This is just going to be a general post, without getting into details and stats, to put my ideas on the forums. Please read through all of it if you're going to reply.

Vehicles currently suffer from a lack of having well defined roles. HAVs are currently best at blowing up other vehicles. That would be an okay role if there was a good reason to need vehicles on the field. LAVs are typically fielded for fast transport but otherwise pose no direct threat to anything other than objectives. Dropships are typically easily dealt with through swarms and MLT dropships are simply a disposable means of getting uplinks on rooftops.

One issue that I see is that LAVs and dropships most of the time are deployed for a single purpose at the beginning of the battle: to get to objectives and rooftops before the other team, after which they are usually recalled or just simply left behind to their own fate.

This is a problem if HAVs are to be anti-vehicle. They are too slow to do anything about intercepting LAVs and dropships at the beginning of the battle and usually become minor annoyances to infantry once the ground (infantry) battle has been established. There's no well defined reason to call out a HAV if there are no vehicles on the field. They can't hack anything and don't get as many kills as an infantryman most of the time.

What I suggest is that HAVs should be as flexible in their roles as infantry can. This means that through sacrifices, a HAV should be able to be anti-infantry. It seems to me that most people forget about having to make certain sacrifices in order to gain certain benefits when it comes to balance. I see nothing wrong with an AI HAV as long as it has very little AV capabilities. I am willing to accept the fact that if I call my AI HAV, I will be surely beaten by an AV HAV (something which I'm already accepting when I call my blaster HAV). Same should go with AV HAVs against infantry, which is also currently happening with railgun HAVs.

Imagine this: Team A wants to capture Team B's objective, but Team B's infantry have set up a good position and stop Team A's infantry. Team A calls in an AI HAV to provide the firepower needed to clear Team B's infantry. Team B calls in an AV HAV to destroy Team A's AI HAV. Team A calls in their own AV HAV to take the attention of Team B's AV HAV. At this point, depending on pilot skill, either Team A destroys Team B's AV HAV and win the offensive or Team B destroys Team A's HAVs and wins the defense.

Now, I don't know what numbers will make this possible and balanced, but that's my general idea. Just like infantry can focus into destroying vehicles while becoming weaker against other infantry, pilots should also be able to focus into killing infantry while becoming weaker against other pilots. It should be about gains and sacrifices for both infantry and pilots.

Extra info in post #4