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Planetside 2 |OT| Closed Beta

M

MrBig

Member
Current server times: 6am-12pm PT (EU same times: 3pm-9am CEST)
On weekends servers are available 2am-12pm PT.

Primary GAF server: Thebe (US West)
Alternate: Lysithea (US East); Thyone (EU)

​



gafplayers.png


New players fill out this form: Planetside 2 GAF Players

This is for the primary soldier that you'll use to play with other gaffers; you may submit any other soldiers you want people to be able to find you as on other servers.

The NeoGAF player list can list can be accessed here.

Sort the list by your faction of choice and send out friend invites after you submit your own character to the list.

Graph data can be viewed here.

news.png

11/20/12 - Planetside 2 goes public

11/16/12 - End of the closed beta

11/15/12 - Last day to purchase Alpha Squad, which allows you to permanently reserve your name before PS2 launches (reservations start 11/5)

11/1/12 - Amerish introduced to the beta

10/5/12 - The new continent, Esamir, is introduced to the PS2 Beta

9/7/12 - "Alpha Squad" founder package announced. Gives instant access to beta and some bonuses for when the game officially launches.

8/31/12 - Closed Beta NDA lifted

​
links.png

gafoutfits.png


PM the respective outfit leaders to join them.

vs.png

Need a volunteer to manage the VS outfit!
​
tr.png

TR GAF - Thebe - Jhriad
​
nc.png

GAF WarPigs - Thebe - InfectedZero
​
info.png


There's a lot to this game - I tried my best to generally explain it all with this OP. Please look through it if you're new. The most important bits would be Factions, Outfits, Resources, and Certifications, which are mostly explained in the second post, and this introductory section.

Planetside 2 is a Massively Multiplayer Online FPS, supporting 2000 players per continent. This beta will launch with only one continent, Indar, completed and open for testing, with more to be added when SOE feels others are in a state ready to be tested. Three announced continents are actively being worked on, Indar, Esamir, and Amerish, to be completed by official release, with many more to be available over its lifetime - Planetside 1 currently has 10 continents as well as additional cavern areas and small "battle islands."

This game is all about teamwork, use a mic and the ingame voip if possible, which is excellent. Otherwise pay attention to the chatbox and the other players who are talking. You will see large Outfit operations as well as sporadic coordinated efforts from non-affiliated players, assaulting bases in armor columns, air brigades, infantry rushes, and general facility takeovers. Galaxy dropships are the main mode of transportation to battles, if you see a pilot calling for guys to load up, get in and fly to wherever the action is. If no mode of transportation is available to you, there is an Instant Action feature that can be used to drop you onto the frontline.

If you're just hopping in to the game, be sure to hit F11 to be put into an open squad of other players, or start up a friends list to keep track of them and join up with them.

There are three factions in the game: Terran Republic, New Conglomerate, and Vanu Sovereignty. Each faction has a different backstory that gives them their different technology and playstyle. After you choose the faction that will earn your loyalty, Auraxis is open to your conquering by any means you desire. Read up on the following sections about base captures, the territory system, outfits, and all the other details you might need.

continents.png


Click to enlarge images.​

indar.jpg
Indar: Desert/savanna biomes

indarmain.jpg




Videos:
Indar Flythrough
Indar Gameplay

esamir.jpg
Esamir: Snowy tundra, mountainous

esamirmain.jpg




Videos:
Esamir Reveal
Esamir Gameplay

amerish.jpg
Amerish: Forest highlands

amerishmain.jpg




Videos:
Amerish Reveal

techreq.png


Minimum Specs
OS: Windows XP
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 or higher / AMD Phenom II X2 or higher
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Hard Drive: 15 GB free
Video Memory: 256 MB RAM
Video Card: nVidia GeForce 8600 series or higher / AMD or ATI 4850 series or higher
Sound Card: DirectX compatible

Recommended Specs
OS: Windows 7
Processor: Intel i5 processor or higher / AMD Phenom II X6 or higher
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Hard Drive: 15 GB free
Video Memory: 1,024 MB RAM
Video Card: nVidia GeForce GTX 500 series or higher / AMD HD 6870 or higher
Sound Card: DirectX compatible

PCs that do not meet the min reqs or have outdated drivers will see an error "G25"

If you have a SSD, install this game to it, as it is heavily reliant on streaming in assets.

