I dislike the idea of Pilot Suits greatly. I only see it resulting in one of two eventual possibilities.

A. Vehicles are balanced without Pilot Suits so adding Pilot Suits that give a free bonus to dedicate pilots. With tanks being so damn difficult to balance, I don't think this would be healthy to the game.

B. Vehicles are balanced with Pilot Suits, meaning it is an extra several million SP to do what a vehicle was meant to do. This could have been an enticing proposition when HAV was a single point Skill but now that HAV mirrors Dropsuits, it would be like having a Logistics player need to drop SP into two different suits in order to get the same power he had last week. It pushes vehicles farther out of reach of people.

An additional concern is the fact that you need to both be in a tank and be in the Pilot Suit for those points not to be totally wasted. Imagine having to take your X Basic Frame to level 5 in order to use X Assault Suit. You would feel like you are burning 6 million SP rather than burning 3 million for now being in that particular suit. There is zero way for a Pilot to get 'access to those SP' if you are not in a Vehicle and, at the moment, they are spending it on Tanks, Vehicle Module, and Turrets just like Infantry is spending it on Dropsuits, Dropsuit modules, and Weapons. However, most Dropsuits can utilize at least some of the different combinations to use some of those SP even when not "in that role."

A Tanker without a tank is 10 million SP less. A Logistics without a Logistics suit might only be 5 million SP less by using one piece of equipment, the same weapon, and the same defensive modules. With Pilot suits, a tanker without a tank might be 13 million SP less. With some maps just being not good for vehicles, such as Gallente Research Facility with most of the fighting taking place where the vehicle is unable fight, it makes vehicles more expensive but still not as reliable. If you were to make up for this fact by being more powerful, you have Situation A. If not, Situation B. I am not saying it couldn't be done in some perfect balance but with how difficult vehicles have been to balance (Chromosome being too powerful, Uprising pre 1.7 being quite weak, 1.7 being too much) I don't think throwing a new number into the equation would be a very good idea.

If it was implemented, I have trouble trying to determine what the heck it should do. Why go Prototype over Basic if you are going to stay in the tank anyway? Would modules do anything? If the concern is "the fat guy with the big gun jumped out of the tank", why not just make it so the fat guy cannot fit into the tank?