Planetside 2 - A Beginners Guide

Short and sweet, a point by point list of some seemingly-basic things that Planetside 2 fails to teach you thanks to its lack of tutorial.  (I'm a bit pissed about that still, can you tell?)

I'll continue to add to this as new things come up - feel free to drop anything you can think of into the comments, I'll add it here and credit you accordingly  I've saved the ones that require pictures for the bottom of the article, you can click on any pictures here to make them larger.

- First and foremost; DO NOT SPEND ANY STATION CASH ON A CHARACTER YOU DO NOT WANT TO PLAY.  Unlocking something with Station Cash (Sony's currency, available in $5 increments) is applicable to that character only.  Not every character of that faction.  It's gone forever if you delete that character - might as well set the money on fire instead. This is especially important regarding faction choice - God, I wish I didn't roll NC, constantly <20% activity and constantly getting rolled on my server, but now I'm locked in.

***DISCLAIMER: MOST WEAPONS ARE DISAPPOINTING AND A WASTE OF MONEY.  A select few are amazing, but will still not compensate for a lack of skill.  Get the best of your impatient side and preview things before you buy them.***

*NOTE Sony was VERY helpful to me in restoring the Station Cash I spent before realizing this.  If you accidentally made a purchase without understanding the system, contact them.  They will help you - once.

- The "E" key is an important one.  It lets you enter and exit vehicles, use terminals, etc.  It's worth noting that pressing this key while piloting a vehicle ejects you to your doom (if flying).  Your crew is soon to follow.  You may want to rebind it.

-The Engineer and Medic 'classes' can level you faster if utilized correctly. 

*The Medic's Gun can heal friends and resurrect them if they fall (Default #3).
*The Medic's Ability can heal everyone around you, INCLUDING yourself, and recharges quickly.  (Default "F" Key)

*The Engineer's Repair gun can... repair anything.  Including friendly MAX's (armor suits).  (Default #3)
*The Engineer's Ammo drop (Default #4)can resupply all friendlies that walk over it with ammo.  That's a CRAZY amount of experience very quickly if you drop it in common fighting area during a big fight.
- The F1-F12 keys dictate the positions in a vehicle, with F1 always being the pilot/driver.  You can swap at any time, and you can ask someone to swap with you by hitting their corresponding F# key, and waiting for them to confirm (by pressing Y or N when the prompt in the bottom right appears).

- Don't spawn ground vehicles at the warp gate (main base on each continent) unless you can't spawn them anywhere else.  Why?  They have a good chance to fall through the ground.  Especially if you're spawning something other than the Magrider (A Vanu Tank).  I've died no less than a dozen times forgetting about this.

- Push the Page Down button to bring up the vehicle status screen.  From there you can lock the vehicle to everyone, just allow your squad into it, or deconstruct it (remove it from the map).  To troll people, fill up a Galaxy (12 man carrier) and fly them out into the middle of nowhere, then eject them at 1000 feet by switching the vehicle to squad only, or private.  Always good for a laugh.

-You can re-deploy at any time.  It takes 10 seconds to remove you from the current area and give you new options for deployment.  Pushing the M key for Map and clicking re-deploy in the bottom right will start the timer - you must stay in that screen until it completes.

- Flying takes practice.  Turning any aircraft efficiently requires mastery of the spacebar (hoverjets/lift), "C" Key (Air Brake and landing gear) as well as careful manipulation of the throttle and Roll of the aircraft.  Practice somewhere - bouncing off walls and other aircraft always results in severe damage and near-certain death spins.

- There are cheap upgrades (like 10% health for every 'class') available for 1 Cert (certification point, gained through experience).  There's simple things like zoomed sights for vehicle weapons, extra ammo, and a few others waiting for you to easily pick up.  These make a difference - but don't forget to equip them! (See the next point)

- You need to equip things you unlock.  Seems rather obvious - yet almost every five minutes I hear someone wondering why something they just unlocked isn't working.

The Standard Loadout screen.  Here, you can see my Reaver's Performance slot is empty.  I just purchased The Hover Stability Airframe upgrade.  To equip it I'm going to click on the performance slot.

Then, I'm going to click on the upgrade itself.  It should be highlighted AND appear on the far right hand (rectangular) box.   Then I should click 'Previous' in the top left hand corner to confirm it's there before spawning the vehicle.

Yep, it's there.  Go shoot stuff.

- You can preview any weapon in the game (even vehicle weapons) for 30 minutes.  You can do this again with a different weapon every 8 hours.  To do this, go into any loadout screen, select a weapon, and click "get more".  Then, press the gold "unlock" button, and at the far bottom of the window, in blue, you'll see the 'preview' button. 

*NOTE that you can not preview a weapon if you are in combat, or dead.  After starting the preview you must go to a place where you can equip the weapon in order to make it active in that load out, and actually start using it.