Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

1: NC

2: NC and TR

3: NC, TR and Vanu

[Jim Groovester]

What Toaster said.

The support tools like the repair tool, ammo pack, med gun, nano regen device, are good initial cert investments. Don't worry about getting new guns until you've played for a while longer; the default ones are actually really good.

Join squads for squad xp and sniff out outfits while you're doing this. Find a decent outfit and join it.

[alway]

You see smoke, it's just there are large gaps in it. From far away it's a solid cloud, but up close the sub components or what not that the large cloud is made of are small enough that there are large gaps.

Plus you can see triangles, heavies with overshield, medics with heal aura, and the flash of shields when someone is damaged through even the thick parts of the smoke.

Or just use the IRNV Scope. http://planetside.wikia.com/wiki/IRNV_Scope
You can hardly even tell someone threw down smoke using that thing, aside from the fact that now less people are hitting you and the hissing sound. Seriously, try that thing out if you do a lot of medium range engagement. It's not nearly the OP uber-scope it originally was, but it's still really nifty.

[Rex_Nex]

Thanks guys =)

[jocan2003]

You see smoke, it's just there are large gaps in it. From far away it's a solid cloud, but up close the sub components or what not that the large cloud is made of are small enough that there are large gaps.

Plus you can see triangles, heavies with overshield, medics with heal aura, and the flash of shields when someone is damaged through even the thick parts of the smoke.

Or just use the IRNV Scope. http://planetside.wikia.com/wiki/IRNV_Scope
You can hardly even tell someone threw down smoke using that thing, aside from the fact that now less people are hitting you and the hissing sound. Seriously, try that thing out if you do a lot of medium range engagement. It's not nearly the OP uber-scope it originally was, but it's still really nifty.

I installed it on a gun... never used another gun that didnt had that scope anymore... Once you taste it, you dont want anything else. At least for my own personal choice and playstyle.

[sambojin]

@Rex-nex
Shotgun engineer isn't too bad of a way to start. You've got two ammo packs (the normal one and the turret one, just press "B" to change your turret to an ammo pack), your repair gun (MAXs love both ammo and repairs, and if you can't aim you're often better getting out of a tank and repairing it as a target in tank battles than you are driving/gunning. Think of it as a tank-sized mana turret. It's better as a distraction than a gun. You can repair someone else's if you want, but you'll very rarely drive over yourself repairing your own). Plus, you've got a shotgun, so fire it in the general direction of the enemy.

Sure, it's only about as useful as a being a newbie medic, but it doesn't feel as passive. You really learn the ebb and flow of battles, base layouts, and your certs do slowly tick over. Plus, you've got a shotgun that you can re-ammo whenever you're not hiding/repairing which can add to longetivity of the gameplay experience. It's not hard to convince a few people to fire their weapons a bit to help out a newbie while they're sort-of-afk or chatting either. Cheap and wrong, but whatever, it'll make you more valuable in the long-run (good engies and medics are hard to find sometimes, but it's easier to have a useful engy than a good medic, so people do sometimes go out if their way to help engies, whereas they have to get shot or die to help a medic).

Good in most situations, especially once you've gotten good at it. There's a surprisingly high skill-cap to any role in PS2, even shotgun engineer.

edit: just to make sure you know, if you see a group of people just generally milling/dicking around, drop both ammo packs near them. It's the international sign of "by all means, dick around more, but with free ammo. I need the xp". You don't have to ask them. They'll understand. Who knows? They might be about to do something interesting that they need a spare engy for anyway. You might scavenge some xp just because it's beside them and they'll fire off a clip (possibly at you) for the hell of it, but really you just told them "Let's go do something. Free ammo and repairs. You have +1 engineer on your team". Then someone will grab a MAX. Then something happens. Then you all die, but you made some friends. It's one of the main reasons engies get plenty of xp. Two ammo packs down that means: "Lets go do something". Then stuff happens. A medic gun doesn't have the same effect.