The game is still going through on going optimization for older/lower end systems, as well as a variety of high end harware. Current performance is not indicative of how the final game will play.

To enable ultra textures set "TextureQuality" in useroptions.ini to "0"
 
M

MrBig

Member
factions.png


vs.png

"A technocratic faction that believes humanity can only evolve by rediscovering and tapping the lost technology of the Vanu."

The Vanu were a race of aliens, their technology is all that has been found of them, and the people of the Vanu Sovereignty are devoted to studying that technology, utilizing any of the advances gained from what they find to fight back in the civil war they are forced to be a part of.

tr.png

"With a militaristic government, the Terran Republic uses its Imperial authoritarian might to impel humanity to peaceful coexistence through any means necessary."

A focus on time tested and refined military hardware, with smoothly designed, fast moving and fast firing instruments or war.

nc.png

"A loosely connected group of rebel factions and idealistic freedom fighters, the New Conglomerate fights against the hegemony of the Terran."

The corporations that came under the control of the Terran Republic to Auraxis rebelled when the gate back to Earth was closed, they fight against the oppressive control of resources with any firepower they can get their hands on, hitting as hard as possible.

bases.png


To capture a facility, outpost or tower, you must build up enough Capture Tickets. You earn Capture Tickets by owning Security Consoles. They look like this.

console.jpg

Facilities and Towers have many of these Security Consoles. Outposts typically have only one. For each Security Console your faction owns, you earn a set amount of Capture Tickets each second.
The total amount of Capture Tickets your faction currently has is displayed in the bottom left. The first faction to reach the required Capture Ticket total becomes (or remains) the owner of the facility.

capture.jpg

You start a facility capture battle with some bonus Capture Tickets based on the Influence your faction has on this facility. Your faction’s Influence is determined by the number of neighboring regions you own when the battle starts. In the map below, each faction owns an equal number of neighboring regions, so their bonus Capture Tickets from Influence are all the same. The Influence bonus is depicted in the bottom left of the screen, indicated by the solid part of the progress bar in the picture above.

Once the new facility owner has won the fight, the facility must be Re-encrypted. This process takes a set amount of time, and during this time no Security Consoles can change hands.

spawncontrol.jpg

Allied Engineers can repair the Spawn Control Unit to reactivate spawning the Main Spawn Room.

resources.png


There are two ways to acquire resources: periodic region control rewards and facility battle rewards. Each region has a resource type assigned to it, which determines what kind of resource rewards players receive from that region from both reward sources. The region resource types can be seen on the map by turning on the resource icons.


polymer.png
Polymers (Quick vehicles, specialty explosives)​
catalyst.png
Catalysts (Firepower vehicles, med kits)​
alloy.png
Alloys (Transport vehicles, frag grenades)​
auraxium.png
Auraxium (Store)​

Periodic territory control rewards are given every five minutes. When the rewards are given, players receive resources from regions they own on their current continent that are connected to their warpgate by other regions they own. The connection factor is called “Supply Lines” – if players do not have a supply line to their region, they do not receive resources.

teamwork.png


Teamwork is everything.

opensquads.png

These are groups of a max of 12 players that are able to be formed and dissipated at any time. You can create a squad from the players menu and invite people to join you, or join another already formed squad. You can leave your squad open it will be listed in the squad listings and be available to the auto-squad mechanic, or make it invite only for just your friends. You can cert to spawn on squad members via a drop pod.

