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Being a Squad Leader is one of the most rewarding things you can do in Ordo and it can be fun as well. In this thread I will essentially be going over how to be an effective Squad Leader, their tools, equipment and giving tips on how to be an effective one as well. This does not cover everything as of yet, it's just going to cover a few basics to get some gears turning. I will update this post periodically. A good guide to PS2 leadership is here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Planetside/comments/1bnnjz/guide_warfare_in_planetside_2/ It's a good read if you have time and want to learn more. ________________________________________________________________________ Squad Composition Having variety in your squad is important. Having too much of one thing will make your squad more specialized and in most situations will cause your squad to be ineffective in what you want them to do. While this is something that you, the Squad Leader has less control over, you can request people to switch classes. Most people within Ordo are happy to oblige. Here is an ideal list of squad composition along with an explanation of how specific classes are used in combat during a squad setting. A better understanding of how each class can be used will allow you to be a better Squad leader. Medic: 2 - 4 Heavy Assault: 2 - 4 Light Assault: 1 - 3 Engineer: 1 - 2 Infiltrator: 1 Max: 0 - 2 Medic: Medics are a very versatile class. They can easily fit an assault, defensive and supportive role. The rifles they are given by default are some of the most useful weapons within the TR army. They have the ability to keep your squad members alive and revive them. Having at least 2 allows them to revive each other in case one goes down. Having up to 4 allows you to easily keep your squad up and running. Medics make good squad leaders due to being able to hang back in a supportive role to command and still be useful to the squad. Heavy Assault: As the name states the Heavy Assault has the equipment needed for it’s job. The class specific machine guns allows the Heavy Assault to lay down suppressive fire and mow through the enemy with ease. In addition to that the rocket launcher enables to the Heavy Assault to be Anti Armor, Air and Max. Having at least 2 in your squad can take down a Sunderer or tank with ease while up to 4 allows you to keep the enemy armor away. Light Assault: This unit is often overlooked as not useful to a squad. Being purely offensive, in the right hands a single Light Assault can quite literally be a flanking nightmare. The jetpack allows this unit to get to places that the enemy least expects. They can flank in any number of ways, you just have to put your mind to it. They are most effective with shotguns and certing twice into C4. This unit can take out Max units with ease and in the right hands they can take out entire squads. Having one in your squad is useful for having a strong flanking unit to cause chaos. No more than three is recommended as they have no support tools and abilities. Engineer: Often seen driving vehicles, repairing turrets and friendly Maxes, the Engineer plays mostly a supportive role in a squad. What makes them useful is their Ammo Pack ability and turrets. They are the sole providers of ammo in a squad and keep the squad from running low on ammo during a firefight. Their Anti-Infantry MANA Turret is excellent for providing suppressive fire while assault and excellent at interior defense against soft targets. The Anti-Vehicle MANA Turret is a good alternative for outdoor engagements against armor. Keeping no less than one in your squad ensure that you won’t have a shortage of ammo and your Sunderer will be repaired when needed. No more than two are need for a squad as it would cause your squad to lose offensive capability. Infiltrator: This class has a variety of uses. Their primary use in a squad would be hacking terminals and turrets. While they can be counter snipers, when given the order their primary goal needs to be squad support. Hacking terminals allows allies to spawn vehicles, resupply special gear (C4, Grenades, Mines) and change loadouts without needing to go to a friendly terminal or sunderer. They also have a motion tracker beacon wish is useful for surveillance in large facilities or watching the squad’s back. At least and no more than one per squad is good. One can hack terminals and do what the squad needs for Infiltrator support, any more than that then you lose the offensiveness and squad support tools the other classes bring. Max: Slow, but have the most firepower and armor among all infantry units a max suit can provide a squad with the much needed firepower to breach a room and more. These units bolster a lot of firepower especially with their Lockdown ability. They can be excellent on offensive and defensive situations. They are highly effective against enemy armor, infantry and aircraft with the right combination of weapons. They work best paired with an engineer to provide them with armor repair and ammo. A well certed Max and Engineer is a strong combo on the battlefield. These units are not necessarily required for a squad, but having one provides extra fire power and up to two allows you to cover an area of specialty the other is lacking. Having more than two and your squad will lose much needed mobility and support tools and equipment. It’s best if light assaults switch to Max than other classes if needed. ________________________________________________________________________ Orders Giving orders to your squad is essential to keeping them engaged in what the platoon is doing. It gives order to the platoon and directs their focus to where it is needed the most. In addition to that it allows the platoon lead to focus on the bigger picture than the little details. Keep your orders short and simple. Remember KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid. - Platoon