A selection of small/medium additions and changes I'd like to see in the game

[Larington]

In which I pretend I think I know better than the developers on a few changes I think belong in the game, mostly relating to soldiering stuff. It's probably very likely that the majority of this has already been thought of but just in case some of it hasn't...

General:
Allow the owner of a mine to 'use' the device, at which point it is placed back into the inventory (or deconstructed into the owners equipment terminal supply in the case of a full inventory) for use at a later date.
Please consider allowing the pistol slot to be used for mines and other small devices like medical/restoration kits as long as it isn't a duplicate of the other small item slot, no carrying 2 loads of anti-personnel mines or a set of med kits and restoration kits.

The Crown:
Remove the ability to pull tanks at the crown, by doing this it's harder for the owner of the base to just pull a bunch of tanks when it looks like the enemy are about to reach your doorstep.
Should increase the frequency with which the crown changes hands and reduce its perception as the only base that's worth going to.

Medic:
Put a limit on the number of revives that can be performed by the healing tool, cannot be re-supplied at engineer packs, only at equipment terminals (Including sunderer terms).
Limits abusability of having a squad of medics active

On use of revive only give experience to the reviver if the player revived is not killed by an enemy less than 2 seconds after getting back up.
Intended to discourage reviving of people who will instantly die as soon as they get up, if the player revived does die within the 2 seconds to enemy fire, display "revived in unsafe area - 0 XP" text to communicate what just happened and limit confusion

Tanks:
Increase the amount of armour by 1.5 times, reduce the rate of fire of tanks by a third (1.5x reload times).
Makes it easier for someone to dodge the fire of an enemy tank whilst also increasing the survivability of the tank, encourages tank users to aim instead of just throwing as many rounds at the enemy as possible. Spawn building defenders will find it easier to duck in and out to fire off rounds at vehicles attempting to camp the spawn building, combined fire of multiple enemies will still bring down tanks really fast, also increases the usefulness of the reload speed upgrade which right now seems a tad worthless. Granted this'll have knock on effects all over the shop, AT mines and C4 would have to be adjusted, possibly also ESF rocket pods as well and anti-tank rounds on tanks should have damage increased so they're worth pulling over HEAT rounds.

Engineer Blockade mines:
Do less damage than AT mines & cannot 1 shot troops, air or vehicles (except un-mineguarded Flash) and you can't put them close together or indoors, but you can place up to 25 mines, 5 for each rank with these.
With these a base can be prepared for enemy pushes, or make it harder for hostile forces to just run back in to a base and retake it mere moments after you've left.

Engineer Skyshard mines:
Fires shards upwards into the air at any enemy aircraft that come within 50 (100 at max rank) meters of them and are angled up to 30 degrees away from vertical relative to the skyshard mine. The shards mangle the aircrafts engines, taking 40% of it's health away. Think of it as a cone of detection that spreads up to 100 meters into the air, any aircraft that enter that cone get blasted with shards.
Useful for protecting fellow max users and AMS's from getting jumped by enemy rocket podding jets at close range, engineers supporting AA MAX's can throw these down to make it harder for a rocket podder to jump AA, so he/she can do the job in a bit more safety (Assuming it isn't placed under a friendly, which would undoubtedly hurt). Can also be placed on or near the roofs of spawn buildings to prevent enemy air from using the awnings to avoid burster MAX's.

Pistol alternative - Minesweeper tool:
Used for detecting and safely difusing enemy mines, if you are certified in that type of mine, the mine is added to your equipment terminal supply on defusal.
Why? Firstly, it's just cool to be able to grab an enemies mine and repurpose it for your use later on, but mostly it creates an interplay between you and team-mates, they cover you whilst you sweep for mines, try to do it solo and expect a knife in your back though.

Pistol alternative - Targeting Device:
A combination of binocular and laser pointer. Allows you to zoom in on distant parts of the world and paint a target (placing a little crosshair on the map visible to platoon mates), can be used to point out snipers, air, etc to platoon members and could potentially be useful if mortars, artillery and other indirect fire weapons are added to the game. More ranks increases the time the crosshair stays visible to the device user and squadmates, top rank makes the target icon follow a targeted enemy around (That 1000 cert rank will actually be worth getting).
Why? Being able to point out an enemy sniper to my squadmates with a little crosshair shown on their combat UI is something I've been missing out on, spotting is nice and all but I'd like something that reports to only my squad mates because I know they're more likely to do something about it, especially if I'm also talking about it on voice comms. I'm also missing having access to something that can be used as a set of binoculars to spy on fortified positions from positions of safety, especially on non-sniper classes, or to target something to myself so I can then jump into a scythe (or whatever) to hunt it down.

Pistol alternative - Hacking tool:
Oh yes, I went there. Used to break into an enemy vehicles control software, removing access restrictions, the colour of the vehicle does NOT change, sunderers are automatically undeployed when this completes. However, if the vehicle is occupied by an engineer or infiltrator then assume that the occupants are trained to use the built-in counter-intrusion equipment which substantially slows down the speed at which access restrictions are broken. You can never boot a player out of the vehicle, just climb into an empty seat when access restrictions are removed. Yes, I realise that means you could have a VS driven Magrider with TR/NC gunner in it, hilarity ensues.
Creates a risk/reward around abandoned vehicles and gives infiltrators an extra reason to exist. Provides an opportunity for someone in first person driving mode to see the onboard displays go bat-shit crazy to warn the player what's going on (hi artists) and discourages people from just sitting in a vehicle spamming away at a building. Might also stop a few forum threads about OP enemy vehicles when they get to find out that that fully upgraded vehicle isn't so great afterall. There's a question to be answered about seat swapping, we could assume the answer is always no regardless of identity of original owner as a consequence of the access restrictions being disabled.

Infiltrator & Engineer deployed detection/stealthing devices:
Infiltrator can place a jammer device that prevents the detection of friendly troops by radar and stops them showing on the map whilst inside the area of effect.
Engineer can place a device that reveals enemies in an area. The Jammer always overrides detection devices but makes audible noise can be chased down.
These devices cannot be deployed in spawn rooms where they won't work (for insert game lore excuse here) because then the attackers wouldn't be able to do anything about them which isn't much fun.
Why? - To create more of an interplay between the infiltrators and engineers who get to hunt down eachothers devices that are being used to help the enemy. Also the infils just plain need a little boost in being able to mask themselves so giving them access to this device would be beneficial to the overall experience in my mind.

Shield Disruptor: Fragile engineer deployed object with a short radius, drains shields of enemies that get too close. Higher ranks increases speed of shield drain.
Used to promote holding of choke points at doorways or to make it harder for enemies to swarm a capture point without a little extra hindrance.

Damage Indicator UI
Whilst driving vehicles and getting hit by damage, give a little info box near the crosshairs that tells you what the last piece of damage was, I'd recommend the UI should contain the following info:
Line 1: Empire symbol, player name
Line 2: Vehicle Type Name, Damaging Weapon Name
Line 3: Description related to damaging weapon EG "Can destroy an ESF in 1 volley"
Why? Sadly the audio just isn't sufficient for telling you if the damage you just took was a turret, a liberator or a heavy with a rocket launcher, making it very hard for me to determine the best response to the damage I just took. Empire symbol is important too, I'll start taking fire at a friendly base, confused as to what's destroying my lightning, only to discover it was some sodding friendly firing on me with an AT turret. Git. Also player name, very useful, if it's (insert certain names here) I'll know to just get the heck out of dodge straight away rather than trying to fight back, hah.