By Moulina also known as Maub or Matschundbrei
- Introduction
- Basics
- More Basics
- Roles
- Effective Leading
- Open Platoons and Squads
- Tactics
- Thank You!
- Contributing
- Version History
This Squad Handbook is meant to guide Players towards better and more sustainable gameplay. It wields a lot of tips for playing within squads or platoons and I hope it will be used as a basis to improve the cohesion in open squads or even in your outfit.
I do not mean to force any of the tactics or rules upon you, the rules, tips and tactics might not be perfect for anyone, in fact they might not be perfect at all.
All this document wants to be is a project to enable all Planetside 2 players to get more of the fights they want and less of the fights they hate (and then rage about on Reddit).
I am always happy to improve and extend this Handbook, if you have any tactics, comments, words of wisdom or critique you would like to share, I am happy to at least listen/read and review them. Every nice tactic I find in game, in my mailbox, on reddit, at the commclash, at youtube or at the forums will potentially be included in this document. If there is an external source on the document I will of cause provide it and if the source for some reason want it to be removed from this document I will remove it as soon as possible.
Please be patient though, I am still boyfriend, gamer, son, brother, friend and IT-slave before I can put some time in this document.
TL;DR This is the Book I would love to have prior to playing Planetside 2 in large battles together with a squad
There are some ground rules, that everybody should know about and in most cases they already have been taken care of by a reasonable education. I suggest that you don’t play with people that are lacking basic education. Other than that here are some basic rules, that in my humble opinion more players should know about:
- Have Fun! Planetside2 is a game after all!
- Join an outfit, there is much more fun in the game, when you are not playing it on your own.
- Mind the audience of the information you are about to communicate via voice. (“You probably won’t need the whole platoon to run down that single infiltrator you just saw passing by …” – [GBX]Teira85)
- Always be polite! ("Don't get mad, get even!" - [BAWC]Galaf via Reddit)
- If you need help, ask someone, most people in the ps2 community are very nice and will help you.
- Mind your cover/LOS! Keep an eye out for enemies and try to block their line of sight to you while moving. ( Watch this video for clarification )
If you are new to the Game, please consult other resources than this handbook first. This handbook is primarily aimed at players who are struggling to get better at the game and are searching for tactics and better squad gameplay.
I personally can recommend the following sources for new players:
- PLANETSIDE 2 GLOSSARY OF TERMS
- Planetside 2 for Beginners: Cram Session
- Wrel’s Youtube Channel (especially the New-Player Walkthrough Video))
- Medic First Unlocks
- "New player, what should I focus on unlocking?" on Reddit
- Planetside Wiki
- Planetsideuniverse-Wiki
... and please use the VR Training Facility for training and testing.
A summary of the roles usually taken in Squads or Platoons. If you are already familiar with these roles, skip to Effective Leading
As a squad member your job is to follow basic orders. Orders are usually given via waypoints, smoke, or (voice-) chat. If you’re unable to hear the voice chat you should be orientating yourself on your squad leader, the platoon waypoint and/or gunfire and explosions. HINT: The mission system is actually squad-aware, so following missions will actually bring you to your squad leader. If you want to talk, feel free to do so unless there's already lots of communication going on. If you see enemies approaching, it's very vital to just spot them (default: Q), there is usually no need to call them out via (voice-) chat, if you have no chance to spot them and they pose a reasonable threat to your teammates, shout them out in either squad chat or proximity chat and do not use platoon chat for that, unless your full platoon is at one place.
You do not need certain certs, but you should be able to play multiple roles without a big hassle. A general advice is that if you just started your journey as an Outfit member you probably get the most certs out of the two support classes Medic and Engineer while providing great benefits to your squad (like never ending ammo and immortality). You should be at least flexible to play these classes especially when they are currently not present in your squad or specifically asked for by the squad or platoon leader.
If you are leading only the squad itself and you’re not in a platoon, you should communicate with other squad-leaders on command and search for fights on the map where you can make a difference. If you lead a squad in a platoon, you job is not very different other that you will receive more input, usually from the other squads and the platoon leader and it will get a bit more difficult to filter out what’s important for your squad. Be sure to drop a beacon. The squad beacon placed right is the number one contribution to your squads cohesion.
