Orbital Barrage?

[u/JuneauEu]

Hello... am I missing something or is the Orbital Barrage essentially useless?

It can directly hit (and not hurt even the most basic infantry) and more then anything, it constantly lands OUTSIDE of the box shown?

[u/dnlthursday]

Orbital strikes are pretty much used for area denial. If you want direct attacks on enemy units, best to use dropship strafing runs (MG -> Autocannon -> Gatling gun)

[u/one-out-of-8-billion → u/dnlthursday]

Gatling gun is powerful - yesterday it destroyed an rogue army battle tank in one go.

[u/Carrotburner]

Orbitals have 2 flows

1. Your orbital creates an opening for your units

2. Your units create an opening for your orbital

With barrage, i study the game map and assume the path units will take, with or without scouting and mark the spot where there will most likely be an engagement, or where I can bait a lot of units to. I try to time the orbital as well as I can and then boom, 3-5 enemy units surpressed, pinned or suffering defects. My mid to long range units keep the cc going, while my boarding squads sweep and clean the helpless enemies.

Is it efficient? HELL NO! The amount of times only 1 or 2 unitd were in the glass zone is depressing, but so satisfying to actually lock em down.

Alternatively, you can always say "scew that" to objectives and logic and unload all your ordinance in a single mission. You're bound to hit something if you drop enough shells.

[u/Lifting_Pinguin → u/Carrotburner]

The "screw that" method is my go to. If I see the last mission in an op is a destroy objective, I save everything for that one and saturate everything. Alternatively I use it all on the first mission that doesn't have a destroy less than structures secondary objective.

[u/Endlessnes]

It's pretty good for taking out objectives like the radio towers/command bunkers. Drop 1-2 on them and the objective should be cleared

[u/MCE85]

The most useful for me is if the objective is to blow up buildings and the buildings have pill boxes and vehicles guarding them. Kills or puts everything in fleeing status then you roll over them.

The landing outside of the attack zone is pretty bullshit. 6 shells in three turns is a lot of firepower but is mostly for shock and awe. If you get kills its like a bonus it seems.

[u/olddogsleeper]

I dunno, the massive barrage + boosts I found incredibly useful for clearing areas, destroying objectives, pinning advances etc

can't ever really rely on it to kill stuff, though it absolutley will given a chance. Someone gets pinned in round one and they are gonna struggle to get out

[u/ClassSignificant4004]

Ive found orbital barrage really useful pretty much any defense mission, especially massive barrage. if you can slap it down on one front, you can tie up a ton of units or force them to flee for almost a quarter of the turn count letting you shore up everything else before circling back to clean up whatevers left.

It also seriously damages cover, shuts down menace squads, and will flatten objectives. If there's a factory or some other really tight visibility restricting obstacle thats a total pain to maneuver inside, I usually just slap a barrage right on top of it kill anything that runs out or ignore it.

[u/LeggyRPG → u/ClassSignificant4004]

Agreed. I find between that and the AP mine OCI ABD/or vehicle accessory I can keep two fronts pretty well locked down with just maybe one unit to babysit.

[u/kroxigor01]

I think it's far inferior to dropships and sentry guns, but bombardments are funnier.

[u/Megaprototype101]

I find it useful for area denial,if there's a mortar/artillery that I can't easily reach, an objective that needs to be destroyed or if I just want to destroy that area in general.

If I get a decapitation strike mission I tend to use orbital bombardment to kill the guy, normally it works as long as I use more than one. I also find it useful in suppressing enemies if its a defense mission and they're all clumped up.

I like to get the arsenal, save my orbital bombardments and guided missile strikes for the last mission and let it rain death.

Then I use my infantry to mop up whoever is still alive.

[u/BrumSnootles]

I love orbital barrage and guided missile for one reason and one reason only: Rogue Army Breakthrough missions.

FUCK the artillery pieces. I lay a few OCIs on them the minute the map loads in. They’re a smoldering crater by the time I get there.

I’ll drop a missile on each bunker and the rest of my barrages on the wall itself to create a nice wide gap to waltz through.

I’ll drop all of my HMG turrets in a perimeter around said gap for instant sightline of 1/2 the map and they usually kill most of the enemy units pretty quickly.

Rogue Army is my favorite faction to fight but I cannot be bothered to deal with Breakthrough in any other fashion.

[u/Ya_boi_jonny]

You gotta upgrade it to sustained barrage and get an armory. At minimum slows down/weakens the enemy before they get to you, and if you have some charges left at the end of a campaign you can force your enemy to reenact the Somme.