Deadmon

Im a PS1 vet that has used these tactics before and they work. You are presuming that when using a tank column -everyone in the platoon- is joining. This is not the case, Its just an element. The idea is squad sized movement not one horde moving at the same time. In fact, the horde tactic is a quick way to lose most of the map. You need squad sized elements moving out to the smaller objectives, converging to take the large ones, and seperating back out to the small. one lump moving together is only going to get your platoon flanked and lose hexes And again "giant schemes' is blowing this way out of proportion. People moving in formation, splitting in small groups to address the immediate threats and objectives is just basic ideas. Pointing out that plans dont go past "shit hitting the fan" was to highlight that these plans and tactics dont go as far as everyone is suggesting they do. In fact, you outlined exactly what I was saying. The squad or 2 squads (if larger objectives) venture together and splinters off into surgical strike targets. Namely the most important for the level of threat. High threat would be to disable their AT and spawn abilities. Low threat would to be to go after objectives. Thats it. Simple stuff. A column of tanks that is squad sized protecting itself isnt a "machine of war" A galaxy that has a few mosquitos and a lib tailing it (key is tailing, not flying ahead of) so that it can identify targets and protect the galaxy is not a "machine of war" its basic troop movement to ensure people dont crash or remain unprotected. Targeting the spawning abilities and shields first isnt massive tactics, its starving out the objective to ensure you capture it without excessive work.

Not being organized, and not having a basic skeleton to work off is more costly than not having plans/procedure at all. Last night delays (before server crash) consisted more of people not knowing what to do and talking over people deciding what to do, deaths and delays during initial move-out, ect than anything else. Which prompted a semi-lengthy after actions by Huttser. He isnt wrong, a basic framework on how to move out and basic approach will be helpful. Once shit hits the fan all plans are out the window, which is why you plan up to the fan and no further. :P

Having a standard approach, and move-out order wont bog down anything. And basic ideas of how to do things (clearing a room, and covering eachother while moving) wont hinder. Once you hit the objective, and when it comes down to fighting and interactions theres no strategy you can plan. Basic troop movement isnt super planning. 'get into tank column and lets move out' "air force group up and move out" ect. It takes no time at all if everyone is familiar with how to do it. Anything past that is over-planning. "Get into tank formation, " (1-2 min go by and everyone does) If you, like Ron said, just assign vehicles to people and dictate orders theres no planning or excessive time. "ron, huttser, dis, krow, george into prowlers, joe bob jack jeff into sunderer, ron take lead, lets go" (on the way, everyone shit talking and stuff, few min to get to location) Get to location, Tank commander sees high opposition and says "Armor get those turrets /tanks down, sunderer on me, headed to spawn computer" alternatively Get to location, Tank Commander sees no opposition "Base looks empty, keep your eyes open but circle up and secure points" thats not overplanning, or excessive. Thats basic threat analysis and securing a location. Brute forcing points when facing high opposition is plausible but will end up wasting more time and resources. If you are facing a heavy threat the best thing to do is cut off their reinforcements (spawn computer) and gain un-funneled access to objectives (shield generators) to flank and clear. OBVIOUSLY, if those positions are more heavily guarded you would designate forces to points instead. Siege tactics yo, starve them out first if possible.

Yeah, I or someone else can fix that when we create more official instructions. Im just doing quick proposals for SOP. When they are refined / other proposals are chosen I or someone else (someone else preferably who has time ;o) can make a more visually pleasing graphic to reference. I welcome other people suggesting tactics they are familiar with, some infantry bounding, breaching, or other similar situation tactics would be good too. I plan on doing another 10-min write up / doodle for air formations soon.

Truth, but there needs to be a lead tank to coordinate the movement. Slow, turn, ect. With large numbers you are going to have people who will need the audibles called or else you are gunna get tanks running over eachother or getting stuck in turns. The Tank Commander, upon nearing a facility, can stop while the 2 columns progress and circle around, with command escorting the sunderer when it catches up. Roadside ambushes are pretty rare currently, so it can be adjusted that when nearing objective the tank commander will hold back to prevent being immediately taken out, and to rally with the sunderer. That, or like you said we can just replace the commander to be near sunderer in middle, and have a squad leader take point for navigation.

