For the sake of being thorough, I’ll give you a quick tutorial on how the map functions at a basic level. Skip to the next section if you know about population charts, filters, etc.

Hitting M on your keyboard will bring up the map of whatever continent you are on. Here you can see hexes, each hex represents a base that can be captured. Mousing over a hex will show you some population statistics of who is currently in the hex, these are located at the bottom right of your screen. The two things of note here are the pie chart and numerical tracker. The pie chart gives you a quick look at the percent composition of who is at a fight while the numerical tracker can be used for more exact estimations of hex population. In conjunction these two tools can give pretty accurate readings of who is at a fight, but more on that later.

To get a quick look at a combination of these stats you can navigate over to the “filters” tab in the top right of the map and switch your filter to “ally + enemy activity”. How this works is that the more blue a hex is, the more allies are in it. The more red, the more enemies are in it. When there are both enemies and allies then the red and blue colors will begin to cancel each other out and produce a white hue. The overall transparency of these colors then show how many total people are in the hex, with transparent meaning less people and opaque meaning more.

Next, there are “hotspots” that track where people are doing a lot of shooting, and I mean that literally. A hot spot will only show up when a large enough group of people fire their weapons. Lastly, some people enable the “influence cloud” option in combination with the activity filter but it personally gives me a headache. It supposedly helps you to tell what territory is still under your control with the filters turned on, but you don’t explicitly need the cloud for this and it isn't worth the obfuscation of the filters in my opinion.

If you find the map to be too cluttered, then consider turning off the "outfit resources" markers. They are really only relevant to squad leads who are grinding resources for their outfit (and even then they're not really helpful). This shouldn't even be enabled by default in my opinion as it will not be relevant to the vast majority of players.

This can vary depending on your skillset or even personal preference. If you are just starting out then look for fights with about a 50/50 split on the population pie chart. However, not all 50/50s are created equal. Many “1-12” 50/50s will just be two lost noobs running around an empty base and “96+” 50/50s can quickly devolve into “walk forward and die” fights for new players. “12-24” 50/50s are a nice sweet spot to learn in and “24-48”s can give that “big battle” feel without going too over the top. By enabling the previously mentioned filters you can eventually get a feel for what colors you like to fight in and be able to pick out how many people are in a given fight at a glance. In a general sense, dull white colors represent those “12-24” and "24-48" fights I was talking about. There are about 24 people on each side of the fight shown to the right.

There are instances where you can tell almost exactly how many people are in a base as well. For example, if you see a 50/50 1-12 fight happening you may be quick to disregard it as I stated previously. However, if you see either side’s population quickly jump up to “12-24” and the pie chart remains the same then that is usually a good indicator that a small scale fight is actually happening there because, by using a bit of basic logic, we know there are about 12 people on both sides. These are either small skirmishes or the infant stages of a big fight, either way they are worth your attention and this principal can be applied to fights of all sizes.

Also note that not all bases behave the same. 3-point and tower bases make for enjoyable fights as a defender but can be frustrating to push into as an attacker due to their size and the height advantages provided respectively. Small bases can be quite fun for both sides but are often subjected to easy force multiplier spam from nearby aircraft or ground vehicles, and struggle to support the upper end of planetside's fight populations very well. Biolabs are special in that they are shielded from a lot of force multipliers and also have secure spawns for the attackers making for quality infantry fights (note, this generally attracts better players as well). A loose guide for what to look for could be seen as;
Defenders want: Towers > 3-Point Bases > Major Facilities (techs, amps, bios) > Small Bases
Attackers want: Biolabs (probs won't cap it, but you're looking for a fun fight) > Small Bases > Major Facilities (other than bios) > Towers
Bases are also usually easier to defend than to take so you can often afford to defend with a lower pop than your opponent.

These fights will always be great standard “fun” fights to come back to, but one of the wonderful things about Planetside is that as your skill improves you become a force multiplier of all your own. By that I mean that once you are skilled enough, a single instance of a good player like yourself can equate to 2, 3, 4, or more enemy players. This means that once you start dominating at these 50/50 fights and want to push yourself then you can start looking for bases with more enemies than allies and fight there. These are the red colored bases on the “ally + enemy” map filter. Just remember, you can always re-deploy away from a fight if it stops being fun. There is no need to try and solo push a 10/90% enemy overpop tower assault if you aren’t finding it enjoyable.

Below is an example of the map with the Ally+Enemy filter turned on. Click to enlarge. Where would you spawn?

