Tank drivers acting as gunners in PS2

[kaffis]

On the issue of the Magrider -- so long as it remains driver-gunned, it will be a fixed forward turret that the driver controls. Why? It's a simple matter of controls.

A tracked vehicle with a rotating turret controlled by the driver has 4 axes for the driver to control. Turret pitch and yaw (rotation), throttle, and vehicle yaw (turning). This is easily done with a mouselook for turret pitch and yaw, and then a 4-button keymapping for forward/backward/left/right.

A hovering vehicle with a fixed-forward turret (PS1 Magrider and current PS2 Magrider) under the driver's control similarly has 4 axes: turret pitch, vehicle yaw, vehicle throttle, and vehicle lateral movement (strafing).

Converting the Magrider to have a rotating turret under the driver's command suddenly gives him 5 axes to control. He'll have turret pitch and yaw, and vehicle throttle, yaw, and lateral movement. Now he's having to map and manage an extra two keys. I doubt most people really want that; that's more complicated than traditional flying controls (which uses pitch, yaw, roll, and throttle)...



Finally, though, it's worth noting that I would rather see the Magrider get a rotating turret for both guns, and see all ES tanks go 3-man required. Why? Quite simply, if the driver wants to gun, he's got a Lightning available to him. It worked in PS1; it should work here. That allows the devs to balance a solo vehicle to be more fragile than a 2-3 man vehicle (because let me tell you, giving a soloable driver-gunned ES tank armor for 2 is pretty broken from a survivability standpoint; as is giving two guys in an ES tank Lightning-esque armor -- that's just free XP for the second death, right?) without jumping through weird hoops.

It's simply the best solution to achieve a good balance no matter what options the driver takes. It is also the best way to make MBTs feel sturdy and worthy of the name.