You have read that correctly, Orbital support. The idea of orbital support is that you have a space ship, capable of handling all sorts of situations, conclusion :why don't you use it to help you in ground combat / base building and that sort of things. Of coarse there will be a bit of a global cooldown for the support options, or else you would be able to conquer the galaxy with too little challenge. Where will be a great many uses for this and i will list a few here. 1) Orbital Strike For when you need the BIG BIG gunz The name is the explanation really. You call in the largest ordnance you have, decimating an entire area of hostiles (or to destroy an enemy village!) (long cooldown: costs a lot of ordnance) 2) Reinforcements (with regards to the idea of Soldier NPCs here) for when you're caught between a rock and a hard place You would be able to call in your own little army to assist in building a base and securing the area (or to simply raid and capture a village and assert your dominance!) (med-long cooldown) 3) Supply Drops. your ship drops a crate of supply's to help you survive/build in harsh terrain making it easier for you to build up a Base of operations on a planet (or build a siege camp to lay waste to a enemy city!) (depends on what for supply drop you make what for cooldown, large supply drop is long/ medium drop is medium time/ small drop is short cooldown) 4) Precision strike (My personal favorite) like a sniper rifle, only a bit larger useful for when the enemy is attacking your base and you need a lot of firepower but dont want to destroy your base. A precision strike is small ordnance delivered precisely to a location of choice, witch would make it perfect for defense and when you need to take out a single target.(or to take out that pesky politician in the city!) (short cooldown: costs a bit of ordnance) 5)Mining operation ,handy when you need a lot of dirt! A small droid army is called down to help you gather resources, this clears out an area and will transfer the goods to your ship, handy when you need to strip mine a few planets and don't have the time (or use it to clear away all natural resources from a town!) (Med Cooldown: Costs mining droids) 6)Rapid-Base-O'-matic A small package witch will build a starter base to help you get on your way on a new planet. (or drop it on a village and show em who's the new mayor!) Of course the actual support you will get is different from race to race, for instance a Dragoknight's (love this race idea) orbital strike would consist of a couple of large incendiary bombs, destroying both landscape and life in the area. Whilst Floran(for instance) would drop multiple spore pods, witch would kill only sentient creatures (mobs/Players/NPCs) and with a supply drop each race would get race specific supply's you can list more suggestions in the comment below!
I think I read something about orbital strikes being in the game, not 100% sure though. Seems like a great idea though. You got a ship, why not use it for all it's worth?
Sounds like a good idea. The idea of a deployable base reminds me a bit of the Terran buildings from Starcaft, and how they can lift off and fly around before redeploying. It gives me the idea that maybe you could have several different types of buildings in Starbound that you can deploy, like a command centre, barracks/living quarters, science lab, storage facility, etc.
Orbital strikes are not precision. They are also OP. If you make the decision to call down that kind of firepower, you need to be ready to eat some collateral damage. Otherwise its just "tag, you're dead". Supply drops could be interesting, but in order to be useful they would have to be large containers with more cargo than the players inventory could hold. Otherwise why bother with the drop instead of just beaming up and getting what you need? This combined with the autobase builder opens up some interesting potential. Maybe pull up a simple editor that gives you unlimited materials to make a blueprint with. Then, if you have all the necessary materials, you could put together a drop box that would unfold itself into the building of your design over time, say it could build 1 block per second. It should be kept slow though, with a size limit, ideal for setting up a small base camp while the player explores a new planet, so they have a shelter to return to when the sun sets... but being able to create huge fortresses at the push of a button seems gamebreaking to me. Setting up a huge home base should be an investment of time as well as material.
well the idea behind the precision strike is that your ship would shoot (for instance) one small missile, doing low damage, with high accuracy whilst the orbital bombardment is simply put; a couple of large missiles decimating army's and wrecking the entire landscape. precision strike is simply put, the younger brother of the orbital strike. I put in the precision strike only because , if you look at "modern" warfare , accuracy is in high demand and if your only choice is destroying the entire area there will be less variations.
The amount of planets are probably going to be infinite so what harm can a few orbital bombardments do.
I agree... But there should be a special TAG gun to tag the guy. It should take approx 2 seconds to home in on him
YAY MOORE BRONY CANNONS! MORE! (Yes to all those who know me... I am a brony... YOU DARE NOT HATE) Anyways right now I cannot add anytthing constructive soo bye for now
its not all about military and boom and DIE and so on. the base, supply, marines, snipe and orbital are good, [the snipe would be a ballistic projectile and orbital would be ballistics and some rockets (ballistics filled with explosives) the mining ability should be changed. i think of a laser beam which will mine very deep with a 50 block radius. while mining, the items would float up to the ship (its basically a tractor beam, pulling the rocks to the cargo room). oh maybe you can choose equiqment of your marines? it would be a drop-pod (to save energy) with 3 up to 5 or 10 marines (upgradeable). so lets say 3= 1 heavy, 1 allround and 1 medic/ammo, 5= 1 sniper, 1 medic/ammo, 1 heavy, 2 allround (allround = assault rifle) 10= 3 medics/ammo, 2 sniper, 2 heavy and 3 allround (heavys have heavy machine guns and much armor). and a new idea: a vehicle drop pod. (i dont think i have to explain, just an unmanned vehicle of you choice)
In the latest stream that Tiy did, he demonstrated a weapon he kinda modded into the game to test the capabilities. It was a bazooka that would place a crosshairs at the target location and a few moments later, a large laser would fire from above striking the targeted spot. It was capable of destroying ground blocks (wasn't shown damaging enemies however). So this could be a way of incorporating an orbital support type weapon system. I'd prefer the bazooka be replaced with a targeting scope of some type since it isn't actually a gun, just a target designator.
So basically we will have planet cracking and orbital strip mining? Nice in theory for gathering a lot of resources quickly. Also nice for griefers when they find your base you've painstaingly built up. So I'm thinking this thing better come with a safeguard that checks if a world has been claimed before firing. Maybe it would also not fire in an area with X or more lifeforms or if it recognizes artificial structures. Dont want it wiping out villages or looting dungeons from orbit.
If this means I can pretend to be a SPESS MEHREEN and go full exterminatus on some heretic-infested planets, I support this.
Spider Infested planets that are learning to pilot space ships? Prepare to be destroyed launch all missiles fire all cannons maximum power.
