My Guide- Almost Done
So by this time about 95% of the people reading will have probably stopped. If by chance you didn’t read all of this and you’re the 19 out of 20 people who scrolled down to the bottom looking for a summary; here it is. So here starts my (franchise) advice.
LEARNING
So what makes a good player great? Learning.
When I started my Battlefield career playing 1942 I got owned by the computer on the easiest. Every time I died I thought to myself, “Why did I die? Could have done something differently? Was it just a good play by my opponent?” My answer would be, “I died because I was outsmarted. Of course I could have done something different. My opponent did just make a good play because he killed me. Well done to him.” Now, since playing bf2, then playing 2142 since the start, playing on teams that where number 1 in 12v12 titan, 8v8 conquest, 8v8 infantry and 5v5 infantry along with a team that won the last 5v5 infantry tourney, I still think the same things when I die. Every time you die you have 10-15 seconds to ponder why you died. Take this time to think why you died and where you should spawn.
So you died and you don’t know why you died? Or maybe there was no way you could possibly have done better? Well you subscribe to the first biggest 2142 myth is: Dying is not my fault. It is. Every time you die you have made a mistake. The great thing about life and 2142 is that without mistakes you can never learn or get better.
So by all means do not avoid combat because you are afraid of making mistakes. Every player makes mistakes and every player can learn from them, from the newest player to the best competive players, when 2142 was popular.
Awareness
Oh, so I’m not the only one who stresses awareness. Even before you can make any decisions you have to have intel to base those decisions on. So no matter how smart you believe you are, and no matter how good you can click that mouse, you are still limited by your awareness. In essence, you can only be as good as your awareness allows you.
The things a player must be aware of:
How many bullets are in my clip? How many clips do I have? Is that a sufficient amount of ammunition to take down the enemies attacking me? If not reload and possibly fall back if needed.
How much health do I have?
How many nades do I have?
How many rockets (other assault unlocks)?
Where are (is) my enemies (enemy) and where are(is) they(he) heading?
Where is my team? (Especially good to understand where your team’s medics are before taking risks.)
What is the best way to attack my enemy?
How can my enemy attack me?
Do my enemies know my intentions?
How good is my enemy?
How good am I?
Can I defeat my enemy?
All of these questions are meant to do one thing. Allow you to pick when you want to engage the enemy. Always attempt to engage the enemy on your terms. Then all you have to do is make your terms favorable to you.
Shooting
So you think I think I’m too lofty. You just want to know how to shoot better.
Ok I hear you J
The basics of shooting are connected to awareness. Always keep your cross hairs where you think an enemy might be. This makes all the difference when fighting. Now this doesn’t mean look in one spot, but it means, when you are playing keep your crosshairs where an enemy might be. This way when that enemy finally reveals himself you will be that much closer to getting bullets on him.
Zooming increases your accuracy. So when ever possible try to zoom in. The con to zooming in is, that it narrows your vision, giving you less awareness. So what to do? Well your going to have to try to know where your enemies are at all times so that you can predict their movements giving you the time to zoom in. This doesn’t not mean that you should try to zoom in when an enemy guy with a shot gun guy is 3 feet away.
Use Everything You Can
This could be as simple as using a dead enemy’s support kit to resupply yourself or picking up a dead player’s kit instead of reloading so that you can be in position to kill your opponent that is also reloading before he does the same to you. If you think a player is going to get revived and you can’t guard the body, take their kit, empty the clip, then pick up your own fully loaded clip, making your enemy reload before he can fire at you when he gets revived. Or if you know u killed them before they could fire, you could empty your clip and take their kit, if you like their gun equally or better.
I would be talking for to long if I tried to tell you everything you can do but the point is, don’t waste anything if it gives you an advantage.
Knife
Your knife is a last resort move. It means your primary and secondary clips are gone. Don’t knife to knife. Knife to kill, in a life or death situation.
Pistol
Best used to destroy support equipment and as a back up instead of reloading your assault weapon.
