Some mostly numbers-only vehicle balance changes I'd like to see

The game does still get some support. I think the balance can be massively improved to make the game more enjoyable with a bunch of numbers changes and shuffling some weapons around. No new mechanics or weapons, no bugfixes, no fixing overarching problems like the netcode. The numbers should be fairly easy for DICE to hypothetically edit in whatever JSON things rest.

Attack helicopters:

• Reduce anti-vehicle rockets' and smart rockets' splash radius to ~60% and infantry damage to ~65%, add very strong infantry damage falloff past 150m.
Radii decreases are usually more impactful than they seem. The goal is to make it so if you actually properly aim the rockets, rather than the centre of the crosshair, you can still get *some* infantry kills, but not too many. Currently you can kill someone with 2-3 rockets (depending on if you wanna tilt the whole helicopter or just keep firing). This should be more like 4-6. Currently anti-personnel rockets have extremely strong falloff while these do not. It should be the other way around.
• Increase anti-personnel rockets' infantry damage falloff slightly and velocity moreso to match current anti-vehicle rockets; greatly increase anti-air damage
These should be more like what anti-vehicle rockets are now, without the anti-vehicle capabilities and with the slight boost in rocket count/recharge time(?)
• Reduce gunner range from the current ~550-600m (?) to 400m, and introduce heavy damage falloff past ~200-325m (really not sure how much).
The gunner can still snipe people. This shouldn't really be the case.
• Give the 30mm the RU pilot has to the US one as well.
Strange omission.
• Revert the mobility buff (to some extent, I don't exactly recall how slow attack helicopters were).
Attack helicopters have incredibly high health, they should not be as mobile as stealth helicopters.

Stealth helicopters:
Presumably, the EMP grenade the gunners fire works like Lizzles, ignoring directional armor and dealing flat damage per vehicle category (always 1). With that in mind,

• Increase gunner EMP grenade damage on direct hit:
• 23 against non-transport helicopters & jets
• 14 against transport helicopters
• 11 against ground armor
• 35 against ground soft-skinned
• 1 if not a direct hit
Gunner EMPs feel dumb and not very useful. This gives them some actual impact while IMO not making them very overpowered.
• Repair system: 23hp over 5 seconds -> 45hp over 12 seconds
Flares are pretty much always superior, even for the stealth helicopter. A buffed repair system would make it more of a viable choice since flares aren't strictly mandatory here. The longer duration will give people more opportunity to stop it.

Nightbird:

• Re-add the AA rockets
With the AT rockets being weak now, and the anti-personnel ones being kinda bad, an AA role for the nightbird would be fine.
• Increase the anti-personnel rockets' velocity a bit, and increase their air damage a bunch, not as high as the anti-vehicle rockets for the AH, but high enough to be meaningful
This can be a more skillful alternative for anti-air for tankier air vehicles (like attack helicopters or the air transports).

Fighter jet:

• Reduce infantry splash and damage for the anti-vehicle rockets. Same as the attack helicopter's.
There is already an infantry-farming jet.

Every vehicle gunner minigun (UH-60, Condor, Hind, MBT, TOR, RAM, LATV, Hovercraft, Bolte, Brawler):

• Remove spinup, slightly decrease starting accuracy to compensate.
The way spinup is implemented for vehicle miniguns makes no sense and is completely pointless. You can keep them spun up fairly easily, noise does not reveal your vehicle's position because it's already loud, it's just annoying to keep constantly pressing a button and hearing a whirring sound endlessly. Crawford's spinup reveals his position if he keeps spinning. The TOR makes a bright light and slows its turret down. The Rorsch also reveals its location to any nearby enemies. Ideally, the spinup could be made so you have to actually spin it fully to start firing, but that would be a new mechanic. Simply waiting 0 seconds before firing is fine. This will also help with how annoying it is to use transport helicopter miniguns.

Smoke discharger, smoke launcher (MAV, Brawler, RAM, TOR, MBT, LATV, Hovercraft, Bolte, Pondhawk):

• Greatly reduce cooldown duration (50% as long?)
• Increase duration to match smoke grenades
These are currently underpowered compared to the ability to throw off lockons. They should be akin to infinite smoke grenades.

Draugr:

• Add 1 more NNEMP in reserve, ~5 second delay between firing the next one
• Increase NNEMP's EMP radius by ~65%.
NNEMPs are currently kinda weak and pointless, having 2 would help. EMPing a lot of random garbage could help the team (e.g. destroying spawn beacons, mines, etc.?). Radii increases are usually bigger than they sound (and vice-versa for decreases).
• Add 1 more AT rocket in reserve, slightly increase cooldown.
Why only 1?! The other jets have 2? This is supposed to be a more explicitly anti-ground jet; the shorter cooldown doesn't make much of a difference. The JDAM is flat out better. The cooldown for AGMs for the Draugr should still be lower than that for regular jets.

