Planetside Realms Guide

Congratulations! Whether you've purchased, installed, and patched PlanetSide or are just sitting on the john, this guide will help you gain an understanding of the Planetside game mechanics, earn you a couple of battle ranks, and get you in the game as fast as possible.

When you log on for the first time, you will be asked what server you wish to use. The geographically closest one will most likely have the best performance; it would be an idea to start there. Currently in beta there is limited choice so just pick one that's up and running.

Character Creation

Choose Your EmpireAfter logging in, it will be time to choose your empire. You are allowed 4 characters from only one empire per server. Each empire has a different flavor which you can read about The fast explanation is that the Terran Republic (red and black) are based on heavy armor. The Vanu Sovereignty (purple) are alien technology based. The New Conglomerate (blue and yellow) are based on heavy weapons. Click on one of the empires, then click next in the lower right hand corner.

This next screen is the character control screen. This is where you choose which player you wish to play, delete old characters, and create new ones. Click on "Create New Character" on one of the four boxes on the left. Click Next in the lower right hand corner.

The is the character creation screen. In the upper right, you can choose gender. Below that, you can choose a face for you character. In the lower right, you can choose the type of voice that they will have. Enter a name in the upper left hand and you're all set. Feel free to zoom in and spin him/her around before clicking next in the lower right hand corner. The server will attempt to register the character. If there is a problem with your name according the acceptable use policy of SOE or the name you have chosen has already been taken, then you will be informed. Otherwise, you will return to the character control screen.

Now that your character has been created, it's time to get you in game! Take a second to notice the location and rank of your character. Click on your character's name in the box and then click the next button in the lower right.

You will move to a new screen where you will be asked where you would like to start. I'm sure you would love to jump right in and do instant action, but you'll get owned pretty quickly with no certifications yet. We'll get to those in a bit. For now, click on the "Go to Sanctuary" button and the Play button, lower right.

First Steps

What you see now is the typical load screen. You will spawn in a respawn tube. Move out of the respawn tube by going forward (default key is 'w') and let's get started. Before I continue, it would be a good idea to familiarize yourself with your keyboard layout. Hit esc and a variety of options will show-up. Hit 'K' for keymapping. Here every possible keymap is available. For those of you who want an inverted mouse, click on the mouse in the upper left. 6 possible boxes including "invert mouse" are available. Click esc to close the options window. "A" strafes left, "D" strafes right., and "S" backs you up. Use the mouse to look around.

Important: In order to interact with your graphic interface, you must use the mouse arrow. Hitting Tab will allow use of the mouse arrow. You can still move forward, strafe left/right, and backup, but you no longer have mouse look control. The mouse arrow now accesses everything on your interface. To return to mouse-look control, press tab again.

As you interact with the world of Auraxis for the first time, text pop-ups will appear. The pop-ups will give you further information about the item you have just seen or used or the action you have just done. If this is your first time playing, it is best if you read all the way through the pop-ups as they have good details and will help you with your adventures.

The first one says, " sanctuary". You can close the pop-up by pressing esc. Near you will be a waist high terminal with something glowing out of the top. For now, we will skip that. Turn around (mouse movement) and face the tube you just spawned in. If you move forward again, you will receive a pop-up description of the respawn tube. Respawn tubes are all over Auraxis. You can enter the respawn tube and press "g" to deconstruct, but we don't want to do that now. There are two doors out of this room. Go out either door.

Virtual Reality Training - Weapons

The big building outside the door is the HART shuttle building, we will go there later. For now, follow the wall of the building you just came out of. You will see a set of 3 doors. Notice that when you approach the door, it gives the name and distance to object. It should say, "Training center." Go ahead and enter and follow the hallway. You will load a new continent. You will be prompted by 4 options, for now, we want number 1: Shooting Range. You will Load Continent. Here is the virtual reality shooting range.

I've been keeping a little secret from you. Each time you try a new event you receive Battle Experience Points (BEPs). This is Sony Online Entertainment's way of saying, "Hey, there is some important info you need to know, so be sure to check it out." While we cruise through this intro guide, you'll be gaining BEPs which is a great thing.

Before you go off shooting everything - which we'll do. Press "I" to open your inventory. An opaque inventory will show up. Just look for now, we'll be right back. Hit esc to close the box. Press 1 and you're Repeater will come out, walk up to one of the firing lines and empty a clip in something. If you see white crosshairs, you won't hit anything. If you have red crosshairs, you may hit something. If, after pulling the trigger, there is a orange/yellow circle, then you have hit the target. Press 2, your Suppressor will come out, unload a clip. Feel good to shoot something? Good. Hit 'R' for reload. Notice there is a short delay while you reload? In the field you will want to strategically reload whenever you have a chance, nothing worse than having only 2 bullets loaded when you meet the enemy.

Now, hit 'X'. This will allow you to switch through the ammo types. You are now loaded up with armor-piercing ammo. It's the yellow ammunition, normal ammo is white. Go ahead and unload the clip. Generally use armor-piercing ammo on Max units and vehicles and standard ammo on infantry.

