This idea has some merit.

OBs should actually depend more on what is happening in orbit. If my employer is in control upstairs then I should be able to get steel rain when I need it.

Can you imagine the naval support bombardment during the WWll invasion of Europe depending on the allies winning on the ground? It might have turned out quite differently. Control of the sea was more important for providing bombardments.

A cooldown timer based on my employer reloading his guns and getting into position is reasonable. The number of OBs would reasonably be limited by how many ships were in orbit, the type of ships (maybe OB ships are special and expensive? Maybe they are one-time shot devices that are expensive, big and have to be towed into orbit?), how many were damaged or killed and what the level of commitment to victory my employer was. This would also require a degree of skill and integration with the ground forces. A cooldown timer is a good idea.

Maybe he size and damage of an OB would depend on how big the guns were? A massive battleship might have a bigger OB than a smaller ship. This might be a way for smaller corps to provide some support to the mercenary forces they hire because the bigger corps are more likely to hire the best (and most expensive) merc corps.

For FW and PC I think this is an excellent idea.

For pub matches, we obviously have to have the OBs controlled by the ground forces. A cooldown timer for these is still a good idea. I even like the idea of, say, one or two free OBs at the start of the game just to keep things interesting. It would help control zergs for sure. It would limit walkovers where one team gets redlined and everyone magically turns into a redline sniper.

My 0.02 ISK,


Munch

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.

An XL sized shell is the size of one of those hauling trucks, trailer and all. Not quite enough to annihalate the entire map, but it would be significantly larger than the current ones.

From a lore POV yes, but from a balance POV it would make the entirety of DUST quit if an EVE player could just kill everyone on a whim. Plus, the point of us existing is to take the facility without reducing it to a smoking crater :c

It was the Orbital Farming that got Logi WP rewards nerfed.

Pretty neat how some people can ruin other peoples game play doing stupid stuff.