Just gonna repeat myself from
here... but....
Personally, as an Eve player, it is BS that we cannot fire unless the ground team accumulates so many war points. We are not part of the game, but rather we just facilitate "Call of Duty" style rewards for killing a large number of people. If you want me to give a darn about providing support it needs to work more along the lines of when I arrive at the planet I contact the peole in dust and they paint a target/give me a code. I fire immediatly, regardless of their WP total. I am there to turn the tide of battle, not to keep the winning team in the high seats. Let me shoot when I arrive so I feel like I am actually doing something! You could add a cooldown or a sensor reclairation time or some kind of other B.S., excuse to prevent me from shooting constantly. Even a "Lock on Time" of a couple minutes might be intersting, because it would make me vulnerable to attacks rom other ships . But either way I should be able to fire at my enemies so long as they do not have emplacements or allies in space to stop me! Doing it based on War Points is unfair to the players of Eve!
NO, THIS WILL NOT CAUSE OB SPAMMING:
Factors Already in play that would limit OB spamming:
1. When you show up to OB your location gets broadcasted on the overview to everyone in system, i.e. you become a target.
2. Eve ships are MUCH HARDER TO GET than Dust Dropsuits.
3. Only Small class guns can fit OB ammunition, meaning you have little protection unless non OBing ships are guarding you, meaning a fleet will not normally consist 100% of bombers.
My changes:
1. Activating OB weapons would take 10/20/30 seconds to "Acquire a firing solution" based on ammo, and therefore based on radius of blast. With the smaller blast radius (laser OB) taking less time to still allow some level of accuracy while the larger blast (projectile OB) taking a full 30 seconds and hybrid landing in the middle.
2. During this time you would not be able to move--or if you could it would be just barely. Not being able to shoot is a given, as your guns are shooting groundside. All together this means you are a sitting duck.
3. Ground troops would throw a piece of equipment similar to a drop uplink, but with a low scan profile, meaning it would only be visible if you were practically right on top of it. This equipment would be 1 time use per fit, with no reloads (just like drop uplinks are a 2 use with no reloads). Needing to physically be at OB location prevents spamming and gives scouts a greater level of importance. Alternately they mighty have a painting laser they need to hit a target with for a few seconds before a firing solution can begin to be calculated, or maybe they must paint it the entire time (in which case for balancing purposes the laser would need to be long range or OBs would disappear completely as nobody is going to stand point blank with a hostile tank for 30 seconds. And the long range variant would improve the role of snipers). Possibly a special kind of ammunition you can fire that acts as a homing beacon? Regardless it would require ground troops to specifically FIT for OB support, limiting greatly who can call one in and limiting his equipment for the ability to do so.
4. Friendly fire would be enabled for the OBs, lessening chance of spamming.
5. Only 3 or so OBs could take place every 5 minutes, any further OB attempts would be met with an error message saying something along the lines of "due to debris from recent strikes you are unable to calculate an accurate firing solution at this time."
Allow both teams to fire OBs at same time instead of beacon capturing. that way ship that are OBing become primary targets, and people have to choose between OBing with OB ammo or shooting the gys in the space conflict with normal ammo.