In an effort to encourage more people to utilize JTAC, and to add some more interesting and unique systems to the game I propose a Fire Support tablet, a simple item you can carry around and use that will display info about the OB type and its current cooldown, what loadout CAS has and how much time it is in air for, and a tac map for saving mortar coordinates for later use.
Here I propose one or more elements that could be used in this tablet
CAS Systems
I think a screen that displays some info about the dropship such as its current loadout, and how much ammo it has currently loaded would help with ground-side cohesion without removing the communication from the ground side to dropship too much, as I believe that removing the interaction between the pilot and the people outside would make flying CAS infinitely more boring, just a simple screen to help people know and to stop everyone asking the CAS loadout 30 times a round.
OB Systems
The “What’s the OB type?” question is asked at LEAST 5 times a round, and worse is when someone gets the type wrong causing issues. This is one of those interactions that could be cut out, and just showing a simple OB type/cooldown to help with lessening the unneeded chaos ground side.
Mortar Systems
This menu would either show a simple chart one could fill in with the coordinates of a location, where that location is on the map, and any notes about those coords. Taking something that you can already do with a spreadsheet or notes app outside of the game and bringing it into the game to add some atmosphere and systems for people to interact with is always good. To take it one step further you could also put a tac map within this menu that you could manually save coords to on certain locations, so you can see visually where these places are.
This is just what i have come up with for ideas on this item, maybe only giving it to FTLs to strengthen their JTAC element or making them only work when comms are up. I do think it is long overdue for some sort of rework to the fire support system, but maybe this as a start.