Changing Pilot Roles During Starship Combat

[Detroitus]

I have two players who like to (for some reason) swap back and forth between Gunner and Pilot roles during starship combat. I am trying to determine the meaning of the wording of the rule governing changing into the Pilot role on page 322 of the CRB under the "Changing Roles" section.

"You can switch to the captain or pilot role only if that role would otherwise be vacant (or if the character in that role is unable to take actions)."

Does this simply mean that there cannot be 2 characters in these roles (as was stated in other sections already) or is the implication here that a character cannot change into the role unless the role was already vacant this round? As in, a new pilot would not be able to fully occupy the role unless the previous combat round went by without a pilot.

The wording is somewhat vague, and I have heard pretty good arguments for both interpretations of it.

[HammerJack]

It just means that only 1 character can occupy that role in a given round.

This other interpretation is not supported by the text in any way. If the character currently on the pilot role choose's to leave, that fulfills the requirement that "that role would otherwise be vacant."

[BigNorseWolf]

Its just so you can't have two pilots and have one doing evasive while the other does a fly by.

[breithauptclan]

Reading the rules the other way leads to the problem that it would be impossible to change who the pilot is during combat without having the ship be completely without a pilot for an entire combat round - which seems egregiously punishing mechanically, and not very realistic or thematic.

[Metaphysician]

It seems like it would have been better to phrase it as "There can only ever be one Captain or one Pilot in a given turn", rather than focusing on the role shifting angle.