You should at least have a squad beacon certified from the command certifications. It is very beneficial to also have all the other things certified in that tree.
As a platoon leader (PL) your main job is to set waypoints for the platoon/squads and coordinate on /leader or command with the other active platoons/squads. If in doubt, follow Slippy's guide:
I don't have any tactics but whenever I plan troop movements on the map, it looks like a giant penis about to penetrate an enemy warpgate. (via Reddit)
You should report any movement of the waypoints on the platoon chat, so everybody knows what is going on. Ideally you combine that report with a brief mission (i.e. "Support XYZ on defending the XYZ Techplant", "Clean the air of enemies at XYZ", "Stop the enemy tanks rolling in on XYZ", etc).
Keep Monitoring the Map frequently, search for the fights where you can make a difference. Do not try to micromanage everything, it won’t work. Keep sending your forces to the fights where they can succeed and will have fun.
You should at least have the command channel and a squad beacon certed. Both are not needed if you are only playing the Platoonleader role, but then you have a lot of communication to do with your squad leaders.
Do not try to lead the platoon while being also a squad leader. You will almost certainly miss some opportunities to drop a beacon or react appropriately to an incoming thread to your squad-specific mission.
Your entire platoon might be overkill in certain situations, so you should take multiple objectives at a time to increase the overall effectiveness of your platoon and ultimately the success of your faction as a whole.
Your platoon is only as effective as its members are / trust and embrace your squad members It is very important to surround yourself as a leader with capable and thoughtful players. While kicking players that are obviously not reacting to any orders, it’s always useful to take feedback and ideas from your squad members seriously.
If you want your squad/platoon to be super hyped about their objective(s), you are the one with the job to get them hyped. Only setting waypoints and mumbling “Bravo go to the waypoint” will probably not get everyone motivated.
As already stated in the chapter before, as a leader you should be monitoring the map frequently, if you find your population slice is growing bigger than 50-65% it is a very good idea to leave and search for a new fight, also if your slice starts to dwindle below the 50% mark, you should think about leaving too, if you can’t reinforce that area. Find objectives for your flying squad members Be sure to not bore out your air support. Find targets for them, even if you do not have air support at the moment, the third “that would be a great target for a lib” is magically transforming to a gunship in your platoon almost every night.
When you are spotting an enemy armour centipede go ahead and order your platoon to create one of your own to break it. But you should not have armour with you all the time since it will decrease your freedom of movement and your effectiveness at capturing/holding objectives with infantry.
This section is mainly influenced by Platoon-, Squad- and Outfit-leaders that shared their experiences. If there is a direct source for any of the above, it is linked in the Thank You!-section at the end of this document.
There are several outfits and players that run open platoons or squads. Joining them is easily done via the in-game social menu. It is a great way of meeting players or joining an outfit, but it certainly is not the place to execute the tactics described in the following chapter. Playing in open platoons with a lot of newer players will take a lot of patience because people are not listening to voice, redeploys will take much longer and even very basic tactics (see below) are sometimes really rough to execute.
You can improve the gaming experience of everyone in your squad or platoon greatly if you develop two core abilities: Awareness and Flexibility. So let me explain to you what I mean by that:
With awareness I am referring to the ability to know what your squad or platoon will need according to the situation that you will run/fly/drive into next. This includes very easy tasks as switching to a support class if not currently present in the squad or providing cover fire while some of your teammates are moving in or out of enemy fire but also more complex tasks as pilot the squad’s Galaxy or support a push with a new Sunderer to spawn from. Awareness is an ability that is easily learned and it does not depend as heavily on your own certifications as on your own skill to help other players out and read the battle correctly.
This is one of the easier things to improve your awareness, because it is already heavily implemented in the core mechanics of the game. You really only need to have a good look at the HUD if you are playing a support role (engineers earn points at wrenches, medics at crosses or skulls) or listen to the commands your SL/PL is shouting or writing.
