I've heard the title a few times on the forums, and I've recently gotten back into this one... so..
disclaimer: Any bias shown in
strike through it to be taken as a joke, and an indication of which faction I play.
PlanetSide 2 is a free-to-play MMOFPS, based on a planetary war between 3 factions: The
almighty Vanu Sovereignty, the
terrible Terran Republic and the New Conglomerate
terrorists.
The gameplay is a "Capture the point" system, Auraxis is separated into 5 unique continents, one of which (Koltyr) locked away once you hit BattleRank16.
The other four are Amerish (Lush), Esamir (Ice), Hossin (Swamp), and Indar (Hilly).
Each continent has
a hex grid over it, all map "sections" are made out of several hexes, surrounding a base/outpost that players can capture.
There are many types of small outposts, and they're mostly designed to link up the 3 major types of bases:
Bio Labs: These domed structures are on giant pillars, making it impossible for vehicles to enter these. If you want to capture a bio lab, bring infantry, and lots of it. If your faction owns at least 1 bio lab on the continent you're fighting, you'll get some juicy passive health regeneration
Tech Plants: These large bases have 1 very distinct building: The tower. The tower's top layer can be harassed by air units easily, and the bottom floor is visible to land vehicles.. but like any base, without boots on the ground you're not going to grab these babies. These are the bases that make your faction's main battle tank. So unless you want to drive one all the way from your warpgate, make sure you control 1 of these on the continent (which will unlock MBT's from most if not all vehicle spawners). And you're going to need MBT's to successfully capture a base..
Amp Stations: These sprawling mini-cities are covered in shields, preventing vehicles to come in unless you destroy the shield generators. A good air support will make it easier for your front line soldiers to get to those shield generators, after which the cavalry will ensure they stay down.. assuming your team's doing well and has enough manpower. The benefit of owning Amp Stations is that the Phalanx turrets on bases fire colder, meaning they fire more bullets before overheating... An excellent buff to have in defence.
Okay, so it's not quite the small scale tactics that we're used to in SWAT4, but on the ground you don't usually look at faction warfare as a whole. On the ground, you're still aligned to
The Vanu one of the three factions, so naturally you'll have a bunch of allies, but the real tactics come into Squad and Platoon play.
Squads are a maximum of 10 members, numbered *,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10. The star being squad lead, sometimes called "One". Once a squad gets enough members, the Squad Leader can decide to move members to other squads, forming a platoon. Platoons are split into Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta squad. Effectively turning each member into a combination of [letter][number], "Alpha Star" being the platoon leader.
[Maybe to be edited later]