I have kinda sat back, and played a Pro-CCP role in the AV vs Vehicle debate until now. Playing the roll of a fit better, or the team up guy, but there are some flaws in the AV vs V design that i would like to address having invested the time, and skill points to better myself.

1) No reward for the amount of risk.

The vehicle kills you do manage to make, offer very little rewards. Shooting down a drop ship will almost always(lag/skill excluded), award you a vehicle kill, and nothing else, as any pilot/gunner/passenger worth their salt will bail as soon as the ship takes critical dmg and starts plummeting towards the earth.

2) Strength difference

A fully loaded Sagaris should beat a fully loaded, and maxed heavy, every day of the week. But there has to be something that can be done. I have max armor, and max shields at this point, running the complex extenders and everything, and can still be 1 hit by a tank, even by a tank gunner(with the light turret). The SP difference between those two is astronomical, as a forge gunner you need to have, Weaponry V, Forge Gun V, Forge gun PROF II, Mechanics V, Shield management V, Electronics, engineering at least to II, Grenadier at least to I, Shield operation to IV, shield upgrades III, armor upgrades III.

Where as a tank gunner, running the light weapon needs exclusively, Light turret V, Light turret Proficiency V.

As it stands, I have started creating a new character, and wont be running forge gun next reset. I will be speccing rail tank, because at least they can take 1 hit, and keep shooting, as it stands, the heavy dropsuit does not cut it, and i have seen no response by CCP that something is not working as intended or will be fixed.

Riot, what would propose as a "fix" (read: balance) to the heavy suit? I've posted some ideas I had here before.

And to respond to the standard issue trolling:
I do use team tactics, and our corp have a very high success ratio taking out tanks and vehicles. That's not my issue, my issue is that it is more beneficial to me to spend my match running around running and gunning, then to try to tackle tanks. Not to mention when i am surrounded by blue dots because i am grinding isk to buy Proto gear.

I really am not trying to make this a QQ thread, or call for the nerf hammer. It is just really frustrating to me as a AV player, to put so much of my time and effort and isk into attempting the proverbial dragon slaying. It is just the raw amount of numbers you can put on a equally SP'd Tank driver are incredibly mismatched.

The points for taking out a sagaris 1v15ing my swarm of blue dots, compared to the amount of effort and time it takes out of me to kill it, equaling 250 some points, seems broken.

When a dropship goes to 0 shield, and 0 armor, make it blow up midair, MCC style.
This is a big one. I've wondered for a long time why they don't.

MCCs take damage in large enough doses to tip them over the edge from Armour into Hull then death near-instantly.

Dropships don't. There's hull damage to be taken while the Dropship falls. Hit it hard enough and it WILL explode in mid-air.

The problem is that when a Dropship takes that last armour-breaking hit, the damage doesn't seem to be carrying over into the hull - or the hull HP is too high.

Dropships surviving lethal damage with a shred of hull HP and falling from the sky SHOULD happen, but shouldn't ALWAYS happen.

I know for a fact it does not happen.

I have PELTED drop ships plummeting from the air with a breach, assault and standard forge gun, countless times. I do this every time i am drop ship hunting, because i don't want it to escape with a shred and pull out at the last minute.

Drop ships do not explode mid air, and they should.

Drop ships do not explode mid air, and they should.

They do.. I think hull hp is high hundreds (500-900), so you need a good forge shot in < 10% armor to make it explode. It just doesnt happen too often..

