Bat Country : Planetside advice thread

[Evangolis]

Ok, I think I have a pretty good formula for a Reserve, if you just want to be a grunt.  You can do this pretty much from the certs you earn in the training stuff.

Basically, go Uni-MAX.  You'll have to sell your starting certs, and you will suck if you have to respawn at an AMS, but it works otherwise.

With the Pre-reqs, you will have the two tanks (I prefer the 1-man Lighting, but I'm anti-social) and all three MAX armors.  You can blow things up real good, but you will draw attention to yourself.  In both armor and Max, Sklar made a BRF run and hide.  Until the infantry came and shot me.  Combined arms works pretty good in this game.

[Stephen Zepp]

Combined arms works pretty good in this game.

You win teh game.

Seriously, it's -all- about combined arms.

[Kitsune]

That's not even close :P

I've participated in a 4 gal, 20 tank, 5 ams and 20 skeeter base takedown, with a flight of 6 libs softening up the target area for 5 mins prior.

Was the most amazing fun I've had in a computer game playing with others, ever.

When people actually get organized in PS, it becomes the awesomest thing in the world.  Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, though, they're all running around like kittens and accomplishing similar.

As far as the paying people go, the higher-ranked folks have a big edge in the implants they're carrying.  A BR 6 is likely not going to be the one walking away from a fight with a BR 12+.  However, getting in one-on-one fights in PS is for losers.  Goofus runs off on his own, thinking he's playing Quake; Gallant has eight other guys backing him up to cut down anyone who steps into the hallway.  A good squad > BR and individual FPS skillz.

For insanely serious squad tactics, go here.  I used to be in that outfit, and everything mentioned in the manual works beautifully as long as everyone follows it.

Oh, and as far as advice goes, specialize.  If you're sticking with the freebie game, you won't have enough certs to be the pilot/gunner/medic.  If you're wanting to be in vehicles, get the vehicle certs and basic engineering so you can fix the vehicle, first.  After you have those, you can spend the other points however you like.

You can't drive most vehicles in heavy armor, with the exception of the cycles and the buggies.  If you're planning on being a tank driver, reinforced armor is probably a waste for you.

Anyone who means to be infantry should put priority on reinforced armor and the medic or engineer cert.  REXO absorbs a lot more damage and lets you carry a lot more stuff, and a squad full of medics and engys can hold an area for as long as their ammo holds out.  MAXes especially love having engineers in their squad.

Always, ALWAYS carry a hacking tool.  You never know when you'll be the only person in the command room with one.

If someone is healing you or repairing your armor, for the love of God don't just stare at them.    Keep an eye out for the guy who's coming up behind you with a grenade.

Voice macros can be heard by the enemy.  If you're trying to sneak a squad into the base, don't use them.

Those big box planes automatically repair any friendly vehicles that pull up close to them.  But not too close.  Do not ram them with your tank, it annoys the pilots.

If you're in a two-person vehicle, try to pick up a gunner rather than zooming off alone to wherever you're going.

If you're in a MAX, put a couple repair gun ammos in your inventory.  It only costs a single box of MAX ammo, and it can help the engineers keep you alive longer when they run out of repair juice.

If you don't have a squad, you can make one simply by following a random friendly soldier.  Two guns are much better than one, just stick with him and shoot at whatever he shoots at.  If he has any brains at all, he'll notice this and reciprocate.  This also applies to vehicles and aircraft, should you be piloting one.

If you run across one of the mech things, toss a jammer at it and shoot at the glowy spot on its back with the heaviest weapon you have.  They hate that.

Watch for mines before walking out a door.

Always plant mines near the corner of a doorway, not in the middle; that makes them harder to notice for the lazy people who don't follow the above rule.

Don't stick mines around an AMS, that just begs for an infiltrator with a jammer to come by, blow them all up, and get a dozen free kills.

If you're an engineer, stick around after a base capture to repair the stuff and lay mines/turrets.  The base won't do you any good if it's taken back ten minutes after you leave.

If you think there's an infiltrator in the room, a plasma grenade can tell you for sure.

[Trippy]

Disclaimer: I haven't played PS in over a year so some of my translations/comments may be wrong now.

