1921

The 360 pad crashed Planetside 2 last time I tried. Ended up using mouse with some extra keybinds to get extra turn rate… basically, flip 90 degrees then use the “UP” or “DOWN” keys to turn quickly.

1922

I think 360 controllers work now. Although I finally got around to trying it and just ended up going back to mouse.

1923

I’ve been playing casually for a couple of weeks now and jesus, I fucking hate attacking the Crown. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a successful assault, or indeed anything close to one.

1924

It can be done but it requires mass and coordination, so figure at least one large outfit actually working as an outfit, and a mass of fodder. But generally, the reason the Crown isn’t taken is that no one really wants to take it. They want the cert farming that goes on there, even for the attacking side, as the defenders always expose themselves or hop down the hill to be harvested eventually.

1925

Oh my goodness, the Crown is a cert farming medic’s dream.

I can’t recall ever taking the Crown unless it was woefully under-defended, but I have certainly (out of the dozens upon dozens of battles I’ve fought there) been on the losing side a couple times. Although, come to think of it, thats normally on the off chance that there isn’t a critical mass of defenders there. Hm…

1926

There’s a two minute period at The Crown that makes all the difference. If it’s lightly defended and an outfit drops in, they can hold it those two minutes until the zerg notices that the farm has stopped and slowly creep down and up the hill to help. If the zerg doesn’t notice, then the drop pod and spawn invasion will overwhelm the attacking outfit. If you had two outfits, one to Galaxy drop on the tower and then another to tank rush a minute later, it would be taken pretty easily; the deciding factor is holding off the spawn long enough to park a Sunderer inside or to the West away from the spawn house. Once you get that it’s a done deal.

1927

The new VR training area is interesting. Weirdly, instead of increasing my desire to buy new guns, it sort of decreased it. After trying pretty much everything I might have been interested in, I came away with a hearty “meh.” I mean, there are a few I wouldn’t mind playing with–maybe an Anchor, the TMG-50, and oddly enough the Warden–but none that feel strongly enough to actually, you know, purchase. I do think VR is a good idea–it allows you to scope out some of your cert purchases much better. But it also really points out how similar many weapons really are.

Then again, I will give props to SOE for making many of the weapons feel different, despite their basic similarities. They do a nice job of that mostly.

1928

I have another newbie question - why can’t I deploy a Sunderer? I press the button and nothing happens. I had a look through the upgrades and I couldn’t see one that suggested it unlocked the deploying capability.

1929

If another Sunderer is deployed nearby, you can’t deploy your own there. There are in your minimap some circles that denotes where the other Sunderers are, and what radius they inhabit.

Also, I do actually think it cost 50 points to make it deployable, but I could be wrong.

1930

Hmmm, I did think I was trying miles away from anyone. I’ll have to try again tonight and have another look through the modules as well. It would be good if, upon pressing the button, Planetside 2 could actually tell me why I can’t deploy it.

1931

heh, so true -oh, remember you have to add the deploy skill in the utility area of the Sunderer when you spawn it, I seem to recall.

1932

Fifty certs to buy the deploy ability; then as Razgon notes you have to actually make sure that ability box is put into the right slot on the configuration screen. Then B will do it, as noted above, if you’re not in the deploy range of another Sundie. Those ranges, I think, show up on your minimap as white circles too.

I played some during the bug-filled double experience weekend this past, um, weekend. Some good bugs included infinite jetpack ability, infinite cloaking, non-functioning heal and repair guns, non-functioning ammo caches, and general bizarre stuff like recoil vanishing from guns and even more “stairway to heaven” guys moonwalking up the clouds. Even had a guy popping through a wall to shoot people on the other side, though whether that was a bug or a hack is hard to say.

Still, there are some really nice battles going on sometimes. They haven’t yet figured out a way to get people to respond properly to the “lay siege to the spawn” that happens all the time. Instead of rushing en masse out of the spawn and clearing a space around it, people sit in the damn thing and try to shoot out, usually just shooting there teammates in the back. Not SOE’s fault, I guess, but rather weird. Hell, the same mentality happens at bio labs, where instead of having a few heavies rush some of the buildings near the flight pad entrances, people sit on the flight pads and get farmed–and again, shoot each other in the back.

Personally, I’ve found a lot of fun in the HA these days, with one long-range set up (Ursa on VS, Warden on NC, CARV-S on TR), one midrange (Orion, SAW, MSR-W), and one short range kit (Nova or SMG, some GD-something or other, Uppercut). The long range stuff is a hoot; with a 6x on the Ursa and the Warden, with appropriate certs, you can function as a 3/4 capability but much more durable and flexible sniper, for the times you don’t, um, want to be shot in the back by your own guys. I generally don’t have the twitch reflexes to be really good at CQB, but mid-range I enjoy.

