A few questions about various game options

[Hal Jordan]

I've been playing the beta for a few weeks without the benefit of any information until I discovered the excellent wiki and discussion board here. Maybe the answers to my questions will help someone else.

1. As an Engineer I can construct a tripod mounted machine gun with a shield in front of it. Can anyone from my faction use that gun, or is it only for me? And how do I replenish the ammunition when (if) it runs out?
   
2. I want to get set up to use voice chat. How do I tell the program what microphone I'm using? I have a USB mic. I don't see a drop down box anywhere that lets me select which mic input I want.
   
3. On the "Keybinds" article in the wiki, it says that "Proximity Voice Chat" is KP 4. When I press 4 on my numeric keypad, the display says "[PROXIMITY]DominicFlandry" but I don't see any display on the screen that tells me I'm putting out audio from the mic. How do I know if the mic is working if no one else is around to hear it?
   
4. A few times at the Terran Republic warp gate, I've jumped into a two man tank that says "1/2" above it, to be the anti-aircraft guy and help out. And I got kicked out with the message that the tank has been set to squad members only. One guy even told me "Get the hell out of my tank" before ejecting me. I thought that was rude, but then I thought maybe I was the ill-mannered one for not asking permission to come in. The funny thing was that every one of those tanks left the warpgate area with only one person inside. So what is the protocol? Are you supposed to ask first, or just jump in?
   
5. On the map display you can check the box beside different "RESOURCES" I looked at the explanation for what resources are. How does that display help the average player and how can I use it to help my faction?
   
6. The map display shown at 2:08 on this video shows a different view of resources, with four different types that are unlabeled. What is the difference, and would it be better to show this display rather than the other one?
   
7. My world map shows several different types of indications that could use some explanation. There are yellow, orange, and red explosion icons. That would seem to indicate there's a battle in progress, but sometimes you can go to those locations and find no fighting. Some territories are flashing and others are a solid color. Putting the mouse cursor over the flashing territories shows that some have enemies present but other flashing territories are all guys from my faction. I didn't see anything in the wiki that explains this. Could it be that there's some lag between the time the last bullet was fired and the time the flashing stops and the icon goes away on the map?
   
8. I seem to remember that I saw a "Destroy" certification somewhere in my travels, but I can't find it now. In the game Tribes Ascend, an Engineer (Technician) can use his repair tool on an enemy's turret and destroy it faster than a regular soldier can by shooting at it. In PS2 it would probably just show the health clock scrolling counterclockwise until the object was a smoking crater. Is there a "Destroy" certification somewhere or did I just imagine that? Or maybe it was the "Deconstructor" (what is that, anyway?).

That's all I can think of for now. Thanks in advance for any answers to help a newbie.

[Asceye]

Will try to answer topics that I know of.

1. afaik, the tripod mounted machine gun is considered as a vehicle so probably you can set it up so that its not exclusive to your use only by changing the permission via page down.
4. From my experience, unless they specified that they have reserved the gunner position for someone else (or prefers to go solo or whatever) by means of kicking you out via limiting it to squad only or what have you, then its alright to ride on a vacant gunner slot. Though if you'd like to ask permission, you can try by looking at the tank in question, press "Q", and select the "need a ride" option. That usually works.
5. With what I understood with regards to resources, an individual player receives a certain amount of resources depending on the hexes your faction controls periodically. So if your faction captures a particular hex with x amount of resources, then x amount will be added to the overall resources given to an individual. (i.e. player receives 10 resource periodically, faction captures a hex with 3 resources, player now receives 13 resource periodically.) That's the gist of it (correct me if I'm wrong though.).
6. I don't know what they are exactly called but those 4 resources are for Purchasing Weapons (not sure about this), Purchasing Air Vehicles, Purchasing Ground Vehicles and Purchasing the MAX unit, grenades, C4s, etc. For your other question, it boils down to personal preference. If you'd like to know what particular resource and the amount you'd get in capturing a particular hex, then select all 4 resources. If you're only interested in hexes with resources you can use for Purchasing Air Vehicles, then only select only that resource. On the other hand, if you really don't care about the resources you get from capturing hexes, then don't select them.
8. I played Tribes Ascend (Cool game btw.) so I kinda know what you mean. I tried repairing an enemy turret before to see if it'll get damaged but nothing happened.
Deconstruct is basically an option geared towards your vehicles. If you press Page Down and select Deconstruct, then your spawned vehicle gets despawned, even if you are far away from your vehicle.

Correct me if any of my info is wrong. Still relatively new too as I've only been playing for about a week. XD

[Hal Jordan]

Thanks very much! I hadn't tried "Q" before. If you look at an aircraft and hit "Q," you say "I need a ride" automatically. I haven't tried the Page Down idea but I will give that a shot. Here's the information on the Improved Repair Tool doing damage. I think they changed that with a patch a few months back.

[Asceye]

No problemo!

No no, I meant in trying to repair an enemy turret in PS2, I do no damage to said turrets. In Tribes Ascend on the other hand, I always opt to use the repair tool in dealing damage to enemy structures.

[ringring]

Regarding point 4. What you did was perfectly correct. There is no need to ask before getting in. If the driver wanted to reserve a space he should have locked it, so it was his fault.

Often, when you do jump in you may be kicked simply because the driver had forgotten and in swuch circumstances you may get no comment or maybe a 'sorry' but you should not get the response that you did - that's pretty unusual and i've never esperienced that.

[Hal Jordan]

I finally had the chance to build a turret and discovered that the Page Down key doesn't do anything except give you a message saying that "You don't own any vehicles." I tried to destroy it by shooting it and got the message that I was firing on friendly forces. So I guess it stays there until you log off.