Soldiers are the ranged weapons experts, able to pick off enemies at a distance and take damage if necessary, but they prefer to keep what distance they can. As a result, the soldier will not have as many hit points as the enforcer, but at the same time the soldier can deliver quite a bit of damage to an enemy before the enemy can get up close and personal.
The Solitus is going to provide an extremely balanced soldier; however, you will not be able to take the type of beatings that an Atrox can, and you will not be as good with weapons as the Opifex. Overall this is a good choice, but you simply won't be as effective as you could have been if you had chosen a different race.
The Opifex is also not a very good choice for a soldier, as you will not be able to take anywhere near the amount of punishment that you will probably be subjected to. On the other hand, if you are able to keep in a group almost all of the time, where other players can stay up front and take the beating, the Opifex can be very useful. Because of the high agility and sense of an Opifex you will prove to be a very good aim. The moment that you lose your entourage, however, you will become extremely vulnerable.
Obviously, the Nano is the worst choice for a soldier. The Nano is feeble in three of the most important skills to a soldier (strength, agility, and stamina) and ranks high in skills that will rarely be used. Also, because the soldier does not use nano formulas much, those things that normally make a Nano an attractive option are of little use.
The Atrox is a natural soldier and is all around the best option for a soldier. By choosing an Atrox, you will be able to take a lot of damage, and your increased strength will help you handle the bigger guns. Because you can take the punishment, you will not need to rely upon a group of people as much as the Opifex will, since you may even find yourself being able to stand toe-to-toe with the occasional red enemy.
As a soldier, your very survival depends upon your skills with ranged weapons. As such, you will be able to use any of the ranged weapons in Anarchy Online. To start off with, you will have a powered assault rifle. While not the most powerful weapon in the game, the powered assault rifle does not use ammo. As a result, you may wish to use this weapon until you have gained several levels, as you will be able to save quite a few credits that would have otherwise gone to ammo.
After you have reached level 7 or 8, you will want to definitely look into other weaponry. At this point it is good to take a pause and decide what type of path you want to take. To put your skill points into as few disciplines as possible so that you may be your best in the few disciplines that you choose, it is good to choose, as early as possible, a type of weaponry in which you will want to specialize. While this is not a requirement, it will help you in the long run. There are two ways that people generally like to go about this. Either they want to cause a lot of damage in as few hits as possible, or they like to do less damage, but hit a lot faster. For the most part the two are very similar, so which way you go is entirely up to you.
If you choose to do less damage, but hit faster, then you will want to focus almost entirely on handguns or weapons that can be dual-wielded. As a result, you will be attacking almost twice as fast. This can be an advantage later when you are able to obtain a nano program that will enable you to do more damage with each hit, as you will begin to cause serious pain to your enemies. On the other hand, the downside is that many pistols do not let you burst, fling shot, or use full auto. Upon occasion you will find a pistol that will let you do one or two of these; however, it is rare, and to be able to execute that maneuver, you will need to have a pistol in each hand that will let you perform the action.
Regardless of which way you choose to go, keep one thing in mind. Ammo can get very expensive, and the cost is almost equal no mater which path you choose. Because of this, the soldier is a very expensive class to choose, and you will find yourself fighting for money often. So it is good to keep your powered assault rifle on you at all times in case you run out of ammo.
Despite having a problem wearing some of the more "advanced" armors that require a high intelligence or nano proficiency to wear, as a soldier, you have a rather wide selection of armor at your disposal. As a result, you will find yourself wearing plasteel or OT assault armor quite often later in the game. However, for your first few levels the stats will matter very little, and you will often be able to choose your armor simply based upon the AC bonuses that it provides.
While most soldiers will not rely as heavily upon nano formulas as many of the other professions will, nano formulas can be very important. For instance, if you have chosen the pistol-wielding path wherein you will hit often but for less damage, the soldier has access to a nano program that will increase the damage that you do with each attack by four points. While that may not sound like much, when you are firing off a shot every second or two it can really add up. In addition, you will also find nano programs that can increase your AC, increase your health, reflect damage back on enemies, cause enemies to attack you, or even increase the rate at which you are able to attack. Naturally you will have to pick and choose, and depending upon your style, some nano formulas will be more beneficial than others. Overall, we recommend nano formulas that increase your AC, the rate at which you can cause damage, and the amount of damage that is done per hit.