Voss
Best weapon close up. When using a voss it’s best to plan to take out players at a short range. This means you want to get close and personal, but avoid medium distance (30-60). Using a voss is good with rockets because the rockets make up for the long distance flaw of the voss(Voss is most effective under 30 m and rockets are effective 20 m giving you effective means to kill any enemies at any range effectively). Using the voss, a player can effectively kill any kit. It just takes the right amount of strategy. Quick bursts are ideal, with auto being effective a close range (>18m).
Krylov
Almost as good as the voss close up. More silent, and it has better range (Effective under 40m) than the voss with less recoil than both the scar and the baur. Solid weapon for assaulting, because of the precision aiming. Same major advantage as the voss, perfect with rockets.
Scar
Great for shooting through fences. A solid weapon but due to its recoil it is underused, because the voss and krylov are better weapons. Effective at >50 m.
Baur
Has a major amount of recoil making it less than ideal for close up encounters. A player needs to shoot for the neck, planning on the recoil hitting the head, all on reactions. The baur is the most effective assault weapon at long range. However, because of the vulnerability (close conflicts) of the baur it does not serve an assault player as well as the krylov, scar or voss. The biggest fault with the baur is the noise. The baur makes a very distinct noise allowing the enemy to know where that player is, and that they are very vulnerable to close range firing. Also that that player is distracted on shooting making him very easy pray.
Personally I’d rather have the most effective close range gun. Because when added with rockets you can have the upper hand in almost any situation, it just takes thinking. So I prefer the voss. I would argue that if you wanted to be the best player in the game you would have to only use one of the assault weapons, because your brain can’t completely make up the change in weapons if you want to use the krylov as pac. So one would be most effective as a Voss only player imo. The type of gun you pick for assault makes or breaks your strategy. I really like close up flanking maneuvers and the voss has the versatility and close range punching power only rivaled by the shot gun. However if you want to use the baur you must play much more conservatively, forcing your opponents into the open at long distance.
Med Kit
This heals you. I tend to put down my med boxes as traps. I use them for a short amount of time and then find a position that flanks would be attackers. Everyone can see med boxes which is the major flaw. An enemy knows your exact proximity when you throw down a med box. However if you carry it around you have no primary weapon. This is where thinking is involved. Know when to throw a med box down, know when your enemy throws a med box down and know how to use med boxes to set a trap. My favorite place to put a med box is on central camp, by the northern boxes, on the flag cap and then sit behind the south eastern boxes. Players assaulting my cap think I’m somewhere I’m not, giving me the upper hand.
Defib
Actually gets a further reach than a knife. Can be used in dire straits but be warned, three attempts and your done for. Reviving is an art. The best revivers only go when the paddles are charged. Always time revives to be the fastest possible. The faster the player is up the faster you both can start shooting. When I revive, I like to dive down, defib, then ctrl, space bar to get up faster. When prone, u can crtl then space bar to avoid the prone to standing delay that is built into the game.
Rockets
Rockets make the rock, paper, scissors of battlefield turn to rock, paper, tank.
Use rockets for anything 20 m away and you’ll win 75% or more. Try to always use rockets with cover. That cover can be a hill, building or generic box. Rockets are great because you can kill multiply enemies with little exposure. Image controllable grenades and you have rockets. Enemies have rockets and this is one of the biggest problems for you. If you see rockets, general run the fuck away. This also means that when you use rockets you need to be quick. The fastest with rockets usually wins when both sides have equal cover. This also means some cover is just a great distance marker for the other team. Beaware of who is attacking and if they have rockets because they can ruin all of your plans if you only expecting bullets.
When using rockets, crouching has no effect on aim so I like to do a “peakaboo” rockets, limiting my exposure to munitions and sniper fire. It also makes you harder to head shot, especially with snipers, which is a large vulnerability of using rockets. I try be always moving when I’m using rockets because I know I’m prone to sniper fire if I’m just sitting and getting distances.