This is a form or art that only very few people I know have mastered. A good start however is periodically checking the mini map and keeping the mini map on a matching scale depending on your current task. (Zoomed out very far and large when driving/flying, zoomed in very far and small when fighting on foot). The next, much more complex way to read the battle is the main (continent) map. I suggest that you play around with the vast amount of options that the map has to find the setup that gives you the informations that you need.
Flexibility is more or less dependent on the lots of stuff you have already certed in the game. Besides all the stuff (stun grenades, AA-lockon-launchers, a decent MAX setup, AI/AT Mines, C4, ….) you also need a devious plan, a personal objective and loadouts, lots of loadouts.
There are a lot of well-known and showcased loadouts out in the internet but to be very honest you will probably be best of to start with the ones SOE already named for you and then refine your own variants for them.
There are at least two basic tactics that should work even with unexperienced random players in the squad or platoon.
Order the players to switch to maxes, engineers and medics, then rally at a waypoint, do a countdown, preferably in the text-chat and then walk to the objective, maxes first, then engineers, then medics while mowing down the enemies in your way.
Rally at the Warpgate, spawn enough Galaxies to carry everyone on foot and then fly in a contested area and drop on top of an objective (ideally marked by a waypoint).
In the following I will describe some tactics I’ve learned, read about or seen somewhere in the Planetside universe. All those tactics are best suited for full squads at a certain cert and skill level. Most of those tactics are virtually unplayable in an open squad or platoon. None of the following tactics is perfect and they all should just be adopted and altered to your personal preferences.
Please also visit Squadside.com for a lot more in-depth tactics and ideas. (Thx to itkiny fot the tip)
A part of every (infantry) tactic should be placing a spawn beacon wherever you will stay for a little while, so you can easily bring the squad back together. Be sure to place a beacon at a place that is uncomfortable to reach for the opponent. This can be achieved easily with the light assault class.
A very good breach tactic to either break free from a camped spawn room or take control over an objective with ease. The tactic described here is taken from the MercenaryS (Miller) during their (rather one-sided) match against IPT (Ceres) during the CommunityClash 2014 event. Here is the Smoke in general explained by Masterchief of MercenaryS after the match: http://youtu.be/2oM32qmA-bQ?t=49m13s and here it is brought to full effect while cleaning the cap point C at Howling Pass Checkpoint on Indar: http://youtu.be/2oM32qmA-bQ?t=12m32s
- 4 maxes (anti-infantry build)
- 4 engineers (anti-infantry-turret,bettys,gauss-compact s w/smoke &nv)
- 3 medics (nv, revive grenade(s))
- 1 infiltrator (nv, motion sensors,emp|decoy grenades)
While breaching the order should be smoke first, then grenades(he,emp,decoy), then maxes, then engineers, then medics.
While controlling an area, the engineers could and should smoke chokepoints and spot enemies first then aid the maxes waiting behind the smoke with supporting crossfire.
Count down to the breach from 5 so you get going as synced up as possible. When controlling an area then spot targets as soon as possible though the smoke and mow them down with crossfire, when larger groups of enemies come in, shout out a friendly incoming with the direction, so all of the nv-wearers can spot them as quickly as possible.
A tactic for a single infantry squad to prevent the enemy from moving into a specific bulding or prevent them from capping a point. Setup & roles
- 3 Engineers (AI turret, AI-Explosives)
- 5 Medics
- 2 Infiltrators
- 2 Heavies or Maxes
Move into an adjacent Building and/or directly into the Building containing the Objective. Be sure to spam Detection as soon as you have secured the Building(s), place the engi-Turrets at the end of the stairways or at doorways, place the explosives in front of them. Wait for the enemy to trigger the explosives, before you rain crossfire upon them.
There's probably very little communication needed, be sure to keep an eye on the minimap, so you can spot enemies approaching your traps. As soon as you hear them, get ready. It is probably better to be quiet so you can locate enemies moving to flank you (LA's and enemy drops can sometimes avoid your traps).
"He must come through this hollow way" - Friedrich Schiller, Wilhelm Tell This tactic is designed to prevent the enemy armour in moving towards a specific location. You need a place where you can easily shoot down on a choke point where they have to drive through.
