PlanetSide Mission Log: Part II
Assault on Tumas Station

[Transmission Open]

After my last session with Planetside, I was very excited at the prospect of being given the opportunity to play more of the game. So when new orders arrived to help out the New Conglomerate forces in their assault on the Tumas station on the Amerish continent, I was all too eager to hop in and flex my now somewhat-experienced muscles. After a slightly lengthy patching cycle, which added a slew of changes and additions to the game, I decided to start a fresh character in order to be granted the opportunity to explore some different certifications without having to level up a whole bunch first. It was here that I noticed a rather large change that had recently taken place – no longer did I start with a sizable 14 CPs, but instead began with a mere four, which was just enough to gain one certification. Obviously the Planetside team is preparing to move on to the later stages of the development cycle, and this latest change was done to begin testing out various critical gameplay-balancing elements as they're put into play. Intrigued that the newfound limitations would put a unique spin on whatever role I took (since everyone else would end up being a lot more careful with whatever skills they chose), I set myself up with a qualification for the Vanguard medium tank. Cackling with glee, I threw some basic equipment into my inventory and ran off to go fiddle with my new toy.

The Vanguard tank is slick piece of hardware, available only to those fortunate enough to be part of the New Conglomerate. Sporting a large, rapid-fire cannon and a pair of machineguns for mowing down infantry, the Vanguard is capable of zipping around at an impressive speed while being laden down with enough armor to make taking it down a tough chore. Eager to show off my new toy, I charged off for the nearest warp gate (a recent change enables the Sanctuary warp gates to take a player to any other warp gate active in the game) and popped up in Amerish. There, I learned that the situation was rather dire. Friendly NC forces led by one "Snake" had captured the Tumas facility, but they were under constant attack and badly needed backup. After capturing a couple of facilities along the southern area of the continent to stabilize our position and finding a comrade to man my war wagon's gunnery seat, I immediately took off to the north to go help out Tumas.

When we finally arrived, the situation was, suffice to say, chaotic. I counted at least twenty to thirty friendly units in the area of assorted variety trying to hold the line, while what seemed to be an equal number of enemy forces was constantly raining fire down on the base. Stepping down on the gas, I deftly zeroed in on an innocent Terran Republic MAX that had his back turned to me and introduced him to my bumper with an impressive crunch. At the same time, my gunner whipped the turret around and let loose a salvo of explosive death, bagging a good three kills. Of course, it didn't take very long for the attackers to notice my entrance onto the scene, and a hail of missile and chaingun fire began bouncing off of the Vanguard's armor. Cruising around the outskirts of the base, I managed to get enough enemy attention to give our comrades some breathing room while they regrouped, but this unfortunately came at a price – namely my precious Vanguard's hull integrity. Making a snap decision to divert to the front of the base where enemy resistance was lightest, I drove over to that area and puttered inside the relative safety of the walls in a shower of smoke and sparks, my gunner constantly shooting backwards in a futile attempt to cover our retreat. As later experiences suggested to me, trying to aim a large, slow cannon on a fast-moving tank that's veering left and right completely at random is nearly impossible, but the alternative (dying in a horrible ball of flame) was less appealing.

Deciding to take a more passive stance in defending the base, I drove over to one of the gates to give my gunner the opportunity to lend supporting fire to our units without too much risk to ourselves. Getting repaired wasn't much of an option, since everyone else was too busy holding the line. It was at this stage that someone declared that the base's power reserves were nearly gone, which was obviously a bad thing, since unpowered bases belong to nobody, and the facilities we were relying on to keep our troops supplied and reinforced would suddenly go offline. The only way to rectify the issue would be through the proper deployment of an Advanced Nanite Transport vehicle, but with the massive number of enemies crowding the base, getting one in would be difficult. Before I could make some kind of decision, however, a massive airstrike of Mosquito and Reaver aircraft flew in and finished off my smoldering tank which was being held together with little more than duct take and blind luck. Horrible, agonizing death greeted my gunner and me instantly. Curses!

