How To: Cert Farming

You will get more EXP (10,000-24,000/hour) & certs (100-200/hour) cert grinding, but cheating will give the game away quickly.

Here I am going to go over the various ideas and thoughts behind cert farming in an attempt to stimulate your mind. You're going to need to figure out how to do this from the hints I am giving you. Daybreak will naturally read this and deploy counter measures so let the game of cat and mouse begin. Cert farming in itself is using loopholes within PlanetSide 2 to generate certs. There are a variety of methods, from the now detected ammobox cert grind, to other more complicated methods.

You will need to think about a variety of variables in order to cert grind. I will be detailing them below.
As it stands, 250 EXP = 1 Cert so you are going to have to find a way to increase your maximum EXP gain, without being detected.
As a side note - Free members can hold up to 10,000 Certs, whilst members can have up to 50,000 certs at any one time, before you need to spend them.

The first thing you need to consider is whether you're going to do this with a friend, or by yourself. On a side note - If you have a friend willing to be cert farmed for the next 10 hours, they're either trying to kill you or sleep with you because I don't know anyone in their right mind willing to do this. Most of you will need to figure out how to get (at least) 2 clients running. How you do this is up to you, I will not be telling you how to do this, BUT I will be telling you of the risks. Daybreak (the game developers) have implemented BattlEye as a requirement before the client can be launched, and also anti-multi-client deterrents. As such, you cannot have 2 clients launched. I can tell you there are work arounds that are still functional, which don't require any additional software. On a side note - I do not recommend BattlEye spoofing, especially public ones as those methods are outdated and you will be found out.

You need to figure out how to get 2 clients up and running as your first step.

Once you've got your multi-clients working - you need to develop your method. If you're clever - you WON'T reveal your method. As soon as something goes public, you're very effectively giving the developers a means to identify you and the others using your method. Keep it low-key and share at your own risk.

Some things you need to keep in mind are the following:

• EXP Gain:
  How much an hour are you making?
  
• EXP Multiplier:
  The bigger the multiplier, the more exp you make which causes a quicker turn over.
  
• Location:
  Literally - where are you going to do it?
  
• Timezone:
  You going to do this at peak time when every one and their mothers are playing or are you going to do this at night time when there are less players?
  
• Independent Variables:
  The variables that change, but the over arching method stays the same. This can be any number of things.
  
• Dependent Variables:
  Your dependent variables are the variables that you measure or observe. It is the factor that is dependent on the state of the independent variable.
  
• Control Variables:
  The things you keep the same. Eg with the (OUTDATED) ammobox method, you'd always need the character you wanted to gain certs on, be handing out ammoboxes. You would also need a 'shooter' of some type. These are the control variables because they remain the same, regardless of how you achieve this.
  
• Server Population:
  On one side, a large server population means there are lots of players, so it's harder to isolate you cert farming, - on the other hand, it increases the likelihood of you being found by actual players and killing your farm. Visa versa for low population.
  
• Detection Ratio:
  Like above- but regarding your method. If you're using bypasses for BattlEye, your detection ratio could be higher. If you're gaining a large amount of exp quickly, you're going to be found out quickly. If you're getting lots of kills, you're going to stick out on the leaderboard. Likewise if you have mad exp for the day, but haven't defended any bases. All of these are giveaways.
  
• Visibility:
  Literally - Can other players see you? On the map? Visually? Think about these things when finding the right place to farm.
  
• Duration of Farm:
  Probably one of the most important; HOW LONG ARE YOU GOING TO FARM FOR? If you establish a pattern of earning roughly X amount of certs every week, then you're less likely to be found out than if you do LARGE farms every now and then. Establish a pattern!

Once you've developed your method - you're going to need to decide if you want this to be an autonomous process or if you're going to do this manually. Both have their pros and cons.
I am here to tell you that both work and I've experienced issues with both. Neither are perfect and take time to perfect, whilst also having their risks.

• Manual is easier for those new to cert farming, however there are those that are experienced in this topic and still prefer to do it manually.
• Autonomous cert farming is very much valued if you want to farm for long periods of time, but saying that it is also far more detectable (especially if you don't know what you're doing) and you often find yourself "overseeing" the process just in case anything goes wrong.

There's nothing stopping you from mixing and matching and the possibilities are endless, all with their pros and cons.

As it stands, no matter what shade of grey you want to colour it, in the eyes of the devs you're cheating and therefore there's a chance that if you're caught too many times doing this, you're going to get banned.

If you get kicked for cert farming (It'll say "Stat Padding") then chances are you're not going to get banned straight away, but if you do it too much then you're going to end up in the dog house permanently.

Ways of getting caught:

• You're using additional software / bypassing and BattlEye shanks you. (You'll get a G9 error when you try to load into the game, once you've selected a character)
• Manual reporting means that a players has found you and reported you. This is the most common threat, though most players tend to just kill you. You will not know if they've reported you unless they intend to rub it in your face.
• If you farm for more than 10 hours, you're going to stick out like a sore thumb. People check the daily leaderboard and if your stats don't match up, they'll know something is up.
• Someone accidentally finds you.
• Anti-cheat / anti-stat padding detection kicks in and boots you from the game.
• Your stats (eg K/D or something) are obnoxiously over the top.

There are many more but you get the point - keep your head down and BE SMART.

The chances are that Daybreak will continue to get better at protecting their game and will eventually patch their loopholes. Be smart, know that HWID is a thing, but also remember that it's only game. Have a bit of fun - and just don't bother using your main account because it's not worth it until you've developed a fool proof method that is proven on other accounts.

Remember they know your IP, too.
Good luck and have fun!