Brand new and drowning

You can get to the VR by walking up to the terminal with the Hologram of a planet floating above it in the main room of the Warpgate (all warpgates)

This was the original method of changing continents (direct deploy to other warpgates from deploy screen is relatively new). You can still change continents here, but it's also the only way to get to the VR room which is probably harder to find for new players now that they likely never use this old terminal

VR isn't all that useful TBH... Mostly it's just good to try out weapons and attachments before committing certs to buying them.

It's also the best place to learn to fly if you want to get into that (I recommend holding off on that until you're very comfortable on the ground. It's 10x as hard to get into the air game as it is the ground game. You don't need that added frustration. It might be worth learning to fly the Fighter well enough to get from point A to Point B just to quickly fly from 1 side of the map to the other... but that's not needed nearly as often with the current deploy options. Sometimes you can only fly there though)

It can also be handy to get some basic familiarity with ground vehicle handling as well so you don't crash your squads sunderer off a cliff or something But I don't expect you'll need to spend much time there. The targets are all static and won't help you much with live fire situations. Get comfortable putting rounds on target, and you're kinda done with what it offers.

Starting as a medic or engineer is a wise decision as these are the two classes that generate the most certs through support (healing, reviving, ammo replenishment & repairs). Support roles do not require you to get kills to receive certs, this is great for a new player.

Once you get to level 20 or so you might want to try other classes as well to get their flavor. Once you get the hang of the game you will pick your class based on what's needed for a particular fight. Is the enemy rolling up armor? Well maybe you go with a Heavy Assault.

I know several people have rebound mousewheel for this purpose. Makes zooming in and out really easy and fast for situational awareness. Personally I've been using mouse wheel up for primary and down for secondary in all FPS for a while now so I don't know if I'm ever going to change that, and I just toggle small big minimap with 'Capslock' ('H' is default I believe. And actually, for me it isn't techinically capslock because I'm using a fully remappable gaming keyboard, not a std keyboard :\ It's in the same position as capslock though, direct to the left of 'A')

OH OH OH!

Most important unknown keybinding of all time.

Numpad 'Enter' mutes whoever is talking over in game comms (doesn't matter what channel they're using).

With so many obnoxious broadcast spammers, this one is KEY lol

They should make the VR a lobby also, accessed through, lets say the map window, I can go there from anywhere.
About the suggesting to not do what I do.
I think that may be best lol!
I am very hard headed and always do things my way. : ]

No offense, but from the sounds of it, I think RPGs are more your flavor. It's okay, it's perfectly fine to enjoy one genre and not another. I actually enjoy Adventure games more than First-person Shooters.

First thing I'll suggest for you, look for an outfit. There are usually a few really good outfits of varying sizes on each faction, catering to different play types. Once you do that, run in their squads. Focus on what your squad lead tells you and drown out all of that noise you don't understand yet. First and foremost, don't rush to try and understand EVERYTHING at once. This game is like the Eve of shooters when it comes to learning curve. So don't be discouraged if you die, a lot, when first starting out. Because this game beats newbies over the head. When all else fails, just follow your squad leader around and kill guys not on the same faction as you.

If it's quiet, it's usually ok to ask questions in the squad voice channel. If voice comms seem chaotic, ask in text chat if you don't understand something. If you picked a decent outfit or just a platoon with experienced players, someone is usually willing to help you out when they see you're a newbie.

Also, I would suggest not rebinding your right mouse button. WASD movement with holding SHIFT for sprint is common for most FPS games. As well as left mouse for shooting and right mouse for ADS/iron sights/scope. Once you get use to it, it's a lot more intuitive and leaves less room for having to coordinate both the left and right hand for the simple act of shooting someone.

Spend time in the VR understanding the controls. Default layout is pretty good and a place to start, modify after you learn those to what suits you. I absolutely wouldn't touch right/left mouse buttons - they do a lot of things across the board.

I'd ignore anything vehicle (piloting/driving, gunning? Go for it) for a while until you're confident in the controls.

If I were starting off now I'd play medic during fights and then switch t engineer to repair any base things I could (turrets, terminals, generators) for certs. Spend those certs in whatever class interests you the most - I would say stay away from infiltrator as a means to gain certs/levels - medic and engineer are the best path.

Ask questions, observe tactics, and just fight.

