Getting the most bang for your buck in Planetside 2

Here is a quick guide to XP/certs, weapons, and getting the most out of your dollars in the action-packed futuristic warfront of Planetside 2. If you know anything about the game or about SoE's F2P business model some of these may be obvious tips, but some may not be so obvious even for veterans. 

TLDR:

• XP = Certification points. 250 XP = 1 cert. Read the XP section below.
• Subscribe. 50% XP bonus and free SC pays itself off. (Priority queue is nice too)
• Buy SC when they are on 2x/3x sale and take advantage of retailed promotions (WalMart, GameStop, etc)
• Follow ALL SOE games, they all use SC and may let you know about sales
• Use the 1wk 50% XP boost, do not use the 1hr boost

XP (= Certs):

• Be in a base when it caps/gets defended
• Always spot enemies. Even if you don't kill them, you'll get XP if someone else does it. (To spot press Q when your aiming reticle is close to or over an enemy)
• Damage targets even if you know you won't get the kill.  For example use your HA GtA launcher to hit airplanes / sunderers / tanks. Mostly, you won't kill them solo, but if someone else finishes them off you'll get XP.
• Be in a squad that works together (bonus XP for anything you do that helps your squad: spot, assist, heal, etc).  Also, you'll be more sucessful = more kills, more caps, less time respawning
• Complement your fellow soldiers. Provide what is missing in the current situation:
• Is there a big armor standoff where lots of tanks are getting damaged? Repair them.
• Is it a big foot zerg with lots of deaths?  Revive them.
• Lots of friendly infantry/MAXes firing a lot?  Drop ammo packs for them.  (10xp/reload from your pack)
• Lots of enemy ground but not much enemy air?  Gun someone's Liberator.  You can get massive amounts of kills by bombing tanks/AMSs/large infantry zergs.
• Cert into Sunderer AMS (50 certs) and reload AMS and park one near fights. Each respawn gives you 2 XP. (Not much but it adds up fast.  Parked in the right spot I've had my AMS spam me continously with XP messages for 20min+)
• Overload / stabilize / repair generators. (You do this by walking up to one and holding E till the bar fills up, don'tshoot them it does nothing)  Sometimes there's a whole back and forth cycle of (de)stabilizing generators as the teams struggle over them.  Be in the right place at the right time and each one will get you 100xp.  In a protracted fight this can net you more than the base itself.
• Don't die.  Recognize situations where you're spending a lot of time respawning without getting much/any xp and move off, find a more advantageous situation.
• Carry grenades and use them to clear rooms / clumps of enemies behind cover (watch for friendlies tho! and don't run into other's grenades!).  A grenade can often get you 3-5 kills.
• Join squads that have the squad XP boost running.  It stacks with your other boosts.

Weapons:

• You do NOT need most weapons.  Most of them are slight variations that fit the same role.  Find 1-2 good weapons and maybe an utility one if your classes has one.
• Use trial mode to try weapons out.
• Read the forums and ask around to get an idea of what are good choices too.
• While I won't go into the details of each weapon for each class, consider picking up certain utility weapons:
• Any: Healing kits (not a weapon but it often lets you survive for a second encounter)
• Any: Nanoweave armor (again, not a weapon, but 10+% extra HP is nothing to laugh at)
• Heavy Assault: lock-on Ground to Air launcher
• ESF: Rocket pods.  These things are devastating to anything on the ground and even Liberator/Galaxy aircraft
• Liberator: Dalton anti-tank gun
• MBT: anti-tank and/or anti-infantry secondary weapon
• MAX: Left AA arm
• As a new player without many fancy weapons take advantage of strong weapons you can get into around you:
• Base turrets can be your friend. Get into an engineer, repair a turret and use it to great effect.  Get out of the turret when it gets focus-fired and go do something else for a few minutes till it gets destroyed and forgotten, then come back and rack up more kills.
• Man turrets on others' vehicles.  Not everyone wants a non-squaddie in their vehicle, but you can find lots of MBTs (main battle tanks) in need of a turret gunner.  Keep an eye for the upgraded ones particularly as they can be devastatingly effective.

Station Cash:

• SOE runs SC sales that give you 2x or even 3x the amount of SC per $.  Stock up when they run one, don't buy at the regular price if you can help it (we had a 2x sale in PS2 this last Friday).  3x sales are rarer, but they've done them a few times when I played EQ2.  Keep your eyes peeled (and have some spending money) around xmas, new years, `sale` holidays (black friday, boxing day, etc), easter, etc.  A 2x sale makes your $7 weapon cost $3.50, a 3x sale makes it effectively cost $2.33
• Read the launcher, follow twitter / facebook to make sure you don't miss out on sales
• SC is common to ALL SOE games so follow the twitter/facebook for EverQuest, EverQuest 2, Free Realms, etc to hear about more sales. If some other game gives you bonus SC if you buy a SC card at a certain retailer, you can do that then spend your SC in PS2
• Not sure if they are doing / will do this in PS2, but in other games they've run item sales.  Stuff like a 700 SC item only costing 400 SC.  If they do that in PS2 then try to pick up items you may want some day when they go on sale.
• Combine promotions.  $15 is approximately 2 weapons, right?  Wrong. With the right promo that $15 could be as much as 15 weapons.  For example, there used to be (maybe still is) a $15 for 1,500 SC on WalMart cards where you got 500 SC bonus.  Redeem that on 3x SC sale day and you got 6,000 SC instead. Spend those SCs when your item is 50% (assuming they do item sales in PS2) off and you're effectively spending the equivalent of 12,000 SC.  Your $15 just became 15 weapons.

Certs and Station Cash:

• TLDR: Subscribe.  Use the 1wk boost if you get at least 1500 certs/week.  Never use the 1hr boost.
• If you subscribe ($15/mo) you get 500SC each month and an increasing XP% buff that ramps up to 50% after 6mo (hint: if you pay for a 6mo subscription you get +50% imediately)  This bonus stacks with xp boosters.  50% XP is 50% more certs.  Let's consider 1000 certs = $7 = 700 SC
• The monthly bonus 500 SC are worth $5 out of your subscription
• If you get 3000 certs in a month, the 50% XP bonus gives you an extra 1500 which is worth the remaining $10.  At a dismal cert rate of 50/hr, you only need to play 60 hours a month (2h/day) to break even.
• 50% XP boosts (which stack additively with your subscription) cost 125 SC / 1 hr, 250 SC / 1 day, 500 SC / 1 weeks.
• The 1 hr boost is not worth it. You would need to get 375 certs/hr for it to pay off
• The 1 day boost may be worth it if you get >750 certs in that day (play >7.5h at 100cert/hr, >15h at 50cert/hr)
• The 1 week boost is worth it if you get > 1500 certs during the week (play 15h/wk at 100cert/hr, 30h/wk at 50cert/hr)