The Voiceless Comm
Ardesco
Join Date: 2002-11-09 Member: 7831Members
Join Date: 2002-11-09 Member: 7831Members
<div class="IPBDescription">Hard, but not impossible</div> <b>Disclaimer: This thread asserts that using voicecomm and having your voice come out crystal clear is far superior to typing</b>
<i>"So I was busying trying to figure out how the microphone worked, and then I saw 3 blips on the radar indicating another alien attack. Without even thinking, I just quickly mashed , "danger vent!", and the grunts at the ventilation hive turned, and opened fire on the skulks. Mmhm. Just light up the propane, and them skulks make for mighty good cookin'!" - Col. Gui Montag, personal log.</i>
Ever have that problem where your roommate fell asleep, parents are on patrol, or you just feel paranoid about sounding like a 7 year old over voicecomm? Well, this guide is written with people who want to learn to use typing and other techniques to facilitate the drawbacks of not using voicecomm. Note: You will never get the same level of organization amongst marines possible without voicecomm unless you type like a secretary; even that's pretty crazy, because then you just might spend more time talking than u do taking care of your marines.
<b>Learn Shorthand</b>
Ever wonder why people gave up using periods on the internet? It takes too damn long to type an extra character when you wanna convey something that doesn't need such formality. Whenever you're typing, try and avoid any extraneous characters, unless your sentence would otherwise be confusing without it. ("Bob, vent hive") the difference between a ? and a lack thereof can be interpreted differently by your marines, especially when you want to convey maximum meaning with minimal typing.
<b>Speed Typing</b>
Its true, you can't get away with doing this unless you have a decent typing speed. If you can type 30+ words a minute without looking at your keyboard every so often, you have the potential to improve your writing speed. It doesn't hurt to brush up once in a while, since faster typing speed is a pretty useful skill in real life. You want to be able to maximize typing speed and minimize mistakes, so if you're in a situation where you need to convey an emergency, don't start slamming on keys--you might end up completely screwing up what you meant to say instead of conveying the right message. A few errors (I, for example, type so fast that I often miss hitting the "asdf" keys in words once in a while) are acceptable, so long as the word doesn't become something else (simple example: go does NOT equal 'o' or 'g').
<b>concentrate on the battle, not your fingers</b>
You should work your typing abilities to the point where typing this fast becomes habit, not a continuous task. Your skills as a commander is best spent thinking about how to kill the aliens, now "where is the damn x key?"
<b>Emphasis</b>
Sometimes, it's ok to type in caps if it's a serious emergency. The main drawback of typing over voicecomm is that a marine can never really get how urgent something is when you're typing it, whereas with voicecomm, they can pretty much tell by what you're saying, and the tone of your voice. To compensate, commanders have two options:
<i>Type in caps</i> Not recommended, as it'll make you seem like a n00b/anxiety freak, but when the game is on the line, you sometimes need to convey that message with force. Usually, short phrases like " GO GO GO" or "I SAID GO TO THE HIVE" make for the best caps usage, as it's not too cluttery, and places emphasis on a minimal number of words.
<i>Repetition</i> Usually, when you type something over and over again, your marines will get a clue and haul butt over to where you want them to go. Of course, spamming is highly not recommended, but just encourage them with stuff like ," go to the hive guys", "hive going down" "were losing gen hive!"...etc. Marines hate it when they see the same stuff over and over, and they'll probably ask you to stop spamming or take a chill pill.
<b>Waypoints</b> You'll almost never get anything done if your marines can't follow waypoints. Waypoints speak much louder than words in this game. You wanna be precise and exact with where you click, and be careful not to accidentally cancel a structure and order a couple of marines to move halfway across the map. when organizing troops, use phrases such as "half of you wped to this spot. rest stay." or, for more lax commandering, ask half of them to go voluntarily. This second method doens't work quite as well as the first, but it'll sometimes allow you to root out the listening, attentive marines from the inexperienced cannon fodder.
<b>Finally, relax</b>
You have a lot to say at any given time, but you can almost never convey all of it with a lack of a mic. Fortunately, you can compensate for this if you just relax, and take the time to think about what you want done, and then type it as concisely as possible. A frusterated commander shows on his keyboard, and your marines will lose faith in you if all they see is a long string of capslocks (hehe, unfortunately, I am a perpetuator of said crimes occasionally, but rarely has any marine complained when its saved the day).
<b>PS. Try and organize near the beginning the roles different troops will play</b>
When playing voicelessly, I like to designate a willing soldier to be a pointman to carry out everything I need. He follows my waypoints explicitly, and is there to handle everything I can't say over comm. Good pointmen are guys with their own voicecomms, cause they can often convey the will of the commander just by surveying the situation for themselves.
Good luck.
<i>"So I was busying trying to figure out how the microphone worked, and then I saw 3 blips on the radar indicating another alien attack. Without even thinking, I just quickly mashed , "danger vent!", and the grunts at the ventilation hive turned, and opened fire on the skulks. Mmhm. Just light up the propane, and them skulks make for mighty good cookin'!" - Col. Gui Montag, personal log.</i>
Ever have that problem where your roommate fell asleep, parents are on patrol, or you just feel paranoid about sounding like a 7 year old over voicecomm? Well, this guide is written with people who want to learn to use typing and other techniques to facilitate the drawbacks of not using voicecomm. Note: You will never get the same level of organization amongst marines possible without voicecomm unless you type like a secretary; even that's pretty crazy, because then you just might spend more time talking than u do taking care of your marines.
