Captain Failure's New Player Guide

First time tactics

The best way to get the hang of the game is to follow the crowds. Watch and learn how they fight, how they die, and how to get kills. Help out where possible, and don't worry about sticking your neck out. This is a period where you will die a lot, but learn a lot. Some quick tips:

• Use cover whenever possible.
• It's usually better to stay alive than get a kill; retreat if the situation isn't favorable.
• Shoot your opponent in the back, and remember that he would do the same to you. This is a war, not a duel of honor.
• Pay attention to who killed you, with what, and how. Learn from it.
• If you can jump in a vehicle, do it. Main battle tanks have two seats and an empty seat is a gun that could be shooting.
• The 1 point certs and the 50 cert Sunderer spawn point can be great early purchases and a major boon to your army.
• Spot your enemy, this is the Q key by default. Allies will get it on the minimap, and if you cannot get the kill maybe they can. In addition, if an ally kills an enemy you spotted, you get EXP.

On dying a lot

When you first start playing, and sometimes after that, you will spawn and die a lot. There will be many situations that seem impossible to win. It is important to grit your teeth, learn from any mistakes, and keep trying. More often than not it will be that someone got the drop on you. Learn how they got the drop on you, think of a way to counter, and try it out yourself later. You will quickly learn to check hills for silhouettes, watch corners for enemies, and recognize the infiltrator cloaking sound and visual effects.

Classes

The rough overview

Infiltrator: A great sniper class even when you've just started playing. They are best at really long range, but at medium and short ranges other classes can be just as accurate. Close range combat requires you to surprise your opponent. Be sure to grab proximity mine certification so you can guard your blind side while you shoot.

Light Assault: Good fighter and great mobility. Its rifle can kill better than the heavy's MG as long as you sight your target and aim carefully. Best used to attack from unexpected angles, but be aware that you lack cover and maneuverability while jumping. Too many times light assaults are seen giving way their position by leaping from far away, leaving them sitting ducks for an Infiltrator or assault rifle.

Medic: Poor fighter, but absolutely crucial for a winning team. A team of medics can make a spawn point unnecessary. Only shoot when you can't retreat or to help your team mates out. More grenades and suppressor are good upgrades, in addition to all the healing boosts you should obviously get.

Engineer: Critical for base defense and repairing vehicles. Having the same rifle as light assault, it can be a decent fighter. Its turret is good at medium range, but you are vulnerable to snipers and grenades. Deploy ammo as often as you can to keep your team stocked up. Upgrade into the other utility powers for versatility, but upgrade the Repair Gun early because you'll be using it a lot.

Heavy Assault: Primarily antitank. The rocket launcher is a new player's best chance versus vehicles and tanks. The MG isn't great one on one and sighting doesn't help me aim, but its great versus crowds. You can expect more assists with it than kills. Upgrading to homing rockets is recommended, and improving the shield ability will help you get the most out of it. The shield abilities don't make you invincible, but can buy you get an extra second of life to kill your opponents before they kill you.

Advanced Class Tips

Infiltrator

- Long range: There are two main types of rifles: bolt action and semi-automatic. Bolt action gives a single shot, then you have to reload. In this case, hit them in the head. Anything but a Max will die. If a headshot is difficult for you, use a semi-automatic. Semi-automatic rifles can take several shots between reloads, but do around half the damage of a bolt-action. Try to get the first shot in the head, and they'll usually drop in one or two more shots in the body. Either gun is effective, but whichever you choose, change position every few shots or you'll get sniped yourself. Invest in proximity mines to guard your flank.

- Medium range: This is where an Infiltrator is weak. Enemies generally run too fast to hit with a rifle, especially in the head, so unless they stand still, your best bet is to sneak up with a knife, or seek a different target. If you're visible at this range, you are the weakest person on the field. When moving, always stay in tight corners, bushes, or shadows when waiting for your cloak to recharge. Worst case, know the color of your armor. Purple and blue both blend in well against gray, textured surfaces, and red blends in against rocks in the desert. If you have to fight at medium range, use a semi-automatic rifle. A bolt-action is basically useless.

