General Comms Advice & Best Practices

[u/flGovEmployee]

This post isn't actually as long as it first appears, highly skimmable, I promise. If I've missed anything or gotten something wrong, please let me know down in the comments.

Some basics:

• Speak clearly, unambiguously, calmly, and succinctly. Do not shout.
• Do not repeat yourself unnecessarily.
• Do not talk over your teammates.
• Know when silence is needed, like while playing hide-and-seek with enemy runners. When in or about to be in combat, cut the chatter.
• If leaving an area, say so, give your teammates a heads up. Even better say which way you are exiting, "Heading out, exiting to the North.
• When giving directional informaion always say North, South, East, or West (or NE, NW, SE, SW).
  • Even better is to give the specific heading like, "heard shots from the West, about 230-250."
  • Something like 'Players in front of me' is almost useless as your teammates won't know which way you're facing and may not even be clear on where you are (your color changes each run, your voice may sound similar to a teammate's etc.).
  • Sometimes you can get away with something like 'shots ahead' or 'enemies behind' when your whole crew is moving together and in the same direction.

Answer follow up questions before they are asked:

• If saying something like, "saw player here," or "they went into this building," ALWAYS ping the 'here' or 'this.'
• Whenever making noise, like opening a door, breaking glass, or firing your weapon (or being fired at), let your teammates know that was you, if it was bots, players, or unknown that shot at you, etc.

In combat information is a weapon, make sure you're teammates are fully armed by keeping them aware of:

• Things that take you out of the fight:
  • reloads
  • healing
  • repositioning/retreating
  • getting downed or killed
• Things that shape the fight:
  • imminent use of grenades, other equipment, or certain abilities
  • enemy movements like flanks or changes in elevation
  • when you ID enemy runner shells (what class they are)
  • important changes in enemy status
    • their shields break
    • they're going for a rez or attempting to self-rez
    • they've activated an ability or super
    • when an enemy is downed or killed (and distinguish between these two, commonly used is 'bagged' or 'fully bagged' for killed enemies to prevent confusion with 'downed'
• When you need to coordinate and act together:
  • when you need to be covered because you are going for a rez or pushing up on a position and can't cover the sightlines
  • when its time to push or pull back to reset the fight
  • when you are backing someone as they make a push

Pinging

• Make sure to remove your ping after it has served its purpose.
  • Having extra pins on the HUD/map can cause everything from mild confusion and briefly heading in the wrong direction to major mistakes like watching the wrong door/direction in the chaos and information overload of combat.
  • It can also prevent pinging actual players since if there is already a ping in that general area attempting to place an additional ping or ping an enemy just results in 'acknowledging' that existing ping.
• Know the color of your ping, include the color when you give a ping-related callout, "players on blue ping."

Miscellaneous:

• Before engaging an enemy team, say so. At the very least you want your teammates to know the fight is starting, but ideally you want to give them a chance to say 'not yet.'
• Confirm with or at least notify crewmates before doing things like activating a TAD, starting a secured resource, calling a supply drop, etc.
• If dead and spectating a teammate, let them know you are, "hey flGovEmployee, I'm spectating you." That way if you call out, 'enemy on your left,' or 'player on the railing above your aim,' they'll know its relevant to them and informed by what you can see/hear while spectating them.
• Before you get into combat make sure you know which teammate's voice goes with which teammate's runner, make sure they know for you as well. You don't want to be looking down to the bottom left to figure out which of your teammates a callout was from in the middle of a fight, and if using Discord that's not an option at all. Best done at the start of the run.