Air vehicle TOWs (Attack helicopter, Stealth helicopter):

• Reduce max splash damage from ~80 to 40
TOWs in air vehicle currently can be used to help farm infantry mid-rocket spam. They shouldn't be.

Ground vehicle TOWs (MBT, MAV, Bolte, +TOR):

• Add 1 more rocket in reserve, ~3-5s delay between firing the next one
• Reduce max infantry splash damage from 80 to 40
Currently ground vehicle TOWs deal less damage than the M5, making them fairly bad by themselves with their single rocket. With 2 with that 80 damage, it would be possible to splash some jumpy infantry, which shouldn't be the case as this should be an explicitly anti-vehicle weapon (e.g. see rocket pod that deals 80 damage on infantry direct hit).

MBTs:

• Remove TOWs from the main gunner
The buffed TOWs would be too strong for the regular tank. MBTs still have the 60mm mortar pod which can deal ~1 m5's worth of damage on a direct vehicle hit, and the rocket pod which can deal ~1 MPAT shell's worth of damage if all 4 rockets hit.
• Increase STAFF shell fire rate by 15%
• Increase STAFF shell infantry splash damage
• Greatly increase the environmental damage STAFF shells do
STAFF shells do not need to regenerate their reserve ammo, making them much more spammable. They also have atrocious damage, extremely slow speed, are useless against infantry and struggle to even destroy walls. This should encourage spamming them to break things, and make them a bit more viable in general.

Tank driver (MBT, TOR) guns:

• LMGs should get +~20% projectile velocity increase
• HMGs should get less spread at full auto
LMGs currently feel like mildly worse faster firing versions of the HMGs. This should differentiate them more.

TORs:

• Remove APS
The TOR should be easier to kill for infantry or if pressured by other vehicles, not just by other TORs. It does not need APS to make it more survivable in the far off corner of the map it's in. The TOR having APS also allows for some IMO pretty scummy anti-vehicle play given that its own shots can't be APS'd. Since the TOR flinches when hit by other tanks, this will improve counterplay.
• Make Hammer regenerate ammo ~25% faster
Hammer is mostly worse than Maul, its damage is so low that you can run out of ammo firing at a tank/MAV. It's akin to STAFF shells but without the crazy long travel time. This will make it run out less. I feel the Maul is still a bit overpowered, but hopefully the APS removal can help, I think new mechanics (like not being allowed to sit in spawn) would help with that more.
• Add TOWs as a gunner option
The TOWs fit on an anti-vehicle vehicle; this would also sacrifice infantry defense with the reduction in TOW splash damage. Having EMP grenades with TOWs would be a very strong combination against vehicles as EMPs stop APS. I'm not sure if this would be overpowered, I think giving this advantage to TORs if they surprise a tank is good enough with the lack of APS.
• Reduce driver canister damage to ~75%
The driver canister can do 1shot kills pretty far off (~20m if not more) and is in general extremely strong and consistent with a lot of ammo. It should not be as strong.
• Make it more vulnerable to NTW-50 damage (~5 -> ~13)
This is kinda niche. Infantry should be able to snipe it. It can countersnipe them; with its tendency to sit far back, good NTW-50 damage can help counter it.

Not sure about this, but:
40mm volley pod (MAV, RAM, MBT, Wildcat for some reason):

• Massively reduce spread
• Increase velocity by ~30%
• Greatly reduce firerate
• Reduce splash to compensate for the reduced spread
IMO the current massive spread makes this weapon unfun to play with even if it does get kills, however it probably still needs some gimmick, changing the gimmick to instead be having to aim the grenades without control on when they come out feels like it could be more fun.

RAM:

• Reduce main gunner grenade launcher max grenades from 8 to 6
• Increase main gunner grenade launcher reserve ammo regeneration time by 15%
IMO the grenade launcher is far too easy to use for a gunner with the RAM, you do not need to aim particularly well and can get easy kills. The HMG remaining untouched and the minigun getting buffed should hopefully be more incentive for those instead.
• Increase damage of 3rd seat rockets (~20%?)
These get smoked/flared often. They should deal a bit more when they don't.

Wildcat:

• Increase 30mm damage against infantry from ~10 at all ranges to ~13.5 at 75m - ~19 at 175m
The infantry damage of the 30mm should overall increase. Due to its massive spread, it is extremely bad against infantry, even up close, but it's hilarious how much it sucks against people parachuting. It should be able to deal with them much better, like how the 35mm can. Inverse falloff will help with that.
• Let both the 30mm and 35mm deal damage to and destroy trees
Crawford can do this. The BF4 MAA could do this. Why can't these?
• Remove the AT rockets' inability to hit vehicles that are too close (too low turn speed)
Why? Other lockons do not have this. Or alternatively, make all lockons function like this? Jet AGMs can do complete 180s to get their hit. People can sit right next to a vehicle with the javelin, shoot it, and the thing will spin.