- 1 Medic
- 2 Engineers (AV turret, long distance carbine, mines)
- 5 Heavies with Phoenix-Launchers OR Falcon Maxes
- 4 Heavies with Hawk (AA-Lockon) Launchers OR Burster Maxes
Get to a Position that can barely or better impossibly be reached by ground-forces. It's probably a good idea to bring a Galaxy and keep it in your backpocket while you shoot enemy armor on sight (on sight in this context means, never shoot a vehicle, that you have not previously spotted)
The Phoenix/Falcon users will be most effectiv if they coordinate their shots. Other than that, feel free to just express your happiness while blowing stuff up and lighten up the poor medic (he/she will probably get bored very fast)
This one is a little tactic I received as a response on unveiling this squad handbook. It is very useful upon capping a base to hinder the opposing force in reinforcing or moving out the current objective. In general the scout squad is not necessarily a full squad, often times it’s enough to just send out 2-4 people over to the next base and be a pain in the ass of the opponent.
- X Infiltrators (preferrably carrying explosives)
You will have to very sneaky approach the next base on the lane you’re currently on. Ideally you will do this on foot or with wrath-cloaking enabled Flashes. Once on location, hacking and spotting is your primary mission.
Let your SL/PL know when you are done hacking all the things at the base and what is probably more important, let them know if you see reinforcements rolling in.
Pure vehicle tactics are rarely seen and are not easy to execute well. There is also a shift in communication as you are more often than not in an open area so you should start calling out threats by their cardinal directions.
An armour push is usually only needed, when you have to clean out another armour push, this only makes sense in large open areas like the northwest of Indar.
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2 Triage certified Medics (Sunderer Drivers)
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10 AV-Engineers (Mines and AV-Turret)
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3 AP-Vanguards (or 6 AP-Lighnings)
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1 Repair-Sunderer
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1 Ammo-Sunderer
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2 Skyguard-Lightnings
Always keep the AP-Tanks at the Front, keep the Sunderers behind and close to one another and the Skyguards to the left and right of the Sunderers. If needed deploy the Sunderers and only circle the tanks around it. If you go stationary with the Sunderers, ensure laying appropriate traps with tank-mines around them.
Be sure to always protect the Sunderers at all given times, shout out any threat moving in to the Sunderers and try to flank/sandwich other vehicles rolling in.
A valid strategy probably only for a limited amount of time, since most of the bases matching this strategy are being revamped by the time of this writing. Still it works very nice in cracking AMP-Stations and Techplants.
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4 Engineers
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4 Medics
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2 Infiltrators
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1 Heavy or MAX (AI)
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1 LightAssault
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1 Sunderer (Shield Diffuser, Bulldogs or Furies)
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1-3 Harraser (Shield Diffuser, Anti-Infantry Weapon)
Hide somewhere in the bushes, count down from 10, push in (repeat if you have to go through 2 layers of shields like in old amp stations). If you made it inside, position your vehicles for ideal crossfire/suppression of all potential chokepoints in the area. Hack all the terminals in the area, so you can respawn your vehicles, if you have lost any. Let the light assault jump into an over watch position after he placed a spawn beacon in a hard to reach position. Spam detection and ammo.
Besides the countdown, you should shout out any incoming maxes and hide from them in the Sunderers/Harassers.
This tactic was recently revealed by [AIP]samedreamchina over here at Reddit. It is practically the much more mobile and sustainable variant to the “Suppression” infantry tactic.
- 1 Medic (with Triage certed as Driver)
- 2 Engineers (Gunners)
- 9 AV Heavy Asssaults or MAXes
- 1 heavily armoured and armed sunderer.
Usually you would just approach choke-points where enemy armour is rolling through from a nicely covered area (ideally far above the enemies), but … “You can also get everyone to redeploy as medics if you see a base that is nearby that needs support and needs a point flip/clear out.” - [AIP]samedreamchina over here at Reddit.
See "Supression" infantry tactic.
Let me be very honest in this section, I am not a very good pilot, I can bring Aircraft from A to B, but I lack dogfighting skills and I tend to ram trees and friendlies at an almost scary frequency. If you got any good air tactics and are willing to share them, please let me know (via the contact information in the footer). While it is still feasible to call out enemies by their cardinal direction it is much more effective if you are calling them out by their clock position relative to your aircraft.
