Easy way to get Certs?

Which just makes it worse. You're not just saving for unlocks, you're saving for these incremental upgrades on EVERY. LITTLE. THING.

The extent of the time sink we're talking about here is stunning.

Exactly, so stop focusing on beating the grind. You're not expected to unless you're one of those top ten guys rolling in several (3-4) thousand certs after just 48 hours of /play. The intent is for everything to take forever and a half, especially those things SOE can attach money to, like guns. If you focus solely on the grind to get the next toy or upgrade your current ones, your enjoyment of the game will be sapped very quickly because everything you do will be for that little number that goes up by one for every 250 xp you earn.

from playing my self ive found you can get a lot of certs moving from enemy occupied locations to the next, and taking them over. it gives a lot of xp which gives certs

like you said you need to be lucky, but if you want to earn certs fast i would suggest you find a few roles you love to play and alternated between them, for example when i log in i start out as a ESF pilot --> LA/HA/Engi then i hop back into the air. trust me certs will fly at you when you are having fun.

Gun for a Lib. Save up for rocket pods then you can hop between gunning and flying an ESF. Right now air gives you the best bang for your buck as AA is kinda limited and you only have to worry about other air.

To summarize: Play the game and play it well.

Very easy to take points when you have a platoon full of cooperative people.

Bring a cannon to a gun fight. Drive a tank.

If your not focusing on your average certs per hour then your not playing this game right. Buy boosts, grovel to be a liberator gunner, be a repair or heal bot and don't forget to kill farm those enemy Sundys. If you do it right then your c/h will be through the roof and you can afford those unlocks, but in all seriousness you can be the best cert farmer and your still going to be farming for hundreds of hours and it's even worse if your not particularly good at getting certs. Botting is going to be big money in Planetside 2 and I can understand why.

My advice is get used to wanting stuff because your not going to be unlocking very much.

Read this whole thread, and basically what I took away was that there are many, many different playstyles that will get you a good amount of certs. Rocket pods weren't really mentioned.

20 hours for 1000 certs really isn't that outrageous IMO, it's the same for getting a new champ in LoL, and significantly less for getting a new tank in WoT.

Think I got an average of 40certs per hour or so on my account
And thats with all the afk-time included & being a Lib pilot most of the time
Should be something about 50-60 c/h during effective gameplay as an average.

Being gunner in a Lib is probably a very good way to get some certs, my gunner gets ~80-100 c/h on good runs

Magrider = easymode.
The highest players I've seen (36-40) sit in mags, spamming bases.

The game is already tank-spam because; Everyone dies near instantly even to stock rifles, so why not be in a tank or plane?

And this game will never be anything but a cert grind because that's how it's set up intentional, that's why it's just a huge zerg going around the map while the other zerg caps behind them.

Sacrificing game quality to incorporate "f2p", what else is new...

quick cert gain:

Flip bases constantly, dont suck kill lots of people/objects/vehicles

its really not rocket surgery


The most enjoyable way to go about it, use the instant action feature, stay fighting, enjoy yourself, ignore certs. If you enjoy what your doing certs are just icing on the cake.

I swear people look for excuses to not have fun in the game when it comes to progression. Just enjoy the game it will happen.

I just played the whole day today and I grinded around 300 - 400 certs. (Heavy assault (shooting newbs) and engineer (ammo + kill XP))

Make sure you're with running with teh zergs in to larger bases and just do your thing. Help your team in any way. You'll receive enough certs.

Did not read replies to the thread so this might already have been said. It's geared towards beginners so don't expect secret knowledge. ._.

Currently there are 3 ways to exploit unlimited XP gain (at least the ones I know of), I'll not elaborate those as I presume the question was in regards on how to do it through normal gameplay means without running at risk of getting punished by SoE.


You have a few options and most depend on how good you are in shooters of this kind.

In general it's always best to be where your faction is about to caputure something, that gives a lot of XP in the end just for being in the area when the bar reaches the limit.

For beginners it's very easy to gain XP as engineer.
Supplying 1 reload of ammo from the ammo-kit unlock gives 10 XP each. When you throw yours into a group of 5 to 10 people near a spawnpoint who fire all the time (during a siege) they each reload every 6-10 seconds on average. This gives you a ton of passive XP. The ammo pack does despawn after a while but sticks while you're dead as long as you do not switch class. When you are getting sieged near a well placed sunderer you can keep it up at all times and thus gain certs effortless.
In addition you can repair MAX or vehicles or try killing things to gain even more XP (kills are better but if you have issues with aiming go support others, helps everyone and beats spraying into a crowd without hitting stuff).

