I was getting reports from players about them being killed instantly when bots ran over their mines, or ran into their plane with a jeep, so I gradually reduced the friendly fire kickback percentage. But the reports kept coming, so I finally went into the game and tested it.
Sure enough, when a single friendly bot jumped into a tank and ran over a mine I’d placed in front of it, the tank exploded, the bot died, and my player also died instantly.
It looks like kickback damage, where a portion of friendly fire damage is reflected back on the attacker, doesn’t actually work in the expected way. Documentation on this BF1942 feature is sparse and inconsistent.
So, for now, I’ve disabled friendly fire kickback damage completely. Friendly fire settings are all 25%, so your damage to a friendly is 1/4 of what it would be against an enemy, but you no longer get punished for your damage to a friendly.
Thanks to TPU admin ced for his reports, and for his persistence in the face of my resistance to believe that the problem was real.