This is a really basic thing, not even worth mentioning to most players, but for the real new ones, take it as an extended glossary for the word “Galdrop”
Apply any needed Infantry Setup minus one uncritical role for the pilot (who should be an engineer if you do not plan to dump your Airwhale right after the first drop)
Fly in an elliptic route to the desired target, in general you want to fly either very low or very high depending on the kind of enemy forces you are facing at the target. Then proceed with the “positioning & movement” section of the chosen infantry tactic.
Be sure to get a brief situation report of the drop zone while you are flying in to get your altitude right. . Then proceed with the “Communication” section of the chosen infantry tactic.
A little side-tactic emerging from the same post on Reddit as the “Battle Bus” tactic. Very nice to face enemy armour even in high numbers.
- 1 Medic (Pilot)
- 2 Engineers (Gunners)
- 9 Light Assaults (Bombs, should have drifter jump jets at max level and 2 bricks of C4)
Fly high as sneaky as possible over an enemy amor zerg, then all the LA’s drop out in ordinances of 2 or 3 to target specific Tanks, Sunderers or MAX Units.
Call out each drop with a target, jump in according numbers to the target (A fully armored sundy will take up to 3 “living bombs”, an MBT will take 2 and a Lightning only 1.
As already mentioned earlier, I am not a very good Pilot at all, so all you will read in the following section is the vague dream of a bad pilot how things could be done.
Take any combination of
- 3 ESF
- 1 Galaxy
- 2 Liberators
While the Galaxy should take at least a 3-5-man crew and the Liberator(s) at least a 2-man crew (more is always better)
The ESF’s should stick together and focus primarily on enemy air while the liberators and galaxys can play a almost stationary ground suppression force until enemy ESF’s are the main thread, then they should focus on air as well.
Shout out enemy aircrafts as soon as possible
Since the Valkyrie is in the game I would really like to see it getting used more as a tactical instrument then as the cert-piñata in its current state. So I would really recommend using it like this:
(Inspired by: Wrel's Youtube again)
The Valkyrie itself should have squad thingy certed and I strongly recommend running it with the evasiveness frame as well as vehicle stealth.
- 2 Medics (Pilot & Gunner) with Triage certed
- 2-4 Engineers in the rumble seats
- 0-2 Heavies in the rumble seats
Try to cover space where you can easily disappear behind obstacles (you got to love Amerish), fly very close to ground/obstacles, fight aircraft/ground forces separately.
Spot and call out easy targets, then sneak up on them and sing this. Have fun!
- GBX Patrons: Finilie, SinDioxide, Nozi2000, Cedarfax, Radkal, The2ndPete for their tactics, leadership, great stories and beautiful minds.
- Everyone at 7id, which was my first outfit on ceres back when I played TR, especially Vasquez, Londo and PrintF, I kinda miss you guys and you held my hand when I was doing the first steps within Planetside2 so thanks a lot.
- Kelpitorgh for appearing beside me at the front out of nowhere providing everyone with love and gunfire.
- Everyone over at the Ceres Reddit for being nice and informative.
- all members of organized outfits who make this game amazing
- Everyone helped me at enjoying my gaming experience.
Direct Sources for the Effective Leading Section:
- BAWCademics: Effective Leading by MrMurdock
- Something constructive for the zerging discussion: PL/SL etiquette by Knoecherlsulz
For some reason, the older I get, the more time I need for anything. This sadly means, that I do not have a lot of time to update this practically 6 years old document.
If you find the time to extend/review/update/edit the document, I will gladly accept any kind of contribution.
- 2014-06-05 initial Release
- 2014-06-09 added section on effective leading, altered roles-section to reflect the effective leading section better, added “scout squad” tactic, extended introduction, added itkiny’s webside hint to the tactics-preface
- 2014-06-21 Extended Effective Leading, General removal of croft that stands in the way of the reading flow
- 2014-07-11 Minor changes in Air-Tactics section
- 2014-10-21 Brought basics section to more current state, introduced new Valkyrie tactic
- 2020-02-26 ported to markdown / github, added contributing section