<b>Learn Shorthand</b>
Ever wonder why people gave up using periods on the internet? It takes too damn long to type an extra character when you wanna convey something that doesn't need such formality. Whenever you're typing, try and avoid any extraneous characters, unless your sentence would otherwise be confusing without it. ("Bob, vent hive") the difference between a ? and a lack thereof can be interpreted differently by your marines, especially when you want to convey maximum meaning with minimal typing.
<b>Speed Typing</b>
Its true, you can't get away with doing this unless you have a decent typing speed. If you can type 30+ words a minute without looking at your keyboard every so often, you have the potential to improve your writing speed. It doesn't hurt to brush up once in a while, since faster typing speed is a pretty useful skill in real life. You want to be able to maximize typing speed and minimize mistakes, so if you're in a situation where you need to convey an emergency, don't start slamming on keys--you might end up completely screwing up what you meant to say instead of conveying the right message. A few errors (I, for example, type so fast that I often miss hitting the "asdf" keys in words once in a while) are acceptable, so long as the word doesn't become something else (simple example: go does NOT equal 'o' or 'g').
<b>concentrate on the battle, not your fingers</b>
You should work your typing abilities to the point where typing this fast becomes habit, not a continuous task. Your skills as a commander is best spent thinking about how to kill the aliens, now "where is the damn x key?"
<b>Emphasis</b>
Sometimes, it's ok to type in caps if it's a serious emergency. The main drawback of typing over voicecomm is that a marine can never really get how urgent something is when you're typing it, whereas with voicecomm, they can pretty much tell by what you're saying, and the tone of your voice. To compensate, commanders have two options:
<i>Type in caps</i> Not recommended, as it'll make you seem like a n00b/anxiety freak, but when the game is on the line, you sometimes need to convey that message with force. Usually, short phrases like " GO GO GO" or "I SAID GO TO THE HIVE" make for the best caps usage, as it's not too cluttery, and places emphasis on a minimal number of words.
<i>Repetition</i> Usually, when you type something over and over again, your marines will get a clue and haul butt over to where you want them to go. Of course, spamming is highly not recommended, but just encourage them with stuff like ," go to the hive guys", "hive going down" "were losing gen hive!"...etc. Marines hate it when they see the same stuff over and over, and they'll probably ask you to stop spamming or take a chill pill.
<b>Waypoints</b> You'll almost never get anything done if your marines can't follow waypoints. Waypoints speak much louder than words in this game. You wanna be precise and exact with where you click, and be careful not to accidentally cancel a structure and order a couple of marines to move halfway across the map. when organizing troops, use phrases such as "half of you wped to this spot. rest stay." or, for more lax commandering, ask half of them to go voluntarily. This second method doens't work quite as well as the first, but it'll sometimes allow you to root out the listening, attentive marines from the inexperienced cannon fodder.
<b>Finally, relax</b>
You have a lot to say at any given time, but you can almost never convey all of it with a lack of a mic. Fortunately, you can compensate for this if you just relax, and take the time to think about what you want done, and then type it as concisely as possible. A frusterated commander shows on his keyboard, and your marines will lose faith in you if all they see is a long string of capslocks (hehe, unfortunately, I am a perpetuator of said crimes occasionally, but rarely has any marine complained when its saved the day).
<b>PS. Try and organize near the beginning the roles different troops will play</b>
When playing voicelessly, I like to designate a willing soldier to be a pointman to carry out everything I need. He follows my waypoints explicitly, and is there to handle everything I can't say over comm. Good pointmen are guys with their own voicecomms, cause they can often convey the will of the commander just by surveying the situation for themselves.
Good luck.
Comments
Then again, I see it being advantageous as a commander, because most marines aren't constantly reading the screen while they concentrate on shooting kharaa. I totally recommend that all commanders use a microphone. Firstly, it allows you to show that you have authority, and lets your marines know that you haven't fallen asleep at the comm.
The thing that makes me laugh still, is <i>kids</i> on the comm. Well, if your voice hasn't broken yet and you are a 15 year old that sounds like a 5 year old, its hard for anyone on the team to take you seriously. In that case, you're probably better off typing..
If theres any skill that will help you out in life, its learning to touch type. Theres lots of great packages that teach you it, and theres a House of the Dead, typing game which helps improve your typing speed alot while you have fun.
There are also voice packages, that allow your voice to be converted to text on the screen, I don't know if any of these are compatible with Half Life, and whether running two apps at the same time might slow your computer down too much.
<b>My favourite commanders</b>, are the ones that might not necessarily be great commanders, but the ones that keep the cheer of the team up, by making jokes and being calm and cool.
Yeah, it sucks if I'm using a mic and some girl happen to walk in my room and hears me screaming: go to your waypoint!!