lead: Big picture a generalized over look of everything what's happening now and what needs to be done in the future. - Squad lead: Small details, what's happening right then, there and now. While the future is important, they rely on the Platoon Leader for direction without question. While the Platoon lead gives a general order for each Squad. As the squad leader it's your job to do the fine details. Example below: The platoon just arrived at the front gate of a hostile Amp Station VIA Sunderers. Platoon Lead: "Alpha take out the Vehicle Shields, Bravo Take out the Interior horizontal and vertical shields" Alpha Lead: "Alpha 1 through 4 get West, 5 through 8 get East, 9 through 12 get South" Bravo Lead: "Bravo 1 through 3 get East, 4 through 6 get West" All shields are down and the Sunderers move inside the Amp Station and deploy. Platoon Lead: "Alpha I need you to guard the point and the sunderer. Bravo I want you to capture outlying points" Alpha Lead: "Alpha 2 through 6 guard the upstairs objective, the rest guard the lower and Sunderer. I want those vehicle terminals hacked" Bravo Lead: "Bravo 2 and 3 pull Harassers, everyone load up and move out to waypoint" Alpha captures the point guarding it and the Sunderer, Bravo moves out and captures outlying outposts effectively denying the enemy a means of locally obtaining vehicles. The base is halfway captured and the SCU shields just went down. This gives us more control over the base than what we had before. Bravo Lead: "All outposts captured, Orders?" Platoon Lead: "Move back inside and guard courtyard, don't let those generators get repaired" Alpha Lead: "Alpha 7 and 8 take out the SCU, everyone else stay" Bravo Lead: "Bravo, spread out focus on guarding base generators" Base capture ticks down and the Amp Station is ours. Platoon Lead: "Clean up, repair generators, then load up to move out to Platoon Waypoint" The Platoon Lead gave more generalized orders, while the squad lead directed his squad on a more detailed basis. This allows the Platoon Lead to plan and focus on the entire area of operation than trying to focus on each individual detail. This also gives more order and direction to the people within the squads than everyone running around and it being a cluster Ffff. Without the base being captured we gained the majority of control over it by taking their means of spawning vehicles and capturing the surrounding outposts. Don't be intimidated to give orders to your squad. Be firm when you give your orders and do not second guess yourself. Follow your Platoon Leader's orders and do not argue with them, you would expect the same respect from them if you were leading the platoon instead. ________________________________________________________________________ Squad Management To have a squad that works efficiently and effectively, proper squad management is essential. Its a lot more simple than one may think, but you must assert your authority as the squad leader. Which means you could look like an asshole if done improperly. Which goes both ways, being overly zealous when you booting people is just as bad as not managing the squad at all! Its a thin line to walk, but having a well managed squad can mean the difference between you and everyone in the squad having fun, to running a cluster Ffff and you getting irritated that no one is listening. Closed Squad: Closed squads tend to be easier to manage due to everyone being in your outfit and being on TS3. But that does not mean some people won’t wander off and do what they want. If someone wonders off, tell them to get with the squad. If some people are refusing to follow orders, remove them from the squad. These take a strict hand to manage and get the point across. Most outfit members don’t have this issue, thankfully. But there are times where people would rather play solo than with the squad, but are for whatever reason in the outfit’s squad. Theres times where it might make you look like an asshole, but when a squad sticks together they tend to have a much more enjoyable time. TLDR/Tips: - Remind people who stray off to stick with the squad. - Try to keep side chatter to a minimum so orders can be heard. Don’t cut it out entirely, that’s just awkward and people want something fun to do during the down time. - Individuals refusing to follow orders? Remind them they are playing with in a squad and to follow orders. - Remove people who consistently refuse to listen and follow orders. Save yourself and your squad from a headache. - If people would rather play solo, remove them to free up space for someone who wants to play with a team. - Even though we are an organized Outfit and need to help with capturing Bio Labs and such, squad members want to have fun. Banging our heads against the wall trying to capture a Bio Lab from the NC for 3 hours is NOT fun. Its a waste of time and will kill the squad. Open Squad: Managing an open squad can be the difference of having fun to having a miserable time. Open squads take the most effort to manage since you’re playing with public players, or pubbies. These players are trained in the art of Call of Duty and need direction, otherwise they won’t know what to do or where to go and will wonder off. There are often times where they won’t listen and thats where you need to cut them out. These tend to be less organized than a closed squad due to pubbies. Don’t stress yourself in making sure they are following every tactical command in the book. TLDR/Tips: - Give direction to the squad. Use waypoints and the squad objective to give direction. - Use in game squad voice chat to command the squad. - Check global map periodically to check for people on different continents or facilities. Remove them from the squad and replace them with someone new in your area. - Ensure the squad is having fun. Pubbies want to kill people, not capture empty outposts. - Occasionally ‘Pimp’ the outfit on squad voice to get more recruits. “If