If you are not playing with an outfit or with friends autojoin a squad. This game is all about coordination and team-play. Even if you're lone wolfing you'd want to be able to spawn on squadmates or coordinate some backup.

outfits.png

After you play around for a bit be sure to join up with an outfit, there are GAF outfits for each faction in the OP and many other communities to join. The guilds of Planetside. Outfits are large groupings of players used for coordinating communities.

Outfits are more of a social group of allies than something tied to tactical organization. You will have a name, emblem, and voice and text chat, but will not see them on the map, or be able to use leadership abilities on them unless they joined your squad or platoon.

platoons.png

Platoons are a group of four squads. There is a platoon leader, which is the leader of the “alpha” squad. These are the operational groups of outfits.

squads.png

Squads have 12 members with one leader. The active leader will be able to use his special leadership certs while acting as the leader

classes.png


Classes have access to specific equipment that fits their roll, as a way to funnel the myriad of options available to you from the game as a whole. Each class has 3 customizable loadouts, for a total of 18 custom loadouts to allow you to adapt to as many situations as possible quickly.

Light Assault - Highly maneuverable, equipped with a jet pack to easily flank and get around defenses

Heavy Assault - Heavily armored and equipped to take down infantry and vehicles with big gun and launchers

Engineer - The tech class, able to place turrets and other tech, as well as repair infantry and vehicle armor

Medic - A combat medic with a loadout similar to the light assault, with eh ability to heal and revive dead team mates.

Infiltrator - Able to dynamically cloak to recon behind enemy lines or able to equip a sniper at the cost of increased visibility while cloaking

MAX - The hardest hitting infantry unit, equipped with a weapon on each hand that can each be suited to different tasks, from anti-air flak to anti-vehicle missiles and anti-infantry flame throwers, as well as a myriad of other options

vehicles.png


Some vehicles are faction specific iterations. Flight in PS2 uses physx (not gpu dependent). Joysticks are supported. More vehicles can and will be added at later times.

Vehicles are spawned from vehicle terminals, which are separated for Air, Ground, and Flash only. You faction must own or hack a terminal for it to be used by you, this is indicated by the relevant vehicle type in its faction specific iteration and faction color

groundterm.png

Shared Vehicles

Galaxy - The main troop transport. Large flying dropship capable of holding 9 passengers and 3 gunners to air drop anywhere on the map. When on the ground the Galaxy can be certed to function as a forward spawn point.
galaxy.png

Liberator - A flying weapons platform manned by a pilot, a main gunner, and a tail gunner.
liberator.png

Sunderer - Ground transport vehicle that fits 10 passengers and 2 gunners. Can be certed to function as a mobile spawn point or repair and re-supply friendly vehicles in its area of effect.
sunderer.png

Lightning - An agile tank designed to quickly get in to and out of enemy lines.
lightning.png

Flash - Quick, single person ATV with guns strapped to it.
quad.png

Light Fighters

VS: Scythe - The extremely maneuverable fighter of the Vanu, able to accelerate in any direction at any time.
scythe.png

TR: Mosquito - The fastest and sleekest vehicle comes from the Terran Republic.
mosquito.png

NC: Reaver - Heavily armed and heavily fortified.
reaver.png

Main Battle Tanks

VS: Magrider - Strafing tank of the VS, with the ability to boost.
magrider.png

TR: Prowler - Dual barreled, able to deploy into a siege mode with a faster reload rate.
prowler.png

NC: Vanguard - Classic tankage. Has a shield ability.
vanguard.png

certifications.png


Planetside 2 uses a certification system for unlocking different loadout options, weapon attachments, and leadership capabilities. You will earn cert points based on experience gain and there is no limit on the amount of certifications that you can have at one time.

Each class, vehicle, and weapon has its own certs that you can spend your cert points on. You can see a summary of your current progress across all certifications by clicking on the certifications tab in the main menu.

certmenu.jpg

Each line is a separate loadout option or item that you can unlock, and most lines can be certed up multiple times for increased growth.

