So you wanted tanks to be what all of the tankers wanted? A super weapon only 10-20 players could use and dominate with? Welcome to Chromosome.

Golden Age <333

One of those in an ambush and you were guaranteed 30 kills, at least. Rails could sit on top of a mountain on Manus Peak and go 50+ kills every time bby camping every objective (people used to render beyond 10m)

Because we don't have enough SP sinks
Vehicles are a major part of the game so this is a terrible idea. If you want no vehicles go play COD.

3-4 people using vehicles is normal, people like being vehicle specialists, they shouldn't have to waste skill points on things they'll never use. And with no vehicles it would take forever to get places.

A suit requirement wouldn't accomplish what you want anyway. It would simply add another SP sink for vehicle pilots.

The real infantry SP requirements come in numerous Dropsuit Upgrade skills and Weapon skills. The suit is only a tiny SP cost compared to all the support skills required to be an effective infantry player.

Sorry man -1

Nonsensical sp requirements do not fix the AV balance, if anything they would break it even worse when one of those aforementioned veterans brings out a tank in a pub match and is completely unstoppable.

I know this is going to throw some people but I think all vehicles should have a reduced sp investment, and provide much more marginal benefits for sp invested.

This is a gun game, vehicle specialization should not be a class anymore than the mass driver users are a class. It is a tool, you can specialize into it and hone your skills to get the most out of it, but in the end it is a tool. Calling in vehicles should be an investment for assistance your team not a dedicated play style.

SP gain was unlimited tho and 4x the rate too

200k SP games ftw

Piloting is a profession in any military and there is no reason to denigrate it in DUST.

I would imagine for some of the pilots, that the draw of this game was the fact that they could specialize as a pilot right away.

Making them have to skill up in gun game would have no appeal to some and we would lose them as mercs(even though the current vehicle issues might do this anyway).

It's like going to college to be an engineer and a prereq is 10 semesters of creative writing.

I see what your saying, but basic training(for the navy) was only about 9 weeks. Then you were sent to your A school right after if you picked a rate when you joined. A very small percentage of your career would be basic. What your asking is for someone to spend 15 years of a 20 year career I basic. That what I got from your op.

I'm not a tanker, I actually hate them (kind of a respect,but love hate), so I'm no expert on what kind of sp they have to spend. But I do know they have to spend some good coin just to field the most basic tank( which can be solo killed with a basic swarm). Don't think a tanker just starting out can field them on a consistent basis without going infantry once in awhile. That will have to be the basic training.

That's more like progressing from STD, to ADV, to PROTO vehicles, not from infantry to vehicle.

What you proposed was more like needing to train manufacturing before piloting in EVE.

The rub with vehicles is that there are no starter fittings to fall back on and the SP and ISK requirements make them impossible to jump into as a new player. You would need to gather a lot of passive SP first and obtain a Corp or rich player as a sponsor.

Probably no tankers have gone above 50-0
My highest is 37. But that was when only 1 person was using militia swarms and there were no enemy squads.