Hello everyone, today, I would like to show you basic commanding of a group of subordinates. In this situation, I don’t want to be fighting alone because there are too many enemies. I will booth the force recon team on the map and I want to be the leader of that team. And I will give my team a power or something.
Now, I'm commander of force recons. There are multiple ways to command my troops. However, the default method is context command. That activated by the space bar. I can either hold the space bar and click in the menu to issue a command and then continue with my own actions or I can click the space bar to permanently turn the context command on. Not that the cursor is different during the context command and I can no longer fire. But by pressing the left most button, I'm issuing orders to the selected subordinates. By default, I have all of them selected.
I can select only some of them by pointing at them with the context command cursor or I can press associated F keys. Every unit under my command has a number and the F key of that same number selects and deselects the unit. So one way to quickly command a particular unit is just to press the F key. With F3, I select the unit number three and I can command him. I can just click somewhere on the terrain and on unit number three will move to that spot.
I may want to give more orders to that unit. It’s possible to hold control key and when I click, the unit is not deselected. So I can continue commanding that unit and change the orders on a fly. So I hold control key, send the unit to a hummer and the unit gets in the vehicle. And now, I want him to move closer to us, so the unit is still selected because I hold the control key. I click pointing on the ground again and the unit will move there.
Now, I want two and four to board as well. That’s very simple. I just select the units, point the hummer and left click my mouse. Know that the orders are changing depending on actual context. So if I point with selected with units over vehicle with empty positions, the default command is abort that. If I point somewhere in the environment, default is moved. If I point over an enemy target, default is engage that. I’ll board that vehicle myself too.
You can switch also yourself to the commanding tactical view by pressing full stop on the numeric keypad. In that part, you can use the same methods to issues orders, but you also have a better overview of the environment. It doesn’t matter which you are using. You can still use the same system to command your troops and you can use the same system in the map.
Some of the features in the game are dependent on difficulty options. At higher difficulty options, we try to stimulate real world conditions without any artificial help. Everything is up to you as a player to handle as in real world. However, at lower difficulty levels such as regular, you have some additional artificial help. For instance, you can see your position on the map.
So now, I want my squat to move to the village—where there are some interrogans. You select all the units either by pressing tiled key I the upper left of your keyboard or by pressing the spacebar which will also instantly open the commanding view with all the subordinates selected. So all I need to do, move them somewhere in the map is to press the spacebar where I can hold it and click somewhere in the map. That automatically issues my entire squad to order to move to that spot. You can see my team moving there.
You can still change the view and see how they execute the command. Note that AI move differently based on their current combat and behavior. However, under most of circumstances, you don’t need to manage this behavior. They will automatically choose what's best under given circumstances. As we know, there are probably multiple interrogans in the village. It might be a good idea to check it a bit from a distance. At this spot, I cannot see much, so I will ask my team to move over to that small hill above the village. So first, we can check what's in the village. I don’t want to enter the village without knowing more about who is in it. By the way, you can accelerate the time in the game by pressing the plus key on the main keyboard and decelerate with the minus key.
Now, I want my entire squat to disembark, so I just hold the spacebar and default command now is disembark. So I just click the left mouse button. I need to get out of that vehicle myself, so I display my available actions by rolling a mouse wheel and select the action I want to perform with the left mouse button. I choose get out in this case. It’s possible to use even more advance commanding options. There are amount of numbers. It’s a system we have used for many years and expect it’s compatible. I admit it might have a steep learning cube. However, when you master, it’s probably the fastest possible method. As a little hint, you may display the command menu by pressing backspace.
Here, every command group has its associated number. So by pressing that number, you will able to enter the sub menu. I don’t want my group to engage, so I press spacebar to select them all then enter number three to enter the engage commanding menu and press two to hold fire. And you can remember that sequence. So, it’s three which is engage and two to hold fire. So when you remember this, you just press spacebar and type three and two, similarly, you can select your entire squad, press three and one which is open fire, fire at will.
It is very easy to use and you still press backspace to show the menu for you to see all the available options and learn them. Good thing about this system is, that it really allows you to issue dozens of different commands to your AI and it’s still organized in a logical way. You can still use them mouse wheel to navigate through the displayed menus. For instance, I select my squad with space, press to open engage menu and now I start rotating the mouse wheel to select other item I want to and left click the mouse to choose.
Now, I press B key to use my binocular. I’ll try to spot some enemies in the village. I can see one, to reveal the targets and report to AI, you use the right mouse button and click on that object in the game world, and if it’s a target, it will get reported to the rest of your AI. At the moment, there is only one interrogans I can see that doesn’t look too bad. I can’t see anyone else. So I’ll tell my group to engage that unit just by holding the spacebar pointing at that unit and I issues the orders to attack that rifleman with a left mouse click.
By the way, my avatar uses gestures to command others with the AI uses as well. For example, I tell them to move and you see the gesture. Now, I'm going to follow my AI to see what's going on. I will repeat to command to attack. The last command always overwrites the previews one. I spotted anther bad guy. Oh, we are taking fire, so it seems there are more interrogans. I think we better get into that hummer. So I press the spacebar and I will send them to the hummer.
And I myself board the vehicle as well. You may notice my AI is automatically engaging the targets. Also, all of the observed enemies are marked in the map which makes orientation easier. I will select my squad and sends them to approach the enemy positions. The enemies we detected only have light weapons, so I think we might directly engage them.
As in real war, Rambo like tactics of one against all doesn’t quite work here. the group of units is much more powerful in effectively mastering the commanding of them as key to success. Of course, it’s up to you to choose the best tactics. However, your allies can always provide effective cover for you, which makes the full game much easier to play. Also, team members can heal each other. That’s what I wanted to show you today. Cheers!
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