Anyone who means to be infantry should put priority on reinforced armor and the medic or engineer cert.  REXO absorbs a lot more damage and lets you carry a lot more stuff, and a squad full of medics and engys can hold an area for as long as their ammo holds out.  MAXes especially love having engineers in their squad.

Translation: Unlike the other armor classes, MAXes can't self-repair their own armor and so are dependent on other players to keep them in combat for as long as possible.

Always, ALWAYS carry a hacking tool.  You never know when you'll be the only person in the command room with one.

Translation: The Hacking cert + the hacking tool allows you do capture command terminals (needed to switch ownership of a base or tower to your side) and open doors in enemy bases/towers. The Adv Hacking cert speeds up hacking of the above plus you can do fun things like hacking enemy vehicles to put them under your control and hacking vehicle and equipment terminals temporarily so that your side can use them.

If someone is healing you or repairing your armor, for the love of God don't just stare at them.    Keep an eye out for the guy who's coming up behind you with a grenade.

Translation: You'll see a message when somebody is trying to heal you or repair your armor. For some reason a lot people like to turn and face that person. That's bad. You should move into a position that keeps the healer/repairer out of possible lines of fire if possible. You'll break the heal/repair temporarily but that's okay and it'll start back up again when you stop moving. Also if you need healing/repairing and you see that message don't run away from that person. I can't count how many times I had to give up chasing after people cause they didn't stop running.

Voice macros can be heard by the enemy.  If you're trying to sneak a squad into the base, don't use them.

There are keyboard shortcuts for activating the voice macros. Learn the most common ones so you can do them quickly.

If you're in a two-person vehicle, try to pick up a gunner rather than zooming off alone to wherever you're going.

There's a voice macro for calling out that you need a gunner.

If you're in a MAX, put a couple repair gun ammos in your inventory.  It only costs a single box of MAX ammo, and it can help the engineers keep you alive longer when they run out of repair juice.

Inventory management is a fricking PITA in PS but you'll need to master it if you want to play the game well.

If you run across one of the mech things, toss a jammer at it and shoot at the glowy spot on its back with the heaviest weapon you have.  They hate that.

Translation: Jammers are a type of grenade that are very versitile. They temporarily shut down certain electronic devices within range of the blast. Against vehicles they will shut down the weapons (yes that means if a tank is shooting at you and you hit it with a jammer they won't be able to shoot you for a short while). They will also shut down turrets, detonate mines and boomers (manually triggered bombs) and disable implants. If a jammer from out of nowhere is thrown at you for no apparently reason that almost always means a Stealther is about to knife you -- better get moving.

Always plant mines near the corner of a doorway, not in the middle; that makes them harder to notice for the lazy people who don't follow the above rule.

With some practice you can stick them in the "slot" where the door opens and closes which makes them even harder to spot.

Don't stick mines around an AMS, that just begs for an infiltrator with a jammer to come by, blow them all up, and get a dozen free kills.

Translation: An AMS is vehicle that you can respawn at if you die within range of one. They are necessary for capturing bases, otherwise players have to travel from the closest base/tower to get back into the fight at the base.

As mentioned above jammers will detonate mines and are a useful way of clearing minefields. That can also be used against you if you are standing next to a "friendly" mine.

If you think there's an infiltrator in the room, a plasma grenade can tell you for sure.

Translation: Plasma grenades will "coat" players caught in the blast for a short period of time (it's like a DoT) so you'll be able to see a cloaked player that's hit with one cause their outline will be flashing green from the plasma residue. There's also an Implant called Darklight that allows you to see cloaked players. It gives off a distinct "hum" when turned on so if you want to be a stealther you'll need to learn how to recogonize that sound quickly so you can take evasive manuevers and as mentioned above tossing a jammer at the Darklight user will turn it off and players won't be able to turn it on for a short time.

[tar]

Always, ALWAYS carry a hacking tool.  You never know when you'll be the only person in the command room with one.

Translation: The Hacking cert + the hacking tool allows you do capture command terminals (needed to switch ownership of a base or tower to your side) and open doors in enemy bases/towers. The Adv Hacking cert speeds up hacking of the above plus you can do fun things like hacking enemy vehicles to put them under your control and hacking vehicle and equipment terminals temporarily so that your side can use them.