[beorn080]

As a fairly new player myself, I have a few things that can help as well.

Get the S-AMS? system for the sunderer, and pop a sundy whenever you're driving with a big group. Tanks may seem attractive, but if you drop a sunderer somewhere even vaguely useful, you can get a decent chunk of xp from it. Granted, its only 2xp a spawn, but if all the other sundy's go down, suddenly the entire zerg is respawning out of yours. Plus, you can repair it when it inevitibly takes a rocket or brick of C4.

Speaking of Sundy's, ANY vehicle weapon is going to be better then your gun you are carrying. Granted, on a deployed sundy, you're an easy target, but even with the basic basilick gun, you can deal damage to tanks, and potentially shoot down planes. If the person has improved the guns, they are VASTLY superior. Just remember, if you can't aim below the horizon, which may be canted if they park on a hill, its an anti air gun, and if you can't aim very high, its anti ground. I mention sundy's in particular because they are often parked with no one gunning, but if you see a plane coming, hop in and shoot at it. For every certain amount of damage you do to planes, you get xp.

Get used to MAXes. Your basic max, with an anti infantry gun in one hand and an anti vehicle in the other, is quite useful against infantry, though not quite as good against either as it would be with two dedicated weapons. However, your anti infantry gun keeps things pinned and does constant damage, and your AV weapon is fairly capable of finishing off anything near the blast point. Sadly, the Burster AA weapon is not quite as good against infantry, and I'm not sure why the rounds don't blow up near tanks aside from balance, but if you must have two rapid fire weapons as a max, it can work. Just, don't shoot at vehicles, you draw attention to yourself and won't do anything.

As a MAX, save your charge for when you need to get OUT of combat. There is ALWAYS fighting ahead of you, and you will eventually reach it, even plodding along, but when you hit half life, being able to turn and scram can keep your suit alive to rejoin the fight. Likewise, if you do die, it MAY be prudent to wait a bit before respawning, especially if you see a medic icon near you.

Pick either medic or engineer to start with. Yes, its annoying being regulated to support, but neither of them are slackers in killing. In fact, the engineer probably has the most possible ways of killing things, and the most potential variety of attacks. Sadly, it does pay for that, in that it can't QUITE be as good as the dedicated bearers of such tools, but the sheer variety means that you are very unpredictable.

Keep an eye out for cross class unlocks. For example, the battle rifles are shared between engi and heavy. Unlocking it on one with certs means that they both get the rifle, and a battle rifle turns both classes into a cut rate infiltrator, but with expanded options. Likewise, I think they share C4 as well, as I don't remember unlocking it my heavy.

Certain things are great for certs, others aren't. Killing is actually rather poor for certs. Reviving? Amazing. Repairing vehicles? Great. I HIGHLY recommend getting the revive grenades. They are expensive, but can VERY quickly pay for themselves in short order. See those 10 guys who just ran out of the spawn room into the crossfire of 20 tanks. Throw a nade at them, rearm at the terminal for a new grenade, and get ready to throw it again as they proceed to die in the crossfire again.

If you go medic, healing is secondary to your main job. If you have the choice between healing someone and reviving someone, always revive, even if you have to go out of your way. Fortunately, with your class power, you can do both at the same time, but healing is almost never worth it with the medic gun. Likewise, healing grenades aren't worth it either.

Biolabs are possibly the best source of certs, assuming there are two zergs in there. With 30+ people on both sides fighting for a lab, you can pretty much just tuck in as a medic and start ressing. If you are defending, just figure out where they enemy is coming from, stay out of the way, and res. On the offence, once again, just stay out of the way, preferably tucked away safely in the teleporter room, and again spam rezzes.

[Jim Groovester]

Killing is actually rather poor for certs.

What are you talking about, killing people is great for certs.

I mean, probably not if you have a KDR of 0.4.

