why PS2 has vehicle spam

I'd personally like to see the timer on vehicles increased a lot. Along with a 15 minute base timer, and then make the MBT's cost 400 resources ontop of that. I really think having vehicles be a lot more strong, but at the same time a lot less common on battlefield would make the game play a good deal better.

The problem with vehicles would not be as accentuated if they actually fired at each other. Everyone should know by now that the people in tanks focus on shooting infantry because that's where the easy exp's at.

Solution: Significantly increase vehicle kill exp. No buffs or nerfs anywhere and I'm sure this alone would provide enough incentive for the vehicle spammers to cut down on their own numbers [by actively trying to kill other tanks].

PS1 cloaked AMS
PS1 mines
PS1 motion detector
PS1 spitfires

Problem solved without needing to nerf vehicles or buff AV/AA.

And then they have timers for a vehicle you want to spawn a second time. So much for not waiting.

My Liberator timer is 6 minutes, I have two friends who's Liberator timers are 6 minutes. If we can keep each Liberator alive for TWO MINUTES we never have to wait at all. Zero waiting, always in the air, all the time.

If you roll with a tank+gunner and you both have 6 minute timers (the minimum timer is 5) you only have to keep it alive for 3 minutes. It takes more than 3 minutes to drive to the battle. So again, zero wait time, always in the tank.

So as long as you're not a complete failure at the game and you have a friend or two, you will never have to wait for a tank or liberator. If you can keep an ESF alive for 5 minutes you'll never have to wait to spawn one of those either.

Is there an extra timer if you want to spawn the same vehicle twice or something? I was wondering why my timer shot up.

Edit: To clairfy, I just had an occasion where I got shot before I got into my scythe and still had a 10 minute cooldown. Reported it. I was not a happy bunny.

This. This. This. A thousand times this.

Vehicles are currently nothing more than better MAX suits in almost every occasion except for bio labs. Their resource cost is meaningless, their timers are too short, and they require little to no teamwork while acting as force multipliers. The current vehicle system in this game is deeply flawed and needs to be reworked.

Also, was this featured in patch notes anywhere or was it added stealthily? I want to know what's going on here.

http://forums.station.sony.com/ps2/index.php?threads/anti-spam-proposal.94325/

Potential Anti-Spam proposal to increase vehicle survivability while decreasing spam.

Ways to cut down on "vehicle spam":

1) resources that have meaning and create real restrictions
2) Being required to have a gunner in the gunnet seat to be effective. Anyone can pull an MBT and drive around shooting people. If the driver seat didn't have the ability to shoot, just drive, this alone would cut down tank spam by 1/2 (or 2/3 on TR using PS1 prowler design).
3) longer timers.

That being said, I currently enjoy the vehicle-infantry balance right now. When I get a tank kill with c4 on my LA, I feel accomplished. Most often someone else in the armor column kills me or the driver/gunner spots me mid-air. Also, making vehicles harder to get makes them more valuable, means players play safer because they have an item they don't want to risk. I think if vehicles were harder to get, this would foster slower gameplay, with tanks focusing more on playing an artillery role, rather than getting their hands dirty.

When you lessen a resource expect players to take that resource more seriously, and to use it more cautiously. This may not result in a more enjoyable gameplay experience, although you may fundamentally think it will.

The cert issue is a red herring.

If tanks were the effective one man killing machines they are in PS2, people would have found the certs to get them. What really held down numbers in PS1 was the gunner/driver mechanic. Driving around in a tank you cannot shoot anyone with isn't particularly interesting for many people. Having to find random people to gun for you if you didn't have a friend available and watching while they shoot the "wrong" target, or just can't shoot at all, also sucks the fun out of it.

More Planetside 1 Please

They would have found the certs by sacrificing their infantry effectiveness, which would screw them over in base assaults.

As much as people may have disliked the hallway meatgrinders of PS1 base interiors (though to be fair there were a LOT of great basement brawls back in the day, and the designs could certainly be improved on modern tech), they served a very important function to the game's balance: they FORCED people to spend certs on infantry gear in order to successfully take/defend bases. A player without rexo in a full-on siege was of limited effectiveness because of all the incidental damage flying around that rexo armor protected against, and the limited inventory capacity of agile and below reduced staying power, which limited the ability to deal with protracted siege conditions. Not having HA and either AV (for decimators) or Special Assault (For thumpers and rocklets) placed heavy limitations on your ability to deal with rexo and MAX players, and all of those certs were expensive.

Having a tank was nice and all, but it didn't help you inside the base. Even amongst the vehicles, having a tank certed may have meant you couldn't cert buggies, or some other vehicle class. A LOT of people in fast response outfits had to make a tough choice between spending 5 certs on getting Mossie and Reaver for extra air firepower, or spending 5 certs on getting Light Scout (Mossie and Assault Buggies) to have the transport vehicles necessary for running LLUs and modules, a task which the Skyguard was undeniably superior for.

This for starters.
If it takes me 1-2 shots to kill infantry but 10 or whatever shots to kill a tank with my HEAT cannon, the tank should at least yield 5x the xp than a normal infantry. The XP for the crew comes on top of that, because they can bail out and run, so it potentially takes more effort to get them as well and neutralize the theat they are posing. This will also encourage tanks to go for other tanks instead of farming one or 2 soldiers. Maybe not by much, but at least a bit.

But not only should vehicles yield more base experience to make them more attractive targets, they should also take more resources AND give xp bonuses the more they are beefed up with certs.
This way if you drive your outcerted MBT you are required to pay attention to it a lot more because losing it will cost you more resources than pulling the vanilla version, so you might run out of resources, which will effectively cut down vehicle spam at least a bit.
Also you are an even more attractive target.

This also helps the underdog side of the conflict, which might have a ressource shortage. Instead of generally increasing resource costs which would deny them to spawn vehicles and make them suffer to be steamrolled by the enemy tank zerg, with cert-modified ressource costs, they still have a chance to pull the cheaper vanilla versions of vehicles and might be able to mount an opposition against the incoming enemy vehicle zerg that consists of beefed-up vehicles, since they have the upper hand in ressources.
Reasoning: You have a higher chance of winning against a beefed-up tank with a vanilla tank, than as puny infantry.

TLDR
- increase base xp for vehicle kills
- make vehicle resource costs and xp-gain (for destroying them) dependent on what upgrades they have
- switch weapons for gunner and driver in MBTs, this alone will cut down the number of tanks, as it now makes 2 ppl mandatory to effectively use the MBT. If you want to be a lone wolf tanker, pull a Lightning.
- make the ESF two-seaters, with the pilot controlling the nose gun and the other guy the rockets (pods or A2M). If you want to be a lone wolf pilot, use nose gun and afterburners
- slow down the resource gain,
- make smaller bases more important for gaining specialized resources, e.g. make air platform outposts give e hefty bonus to air resources(but nothing else), tower bases 50-50 to mechanized and aerospace, etc. this will bring the fights to the smaller outposts, which are now neglected, as a certain resource shortage can be more easily compensated by capturing the respective outpost. This should also improve strategy.
-make the large bases give their specialized resource bonus, but also some of the other 2.

These changes in their combination should lessen the vehicle spam problem to some extent (imho pilot/gunner changes would be the main factor) while increasing the pressure for pilots to pay attention to their craft and make them more dependent on resources, also as a synergetic effect it makes fighting for smaller outposts more rewarding