Communication lines; who can hear what information? (Ops night communications)

[Egillious]

Hello all,

After having been part of a few ops- and recruitment nights as a member and SL, I have an idea as to how to improve our communications to be more efficient and with that, more effective.

As you may or may not know, our way of communication (aside from being as efficient as it is, don't get me wrong) isn't free of problems.

The main reason I noticed the flaws of our current communication system is because I had a much easier time communicating with the squad I was leading when in one of Kamitor's recruitment night open platoons.

Our current way of communicating (see attachment "BRTD communication current") consists of three communication 'lines' in mumble (sorted from top to bottom in the command chain):

• SL chat (PL conveys orders to SL, PL and SL discuss strategy/orders)
  
• The channel you're currently in (SL relaying orders to squad members, squad battle comms (SBC))
• Whispering (fireteam battle comms (FBC)

There's basically 2 problems that I noticed from all of my time playing and leading:

• Crowding the communication line (people talking in mumble channel instead of whispering or using the battle comms to relay orders)
  
• The order a PL gives only reaches the squad members at the discretion of the SL: only the SL knows the order and has to 'translate' it to the members. The order effectively is caught in SL chat and no one else knows about it. The SL in turn has to relay the message which in my opinion, is unnecessary. Why not have the Platoon lead give to the order to EVERYONE so literally everyone knows what the new orders are?
  TL;DR: have the Platoon lead shout orders to literally everyone to save time and labor not to mention that everyone knows what the other squads are up to and can act accordingly.

So having painted the problems I currently see in our communications, I propose we do the following (see attachment "BRTD communication suggestion"):

1. Introduce a fourth communications line. Namely one where the Platoon lead directly broadcasts to everyone which means:
   1. No extra layer between the person that gives the orders and the people that execute them saving time and potential for communicative noise. There's no difference between [the PL giving the order and the SL actually leading the squad] and [having the SL give the order only then to lead the squad].
      
   2. Improve clarity between squads to improve cohesion and teamwork
2. Highly encourage people to use the proper communication line for which the recipient of their message is meant for. That means not using the squad battle comms for stuff related to fireteam battle comms.
   An example would be to have the PL broadcast the order over a green line (see suggestion pic) and have the SL respond over a blue line or green line to acknowledge depending on the context.

What do you guys think?

--------- [ Attachments ] ----------
BRTD communication current:


BRTD communication suggestion:

 

[Egillious]

@dnaRIP, what do you think?

 

[FrozenBones]

Three things real quick Eg:

- Air and Armor hardly use whispers, every call out is for the benefit of the whole squad.

- Personally i sometimes dont hear PL orders over regular squad talk or vice/versa. Seperating that into a fourth line wont help. It'l stil be the same orders in the end with the same clutter.

- Lets say a fireteam leader(Not SL) is on the point and hears PL give orders.
Said fireteam has a better tactical view then the PL of the situation, if he wants to respond then it'l have to be relayed through the SL. While in the current implementation that doesn't happen: Fireteams are not aware of the overal goal and thus more invested and interested in their current squad situation then the overal platoon situation. (More focused, compartmentalization of info)

 

[Egillious]

@FrozenBones

Obviously, you aren't going to be using a more specialized line (whisper vs. squad) if there are few enough people in the 'higher' line. So if there are few enough people in armor or air for whispers to not matter then it's perfectly fine to use the squad line.

As for the second point, if all communications are in their respective lines(whisper in whisper, only things that benefit the whole squad are in squad channel, etc.) then if I was only listening in on the squad line and an order from PL came in, I would have an easier time receiving that information. This does require everyone in their own specialized lines (which others can't hear) to shut up to receive what is being sent over a more general line.

The third point I think we disagree on or you may have misunderstood what I meant.
You make the point that if the fireteam member wants to ask something, that he has to go through the SL in order to ask a question to the PL. It's already like that with our current way of communicating and doesn't change whether or not you have the PL broadcast orders or not so that's not really an argument as to why not to have the PL broadcast.
That also wasn't the point of the suggestion, the point of the suggestion was to eliminate the potential of noise that can be introduced by needing to have the order to go through an SL before it gets to the members.
As for your second argument, I think that compartmentalizing information actually hinders cohesion. I am not suggesting that the fireteams in Alpha know what individual fireteams in Bravo are doing. I am suggesting that if everyone knows what every other squad is doing in general then all members of all squads have a better sense of what the whole platoon is doing and can conduct themselves better than if they didn't and have to guess what the other squads are doing.
If I know what Bravo is doing I can anticipate instead of react and conduct myself in such a way that my actions both help Alpha but also potentially Bravo.
If I don't know what Bravo is doing and I can't help Alpha for whatever reason then I am basically just floating around as a platoon member that can't help right now. But if I knew what Bravo was up to then I could temporarily give my effort to Bravo at that point in time.

Consider this: consider you as a driver of a Prowler to be one squad, and the gunner another. Would you not want to know what your gunner is planning or seeing? Why do we not extend the communication between the squads? I mean, it's nice to know that one fireteam has big stairs and another has small stairs so why not know what an entire different squad is doing?

 

[Egillious]

TL;DR: the point is to get potential useful information to as many ears as possible.

 

[Kamitor]

I agree with you @Egillious and I have noticed the same things. However, its not my place to change this, the outfit has come to this on natural terms.

I will push for this and I hope that some form of automation can be made to realize this more quickly.