Advice for a new tanker

Every friendly has an IFF tag over them unless they are far away, so Q-spotting wouldn't even be required to see if it's friend or foe. But the area I'm in and the direction I'm going makes me look like I'm a friendly, so people often don't bother.

Tanks tend to retreat depending on the situation. If you are doing a direct slugfest, then you wouldn't kill them if you had a 2/2 AP MBT because they would just hop behind cover and repair!
You can do so many things! MBT's will get overconfident and not go for repairs if they fight a Lightning. If you get some damage as well they will gladly try to close the distance, at which point you can catch them. But mostly AP lightnings just excell in having a lower, hard-to-hit frame, great speed and pretty good damage in the end.
And if you can only flank the 'slowest and unaware guys' from behind you should start upping your tank game, because you can approach just about anyone from behind with the proper knowledge of terrain and the general whereabouts of friendly targets and hostile targets.

Fewer tanks means easier to flank, as they spread out less and you have less distance to cover to get around.

Yes, aircraft are always a problem. They spot you, you are dead and there's nothing you can do about it (and if you took a Skyguard, good luck with a flank on ground troops!). That's why I use specifically the lightning for such flank attacks as a lightning in the right place won't get noticed. That's why your approach should be very far from any friendlies so that aircraft don't think to look for you there, and once you get behind enemy lines you drive near roads and routes (but not on them) that your enemy uses himself, that way anyone who spots you (mostly from the air) doesn't think twice about seeing a lightning there, and don't check the colors or possible IFF tag that goes with it.

He can play the game however the **** he wants, what makes you so high and mighty that you can dictate how people live their lives?

This. I currently have two friends who I play with who are constantly bickering on teamspeak about how they think the other should play and telling each other what class they should be, when they should get out of a vehicle, when they should stay in a vehicle etc etc ad nauseum.

It got so bad the other night I just logged out and left them to it. I play games to have fun, not to get hassle from others about MY choices.

Absolutely.
Im all for teamwork and organisation, but the minute an SL says 'you must do this' im out.
I believe in working with what you got, not forcing things on players, i never tell people what to pull or how to play if im SL, make a request for more tanks, or more medics sure, but ill never say 'you must take engineer'.

It came to head on Monday when one said 'let me gun in your harrasser' and the other said 'No, because you don't play engineer, you're unreliable and can't shoot', to which the other replied '(expletive deleted) you'. All the time they were bickering made us a lose a base we should have been able to cap with a bit of teamwork.

I'd had a particular crappy day, wanted to have some fun with my friends and I ended up more fed up than when I went in.

People need to realise it's a sandbox game and you can play it however you like and screw what anyone else thinks.

You really should be an engineer if you plan on gunning for any vehicle though.
Emergency "I need a gunner right now!" is fine for any class, but you should swap to an engineer if you plan on staying in the vehicle.

Well I agree it's best to be an engineer when you're in a vehicle, and I nearly always am, but if people want to drive round in tanks as heavies or infiltrators, then let them, it's their choice. I remember jumping into a friendly tank once when I was playing infil, racked up about 15 kills on the Halberd then got kicked out 'cos I wasn't an engineer. I disagreed with his choice to kick me out, but it's his tank and his choice to make, so I just jogged on.

for a Lightning go with AP gun and RIVAL chasis.

bads will tell to go racer, but its just plain terrible. you will die hilariously to harassers. the only possible scenario where racer can help is if you are chasing a harasser, which is plain stupid seeing as even with racer he can outrun you while maneuvering, so don't do it.

rival will allow you to change your facing, lowering incoming damage and allowing you to kill harassers who dive in for a back kill (almost all of them)

for the util slot, i go with Auto repair + fire supp. it translates to about 20 - 30% less downtime on peek-and-shoot situations. situations which will arise all the time seeing as rival will give you an extra 10mph and a better reverse Acceleration. plus, fire supp will allow some extra staying power.

bottom line is, Rival makes you an Extremely annoying tank on the field with your constant peek and shoot, and thanks to the predictable gun with some practice you can lower your miss rate due to movement down to zero. most of the time, when hitting targets at a distance, you wont be getting a lot of kills, but you will make any tank back off. specially if you acquire a target, and then SWICH to 3rd person view. if you do so your gun will track the point where you aim, so all shoots will land on the same spot. this is fantastic versus sunderers and anchored prowlers.

with practice you can even track the movement of the target and get a ton of impossible kills at extreme ranges.

in the end, rival will help you outmaneuver harassers and change facing against liberators and esf. and as a plus, it will help you climb.