- Close range: You are not a fighter. You have the weakest short-range guns and the least health of any class. However, if you can sneak up on one enemy, you should have no problem killing him. It takes two to three knife wounds to kill anything but a Heavy or Max, and you can usually do that before they even know what's happening. A shot to the head can kill or severely injure, so starting with that will leave at most a single stab left to kill. Two or more enemies will almost certainly kill you. In this case, a well-placed grenade or proximity mine can be devastating if they are looking the other way. NEVER take on a Max, you will lose. Just run and let other classes deal with it.

Medic

- Don't pull out the healing gun unless there's at least two other (living) guys around when someone gets killed; if you pull out your gun to revive someone, the person that killed him will get the drop on you.

- An easy place to camp experience as a medic is just inside the force fields while defending at tech plants. People will frequently approach the field, try to get through it enough to get a rocket or two off, and then pull back. Most of the time they don't survive the pulling back portion. A resurrect here gives you about 100 EXP and shaves a second or two off the player's spawn timer which helps the faction out overall.

- Rather than using the healing gun, the AoE heal (F by default) is typically better for "hot" encounters where people are wounded, but not necessarily dead. That way you can continue running and gunning. It also heals you, so don't be afraid to bust it out when you're low on health yourself.

(I think this needs to be updated, since the beta F is now the self heal for medics)

Engineer

- The engineer is the best class for base defense, as it is the only one that can repair turrets, generators, and vehicles. As with playing Medic, keep your assault rifle equipped until you are certain that there aren't any enemies around, and THEN start repairing.

- The turret is great and has unlimited ammo, but doesn't have all that wide of a rotation angle and ultimately leaves you very, very open from behind. If you are capping a point with several other people or are guarding a bottleneck, go ahead and throw it out; if you are alone or only have a couple teammates with you, don't bother - your mobility is far more valuable than its firepower.

- Your ammo pack is very helpful for large groups. If you are traveling with a group, try to throw it down whenever you're around a capture point or bottleneck to gain a lot of experience and keep your team stocked up. If someone is yelling for ammo, aim at them and hold Q, then move the mouse up to offer them ammo so they stop running around.

- When repairing vehicles, there are a couple things to remember: one, always keep the vehicle between you and the enemy if possible. Two, if a vehicle needs repaired but is driving away from you and into the enemy, leave it. Your life and ability to keep repairing is far more important than the one tank you might help save while placing yourself directly in the middle of the action. You can offer repairs in the same way as offering ammo to allies - aim at them, hold Q (or whatever you have Spot Enemy set to) and mouse up to "Offer Repair."

- While the Engineer is not the worst mid-range fighter, his purpose is support. Try to avoid going off on your own if you can help it, because your ability to repair generators, vehicles, et al makes you valuable team support, right up there with the medic.

- Look for MAX units to pair up with, especially in larger fights. In heavy firefights you will gain as much experience as they will, possibly more, just by resupplying ammo and repairing the constant barrage of damage.

Sony Cash

Station Cash can only buy weapons and cosmetics, it cannot buy upgrades. These improved weapons will have advantages over the equipment you start with, but not nearly as much as you'd worry about. Situation and skill dictate 90% of the outcome of my fights. Several of the weapons purchased with Station cash barely earn kills. Bottom line is that the spenders and non-spenders are still pretty close in power, enough that a coordinated squad of non-spenders can still win plenty of fights and there is no dollar value on winning. The subscriptions do help earn resources and experience. If you enjoy the game, and foresee playing for that long it is recommended you buy the largest subscription you're confident you'll use. Not only does this give you the best exp boost early, but the sooner SOE sees success then the sooner we can all get more content.

Guide contributors

We are Captain Failure and the Liberator of Tomorrow. Our outfit is about enjoying the game, trying for the win, and not sweating the failures. We hope this helped.