A good cert investment can also be grenades.
You can throw those into groups of enemies and take 1 to 10 people down, depending on how lucky you were with aiming and how crowded they stand. This can give a ton of XP. It's also a good tactic to throw a grenade, then fire at someone. When you miss the grenade could still take him out or when you threw it around a corner it cuts of his escape route. Or it takes out his friend and you kill him, etc.

Thirdly I recommend being a pilot for the 1-person flight vehicle of your faction when you have the rocket pods unlocked (requires a small StationCash investment to get you going as the cert cost is very high). When you hit infantry it takes 2-4 rockets to down them (depending on how well you hit them) and you have 6 in your magazine. That means you can just burst into a group from above and kill multiple enemies at once. Big splash radius helps to hit stuff. On top tanks and sunderers become easy pray - as long as they do not have gunners.
Flying does require quite a bit of player skill though, so you might want to practice before piloting. In addition you are best in areas where no airborn enemies are around as those will mostlikely be more skilled already and take you out in a few seconds.
This is the fastest way for someone with skills to gain XP like mad. Unlocked rocket pods provide a free XP machine in the skies for those who can handle it. The only reason this is not #1 is that it requires skill, which is someting a new player mostly does not have, so do many others who never wrapped their heads around flying.

Speaking of piloting, I can totally recommend the middle sized aircraft which has 2 gunners. If those are good at hitting things and you are a halfways decent pilot (having the flares unlocked to not die quickly to anti air missiles helps) this can generate a ton of XP. Gunnerer kills give you shared XP and as you have two of them and can also fire yourself (albeit only at things straight in front of you) it gives XP from 3 people and also from 3 target groups (intantry, vehicles and aircraft, you can kill all those).

I personally also had a lot of fun with sunderers and two gunners and armor upgrades. Driving from the back into or near an enemy infrantry camp with two friends who shoot stuff while you run over them is bound to take a few people down. Sunderers have pretty good armor and can thus be maintained while one is in the gun and the two others repair from the back. Great times I had with those. Requires friends and driving skills though.

Tanks are harder to survive in imho. You can not pick fights or run as easy as in aircraft and infantry can be quite dangerous when shooting you from behind (weak armor) with anti vehicle rockets. On top their damage is lacking. When you shoot an infantry soldier and hit, everyting is fine. Given you miss, however, you will have to reload and by that time the opponent will be gone or in cover (asumming you are not in the middle of nowhere). You are also a victim for aircraft.


Aside from that I recommend something above all that - get a decent squad or even outfit (that's a "clan" or "guild" for those from other games). In Planetside 2 you can achieve great things when you work together with others and not dying every 2 seconds because you are part of a coordinated approach makes gaining XP and thus certs a lot easier. It also allows you to specialize in something you enjoy a lot and thereby become awesome in a particular task instead of spreading your certs throughout the classes, vehicles and passives and be mediocre everywhere. :3

Protip: Real men join TR.
Don't listen to Vanu and NC telling you otherwise, they are clearly out of their element. You can always refer to them when you want to hear someone whine about balance or TK weapons. That's about all they're good at.


Well, see you on the battlefield. :3

I'm an infantry goon mostly, I find I get ~60 certs an hour mostly by sweeping across large base captures and killing a tonne of people. What I do note a lot though is that I get a seemingly inordinate amount of bonus exp for stopping other people's kill streaks and landing grenades in nests of people. Highly circumstantial I know, but with so many people that circumstance arises a lot more often than one would think plausible.

What most are saying is right though, find something you like to do but don't limit yourself to one play style, the certs roll in when you're enjoying what you're doing. Conversely, I intentionally farmed 100 certs to see how long it took me and by the end of it I couldn't wait to log off for the night.

As for specific recommendations, if you can shoot then invest in an infrared scope, what you lose in visibility range you make up for in BRIGHT WHITE TARGETS!

I've noticed that if you have a small organized squad with friends that you cap a lot more, get a sunderer and just cap outposts, not the best way but was the best certgain I've ever had

until they realise having all the certs doesn't actually make you more likely to win

Always Q (spot) folks, you get a spotting bonus when they are killed... Easy extra XP