At this time, hit 'I' again and your inventory will open. In your inventory is an REK. Left-click on the REK and put it in the slot 1 where the gun is. See how they hot-swap? You can click on destroy to remove your repeater. Don't worry, guns are "free" as long as you have access. More about that later. Press 1 and read about your REK. Keep your inventory open. As you should have read you use the REK to hack locked doors or terminals. Some things can only be hacked with advanced certifications.

Remember those waist high terminals we saw when we stepped out of the spawn tube? You should see a number of them in the shooting range room. Walk up to one of those now. Press 'G' to interact with it. Because we are in the Virtual Reality room, you have access to everything. This is not the case in the field so we are going to try everything out.

First, click on the armor tab. Currently, you are in standard armor. Lets try on some other armors and see what features they have. Click on agile armor, then in the lower left corner of the equipment screen, click buy. You have now donned agile armor. Click on the infiltration suit and click buy. Notice how the inventory has changed size. Click on reinforced exo suit and buy. Notice how the inventory size changes as well as the number of available weapons. We'll get back to the other armors in a bit. Since we have tried all of these weapons, click on the clear button in the inventory panel. This is used to quickly clear out your inventory. You will be prompted as to whether you want to do this. Click yes, remember, weapons and ammo are free!

If the equipment menu is not open, make sure to go back to the terminal and press 'G' again. It should open to the weapons menu. If the menu is open, click on the weapons tab. Let's buy the following guns by clicking on them, then clicking on the buy button: from the pistol menu AMP, from the medium assault your empire specific weapon Cycler (Terran Republic), Lancer (Vanu Sovereignty), or Jackhammer (New Conglomerate), the punisher, the sweeper shotgun, and the bolt-driver. Notice how the AMP automatically fell into slot 1. The Medium Assault weapon fell into slot 3 and the Punisher fell into slot 4. The other 3 weapons were put in inventory. Move on over to the firing line and let's have some fun.

Use the AMP in slot 1, the cycler in slot 3 and the punisher in slot 4. You switch by pressing the slot number: 1, 3 or 4. Some weapons have more than one firing method. Press right-click once for each method. The punisher, for example, shoots a rocket. For now, we'll just shoot one clip. Once you have tried each of those guns and the secondary firing systems press 'I' to open the inventory and replace the cycler and punisher with other weapons in the same left-click hot-swap way you did with the REK. Make sure to have some fun with them. Once you have tried all the weapons, clear your inventory and loadup with more weapons. Get the empire specific heavy assault and anti-vehicular, the decimator, thumper, rocklet, and one of each of the 3 grenades. Again, step up to the firing line and try each one out. To gain more distance on a grenade, hold the fire button down longer. After you have tried the 2 grenades and a couple weapons, hot-swap out the other weapons and grenade and keep going. By this time, you should have tried every hand-held weapon your empire offers. If you want to continue to play around with the guns, then have fun. Just come on back to this point in the guide.

If you want to learn more about the different weapons you can use in the game at a later point be sure to stop by our weapon list. It's on the left menu or you can click here to read it.

Virtual Reality Training - MAX Units

Ready to continue? Go back to the terminal and press 'G'. At this point, click on the Armor tab. Those other armors we skipped... well, time to really get crazy. Look down below reinforced exosuit and there are 3 big guns, select the first one. Notice how your inventory has changed. Your hands should have changed too. You are now in a MAX suit. Click "t" to see yourself and "t" again to return to the terminal. We also need some ammo, click on the ammo box that corresponds to the gun you bought. It's the small box to the right of the gun in the list. Step on over to the firing line and have some fun. Notice how your anti-infantry loadout does little to nothing against other MAX and vehicles. Try each of the MAX loadouts and notice how they do against different targets. You will need to use the 'R' key to reload.

Each MAX has a special ability activated with the spacebar. You can learn how these work by checking out our armor information here.

Virtual Reality Training - Supply Items

Sometime soon you will receive your first battle rank. At this time, press 'O' and your character stats will appear. Look at your experience bar. When you are awarded the next battle rank, open up this screen again and look at it.

Return to the terminal. Let's get out of that MAX armor and back into a reinforced exo-suit (under the Armor tab). Clear out the inventory again and then go to the Supply tab. Buy the BANK, Medical applicator and nano-dispenser. Equip each of these and read their pop-ups. Hot swap medical applicator and use it too. You can try these items out on other people in the shooting range.

The ACE is a unique item used by combat engineers. It has 4 different modes of operation. Boomers (Manually detonated explosives), Land Mines, Spitfire Gun Turrets and Motion Sensors. Motion sensors are particularly important later in the game as they help a base to use it's automated defenses better (provided your empire owns an Interlink facility).

Virtual Reality Training - Vehicles

We are done with the Virtual Reality Shoot Range. If you would like to play around some more, feel free. When you are done, step on the green glass to leave. You will be prompted as to where you would like to go. Now, we want number 2. Vehicle Area.

You may spawn near an air-terminal or near a vehicle terminal. Either way step on up to the spinning 3 pointed PlanetSide symbol at the terminal.