You don't need the hacking cert to use a REK to hack doors or control consoles (base and tower). Anyone with a REK can do this. Side note - some MAXs have been known to carry REKs (as they can usually spare a bit of inventory space) for those situations where no-one has one and then drop it on the floor.

You do need adv. hacking to hack anything useful like equip terms or vehicles. Just the basic hacking cert by itself is pretty pointless, I think it only adds the ability to hack things like med terms and speeds up hacking a bit, so either spend 5 on adv hack or don't bother would be my advice.

[Slayerik]

Its called granny hacking, and happens quite often :)



Oh, and that wasn't even one of our bigger raids.

[Furiously]

Other fun stuff. Bombing. Oh my this can be just invigorating. Even better when you get a couple bombers working together to soften things up.

Make sure you know what your eject key is though.

[Kitsune]

If someone's coming at you with a bigger gun than you have, shoot them and keep moving.  Being shot widens the cone of fire considerably, as does chasing a moving opponent.  Don't let them just stand still and hose you, you'll be dead in seconds.  If you're slippery (and shooting them), they won't be able to hit the broad side of a barn.  (This does not apply to some weapons.  The Lasher, Thumper, various rocket launchers, and lockon weapons are unaffected by cone of fire.  Better off just dodging when you see one of those.  But against chainguns and assault rifles, this is golden.)

Running over people with vehicles hurts them, but not as much as one would expect it to.  Don't expect to be able to mow down pesky infantry in your path.

If you're hacking something, hold down the fire button.  If you get shot and aren't holding the button down, it'll disrupt the hack.

If you see a medic reviving a downed soldier, DO NOT RUN BETWEEN THEM.  A person walking through the healing beam breaks the revive and forces the medic to start from scratch.  Kindly step around them rather than through them.

You can repair someone's armor even when they're dead.  It's a good idea to fix a dead MAX's armor before reviving them, because a revived MAX with no armor is likely to die again in seconds.  You can repair a dead soldier's armor while they're being revived, it won't hurt anything.

Do not hang out in large groups in the open, you'll be hit with an orbital strike.

If you hear the sound of an orbital strike charging over you (it sounds like a proton pack from Ghostbusters being turned on), RUN.  Hit the sprint implant, fire your afterburners, do whatever you have to do to move as far as you can in the time you have before the strike hits, preferably into a base.  If you hesitate for any reason, you'll be killed for sure.

Don't be a jackass and dawdle when boarding a troop transport.  People love to hit those with orbital strikes, and the longer you take in getting on, the more danger everyone's in.  Get your gear and get in the damn plane/truck so they can go.

Do not stand still when outside, odds are that a sniper is watching you.  A moving target is much much harder for a sniper to hit.

If you're jumping from an aircraft, you'll be in third-person camera, which is useless.  Hit a weapon hotkey and you'll go back to first-person camera when you draw your gun.  You can steer yourself a little bit in midair, so make sure you actually land in the proper spot.  Nothing's more embarrassing than missing the roof of the base/tower you were trying to jump on with your squad.

If there's an advanced medic nearby and you die, don't hit the respawn button, they'll be coming to revive you ASAP.  That is, unless you're out of ammo.  A revived soldier without ammo is pretty useless, so unless someone in your squad has ammo to spare, better off respawning.  There is a voice macro to call out for a medic to come revive you, (VVR for 'I need reconstruction.') if you use it you'll show up on their radar as a flashing cross so they'll know to come to you.

For that matter, experiment and learn all the voice macros.  They're very intuitive, a V to open the macro window, then letters that are usually based on the words involved.  VNR - V for voice, NR for Need Repair  VWC - V for voice, WC for Warning Cloaked enemy.  If you just mash the V key you'll get VVV for HELP!  They're helpful for 'talking' to people around you without taking the time to type out the words.  Even though your voice macros will appear to you to be directed to your squad in your chat box (if you're in one), they will be heard by everyone around you.

[Sky]

Is wise Kitsune going to join in? I don't see you on the roster.

