Watching Over Marines – monitoring their status and progress, dropping equipment as necessary.

Sighting Aliens – any uncloaked aliens near a marine are clearly visible to the commander, even if the marine is unaware of them.

Giving Orders – by selecting a marine or group of marines, and then designating a map location, the commander causes a waypoint to appear on the marines' HUD. These can be used to navigate and group marines, direct them to a build a structure, or alert them to each other's location.

Selecting Structures – select structures to see what upgrades they make available, or to recycle them for resources.

Dropping Equipment and Placing Structures – use the view to place equipment and structures. When a structure or piece of equipment is available (see the tech tree), it can be selected on the menu, and its icon will appear as a three dimensional "ghost" on the view. If the location is invalid (over rough, occupied, or gridlock-restricted space) the icon will change color to red. If the location is valid, it will be colored green, and can be successfully placed. Equipment can then be picked up by any marine. Structures will have to be built by one or more marines, before they become active. Most structures must be built in range of others (for instance, turrets must be built within range of a turret factory), and all weapons must be placed in range of an armory or advanced armory. Valid ranges will be drawn in fields of green. See the appropriate listing for more information.

Environment Controls – any item that can be operated by a button or lever (i.e. doors, lifts, airlocks), can also be operated by the commander.

Scans – select the observatory, choose the scanner icon from the menu, and move the view to the area of the map you wish to scan. Any alien chambers, hives or lifeforms (cloaked or not) will be briefly revealed. Useful to find the location of hives, or to plan an assault.