This topic has been beat to death, revived, sniped, and then beat to death again. However, now that I actually have to pay for my LAV, some type of lock would be great. Don't lock people out of the other seats, just the driver's seat.

I disagree with passenger lockouts. Perhaps a non-squad lockout or something like it, for less than intelligent blueberries that hinder the vehicle owner from recalling his investment. I don't use vehicles but it detracts from the flow of combat for my vehicle using squadmate to have to worry about some idiot that won't exit the million isk tank or what have you, when he could be rejoining the team blasting reds into raspberry jam.

What are your thoughts on this?

I run Logi most of the time. I like helping allies and getting them and their vehicles back into the fight earlier.
I respect the idea of forcing players to pay for LAV's. Its only right to make them respect their vehicle more and not throw them at the enemies and running them over with little skill involved.

The problem I noticed though is that when I place my LLAV (a Limbus - just to prove I try to use it as intended cus it has more balanced slots so I can remote repair and shield transfer) I get swarmed with passengers (which is annoying as they inevitably have no mic and so cant tell me where they want to go) but I needed to resupply but dare not get out since they'll take it away and bang goes about 200K of my heard earned ISK. This cant be right surely

It happened again when I drove my standard LAV and noticed an ally coming under heavy fire, so I drove between him and them and got out to give covering fire and the ungrateful player stole my LAV and stranded me there!

I believe a system where the owner is the only person who can enter the driving position is the best solution but welcome other ideas - after all what do I know, I didn't build the game.

I heard a rumor that a new vehicle will replace the free LAV's - a kind of hover bike (Awesome!!) If so then it would have been more sensible to introduce them as well as remove the free LAV's.

We need both a vehicle lock system (allow only squad, corp, and/or ally mates to enter) and a skill to operate system. At the very least a skill to operate system (I'm skilled to level four in the "Deploy Caldari LAV" skill). I never exit my car when there are blueberries about. Not anymore.

It happened again when I drove my standard LAV and noticed an ally coming under heavy fire, so I drove between him and them and got out to give covering fire and the ungrateful player stole my LAV and stranded me there!

HAHAHA! I would totally do that. That's hilarious!

What we need is a system where its 'skill to operate' and not 'skill to deploy on the battlefield'.

So you need all relevant modules, chassis, and turret skills that the tank requires before you can operate it.

I disagree with passenger lockouts. Perhaps a non-squad lockout or something like it, for less than intelligent blueberries that hinder the vehicle owner from recalling his investment. I don't use vehicles but it detracts from the flow of combat for my vehicle using squadmate to have to worry about some idiot that won't exit the million isk tank or what have you, when he could be rejoining the team blasting reds into raspberry jam.

What are your thoughts on this?