[Nebu]

This game has so much micromanagement.  Is there a build you guys can recommend where I just log on, hit the gear terminal, grab a saved set of gear and go kill shit?  Maybe time will heal most of this as I adjust to all the power sets/eq/vehicle crap.

[Stephen Zepp]

This game has so much micromanagement.  Is there a build you guys can recommend where I just log on, hit the gear terminal, grab a saved set of gear and go kill shit?  Maybe time will heal most of this as I adjust to all the power sets/eq/vehicle crap.

That's what favorites are for. Your time at an equipment terminal once your favorites are configured should be < .75 sec...g to use the term, 1/2/3/4-9 for your favorites, and run away.

[Nebu]

I understand and use them.  I guess I'm saying that I prefer to specialize rather than be a jack-of-all trades and PS seems to cater to the later.  I'd like to be a one-trick pony... albeit a very deadly one-trick pony rather than a generalist.  Is that even an option?

[Furiously]

Sure - get a inf suit and go stab snipers. Also works good to get the AMS skill so you can set yourself up behind enemy lines.

[Sky]

And then if you get the retail, continue that with combat engy. Park your AMS and set up a nice defense grid around your hunting grounds, lead guys into minefields, etc.

[Trippy]

I understand and use them.  I guess I'm saying that I prefer to specialize rather than be a jack-of-all trades and PS seems to cater to the later.  I'd like to be a one-trick pony... albeit a very deadly one-trick pony rather than a generalist.  Is that even an option?

What do you like to do? Do you have enough of a feel for the game to understand your options?

[Nebu]

What do you like to do? Do you have enough of a feel for the game to understand your options?

I like to play infantry and No.  I tried max suits but it's so slow to turn and move.  I'm not much of a vehicle person either.   I guess I'll just have to keep trying things.

[Merusk]

Try Rexo and Heavy Weaps or Special Assault.  Spec assult along with the Punisher was a fun build as Terran.

[Slayerik]

For the stealthing types, one of the most rewarding experiences for me was to cert

Advanced Hacking
Quasar (Anti Inf MAX)
Inf Suit
AMS (optional)

Medical is nice too with this setup, as well as mosquito to get around. Basically, you want to sneak behind the lines toward the equipment terminal. In all the chaos of a tower battle, many times you can sneak down and quickly hack a terminal, then spawn in your quasar MAX loadout. You can singlehandedly turn the tide of a tower battle like this, and smoke like 10+ dudes. You can also sneak past defenders and hack it right under their noses. The AMS cert is for 2 reasons. You will die a lot, so you bring your own respawn point. Or my favorite, the "AMS snag and deploy". Find enemy AMS, hack it out from under their noses, hop in driver seat and deploy. Do not move from driver seat and they wont be able to rehack. Your friends will start spawning there and you can turn the tide of a fight.

The rush of hacking when there are enemies all around is pretty sweet. The bar seems to move soooo sloooooowwwwww.

[Trippy]

Or you can hack an enemy vehicle terminal and get yourself an AMS that way.

[Lantyssa]

Larger groups are definately good.  Bhodi and I had a chance to play some last night and we did a little damage, but got overwhelmed several times.  Also the enemy was always in the wrong vehicle, no matter how many times we switched up.

Expect to die often.  It's part of the game, don't let it get to you.

[tazelbain]

What do you like to do? Do you have enough of a feel for the game to understand your options?

I like to play infantry and No.  I tried max suits but it's so slow to turn and move.  I'm not much of a vehicle person either.   I guess I'll just have to keep trying things.

While in a MAX, 'Q' will put you in run-mode, you can't fire but move quick like a train.  It makes MAX a lot better, but there is no way noobs like us would know you could do this.

[Nebu]

I found that my mouse sensitivity was WAY lower in MAX than in normal armor.  It took me a long time to turn on my axis to shoot things in Max where heavy infantry armor I could pan on a dime.  I assume this is intended. 

[Stephen Zepp]

I found that my mouse sensitivity was WAY lower in MAX than in normal armor.  It took me a long time to turn on my axis to shoot things in Max where heavy infantry armor I could pan on a dime.  I assume this is intended. 

