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1: NC

2: NC and TR

3: NC, TR and Vanu

[beorn080]

I don't think that there is much difference in infantryside between a certed player who knows what he is doing and an uncerted player who knows what he is doing.
At least not if Daybreak didn't fuck up the balance since I've stopped playing.

I've aurax'd every non-SF/non-burst carbine that existed up to that point (yes, on all 3 factions), including the directive ones, and my K/D differs between the best and worst one by maybe 0.3. (I'd have to dig up my stats, but I think it was between 2.6 and 2.9). That is not much of a difference, and I think 1200~ish kills is enough to make the stats somewhat accurate. (also note that the starter guns were not the worst ones)
Most basic cert lines are also "good enough" on rank 3 (which you get for a total of 50 or so certs) to not make any real difference in most situations. The heal/repair tools and C4 being the big exceptions IMO, those and MAX units.


Now vehicleside, thats where the balance between certed and uncerted is out of whack.
A fully certed 2/2 MBT with an AV/AV setup can easiely beat 2 or 3 barely certed 2/2s running the basic HEAT/Basi, same for Lightnings. A Harasser needs a bazillion certs to not be a deathtrap and so on.
But that something I've complained about ever since the game launched, so I don't think this is going to change.

From my experience with this, there are a LOT of things that make a difference, cert vs uncerted. Medic revive grenades, Heavy AA launchers vs the standard, AV mana turret vs AP. Many of these things are thought of as basic items, but they can take quite a long time to get the certs for, especially just starting out. I mean, just upgrading your sidearm from the, generally, relatively poor starter pistol to the heavy one or a commisioner costs quite a few certs, and initially its almost worthless compared to your main gun. Yes, I know thats not competely true, all the secondaries have uses. But the starter ones feel like popguns compartively.

[Cyroth]

From my experience with this, there are a LOT of things that make a difference, cert vs uncerted. Medic revive grenades, Heavy AA launchers vs the standard, AV mana turret vs AP. Many of these things are thought of as basic items, but they can take quite a long time to get the certs for, especially just starting out. I mean, just upgrading your sidearm from the, generally, relatively poor starter pistol to the heavy one or a commisioner costs quite a few certs, and initially its almost worthless compared to your main gun. Yes, I know thats not competely true, all the secondaries have uses. But the starter ones feel like popguns compartively.

I've never really used any other sidearm then the basic ones and the crossbow (for Stalker), so I'm not really sure how much better they are. I do have the commie but I found it inferior to the basic pistols for finishing of wounded enemies and not quite as good as the xbow as a Stalker primary weapon.

Agree with the revive nades, forgot about them somehow.

Don't quite agree with the AA launchers since nobody who isn't completely incompetent dies to them anyways (or at least it used to be that way, no idea how the current air/ground balance is), I've always found it more rewarding to take potshots at ESF with the basic dumbfire launchers.
AV turret the same thing. I found the basic AI turret much more useful in general, though sniping at a tank zerg from outside render range is pretty effective.
I don't consider either to be an "essential" item.

[zombat]

Can't speak for the smurfs or barneys but the tr sidearm was great once you put a laser on it

Useless beyond cqc but why would you use your sidearm outside of that

[Rolan7]

Half Life 1 kinda messed up my perception of pistols vs assault rifles...  Seeing as the pistol was accurate as a rifle should be, and the assault rifle was more like a mac-10 (auto-only, no accuracy).

Anyway, I'm itching to play this again, after RL Christmas stuff is over.  Are ants good for a player who likes support and grinding, in that order?  Or should I just go back to medic/engineer (:

[Aklyon]

Anyway, I'm itching to play this again, after RL Christmas stuff is over.  Are ants good for a player who likes support and grinding, in that order?  Or should I just go back to medic/engineer (:

Why not both? Sometimes you need someone to repair the stuff.

[Rolan7]

Mostly because I really don't know much about ANTs.  From a brief search, looks like I should observe their effects in the field first.  I even forgot they build things, I thought they were just miners.

I haven't played in a while, so yeah I'm thinking medic...  It's by far my most-certed, too.  I think I finished the medigun!

Edit:  I assume this wikia isn't a real resource, but this still made me chuckle:  http://planetside.wikia.com/wiki/Advanced_Nanite_Transport

[Aklyon]

The ANTs don't build things, they give you a screen to grab the silo from when deployed. Then you can use the silo's screen to grab the other constructable bits.

[Egan_BW]

Half Life 1 kinda messed up my perception of pistols vs assault rifles...  Seeing as the pistol was accurate as a rifle should be, and the assault rifle was more like a mac-10 (auto-only, no accuracy).

