The three armor types are commonly known as light, medium, and heavy armor (sometimes called jugs, juggies, juggernaughts). The main advantages of each armor are pretty self explanatory.

-Light is the quickest but takes the least amount of damage. Lights can carry three weapons. They are the only armor that can use the cloak pack, as well as the laser rifle (which requires an energy pack). Lights can pilot any vehicle.

-Medium is the in between. Mediums can carry four weapons, and can use the missile launcher. They can pilot any vehicle except for the grav cycle. They can carry any pack except for the cloak pack.

-Heavy is slow, but can take a beating. They can carry five weapons, and can use the missile launcher and the mortar. They cannot pilot any vehicle, but can ride in the passenger seats of the havoc, or the tailgunner seat of the bomber.

There are six vehicles in Tribes 2. Each one can be used to be a huge asset for the entire team when use properly. Three vehicles are ground based, and three can fly. Every vehicle can be used to ram people to death.

-The grav cycle, also called the wildcat, has the highest potential speed in the game because of the game physics, but is generally slower than the shrike. It's a very lightly armored vehicle, but because of the way it hugs the ground and it's small size, it's a hard target to hit with missles. The grav cycle is not armed with weapons in BASE Tribes 2, but has a chain gun in Classic.

-The behemoth tank is very well armored, and actually fairly agile despite behind someone slow. The tank has two seats, one for the driver, and one for the gunner. Tanks have two weapons, the chain gun, which does great damage but has a huge spread, and the mortar.

-The Jericho MPB (Mobile Point Base) is slow, and can take a huge beating before being destroyed. The MPB is only useful when deployed. It has a missile turret on it, and an inventory station in the back. Despite being very durable, it's also a huge target for the opposing team. They should not be left alone. Also, when deployed, the MPB's driver seat is not usable by members of the opposite team, but it takes a few seconds for it to deploy after someone jumps out of the driver's seat.

-The shrike is a quick and agile air to air/ground fighter. It's lightly armored. It's equipped with duel blasters on the front that are capable of tearing through anything pretty quickly.

-The heavy bomber is only slightly better armored than the shrike, and it's slower, and a much larger target. Other than the pilot, there are two other positions in a bomber. The bombedier drops bombs, and can fire a blaster turret from the bomber's belly, but the turret is limited to objects underneath the bomber. The tailgunner protects the bomber by firing his own weapons at anyone chasing it, and by dropping flares to protect his crew from missiles.

-The havoc transport is only slightly better armored than the bomber, and it's slower and a larger target. Other than the pilot, there are a total of 5 passenger positions on the vehicle. It's primary use is the transport of a group of heavies to the enemy base to attack it's defenses and assets.

There are a total of ten different hand held weapons in Tribes 2, along with mines, and five different types of hand grenades. The blaster, ELF, laser rifle, and shocklance all require no ammunition and use the player's energy instead. Also, with any projectile weapon (the laser, shocklance, and ELF all do not use projectiles), the projectiles take on the momentum of the player. So if you're strafing to the side when you fire a weapon, the projectile will drift to the side as well.

-The blaster is Tribes' pea shooter. It's projectiles can ricochet off of walls, and also ignores shield packs. It has a decent rate of fire, low damage per projectile, and is most effective indoors because of the nature of the weapon. The blaster can also hurt the player using it if the shots ricochet back at them.

-The laser rifle is Tribes' sniper rifle. The amount of damage dealt is directly related to the amount of energy the player has when he fires, so it's best to fire fully charged shots. The beam is bright red, and draws a line straight back to the sniper; it's best to shoot and move. Headshots deal more damage with this weapon. Only usable by light armor.

-The shocklance is a short ranged weapon, only effective up to 16 meters. Hitting a player in the back with this weapon guarantees a kill, unless the target has an active shield pack. The weapon also sports a knockback effect, and can be used to flip over flying vehicles by a skilled player.

-The ELF is primarily a support weapon. It deals no damage, but rapidly drains energy from the target, leaving them vulnerable. The electrical arc locks to it's target, so it's very easy to aim, but has a limited range of 30-35 meters (as I recall).

-The spinfusor disc launcher is basically a fancy looking rocket launcher. It fires a disc that explodes on contact. It has a low rate of fire, decent damage, and the blast has a good knockback. A small gimmick to the weapon is that discs can be skipped off of water and magma at a low angle.

-The plasma rifle is similar to the spinfusor in many ways. Lower damage per shot, faster rate of fire, smaller blast radius, and no knockback. The nature of the weapon makes it best suited for indoor use, and taking down base assets.

-The grenade launcher is pretty self explanatory. It has a rate of fire slightly slower than the plasma rifle, blast radius and damage slightly more then the spinfusors, and fires in an arc. The grenade takes a second or two to arm, and bounces off of any surface until it does.

-The chain gun is also pretty self explanatory. It fires projectiles in a cone at a fast rate, and does low damage per projectile. It's a great weapon for air-born targets, but is a poor choice for indoor combat. The chain gun takes a moment to "spin up" before it starts firing.

-The missile launcher fires a heat seeking missile at a locked target (red reticle). It can also "dumb fire" while it's locking on (green reticle), and under water. It does high damage, has a very low rate of fire, and a small blast radius with a small knockback. Base sensors, base turrets, all vehicles, and any personel with a high heat signature (the red bar under your energy bar, when it's flashing) can be locked on. Missiles are diverted by flares. Only usable by medium and heavy armor.

-The mortar is the grenade launcher's bigger brother in every way. Slower rate of fire, more damage, larger blast radius, longer range. Only usable by heavy armor.

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There are also hand grenades and land mines that every armor can carry. Anyone can carry up to three land mines, and the number of hand grenades depends on the armor you're using.

-Land mines are fairly simple. Drop one, give it a second to arm itself, avoid it from then on. You'll often find that land mines are marked with a beacon which shows up as a marker on your HUD. Your flag is also almost always mined. You can destroy a mine by damaging it. Land mines cannot be placed too closely to one another.

-Frag grenades are the most common grenade seen. You spawn with five of these. Toss the grenade, it explodes after a couple seconds.

-Concussion grenades do no damage, but can knock players around quite a bit, and can disarm them and knock the flag away from flag carriers.

-Flash grenades do no damage. They can blind anyone within range for a couple of seconds, including team mates and the person using them.

-Flares are used to divert missiles. They serve no other real purpose, but are very important for what they do.

-Cameras are not really grenades of course, but they take up the grenade slot. You can deploy a camera that the team can use to monitor an area. They're often used in conjunction with a satchel charge pack as a trap. Some players have even started using them as a small platform to stand on, or place land mines on.