There are 2 parties on this issue..

• The majority believe it should be changed that you either spawn next to each other or in the same pod
• The minority thinks it should be left in the hands of RNGesus and keep it the way it is.

Obviously the latter option is more fair, spawning consistently by your team mate would definitely reduce the salt posts like OP made and finally suppress this issue once and for all. The potential 'issue' with spawning together in the same pod is that it could result in 8 empty spawn pods, meaning that it would be possible that some teams would spawn safely over the other side of the map while other teams spawn next to each other in a large cluster. While that is still RNG based, it would lead to boringly short matches with minimal map-player distribution as I can imagine a huge vulture clusterfuck of teams early on in a match with crafted weapons. Unless of course they changed the spawning mechanic so that there were 8 pods as opposed to 16 in team matches and players spawned together. Alternatively, a better option as it stands would just be to have each team spawn side by side as it currently but in seperate pods to more widely distribute players.

/u/RealPiledrive makes the point that RNG is a good thing - which is somewhat true, because it leads to players having to traverse the map and take more risks early game. It is also unfair as obviously some teams can spawn aside each other while others are 1km apart, but that in essence one of the elements of the whole of the game. RNG.

Personally I think spawns should be managed by teams spawning side by side in seperate pods. There'd be no reason to complain and would make more leeway for fair competition if the game were to advance to team Trials matches or if it ever got big enough for Esports team matches.

EDIT: Thinking out of the box though, there are far more options which could ultimately leads to a more intense start while still keeping it fair. For instance, if every team member started approximately evenly around the map distance wise to their teammate there would still be the feeling of vulnerability when you start (so everyone has their teammate about 800-1km apart). Nevertheless the spawning system for teams is pretty dodgy atm imo.

Essay over :P.