Thanks for the input guys.
I do burst fire, and I figured it was a client side damage mode thing. It's funny sometimes, how crazy some encounters are. I remember one, a couple of games ago, where I was crouched and semi-auto firing at this guy with one of my assault rifles. He hadn't seen me yet, there was a bit of distance between us, so I was using the semi-auto to make sure each shot count. Got in a good few shots, he turns, quickly aims and with one burst kills me. Moments like that just leave me shaking my head at the screen, laughing at how unbelievably baffling my loss was.
The big thing with vehicles for me is DICE tethering sooo many useful vehicle upgrades to the vehicle specific levelling system. Levelling in any competitive shooter is bullshit, but I can handle the guns/attachments because everything seems useful in some context, and I see people using all kinds of combos and equipment. But vehicles aren't like that. The better you do with a vehicle, and the more you use it, the better equipped your vehicle will be. Rewarding the better players with better shit, while punishing newer, poorer players with weaknesses, is a broken game design model that any self respecting developer should be shaking their head at.
Jets, for example. I'm awful at flying them, and not ashamed to admit it. The only upgrade I've unlocked, after so many hours of play, is the IR flares. Very useful. But when the sky is dominated by better pilots with missiles, protection against heat tracking, and quicker targeting for their own missiles, what's the fucking point? How do you practice against something like that, unless you join a shit server with nobody in it? And that's not fun.
And you know the worst part? Right after bitching about this game I'll go and play round after round of Caspian and Firestorm, like an idiot.