PlanetSide 2 is a huge MMOFPS. You play as a soldier for one of the three Factions in the game and your task is simple, conquer. You can try being a single soldiers, and help out wherever you are needed. You can join a Platoon or Outfit to better coordinate attacks and defenses at different regions. You could be a Pilot, Tanker, Scout, Frontline Soldier, Medic, Mechanic, Sniper or anything else for that matter. Each class typically has multiple things you can do with it and as such numerous ways how you can help your team. This Guide however focuses on the essential part of your “work” in PlanetSide 2, taking over locations. The basic premise is simple. Take over “flags” and hold them until you “Cap” the entire location. That is your very basic idea on what you have to do. If you desire to learn more, read on.
Will your attack be just as spectacular and calm?
There are different types of locations. For the sake of this Guide we will have two broad categories. Outposts and Big Structures. Outposts are littered throughout the map. They will typically have only a single “Flag” and a number of Infantry Terminals as well as possible Air, Tank or Vehicle Terminals (usually Vehicle Terminals). Big Structures will typically have multiple Flags, but this is not always a rule. Tech Plants for example will have only a single Flag, but in order to get inside you will either have to drop in from above, or destroy the local generators to take out the Shields on the ground level. Let us get into the details.
Outposts are by far the most common type of locations you will be met with. Most of them are what I would call “Small Outposts”, because of their lack of Air or Armor Terminals. While they will have (typically) between one and four Infantry terminals there will also be a Vehicle Terminal. The single Flag you have to take over will either be in the open or inside one of the buildings. There will also be a single Spawn Area. These Spawn Areas come in two types. Either a “Structure” Spawn, where the enemy will have only two ground floor exits, or a “First Floor” Spawn where they will have a choice of either hopping out through the roof or drop down to the ground floor. If you are unfamiliar with a location one of the most tell-tale signs that there is a First Floor Spawn are four Infantry Terminals next to each other on the map. If you approach them and there is no shielding on the ground floor doors then the enemy spawn is on the first floor. This makes it much harder to “block in” the enemy if you want to Cap the location in relative peace. If you are the defender you have options of evading detection to still attack the enemy.
A heavily manned enemy gate/outpost. Despite our best efforts we could not punch through, and this was just an entry-point to the base itself!
Sometimes Outposts will have turrets, either Phalanx or AA Guns. All the Terminals and Turrets may be hacked by friendly/enemy Infiltrators, thus giving one side an edge when you have to either change your Soldier’s Kit, or spawn a Tank or Sunderer, or perhaps manning the turrets to fire at the enemy from their own base. Once a Terminal or Turret is Hacked it may be destroyed and rebuilt (to get rid of the “Hack”) or Hacked again by another Infiltrator. If the location is taken over all the Hacked Terminals will become fully available to the new owner.
Sometimes Outposts will be part of a Bigger Structure, for example Bio Labs. In such cases these Outposts might have Jump Pads as well as Teleporters. Both are used to get inside the tall structure, either inside a relatively safe “Teleportation Room” or you hop onto the Plane Spawning platform. Teleporters are two-way, so you can travel through them freely, while Jump Pads are usually placed in pairs, so you can hop in both directions. Outposts that are part of a bigger structure are capped differently to ordinary Outposts that represent regions. These Outposts take much longer to Cap, but they do not have an “Influence” meter, ergo you do not have to wait to capture the outpost fully after you cap the point. Once you take over the Flag you can use all of its terminals and spawn there. A typical Assault begins by capping one of these Outposts, so that your team or the enemy have somewhere to spawn from, in case they lack a Sunderer.
The Key difference between Outposts and “Big Structures” is their size. This means a few things. There may be more Flags to capture (from one to four Flags), there may be multiple generators and an SCU, and there will be turrets and some other defenses. Also, usually, most of the Flags will be safely tucked away further into the Structure. On Bio Labs this means that you have to Teleport or Jump up to the “Giant Mechanical Spider”. At Amp Plants you will have to bust through shields in order to cap the single flag. Tech Plants are similar, as you will also typically have to capture a single point, hidden within the base. Some unique locations, such as the Crash Site, will be “Big”, and capturing it will call for coordination with your Squad or Platoon. While there are no Generators or SCUs the points are spread apart to such an extent that you will need to be all over the place in order to quickly capture it. The enemy will have a Spawn Room within a structure, and from two to three local outposts from which they may also spawn, unless you capture them first.
