Planetside 2

[Deadmon]

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

[Carrious Darbyshire]

You're making giant schemes and trying to construct another machine of war. That's adorable.

What the horde working in tandem has proven is that the weak links will drag you down. It happened before, it'll happen again. You may not have been there for ArmA with us, but this was brought up earlier in this very thread.

The way around this is to divide people into individual squads with surgical strike targets. Simple and effective. When people are being stupid and slow it will slow down their squad but not everybody else.

Thanks for telling me how all plans go out the window when shit hits the fan. Had no idea. ;p

[Inoue Katsu]

Teamwork works best.

I've also noticed that the most successful captures have been landing a transport plane on top of a building and setting up a spawn point, having 1 or 2 engineers running around it and repairing it.

Every point I was at that was lost was lost in that manner. Attacking tanks can be too easily destroyed by people re-spawning as heavy infantry with launchers, and the tanks take longer to get back there then a ground trooper. Mobility and teamwork are key.

[Deadmon]

You're making giant schemes and trying to construct another machine of war. That's adorable.

What the horde working in tandem has proven is that the weak links will drag you down. It happened before, it'll happen again. You may not have been there for ArmA with us, but this was brought up earlier in this very thread.

The way around this is to divide people into individual squads with surgical strike targets. Simple and effective. When people are being stupid and slow it will slow down their squad but not everybody else.

Thanks for telling me how all plans go out the window when shit hits the fan. Had no idea. ;p

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.

[Huttser]

Having this kind of stuff written up for people to read may come in handy, in the event, that the Ordo outfit expands. Sitting at fifty at the moment, in closed beta, that could easily double or triple on release.

Let the man write his tactics. Our platoon structure works fine (more or less) and it'll improve with practice. As long as you have strong leadership at platoon / squad leader level and people actually stay quiet for the five minutes it takes us to organize, we'll be fine.

[Xoza]

Since it may have gotten lost in the jumble of posts in short time, be sure to fill out the form available in the TS3 PS2 channel... It helps us get an idea of what our strengths, weaknesses and preferences are.

[Riff Petrov]

One of the biggest issues right now is too many people who are not in a squad leadership role, trying to give orders or making suggestions, or other people just constantly asking questions or for squad invites or whatever. Then you have people randomly grabbing vehicles or switching kits when not ordered. This all just creates a ton of chaos. If you don't want to follow orders or keep quiet when we're trying to set things up, then don't play with the main group, because you're just going to detract from the overall experience of everyone. If you aren't confident in your abilities with a particular class or as a pilot, don't volunteer to do something, cause that'll likely just cause further problems. Practice on your own time, not when we're trying to run an operation where the skill of a pilot can mean the difference between a successful deployment, or the death of an entire squad.

[Kellervo]

One thing that would probably help immensely is getting some more contact with other TR outfits. Maybe give their commanders access to our TS so we can coordinate better. Last night a lot of what Charlie Squad tried was made moot because the connecting territories would be lost before we were even at the site. During busy hours like Saturday night we just can't fly off and do our own thing, as the other factions have some pretty nasty outfits of their own which will aim for us.

That and Vanu Scythes and Max suits. We can't fly unprotected Galaxies into their territory any more.

[Deadmon]

optimal air squad would be a gal with lib and 3 mosquitos. At least 1 of those mosquitos with aa rockets. Lib can clear landing if need be / take out the aa cannons firing at galaxy while the 3 mosquitos provide air security with potential for hellfire support too.

Thats just base though, obviously it can be switched up for more or less in any area depending on the hostiles you are encountering during ops.

[Huttser]

@Keller I'm working at the moment to get in contact with other TR outfits and waiting on the Terran Central Command to get set up.

[Dascede]

Sorry if this is a bit off-topic.

Since the giveaway of keys on the Alienware Arena website was finished before even the first day was up, I've been looking for another way to get one for my significant other to bring him into the game.

I checked the Planetside 2 twitter, and it seems like if people personally send a tweet and ask for a key, they're individually given one by a user or admin named Valkyrie. Can anyone confirm that?

EDIT: Will complete that profile fill-out soon, just want to get a better feel for the game first and try everything before I answer definitely on those sections.

[Deadmon]

almost all the twitter admins have access to keys, they gave them out in a huge burst several weeks ago but its less frequent now. still worth a shot.

IGN users -were- getting keys, im not sure if that is still happening.

[Cyphre Iredell]

Easiest way to get in since they are now offering it: http://www.planetside2.com/alpha-squad

Albeit, at a cost, but its not like you'd be losing out.

[Guest Afevis]

IGN ran out of keys in like an hour from what I was told

[Huttser]

Less then that, their keys went in minutes.

[Dascede]

The twitter admins are giving out keys, once every few minutes to the lucky and indiscriminate tweeter who manages to get noticed. Some people have posted 40 or 50 tweets before getting noticed. I really want Fermi to have the chance to play without putting $40 into a game that neither of us is really familiar with. I will keep trying...

[Ron Bleac]

The current way the Ordo outfit is handling themselves in a large fight is upside down retarded. The only way to succeed in attacking multiple hexes at the same time is getting multiple outfits co-operating. If we had other outfits on that server online at the same time who would be willing to coop up, that would be fantastic. But as seen yesterday with the ABC adventure, all of our Gals got shot down by interceptors or groundfire.

We need to stop placing such a huge amount of confidence in ourselves and start relying on other outfits as well to do the other shit that needs to be done. If we split up, we die because we're weak. If we stay together and act as a cohesive force, there is a greater chance of success. Strength in numbers is still strength, but we can't hold the entire campaign map by ourselves. If TR falls because we did our part but others didn't do theirs, then ok.

