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If you find being brand new to the PlanetSide 2 beta a little daunting, fear not! We've got a guide to help you find your feet as a new recruit. Planetside 2 Beta is in full swing, and with all the new players, we thought you guys might find a Planetside 2 new players guide helpful. Besides this article, you might also look at my Beta Hands-On Article where I go into several of the systems new to Planetside 2 and you’ll find some additional tips not covered here.

Getting Started

Let's assume you've scored a PlanetSide 2 beta key (if not, sign up at the official site), downloaded the client, patched, and you're ready to go. The next thing to do is launch the game and create a character. At the character creation screen you'll be choosing between three factions. Your faction makes a difference in how your character maneuvers in battle, so choose wisely:

• New Conglomerate – Slower, but harder-hitting weapons and more heavily armored.
• Vanu Sovereignty – Energy-based weapons with damage fall-off over range, and more maneuverable hover-tanks.
• Terran Rebublic – Rapid-firing weapons and lightly-armored, but very fast vehicles.

Choose a faction and then hit next, and this is where you’ll pick a server. A graph to the right will let you know what the current mix of factions on the server is. Playing on a server where your faction is out-numbered nets you a bonus to experience, but a server that looks unbalanced now likely won't always be. So, while population balance is something to consider, it’s not hugely critical.

After you choose a server, you pick your character’s sex, face, and name. After you hit next this last time, you launch to the loading screen, and then you’re in-game where you’ll start off in your faction’s warp gate. Warp Gates are a subject for another article. What you need to know for now is that this is a protected area for your faction and flying into the gate allows you to warp to other continents.

Gearing Up

So you’re in the game, and you think you’re ready to fight…  Well, stand-down, soldier.  You’ve got a few more things to go over, namely, your kit and any vehicles you might want to purchase. This is handled through convenient terminals scattered around the warp gate facility.


First up is your infantry kit, so look around for a terminal with an icon of a pistol over it.  It’ll also have a diagram of a gun on it, but the icons show through walls and can make finding the terminals easier.  In this case, there should be several in the room you spawned into, so just walk up to one, and hit “E” as the text that appears on the lower part of the screen suggests to you.

Available Kits:

• Infiltrator – Think James Bond as these guys pack a large assortment of toys to include Stealth Suits (“F” to Activate), Hacking Tools, Numerous Electronic Countermeasures and Counter-Intelligence systems, Sniper Rifles, Pistols, and some explosives.
• Light Assault – Jump Packs allow these guys to leap tall buildings in a single bound. Lightly Armored and packing light assault rifles and some explosives, they're like the FedEx of destruction--they deliver anywhere.
• Combat Medic – Every Soldier's best friend is the medic. Packing a light assault rifle, these guys aren’t defenseless, but it’s when they whip out their bag of healing tricks that they really turn the tide of battle. Various healing kits include several options like the Healing Hand Grenade of Antioch.
• Engineer – For when it absolutely positively must be destroyed overnight, you call the corps of engineers to the fight. As they get upgraded through certs, these guys pack a plethora of explosives, various mines, and turrets for holding important choke-points or blowing things up in a hurry.
• Heavy Assault – It’s hard to roll as one of these guys and not affect an Austrian accent. Heavy weapons specialists, these guys carry heavy assault rifles and various counter vehicle weapons (Anti-Air or Anti-Tank). Perfect for Terminating at will.
• MAX – If Mac Trucks could pack heat, they’d be something like this. Heavily armed and heavily armored, MAX suits can take every-bit of what they can dish out, and that’s a lot. Their modular design allows them to equip a large number of various types of weapons from general guns, to flame-throwers, to several types of anti-vehicular weapon systems.

Rolling Out

Once you’ve picked your infantry kit, the next step is to pick a vehicle. Walk outside the building you spawned in and look for one of two other icons, the tank icon and the aircraft icon. There are actually a couple types of each. For the tank icon there will be some that allow you to spawn the heavier tanks and squad transports, and others that allow you to get personal transportation like the ATVs and lighter vehicles.

[IMAGE:PS2-VPad.jpg|CAPTION: Look closely at the picture and you’ll be able to see Tank Terminals on the bottom with a couple Aircraft Terminals that can be used to spawn Galaxies, and the Aircraft Terminals up top are for the Liberator and Faction Attack Aircraft. ]

Aircraft-wise, there will be terminals where you can get the Galaxy, a large transport aircraft that also doubles as a spawn location when on the ground. Alternatively, there’s a terminal for your faction’s attack aircraft (Reaver, Scythe, or Mosquito) and the Liberator gunship. There are cases in some bases where you may find all three available from a single terminal, which is also true of ground vehicles.