Ideally some mechanic would be added to the Wildcat gunner to make it less of a snoozefest (e.g. Soflam? Would be nice for MBTs too, like in BF4, especially with current staff shells), but without new mechanics, I think this is fine enough.

The 50mm (MAV, Bolte), however probably also other "big" projectiles (I believe MPAT shells at least) are generally supposed to be 1 shot bodyshot kills on infantry, and often they are, but sometimes they aren't. I believe this is a damage numbers problem. Those should always deal enough damage purely on bodyshot to be a 1 shot kill. The 50mm should get reduced infantry splash (-20%?) to compensate.

MAV:

• Remove firing delay for the main gunner when switching between the HMG and autocannon
Why is this delay here? This makes some sense on jets, but seems pointless here, and is not present on any other ground vehicle; so much so you can bug out tank cannons if you switch while firing a machinegun.
• Reduce autocannon projectile velocity to ~85%
• Reduce autocannon spread
• Increase autocannon vehicle damage by ~35%
The autocannon currently has pretty meh splash infantry damage, and bad infantry damage in general, and is eclipsed by the HMG. With the removal of the firing delay, there won't be awkward pauses that make it actually a good idea to use it against infantry. This should be mainly an anti-vehicle weapon, to give it some purpose, as currently it is bad against almost everything. Lower spread and lower projectile velocity will make hitting vehicles at long range less random but still not super easy.
• Re-add 60mm flak pod to the pod gunner slot
Why was it removed?

20mm flak (Brawler, LATV, Hovercraft):

• Increase infantry headshot multiplier from 2x to 5x
The 20mm flak deals 5 damage on infantry bodyshot. Most weapons in the game can be used beyond what they're mainly intended for if you put some skill into them (e.g. hitting anti-vehicle rocket pods on other helicopters), flak should have that for infantry. 5x5 bodyshot damage would be 25, so you would still need 4 headshots to kill someone. This might need to be toned down to 4x, or it might not, I think it should be fine at 5x.
• Reduce projectile veloctiy to ~85%
This should make it harder to land those headshots.

60mm flak (Wildcat, +MAV):

• Increase infantry bodyshot damage from 40 (?) to 60
Same justification as above.

Brawler:

• Increase the range of motion for infantry in the back
Extremely annoying to be so restricted to where I can aim as infantry.

Bolte:

• Increase turn speed
Thing seems to turn slower than any other tracked vehicle in the game, even the giant mobile brick seems faster at turning.
• Allow anyone from the same team to spawn on it, not just squadmates
• Add the Brawler spawnable when full mechanic to it
The Bolte needs a complete rework, but only using what's already there I think this could at least help it not be a COMPLETE waste of a slot. Boltes will often remain unoccpied.

Pondhawk:

• 65% as much health
Thing needs to take more damage from everything.

Crawford:

• Remove the +1 ammo perk. Bake the +1 ammo into all relevant launchers.
Boris should have as much ammo as him. No idea what a new perk would be, I'd be fine with him not even having any perk when so many perks are just extra functionality of the gadget (like Boris' perk). Might as well change it to say "Gives good vibes to teammates".
• Increase Mounted Vulcan damage against vehicles:
• 1.75x against ground armor
Crawford is an easy target, he should do more damage if spamming. Ideally I think there should be a damage ramp up mechanic where if a vehicle ignores you shooting it you start to do significant damage, but no new mechanics.
• 2.0x against helicopters
Crawford is an even easier target for helicopters, which can move out of his minigun's line of fire very easily.
Soft-skinned ground vehicles seem to take a lot of damage and don't need an increase.
• Make the Mounted Vulcan more permissive with the angle it can be placed at
Any minor incline makes the Vulcan refuse to place.

M5:

• +1 rocket in reserve (4+1 -> 5+1)
• +2 rockets when resupplied by an ammo box instead of +1
• +~25% projectile velocity (and more gravity so it still matches the scope?)
The M5 is currently a flat out worse version of the RPG. Giving it more rockets and projectile velocity would make it more unique.

SRAW:

• +1 rocket in reserve (2+1 -> 3+1)
• Slightly increased turn speed
Beyond that, my other complaints about it are functionality/bugs.

I think the rest of the launcher situation - annoying lizzles from halfway across the map, useless stingers, lockons from inside air vehicles/parachute (BF4!), isn't getting solved purely with numbers changes.

Opinions?