It would've taken me about 20 seconds to type "I want HighJustice and Fenrir to build - the rest of you cover and then move to the waypoint I give you immediately afterwards while the builders stay in base." With the mic, 5 seconds - giving me 15 to get that observatory down and locate an empty hive.
I've commanded many games, all of them were without voice communication. I know all of the positions of the keys on the keyboard, which is how i can type <i>very</i> fast, so it doesn't bother me. I've also noticed a lot of people use voice comm.. and it makes the team even WORSE.. sometimes there's one person who is giving you orders, but you can't understand a SINGLE thing they are saying... and everybody on the team is telling that person to shut up because they're clogging the frequencies <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->
I only type when I need to.. such as "let's grab a node, then hive" or something important. Waypoints give the orders, most of the time. and i'm usually on the ball when it comes to giving someone health/ammo
i just wish people would yell it out (using command) more.. or bind it.. because it's hard finding people most of the time (especially if you're right over them.. sometimes the ceiling pieces cover them up)
Sounds silly. But you dont need voice to com well. I hate marines and yesterday I decided to join em with my friend. 20 mins in, the com said forget this, we lost this game.
My friend said hed do it. No voice and he was able to bring it from near death to a solid win. Telling who to stay where, keep welding each other, etc. And we used to play wc3 and hes quick with the keyboard.
Worked out pretty well. Restored my faith in the marines. Everytime Id play em, it was boring.
Kharaa much nicer.
All I can say is that when I use voice comm, I can get ten times more things done than without. Also, the fact of the matter is, even if you sound like mickey mouse, you can usually convey some sense of what you want your marines to do. Voice comm, in my opinion, is highly complementary for any tactics a commander may try and pull (and general game strategy, to a lesser extent), but not necessary if you know how to compensate for it.
On an unrelated note, I too sometimes experience the problem of non-functioning keys that cause me to frequently mistype. Is this a problem with the command console somehow?
Anyways, if you're in a desperate endgame situation, you can usually go for broke by:
Selling most non-critical structures (phasegates, extra comm chair, etc)
just dropping as many weapons as possible before the proto lab / armory goes down
using emergency respawn voraciously in combination with the above.
I hate <b>little</b> kids using the mic, I have accidently called several of them ladies just to get the response "IM A BOY YOU FAG!" in the screechy annoying voice. You knwo how annoying a kid can be with a mic? 0_o
Also since my comp is in the rec room, I often get my parents/brothers **obscenity** off at me when im up at 4 in themorning screaming "GET TO THE FUCKIGN CARGO BAY NOW YOU **obscenity** CUNTS!"
I was playing a game a few days ago, some guy on our team was called Papa_Smurf or something like that. When we start losing, he just starts yelling into the mic telling everyone what they need to do, and generally whining about how we sucked at everything. Someone said "should be more like BABY smurf" and then the 12-year-old name calling started. I woulda muted him, but it was just too funny cause he thought we would actually listen to what he was telling us to do. He wasn't the commander by the way, and neither was I.
EDIT: Just got out of another game with an <b>8 year old.</b> Comedy gold. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->
HOWEVER, I do not allow this to affect my attitude towards them, if they talk annoyingly and whats coming out of their mouth is pure **obscenity** then yea they deserve your abuse. But, if they sound stupid and are giving you good orders/advice how much of a peace of **obscenity** are you to rip into them? It shows alot more about who you are as a person than who they are.
Oh the WORST person I've had in terms of annoying voice was someone who winged over VC, I mean its just rediculas when the com starts going 'ho guys, we can't really do anything cos your all **obscenity**' after we get mashed trying to build a siege in a position that is IMPOSSIBLE to defend.
Its just stupid, commanders should look after the marines morale, if this means going 'guys I'm not sure we'll pull through this... But if we all work together and kickass we might just make it through till tomorrow.' then so be it. A commander earlier told us to:
'find a mother **obscenity** siege for a hive'
and further more 'if you find me that siege spot I'll give you a cookie', sure we lost the game but the INTIRE TEAM responded well and TRIED.
Morale of your troop is absoultly vital when commanding, people who think they've lost and sit about going 'Game over man! What're you gonna do now! What're ya gonna DOOOO!' while humerous, aren't really usefull, so that winging com **obscenity** me off LOTS.
BlueGhost
Stratagy,
Tactics (And the ability to convay them to your marines).
Agressive play, I've taken over two games from commanders who quit (and I assume they quit because they thought they couldn't win) I then played as aggressivly as I possibly could, I hit hives asap hard with the biggest group of hardest marines I could. Even if they all died I went in again, I never spent a single res on a standard turret.
Nothing annoys me more than a commander who goes 'the day is lost guys lets have thousands of turrets in base to hold them off' all they're doing is drawing out a dull end game. If I KNOW a game is lost I give out the high skilled weaps (shotty, jp, GL) and hope we've got someone on the team who's name is 'god' with jetpack cos if you don't nothing else is gonna save you.
At the very least you're letting the marines practice with high skilled weapons.
BlueGhost
At the very least you're letting the marines practice with high skilled weapons.
BlueGhost<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Good point. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile.gif' border='0' valign='absmiddle' alt='smile.gif'><!--endemo-->