I’m hoping they implement the account-wide unlocks (limited as they are) this week, so I can get my Annihilator into all my HA rotations as needed, and I’m kinda looking forward to the new launchers, though I think I’ll wait for a 3x SC sale to get any.

1933

I must have actually gone blind and missed the deploy ability when looking through the unlocks, heh. I did notice circles on the minimap when driving, so that makes sense.

I’m a bit of a light assault addict at this point so I fucking love a good biolab fight. Even when my fellow VS sit inside a teleporter spawn, I can still jetpack up and get some opportune kills in for a while. When the fight is actually going properly, shootouts on the rooftops are my bread and butter.

I’ve spent what will probably (but you never know) be my only real money on 1000 creds that got me a lock-on launcher that does both ground & air and a cheap single shot sniper rifle. Sniper is so much more fun now that I don’t have to hit people 4 times.

1934

I still love LA, which is what I did mostly for the first few weeks. But lately I’ve been having fun with HA. in bio labs LA is a hoot, for sure.

The Annihilator (locks on to both ground and air) is a good weapon, if situational. When account-wide unlocks go live you’ll be able to use it on other characters as well if you have any. I carry it if I’m fighting in the open and don’t anticipate close action, but usually I just take the default dumbfire launchers, because the Anni has no dumbfire ability and that means MAXes are a pain, as are close range encounters with vehicles. A decent single-shot sniper rifle is a necessity; even the cheapest is better than that horrible starting rifle (for VS at least).

1935

If you’re going to get serious about Sunderer driving, I highly suggest 3 levels of mineguard, 2 levels of Combat Chassis and upgrading one of your guns to a Bulldog (grenade launcher). The mineguard is self-explainatory, and 3 levels will allow you to absorb a couple on the road or survive an engineer trying to tank mine you while deployed. The Combat Chassis makes the vehicle more manueverable and gives you more power on hill climbs. Finally, while the Basilisk is a fine all around top gun, replacing one with a Bulldog gives you a great anti-infantry weapon that can kill in one hit if you’re a good shot, and is also decent against MAX units and enemy armor. With a Bulldog and a Basilisk you’ve got good all around utility weapons for any occassion. Later on you can look at swapping in Ammo Dispenser for the Mineguard and/or a Walker for anti-air in those situations where you’d want an Ammo Sunderer to roll with a tank column.

When it comes to Station Cash, Wal-Mart sells $15 SOE SC cards that come with a 500 SC bonus (so you get 2000SC for $15 vs. 1500SC). Pick up one of those and wait until the next double or triple Station Cash promo (probably Memorial Day weekend) and you’ll net 4000-6000SC for only $15. Used judiciously and in conjunction with daily and weekly specials, 6000SC can buy a hell of a lot of weapons and upgrades.

1936

My current Sunder setups:

  • AMS Sunder: AMS, mineguard, anti-air canon, and fury.
  • Convoy Assist / Battlebus: AMS, Rearm utility, anti-air canon and fury.

I use the fury over the bulldog because I have bad aim, the faster rate of fire of the fury compensate for that. I have termal night vision, but I use to have normal night vision.

The antiair canon is because I like the antiair role, I kill very few mosquito and scyte, but is entertaining while I am waiting for something else, like a base getting capped. It also double the survivability of the sunder, since most ESF will avoid you, and these that not, you may kill them. With this setup I don’t have anything to kill MBT or a single lightning, but I don’t try to find these targets. I have a lot of certs sink in the vehicle, to have abundant ammo and good scopes in the weapons. Normally infantry take the two turrets, and I am left to drive around people.

1937

I don’t plan to become Mr Sundy at the moment, but I shall mentally file the loadout suggestions away in case I do, thanks guys. I don’t know how I missed the deployment unlock - it was blindingly obvious when I looked again last night!

1938

The game is best played changing roles quickly, I think. If you see a lot of dead people, and no medics, change to medic. In a biolab, or some are with a few enemies, light assault. Heavy against vehicles. Engineer to pilot vehicles. And so on.

1939

Planetside 2 Double XP & Double Station Cash Weekend announced for Easter weekend. Also some kind of silly Planetside 2 mobile app for sending messages to your pals who are in game or something. Sounds dumb.

Buy your Station Cash card from Walmart. Theirs has a 500SC bonus (so 2000SC for $15) and it doubles, so you’ll get 4000SC for $15 when redeeming it this weekend. Be sure to follow the link from the Planetside launcher when redeeming so that you get your double modifier applied, don’t follow the directions on the card.

1940

Not bad. Thanks for the heads up.