If you don’t have enough certification points for a line then you will see the cost in red. Some lines require you to spend a certain amount of points in a category, and until you meet the prerequisite they will appear as locked. Otherwise you are able to spend your points on any certification that you want.

store.png


hudcustomization.png
 
M

MrBig

Member
tutorial.png


Join a squad. Press F11 to auto-join a squad or go to the social section of the menu to choose an open squad. While it is possible to play the game by yourself, Planetside is designed around teamwork, on a micro or macro level. Playing by yourself will lead to frustration because there are things you simply can not or should not do as a single soldier among thousands. Use the fantastic in-game voip service to communicate with your squad, those in your proximity, and other channels; a majority of players have mics. There is text communication but a mic is essential to good communication and thus teamwork.

Planetside 2 uses a hex based territory system, in which facilities are alloted a certain area of influence on a continent that factions must capture. The three major classifications of facilities are outposts (small clusters of buildings that control one or more hexes, usually only equiped with a simple Flash spawn for transportation), towers (large vehicle facilities capable of spawning land vehicles and light air vehicles), and bases (which are the major facilities that control large areas of the map). All facilities have spawn points and some sort of vehicle spawn terminal. To capture a hex your faction must own an adjacent hex.
Tickets, visualized in the bottom left of your hud, indicate faction ownership and are increased by owning a facility's control center (bases) or capture points (outposts/towers). The amount of adjacent hexes a faction controls increases their influence and capture speed of an opposing hex, indicated by a solid bar on the ticket bars.

Each hex group gives a set amount of resources at a timed interval, either Catalysts, Polymers, Alloys or Auraxium. Auraxium is gained from owning the large bases and is the in-game currency used to purchase side-grade weapons, equipment, abilities, etc from the marketplace. The other resources are used to purchase vehicles and equipment that you have already unlocked.

There is a spawn point at every facility on the continent, and some sort of vehicle spawn. You will only be able to spawn at the point closest to where you died or at your factions warpgate. Your squad leader may place a spawn beacon that you can always spawn on as well.

Certifications are how you make the game your own. You gain Cert points automatically over a certain time period, both online and off (at a reduced rate), and from accomplishing things in game. Cert points are spent on Certifications to progress your equipment, weapons, vehicles, and everything else in the game.

The Quick Action Menu is accessed by holding Q on a team mate
quickmenu.jpg


Please read one of the sections in the above posts for more information on a specific subject.

In sum:

1. Join a squad
2. Use you mic
3. Pick your loadout
4. Spawn or get in a vehicle and get to the front line
5. Capture facilities
6. Gain cert point and resources
7. Die
8. ???
9. Respawn and do it some more

Here's another guide as well



Beginners Video Guide

bugs.png


This is a beta. You will run in to bugs and things will break. When you see something wrong report it via the in-game bug report feature, which is accessed via the "support" button in the bottom left of the pause menu. File it under the most relavent labels and give a short description and steps for recreation if applicable; location data is sent with bug reports.
 
Jackben

Jackben

bitch I'm taking calls.
Damn good show, Mr. Big. We need to get those GAF outfit placeholders filled out!
 
L

Lonestar

I joined for Erin Brockovich discussion
Well, my early player is a Vanu player, but I'm ok with switching to wherever, I don't have a preference (and I can't remember who I played as in Planetside 1). Hopefully I get my new PC built and running by the end of the week, but my older PC kind of runs it.

Which server we using? I'm on one of the east coast servers.
 
T

The M.O.B

Member
Whenever I go to download the client, I log in and it tells me "all users must rest their password" or something like that. But once I do that it tells me "Sorry, users have a limited amount of tries each day, try again in 24 hrs". This has been happening every day, I log in after 24hrs and it will give me the same message.

Is there a support email somewhere? All I could see where phone numbers.
 
