This won't teach anybody that is already a good commander anything new, but players that don't like to comm because they don't know how, or want to be good should read this. Create a server to practice on! -learn how to move the commander view around easily. -learn how to get a good view of an area quickly. -get good at going to locations in the map and getting your view into a good position. -get good at finding buildings in the building menu, rotating and placing them quickly. If you can do all of those things, you're fit to start commanding on the training server, any small (8 players per team) match, or a match where nobody wants to command. commanding is actually a very simple process: -Place a barracks at every new location, front line or place in enemy territory that your team gets to. place a barracks before refinary. -Protect your men with turrets, armouries and walls. all three of these are powerful weapons in your armoury -Give your men targets, by selecting all of them in an area, holding A, and drag selecting over as large an area as possible. -Keep researching at all times. If you can do these things for your team, then your team will do the rest. There are only a few other important things to remember before you're done: -Don't delay too long into the game before building a Vehicle Factory and Radar. -Always read the text chat. No commander is omnipotent- the text will tell you what your players need and where, especially refinaries and barracks. -Protect Yourself against ninjas (lone players who can kill the command vehicle by themselves). Do this by building turrets and a camra around your command vehicle at the earliest possible opportunity. -If a barracks in a base dies, but you have a vehicle factory, use the "spawn vehicle" section of the command panel to spawn an APC from the vehicle factory. you need a spawn to keep fighting the invading enemies! -Command your team! Tell them what to do, where to go, and if you can get a microphone, it'll make you twice as good a commander. The only thing I have not covered in this guide is what to research. I'll leave this up to you to discover, but info sheets can be found here Good luck, and have fun!
In my opinion, if you always drop refineries, never research reactive/absorbant, and make sure to put the comm vehicle in a safe place you'll do fine.
Remember the commander is as much intel as anything else. Make sure your people know what's going on and where. Mark relevant targets, call out priorities. Get your men there. It doesn't really matter if you aren't a good leader, as long as you keep your team outfitted and up to date they'll be able to make the win. Remember, it's on the team whether or not they win - you can enable them, but they've got to take it the distance.
I still think we need a sub commander to mark targets and execute the main commander's battle plan so the head honcho can focus on research and the greater strategy as a whole, especially if we get larger servers.
Or just give squad leaders a laptop that lets them go into comm view and give orders and place cameras and radars.
That sounds like researching reactive or absorbant is a bad thing... never heard about superlights or railheavies? Superlights are nf light tanks with reactive armor and 3-phase engine, which is the best tank you can get in early game. This armor-engine combination is also the fastest way to railheavies, which are one of the best tanks you can get as BE. On the other hand there's absorbant which is a good counter against railheavies and nukes... You can't just say that one type of engine or one armor should never be researched! A little off topic... but only a little
The thing about reactive is that if you don't win within 5 minutes, you're boned for the rest of the game because your resources are depleted and light tanks cost you 500 resources each. Reactive is only 2 less resource per plate than composite armor, except that reactive is also extremely heavy and you can't fit more than 4 layers on a well-equipped heavy tank. And the tank still costs a huge amount of resources. Absorbant armour dies from any type of missile; RPG, ML turret or otherwise. You'll always run into ML turrets so absorbant armour is useless half the time. Regen armor is definitely worth the extra 1 minute research time to get. Pays off in the end. No point getting these armors when you can get regen in just an extra minute.
I usually go reactive for three reasons: 1. I have good players who know how to effectively use superlights (reactive/3phase on a NF light) 2. I'm getting LVL3's and need to quickly get an armor 3. I'm rushing BE rail heavies Otherwise, Jephir is right. Its simply too expensive/heavy when compared to other armor/engine combinations. Absorbant isn't really that bad. However, its usually not a good first armor. Its poorness against missles is balanced by being cheap and light. Also, it puts you in close proximity to some good weapons (HE, UML, Upg/AdvRPG, HEMG).
Does it say something bad about me that I like that idea? Dizzy would surely blow a gasket if you posted that in the suggestions forum.
i personally believe that the type of research to be done depends from game to game on these factors: your team's skillset the enemy team's skillset your current situation on the map, and the map itself luck a lot of luck
I'm serious about that. Thanks for the support, nobody said no. And it increases a squad leaders importance, so long as his orders don't override the commanders.
Que Solo saying it has been discussed and shot down. I have plans to that effect but there is just so much to do and so few coders. It might be a while before we get to the point that we can decide to implement that or not.