I did cover this idea before but I wanted to try again since i left way to much in the way of interpretation and I don’t think i left it as a complete thought so, here goes-
We Bring back the orbital round and it’s launcher, and we make sure to use it requires a decent amount of on-board resources. (CPU,PG, maybe cap) it also holds the ship in place when used because obviously it can’t make the shot while being able to move. only holds five rounds at a time with a rapid light missile reload speed.
so i waltz up and target lock a planet, engage the orbital rounds, and what happens? RNGeezus decides. it determines whether it hits a colony, it decides what colony that is and it selects one node. that module now goes into a 24 hour reinforcement period. during that time the node is unable to be contacted. think of it as a stun. if it hits a storage area you can’t move your stuff, if it’s the spaceport you can’t launch stuff, if it’s a factory or extractor it stops producing, and if it’s the command, the whole thing grinds to a halt. if all the nodes on the planet get deactivated (like if an alliance would be that determined to carpet bomb some PI) it tells you accordingly. it allows the PI peeps to get some in space harassment that everyone wants to see, it allows whoever is shooting at your planet to be relatively vulnerable provided an orbital round launcher taxes heavily enough on the ship.
Although it’s always good to account for extremes, the following would have to be considered:
you’d have to set this so you go suspect/criminal in High security, because, highsec. anywhere else and your fair game. you would need to have a sizable fleet to camp a planet, because the reasoning behind the heavy CPU/PG tax is so i don’t strap this to any old PVP ship and expect to shoot planets, the idea is to diminish the ship’s ability to defend itself, not just lock it in place like a bastion mod without the tank.
the reason i’d say that someone camping the planet would be very determined also stems from the fact that you can miss. tweak the RNG to account for currently disabled nodes, and you get a massive fleet flinging isk that might not bear fruit. (not to mention you have to ship the ammo in, which is another fleet you need to accomplish the task.)
that’s also the reason why it doesn’t just destroy these nodes outright. some may cry isk sink, but having to replace a PI colony every week makes it ineffective for anyone starting out, and could make it useless in places where capital fleets can get involved.
The only way I see this working is by reworking PI entirely to use the citadel interface to manage a planetside citadel structure. This would include vulnerability windows accordingly, along with ground to space weaponry to shoot those pesky bombers.
So this just lets you randomly troll the most passive and boring isk making activity?
Why? Literally why? I can’t think of any reason you’d want to go hunting moons to disrupt somebody just for the sake of disrupting somebody.
You do play Eve, right? We’re the worst of the worst, a toxic community that lives on salt. Sure there’s a lot of good people out there, but for every one of them there’s 5 who just want to kick over your sandcastle to see if you’ll react. Luckily, their nihilism would be enough to keep them from really doing this more than once or twice.
That said, bombarding planets sounds utterly pointless from any form of productive standpoint. PI would need to become something of strategic value, like a moon, before bombarding them would warrant enough attention to add to the game.
The way to harass a PI farm on a given planet already exists: Destroy the poco. Without one, PI becomes very difficult. This also enables fights in space instead of just showing up at 3 am in orbit and nuking a planet.
If you want to, setup your own with a crazy tax for others. If they want to take it down, you get another fight.
Orbital bombardment, however cool it sounds, seems like it would be pretty boring for both sides:
Sit immobilized in orbit most likely a time window where you don’t expect to get a fight.
Sigh as your PI grinds to a halt without being able to do anything about it except relocating.
The RNG for picking a target (or to determine if you hit anything at all) makes this even more pointless on the attacker side.
the original thought was to bring back the defender missiles as well and have those fire from either the planet’s surface or the poco in retaliation, but i’d think the aggro mechanics would be hard to adjust.
the counter-play is that the orbital strike ship is squishy. never mind he could be defended by a small gang with logi, in a single player versus single player sense, it means you can stop him.
One. You’r not thinking of a small gang, more like a whole troll fleet. two. In null sec, it will be abuse with log off campers. three. Pointless and not needed, as you just kill the tax office if you want to stop the PI flowing. four. Wardicks will kill yo ass before you even touch the pi. five. wow so pointless, wow such let down.
