I never could get into flood. It's always the same thing with it.. 8 Guys get on somebodys boat. They shoot at the 2 other people that built their own. Once they sink 'em, they argue about jumping off, ban threats fly, and I get bored and go eat brains in the ZS server.
I wish there was something that could be done to improve the gamemode. I heard something about making other peoples props damage you when you touch them but then images of minges trapping and prop-killing people during the build stage come to mind.. I dunno. Just something to break up the little teams that inevitably form.
While we are talking about flood, another good idea I've seen is some sort of pseudo prop protection. Something like this:
During battle round, your props damage people that aren't on your prop protection.
During build round people who are on your prop protection can move your props.
You could make each of these into check boxes, so like if you wanted to let someone ride your boat, but did not trust them enough to have them able to move your props, you could simply uncheck "Allow prop control." I don't know how hard this would be to implement, but its just an idea.
We would probably also need some sort of system to keep people riding on other peoples boats from swarming people who decided to go solo, like you said. I'll post back if I come up with anything on the matter.
-sanders