I apologize for my earlier posts, stating that rails were fine and dropships would kill everything if we didn't exist; I now see that what I said is the same thing that AV said to me prior 1.7-

Before 1.7, I could still get 30:0 games IF THERE WAS NO AV.

On the same note, hard counters are good, but a hard counter should not be a metaphorical brick wall against a balloon.

Dropships have excellent anti-infantry capability, and if we're supposed to be getting gunships/bombers soon(TM), then I don't see a need to give the turrets with the power of large turrets to kill tanks (hopeful).

Of course, a single ADS can defeat any tank as long as it has no support, is not in the redline, and the ADS can get into its cone of silence (for lack of a better term).

This is an imbalance, for sure.

I can see that swarms and forges have the power to push of most dropship pilots, except when its an ADS swarm, but tanks swat them out of the sky (rails, specifically, like it isn't even cool.)

A more elegant solution is to get rid of the redline. Perhaps, any shots fired within the redline count for 0% damage, or remove it altogether.

This issue also has to do with large turrets in general- blasters DESTROY even the heaviest sentinal and a militia rail can take out even a double hardened gunlogi rather quickly, let alone one who has no idea it is being sighted.

Seeing as tanks have plenty of...tank, I'd say that a large turret (rails and blasters) need a nerf so that the blaster slaughters infantry a little slower, and the rail doesn't OHK every dropship short of a double-hardened Grimsnes.

I also understand that the damage mods contribute to this, however, they are not the issue. 1800 damage from an unmodded rail is obscene. I could understand that type of damage of it required a 5x SP multipler at lvl 5 to acheive, but the way it is, I do not like it. Tanks, as they stand now, should be proto-tanks with maxed out passive skills.

So, yes, the vehicle skill tree needs to be redone, again, so it is similar to chromosome. However, I like the new way tanks function (waves of opportunity). At the same time, tanks, turrets, and vehicle modules need a massive nerf, so that only by investing to lvl 5 on all passive skills, can they be this powerful. A tank, ONLY WHEN FULLY SPECCED, should be as powerful as they are now. That may come off as an elitest remark to many of you, but frankly, I don't care. Infantry are very well rewarded for passive investments on modules, suits, weapons, and core upgrades- tanks are not. At the end of the day, I can max every skill I want to on my gunlogi and I can fit a plate or twp, extra- doesn't count for much considering that the same amount of SP invested (roughly 16 million) could bring a protosuit from an overpriced coffin to a death machine that even a large blaster would have to concentrate fire on to destroy.

TLDR?:

The power tanks have ruins the balance of power on the battlefield. Infantry are segregated to CQC, dropships are only truly useful in PC, and the SP investment to lvl 5 vehicle core/prof skills is not worth the cost.

Revive Chrome skill tree.
Nerf large turrets and modules for vehicles.
Keep 'waves of opportunity' concept.

You just gave me an idea for a redlining solution:

The yellow zone.

The yellow zone can be accessed by both teams without a timer, and borders the orange zone (let's call the spawn red-zone the orange zone)
If you are in the enemy yellow zone, you don't get WP.
If you are in your team's orange zone, you don't get WP; UNLESS the person you kill is in the yellow zone.
Turret AI will not fire at anything in the green (normal) zone unless it has entered the orange zone.

Problem solved.