Yep, like several other people have already said. It's all about linking the functionality of the gunner seat with the driver seat. As long as there is a driver, the main gun will always work.
If the gunner disconnects, simply drive back to main base.
If the driver disconnects, simply switch seats and drive back to main base.
These concepts have been said plenty of times before. But this topic never gets played-out like the subject about "fast ropes". There really is no excuse to be playing PR and running about in one-man armor. It defeats the purpose of even being on the server if you do that.
This is a short exerpt from my PR v0.8 Improvement Compilation List:
One-man armor gunning (Tanks and APC's) should no longer be capable of occuring.
I still favour personally a change that forces 2 man armor crews in order to effectively engage targets. Through python, limit the gunner seat so that if there is no player sitting in the driver or cupola gunner, the main gun becomes disabled and cannot fire - - - this would remove 99% of one man tanking, but is still a debateable topic with the rest of the dev team.
So the question is...
Is the functionality of the gunner seat really capable of being "linked" with an occupant being present in the drivers seat?
Or.
Are we just completely wasting our time debating if it's morally the right or wrong thing to do?
As far as I'm concerned, the answer is obvious. This should have been resolved a long time ago. With the functionality of the gunner seat solely dependant upon if a driver is present in the same vehicle or not.
I would much rather see armored units rotting away at main base until they're ready to be properly used. Not scooped up and driven off at someone elses leisure because they're too damn lazy to do it the right way.
Because it's not about if "the turret can be manually operated at the loss of engine power". It's more about the fact that, how the hell is 1 person doing the job of 4 other people in a real-life tank. Last I checked a tank has 4 people in it.
1. Commander
2. Driver
3. Gunner
4. Loader
Somehow we've been able to cut down 4 people to 2 people. And YET STILL, by some miraculous chance of superhuman ability, people can STILL operate a tank with 1 player present.
And another thing. For some strange reason, this topic has been spoken about so much it was at the forefront of many arguements in the past. It still is an on-going issue to this day. To be honest, I have no idea why the Dev's have taken such an exceedingly long time to approach this issue. It simply baffles the mind. Especially when there is so little feedback from those that created the mod. It feels as if they never fully comment by confirming or denying it's possibilities of implementation.
The whole problem we face with armor far exceeds, the laughable aspect of Jet fighters in PR.
Make sense? I didn't think so, either. This has gone on far too long, it needs to end... Now.
v0.85 better have something in store for one-man armorers. We've had enough.