Yes, it's intended, but you can partially counter-act that by editing your your key/mouse sensitivity. I have a couple of different keybinds for sensitivity depending on what I am driving/doing--for vanu,  I have max sensitivity set for mouse on maxxes, min set on planes, and low set on mags (they have a wicked recoil).

Escape, k (for keyboard), click on the mouse, and set your two sensitivities. you can then save this, and load is similar to favorites later, although it's a bit of a pain.

[Rhonstet]

The most basic lesson is, if you are new, find someone to follow and stick with them like white on rice.  Join their squad (or form one first if you need to), gun for their vehicle, provide covering fire while they hack, and so forth.  The first obligation anyone has in that game is deciding who to follow.

If you are stumped as to what to do first, go with a MAX (power armor).  MAXes are something anyone can do, they require few certs to be an expert in, they operate well both alone and as part of a squad, and there is almost never a situation where someone says, "I wish we had fewer MAXes."  Any new player can pick up a MAX and do reasonably well.  You'll be able to assault a base as a shock trooper with Anti-Infantry, be able to defend a base and provide air defense with Anti-Aircraft, and be able to assault and defend towers and base courtyards with Anti-Vehicular.

Unless you _really_ know what you're doing, don't bother with an Infil suit.  Cloakers are pretty much worthless in the really big battles, and in a squad you're usually a detriment.  The only time I have ever seen cloakers both matter and be effective, it was in the squads who were exclusively cloakers.

If you decide you want to drive vehicles, especially tanks or BFRs, pick up Engineering as soon as possible.  Engineering is a great support profession for people who prefer outdoor combat, and its an easy way to earn XP while helping an entire offensive.

If you are infantry, and you are going into a Meat Grinder, bring shotguns, Heavy Assault, or Special Assault.  If you don't have that, get it or go away.   

Pay attention to what your outfit, platoon, or squad is doing before listening to a CR5 (anyone giving you orders on a global channel).  The only person in the outfit who should listen to the CR5s at all is whoever is currently leading an outfit or a platoon. 

[Sky]

I'm worthless!

Actually, I'm starting to get the hang of my stealth guy again. I had been playing my rexo TR grunt for so long, and that was a couple years ago... I still blow a lot of knife kills, but I was getting some decent boomer kills. Found one interesting loadout preset named 'omgnades', my inf suit with an inventory full of frag grenades. That was actually pretty fun and surprisingly effective.

Don't quite have enough certs yet to transition over to a rexo grunt the way I'd like, but getting there. Dinged BR11 last night with some of those boomer kills and a little help from my friends.

I'd like to hit those stupid caverns to qualify for BFR if we have enough people to stomach it for a few hours some night.

I had a question...I know what most of the stats in the session stats mean. What is A: and SEP: ?

[Stephen Zepp]

I'm worthless!

Actually, I'm starting to get the hang of my stealth guy again. I had been playing my rexo TR grunt for so long, and that was a couple years ago... I still blow a lot of knife kills, but I was getting some decent boomer kills. Found one interesting loadout preset named 'omgnades', my inf suit with an inventory full of frag grenades. That was actually pretty fun and surprisingly effective.

Don't quite have enough certs yet to transition over to a rexo grunt the way I'd like, but getting there. Dinged BR11 last night with some of those boomer kills and a little help from my friends.

I'd like to hit those stupid caverns to qualify for BFR if we have enough people to stomach it for a few hours some night.

I had a question...I know what most of the stats in the session stats mean. What is A: and SEP: ?

A couple of folks have asked about caverns, and we can do that if ya want--just realize it can be -very- frustrating (they are CONFUSING), and hard to get around. You'll want infantry or max almost exclusively in there, although flyers do pretty ok as well.

"A" stands for Assists, and you get those by healing/repairing someone who then goes on to make a kill. Support exp is the same concept--doing support stuff that helps leverage kills in the future. It's simply a subcategory of battle exp--counts towards your main exp, unlike command exp, which counts for your command rank.

[Kitsune]

Aren't the reserve accounts locked out from the expansion content?  Or is it just that they can't pilot BFRs? 

