So by now, you’ve read my concise yet elegant guide to the rudimentary business of base capture, below and now have some handle on the bigger picture, and some idea of what you ought to be doing, and when. But why that base, and that planet? Why can’t we go attack the ice planet, or play in the volcano? This largely comes down to the command rank system.

As well as Battle Rank, earned with BEP, soldiers can earn Command Rank as well. This is a separate second pool of XP, and unlike BEP, which is earned for killing, support activity and being part of a base capture, CEP can only be earned in one way; by being the Squad Leader (Slot 1), of a squad who has spent most of their time in the contested Sphere of Influence of a base that is then captured. It’s an odd system, designed to reward good leadership, a thing that is pretty much unquantifiable numerically. What actually happens is that outfits and regular squads just pass around the #1 seat to whoever hasn’t grinded thier way to CR5 yet, while the actual decisions may be coming from any other squad member. Despite there only being five, these ranks take much longer to attain than the Battle ranks and are perhaps the nearest Planetside has to a real grind. (My personal best was CR1, but then I do solo a lot. I reached BR23 in a past incarnation.)

Naturally, the last time I was playing, before the Reserves started, doing ‘/who CR5’, ‘/who CR4’ etc showed that over half of all players on the continents I was on, were CR5. This shows a system that rewards diligence over inspiration or strategy – join enough squads and sooner or later, you will become a CR5 leader. Still, I can’t think of a better way, so there it is.

The CR ranks grant extra abilites:

  • CR1 – The commander can now place up to four squad waypoints, visible on the map, and in world, by all members of the squad or platoon. Possibly one of the most useful abilities for planning and managing a squad.
  • CR2 – The commander can use the CUD device to Reveal Friendlies – showing the positions of all friendly forces on the continent for a little while. This is the Reserves cap – to progress from here requires a full account.
  • CR3 – The commander can use a very crude 'MS Paint' ability on the map, drawing out battle plans for the whole squad to see, including text editing. They can also use the CUD to emit an EMP blast, much like the Jammer grenades, but centered on the commander, and much wider radius – good for mine clearance.
  • CR4 – The commander can call in an Orbital Strike on a target. This beam from the sky is quite devastating, able to one-hit  deployed AMS and wipe out any infantry in its radius, but it can only be used once every three hours. They can also Reveal Enemies in a set radius briefly, and the EMP blast radius goes up.
  • CR5 – The Orbital Strike now hits like the fist of an angry god, and the other CR4 abilities are increased. They can now broadcast on the various Command chat channels as well. You get a neat backpack too!

Once at CR5, you become part of the ruling elite of Auraxis, only to find that pretty much all of the other people who’ve been playing it for any real length of time are there too. Naturally, this leads to a rather diluted ‘committee’ type leadership structure. I’ve never reached those dizzy heights myself, but have heard a lot of anecdotes and seen a lot of chat logs posted, and CR5 people tend to fall into three types:

  • Silent OS-bombers – these are basically just soldiers who thought the OS and other abilities would be a useful way to round out their uber-template. They have no desire to lead, and generally don’t even pipe up on command chat, or in CR5 chat. They’re just players who wanted the toys, and are a conducive argument as to why the OS should probably just be made into a weapon cert for normal soldiers instead. These make up the majority of all those CR5s listed on the ‘/who CR5’, but that’s okay…they don’t want to lead, so don’t try.
  • Idiot CR5 Newbies – The system rewards time spent, rather than results or ability, so you end up with a lot of players who got there just by squad-leading for their little gang of mates, often. The sudden arrival of CR5 unhinges their minds a bit, and they get very dramatic about it all. They’re naive, have no real understanding of battle, psychology or morale, and tend to use Command to spam gibberish, both tactically and literally. They can be very disruptive in CR5 chat too, from what I gather. You’ll recognise these fairly quickly by their nonsense Command broadcasts, but they are dangerous as they are the reason so many players just turn Command broadcasts off completely.
  • Stalwart Veterans – The real guiding force of an empire, these folks tend to be something of a clique, but have the right idea. Made up of CR5s from the bigger and more organised outfits, they know what they’re doing, and how it all works, and most importantly, use CR5 chat to sort out the orders in private, usually by voting, before they start broadcasting. Usually one or two CR5s will be designated ‘Empire Leader’ for each continent that night, and all orders will come from them alone, after majority voting hidden in CR5 chat. This hybrid totalitarian-democracy is hardly the way to run a real army, but given the nature of the game, is probably the best we’re likely to get.