Another thing is speed. Most of the Ordo people aren't trained in assuming formations or reading a tactical map, even. Rudimentary tactics are key to success in this game because the faster you get off the

warp, the better. If we spend 30 minutes organizing, you bet our asses will be toast. We can even drop this channel commander BS and lob 50 people into one channel and make it work. It's really simple, you shut the Ffff up and let the people in command do the talking.

Another problem is our reliance on aircraft as a mode of transportation to hotspots. We need to use Sunderers and tanks more when travelling to highly active combat zones. Gals are nothing but targets on hotdrops.

2cents

[Cygna]

If anyone wants to toss me a key I'd greatly appreciate it. :]

[Deadmon]

Another thing is speed. Most of the Ordo people aren't trained in assuming formations or reading a tactical map, even. Rudimentary tactics are key to success in this game because the faster you get off the warp, the better.

This is why I propose standard formations, and standard move-out procedures. If we have a commander that can just assign people vehicles quickly and all he has to say is to form up standard tank column then each tank will fall in line and we can move out swiftly. Its more often than not that when everyone is just hopping in vehicles and lumping together that shit goes wrong.

Another problem is our reliance on aircraft as a mode of transportation to hotspots. We need to use Sunderers and tanks more when travelling to highly active combat zones. Gals are nothing but targets on hotdrops.

A well escorted galaxy can last several major encounters without being destroyed. My first PS2 experience was several mosquitos a lib and a galaxy hopping from spot to spot and just rolling through with impunity. Its possible if you have mosquito pilots that know what they are doing. Though I agree that an organized tank column can move from spot to spot with less overall resistance. The only downside is you lose a resupply / spawn point by not having a galaxy. Squad beacons have a long timer at default so it takes a few of them to be able to spawn on-demand.

We need to stop placing such a huge amount of confidence in ourselves and start relying on other outfits as well to do the other shit that needs to be done. If we split up, we die because we're weak. If we stay together and act as a cohesive force, there is a greater chance of success. Strength in numbers is still strength, but we can't hold the entire campaign map by ourselves. If TR falls because we did our part but others didn't do theirs, then ok.

While I mostly agree with what you are saying, splitting off into squad sized groups to capture smaller stations is easy and helps everyone. Its more often than not that MOST forces coalesce around the major facilities and the supporting air towers around them. There are commonly forgotten spaces that can be captured by small crews on their way to join up with our main force. It was a standard practice in PS1 for squads/outfits to be assigned a smaller point adjacent to a major conflict to capture first, before bounding to the major point to re-group with our primary force. So there are times that we definitely need to be sending a single squad out to capture nearby stations for various reasons. An example would be capturing the crown before progressing to Zurvan (I think? might be Hvar next to it)

[Huttser]

It's a work in progress, simple as. Last night was a cluster Ffff because of multiple reasons, mistakes are made, lessons learned.

We're looking into getting to work with other outfits, but that's another clusterFfff in itself which will hopefully sort itself out soon.

It's a whole new world for us to work in, so there's going to be a ton of teething problems. Platoons/Channel Commander/Actual tactics will be perfected with practice. Speaking in particular about channel commander, this isn't something we've whipped out of our arses, it's something in use by a good majority of large gaming communities from Planetside 2 to Battlefield to Call of Duty. It may seem like a chore now, but that's because it's /new/ and something we're not used to. The Ordo is used to having medium sized teams in a 512 x 512 square, not 1000s of kilometers. Sticking sixty people in a channel like we do in Second Life will only work for so long.

Give it time, let people get used to it. Mobilization times will decrease with practice.

I agree we need to use other methods aside from Galaxies. The prime reason we use them is that they are a mobile spawn point on top of a re-arm point. Once the Sunderer's are mobile spawns too, they'll be more viable.

[SalemAdams Wobbit]

<snip>he Ordo is used to having medium sized teams in a 512 x 512 square, not 1000s of kilometers. Sticking sixty people in a channel like we do in Second Life will only work for so long.

I think you mean 256 x 256 square

Anyway, good points are being brought up here. Yes, Galaxies shouldn't be heavilly relied upon, but if we have a large (16+) squadron (and once we have a good PS2 air corp going), we could just have one team be air only, the air commander be either in the Galaxy or in one of the fighters, and we could achieve air dominance AND ground dominance that way. The Galaxy should always have at least one to three gunners manned at all times, and the Galaxy pilot should be ready to take off at a moment's notice.

[or10nsharkfin]

Just me being slightly bitter due to being let go from my job.

I really don't like this new stigma of flying a Galaxy that everyone put on me because I accidentally flew one too close to a tower and locked the wing against the structure, keeping me pinned despite my best efforts to free myself - and as a consequence, killing six members of an allied squad. No one probably means anything by it, but it's just completely irritating when someone makes a joke about my flying abilities whenever I get into the pilot's seat.

[Huttser]

It's just friendly ribbing dude, don't pay it much heed.

[Dascede]

I probably don't speak for just myself when I say that asking a lot of questions and being a bit clueless like a junebug smashing into everything and getting killed a lot has something to do with me being new. I have been on to play all of twice. I don't learn everything lightning-quick. As this game settles in and people become regulars to it, things may smooth out a bit from that alone.

Sorry, Ron, if things don't work out yet. Please have faith that they'll get better.

... like Huttser said if I had taken the time to read it.

Also the game is still in beta. There are a lot of really Ffffing annoying bugs. Like falling through the terrain to die out of bounds. And crashing every fifteen minutes. And not being able to set squad waypoints.

There are a lot of straws to break the camel's back.

[George Reisman]

Just me being slightly bitter due to being let go from my job.

Didn't you just get that job?