HL1 didn't have an assault rifle, that was supposed to be an SMG. The texture remake thing turned it into an M16 or something, which makes no sense because it's inaccurate as hell.
Really all the guns in Half Life are way too inaccurate.

[Ozyton]

If you want to build a base find a squad that has something along the lines of "base building" or "hive defense" in its name. Typically building a base consists of driving around in an ANT for extended periods of time, back and forth between the base and resources as the base gradually builds up. Eventually, assuming some random guy doesn't join and screw things up, a HIVE will be placed which will gradually generate victory points and will start drawing the ire of your enemies. It's still important to be gathering resources during this time since the HIVE uses resources to convert into VP.

Half-life

Ah yes, the days when game devs were more or less oblivious to how real guns work. Or maybe they just didn't care =p
I mean, the 'sniper rifle' was a crossbow.
The inaccuracy of the guns doesn't really bother me too much in those games since the realism of the weapons isn't really front and center. Heck, you can tote around 10 guns, a laser guided rocket launcher, and a bunch of snarks just fine.

[Akura]

The ANTs don't build things, they give you a screen to grab the silo from when deployed. Then you can use the silo's screen to grab the other constructable bits.

Half-true, you can build all the base structures from either the ANT or the silo, and it will use Cortium from whichever you're using.

As far as I know, there's no way to increase the number of each thing you can build(other than unlocking the ability to construct it in the first place). So all those big bases surrounded by walls, turrets, and sky-shields were built by groups.

I've had... some success on low-pop times where I simply put down a silo, three walls, and an anti-infantry turret, followed by a HIVE(all stuff you have at start), but I also tend to find extremely hard-to-reach locations in mountains and such. Amerish is quite fun for finding such places.

[Toaster]

Can't speak for the smurfs or barneys but the tr sidearm was great once you put a laser on it

Useless beyond cqc but why would you use your sidearm outside of that

I always liked the second NC pistol (Raven, I believe.  Rebel; looked it up.  It's got great sound effects.)  It's also my understanding that all VS pistols are garbage.

EXTREME DOUBLE EDIT GO:  They're bringing back the Rocklet Rifle????  Whaaaaat?   Dammit, now I have to go redownload the game.

[Akura]

Just read the test server notes for a possibly upcoming patch. It's making me sick.

The biggest planned change is a reduction in range to the Aspis AA turret for bases. They can only shoot as far as ~450m, with the trade-off that the projectiles always explode at the end of their range. People have already found the sweet spot between the turret's range and the distance at which the turret is rendered(remember that planes can still shoot outside render range). I already see at least one skyknight practically squeeing at the change, saying that ground players are at fault for not being able to beat air, and that it's never the skyknight's fault if ground beats air. Goddamn, you'd think their hands would be sore after all that masturbating.

Other planned changes include a 20% reduction in range for the engineer's AT turret, a 20% faster start for the engineer's shield recharge over other classes, nerfs to weapons rewarded for completing directives except the GODSAW which gets an alternate fire mode for damaging vehicles, and the Butcher, which is now a single constant-load clip, giving them effective infinite ammo when near an ammo drop, and buffs to shotguns. In addition, thermal optics for vehicle will no longer light up infantry(note: last time using it in VR, NPC targets weren't lit) and get a name change, ESF Hornet missiles get a massive nerf, Valk Pelters get a buff, Galaxy Bulldogs get a nerf(but not ground Bulldogs), Fury(especially Harasser Fury) get nerfs, Sunderer shields get a buff, Sunderer/ANT/MBT AA get's slight pitch-down buff to hit ground targets, ANT Kobalt gets a slight nerf, MBT Top Armor gets a useless buff.

[Ozyton]

I sometimes wonder how different the game would be if ESFs were forced horizontal at low/hover speeds.

That engineer buff sounds interesting, maybe we'll have a couple more infantry engineers around.

E: Wait, buffs to shotguns? When did shotguns ever need a buff exactly?

[Toaster]

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/ps2/index.php?threads/pts-update-1-3.244228/

As far as shotguns, just a minor lowering of ADS pellet spread, except for the Jackhammer...

NC05 Jackhammer (Heavy Weapon)
Max damage from 100@5m to 112@all ranges

Also,

Vehicle Thermal Optics
Renamed "Threat Detection Optics"
No longer highlights infantry
Now highlights projectiles and some NPCs
Ground-vehicle thermal range from 150 to 350
Aircraft thermal range from 350 to 500

"NPC" is not a phrase I ever expected to hear with regards to this game.

[Akura]

I think "some NPCs" refers to turrets, be they base, constructed, or deployed.