proposed tank column formation. Tank commander would be responsible for calling out turns, change of speed, ect. "all stop, maintain x speed, coming up on left," ect zig-zag dispersion will allow for our column to maintain a tighter formation without clumping to the point that multiple people can get hit with the same assault. about 1 1/2 tank lengths between front to back, around a tank width between the side. Along with the safe dispersion, the zig-zag formation allows for multiple guns to train on targets safely, without breaking formation if not necessary. Almost all roads leading up to facilities fit this formation, when arriving at a facility / objective the columns would split to circle the objective from both sides with the tank commander escorting the sunderer to a safe location to dismount troops. Upon completion of facility the tanks re-merge into column on opposite end and continue. 1: surround facility maintaining dispersion. if done properly there will be tanks surrounding the facility. 2: follow-through with path provided, merging back into original column upon completion. Flash escorts / scouts are almost completely for infiltrator scouting. Not mandatory, just advantageous for snipers to be able to pull off to the side before hitting the main facility to provide over-watch and intel. Priority Targets: (At the discretion of the tank commander to determine amount of resistance) Tanks should first target the turrets mounted on facilities. The only times you should not are if the facility is so close to our warp gate that it is almost guaranteed we (TR, not ordo specifically) will be defending the facility later. Or if we are facing only minimal resistance, so again our own troops can take advantage of the turrets upon capture. Sunderer and tank Commander should be dropping off at these kind of locations: (If major attack, if minimal resistance continue towards capture points) External shield generators: (the sphere with a grid in it) Taking these down grants access to the internals of the facility. (Zurvan (I think, one of the major auraxium facilities) for example only has an A to capture, and is surrounded by shields. If you take this down then you arent funneled through the single door anymore and have multiple access points) Spawn Computers: (the triangle with a person in it) Taking these out will prevent the hostiles from spawning from traditional spawn points. Relying only on squad beacons and galaxies. The ABCDEF facilities are secondary, while they are obviously important and necessary to capture, it is much much much much easier to do so if you are limiting their spawn capability as well as maximizing your access to the facility. BEFORE ROLLING OUT OF OBJECTIVE, MAKE SURE THESE ARE REPAIRED FOR FRIENDLY USE.

its missing the v in the symbol symbol for TR. Pilots and tankers, can you post what weapon modifications you have gone into in here for quick reference? There will be a more dedicated / official record of this later im sure but for now a loose understanding of available resources would be handy. Mosquito is full repair, afterburner, both missiles, countermeasures, and acquisition timer is lower So its pretty much a regular availability resources pending for me. Lib has speed upgrades Gal has nothing but some minor repair boosts, I can get implant for reduced time and be a party bus pilot if need be (I wanted an excuse to get mortars for the sides anyway) No infantry or tank boosts.

if you are added to the outfit, theres a text chat at top left along with general and squad

Well obviously, I just mean in terms of PS2

They are announcing the "alpha squad" which looks like the equiv of bf3 premium for planetside. Minus expansions. You get some weapon unlocks, custom title, decal, camo, and 4000 station cash. Which works out to be you getting all this for free you just buy 40 bucks worth of station cash. Which will do you no good till it launches. http://www.planetside2.com/alpha-squad

I think you can manually choose your squad too if f11 is failing you. that or just hop in with a random galaxy and fight along side a squad. Or, if you dont want to mess with that, you can just instant-action to the hot spots which are usually the large facilities.

haha. Poor Keller. Sorry about the limbo aryte, but you will kick its ass when you take it.

just got an invite, I dont exactly remember signing up for it. Would anyone be interested in it? dont really have time. its a first come first serve and I just sent the same offer to my rl friends via twitter :P

Yeah, I havent had time to play either but from what ive played im definitely looking forward to its full release and time to play it. Inoue, From the time I played I started up with auto-squad and got in a small platoon that started as a ground convoy of sunderer and prowlers, breaking up into small squads to take points and capture land. The squad disbanded and then I again auto-joined and ended up in a unified air force platoon of like 8 mosquitos, 3 liberators, and one gal that would swarm the araxium stations but we ended up losing a lot more of the little points that time. You may have just had a bad experience, this is also a super small portion of who will be on when it goes open beta / live and you can expect fairly large battles everywhere and map control pushes wont be as swift.