Cavern raiding is a very different game from base-fighting, very little cover and lots of outdoor combat.  It's a paradise for snipers and Phoenix users who can hide on a very high ledge and plink people with impunity, or for Vulture pilots, who can just blow the hell out of everyone.  And it's very bad for ground vehicles; the terrain is a bitch to drive through.  Everyone should try it, but few will likely come to like it.

On the up side, though, since few people actually hit the caves, a couple of squads can pretty easily dominate down there.  I don't think I've ever seen a big organizes unit down there.

[Sky]

I hate the caverns but I want to unlock the mechs :)

[Kitsune]

Save the time and trouble.  The BFRs are walking deathtraps, they got nerfed right out of any useful degree of power within two weeks of their release thanks to the volume of whining about them.  I had a character with the cert unlocked, and piloting one of those things was much more trouble than it was worth.  I got better results from driving a Magrider. 

Even the pre-nerfs models I felt weren't especially strong; I blew out the shield generator of a NC BFR with nothing but an infiltrator suit and a BEAMER.  I crippled the thing with a fucking pistol.  The pilot was spamming the help voice macro, and I was about to plop a boomer on its feet when a second BFR showed up and killed me.  A couple of organized infantry could completely own a BFR, but because having two people work together was an unrealistic expectation in Planetside, people bitched about them until they became even more useless.  Now they're target practice and easy experience.

[Surlyboi]

Kit's pretty much dead on with biffers. If piloted right and running in an armor column, they can be devastating. (Mostly because they've got the tanks spamming any potential infantry that might get close enough to do harm) otherwise, walking death traps. Hell, I took one out with a sniper rifle and a well-placed spitfire once.

[Strazos]

I managed to somehow flank one in an Infantry MAX once. Popped on the AP rounds, and aimed for the glowly. I have no idea how close I was to killing it because I didn't have the implant at the time, but he sure as hell ran away in quick fashion.

He probably would have been dead if I happened to have had the anti-Armor MAX.


Also, today I was sniping and eventually drew the attention of 2 NC BFRs and a Vanguard MBT. Seeing as I was in Agile armor and only had my Bolt Driver, a REK and some nades, I did the best thing I could think of to try and do some damage:

I simply started to run around the feet of the BFRs, hoping they would fire upon each other as they tried to kill me. It was pretty funny for about 30 seconds.

[Kitsune]

Kit's pretty much dead on with biffers. If piloted right and running in an armor column, they can be devastating. (Mostly because they've got the tanks spamming any potential infantry that might get close enough to do harm) otherwise, walking death traps. Hell, I took one out with a sniper rifle and a well-placed spitfire once.

Yes, IF a BFR is in a cohesive unit, they can be a decent tool.  Their anti-vehicle weapons will tear up other vehicles in short order, and their secondary guns are typically well-rounded against vehicles and troops.  The handful of times I've watched half a dozen BFRs come crashing into a base, they laid some waste.  However, ninety-nine percent of the time I see BFRs acting in ones and twos, and they get reamed hard.  And honestly, most anything you could accomplish with a group of BFRs could be accomplished at least as well by a group of tanks.  Unless they've un-nerfed the BFRs at all since I bailed close to a year ago, and I really doubt they have.

[Strazos]

WARNING

If, for whatever reason, you feel like logging onto another character in another faction (don't know if this holds true if it's only on the same server), you will be locked out of any characters from other empires for something ridiculous like 11 hours.

All I did was try some different weaponry in the VR training, but now I am locked out of my Vanu character until some time Monday morning.



This is very, very shitty. And I couldn't find it in the manual either. Thanks, SOE!

[Sky]

Ah, they should make that a bit more clear. It is a wargame, after all. It's to keep people from spying too much. It makes sense, but sure is frustrating if you don't know about it!

Iirc, when the game first shipped you could only make one faction per server. They had to implement something when they merged (my TR guys were on Konreid, thus the -K on Komoto-K).

[Strazos]

Yeah, I don't remember seeing any sort of warning tell me about a lock-out timer. Also, I couldn't find anything in the online manual.

Oh well. I have other ways to burn time anyway. The only bad thing to come of this is that I cannot log on if we get another squad together today/tonight, and two - I lose a day of being able to re-cert for free. And I'm not sure how many days I have left yet.