Rockets can also be used for locating an enemy. When ever you hit a guy you get a response telling you of this contact, meaning you know the proximity of the solider. So if you think that guy is around the corner, u can fire a rocket there, if you get contact, keep on firing but if you don’t, watch out because that guy might be flanking you right now!
Rockets turn good players into great players. Because the great players can always count on their rockets hitting. This is a big thing for me, because I run on mimimum graphics with my 6600 video card.
Nades
The key to nades is not to throw them where the enemy is but where they are going to be. It's like any sport, you don't pass the ball where your player is, but where he is going to be. As simple as that. The big advantage of nades is that you can kill multiply people with one strike. So this is what your nades should be used for. Time them with enemy revives or at enemy hot spots where they think they have cover and get massive kills. Great for getting around enemy's cover.
Do not just think about strait lines when throwing grenades. Use the bounce to get around objects that the enemy is not expecting.
Spawn Beacon
The advantage is you get to fight without worring about being killed as squad leader. This allows one more aggresive gun to be on the field, yet spawn beacons are huge signs saying "KILL ME; ENEMY PLEASE". So I would recommend using the spawn beacon with care because it basically shows the enemy where your squad is.
Running a Route
Before you spawn hit caps lock to get a full map. If there is not a UAV around you, expect enemies to be in places that are good spots to attack your team. Basically this will let you know where to focus your attentions. The Blue area is where I will have to worry about being flanked, while the pink area is the area I want to attack. I'm going up high here, so that I won't be as easily flanked, because I know i'm by myself. So when I go for Central Camp, I'll focus on the pink area but check the blue area because this is my weakness, being flanked by myself. I also know that my enemy from central camp will be expecting pressure from Toll Station, so i'll run around behind Central Camp and flank them. 
When ever you spawn you want to be moving. That way, if there is a unexpected spawn camper, you are at least moving, making you a harder target. Hopefully the enemy will have to reload giving you time to kill him, teabag him and possible make fun of him over global chat (j). So now, you know where the enemy should be, you have spawned and killed a douche bag, and now u must run your route. The best routes are situational, but generally when making a route one most predict, or find where the enemy is, figure out where they are going, and get in a position to better them with a better positioning. I use my own teammate’s positions to tell me where the enemies are. I know that the two guys to the right of me in the picture above are uncontested, meaning that the enemy pressure is not in that direction, making me even more cautious because if the enemy isn't there it is probably near me. If one of the two players dies, I will know that that area is dangerous, but if they don't die but they get shot at, I now know my enemy’s location is because of the noise of their guns. Then it is up to me to find a way to flank the enemy (ies). Knowing where your enemy is the first step you need to plan your route.
The First Skill In Running A Route is the Ability to Predict Where the Enemy Is. (Above in better details)
This is done by first using your team. As I said earlier you can understand alot about the positioning of enemies. If your players are not being fired on it means there are a number of angles that are not being used by enemies. Combining all of the positions that an enemy is probably not, because they should be shooting allows, you to minimize to places you need to account for. Basically, when someone kills someone else, one player gets a kill while another gets a loss. If everyplayer where to combine their kills vs. their deaths in total it would be exactly one to one. Now I lied, for every suicide a player dies without killing, but this is a minute exception that doesn't effect the numbers significantly. On the grand scale everyone's total k.d is slightly less than 1.0. So when you start off spawned it is about a 50% chance that you will kill a person and about 50% they will kill you. However, when you increase your odds of winning by thinning the deck for yourself (by narrowing the place enemies could be) you have an advantage. If the enemy is not thinking like this, then you have an advantage. However if the enemy is, you better hope your thinking just as smart and have been narrowing down the places the enemy could have gone. The better you get at narrowing down the places your enemy could be, the more likly you'll get the jump, which gives you the advantage.