The most obvious way to get to a base with a fight is to spawn on it from the map screen. However, because the game’s spawn system tries to combat too many people showing up at once it may lock you out of spawning there. If you are moving a squad around, try to time everyone’s deployment to be around the same time so the hex doesn’t lock your last guy out when the pop ratio hits 50/50. Sometimes the game rightfully locks you out, sometimes the system just feels a little jank. Welcome to Planetside, ya learn to live with it. Waiting a few extra seconds might get you there, or you could do what we call “re-deploy hopping”. This means that you spawn at the base closest to the one you want to fight at and re-deploy as soon as you spawn. Since the game tries to let you spawn at all adjacent hexes you can just spawn where you wanted to go originally once you’re done hopping. Also note that you can initiate a re-deploy while still loading into an area, this helps speed up hopping. As of writing the spawn system has been going through some changes so this advice may or may not apply as often as it used to (edit: hopping was nerfed but might be coming back in the next update? Just try other avenues of movement for now).

You can also see if the "Join Combat" function (previously called "Instant Action") will take you to a good fight. Open the map and activate JC, see where it's going to take you, and if it's a good fight then just roll with it. JC isn't super reliable but it can be a nice supplement for finding and getting to fights on your own. I would advise to only use it with the map open, as activating it and blindly letting it take you somewhere is a great way to land at a garbage fight (or a spot where a fight isn't even happening).

If for whatever reason you don’t have direct spawns and can't hop to the fight then you can pull an aircraft from the closest base with a terminal. Your main air transport options are Valkyrie, Galaxy, and ESF with the Valk being the most accessible and economic choice. Valks don’t cost a lot of nanites, have built in ejector seats, and are easy to fly. However, once you have certs to burn, you can get an ejection seat ESF with high cap afterburners and racer chassis (this loadout is not at all meta for air combat so I'd leave this until you don't have much else to bother certing). You could also try bringing a Sunderer from a nearby ally base and deploying it for some easy xp if the situation applies.

Going back to Planetside’s vast amount of freedom, sometimes players just don’t come together to create interesting fights. In scenarios when your map doesn’t show any appetizing engagements you have a few options.

1.) Have you checked the other open continents?
At the top of the map screen you can click on the name of the current contient you’re on and a drop down menu will appear showing all of the other continents. If you click on one of the other ones you are able to see what the map looks like there. Be sure to see what other continents look like if you’re unhappy with where you currently are.

2.) Are you on an overpopulated faction?
No matter what you do, if you are playing a faction with 10% extra population compared to the next faction then you’re just going to have bad fights. There are only so many enemies to go around and eventually your side will reach a saturation point where you and your buddies will just be staring at a spawn room while 200 other allies shell it. Consider making alt characters on each of the factions for when situations like this arise. Plus, playing other factions gives you experience with the very tools they'll be using against you on your main. It's also just more content to play with, which is fun.

3.) Try waiting.
Sometimes fights need a little time to get going. If the map looks barren of fun then take the time to stand up, do some stretches, grab a drink, etc. After a few minutes a jucy fight may have started, waiting for you to deploy.

4.) Are you able to start a fight?
Starting fights isn’t something I’d normally advise a new player doing, but if you’re out of options then you’re out of options. Find an enemy base bordering your territory and then pull a sunderer from your connecting base. Drive the bus to the enemy facility and deploy it somewhere you think is safe. This requires a good amount of map knowledge (and luck if you’re alone). If you don’t know where to park a bus then it will die very quickly and sometimes you won’t get any allies/enemies to come help start the fight anyway. If you get the sunderer into a parking spot and some rando with a lightning decides to blow it up the second you run to the point then you’re just boned.

5.) Have you checked other servers?
If you’re playing during off-hours for your server (like when everyone is asleep) then you may be better off making a character on the server that you have the next best connection to and trying to play there. PS2 is lenient on high ping and you can learn to play around it.

6.) Dude, just log off.
If every fight on every continent on every server you’re able to connect to is just so god awful that you can’t stand to participate in any of them then… just log off. PS2’s freedom means anything can happen and sometimes the fights just don’t feel great. Take a break and don’t let it burn you out.

PS2info guides I maintain:
Free Promo Codes

PS2 Discord Mentors-Recommended Infantry Loadouts

Ten Points of Advice

Useful Videos

Potato UserOptions.ini Settings

Opshax's Vehicle Loadouts

My other original guide:
Starter weapons and you!