This page is about playing a video game. It is not medical, tactical, or safety advice for real life, and nothing here should be used as such.
Any member can write a guide. Open the Field Manual, choose Write a guide, and send it for review when it is ready. A staff member reads it, and then it is published with your name on it. You can also suggest an edit to any page, including this one.
What makes a good guide
- One job. "How to call in a helicopter pickup" is a guide. "Everything about aviation" is a book nobody finishes.
- Start with what the reader will be able to do by the end.
- Say who it is for. Tick the labels, so new members can find the pages meant for them.
- Write the way we talk. Friendly and plain. Explain a term the first time you use it. Many of us have never served, and nobody should need a glossary to belong here.
Real procedure and the game
A lot of what we do is borrowed from the real thing, and the real thing is well documented. That is worth getting right, and it is also worth being honest about where a game is not the real thing. Four rules:
- Say where it comes from. If a procedure is real, tick its publication under Sources. Our reference library links each one to its official copy. If the publication is not in the library, say so in your note to the reviewer and staff can add it.
- Mark what you changed for the game, and say why. Use an In game block. Readers should always be able to tell which parts are the real procedure and which are ours.
- Leave out what does not translate. Some real procedure exists because of real danger, real equipment, or real authority. If a step does nothing in the game, drop it and say that you did.
- If you are not sure, say so. "This is how I was taught, I have not found it written down" is a fine sentence. A confident guess is not.
By the book
Use this block for what the real procedure says. Keep it short and in your own words.
In game
Use this block for how we do it here and why it differs. For example: we skip radio authentication, because nobody is trying to imitate us.
Watch out
A guide here is about a game. Never write one as real world medical, weapons, legal, or safety advice, and do not present anything as official military guidance. It is not.
In your own words
Write it yourself. Do not paste from a publication, a website, a video transcript, or another unit's material. A short quote with its source is fine. A copied page is not, and a reviewer will send it back.
The blocks
The buttons above the text box add these. Fill in the sample wording.
Tip
A shortcut or a habit worth having.
On the radio
"Exactly what to say on the net, in quotes."
Kit
- Weapon: what to carry
- Radio: which one, which channel
- Leave behind: what you do not need
There are also checklists, tables, images, videos, and diagrams. A diagram opens the same drawing board staff use for map plans: drag unit symbols and draw routes to show a formation or a drill. A YouTube link on a line of its own becomes a video.
What a reviewer checks
- It is accurate, and real procedure names its source.
- Changes made for the game are marked.
- It reads in our voice.
- It is your own wording.
- It does not repeat a page we already have. If it does, it will come back as a suggestion to edit that page.
If it is sent back, the reviewer says what to change. Fix it and send it again.
Reviewed by staff on . Version 1, updated .