Squads

Basics of squaddery

Welcome aboard valued employee! We deeply thank you for signing up as a Doctor/Engineer/Clown. But, there is one more thing you have to do. What, you expected a calm shift honking around?
 
That's right, here in the navy, we need every hand at the ready when combat hits. And thus, squads were born. When the sirens ring, and General Quarters is declared, all non-essential personnel must assist in the fighting.
 
Non-essential personnel means non-combat generally. So everyone NOT in the munitions department. Doctors, scientists, engineers, bartenders and such.
 
When you arrive on board, you are greeted by a large, reddish text, detailing which squad you are in, and what you will have to do. Don't get alarmed, it really isn't difficult. I'll detail what each squad does below. For now let's go over what to do. In the beginning of the shift, not much. Do whatever your job requires. After all, you are still useful, just not combat. Combat usually doesn't begin until one hour has passed, or even more, depending on your Bridge Crew, so you might even go without GQ a whole shift. If you do get into GQ, however..

General Quarters

A squad vendor

Oh uh. The alarms are ringing, the ship has entered combat or CC is just annoying you. You now have to make your way to a squad vendor. They are usually located in central areas, such as briefing, the main hallway or the bar. Head over to them, vend your equipment box and start your duty.

Your pager

Your lanyard, displaying your squad membership

General squad equipment

These are the things every squad member gets, when they step on board.

• Squad pager: Allows you to speak on the squad comms with :f. It works when it's in your inventory. It works when comms are down. It works without any need for interaction. Its great! Yet noone uses it
• Squad lanyard: A little thingy that goes on your neck, and displays a HUD icon next to your character.
  

Squad Types

These are the inflatable walls, held together by prayer and flex seal

Damage Control

The squad tasked with doing what the engineers never do: fix holes. This makes them just about the most useful squad on a ship under fire. In their box, they get inflatable walls and Flexi Seal(tm). These walls may not be the strongest, but they can keep air in, and the vacuum out. So put on a skinsuit - or ask the AI to open EVA -, turn on internals and start fixin'.
 
The Flexi Seal(tm) is useful for two reasons. One being that they can fix up damaged inflatable walls. This is rarely used, as inflatables pop very easily. The more useful thing is fixing the Nuclear Reactor. Yes, here in the future we fix reactors with flex seal. So don't ask questions, and drop off a can at the engineers doorstep.

 

Click here to view the contents of their box:
Smart metal foam grenades, used to quickly patch a hole. Prime and throw! Inflatable walls, used to keep the vacuum out and people in Flexi seal(tm), used to fix inflatable walls and reactors alike A crowbar, used to get into areas once the power runs out

Paramedic

The paramedic squad members are the unsung heroes of the ship. Their box has all the equipment needed to stabilize and save a patient. They may not be able to heal everything on the spot, but they can drag you back to medbay.

Although their equipment is nothing to laugh at, it can always be improved. If an actual doctor would be on their squad, they could lend them a few first-aid kits. But even if you don't have a squad mate in medbay, you could always just ask. The chemist most likely has a synthflesh factory up, and the CMO won't mind if you take a roller bed or two.

Click here to view the contents of their box:
A Medical HUD, displaying the health of patients when worn on the eyes Gauze, used to stop bleedings Bruise packs, used to heal small owies Ointment, used to heal small burns Epinephrien medipen, used to stop people in crit from dying Dexalin medipen, used quickly heal oxygen damage A roller bed, used to quickly transport people

Air Patrol

This is how cool you will look like

Oww man, the flyboys are here. Called upon when there are too few pilots, Air Patrol squad members are tasked with getting in a fighter, flying off to space and shooting down the syndies.

Now, flying a fighter is a daunting task, so ignore your task and stay alive look at the Guide to Fighters or more specifically, here

Don't worry, there is always a helpful Pilot or MT ready to help out

Click here to view the contents of their box:
A double oxygen tank, giving you air in-flight. A pilot hardsuit, protects you if you need to eject from your fighter.

Security Fireteam

Oh no, a syndie!

The cool kids on the block. The one squad the XO is afraid to call. The bois in red. The Security Fireteam Members get a glock and armor. Given the obvious security risk, this squad is usually on called when there is a substatnital threat, such as Xenos or Boarders.

You get a Glock, which in itself might not be a very powerful weapon, but they are good enough to scare your enemies away. You get three mags for it, so get blastin'! ( Do note that the mag that starts in your Glock is rubber, while the other two are lethal)Your armor may be a bit weak, but hey, it lets you spacewalk.

