As of today, any infiltrator can hack a terminal, take Engineer class, lay AV mines and go back to his infiltrator class. The mines will stay there until some drives over or shoots them. This is just as if infiltrators had AV capability. Giving that class one more "skill slot" with AV mines in them would be (almost) the same. Yes, other classes can do the same, but other classes can't hack terminals to make it happen. C4 will disappear as soon as its owner is killed, even when keeping the same class. There's no reason why AV mines should stay for such extended lengths of time. That's why I suggest AV mines to go when the player who set them changes class.
How do you mean, "as of today"? This has always been the case, and is the case with AI mines also. C4 is handled slightly differently, with them despawning when you spawn a new avatar, not change class, to prevent remote detonation after a death. There is no problem.
The justification is that C-4 is an active explosive (operator controlled) and AV mines are a passive explosive (target detonated). If the user is dead, the C-4 will should not detonate, that is, since that's not how a stable explosive works. Additionally, AV mines being sticky mean that the person who placed them can contribute to the fight in other ways, which promotes many players putting mines down (creating the ability to create a minefield, even though individually players can only place anywhere from two to five and most will probably only have three). AI mines are in a strange position but I believe external considerations - including the tightness of internal passages and the lack of class-wide accessible EMP-ability - make treating them like active explosives valid.
They did remove mines after changing class once before in the early days of PS2, just before Higby's Pizza Mine update.. It didn't work. If I was forced to stay as Engineer, until if and when and hopefully someone ran over my mines, I'd just Uninstall the game.. Nothing would be protected and Vehicles would have free rain. F*** that! When I deploy mines, it's normally ONLY ME deploying them, and I'm not staying as engineer until a AMS comes running up the road with a full squad to rush the capture point. That would be 90% of the game time wasted on Engineer, on something that may or may not happen. My KDR and SPM would drop so low I wouldn't earn enough random Implant and Charges drops to sustain my Energy to run my Implants.. Could you imagine the free rain AMSs would have zerging a Tech Plant.. Nothing would ever be mined.. Ever.. It's hard enough to find a Engineer to repair my MAX let a lone force a player to dedicate to that class because he has some deployables out.. There's a MAX or Vehicle covering the point.. Can't change to HA/LA though.. I got mines in prime locations.. Guess I'll just get farmed or lose the base.. A lot of Air Cav out today.. Would be a good time to pull a Burster MAX, ohh wait.. I got Mines covering A and B point and my Spitfire on C..
Sorry, but that's a big fat.... Your situation is easily fixed by simply checking the front of the vehicle spawn ramp before pulling and/or running with EOD.
bad idea... the system works well as is. this is not a change... this is the way it's always been I engie main and having mines stay where I leave them... mostly in road choke points... is very helpful in base defense
The only thing they need to do with Tank mines is sort out the changes to the rendering priorities they did a few months ago so mines once again render before you're on top of them in the bigger fights. An insta-death out of nowhere is a lame way to lose a tank and it happens far too often.
At first read of this, I was inclined to agree with the OP purely on my "makes sense" mindset. However, after reading the responses I see too many very good points about not having AV mines despawn.
