Some questions after my first session.

[Simboubou]

Hi all !

I tried PS2 yesterday in a 3 hours session (VS on Cobalt, EU). Good impression so far, but I have to say it's really NOT beginner-friendly : it threw me right in the fight, were I got instashot before I could even rebind my key (I'm on an azerty keyboard).

Anyway, I watched the tutorial videos, and read a few things on wikis I could find. I still have a few questions I can't answer :

- Is there some kind of actual game manual somewhere ?
- In the general chat, I sometimes see "ORDER" written in yellow... Where do these orders come from ?
- Is each character I create tied to its initial server ?

- We took an AMP station while I was playing. There are things I still don't get in base layout and map Icons :
- What are those orange forcefields ?
- Are there different type of forcefields ?
- The "up arrow" icons are spawn point, as far as I can tell. I once spawned on one of those, and reallized I was in a zone entirely controled by the ennemy. How are those things captured and lost ?

- Is there a way to better identify the ennemy soldiers ?

Thanks

[Juryrig]

Hi,

I started a Vanu on Cobalt last night, we may have crossed paths (if you were on the Esamir continent, that is...)

I have to say the experience of being on there as part of a dominant faction was very different to being an NC on Miller, but that's off your original topic.....

I'll answer the questions as best I can, hopefully others who are less noob than me will fill in the more complicated stuff.

it's really NOT beginner-friendly : it threw me right in the fight, were I got instashot before I could even rebind my key (I'm on an azerty keyboard).

You're right there - the new player experience is pretty awful. Getting insta-shot after you exit the drop-pod is very common. You can steer it slightly on the way down (WASD) so you can try to land on top of a building, or behind a terrain feature to give yourself a little bit of cover, then hit the ground running. Or, if the place is crawling with enemy vehicles try to hit one of them, if you're lucky you'll kill it with the drop-pod as a consolation for instantly dying in the cross fire.

- Is there some kind of actual game manual somewhere ?

Other than the wikis and tutorial videos, no. There are 'official' video guides which you can find by clicking the 'getting started' prompt on the load screen. I watched one on flight vehicles, it was demonstrating features that have changed from beta (when the vid was clearly made) to live. Which isn't great. You'll get the basics pretty quick through just playing though.

Best tip is to find others to play with, either join an outfit or keep auto-joining squads (hit the 'Insert' key at any time) till you find people who can give you tips (if you have a headset, 'Z' is your squad voicechat. In game voice quality is...variable, though)

- In the general chat, I sometimes see "ORDER" written in yellow... Where do these orders come from ?

I believe there are certs you can spend into 'squad leader' qualifications that allow you to issue orders. I could be 100% wrong on this, I have no ambition to be anything other than a grunt.

- Is each character I create tied to its initial server ?

Yes. Server transfers are, according to SOE, "coming". Presumably "soon(TM)"

- We took an AMP station while I was playing. There are things I still don't get in base layout and map Icons :
- What are those orange forcefields ?
- Are there different type of forcefields ?
- The "up arrow" icons are spawn point, as far as I can tell. I once spawned on one of those, and reallized I was in a zone entirely controled by the ennemy. How are those things captured and lost ?

You capture bases by having soldiers of your faction within the vicinity of the capture points. There'll be a number of these (from 1 to 4 depending on the size of the base). Above your minimap you'll see either green squares (meaning the cap points are currently controlled by your faction) or a diamond shape in an opposing faction colour if that point has been captured. If you want to capture it back, go there, kill the enemy (if they have hung around to defend it) and stand next to it. It'll flip within a few seconds.

What the other map symbols mean - still confuses me. Hopefully someone will come up with an idiots guide.

Forcefields - the main spawn-room at each base is protected by a forcefield at the door. Enemies can't pass through it until they have captured the base. Be warned, as an attacker you cannot shoot in but the defenders CAN shoot out. Don't be an easy kill! Splash damage (from grenades/rockets) can harm anyone close to the door inside the spawn room. The field will drop when the base is captured, and everyone in the spawn room runs out to face the inevitable.

Given this design, attackers inevitably end up camping the spawn room (they are generally remote from the capture points) so defenders often deploy Sunderers in safer areas so people can respawn and get back to the fight without getting camped.

