Star Citizen is unique in that it severely penalizes death and has a robust combat revive mechanic. Unlike most shooters, dying is not a neutral event — it puts a burden on your entire team, removes your gun from the fight, and forces a teammate to expose themselves to save you.

The main goal of any Rune Guard ground team is Survival. We have structured our tactics around keeping players on their feet rather than the straight offensive gameplay you may be used to in other games. This is not about being passive — it's about being smart. A marine who stays alive and applies pressure is worth more than one who charges in and forces a revive.

This tactic is critical for survival. If you go down in the open, you will be finished off while incapacitated. Worse — the medic or teammate who tries to save you will also be exposed, and now you have two casualties instead of one.

Standing order: before you shoot, get behind something. Every engagement starts with cover. Find it, get to it, then engage. This isn't timidity — it's the foundation that makes every other tactic work. Without it, the Point & Security formation falls apart, revives become impossible, and your team bleeds players it can't recover.

Once you have found the enemy, a direct assault is rarely the right move. The better play is to keep one element suppressing — keeping fire trained on the enemy position, forcing them to stay in cover — while a second team moves to flank.

The suppressing element does not need to kill anyone. Their job is to make the enemy react to them, not to the flanking team. The flanking team gets the kill. The goal is not to get the kill — the goal is not to die. If suppressing from cover keeps your team alive while the flanking team gets into position, that is the win condition.

There are two separate decisions when peeking a corner. People often confuse them — they're not the same thing.

Decision 1: How far from the wall are you standing?
This is about your distance from the wall before you begin the peek. Standing close to the wall gives you a small angle — you can only see a sliver around the corner, and you move slowly because of the collision geometry. Standing 3–5 meters back from the wall opens your angle wide: you see more of the space beyond the corner, you move freely, and the enemy sees less of you because you're further away. Stand away from the wall.

Decision 2: How far do you step around the corner?
This is separate from wall distance. Even from the far position, you should only step around the corner far enough to see your target — never step wide. Stepping wide means moving so far around the corner that you've left your retreat angle behind. If you take fire from a wide position, getting back to cover takes too long. Stay far from the wall, but keep your step around the corner controlled — just enough to acquire the target, no more.

Currently the only throwable available in game is the frag grenade. Use it. A grenade thrown into a room before you push can clear a threat entirely, or force enemies out of position and into your teammates' line of fire. Most new players carry grenades and never throw them because they're too focused on aiming. That's backwards — throw before you push, then aim.

Grenades are especially effective in enclosed spaces: doorways, corridors, rooms with limited exits. If you know or suspect an enemy is on the other side of a door, lead with a grenade before entry. It costs you nothing to throw and potentially eliminates the threat before you're exposed.

This should be obvious — but morale wins and loses battles in ways that aim and positioning can't compensate for. We've been in engagements that went wrong in every direction: bugs, unexpected deaths, positions lost. The ones we came back from were always the ones where people stayed focused, stayed encouraging, and kept pushing. The ones we didn't were the ones where attitude collapsed before the enemy could finish the job.

A good teammate who misses half their shots is worth more than a great shot who makes the squad want to log off. Stay positive. Give encouragement. Keep moving forward.