100% FF from all damage sources in all gamemodes is the only way to go.

Make it so CCP!!

sounds to me like you want to get in on some planetary conquest action.

Even if you don't have friendly fire from guns, it should be active in all modes for orbitals.

Think about it. Not only are you only killing friendlies, but all those kills are making you WP that starts to add up to your next strike. It's just ********.

None of that is relevant to something being clearly abused, however. An orbital strike is supposed to be a tactical tool, not an "i win" button when you've already been overrun and actively engaging in close quarters; you don't laumch mortars on your own troops for the same reason.

No, you don't drop mortars on your own troops, but in FW matches the blues are "your own troops" in only by the thinnest definition. If you're not in their corp or squad, the SL with the orbital is likely to not give two ***** about your clone and what it might be wearing/using if the OB's going to net him some nice kills.

When was the last time you honestly gave a **** about the blueberry next to you?

Well, you'd have to give a fck about random blueberries in a pub match to think it's a problem dropping an orbital on them.
Which I don't...

...and I'm sure no other vet playing this game does.

If FF were on in pub matches, I would drop it on a group of blues for the lolz, the WP, and the money, if we were winning, and there was no where else to drop it.

Griefing at its finest.
CCP realizes that having such a pure, sanguine, unfettered system, could potentially break the game for a lot of people, through sheer grief.

Sure, EVE is tough, but at least there are plenty of places to hide. Not so with Dust.

Newberries have it bad enough as it is, without having to worry about being eaten alive by their friendlies as well.

What you've pointed out is another problem with the current system: that strikes give points for friendly kills.

If they kill their own while the match is undecided, that's fine, because it clears the field, instead of being the broken i-win button that it currently is.

If people grief, that's fine too; it happens in every game. The solution? Penalties for teamkilling. While I don't advocate a planetside-style grief point system, since they goes against the spirit of this universe, -75 WP for a TK would do nicely to encourage you to make sure you kill more of the enemy than you do friendlies.

I can make a couple suggestions on the inherent problems with FF in pub matches, and they match pretty well with the overall game concept.

Let's consider that we're all supposed to be mercenaries, in pubs we're hired by NPC corporations to do their dirty work. If you were a corp, would you hire or continue to deploy from your (presumably very expensive) MCC someone who is actually acting against your interests? No. So, since we're in it's universe, lets take a page from EVE.

You can institute a few things.

A) If you reach an arbitrary negative score, say -100, by teamkills, meaning you've done more harm than good, you don't get to respawn.

B)Players get a EVE-style security status, or say a merc rating, and team killing lowers it. This stat is visible to others in the War Barge. If it gets too low, you get a flashing red icon beside your name in chat and in game, just like in EVE. This has several effects, one is your ability to be hired by corps for battles, eventually resulting in your inablility to join anything but your own player corp's battles. If you're in a NPC corp, too bad, no one will touch you, feel free to remake your toon. The other effect is that, much like EVE, past a certain negative threshold anyone anywhere including teammates, can put a bullet in your head and suffer no negative repercussions. And, of course, no one but a new person who doesn't know what it means will squad with someone who's flashing red.

C)Corporate bounties, you mess an NPC corps battle up by going turncoat, you get a bounty on your head from that corp, collectable by anyone enemy or friendly, that is visible. This one's a little extreme, but honestly, if a teammate managed to get 10 mill in bounty on his head by teamkilling, and it only costs you, say 75 WP and .1 off your aforementioned security status to take him out, would you think about it? Of course not early in the battle, you don't want your own score dropping too low.....it'd probably be later, when you have some WP built up and it's in full swing. Their backs turned towards the enemy, they're an easy target, and the TK will probably just get lost in the ticker, so who's to know?

Sure, New Eden is vicious, but so are the corps, and the mercs :).

Would take a bit to institute, definitely not a quick fix, but I'm thinking it would work pretty well.

We need 100% FF from all damage sources in all modes with the bolded portion of the above message as the incentive to NOT TK.

I'd even go so far as to say make TK a tracked stat and shown in the players info tab. I like the -75 WP though, worth a kill and assist.