Bigger bases will also have similar forcefields protecting some entrances. These can be brought down by destroying generators placed around the base; many of them can be flown over by Light Assault troopers, there are often back entrances etc.

- Is there a way to better identify the ennemy soldiers ?

Friendlies should always have a symbol above their head (small white triangle) but it's not 100% reliable.

When they are in your sights, hit "q" - you'll call a warning, identifying the type of unit they are, and they'll briefly show up with a warning symbol above their head and their current health showing as a red bar. You can get 'spot xp' bonus under some circumstances - I think it's if you are the first one to spot them and they are then killed.

Slightly annoyingly if you spot a friendly unit in this way (useful before you open fire if you aren't sure) you'll call out a default request - if you spot a friendly vehicle you'll ask for a ride, if it's an engineer you'll request ammo, if it's a medic you'll request healing. I spend a LOT of time chasing people who have just asked for ammo who were actually just checking whether I was hostile.

If you WANT to ask for ammo, healing etc you can either hold down Q whilst looking at a friendly, and you'll get a radial menu - or - easier - hit 'v' and you'll get a list of voice calls. "2" is a request for healing, "4" requests ammo etc. Doing this will also place a white icon above your head that other players can see - a bunch of rounds if you request ammo, a steering wheel if you are requesting transport, a wrench if you are playing as a MAX and require repair etc.

You will also learn to see the different 'outlines' that each of the factions have. They are reasonably distinguishable once you get your eye in.

Hope that helps, hope you keep enjoying the game :-)

[ShadetheDruid]

Someone got here first, but i'll do some gap-filling.

The orange forcefields are for the SCU (Spawn Control Unit) room, the attackers have to breach this by destroying the matching generator (generators always have a floaty icon labelling them that matches the icon on the shield itself, with vehicle shields it's always the nearest generator with the icon). Once the SCU is destroyed, the owning faction of the base can't spawn in the main spawn room of the base.

Other than the SCU shield and forcefields on the spawn rooms, there's the main base shields, like on Amp Stations, that allow friendlies through, but stop anyone shooting through (again, symbols on generators matching symbols on shields), and vehicle shields (that allow anything through that's not an enemy vehicle, even enemy troops and infantry gunfire. The attackers basically have to destroy the generators before they can move vehicles into the courtyard).

The arrow icons are indeed spawn points, generally outside of the larger bases. These can be captured independently and used as a forward base to mount an attack on the main structure. The icon itself is marking the capture point (go there and defend for a few seconds until it flips over to your side), and the spawn room is generally a separate building nearby. Once your faction has that capture point, you can start spawning people there.

[Simboubou]

Thanks for the quick replies !

So, the control of these "spawn points" is not related to the control of a region ? For what I understood, each regions contains One Base (a small outpost or one big Bio thing). To capture a region, you have to control consoles "A" (and/or B and C), which implies an assault on the base, PLUS the region must be linked to your warpgate. Right ? So those Spawn points have separated control rules ?

Concerning enemy spotting : Is that why some enemies have a red triangle over them, and some allies shout "Enemy Medic Spoted" ? It would actually be pretty cool.

I noticed some icons that indicates what seems to be ammo boxes on the floor... What's this ? I couldn't grab it...

[ShadetheDruid]

Pretty much. All the larger bases have separate smaller bases around them that aren't dependent on the state of the region as a whole, but function as footholds the attacking force can capture and move out from (or for the defensive force to recapture once the attackers have been pushed back).

To capture the region itself, that's where the lettered capture points in the main bases come into play, plus the connection to the warpgate. The more lettered capture points you have, and the more people you have on them, the faster it will capture (influence also plays a part, which is how many hexes you and your enemy have surrounding the region itself - so a big base would be faster to capture if you have a good chunk of the surrounding territory).

Generally if you mouse over something and it has a red triangle, or you mouse over and no friendly triangle pops up, it's fine to shoot it in the face. You just have to be careful of the times it bugs out and doesn't immediately throw up a friendly triangle. Someone will have to expand on the spotting mechanic since I don't really know how it works (I rebound Q to switch weapon fire mode and forgot about spot entirely ).