The Crash Site is one of the most complicated locations to take over. Three flags, far apart from each other, including one very high up on a bridge behind me.
Let us talk about Generators and turrets. When attacking a Big Structure you may encounter any of these Generators, let us explain what each of them means. The most common type of Generators, even found at some outposts, will be the “Vehicle Shield”. When you see an outpost acting as a gate, or numerous walls surrounding a big Structure it is possible there will also be a “Gate” stopping any hostile vehicles from passing through. Infantry can still walk through it, but if you had Armor Superiority or a Sunderer you may have a problem. In order to take down this Shield you will have to destroy a Generator marked as a Tank inside a Shield. Walk up to it with any class (currently the Max can also do this) and press E when facing it. After a few seconds you will cause the Generator to Destabilize, and if the enemy does not run up to it and Stabilize it again it will explode. A Generator will have three distinct sounds when it is Destabilizing. Initially the Generator will wheeze and crackle, then at the second stage this will become much more clearer and loud. At the third stage it will be like a Thunderstorm in there. From what I could tell when the Generator is at its Third Stage it is impossible to Stabilize it at that point. A destroyed Generator can be repaired by an Engineer, thus bringing back the Vehicle Shield at the Gate.
There are two more types of generators. First are the “Shield” Generators. These protect the entrances into Structures and there will always be two of these Generators to be destroyed. One will be marked as a Shield with Horizontal Lines, the other a Shield with Vertical Lines. Once both Generators are down the entrance into the enemy base is wide open. The Third Generator type is the SCU Shield Generator. These will have a similar symbol to the SCU itself, except enclosed in a Shield. You need to blow it up if you plan on destroying the SCU.
These are the things that power the shields around the base. You either destroy them or keep them safe.
What is the SCU, you wonder? The SCU allows enemies to use their Base’s Spawn Room. By Destroying the SCU you force the enemy to use the local Outposts, or if those are “Capped” any other Spawn Location further away (or a Sunderer). By Destroying the SCU and capping the local outposts you often Dominate the attack. However, it’s hard to keep an eye on all the outposts, so a sneaky enemy soldier can cap one back, giving enemy access to a Spawn Point closer to their base. When a location is capped all the generators that were destroyed in the attack will remain destroyed. You will need an Engineer to repair all of them, unless you do not care about keeping the base secure.
There are three types of Turrets that you may encounter at a base. Phalanx, AA and “Gatling guns”. Phalanx Turrets have very limited turning and angling. Their job is to attack enemy armor or vehicles on the ground, but they may be used in the AA role against pilots who are flying flow. AA Turrets have two “Flak Cannons”, useful against lighter planes. Their usefulness is limited, as even if you manage to hit the enemy constantly you will not be able to take him out quickly. Due to their turning and relatively good angling they may even engage infantry and vehicles, but they are not good at doing so. The Gatling Turrets are a rare find, and you only ever stumble upon them (most commonly) near shielded gates. While they have an incredible rate of fire their focus is infantry, and sometimes low-flying planes (armor will not be bothered by them). A destroyed Turret may be repaired by an Engineer to function again. Infiltrators may also Hack turrets, denying the enemy much needed defenses. If an Infiltrator hacks a turret with an enemy player inside the player will be ejected from the turret (he will appear some distance behind the turret) and if you are quick you may take him or her out before they realise what happened. Turrets do not have an ammo limit. Instead they may overheat. Once they overheat it will take two to three seconds for them to cool-down and they may continue to fire normally. The Phalanx and AA rounds have bullet drop and travel time so when targeting enemy tanks or planes take into account distance and speed of the enemy.
The aim of this turret is to destroy enemy vehicles. Unlike the other turret types it has a single long barrel.
When attacking any base you have a number of ways to capture it. By far the most common method is to drive up with a Sunderer, Deploy it (the upgrade costs 50 Certs, otherwise the Sunderer acts only as a transport vehicle) and then send in people to capture the base. The Deployed Sunderer allows soldiers to change their gear and respawn closer to the action, thus allowing for more pressure to be applied on the enemy. Sunderers also allow for quicker respawns than any ordinary Spawn Points.