So the ruling council makes the decisions – usually nothing more complex or demanding than ‘Primary = [Planet name], Secondary = [Other Planet Name], Cave Target = [Cave Name]’, along with base targets, but you are unlikely to get any personal orders from them, for that, you need a squad leader.

Squads are the basic work-unit of on-ground functionality, and a good squad leader will be setting local and micro objectives for you to carry out. A squad may have up to ten members and can use the map to track each other. Three squads may join together to form a Platoon, of up to 30 people. Each squad leader retains CEP rights, but the map now allows all 30 people to keep tabs on each other, and share a common chat channel – both very useful.

Much like other games, pick-up squads can be hit-and-miss, so dedicated grouping people should look for an decent outfit too. Outfit is the long-term ‘guild’ grouping, and most outfits run dedicated squads, and even provide training. The larger outfits tend to work together, and share command objectives, often to back up the will of the CR5 council. Many outfits specialise in one area - tanks, planes, resecure, covert ops, and so on.

The outfit squads are a powerful force, but more powerful is the ‘zerg’. Zerg in this context refers to the large number of solo and small-squad irregulars, who do not generally respond to Command orders. This is not necessarily stupidity – many zerglings are BR26, CR5 people who just want a simple evening of shooting stuff, without worrying about bigger objectives, feints, counterattacks, politics, or sudden recalls to defend other continents. While a person cannot be predicted, people can, and the zerg – the large mass of independent irregular troopers – will generally follow the lattice (the yellow and grey lines joining bases on the map) around a continent, in a quite methodical fashion. They know what needs doing, and just get on with it.

The real trick with leading, is knowing that the zerg will just do what it wants, but wants simple things, and planning your own strategy around it. If you understand the zerg movements, they can be used. You see a lot of shouting on Command about this, by CR5’s who don’t understand much about psychology, or inertia. Even if the zerg can be made to listen, and obey, it takes a long time for them to change direction.

The whole thing makes a circle, with zerg dictating orders (indirectly) to the CR5 council, who dictate to the Empire Leader, who dictate to the Outfits, who dictate to the Squads, who dictate to the zerg around them (by example).

Anyway, as a Reservist, you’ll not have to worry about guiding your empire to victory for a while. However there’s nothing to stop the Reserve being a good and useful team member, particularly since you only get enough cert points to specialise in one area, and indeed, nothing to stop you leading a squad yourself. The top-end CR3-CR5 toys are fun, but the really useful one, squad waypoints, comes in at CR1 – the rest of it is down to your own ability to see, understand, plan and react, and of course, your ability to inspire and lead others – all skills there is no XP for.

Soloing in Planetside is perfectly viable – I do it all the time, and some roles, Infiltration, Sniping, Anti-Air MAX, Mosquito, Non-specific Support, etc work very well alone. But the really impressive work, and the people who get things done, are organised outfit squads with Teamspeak. Five tanks working at the same targets, or eight Heavy Assault guys and Two AI MAX dropping on a base roof, can really turn the tide, and grunting with professionals is a good way to learn the tips and tricks they don’t show you in the Training missions. So if you’re looking for personal orders or direction, best bet is to try ‘/b LFS!’ and see who is recruiting, or step-up and try putting an elite crack team together yourselves, using the battle walkthrough, previous, for guidance.

Speaking of which, look of for my big list of quick tips next!