Another Way of Narrowing Down the Choices:
If you see an enemy at any time, think about where that enemy could run in the amount of time since you saw him, and where he is running. In practice this takes the ability to know how far a solider can get, what they can acsess and how long it takes them to get to any possible place. This takes practice and memorization of the map. However, one can't totally depend on this. It is only a better known point of possible contact. Example. Player A sees enemy B and starts to fire. Enemy B hides and Enemy C kills Player A. Then they ask, "But, Franchise! You told me to worry about the players I see!" My answer is, you got to multitask. Every decision though, should be trying to make the playing field of any possible contact in your advantage.
The key to narrowing down the choices is also when to know your calculations have be outdated. So all of this thinking has to be happening about every five seconds. I calculate everything individually, because it accounts for the unaccounted guessing error if I make general calculations and also i'm quite dumb. However, a player developes their own system. I'm better at learning visually so here is a picture of this all.
So you are narrowing down the choices
Rarely pick routes that open out into a flag. The end destination of your route should be a protective place that is in rushing distance of a flag. A place that can give protection, good angles for fighting, and a place to recover to. Getting to the destination can be just as fun. Depending on playing style. I love to play both as a "runner and gunner" and a conservative player. As a "runner and gunner" it is important to pick routes that flank the enemies movements. I have yet to kill four guys that i have run into while they where all ready to shoot me. And this is what happens when you pretend to be Rambo. If your going to run and gun, take routes around where the enemy attention is, and then go for close quarters assualts on enemies from the sides. I guarentee you will have much more sucsess "running and gunning" if you run your route to hit people from angles they can't see. As a conservative player, you don't have to move around as much. You can pick angles that give you the heads up advantage. This also means that you must cut down the possible places that the enemy could contact you. Preferable this is only one spot. However this has yet to happen to me in 2142. There are many more ways to get to a place you've goten 97.0392371664890593281-0329230niner %. So since, you want to play conservatively, you are not moving far, the best way to cover multiply angles is moving in timing with when enemies can approach you. It's near impossible for me to explain this in words so I'll make a movie.
This All Seems Way To Much To Process at Once!
After you get this all down, you must simplify all of this. Find a way to make thinking the easiest. This way it is also the fastest.
As I have said previously, the key to becoming a good player is awarness. Everything else will come with practice.
So now you know you need to try to figure out where the enemy is at all time, next you need to know how to stay alive. Staying alive is relitivey simple, yet very hard. The key to staying alive is only fight in match ups that you have the advantage of. This means, I shouldn't run blindly into a chock hole. Instead when I'm running aroudn I'm taking note of possible cover to fall back on if I am attacked. That way, if the inniciatal engagement is not to my advantage I have a place to fall back on, which will also drive my enemy to attack. By doing this your enemy has to either persue you, allowing you to set a trap, or look for other targets. By running routes that leave you ways out, you can pick your engagements. This then lets you choose from multiple oppurtunities, giving you more chances to choice from.
Switching Styles of Play
As you get better, your moves and habits will become better known to the enemy. When ever I see a good oppenent, I try to find their habits. And good players will do this to you to. So it is important to switch up the way you play, even in pubs. Not only will this make it harder for the enemy to predict your movements, it will also allow you to blend in with your team. I know players, like technosmurf's style of dolphin diving, for example, which allows me to know, that I should shoot the better player first. So to give you an advantagae and to make your enemy look in different places avoid habits and always try to mix up your strategies.
More is to come but I'm currently very busy. My last tip is, only try to engage enemies where you have an exrtreme advantage. I try to engage enemies with about 70% odds in my favor at the minimum. If you only engage enemies at 50% you will probably end up with a 1.0 k/d. Also Choose your engagements wisely. Each engagement takes up some of your time, causing you to loose awarness, so remember the danger you put yourself in when ever you fire your gun.
My Style
Everyone has a style, and it is mostly derived by what their main goal is. Bigwave69 (A.K.A. Jawbreaker aka dealkiller) main goal is causing caos and fighting the enemy the most posible. This means he's pretty good, but he takes on risks that only rambo would make. I try to play like a secret agent. Thing James Bond or Jason Borne. When I play I try to get the most points. As simple as that. The more points I get the better my team is off. I call that work for the team, right there.
Style is basically the habits of specific keys to