I'm sure many of you have dealt with the situation of having non-squad/platoon/outfit (S/P/O) players ride along in your Sunderers and Galaxies, only to take the turret seat and start TKing, emptying your ammo in random directions, or giving your position away by firing away on a stealth mission. The usual answer is to lock the vehicle, kicking all of those players out, then allowing your S/P/O mates to man the turrets, then unlocking the vehicle again so the non S/P/O players can ride along. This tends to lead to the occasional issues of players getting a bad impression of you, or your outfit. Some go as far as TKing you for this, or blowing up your vehicle. A simple solution would be to add a lock just for the turret seats. Any non S/P/O player hopping in such a Sunderer or Galaxy would have a ride available but can't access the turrets. A win/win for anyone who just needs a ride to the next battle, without the driver having to compromise the tactical power of his or her S/P/O vehicle. If you like this idea, please vote for it by liking the post or replying saying so.
If Planetside were a popularity contest, no one would win. People will grief whether or not a vehicle is locked. I've had my tank been griefed because someone mistakenly thought I was responsible for his death when I ran him over, when in fact the Sunderer behind me was ramming me down the hill at Crown into enemy fire. Some people won't be happy no matter what. If there's a problematic person, fix the issue and move on. People are going to be emohurt regardless of what you do. Same thing happens with Lib Gunners and such.
I appreciate your post about TKing, but this is not my reason for this suggestion. TKing is only a bonus problem we have to deal with. The main issue is when the non S/P/O players refuse to swap seats with S/P/O mates, or use up your ammo, or attack other friendlies, or shoot at targets they shouldn't. Not to mention the fact that we have to "punish" all non S/P/O players when kicking one of them out of a vehicle. I'm sure this idea will help a little with the TKing vehicle issue, by lessening the occurrences; but yes, in the end, some TKing will be done because of being run over by friendlies, which is another matter entirely.
What do you mean, you have to punish? You can selectively boot out the one person out if you want. There's a button by their name that kicks them out. For example, if you're flying and directly disobeying my Do Not Fire order, you get a one-way-trip straight down. Which usually involves being dropped in the middle of nowhere in the desert of Indar.
Dropping someone out manually, as I understand it, allows them to jump right back in if they wanted to (unless you're on the move). The squad lock is to allow your teammates to get into your vehicle and in a turret spot without issue. My suggestion allows for this to occur without ejecting everyone who is not in your S/P/O. Also, I rarely see anyone using that selective ejection feature as it is. I think this idea is a nice, simple solution to the problem. I don't see why you're against it.
