I would like to see vehicles be more complex and nuanced. I would like to see them require more player skill and practice to field effectively. I would like to see counters more complex than "Hit it with a bigger gun".

Vehicle pilots should be a breed apart from infantry and that means it should take a different skill set. Right from the start I've been lobbying for an equal and seperate role for vehicles that treats them as more than an accessory to the infantryman.

Capacitors would facilitate flexibility and nuance as you could ditch the clunky activation/cool down mechanism. Not having played EVE I'm a bit concerned at how well they could be managed in real time by a pilot who has other duties, but I think it should be possible to design a workable system.

I also believe balance demands that the larger vehicles should require multiple players to operate effectively. I wrote a post way back in Precursor that called HAVs a "Super Heavy Fat Suit" because they were one man operated, moved faster than a scout, hit harder and had more HP than a heavy. They didn't need anything. That leads to the current "debates" about balancing vehicles and AV. The AV guys point out that they should be able to solo a vehicle if the driver can operate it solo, yet the pilot points out that his ride costs far too much to support that reasoning. There's no way to settle the argument.

If you add additional operators you can justify it being harder to kill. You also add something much more important for the long life of this game, teamwork. Yes, it's fun to roll over the enemy team solo in your killing machine, but I believe that would pale in comparison to the pride in being a member of an elite tank or fighter team. One person can only perform so many tasks at once, that's why real world vehicles have multiple crew members. They can do more and be more complex. They can be more than an infantry accessory.

There is too large a focus on public matches as far as vehicle balance and use is concerned. Balance it for pub matches and you ruin it for corp play. Random masses of blue dots will never present an organized response to a vehicle, leading to AV strong enough to solo the vehicle. Then AV dominates in corp matches. I don't know the solution to this problem other than to allow larger squads into pub matches to increase the coordination of infantry or the elimination of larger vehicles from public matches. The first risks rolling a team of randoms and the second leave vehicle pilots with no outlet except FW and PC which is a tiny fraction of available battles.

Tank drivers don't want to share thier baby with blue dots, and I understand that. But that doesn't mean they can't share with a corp mate. This is a team oriented game and the larger assets should reflect that. This isn't CoD. Of course that introduces a requirement to share expenses to field the asset. You can't ask one person to foot the bill for the whole vehicle squad. Shared expenses plus also help bind the team together as they would have a strong sense of shared ownership.

There is a place for one man vehicles at the low end. LAVs, MTACs, maybe light tanks. Those would be simpler to operate and less powerful as a result.