So common known fact people have tank/drop ship surfed somewhat effectively in the game already so why not nurture this with some new mods. Essentially an anchoring device that will hold you in place on the vehicle allowing you to freely shoot from it but suffering limited turning since anchored. To offset the turning penalty more advanced/parallel skills could boost up your drop suit shield stats while anchored since in this mode you are integrated with the vehicle and able to draw some power from it... perhaps comparable to adding a shield regulator, extender and recharger module. As you skill up in vehicle tethering skills each of these boosts get stronger.

Vehicles then should get either a skin electrocution module to execute unwanted enemy surfers or you can only tether to friendly vehicles.

Lastly in conjunction with this passenger seats in lav and drop ship vehicles should allow the user to shoot out with their personal firearms instead of just being lame duck freeloaders. With the difference here being that the player is fully within the protective capability of the vehicle but has fairly limited range of motion to target with... ie. Lav passenger can shoot off to the right and above the vehicle but not to the front, behind or left of the vehicle. Dropship passengers can shoot basically straight out and down having a narrow window access to shoot through.

I definately agree with this in principle. Being able to shoot from open cockpits or passanger locations is a must, and it served well during the Halo days.

However, one little pet peeve of mine is this one; Should players exposed from open cockpit vehicles as is the case of the LAV or air gunship, be exposed or automaticallly protected like an Armored Transport vehicle? For me, it is frustrating in not being able to clock a headshot on a driver, passanger, or gunner with a sniper weapon, especially if the vehicle is in a stand still. But on the other hand, I can understand the preferred simplicity of the vehicles shield and armor serving as a simple hp count for players aboard. Still, when it comes to anti-personal weaponry, I see no reason that LAV should offer the same protection that a tank offers against anything less from an anti-vehicle weapon.

How do you all feel about open cockpits not offering "extra protection" for it's passangers? (putting speed as the best defense to avoid anti-personal weaponry). For me, it would actually offer more tactical options for vehicle modules. Add closed armored cockpits or surrounded shields (think the forcefield that the Gungans employed in Star Wars Episode I) that affect the mass and speed of the vehicle, or more open cockpits for higher speed and agility.

I wholeheartedly support this. I was actually quite confused the first few times I tried killing a dropship gunner. It just seems so, logical. If I can see your head, I want to be able to make it explode.