Shoot the pilot, inherit the bill

Been flying transport most of the beta, so this one annoys me more than it probably should. If someone shoots me in the cockpit, I lose the heli I paid for, and then I get billed for the kits of everyone who dies in the crash on top. The guy who pulled the trigger walks away clean.

Fix is simple I think: treat vehicles as part of your kit. You bought the heli, it sits in your inventory like your gun and your plates do.

So if you kill a pilot, the whole thing goes on your tab. The heli, plus the kits of every passenger who goes down with it.

Two cases need to be speled out or it will just default to blaming the pilot again.

1.)Passenger jumps out at 200m on his own and splatters, thats his bill, not mine.

2.)Heli gets shot down by the enemy, nobody pays for kits and I just eat the cost of the heli.

The other half of this is bans. I've seen people suggest -50k ban for an hour, -75k ban for three, -100k ban for a day.

I get where that comes from but the money is the wrong triger. It measures damage, not intent.

One bad frag into a landing zone costs more than three guys deliberately mowing down teammates on foot.

And the moment a fixed number bans you, feeding people expensive losses turns into a strategy. Walk in front of the tank. Park a heli in someones line of fire...

So run two ledgers instead of one. Cash is liability, whoever caused the loss pays it, let it go as deep into the minus as it wants, and it never bans anyone.

Grief score is the sanction, and it counts events instead of currency: teamkills inside a short window, same victim over and over, shooting a pilot mid-flight weighted heavier than the rest. ( give the victim a punish or forgive option like BF2 had?)

Only taht score gets you kicked.

That way the actual griefers go broke and get thrown off the server, while the guy who had one expensive accident just pays for it. Nobody should be able to ban you by dying expensively.