Do not take advice. Create NEW ADVICE AFTER YOU L2P AND HAVE OTHERS FOLLOW IT

You can learn from the best if you ditch the tr character and make an NC or VS on Emerald. I will teach you the prestigious art of the light assault lone wolf.

Don't go poaching our new blood traitor! (Actually, I do play Emerald NC occasionally... but I only attack the VS with it Used to be separate servers... now that they're the same, it's relegated to a pure, permanent, alt status)

TR is fine. In fact, most NC vs TR fights with even pop are pretty evenly matched in my experience.

Only where VS are concerned is there discrepancy... and it's really only exacerbated by the fact so many TR and NC just leave fights with VS. Even numbers and VS don't really hold THAT much more sway TBQH.... it's only the fact they're under-opposed SO BLOODY OFTEN

I blame it on the week just after the merge. A certain few outfits would drop/redeploy absurd numbers to a base at the last 20-30 seconds and steamroll. So now people don't want to bother with VS.

pffffffft

That's what any and all good outfits do

Try playing on Connery against Recursion. We were doing an Esamir alert and every time we'd try to push on a fresh front they'd drop in with less than a minute to resecure.

Better question is... WHY AREN'T THE TR AND NC DOING THIS TO STOP THE VS????

Problem was the redeploy system. There was no warning for when it happened.

It's not as bad now, but NC is still suffering from most of our good/experienced players being spread in tiny outfits. With our "zergfits" being nowhere near as organized as the VS ones from matherson. This is why NC from both Waterson and Matherson alliances are having a sit down.

As for what TR's doing, I don't know. To my knowledge, Waterson TR never had the infrastructure NC or VS did. They relied on one huge/competitive outfit or youtube celeb after another to push things along. Early on it was youtube celebs like Angry Joe and Totalbisciut providing them with a noticeable overpop to fall back on. (this forced both NC and VS on the server to adapt, creating strong inter-outfit alliances and strengthening communication) After they lost them, I forget who took the reigns or if it just coasted for awhile. But NUC alleviated a lot of it until they disbanded.

Right now, I think TR is being carried by Matherson outfits like BWC. At least it feels like I'm not seeing much of an organized Waterson outfits I'd recognize anyway.

TR waterson used to be very well organized back in the hay day. Or, well, maybe I should say Jaeger TR. We merged with Waterson who had Angry Joe and TB's outfits, but those of us coming from Jaeger were tight nit and well oiled war machine.

We grew overpop and a bunch moved elsewhere because it got boring with no challenge.

Some of us are coming back post merger, but we need to rebuild what was lost a long time ago.

On Waterson, before I stopped kinda playing TR, there was TRAF and ODMN which, while not top tier by any means, at least brought the numbers to push.

Emerald TR will recover, just lacking some organization and direction at the moment. Individual player skill wise, and even overall pop, I think we're fine.

The biggest thing though, is like I said, NC and TR need to cut it out with the all-out slug fests. VS just takes whatever they want while > 2/3rds our pop is busy fighting each other.

I'm not saying we need a truce... I hate truce's. If NC needs to be put in check then we'll darn well do it... but over-committing against each other out of frustration from fighting VS is doing neither of us any favors.

And I can kinda get it... Fighting the VS has been frustrating... but then that's because most fights vs the VS are outnumbered 2 to 1.... with even continent pops >.< /facepalm

Sorry for the Off-Topic discussion OP

Welcome to Planetside.

Deaths happen a lot as a newbie. Try to find some squads to play with; even pub squads but leave if they arent communicating. Once you learn the bases and continents and how things flow, you'll do better. Even then, you may have bad days. I do still; it happens.

Yeah see the community isnt all that friendly here.

Pretty mild compared to what I've seen when someone complaininig about getting rekt in the air.

Though it's true. It's almost always a L2P issue.

And yes Coyotes are an unfair advantage. That's the point of an A2A build.

They just need splash reduced because they shouldn't be so effective against infantry. And you get way too many. Should need more resupplies.

THOSE are the problems with it. Not it's A2A effectiveness.

Well, you may love sniping in this game then, it is much easier than sniping in BF3 for instance.

Also, as a new player, I would not bother with "instant action" for the time being.

If I was starting anew, I would take advantage of the safety of the spawn rooms and spend a minute or so seeing what is going on outside. But that's just me... I've never been a TDM run headlong into death style of player.