Start at the top and buy each vehicle. If there is any problem, the terminal will prompt you. You can only buy one vehicle at a time. If there is already a vehicle on the pad you need to wait for it to leave before you can purchase a new one. Once the vehicle has spawned move around the driver side door and hop in by pressing 'G'. Some of the tanks and aircraft have a driver's entrance in the front. Feel free to read the pop-up but don't idle too long or the vehicle will deconstruct after a reasonable period of time. Drive the vehicle away from the vehicle pad. Feel free to test drive the vehicle into trees, over hills and through ditches. Park the vehicle by pressing 'S' as a brake. Hop out using "g".

On the ground will be yellow circles. They designate the positions of the vehicle - driver, gunner, passenger, or trunk. Move to the circles with a gun in a circle (gunner position) and press 'G'. A new pop-up will tell you about this weapon. If a gun has two possible firing option, make sure you right-click to try both option. Do this for every vehicle and every weapon. So as to not make a parking lot of the vehicle area, there is a vehicle control panel button. It is located on a vertical column that is defaulted to appear on the lower right part of your interface. Don't forget you use the tab key to switch your mouse modes to access menus.

Click on the car and up will come a "driver's control" panel. From here you can lock the car from varying peoples, kick people out, and deconstruct the vehicle. Make sure to deconstruct your vehicle before getting the next one. Once you have tried every air or ground vehicle, it's time to try the other. By hitting 'M' you will pull up a World Map, there is a pop-up for it's description. To add/remove detail to the map, click on the legend in the lower right. To zoom in/out, scroll your mouse. Find a grey square and drive/fly to it. Half the fun is bumping around in the VR getting used to things. The air terminals are about 40 percent bigger than the vehicle terminals. Find the other terminal and try out the other type of vehicles. Once you are finished, you can either hit esc and press "R" to recall to sanctuary.

The Real World

You will spawn back in the respawn tube. That equipment terminal in front of you is still not useful. You're back in the real world now so you only have access to certain things. Exit out one of the doors again, except this time keep running straight ahead to the very tall building. Up top, it will say "Shuttle", go in one of the doors. On the ground floor, there are 4 terminals. Walk up to the human-scale with handrails terminal. This is the medical station. These are very useful in the field. Move on over to the implant terminal. It is the one next to the medical station that looks like a giant nutcracker device. Press 'G' and hop in. These are the possible implants. Once you reach battle rank 6 (you should be 2 already!), you receive your first of three implants. Press 'G' to exit.

Now let's venture over to the terminal that has the 3 point PlanetSide star floating over it. This should be the certification terminal. Remember when I said you need access to the weapons? Well, this is where you get it. Click on each of the possible certifications in the left panel to check each out or go here to learn more. What do you want to be? How do you want to play? Now is the time to make some decisions.

You should have 5 certification points at this time. Before you allocate any cert points, be forewarned you can only "unlearn" one certification every 24 hours. If you choose to unlearn a second you will be unable to purchase anything further for 24 hours. When you first start we recommend getting 1 infantry type thing and an Advanced Mobile Station (AMS) certification. This way, you are always right near the action because the AMS system is always popular and allows you to respawn closer to the fights. You should also be able to survive longer because of your infantry cert. As a bonus, you can drive the Advanced Nanite Transport (ANT) which gives you buckets of BEPs when you refill a base.

Once you have learned your certifications, move on over to that equipment terminal. Now, make a couple of different load-outs with differing guns, ammo, supplies, and armors. Click on the favorites tab. Click on a blank space, type a name for that loadout, then click save. Next time you interact with an equipment terminal the favorites screen will pop-up first, move your cursor over the screen and press the number you want to use. Double-clicking not necessary. Now, you're ready for action!

Squads

In order to gain more experience points, focus your attack, and have more fun, I suggest you join a squad. Press tab. Move your cursor over the chat box. There is a LFS tab on the right side of the chat box. Click it. Your name will now have "[looking for squad]" underneath it. Press tab to return to mouse look control. If you receive a squad request, there will be a little box in the lower right. Click tab to gain mouse control, then accept by yes, or decline by no, then tab again to return mouse look. Your chat option is still in general speak and not squad speak. If you would like to talk to your squad only, then go to your chat box again with the mouse, choose squad from the droplist.

Once you join a squad press 'M'. You may need to zoom in with your mouse scroll. You should see some numbers. Number 1 is always the group leader. You can use this system to find members of your squad. Press 'M' again to leave the map.

Time to Fight

You're now ready for your first taste in the field. There are 3 ways to enter action. You can take the HART shuttle and drop on any non-locked continent that you decide. You can go to Instant Action by letting the server decide. It is faster, but you don't have control over where you go. You can do this, by pressing esc, then 'I'. Or you can take one of the warp gates to the continent that the warp gate is named by. If you have chosen a vehicle certification, you can create a vehicle at a nearby ground or air terminal. Just drive the vehicle or aircraft into the warp gate and stop, and you'll warp.

Good Luck! }