Gen.Grievous

Gen.Grievous

Member
Only issue I have is I lose sight of the goal, objective because of the insane scale. I also haven't found any squad with proper teamwork and communication. Does anyone have a nice overview of all the default key bindings so I could print it out?
 
C

CF_Fighter

Member
Mad at myself that I missed out on the original after hearing from some online friends how great it was. Looking forward to this.
 
R

Raide

Member
We need to get the GAF squad up and running. Pretty lonely when you start out fresh and nobody is around you to heal. :D
 
I

InfectedZero

Member
Just wondering if there is a cert upgrade I missed for the Galaxy and the Sunderer, I thought the max transport load was 12? not 24? Just wondering :).

Also I would love to get a GAF Outfit going on West 03 for New Conglomerate.
Add me if you want to join up, FusionZero is my name for that server.
 
M

MrBig

Member
http://www.twitch.tv/SOE

PAX stream

Still looking for volunteers for the GAF outfits and a main server for us to play on.

I'll volunteer for VanuGAF if someone will be a co-leader since I'm going to have a lot of work to do soon and don't know how much I can play
 
D

Darkflight

Member
On EU1 as NC as Darkflight2 (as it seems to want to keep my name even though I just deleted it)

Unless I'm missing some trick, knowledge of things around you when flying is non-existent, enemy gets behind me and I have no idea he's there.
 
A

AllIsOneIsNone

Banned
I'm a little confused about how you acquire Auraxium (store money). Is it just holding down facilities? Also, are certification points obtained through experience? Last question, are most of the better weapons unlocked as you progress or are they unavailable in the beta?
 
L

Lonestar

I joined for Erin Brockovich discussion
Made a character on the EU1 server, not sure how it'll run. Names: LoneStarSmith
 
J

Jhriad

Member
Sorry guys, I've been in the process of getting a TR outfit put together on West 01 that I mentioned in the old thread but apparently I'm bugged so I'm waiting for the developers to fix whatever is keeping me from creating an outfit. Really frustrating as I've been waiting a few weeks and I've got old PS1 outfit guys waiting for the outfit to go up.
 
M

MrBig

Member
AllIsOneIsNone said:
I'm a little confused about how you acquire Auraxium (store money). Is it just holding down facilities? Also, are certification points obtained through experience? Last question, are most of the better weapons unlocked as you progress or are they unavailable in the beta?
Click to expand...

Auraxium is gained in the same way as all the other resources, but is only from the major bases. You are rewarded resources based on the territory you control at set intervals, that amount is listed on the resources box on the map.

Cert points are gained for taking facilities and possible some more things, and automatically every 10 minutes, as well as offline at some lower rate.

Weapons are purchased with Auraxium in the store, but aren't available for testing yet. Only the base infantry weapons and most of the vehicle weapons can be used.


Also now I can share what I accomplished some time ago

7aZcu.jpg
 
A

AllIsOneIsNone

Banned
MrBig said:
Auraxium is gained in the same way as all the other resources, but is only from the major bases. You are rewarded resources based on the territory you control at set intervals, that amount is listed on the resources box on the map.

Cert points are gained for taking facilities and possible some more things, and automatically every 10 minutes, as well as offline at some lower rate.

Weapons are purchased with Auraxium in the store, but aren't available for testing yet. Only the base infantry weapons and most of the vehicle weapons can be used.
Click to expand...

Great, thank you. If that is the case though, what are the exp. points from getting kills for?
 
J

Jhriad

Member
MrBig said:
Battle Rank. I think unlocks and available certifications are going to be tied to it but BR does nothing atm.
Click to expand...

That's not quite true. BR is still linked to unlocking extra implant slots currently. They really need to figure out how to make BR more important because atm going up a rank is pretty meaningless.
 
J

Jburton

Banned
I am on EU1 TR as Jburton80.

Add me.


Also anyone know where screenshots are saved when using the printscreen function.
 
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