racer is terrible, at everything. you'll eat more mines, get stuck, flip over, become unable to take turns at max speed, (dead against esf and harassers), and on any situation where evasion at max range is necessary, speed is useless. it makes you predicable. long time Vanguard driver here, and racer lightnings at range cant change direction, and they just die.

since all gun speed is now normalized, there's no reason not to start with AP. later on you can do the others. leave the 6 shooter for last, you don't want to get used to that gun early on.

and to those who cant go 1v1 versus MBTs... heh. you can't, but you tried. and you tried because you saw someone do it, and probably had it done to you. so don't say it cant be done, just admit you don't understand how to abuse mobility and profile to mess with people. im not saying you can just drive in any fight and get MBT kills, all im saying is that in the middle of the ****, the situation where positioning will net you awesome kills will happen, and it will happen often. so long as you know how to stay alive long enough to have it happen, and to see it trough to the end.

My suggestion is to use AP. Learn to use AP to deal with all threats and infantry won't be a problem. AP gives you the extra dps needed to take down harder targets like sunderers and MBTs. Stealth is also a good choice.

So you are from the "stay still while firing" school of thought?
The Lightning isn't build for a direct standoff. I've often fought enemy MBT's on flat terrain by driving passed them at some range, then just keeping the fire up on them.
Lightnings fight more than Harassers. The high speed is wonderful to stay ahead of hostiles when you need to flee, only to return later when they've given up the chase. Harassers are just one unit, and they don't make out the entire game.

The turning at max speed is learning how to drift (seriously). If you use that slide you can make circles around others that they rarely see, and have trouble predicting because your front is facing somewhere else.
now rival is terrible. You can't outrun any tank with that tiny bit of extra speed you've got (if you are faster at all), at best you can play peek-a-boo with tanks that are more powerful, healthy and armored. With proper situational awareness you'll hardly ever need that extra turning speed and using that speed you can more easily and safely flank hostiles and put that low frame to use.

Another small tip for new tankers; press H (or whatever you have it set to) to expand your mini map. So much better for seeing what's coming to kill you.

Anti-vehicle lightnings offer many advantages in speed and dps. Its just a matter of taking advantage of it.

Stealth is essential.
Armor isn't enough to make a big difference. If your getting into slug fests, really, your playing the tank wrong. Lightnings are trying to use their speed to flank for bigger damage and keeping off the minimap is a huge help. Stealth will increase your life expectancy more then any other upgrade.

Rival and Racer are BOTH great choices, depending on the situation
I chuckled when I read racer is for bads. As mentioned above, its all about positioning for bigger damage. Racer gets you there faster, and gets you up hills better. For that alone its a great choice. No, it does not help strafe shots as good as rival, but it does increase your life expectancy getting into position in the first place, and repositioning afterwards.

Use racer when you want to make big flanks. Its the only chassis fast enough to let you reposition over and over, continuing to blast the enemies from unexpected angles, and getting out of dodge before they can pin you down. Who cares if you can juke with rival when the best way to avoid the damage is to never be where they are firing in the first place.

Rival is better when your rolling with support and do not plan to lone wolf it. You can juke better which will help mitigate your lack of armor.

Between the 2 though I pick racer 90% of the time. Sitting back with the team exchanging shots just leads to mediocre results.

My Lightning has basically three loadouts, which i feel very comfortable with:

Jack of all trades: AP Cannon, Racer, Fire Suppression + Nanite repair, works great against Harrassers and good against enemy tanks, just keep your front towards them, or run with sidearmor if you want to try to dodge (lightning on the move is pretty hard to hit)

Anti-Infantry: Viper with thermal vision, Rival, Fire Suppression and Nanite Auto Repair, never need to leave your vehicle, can **** quickly

Anti-Air: Skyguard with racer, Fire Suppression for some clutch health, Stealth or Nanite auto repair

i really tend to go fire suppression + auto repair a lot because most pilots have awareness and will kill you when they are in a Lib

WIth lightning, i personally enjoy stealthy tank destroyer:
AP max reload + 2x zoom
max Stealth
max fire supression
max rival

i generally use low lightning profin and engine noise to flank and aim for opponents back.
Rival and FFS helps when caught in bad situation to circle your opponents.

I'd recommend certing into an MBT instead of a Lightning. Playing Lightning is like playing LA when everyone else has a MAX. It's viable, but you have to work a lot harder at it, and can't get in direct fights.

If you are going with the Lightning, then use third person view a lot, it'll help you maintain situational awareness -- if you're not shooting at something, you should be in third person.