Click here to view the contents of their box:
A piece of armor, not the strongest, but more than nothing. A helmet, ruining your hair since 2020. A glock, the thin line between you and the syndie. A magazine of ammo, filled with lethal bullets. A club for beating people's face in.

Munitions Support

The BOOM boyz. You will be tasked with going over to Munitions and helping them load guns, make torp or fire the Gauss cannon. This may sound hard, but in all truth, it isn't.

Very important: when in or near munitions, always wear your special munitions helmet, as it defends your ears from the Booms.

The different types of guns are detailed on the Guide to Munitions, but here is a general rundown of what you will be doing:

• Firing the 50 cals: just click on a 50 cal console, and click anywhere to start firing.
  • You needn't hold down your mouse to fire it, just click in one place, and it will fire there until you click elsewhere.
  • To stop the gun from firing, click on the ship.
  • If you run out, just go to the actual turret, and reload it with a new box. Be sure to wear your helmet.
• Firing the Gauss guns: hop in the gunner chair, wait until you are raised up, and click anywhere to fire a short burst of powerful rounds.
  • If you need to reload, first hop out of the gun, send up the loading rack and hop back in. When the console screen opens, clikck Payload Loaded, Payload Chambered and turn off the safeties. Then fire away.
  • New rounds can be dispensed from the Gauss gun ammo dispensers, on the walls nearby.

Please note that handling the NACs and the Torpedos carries a risk of huge explosions. So if you can, leave these jobs to the actual MTs.

Click here to view the contents of their box:
A hazard vest, making you blend in with the Munitions boys. A munitions helmet, protecting your ears from the loud BOOMs of the weapons.

CIC ops

The squad with the important job. Your task is to go to the Bridge, and either drive the ship, or manage the guns. This process is detailed here. But, ill provide a brief rundown here:

• To fly the ship, press space until it starts following your mouse, then move around with WASD.
  • You can boost with pressing Shift, or pull the handbreak with Alt.
  • You can toggle drifting with X.
• To shoot the big guns, switch around with Space, and click towards the enemy.
  • The Naval Artillery or the Phasers are the big booms that can tear ships in half, but they take an awful lot of time to reload and aim.
  • The Torps can chase after enemies, you only need to fire them in their general direction

Click here to view the contents of their box:
That's right, you dont get any fancy items, instead you get:
Acess to the bridge, with all the advanteges of that.

 

Managing squads

Squad management is the Executive Officer's job. He has a machine in his office, the Squad Management Console, which allows him to do a plethora of things. Let's go over them:

• The button marked with Purple lets you repaint Pagers and Lanyards. This is important, beacuse only people with a pager of maching color can acess squad radios. (eg. Red pager for Apples; Yellow pager for Butters, etc. ). The same goes for lanyards. If you want an equipment box for Apples squad (in this case Munitions Support), you will need a Red lanyard.
• The button marked with Red allows you to message a squad. This sends a noticable message to all squad members. You can use this to update them on changing situations, give orders often, or HONK at them
• The button marked with White lets you change a squads assignement. This allows them to vend new Equipment Boxes from Squad Vendors, altough they will have to return their old ones. This should be accompanied by an order, telling them what to do with this new job, where to do it and how to do it
• The button marked with Green sets a standing order for the squad. These orders stay displayed in their Squads tab, so use this to send more general information, like "Patch holes!", "Save people!", "Go to Munitions and load torp!"
• Clicking on the name of a squad member - marked with Blue here - allows you to reassign them, or promote them. Reassigning them moves them to a different squad - altough they will still need a repaint, as detailed above. Promoting someone makes them the Squad Leader - in effect this just gives them the right to shout at people, without much actual authority.

 

Tips

• The XO and the Captain has a General Pager, a pager that can listen in to any squad radio.
• If you find a lanyard dropped on the ground, you can use it to vend that squad's equipment box.
• CiC ops can use their IDs on the Escape Shuttle console to speed up its departure.
• Security fears the fireteam, they are just afraid to accept their weakness

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That should be all. If any of this seems daunting, dont be afraid. You can always ask for help, and even if you fail, no-one expects the Bartender to save the ship in the middle of a battle, so dont worry if you aren't the most useful.
 
Yours truly,
 

Acting Executive Officer Ian