There's a reason why farming is a term in this game and why people do it.

[DJ]

For making certs as an engie, I highly recommend repairing MAXes. If you run into one, just stick to it like glue as long as you can.

[beorn080]

Killing is actually rather poor for certs.

What are you talking about, killing people is great for certs.

I mean, probably not if you have a KDR of 0.4.

There's a reason why farming is a term in this game and why people do it.

When starting out, not so much. If you are TS or NC, you have to figure out bullet drop and such, and as anyone, the skill level is quite decent for who you are gonna go up against.

[Greiger]

I actually managed to get much better at killing people once I noticed I had a gun in my inventory that does NOT jump around like a mexican jumping bean when I fire it. 

I somehow had a Razor GD-23 in my inventory that I must have bought way back when I first tried the game and holy shit did I start actually killing people when I realized I had it and used it.  It's nice to be able to fire off more than 2 shots and not suddenly be aiming at the ceiling.  So if you really really really want a new gun and don't care what it is, maybe something with a slower rate of fire and higher accuracy may work out.

Also I vaguely remember for some reason everybody got a free shotgun, if you can't kill people with the machine gun maybe that will work better.

[timferius]

I've just started relearning the game too. I think the best idea I've taken to help me in game is to slow down. Running in to a situation leaves you vulnerable, it takes you longer to stop and aim, you've often separated yourself from allies, and you're more likely to bolt around a corner in to an enemy squad.

[zombat]

You see smoke, it's just there are large gaps in it. From far away it's a solid cloud, but up close the sub components or what not that the large cloud is made of are small enough that there are large gaps.

Plus you can see triangles, heavies with overshield, medics with heal aura, and the flash of shields when someone is damaged through even the thick parts of the smoke.

Or just use the IRNV Scope. http://planetside.wikia.com/wiki/IRNV_Scope
You can hardly even tell someone threw down smoke using that thing, aside from the fact that now less people are hitting you and the hissing sound. Seriously, try that thing out if you do a lot of medium range engagement. It's not nearly the OP uber-scope it originally was, but it's still really nifty.

My scope is almost completely whited out if I play on esamir on medium settings, make it pretty damn useless.
Anyone else get this?

[alway]

You see smoke, it's just there are large gaps in it. From far away it's a solid cloud, but up close the sub components or what not that the large cloud is made of are small enough that there are large gaps.

Plus you can see triangles, heavies with overshield, medics with heal aura, and the flash of shields when someone is damaged through even the thick parts of the smoke.

Or just use the IRNV Scope. http://planetside.wikia.com/wiki/IRNV_Scope
You can hardly even tell someone threw down smoke using that thing, aside from the fact that now less people are hitting you and the hissing sound. Seriously, try that thing out if you do a lot of medium range engagement. It's not nearly the OP uber-scope it originally was, but it's still really nifty.

My scope is almost completely whited out if I play on esamir on medium settings, make it pretty damn useless.
Anyone else get this?

Yeah, if you play esamir, it isn't really useful. The entire place is so bright that it just blinds you. Amazing for Amerish and Indar though.

In an unrelated query, has anyone else been having issues with their sound just cutting out entirely since the latest patch?

[Darkening Kaos]

     Not that I have noticed, but the graphics buggered up for me - had to reinstall a driver to get it going again.  I haven't had that many problems with compatability, even the CTD's have stopped.

[NobodyPro]

Or just use the IRNV Scope. http://planetside.wikia.com/wiki/IRNV_Scope
You can hardly even tell someone threw down smoke using that thing, aside from the fact that now less people are hitting you and the hissing sound. Seriously, try that thing out if you do a lot of medium range engagement. It's not nearly the OP uber-scope it originally was, but it's still really nifty.

My scope is almost completely whited out if I play on esamir on medium settings, make it pretty damn useless.
Anyone else get this?

Oddly enough, this is realistic. Thermal doesn't work well in snowy environments.