A small Outpost may be ghost-capped, in other words a single person drives to a location with no activity and caps it (you can verify activity by checking your map and holding your mouse over a region), without enemy opposition (this just speeds up an advance, while the main force is focused somewhere, single soldiers cap the area around it). I managed to ghost cap Big Structures on my own, but normally you will not be this lucky. To be successful you have to cap all the local outposts and destroy the SCU. On top of that you must cap every single Terminal to stop the enemy from spawning vehicles, if they do appear.
Outfit or Squad Tactics may be much more inventive and daring. I have personally been part of huge Air Drops from dropships, taking over locations without the need to take out any generator. Recently I was also part of an “experiment” where we managed to use a Shield Breaker upgrade on a Sunderer to punch through the enemy shields straight under their point (based on what we could guess Shield Breakers cannot break only though SCU Shields). However a shield breaker does not allow the Sunderer to deploy, so the tactic involves the Sunderer punching through a shield, an infiltrator then hacks a vehicle terminal and spawns a deployable Sunderer. In less than a minute you are deep within an enemy base, with your own Spawn Point right under their nose. This is an especially useful tactic if you want to capture the base mostly intact (you might still want to destroy the SCU).
If you want to cut off enemy reinforcements to their own base you want to destroy this. The only way to do that is to Destabilize it, just like any Generator.
While taking over a Facility there are a few things that may benefit you to be aware of. First of all, when you capture a Big Structure (like the Bio Lab) all the surrounding Outposts will automaticaly be capped together with it. Any Hacked Terminals or Turrets will fall under the control of the new base owner. This gives you some time to push out any enemy forces, and ensure that, for a while at least, the enemy will not be able to make a swift counter-attack. On the other end of the spectrum, if you are aware that the enemy is about to cap a major location head to one of the outposts and as soon as able capture it. This will allow your team to quickly spawn near the recently lost Base and perform a swift counter-attack. Take note that once you lose a Base the Spawn Room you are in is no longer safe. You will have only 10 seconds to leave it before you are killed.
When you die you typically can respawn at any Sunderer or Major SCU location (Bio Labs, Tech Labs, etc.). With smaller locations, such as outposts, the range is greatly reduced (from my experience it’s around 600-800 meters). Deployed Sunderers allow for quicker respawns than any other location.
An interesting thing to know about taking over locations is that you may only cap locations adjacent to friendly territory. However, if during an attack you begin capping and contact is lost with the front line (there is no adjacent friendly territory) you can still cap the location. However, if the defenders retake it fully the opportunity is lost. If you manage to cap a location behind enemy lines you can continue capping territory around the detached outpost or base (however, the benefits of these capped locations will not come to your team until connection with the front is reestablished).
When using the AA gun to shoot down the enemy take into account their distance and flight direction. As you can see here I am trying to aim in such a way that my bullets catch up with the aircraft.
At some locations (usually Amp Stations) there will be multiple towers in a circle around the main structure. At the top of each of these, aside from AA turrets, there should also be Jump Pads. These allow you to travel between “Towers” rapidly. This is useful on the defensive and when trying to quickly sabotage the enemy Generators. Before the enemy even stabilizes the first generator you will already be at the second one.
Last but not least, the speed of capping. The basic rule is that any location will be capped far more quickly by your faction the more it is surrounded by friendly capped territory. When a location is capped you can see a pie-chart showing the amount of influence a faction has on that specific area. If it is 100% that means that the location you are taking over is fully surrounded by your faction and capping will be very quick. Sometimes an area might have only 8% influence (typically when you try to take over a bigger location and only one hex is touching it) in that case capping will be much slower. If an area is behind enemy lines (especially if it’s a big location) the capping speed with be extremely sluggish. While putting players on the Cap Zones will speed up the Cap it will still be very slow.
The domination of a continent is the single most important task you will be faced with. To do so you will have to figure out how quickly and efficiently take over different locations and eventually learn how to do so in a group. Knowing is half the battle. The other half is your performance on the battlefield.
