A few questions about PS2 from a beginner.

[Bogdanov]

I started PS2 maybe a week ago so if veterans can please explain:

1. When i want to Redeploy on the other side of my empires territory (ex. far east to far west) i can not directly redeploy there.
It seems i have to redeploy to a nearby base, then redeploy to a base closer to my final destination, then again and again until i reach it.
Is this really the only way to do this kind of manuver, just redeploying like 4 times in a row hopping from base to base?
I know about the "join battle" and "spawn on squad beacon" features but that is often not in the zone where i want to go fight.

2. In about ~3 hours of playing as medic, engineer and infiltrator, doing all the possible healing/repairing/resupplying/spotting and pushing for the objectives i get only about 150 certification points.
A rate of 50certs/hour seems EXTREMELY slow considering most weapons and vehicle unlocks cost ~900 cert points.
I realize a lot of weapons are just side-grades but so far i have been playing for ~12 hours in total and i have not been able to unlock a single weapon.
Admittedly i first upgraded my medic and engineer tools a bit and some infiltrator gadgets but all of that was very cheap.
Is it really intended that i need about 15 to 20 hours of intense healing, repairing, spotting and capturing/defending objectives just to unlock a SINGLE weapon?
I would think that doing a huge amount of proper supporting, teamwork and objective capturing would actually be rewarded appropriately...
And yes i have seen the Membership subscription in the store but the cert bonuses it gives are rather low compared to the monthly price.

3. The player population of the two European servers is almost always at Low.
When i play at off-hours during the day (not prime time) there is often not enough players to properly fill even a single Continent on a single server.
Is there a reason why the two European servers have not been "merged" into one so that there is more players at every time during a day?
During off-hours in Europe it really feels like a ghost town, an abandoned game... only late at evenings do mass players log in to make Planetside 2 feel like a massive conflict.
Most zones are either empty or have 1-5 players which is really not enough when the zones (territories) are so massive and wast.
These issues would be less troubling if both EU servers were merged into one massive server so that there is always enough players at any time during a day.

4. Is there any way to see exactly how many players are currently on a continent or server?
I can see a lot of approximate estimates and pie charts that show player population related to each other...
But i can not find an exact number showing how many players are in total on a continent?


Thank you for replying