As long as its not flying, 1 or 3 extra kills dont make a difference anyway. Not that i wouldnt welcome the extra sp+isk though :)

Here's my list of ideas regarding AV in random battles:

• WP (SP/ISK) awarded on unique damage done. What we have now is only two awards: assist and kill. It's now enough to represent an effort spent on killing vehicle.
• More respawnable supply depots on a map (probably on random maps only). Quite often you spawn AV suite and run around receiving zero WP seeking for a vehicle. Someone suggested to spec more in SMG and use it. However, mercs who have both AR and SMG anyway has both advantage and choice what to use. Of course supply depots need a bit tweaking to prevent it being heal machine.
• More respawnable AV turrets on a map, especially close to your MCC. We should have protection from vehicles at least somewhere.
• More ISK/SP for time actively spent in battles and less for kills. I don't think kill-farming benefit gameplay in any way. If you are hunting a vehicles all over a map, spending a lot of time, maybe not killing it, but preventing it from doing damage to your team, you should be rewarded. Probably not as much as people making a lot of kills, but difference should be lower than it is now.
• More significant ISK/SP difference for win/lose. The goal of a team should be to win, not to farm WP. Killing vehicles is quite important way to win.
• Militia AV grenade and/or forge gun. More affordable AV types in game, less vehicle in a battlefield.
• Heavy dropsuite variant with L weapon slot instead of sidearm slow but without grenade slot and nerfed parameters. This suite will allow to have AV and AR.
• More sidearm variant and especially some middle range. Making AV and sidearm composition more viable to killing infantry with sidearm.

in all my time hunting dropships and being in dropships i have seen zero that explode in mid air unless they collide with another object that isn't a missile. was funny when the pilot was trying out the after burner and banked thinking the burner was done and he rammed right into the enemy MCC exploding on impact.

as for the whole tank vs AV. i agree that AV needs work. a whole team can be hunting for the tank and all the tank does is run back to the red zone to rep.

i personally made 2 tanks hide inside their base with my missiles. i couldn't destroy them and i died 4-5 times doing it but i managed to at least showed them what they really are cowards.

they still managed to get 20+ kills without trying.

i don't think heavies even have a chance at that with the ridiculous charge timer and slowly move around while hoping you hit the tank without being slaughtered. i constantly move to avoid the unlimited ranged rocket spam till my lock is released and hope my missiles go in the direction i want them to go, half the time my rockets decide to go right into a mountain or building.

I have kinda sat back, and played a Pro-CCP role in the AV vs Vehicle debate until now. Playing the roll of a fit better, or the team up guy, but there are some flaws in the AV vs V design that i would like to address having invested the time, and skill points to better myself.

2) Strength difference

A fully loaded Sagaris should beat a fully loaded, and maxed heavy, every day of the week. But there has to be something that can be done. I have max armor, and max shields at this point, running the complex extenders and everything, and can still be 1 hit by a tank, even by a tank gunner(with the light turret). The SP difference between those two is astronomical, as a forge gunner you need to have, Weaponry V, Forge Gun V, Forge gun PROF II, Mechanics V, Shield management V, Electronics, engineering at least to II, Grenadier at least to I, Shield operation to IV, shield upgrades III, armor upgrades III.

Where as a tank gunner, running the light weapon needs exclusively, Light turret V, Light turret Proficiency V.

As it stands, I have started creating a new character, and wont be running forge gun next reset. I will be speccing rail tank, because at least they can take 1 hit, and keep shooting, as it stands, the heavy dropsuit does not cut it, and i have seen no response by CCP that something is not working as intended or will be fixed.

Point 2 - Yes a gunner doesnt need any skills at all to use the small turret seats

But the driver needs Vehicle LVL5, Caldari HAV lvl3, Small missiles lvl5, Small missiles prof lvl1 that is so he can have the 1st set of proto small missiles on it

Also include support skills so it doesnt die in one hit, Mechanics lvl5, Engineering lvl5, Electronics lvl5, Shield management lvl5, Shield upgrades lvl5, Shield adaptation lvl1-3 also skills for large turrets so large turrets lvl 3 for example but proto requires lvl5 prof lvl1 at least

Ive prob missed out a few skills that i am also invested in for my HAV but SP wise its 4.7mil at least and its still going up and that is just for the driver so the HAV can be strong enough to take a few hits and also put on decent guns for his gunners

So while you think that the gunner has it so easy your wrong because the one with the points is the driver and he has alot more invested than you in SP and ISK