I made a thread like this builds ago, but it never got anywhere. Noone listens to the guy with 39 likes in the Feedback section.

Orbitals are currently earned by WP. This means that the WP system is constantly being gamed to get the maximum WP for the maximum explosive heaven strikes. We have already seen causualties of this with the Lagistics losing their rep points to vehicles, Installations, and even to other PLAYERS after about a solid 15 seconds of healing. Furthermore, I want you to imagine the situation....

Soldier: We have fifty hositiles on our location, we need orbital support!
Warbarge: Did you earn enough arbitrary battle points for doing random things on the field?
S: ...WHAT?
W: We aren't just giving these away, you have to earn them.
S: But that bombardment will secure our victory. You HIRED us to defend this facility for you!
W: And how is that my problem?

In short, getting Bombardments through WP is idiotic, immersion breaking, and furthermore it rewards the winning team with more firepower.

We need to take a look at how Orbitals are earned. If an EVE player uses their guns, which the Orbital bombarders are in case you DUSTies didn't know, they have a cooldown period. Even if more ammo is loaded, each shot has a decent amount of time in between being fired, and then there is a reload period once all the shots in the chamber are gone. Therefore, I think it would make more sense if the Orbitals were on a cooldown timer, and if overused would have a longer timer as the cannon 'reloads'. Those of you who come from MAG, remember the Mortars and Airstrikes? Kinda like that.

Let this not be the only alternative though, brainstorm here people! We need to think of a better Orbital mechanic than bloody BULLETSTORM!


EXAMPLE
Start the battle with no Orbital Support as the ships are getting into position. At the 7 minute mark or so, AURA notifies you that Orbital Support is in position. From this point onward, each squad can call in Orbitals. If Squad A calls in an orbital, then they cannot call in another for, say, 10 minutes. The rest of the squads have to wait for the Orbital Cannon to reload, lets say that takes 3 minutes. In this manner, we will have the three full squads that we can have rotating strikes throughout a match and there won't be any exploits like, say, every guy is his own squad for 16 orbitals. You may want to bump the timers up, make there be more space between Orbitals, but this is just a jumping point to get started.

EXAMPLE 2: Credit to Kirk
Start the battle with no Orbital Support, as with Example 1. When the ships get into position, a Team Leader, above the Squad Leaders, determines when and where the strikes will land. Squad Leaders still have the power of Squad Orders for maximizing WP and squad coordination. Team Leaders could have a TEAM WIDE version of this, if DEVs decide to add this feature. Cooldown for strikes is 5-7 or so minutes, allowing a few game changing strikes, but not making the battlefield a crater.