Ever looked at the patch notes for 1.7? CCP said they would be making vehicles more 'fun' when they striped down and dumbed down much of the options and completely rebalanced all vehicles in the game. And sure you could argue that back then they were more fun to use. There were a few problems like redline rail gunners and double damage mod sica's but these were then addressed not long after.

Today however vehicles are useless. Absolutely pointless. Why is this? Ever since the hotfixes started rolling out its been nerf after nerf. First they they make the large blaster ineffective at killing infantry simple because there were a few people whining on the forums ( CCP being manipulated again ). I don't know if any of you play battlefield but infantry get owned by tanks in that game. Land a shell anywhere near a player and they are dead in one. But in Dust because the dispersion is so insanely high It's near impossible to kill the strafing heavy with a forge gun 3m in front of you before he kills you. I can't see how anyone can think that is actually fair. In battlefield infantry run from the tanks, in this game it's mostly the tanks running from the infantry.

Of course the large blaster was most commonly fitted to the madrugar which also got their heavy armour reppers nerfed to hell. That was one advantages that tank had over the gunnlogi. Now it doesn't have any. A complex light armor repper is now almost as good as a basic heavy. Thats not right.

And then the nail in the coffin. Hotfix delta. Never had I facepalmed harder in my life. The AV vs vehicle balance was actually pretty good before. Standard dropships needed a bit of a buff but all else was not too bad. Then afterburners were nerfed. Fuel injectors were nerfed. The speed of swarms was increased. ( I shed a tear when I read this ). And now they had 3 volleys. So that they could be guaranteed an easy kill. Much of the time of course the they don't even render...
The incubus once a fearsome HAV killing machine was now nothing more than an annoying mosquito to be swatted from the sky with ease by that one commando with the swarm launcher in his second weapon slot. He is using a commando mainly because it's convenient for him. So that he can shoot some infantry dead then turn around, take out and incubus all without breaking a sweat. Meanwhile the ads pilot is forced to cower away far from the action, perhaps waiting patiently for his afterburner to recharge.

CCP, before hotfix delta there were calls by some people to buff Swarms. There weren't many ADS pilots arguing with them mainly because I don't think they actually thought you guys were going to give in to them.
Everything in the hotfixes that affected vehicles modules + skills and AV needs to be rolled back.
Having it only vehicles any good at killing other vehicles makes them pointless as its the infantry that wins the battle in the end.

A disposable gorgan is the only vehicle sought after by a team of serious players and that's a very sad situation for vehicles to be in. The vehicles are what got a lot of people into this game in the first place and not having them be any fun is just ignoring a massive portion of your community and your potential community.

AV should be a deterrent. The ADS should be able to outrun swarms because we don't have countermeasures like in other games. The afterburner should recharge quickly like it once did so the game isn't frustratingly slow.

The incubus should be like an A-10 Thunderbolt. The python should be like the apache helicopter with rocket pods. The madrugar with its large blaster and fuel injector (which it relies heavily on) should be seen as the anti-infantry high mobility tank. At the moment its neither, just a prime target for commandos. A glass cannon that isn't much of a cannon and can't get its fat ass moving when it really needs to.

And LAVs absolutely suck.

I don't go mindlessly charging into battle, okay. I spawn a HAV and first start looking at the map to see what the other team has called in. And you are still not disproving my point that the madrugar is far too weak against AV and often can't get away with the slow recharge of the fuel injector.

My point is AV should not be massively effective against vehicles. It should be a deterrent. It should be that if someone really wants to kill a vehicle, they have to get a vehicle to kill it with.

I love how idiot tank drivers only consider the cost of the weapon in SP/ISK.

Every time youdo that I'm going to start comparing the cost of my weapon to the cost of your turret. And emphasisze that since it's the only part of the fit that actually kills it's the only valid cost to compare.