you enjoy playing with us join us on Ordoimperialis.com!” ________________________________________________________________________ Tools ____ Squad Waypoint: Using this gives your squad direction. You can do a lot of things with a squad waypoint. You can use it to tell your squad where to move, mark areas and immobile targets. Theres no secret to what the Squad Waypoint is used for, but it is often forgotten and even under used. The other squads in a platoon cannot see your squad's waypoint, but the Platoon Leader can. ____ Spawn Beacon: This is an essential for being a Squad Leader. Lets get into the basics of the squad beacon, its essentially a back up spawn for your squad. Lets say you don't have a spawn close by or your Sunderer explodes. This enables your squad to quickly deploy at your location and regain control of an area. But they can have other effective uses as well. Using a squad beacon an individual can get to places such as the top of a building or to an enemy Sunderer that's heavily guarded. Soldiers can use teamwork with dropping and breach the enemy lines to clear out a fortified building and destroy the enemy's primary spawn point they are assaulting or defending from. These beacons do not need to be heavily certed, even just one cert into them to obtain them is very useful and highly recommended.The first cert into them is 30 certs then 100 and it goes up by 100 cert increments from there. ____ Rally Point: Similar to that of the Way Point, the Rally Point can give your squad direction by dropping colored smoke on a given location on the map. Smoke is Empire specific, so only TR can see it. It can be seen in world, on the minimap and on the world map, if you’re in the area of it. Rally points are often overlooked as being useless and they are rarely used for anything but 'party smoke' There are four different colors, Green, Orange, Purple and Yellow each one is 50 certs each. Once used the smoke has a 5 minute cool down period before you can drop one of the same color. Which means you can drop 4 rally points at a time. Some uses for it are - Using it as a rally point for your squad (obviously) - Marking objectives - Marking the area the enemy is assaulting from - Marking enemy Sunderers that need to be destroyed - Marking bombing runs for aircraft Theres a large variety of uses for the rally point, you just need to use your brain and be creative. Keep in mind of what smoke is already active on the field and what smoke you’re about to deploy. Other squad leaders might be using smoke to mark targets as well, so certing into more than one smoke is recommended. ____ Squad Objectives: Accessible by highlighting an Objective and holding the Q button to bring up the radial menu, Squad Objective can give your squad an attack or defend command. Viewable by your squad only, the Squad Objective has a set of carrots that box your designated objective on the minimap and on the Hud display. This is useful for giving your squad visual direction instead of just verbal. As of right now only ‘Lettered Control Points’ work for this. ____ Command Channel: Not quite the most useful of the tools for the squad leader, it can be used to request reinforcements or listen to what the entire Terran Republic army needs. As a squad leader this cert is not essential unless you're running a squad outside of a platoon. 100 Certs You can use /leader to talk to other squad leaders and platoon leaders, it doesn't have to be on the same continent. You can also use /order to send a request for reinforcements to your location, keep in mind you can only use it once every 3 minutes to prevent it from being abused. There is also a voice chat for the command channel, it tends to be a cluster Ffff. ____ Request Reinforcements: Another tool thats not essential to leading a squad, it allows you to place objectives on the world map to give the entire TR army an objective at where you place them. Its simple enough, it puts an attack or defend objective at a specified location on the continent map that all friendlies can see. Theres a 5 minute cool down before you can place another one. ________________________________________________________________________ TIPS Will update regularly. - Pick a class that does not put you directly into combat so you can focus on giving orders and leading your squad. Medic is a good choice, its a good supporting role and keeps your squad alive. - Keep orders short and simple. Remember KISS, Keep it Simple Stupid. - Keep your squad working together as a team. You have more ability and control over this than the Platoon lead. - When giving orders be firm and do not second guess yourself. - Do not question your platoon lead, follow your orders and if needed give suggestions VIA Tell in game or PMs. - Give your squad direction with waypoints and rally points. - Listen to your squad and their needs. - Cert into Spawn Beacon and deploy it when you can to give your squad an additional respawn point. - Manage the squad if it’s open, kick pubbies that are not following the squad and orders. Check Continent and Global map for stragglers. - Use Rally Point to mark Targets of importance for ground and Air. Typical usage is Pop Smoke on an enemy sunderer and broadcast “/re hostile Sundy at (color) Smoke” - Wolf Shaman - Be Observant about what smoke is currently active and what smoke you are about to deploy. Multiple smoke certing is recommended for minimal overlapping with other squad smoke and staggering cooldown timers. - Wolf Shaman - Squad objective is useful for directing open squads with pubbies so they have a visual marker to run to. - Wolf Shaman ________________________________________________________________________ If you have any tips or anything you'd like added, tips, suggestions or otherwise, feel free to post in this thread and I will update when I can. This is a working progress so do not assume this is everything about being a squad leader. There is much more.