Opting to respawn back at the Sanctuary, I ran into a soldier who was requesting support from anyone nearby. He had grabbed his own Galaxy air transport and wanted to scramble a small group out to reinforce Tumas, as well as haul along an ANT to refuel the base's silo. Offering to handle the ANT duties, I grabbed one such vehicle and loaded it into the Galaxy for transport. After a couple of other people took up gunnery positions for point defense, we took off for Tumas, stopping only briefly along the way to fill up the ANT beforehand. Unfortunately, by the time we finally got to Tumas, the base's power had already dropped to zero, and enemy units were crawling all over it. The pilot of the Galaxy flew over to the base and attempted to land inside of the walls, but a pair of fighters intercepted us and began pounding the hell out of our hull. Since the Galaxy was too fat and sluggish to make a retreat effective, and the gunners incapable of repelling such a strong assault, I opted for the cowardly way out and manually ejected my ANT from the cargo hold. The consequent rough touchdown put a sizable dent in my vehicle's armor value, but it wasn't my chief concern at the time, as I was more worried about the fighters that had just finished off the Galaxy and were coming for me. I tried to run some evasive maneuvers and motor up the hill to the base in hopes of getting some cover, but the ANT certainly isn't popular because of its speed. A flaming wreckage greeted me once again.

Since Tumas was effectively lost to us and was constantly being thrown between the Terran Republic and the Vanu Sovereignty factions, we decided to regroup and try a different tactic. Linking up with one of my friends back at base, we hopped into an Enforcer (with myself riding the rocket-launching rear turret) and charged back into battle. The plan was to sneak in amidst the action and try to work our way into the base on foot and see if we could somehow bring the base under our control and hold it. Okay, a ludicrous idea for a couple of lightly armed hapless soldiers, but we had to try, right? Unfortunately, our plan was cut short along the way when we ran into a small Vanu patrol down south of Tumas. My buddy in the driver's seat veered off the road to avoid the hail of incoming fire, and promptly ran smack dab into – of all things – a cloaked Advanced Mobile Station that had been set up. Of course, my driver was a little disoriented at the time, and trying to aim at a single target with a turret affixed to a vehicle that's driving over the terrain trying to avoid both trees and incoming fire at the same time can be damn difficult, so we were unable to take the vehicle down, but I'm sure we gave them quite a scare all the same.

Having been kicked almost entirely out of the area near Tumas in the bloody fighting between the three factions, things were starting to wind down for my New Conglomerate allies, but I soon came across a group that was preparing for a bold thrust into the enemy's back. Since all focus was on Tumas, the Terran Republic had left a few of their nearby bases under only light guard, and it was our intention to assault these facilities for some nice vengeance. Massing together a strong force consisting of a number of Vanguard tanks, Banshee/Enforcer jeeps, numerous air vehicles, and a smattering of heavy infantry, we marched off to our destination, Qumu. Encountering only small resistance pockets in the form of base turrets and a few TR soldiers, we quickly overran the defenses and charged inside. Immediately everyone assembled in the basement of the facility and began hacking the control console. Within a few moments the base was successfully hacked and the 15-minute countdown to turn the base under our control began. Expecting a counter-attack, we all set up in the lower level behind the various crates and archways in the area and covered the main door. Everyone displayed an extreme amount of patience in waiting for the enemy to arrive, but nobody ever came down the stairs, leaving our impressive defensive arrangements untested. Eventually, the facility came under our control, and the group packed up and shipped off for the next base.

It was at this time that I decided I had done enough for the day and logged out (some weirdness with the servers made playing difficult at certain points too). I was extremely impressed with how the day's session had gone, however, and even some of the GMs active in the game expressed happiness at seeing so many people in a single area at once. The Tumas facility was almost constantly crowded with a large number of players, making the battles chaotic, but impressive to see all the same. Latency was a bit of an issue, but all things considered, I was surprised at how playable the game was. The day's session had reportedly helped the dev team immensely in ironing out some stability bugs with the game and the servers, so I expect that performance levels will do nothing but go upward into the future as more and more players get into the beta program. Myself, I certainly can't wait to see the game hit final and watch how it runs under real world conditions. As for my next report, perhaps I'll investigate the intriguing aspects behind the cloak-capable infiltration equipment… people will learn to fear being alone.

Till next time, folks.

Sgt. Parias

[Transmission Closed]

Catch up on the adventures of Sgt. Parias and read his First Mission Log!
Stay tuned for Part III!!

Related Links:
PlanetSide Mission Log: Part I
PlanetSide (official site)
Sony Online Entertainment