We could've reached a three man squad last night, but one of our guildmates continued to have computer issues. For the most part, the two of us that were on stuck on Ishundar, helping the Vanu secure the continent.

I kept with the same spec as last time - Armored Assault 2, UniMAX, medium assault. We actually used the Magrider a lot more this time and to some good effect as I not only remember how to pilot the darn thing but also wasn't trying to do it drunk.

I ended up with a lot of grief from my UniMAX exploits. The biggest problem is the sheer bloodlust for the kill that most people have when they're pushing into a base - everyone wants that "killing shot" and so will dodge in front of the others in order to try to get it. I also had issues ending up in the wrong suit of armor for the situation - for example, being in my Quasar (anti-personnel) MAX when attacked by a Reaver, or in a Comet (anti-armor) MAX and coming up against a bunch of infantry.

The biggest thing in the night for me wasn't the game play - which was fun, mind you - but the problems I ran into.

While fighting around Lahar last night I respawned at an AMS in the courtyard of the base just to have my sound kick out. That means I have to shut down both PlanetSide and TeamSpeak in order to get it to work again, so I /quit out real fast, restarted both programs, and jumped back in...

...and I was in VS Sanctuary.

Ishundar was pop locked, and it had kicked me back home.

So I went to a broadcast warpgate with a Magrider and got into the queue. I was 9 of 9. I took a quick bio break.

When I came back the Terrans had hacked one of our tech plants and now the broadcast warp gate I'd been planning on going through was unavailable. I selected another broadcast gate and I was 6/9. No biggie.

I get up to 1/7 and the Vanu re-secure the base. Boom! The broadcast warpgate that I wanted to go to - the one closer to the battle - re-opens. I click on it again - and get put into the back of the queue. I hastily click back on the original warpgate but same thing, so I resign myself (with much cursing) to going through the queue again.

Eventually I make it through in the far southern warpgate while all the fighting is up north. There was a Terran controlled tower right near by. I used my Magrider to take down the turrets and some of the CE, then a Mosquito came in and hacked it. I then went and cleared the rest of the CE around the tower (mostly mines and motion sensors) before heading back up north.

I managed to make it to Irkalla just as we hacked it, so I went over to Girru to join up with my squadmate. The battle for Girru had been going on for hours, but we finally made some progress and pushed in. The hack went through, despite some half-hearted NC attempts at stopping it (by that point, it was really too late) and we got max XP for the capture.

It was around midnight at that point so I went to bed. I noticed a funny thing in my stats - I hadn't killed a single guy in standard or agile armor yet. Then again, you almost never kill anyone in standard armor unless you happen to be camping a spawn tube, but no agile was weird for me because back in the old days the agile + heavy assault combo was quite popular (coupled with Surge for speed attacks). Now that Surge acts as run-mode for MAXes does (i.e., no weapons allowed while using it) most people go for the Rexo + Heavy Assault combo (and, if I remember correctly, usually the Personal Shield + health regeneration implants).

I did kill a couple of infiltrators. One was running out of a tower just before I lost sound and half damaged already so I finished her off with my Punisher. The other I found in a base while I had my Sweeper shotgun out, but he was immediately followed by a ScatterMAX that blew my sorry butt all across the tunnel. Oh well!