Stealing "Friendly" Vehicles

[BlackWorm]

This was never a problem for me before, but recently I've been using AMS and Marauder certs and it's grown to be my worst complaint about PS:

Why is the vehicle locking so badly implemented?

The first problem: Since your vehicle permission gets reset to "Empire" every time you die, it makes the whole permission idea useless, especially for tactical vehicles like AMS. One night I saw this jerk Colthee on Johari go around just stealing any friendly AMS he could spawn at, and driving it away or deconstructing it. This is a form of grief which has HUGE consequences in a game, but for which you get no grief points. The game should keep vehicle permissions the same after you die, and even keep the default vehicle permissions the same as the last ones you set.

The second problem: No separate permissions for "driver/owner" and "gunners/passengers." You should be able to keep ownership of a vehicle without locking out gunners and passengers. As it is, you either choose between opening your vehicle up to being stolen when you're repairing it or away grabbing a tower, or not letting anyone else gun for you or ride with you. The "Squad" option is nice, but you can't always find squad members nearby to gun, and it's nice for Galaxy/Sunderer drivers to allow everyone to pile in.

The third problem: Loss of ownership when you jack another vehicle. I'll often be driving along and I'll see an abandoned vehicle, or enemy AMS. I'll get out and try to jack it, but as soon as I succeed, anyone can run off with my original ride. I don't have a good solution to this one except to allow ownership of two vehicles at once. That would also allow people to do ANT runs while their AMS is deployed, and not risk having the AMS stolen, or deconstructed after 15 mins because it has no owner.

It would also be really nice to be able to manage permissions straight from the main screen, or at least through assignable hotkeys. The vehicle dialog is clumsy and too large.

In summary, the easy solutions to fix most "friendly" vehicle stealing issues:

1.) Maintain vehicle permissions after dying and for new vehicles.
2.) Allow separate driver/owner and gunner/passenger permissions.