The boxes on the floor with the ammo icon are a drop the engineer gets. If you stand over it for a little bit, it'll slowly refill your ammo (and give the engineer who dropped it XP).

[Simboubou]

Ok for that ammo thing.

Another thing : what are those small towers with an icon composed of 3 horizontal short lines ?

[Simboubou]

Ok. I havent tried armored vehicles so far, but I did try a plane. That was ridiculous. It is actually pretty fun to see everyone in the warpgate trying to control airplanes .

According to the Wiki, the Spot key is indeed what puts that red mark over enemies. That will come in handy tonight .

Thanks again for the help !

[Juryrig]

Originally Posted by Simboubou

Ok. I havent tried armored vehicles so far, but I did try a plane. That was ridiculous. It is actually pretty fun to see everyone in the warpgate trying to control airplanes .

My pain. You feel it. http://www.planetside-universe.com/s...ad.php?t=50887

Whenever you see an ammo-pack icon you should fire your weapon, reload and then go stand next to it. This makes for happy Engineers. Planetside needs lots of Happy Engineers.

Especially Vanu ones, on Cobalt

[Simboubou]

I probably won't try air unit for a while. I rather be on the groud and hear the air battle above me.

I guess I will have to givea try to the squadron system. Hopefully, I gather a few friends and friend-of-friends to play with me.

[Simboubou]

Hum, we, VS of cobalt, just lost the northern Esamir Bio-thing.

Defending it, I came up with more questions :
- The SCU is the generator behing the orange shields ? Is this shield passable by infantry ?
- The units attacking the bioplant were comming from rooms inside of the facility... Are those TP from the 3 spawning points surrounding the plant (they were controling all of them) ?

[ShadetheDruid]

Yeah, the SCU is the big glowy thing found in the rooms behind orange fields. The orange shields are passable by friendly infantry only. I'm don't remember exactly, but I think they stop enemy gunfire, but friendly gunfire goes through them.

Teleporters are like an extra perk of the "satellite bases" when it comes to biolabs specifically, they have teleporters connected to shielded rooms up the top. They generally also have jumpads that shoot you up to the outside airpads, but you don't need control of the point to do that.

It doesn't make it quite as hard to defend the biolabs as it might sound. As long as you keep one eye on the teleporter rooms, the main attack generally (in my experience, anyway) comes from the airpads.

[Simboubou]

Originally Posted by ShadetheDruid

Yeah, the SCU is the big glowy thing found in the rooms behind orange fields. The orange shields are passable by friendly infantry only. I'm don't remember exactly, but I think they stop enemy gunfire, but friendly gunfire goes through them.

Wait, it doesn't make sense : how could the enemy destroy the spawn generator if he has no way to even enter the room ? Well, I suppose it's passable in some way, but I'll have to try it.

I noticed, on my profile tab, that I have 105 Cert points, and there is a bar saying "71%" next to it. What does that bar stand for ?

[ShadetheDruid]

The shield has a separate generator, just look for the symbol on your minimap that matches the one on the shields.

In biolabs, it's in a building between the SCU and one of the airpads, near one of the capture points. Can't really describe it better than that since I think the capture points are labelled differently in different biolabs (and sometimes the points are in different places). All I can think of is "it's in the building opposite the one with all the cabbages in (and my favourite hiding corner in the whole game)".

In amp stations, it's at the end of the catwalk that goes above the main vehicle area.

Not sure about the cert % bar, I don't really take a lot of notice of it. It's probably really important or something.

[Simboubou]

Oh, right, I remember the time we brought the shield down in an AMP station (actually, we had taken control of the AMP, then realised we were NOT connected to the warpgate... Things went really bad when they repaired their shields, traping us inside).

I found what that cert bar is : it tells you how far you are from reaching your next cert (250 XP). Pretty useless, I think...

[ShadetheDruid]

Originally Posted by Simboubou

I found what that cert bar is : it tells you how far you are from reaching your next cert (250 XP). Pretty useless, I think...

Ahh, that makes sense.

It would probably be useful if you were heading for a specific cert target and were playing as pure support medic or engie where you gain lots of XP slowly. But other than that, yeah..

Oh well, it's there if people want it, it's not like it's gigantic or in the way or anything.