crash course (basicly what I know from limited play time) if nobody else is on theres an auto-squad system that is pretty good. MAKE SURE that on your map (M) you have the following enabled: allies - will display numbers for infantry, and symbols for vehicles in your squad allowing you to identify the current location of your squad / hopefully platoon zone control - shows control of continent for each faction. TR is red, vanu is purple, mc is blue facilities - a quick reference for the major complexes on the continent. Research, power, and something else. hostiles isnt necessary because it only displays what is spotted, and only by squad I think. resources are kinda spammy and besides auraxium the rest are generally easy to come by. theres one more... but I cant think of it, most people just forget to enable allies and get lost easy. most facilities have basic conquest style capture. Some have secondary objectives to make capturing easier (shield generators). get to the points and hold them (or blow them up in the case of spawn consoles and generators) till your team captures the territory. auraxium - blue resource used for purchasing weapons certifications - used to upgrade modifications for existing gear/weapons, including vehicles and your suit. The rest are for spawning vehicles at pads, or purchasing grenades and special items. At first I thought this was dumb, but after about an hour of fighting in one of those big domes I love that grenades are now more tactical and not spammy in PS2. Chat has tabs, which you can access by pressing alt to enable your mouse. squad, platoon, general, ect z is your squad voice chat. you also have platoon, region, proximity, "echo" (no idea what that one is) available on your keypad.

theres a grenade that rezzes an entire room of dead people, and they can heal themselves while healing others if they cert :P

medics at least get an AR, light assault and engineers have a super shitty carbine.

not just unlocking command channels, the squad leader command 5 rank certification unlocks artillery strikes from our warp gate.

largest I know of is 4 squad for platoon, which is 12 per squad (right? i dunno, its been a while since i logged in) @krow "they can flank well" would have been better ;p @agares: heres a basic breakdown of what to expect from equipment. high emphasis on "can be customized" Classes: Light assault: - medium armor jet pack equipped light assault with carbine Infiltrator - light armor sniper that can go invisible Medic - Medium armor, can heal, basic assault rifle. Engineer - medium armor, repairs vehicles and MAX units, can deploy ammo packs and turrets and mines and c4 ect, uses carbine Heavy Assault - Medium armor with a heavy shield that can be activated, LMG, Rocket launcher, able to deploy squad beacon, the main work-horse MAX unit - a mechanized heavy armor power-armor. 2 heavy weapons available, one on each arm, starts with chain gun and grenade launcher for TR. Has a sprint ability, and can unlock other abilities (screen shots suggest return of jet packs for these things with unlock) each class can be suited for any purpose with proper unlocked weapons or certifications into certain things such as suit modifications ect. Though obviously some will do better than others. Vehicles consist of: FLASH - a single passenger quad to get you from point a to point b more discretely than air travel. it can also mount a single weapon on the front for very small attack potential. you are still unprotected while driving SUNDERER - mobile APC with 2 top guns and tons of armor. 16 total? maybe 12? iforget. a lot. LIGHTING - very fast light tank, 6 round magazines. single passenger. PROWLER - the TR heavy tank, double barreled for faster firing this beast is able to deploy into a stationary ultra-fast reload artillery point for totally Ffffing shit up. also can hold one top gunner GALAXY - the primarily used air transport, it can get you and your squad from place to place very fast but also calls attention to itself because of its size. Often under fire the galaxy has 4 gunner spots to fend off air and ground attacks and is able to hold an entire squad, as well as deploy into a mobile spawn point and ammo station MOSQUITO - the TR air superiority vehicle, single pilot and faster than any other air it default comes with afterburners and a chain gun on the front, can unlock dumb-fire AT missile vollies (16 rockets per volley) or lock on anti air missiles for air superiority LIBERATOR - 3 man bomber. Pilot can control a helmet-guided (can look around and fire, not just straight fire) chain gun on the front to clear out infantry while hovering as well as its bomber crew of what amounts to a 10 magazine capacity howitzer and tail gunner. like the classes, all vehicles can be fitted to serve a difference purpose. Each weapon can be swapped out for a different one. For instance the chain gun on the liberator for pilot can be swapped out for a tank-buster auto-cannon and the howitzer can be swapped out for quad-chain guns to Ffff up light armor and infantry. Or tanks can put AA turrets on their main cannons to defend air from the ground.

all you need to know is that its massive combat that requires not only squad-level tactics, but will increasingly need higher-tier level tactics as well. Right now its a single continent that is fought over but eventually it will be several.

and thats only with like 2 thousand per server right now right? imagine when it goes live / open beta

"aliens"

TR prowlers deploy into a stationary siege mode similar to terran tanks in sc2?

The twitter isnt giving any codes right now. And like I said before I dont really have time to play right now but if you guys were to play on fri or sat nights I could make time to join at least for an hour or two. Ive talked to Lillium and erebus plays on east 02 I think too, but NC or Vanu I dont recall. I just remember saying Ordo guys were going to play TR and he said they were something diff.

Its being worked on every day between watching my 2 year old and ensuring bills are paid. Playing for a short time to let off some steam / asking when people play and checking online stats doesnt mean shit. Hows your.... any project at all coming along, bro?