhat toxic in my opinion, but as long as you're smart, not an asshole (but also not a push-over), and don't leave your men to die you should be fine in this squad, but you should practice as a SL in say alpha or bravo first before you start SLing for Charlie and Delta, as many command plans rely on the reliability of Charlie and Delta.


Delta: Delta marines typically call out “cowards” and such. If you want to be a Delta SL and fairly respected, you need to be fairly robust at combat and fearless, two examples being Julian ‘Jules’ Petrov and the now long gone Xur. Delta holds any SL like this in high regard and will risk their life to save you if needed. If Delta does not like you, you will be left for dead occasionally, disrespected, or unable to make Delta follow your orders.
What to do: Do not come off as a try-hard, if you take this game too seriously, Delta is not the squad for you.
Study how Delta SL's such as Julian 'Jules' Petrov or Ivanov Poloski act in combat.
Play casually and do not complain much, or act salty.
Rules of charging as an SL change a bit when in Delta, act fearless but smart and stay in the front for a majority of the push, this will motivate your men, try not to die.
Do not leave your Delta comrades for dead, save them, even if it means you have to risk your own life.
Participate more in combat as a Delta SL than you would in other squads, Delta can make or break marine majors or just get wiped out within twenty minutes, sometimes both.

(These are my personal opinions of each squad, and they may not align with your views of each squad, if you have any suggestions for this part or any other part of the guide, post what you should feel could be fixed or better.)


What part two will cover:
4. Advance tactics
5: How to combat certain xeno castes and classes
6: How to best use certain weapons and ammo.

[sw4gbag]

TYPOS and shit will be fixed soon, sorry if the guide doesn't have the best formatting at the moment

[Sora9567]

Thanks for the writeup. I'll be sure to adjust my current tactics and vendor purchases.

[David Stormwell]

Also Make sure to get the Mortar kits Engineering comms key, I can Help once in a while to Tell Cords of Somthing to all Squads engis.

My own Loadout is Rifle, AP Round Box on Back, MD in Belt, Medkit pouch, and Large pouch. Make sure to Pack the Pills and a Health Analyzer, Put the Tricord Injector in your Helmet and put another injector or Pill bottle in the medkit, Also you can take out one extra trauma kit for a Pill bottle, You can Ask a Doc to make some Chems if Your Feeling extra Medicy, Or if your down a Medic.

Call out CAS As much as you can,If you see the Sceecher run back a bit, Let the ungas take care of her, Or you could wait for the Sceech then Charge in while picking people up off the Ground.

[Asmodius]

samantha n